Take the list. Ryan stood up. He picked up the folder. He stood there for a moment in the middle of the room like a man who has delivered something heavy and doesn't know what to do with his hands now that they're empty. For what it's worth, he said to Marcus, she's she's a lot like David.
The way she handles things. Marcus looked at Clare. I know. Ryan let himself out. The front door closed.
The room was silent. Clare sat with her hand in Marcus' and her eyes on the middle distance. And Marcus let the silence be there because he understood that what she needed right now was not words, not comfort, not any of the things people reach for when someone is hurting. What she needed was exactly what she had someone sitting next to her who was not going to flinch. After a long time, she said, "He gave me a year of not knowing."
Yeah. And I was furious at the universe the whole time it was happening because I didn't understand why he was getting worse and then better and then worse. She closed her eyes briefly. There were days I thought I was losing my mind, reading signs wrong, misunderstanding what the doctors were saying. I thought it was me.
It wasn't you. I know. Now I know. She opened her eyes. "But I lived that year feeling like I was on the outside of my own life."
Marcus turned toward her. "That's not protecting someone," he said carefully. "I understand why he did it. I think I understand what he was trying to give you." But he stopped.
"Say it," she said. "You deserve to be in it with him," Marcus said. "Whatever it cost, you deserve to be there." She looked at him. Her eyes filled, not overflowed, just filled.
The way a cup fills right to the edge and holds. Yes, she said I did. They sat with that truth for a minute. With the weight of it, with the strange necessary grief of understanding. Four years too late that someone you loved made a choice that was kind in its intention and isolating in its effect, and that both of those things were true at the same time.
Marcus thought about his own box, the shoe box in the closet with the birthday card and the ticket stubs and the blue hair tie. He thought about all the things he'd protected Darius from knowing not lies, just silences, careful omissions, the things a parent holds so a child doesn't have to. He thought about whether he'd gotten that right, whether there was a version of protection that was actually just a different kind of alone. He didn't say any of that, but he held her hand tighter. After a while, Clare straightened, not putting on armor, releasing something.
The kind of straightening that happens when you've sat with a hard thing long enough that you're ready to carry it differently. Still carry it, just differently. I want to do something, she said. Okay, I want to go to David's grave. She paused.