I’d held men as they cried. They’d cried for lost babies and broken dreams. They’d cried for their self-image when their wives had to work. I’d held children with boo-boos and deeper hurts that would never heal.

All of that was practice for holding Chris in the cemetery parking lot. I took in his pain and made it my own. I was strong for him for just a moment. And I did something for him I couldn’t do with anyone else.

I gave him hope.

I didn’t mean to, because I wasn’t sure what I wanted from him, but I became his last connection and his last hope. Hope for what? I didn’t know. Nor did I know if I could shoulder the responsibility of it. He felt so good in my arms, and when I thought of him weeping without me, my jaw tightened with no.

He was mine to comfort.

The moment I accepted that in my heart, my mind rebelled. I was freeing myself. Now wasn’t the time to go backward.

But his lips on my throat. His breath in my ear. His tears had stopped and the connection between us had started something else.

He paused when we were nose-to-nose, brown eyes so close I could see the flecks of black and green.

Could I do this?

“Don’t kiss me,” I said. “It’s too soon.”

“I won’t.” His lips brushed mine so gently, I only felt the shifting of air between us.

His gentleness forced me to yield, returning his kiss. He was different. The kiss was different. He was a little taller and broader, holding me tighter, and despite his vulnerability a minute ago, his kiss was confident. His kiss wasn’t a demand or command. It listened, and my body screamed into it.

His kiss was achingly familiar, yet startlingly new. I remembered everything that I had tried to forget. I remembered the way his hands gripped my back as if trying to find purchase in the way his tongue could command my mouth, I remembered the feeling of a new beginnings. His kiss was the start of something old. His kiss was the birth of a child we knew and loved and welcomed.

“Chris,” I said when I had to breathe. “Chris.” I put my hand on his cold cheek.

He turned and kissed it, closing his eyes. “Do you forgive me?”

“Never. But also, I did the minute you came back.”

“I want to go back and do it all again. Every moment.”

We kissed again, but we weren’t gentle. Passion excluded care, mouths slipping, tongues lashing to taste every surface in each other.

Gravel crunched on the road, and we pulled apart with an inward gulp as if we wanted to suck away the last of each other’s breath.

Three trucks. Johnny and Kyle in the first. Orrin, Reggie, and Percy, who barked when he saw me, in the second. The black pickup in the back was strange to me.

Chris answered my question before I could voice it. “That’s the delivery service with Lance.” He straightened my collar. “The guys are helping me dig.”

“I’ll get you guys something to eat.”

“Will you stay for the service?”

I’d forgotten I’d told him I couldn’t make it. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Will you stand next to me?”

Orrin got out of the truck, and Percy jumped out, a smaller version of Lance.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll stand next to you.”

---

By the time I got back with coffee and sandwiches, the hole next to Galahad’s plot was four feet deep and wide. A brown leaf fell onto Lance’s black crate and surrendered to the wind, clicking across the surface and away. Percy sat next to it with his tongue lolling, standing guard as if he knew his brother was in there.

The men made short work of the job. Cross-legged like children, we ate and drank in the grass.

“How long are you in town?” Reggie asked Chris.

“As long as it takes.” He tossed Percy a slice of ham from his sandwich and the dog kept his post while gobbling it up.

I knew what Chris meant, and I turned my face away to smile.

Reggie glared at the place where my knee touched Chris’s. “Long as it takes to what?”

Reggie was a gentle man and an artist. He was one of us. But his voice dripped with alarming hostility and suspicion. Chris was going to answer and I had no idea what the reply would be. If he wanted to prove his commitment to me, he’d say he was staying for me. Or he could obfuscate. Or change the subject. But with his companion in a plastic bag, ready to be lowered into a hole, he might be vulnerable enough to make me his reason.

“Long as it takes him to bury Lance,” I scolded. “And if he wants to visit with us afterward, he’s as welcome here as anyone in the family.”

Reggie snorted and wrapped up the last third of his sandwich.

Johnny, who was never good at letting things slide, threw a chip at him. “Take it easy, asshole.”

“I’m easy. Sunday mornin’ easy.” Reggie got up.

“It’s Friday, dumbass,” Bernard said around a big bite of sandwich.

Reggie ignored him and pointed at Chris’s feet. “Got your fancy shoes dirty.”

“Yeah. Thanks for letting me know.” Chris stood.

I gathered his trash before he had a chance to bend down for it. “We should get started before it rains.” I picked up the last of the containers.

Above me, Chris reached down to help me up, but before I could take his help, Reggie was on my other side, offering his hand.

If I took Chris’s hand, Reggie would lose his Sunday mornin’ easy.

If I took Reggie’s, he would get the wrong impression and Chris would feel betrayed.

With an armful of containers and foil, I only had one hand free.

I tensed it on the grass and got up myself without dropping a single thing.

“Let’s get to it then,” Johnny said, groaning about his bones creaking.

Kyle and Bernard followed suit. They lowered the black bag into the ground. I stood next to Chris as dirt clapped off it and Lance slowly disappeared.

“I have this thing,” he said, taking out a leather-bound pad. “A few words. It’s not very good.”

Reggie scooped dirt into the hole and watched me with Chris. Was he going to be a problem? I didn’t think I could take it.

“Go ahead.” I put a reassuring hand on Chris’s arm. He needed me more than Reggie did. “Please.”

Chris ran his fingers through his hair. I’d never imagined him feeling insecure or unsure, but the cracks in his confidence were wide enough for me to see what was inside him.

The boy I’d loved.

He looked at the paper, then back at me. I nodded, loaning him a little confidence.

“Lancelot Carmichael, you were a good boy. Always. You were always there for me, even when I didn’t have food for you.”

He stopped, tilting the paper. That was all that was on it, but he kept going.

“When it was raining and cold, he stayed with me.” Chris closed his book. “He gave me everything. There was this one time, right in the beginning, when I had…” He made a rectangle with his fingers. “I had this much in a Chinese food container. It was all I had. I knew he was hungry, but when I offered, he wouldn’t take the meat. He pushed it to me. He took care of me, even when I failed him… and… I’m sorry, Lance. I’m sorry for letting you down. Putting you second to my work. I’m so sorry.”

His fingers found mine. We twined them together, and he squeezed my hand so hard I thought they’d fuse into a single gesture.

He let go and helped shovel dirt in. When it was no longer a hole but a mound in the grass, we set up the slab of stone at the head.

Chris held my hand on the way back to the car. He leaned into me and whispered, “Tonight. Are you free?”

“Lucky for you, I am.”

“Can you meet me at our tree?”

I couldn’t contain my smile.

Reggie watched us from the other side of the parking lot, and he didn’t look happy.