Page 287 of The Fall

His hand traces his brother’s name. This is the first time Blair has visited since he laid his brother in the ground.

“Hey, buddy,” Blair says softly. “Sorry it’s been so long.”

I watch as his shoulders rise and fall.

“I brought someone I want you to meet,” he continues. “This is Torey. He’s...” Blair pauses. His voice crawls up from somewhere deep. “Everything.”

He speaks softly, quietly. I catch fragments—“…saved me…” and “...he gets me to laugh the way you used to...”—but I give Blair and Cody their privacy. And when Blair’s voice drops to whispers, I study the trees, the way the light filters through the leaves.

But I can’t miss when he says clearly, “I’m happy now, Cody. Really happy.” Then, so softly I almost miss it: “Thank you.”

His words ripple through the air, holding in the hush between wind and birdsong, and I remember Blair telling me Cody’s last words to him: he wished he could make him happy again.

A breeze stirs the grass around my ankles. It smells like wet earth and cut stems, like morning trying to undo a long night.

I step up beside him, close enough that the heat of him meets the chill off the granite. Cody wished he could make Blair happy again, and I feel his wish moving through the grass, through the breath Blair drags in, through our past, through time, all the way back to the beginning. Where is the beginning? Is it with a brother’s wish? A hand reaching through time, gathering together what only he could know, how our two souls were made to be together? Did he…?

Birdsong swells, a thin silver thread stitching through the leaves. A single shaft of light slides through the trees and skims across the engraving. For a heartbeat, it looks as if the name is lit from within.

Science can explain so much.

But not everything.

Blair kisses the tips of his fingers and touches them to Cody’s name. “I’ll be back soon,” he promises. “Love you, little brother.”

We stand in silence for several minutes, the morning sun warming our shoulders. Birds call overhead, and Blair looks up as they cross the clear-blue sky. A cardinal hops down from a branch and peers at us.

“Cody loved cardinals,” Blair says. “He thought they were show-offs, same as him.”

I lay my bouquet on Cody’s headstone, and I whisper, “I’ll take care of him.”

Sunlight glints on the polished granite of his headstone, a flash as bright and light as a laugh.

Disney World unfolds before us in full Saturday glory, Hayes already strategizing Lightning Lane times while Lily bounces between Blair and me.

“Uncle Blair! Uncle Blair! The pirate ship is this way!” Lily tugs on Blair’s hand and hauls him through the crowd. Her Mickey ears are askew on her head, glittering in the sunshine.

“Lead the way, Captain Lily,” Blair says.

The park spreads out around us, colorful and chaotic, and I follow Blair, Lily, and Hayes. Erin walks beside me, seven months pregnant and radiant despite the heat. “You sure you’re up for this?” she asks. “We can take breaks whenever.”

“I’m good.” And I am. Four months post-surgery, my stamina has returned enough for adventure.

Erin rubs her rounded belly. “Well, this little guy is making me need a break every twenty minutes.”

“Perfect excuse for ice cream stops,” Hayes says, dropping back to join us.

Erin snorts.

Ahead, Blair lifts Lily onto his shoulders to see over the crowd, and she spots a princess meet-and-greet she cannot miss. We all hear the squeal. Everyone in the zip code heard the squeal.

We navigate rides and sugar crashes for hours, Lily’s hand in mine for half the day. At lunch, we break for chicken fingers and churros and find a shaded bench.

“Six more weeks until I can start skating again,” I say, sipping water.

“Dr. Lin thinks you’ll be ready?” Hayes asks.

“She says we’ll evaluate then, but the signs are all good.”