I was in my studio, working on a painting -- a commission, although one that was a lot more fun than the dozens I’d done during my first year in New York -- when I got the call. I’d just dipped my brush in purple paint when my phone rang. I could see that it was Brian and not some scam caller trying to trick me into giving up my credit card number, so I hastily wiped my hands on a rag and swiped my finger across the screen to answer the call before pressing the phone to my ear.

“Hey, what’s up?” I said, trying to determine whether or not I should go ahead and rinse my brush, or if this would be a quick phone call. Brian knew I was at the studio -- and what I was working on -- so chances were that he was probably calling to see if I wanted him to bring me some food. (And, chances were just as good that he was going to bring me food anyway, regardless of what I said, because he would worry about me if he didn't, so I wasn't sure why he ever bothered to call and ask.)

I waited for his response, fully expecting some sort of lewd joke because that’s just Brian, but it didn’t come. What I heard was a shaky breath, followed by Brian’s voice -- sounding pained and tearful and not at all himself.

“Come home,” he said. He inhaled again, this time with a hitch that sounded almost like a sob. “Now.”

“Brian?” I said, my heart already in my throat and my anxiety quickly rising. Clearly something was very, very wrong. “Are you okay? What’s going on?” I picked up all of my brushes and practically threw them into the sink, haphazardly running water over them and hoping it was enough, because I didn’t have the patience nor the presence of mind to give them my normal level of attention.

Brian’s breathing didn’t sound any better on his next inhalation.

“Just… come home,” he said. “Please.” Then the line went silent. I took the phone away from my ear and saw that the call had ended -- Brian had hung up.

Immediately I was thrown into brain injury hell, as my anxious thoughts started to cloud my judgment and kept it from being as easy as it should have been to figure out what the fuck to do next. It was like the night Brian went to the hospital with the kidney infection -- I knew what I needed my ultimate outcome to be, but figuring out the best way to get there was like trying to feel my way through a dark maze, blindfolded.

I tried to call Brian back, so I could get more information, but it rang and rang and rang and he never answered.

I stood there in my studio for a moment, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, trying to focus. Trying to slow down my thoughts so I could make a decision about what mode of transportation I was going to use to get home, instead of being fucking paralyzed by my own goddamn broken brain. Of course, that was easier said than done, because various scenarios were running through my head like crazy as my mind tried to figure out what on earth could possibly be so wrong that it had Brian this upset.

I pressed the heels of my hands against my forehead in frustration, like I was trying to squeeze some sort of a sensible thought out of my head. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. I knew I wasn’t doing Brian any good standing there doing absolutely fucking nothing, but I couldn’t make my feet move either.

Finally, I managed to find a lucid thought in the chaos as my brain tried to debate and consider all of the pros and cons of the various forms of transportation I could use to get home, and made a decision that I was going to take a taxi, regardless of whether that was actually faster or not. It was Friday evening, which meant it was rush hour -- a fact that only served to further complicate my decision making process. I’d come straight to the studio after the school day ended, promising Brian I’d be home in time for a late dinner, because I was working on a deadline with this commission and I really needed to get it done.

But in that moment, none of that mattered. It could wait. It could all wait.

At that point, I had no idea that it would be more than a week before I made it back to my studio.

I left everything exactly as it was, not wanting to take the time to clean up because that would only delay me in getting to Brian. I grabbed my jacket, locked the door with shaking hands, and ran down the stairs, not wanting to wait for the elevator either. I stepped out to the edge of the sidewalk in front of the building and stuck my arm up to hail a cab, praying an empty one would pass by soon. My wish was granted less than a minute later, and I gave the driver our home address, then settled into the backseat and tried to keep my thoughts in check.

I pulled out my phone and tried to call Brian again, but he still didn’t answer.

