I walked back over to Vince, who lay on his back in the grass next to his mother. His eyes were closed when I reached him. My shadow covered his face, and a line appeared on his forehead. “Paul,” he said without opening his eyes.
“Vince.”
He sighed. “Today is one of those days that I wish was already over.”
“I know.” And I did. Even if I didn’t know what he was going through, I could imagine. No matter what I said about my family belonging to him, no matter what my family did for him today, he’d still lost someone. He still had to say good-bye to his mom. I tried to think about how I’d be if it was my mom, and I hated the thought. And I hated the idea of what he was going through.
He would need me, I’d been told.
He was going to break, I’d been told.
So far, he’d been far stronger than I think I would have been in his position. And for some reason, this filled me with great pride, knowing that he was stronger than people gave him credit for, stronger than I gave him credit for.
I lay beside him on the grass, not caring about my suit coat. There were more important things to worry about. Our shoulders bumped, and as soon as I was down completely, he reached over and grabbed my hand, curling it into his own.
I waited.
“I’m trying,” he said finally, “to think of a good memory. Any single one that I can take with me when we leave here today.”
I hesitated. “Can you find one?” I hoped he could, because he needed it. He needed to be able to say good-bye.
“I was scared I couldn’t,” he confessed quietly. “I thought that I’d only be able to think about the past few years and that it’d piss me off and I’d just be angry about it forever. I don’t want to be angry forever, Paul.”
“I won’t let you,” I said, ignoring how I’d essentially just acknowledged the word “forever.” It didn’t freak me out as much as I thought it would. “I’ll be sure to kick you in the nuts if you stay angry forever.”
He chuckled. “Thanks. I think.”
“Did you find the memory you were looking for?”
“I think so. Can I tell you?”
I smiled as I squeezed his hand. “You can tell me whatever you want.”
He turned his head to look at me. “I can, can’t I?”
I nodded. “It’s kind of what boyfriends are for, I guess. Though I haven’t had much experience to say so.”
“You’ve done pretty good so far.”
“Pretty good?” I said as I rolled my eyes. “Gee, thanks for that ringing endorsement. Nothing strokes the ego like pretty good.”
“How about amazing?”
“A little better.”
“Extraordinary.”
“So it’s been said.”
“Unexpected.”
I grinned. “Likewise. What did you find to think about your mom?”
He let out a low breath and turned to look back at the sky. I followed his gaze to the azure blue. “I think I was ten or eleven,” he said finally. “We lived up in the foothills in this old house on Windriver. I came home from school one day and found my mom and dad fighting. I wasn’t supposed to be home that early because I had soccer practice, but it got canceled, so I just rode the bus home.”
He rubbed his thumb over my fingers. “It wasn’t a normal fight, like I’d heard them get into before. It was very loud. They were very angry. My mom was screaming at my dad, and he was screaming back at her. I couldn’t make out what they were talking about, I just knew it was bad. My friend Jake’s parents had just gotten divorced and his mom had moved away and he never got to see her and I remember thinking, This is it. They’re going to get divorced and she’ll move away and I’ll never see her anymore because she won’t want me. I thought that if they kept fighting, they would eventually see that they didn’t belong together and they would divorce and I wouldn’t know my place anymore.
“It didn’t last that much longer. The voices quieted down, but they were still angry, and finally my dad left the house, slamming the door behind him. I heard the car starting in the garage before he left, and I didn’t think I was going to see him again. I didn’t think he was going to come back, and the only thing I wanted to do right then, right at that moment, was to find my mom and remind her that I was still there with her. That I was still alive. That I wouldn’t leave her, no matter how hard it got.”
His voice broke, and I thought about asking him to stop, that he didn’t need to say any more, but he pushed on. I hurt for him.
“So I went to her. She was sitting on the stairs, her face in her hands, and she was crying. That scared me more than anything because for all that I could remember, I couldn’t remember a time when I’d ever seen her crying. It seemed worse than I’d first thought, and I didn’t know what I could do. I was just a kid. I was little. What did I know?”