“I owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
“I was judging you before you even sat down.”
Theo shrugged.
“It’s okay.”
“No.”
He looked toward Jack’s coffin.
“It isn’t.”
Then he held out his hand.
Theo shook it.
Others followed.
Some hugged him.
Some told him Jack would have loved it.
One elderly aunt said, “I still don’t understand boys today, but your speech was beautiful.”
Theo said, “Honestly, that’s fair.”
For the first time all day, I saw something close to the Theo I knew.
Later, after most people had gone to the reception hall, Theo found me alone beside the photographs we’d displayed of Jack.
There was one of the two boys at eight years old.
Mud from head to toe.
Missing shoes.
Grinning like criminals.
Theo stood beside me.
“I need to tell you something.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“Jack didn’t want you to know.”
My stomach tightened.
“Know what?”
“That he thought he was going to die.”
I stared at the photograph.
Theo rushed on.
“Not because he didn’t trust you.”
“I know.”
“He said you and Mr. Harris needed hope.”
That hurt.
“He was the sick one.”
“I told him that.”
“What did he say?”
Theo smiled sadly.
“He said, ‘Yeah, but Mom’s dramatic.'”
I laughed through my tears.
“That little jerk.”
“He loved you.”
“I know.”
“He wasn’t pretending to be hopeful.”
That mattered.
I looked at him.
Theo said, “He wanted college. He wanted to travel. He really thought treatment might work.”
Then he added, “He just knew it might not.”
Both things.
Hope and fear.
My 18-year-old son had somehow learned they could exist together before I did.
I asked Theo, “Did he talk about dying often?”
“No.”
“Really?”
“Maybe three times.”
I nodded.
“Was he scared?”
Theo didn’t answer immediately.
