Page 74 of After His Eulogy
“Okay.”
“That is the why.”
I look at him. I look at him and his eyes are wet, from the wind, partly, but not only from the wind. I can tell which is which. He is letting his eyes be wet. He is not crying in a way that is a thing. He is just letting the wind do what the wind does and letting his face do what his face does and he is looking at me. I’ve been the kind of person, for the last twenty minutes, who’s been letting him talk. I’d thought my job was to listen. And I have listened. I’ve heard him sayI am comingandI have decidedandthe call is not close. I’ve been carrying it. Now I have to do the other thing. I stop walking. He stops walking. I look at him.
“Griffin.”
“Yeah.”
“I am going to ask you something. Before. Before Monday. Before Mendez. Before this becomes a thing.”
“Okay.”
“It is not the thing I would have asked you three months ago.”
“What would you have asked three months ago.”
“I would have asked whether to let you. I would have asked whether I was supposed to talk you out of it. I would have had aspeech ready. I had the speech ready last week. I’d been working on it. It was a good speech. It was about how I was the person who had left you once and had to be the person who decided not to do it again, even if doing it again was letting you come, even if the letting was the new version of the leaving. Because I’d told myself the version of me who has learned anything is the version who would sayno, do not come, I will go alone, you keep your sister, you keep your mother, you keep the life.“
“Reed.”
“I am not giving the speech.”
“Okay.”
“I’m telling you I had it ready. Telling you because I want you to know I had it ready and I’m not giving it. I’m not giving it because I told you in the dark three weeks ago that leaving was off the table, and the speech was leaving in a different coat. I almost didn’t see it. I saw it on Wednesday. I’ve been sitting with it since. I’m putting the speech down on this beach. Telling you I had it and that I’m not giving it — telling you so you know what it cost me not to give it. Not giving the speech is the new not-sending.”
He is looking at me.
“Okay,” he says.
“Okay.”
“Reed.”
“Yeah.”
“I was waiting for the speech.”
“You knew.”
“I knew you had one. I have been watching you have one for a week. I had been waiting to hear it. I had been getting ready to hear it and to say no.”
“You would have said no.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“I am glad you did not give it.”
“I am glad I did not give it.”
He puts his hands on my face. His gloves are cold. He kisses me. He kisses me on the beach in the wind and his face is cold and his mouth is warm and he kisses me like he’s been holding something for three weeks and can put it down now.
“Reed.”
“Yeah.”
