“I hope not.” Gray laughed. “There are a lot of people I've known that I don't want to meet again, like our parents.” If you could call them that.

“Are you happy?” Boy asked him. Everything about him was surreal and ethereal and transparent. Just being there with him was like being in a dream. He didn't know how to respond to Boy's question. He had been happy, until lately. He had been miserable for the past month, over all the bullshit with Sylvia. He told Boy about it.

“Why are you afraid to meet them?”

“What if they don't like me? What if I don't like them? Then she'll hate me. What if we like each other and I get attached to them, and then we break up? Then I never see them again, or I see them but I don't see her. What if they're a couple of spoiled little shits and they make trouble for us? It's all so fucking complicated, I don't need the headache.”

“What have you got without the headache? What would your life be like without her? You'll lose her if you don't see them. She loves them. And it sounds like she loves you.”

“I love her too. But I don't love her children, and I don't want to.”

“Do you love me?” he asked then, and Gray was suddenly reminded of the Little Prince in the Saint-Exupéry book, who dies at the end of the book. And not knowing why he said it, he answered him. He was honest, as though they had been friends and brothers for years.

“Yes, I do. I didn't love you until tonight. I didn't know you. I didn't want to know you,” he said honestly. “I was afraid to. But now I do. Love you, I mean.” He hadn't wanted to know him for all those years, or even see him. He had been afraid of the pain of caring about him, or having a family. All Gray knew was that families hurt, and disappointed you. But Boy wasn't disappointing, he had come to see Gray, as a gesture of pure love for him. It was the gift of love no one in his family had ever given him. It was both painful and beautiful, as only love could be.

“Why do you love me? Because I'm dying?” Boy's eyes were haunting as they bored into Gray's.

“No, because you're my family,” Gray said in a choked voice as tears rolled down his cheeks and wouldn't stop. The floodgates of his heart had opened totally. “You're all I have left.” It felt good to say it. The two men held hands across the table.

“I'll be gone soon,” Boy said matter-of-factly. “And then she'll be all you have left. And her children. They're all you've got. And me.” It wasn't much, and Gray knew it. He didn't have much to show for fifty years on the planet. As crazy as they were, his parents had more. Three kids they'd adopted and made a mess of, but they tried at least, to the best of their limited abilities. They had each other. And all the people they touched as they roamed the world. Even Gray's paintings, and the agony that had inspired them, were somehow an outcropping of the two people who had adopted him and Boy. They had done a lot. More than Gray had ever thought or admitted. He saw that now. His parents had been crazy and limited, but at least they tried, even as messed up as they were. And Boy had tried too. Enough to come and see him. In comparison, Gray felt he had done far less with his emotional life, until Sylvia, and now he was limiting that too, and hurting her because he was scared. Terrified in fact.

“I love you, Boy,” Gray whispered as they sat holding hands across the table. He didn't care who saw them or what they thought. Suddenly he was no longer afraid of everything that had frightened him for so long. Boy was the final living symbol of the family Gray had run from for years.

“I love you too,” Boy said. He looked exhausted when they finally got up, and cold. He was shivering, and Gray gave him his coat. It was his best one. He had grabbed it on the way out, but it seemed a fitting gesture for the dying brother he had never known. He wished he had gone to see him before that, but he hadn't. It had never occurred to him, or in fact it had, and he had run from the idea. He realized now that he had run from so much, and all of it to avoid life, and getting hurt again. His family had become the symbol of all he feared. Boy was slowly lifting the fear from him.

“Why don't you stay with me tonight?” Gray offered. “I'll sleep on the couch.”

“I can stay at the hotel,” Boy said, but Gray didn't want him to. They went to pick up his things and went back to Gray's place. He said he had to leave by nine in the morning to catch his plane.

“I'll wake you up,” Gray promised as he tucked him gently into bed and kissed him on the forehead. He felt almost as though Boy were his son. Boy thanked him and was asleep before Gray closed the door.

Gray painted all night. He did sketches of him, dozens of them, so he wouldn't forget every detail of his face, and laid down the foundation for a painting. He felt as though it were a race against death. He never went to bed all night, and he woke Boy at eight and made him scrambled eggs. Boy ate about half, and drank some juice, and then said he had to leave. He was taking a cab to the airport, but Gray said he'd go with him. Boy just smiled, and then they left. He had to be there at ten for an eleven o'clock flight.

