Page 27 of The Night We Lost Him

Thirty-Four Years Ago

“You like him. I can tell.”

Cory had a new boyfriend. Liam and Rachel had run into them in front of Liam’s office building, of all places. Cory and the boyfriend were coming from a matinee of Lost in Yonkers, Neil Simon’s new play. The fact that Cory had taken him meant something. Did it mean something that he was waxing eloquent on all the reasons he hadn’t loved it? Liam had trouble focusing on what his reasons were. He had trouble focusing on anything except the boyfriend’s hand, holding Cory on her waist, holding her at the bone there.

Now, two days later, they met for lunch in Central Park. She wouldn’t tell him much.

“And he wants to get married?” Liam asked.

“No one is talking about that yet but you.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in marriage.”

“That’s not what I said. I never said that.”

“Except that you did.”

“What I said was that marriage isn’t what was going to save you and me. A legal document or what have you. The only thing that saves two people is what always saves two people.”

“Which is?”

“Showing up.”

“I show up,” he said.

“Exactly,” she said. “So what are you worried about?”

She laid back on the grass, the sun hitting her face, shining on her bare shoulders, her hair. He stared down at her.

“How can you be with someone who doesn’t like Neil Simon?”

She covered her eyes with her arm. “I could be wrong, but I think people have survived worse together.”

“Cory…” he said.

“I don’t go by Cory anymore. That’s an old nickname.”

“Okay, fine… whatever your name is,” he said.

She laughed.

“As much as I hate to admit it, he seems like a good man,” he said.

“He does not think the same about you.”

She shrugged, like it was beside the point. Because really it was. Then she took her arm off her eyes, sat up onto her elbows. She met his eyes.

“The thing is… I’ve never lied to him. Not about you and me, not about any of it. I just think…” she said. “It’s only fair to him, and to me, for us to find a new shape to things between us.”

“So we will.”

He didn’t hesitate. He would never hesitate. This was what they did for each other, after all. Figured out whatever workaround they needed to fit into the other’s life. Even if he knew—didn’t she know too?—it should really be the other way around. You could argue, in the ways that mattered most, it was.

And, anyway, it was beside the point. Everything but them was beside the point as far as Liam was concerned. Whatever Cory wanted—however she wanted to make room for him in her life—he would meet her there. Forever.

“I just want you to be happy,” he said.

She leaned in, touched his face. First with the front of her hand, then with the back.

“Come on,” she said. “Don’t start lying now.”