Page 51 of After His Eulogy

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“I know.”

“I almost left.”

“I know.”

“I came over here knowing I was going to do it. I came over with the sentence already written, the sentence in my head.I have to stop.I had the sentence.”

“I know.”

“I’m someone who almost left.”

“I know.”

“I do not want to be someone who almost left.”

“I know, Reed.”

“I do not…“

“I know.”

He puts his hand on top of mine on the floor and doesn’t say anything else. I look at our hands on his linoleum, his over mine. The palm is warm. The knuckles are not white anymore.

“Tomorrow,” I say.

“Tomorrow.”

“I’ll call him tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

“With you here.”

“Yes.”

I nod.

We sit on the floor. Outside the apartment something is happening, a car going by, a person on the stairs, the radiator starting up. In the kitchen it is just us, on the floor, his hand on mine, the dinner uncooked on the stove. After a while he says, “Are you hungry.”

“Yes. I am hungry.”

“I’ll finish the dinner.”

“Okay.”

“You sit there.”

I don’t move.

He gets up. He goes back to the stove. He turns the burner back on. He stirs the pan. He does not look at me. I sit on the floor. I watch him cook and I don’t get up. If I get up I’m going to be a person standing in his kitchen. Right now I’m a person sitting on his floor — and the floor is what I can do tonight. He cooks. He cooks for ten minutes. He does not say anything. He plates the food. He puts both plates on the table. He looks at me on the floor.

“Come eat.”

“Yeah.”

I get up. I get up and I go to the table and I sit down across from him. He has poured water for both of us. The plates have pasta and the pasta has the garlic and a green I do not recognize. The food looks like food a person made on purpose for someone else.

“Griffin.”

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