They stood close together after Boy checked in, and then they called the flight. Boy looked panicked for a moment, and then Gray reached out and pulled him into his powerful arms, and held him there while they both cried. They were tears not only for the present but for their lost past, and all the opportunities they'd missed, that they had tried to recapture in a single night. They had done well, both of them.

“It's going to be all right,” Gray said, but they both knew it wouldn't, unless Boy's theories about Heaven were right. “I love you, Boy. Call me.”

“I will.” But he might not, Gray knew. This could be the last moment, the last time, the last touch. And now that Gray had opened his heart to him, it would all hurt so much. So much too much. But it was a clean hurt this time. The clean sharp sword of loss. It was like severing a limb surgically, instead of having it torn off.

“I love you!” Gray called after him as he boarded the plane. He said it again and again so Boy would hear it, and when he reached the door to the plane, Boy turned and smiled. He waved, and then he was gone. The Little Prince had vanished, as Gray stood watching the place where he had been, and cried.

Gray walked around the airport for a long time. He needed to think, and to catch his breath. All he could think of now was Boy and the things he had said. What if he had never existed, if Gray had never seen him again? If he hadn't come all this way to see him. He seemed like a messenger from God.

It was noon when Gray finally called Sylvia on his cell phone. He hadn't talked to her in two days. And he hadn't slept all night.

“I'm at the airport,” he said, sounding gruff.

“So am I.” She sounded surprised. “Where are you?” He told her what terminal, and she said she was at the international terminal picking Emily up. It was Christmas Eve. “Is something wrong?” Yes. No. It had been. Now it was fine. It wasn't fine. It never had been, but at least he was now. He felt whole for the first time in his life. “What are you doing at the airport?” She was suddenly worried that he was leaving to go somewhere. Everything between them had totally fallen apart.

“I was seeing my brother off.”

“Your brother? You don't have a brother.” And then she remembered, but it sounded crazy to her, and it was.

“Boy. We'll talk about it. Where are you?” She told him again, and he hung up.

She saw him walking across the terminal toward her, and he looked a mess. He was wearing an old sweater and jeans, and a jacket that should have been thrown out years before. Boy had left in his good coat. Gray wanted him to have it. He looked like a madman, or an artist, and he looked as though he hadn't combed his hair in days. And then suddenly he had his arms around her and they were crying and he was telling her he loved her. He was still holding her when Emily walked out of customs with a big grin as soon as she saw her mother.

Sylvia introduced them, and Gray looked nervous, but shook her hand with a cautious smile. He asked her how the flight was, and picked up her bag. They walked through the airport with Gray's arm around Sylvia's shoulder, and Emily holding her mother's hand. They went back to the apartment, where Gray met Gilbert, and Sylvia fixed them all lunch. Gray helped her cook dinner that night, and he told her about Boy in bed that night. They talked for hours, and the next morning, they all exchanged gifts. He had nothing for her, but Sylvia didn't care. The children thought him eccentric but nice. And much to his own surprise, he liked them. Boy was right.

They called Gray on Christmas night. Boy was gone. The friend who called said he was sending Gray his journal and a few things. The next morning, Sylvia and her children left for Vermont. Gray went with them, and he walked out into the snow one afternoon at dusk, and stood looking at the mountains. He could feel Boy near him, and hear his voice. Then quietly, he walked back to the house where Sylvia was waiting. She was standing on the porch, watching him and smiling. That night, as he stood outside with her, he looked at the sky, saw the stars, thought of Boy, and the Little Prince.

“He's up there somewhere,” he said sadly. She nodded. They put their arms around each other, and walked back into the house.





24


CAROLE, MAGGIE, AND ADAM FLEW DOWN TO ST. Barts on Adam's plane. It was the first time either of them had met Carole, and it was a little awkward at first, but by the time they landed in St. Barts, Carole and Maggie were fast friends. They were as different as two women could get. But while Adam slept, Carole talked about the center and the children she met there, and Maggie talked about her early life, the time she'd spent in foster care, her pre-law classes, her job, and how lucky she was to be with Adam. Carole loved her long before they got off the plane. She was genuine and honest, kind, and incredibly bright. It was impossible not to like her, and Maggie felt the same way about Carole. They had even giggled conspiratorially about how furious they had each been that Charlie and Adam had wanted to go off on their own over the holidays, and how grateful they were that they hadn't.