Page 178 of Beneath the Stain

Trav knew the words to this one too. Mackey picked up the guitar, and the clean chords surged in melancholy waves under their quiet voices.

When they got to the part about the two lost souls, Mackey’s voice cracked, but his brothers kept up the melody, and Mackey did what he’d done the first time Grant left. He just kept playing, because it was all he had.

Kell was the one who broke the tableau of the dying song. He bent and kissed Grant on the forehead. “Bye, brother. Sing in heaven for us, okay?”

Jefferson and Stevie followed suit, and Blake held that wasted, ink-smudged hand for a moment before kissing him on the forehead too.

Mackey paused at his bedside and bent down, whispering in his ear. Trav heard him, though, because his voice was broken, and whispers didn’t come easy.

“Let it go, Grant. Fly. We’ll wish you were here.”

Trav touched foreheads with the boy he’d hated since he first heard Mackey say his name. “I’ve got him, Grant. I’ll take good care of him. You’re leaving him in good hands. You can go now. It’s okay.”

Silently they filed out.

The next morning Grant’s father called and Mackey’s mother answered the phone. She came by their room, but she didn’t have to. Mackey had heard the truth in the silence, and she and Trav met eyes as he wept silently on Trav’s chest.

She told Trav later that it had been the same with the other boys. Kell had known. Blake had known. Briony ran into Kell’s room while Mackey’s mom tried to get the words out, and Kell fell into her arms and cried like a baby while Blake hugged him from behind. Shelia was sitting up in bed while Stevie and Jefferson wept on her lap.

Cheever had come home the night before, and he stood in the hallway, baffled, while his mother cried. Trav saw him looking into every doorway in wonder, but Trav didn’t have words.

He only had Mackey, and the hope that they would get over the crying and start to live.

AWEEKlater they stood at a grave and buried an empty coffin while the ashes sat beside Kell and Mackey in a big black urn.

Mackey was supposed to speak, and he glared at everyone from behind his sunglasses as they got out of the car.

“I’ll bet he thinks this is real fuckin’ funny,” he snapped. “Man, he’s laughing his ass off in heaven, you know that?”

“I hope so,” Trav muttered.

A week—it had taken a week to rush the funeral through, and the boys were strangling and their mother was ready to have them out of the fucking house. Mackey kept talking about home, and Trav did the math. They had two weeks before Thanksgiving and less than a month before they got on the plane to his parents’ house—and besides a stop in San Francisco, which he was actually looking forward to, this was the last thing they had to do.

It gave him heart that the guys had bitched about the funeral during the planning.

“Flowers? Roses? Did he really ask for that?” Kell demanded.

Trav shrugged. “It just says flowers.”

“Chrysanthemums,” Mackey said promptly. “For his eyes.”

“Gross, Mackey,” Kell muttered, but it was for form. “Daisies, for his sunny personality.”

“He will come back and haunt you!” Trav snapped, out of patience.

Kell flashed him a grin just like Mackey’s. “I fucking dare him.”

“Roses, daisies, and chrysanthemums, because I fucking say so,” Trav snarled, putting his foot down.

“And irises,” Shelia said, from nowhere.

The boys all looked at her.

“They’re pretty!” she defended.

“And those big calla lily things,” Briony said thoughtfully.

“Yeah,” Cheever agreed, obviously trying to help. “Those are nice. Can we get some of those?”