That brought me some comfort. Jack hadn’t spent his final months simply waiting for the worst. He had lived with both hope and fear.
Years passed, and Theo graduated from college. Daniel and I attended his graduation, and afterward he hugged us both.
“I almost wore red today,” he whispered.
Daniel smiled. “Don’t even think about it.”
We gave Theo Jack’s old black wristwatch. He tried to refuse it, but I closed his fingers around it.
“Jack would want you to have it.”
He cried, and so did I.
Grief never completely disappears. It changes. Sometimes Jack feels far away, and sometimes one of his old jokes makes him feel close again.
I still remember the morning Theo entered the chapel. The whispers, the uncomfortable looks, and my own immediate judgment.
We had seen a young man in a red dress and invented explanations without asking a single question.