My anxiety was running higher than it had in a long, long time, and I could hear the unsteady quality of my breath as I tried to focus on breathing in and out, keeping the pace slow even though my brain was screaming at me to breathe faster. I needed something I could focus on to keep myself present, but at the time, all I could latch onto was the never ending stream of possible things that could be wrong with Brian -- the chain of thoughts I’d run through so many times in my mind, over and over. Was he sick? Was he hurt? He’d sounded like he was in pain. Did he fall? What happened? Why wouldn’t he tell me over the phone?

As the cab rounded a corner, my thoughts took a turn as well, when I suddenly remembered the doctor’s appointment Brian had with his oncologist earlier in the week. These visits had become routine over the years, as they became spaced farther and farther apart, but even though there had only been good news so far, the reason for these visits still weighed heavily in my mind.

They were necessary because Brian was at a higher risk for not only a recurrence of testicular cancer, but of other secondary cancers as well, so it was important that he keep going back for scans and blood tests, to make sure everything was still okay. I usually tried not to worry about it too much, but I could never forget how he’d kept the cancer from me the first time around. And even though I knew our relationship was different than it was back then -- eleven years of marriage and a couple of life-changing experiences will do that -- there was always a small part of me that wondered how things would go if the cancer did come back.

What if it had? What if that was what had Brian so upset? What if they’d found something this time?

I could feel myself perched on the edge of the cliff between anxiety and panic, as the thought of Brian’s cancer returning loomed large behind me, threatening to send me over it. I closed my eyes and tried to pull my attention back to my breath -- and away from the edge of the cliff -- trying to deepen and smooth my inhalations and exhalations. Remembering everything I’d learned in the yoga class I went to once a week with Rob. Feeling my physical body in the car, on the seat, in this moment. Clinging to that to keep myself from descending over the cliff into panic.

I was so focused on my breath and my body that I didn’t even notice we’d arrived until I heard the driver impatiently say, “Hey man, we’re here.”

My eyes snapped open and I looked around, realizing we were in front of our apartment building. Quickly, I pulled some cash out of my wallet with hands that were still shaking, shoved it into the driver’s hand, and exited the car. I ran inside and punched the button for the elevator, willing it to be waiting on the ground floor and breathing a sigh of relief when it was. I stepped inside and hastily pressed the button for our floor as well as the button that would close the doors immediately. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes again, focusing once again on breathing in and out -- smooth and deep.

When the doors opened again, I stepped out and walked the few steps down the hallway to our door, pausing in front of it for a moment to try to collect myself. I struggled to get the key into the lock with trembling fingers, but finally, I was able to get the door open.

The living room was empty, but Brian’s laptop was open on the coffee table. There was a glass sitting alongside it with a small amount of what looked like whiskey in the bottom. His phone was face down on the table beside the glass. I walked down the hallway toward our bedroom, still not sure of what I was about to find, as the clues I’d seen so far hadn’t served to shed any light on what had caused Brian to call me and ask me to come home.

When I got to the bedroom, both of our suitcases were on the bed, open, each about half full with carefully folded clothing. I found Brian in the closet, his back to the door, pulling shirts off of hangers and laying them in his lap.

I walked up behind him and laid my hand on his shoulder.

“Brian?” I said softly, still wondering what was happening.

He stopped, then slowly turned to face me. His eyes were red and swollen, their color dark and haunted -- not at all the bright greenish-gold that they usually were. My hand reached out of its own volition, magnetically drawn to my partner, and brushed across his cheek, wiping away a still-damp tear track.

“Brian,” I said again, keeping my voice soft and low. “What’s going on?”

His eyes slid shut and he pulled his lips into his mouth, then bowed his head as his shoulders started to shake with silent sobs. I took the pile of shirts from his lap and set them aside on a shelf, then carefully lowered myself onto his lap, wrapping my arms around him. He rested his head in the space between my neck and my shoulder, and my shirt quickly became damp with his tears. I felt him let go -- his body shaking harder now as he collapsed against me. Gently, I rubbed his back, feeling the soft cotton of his t-shirt beneath my fingers.

I wanted to know what was going on -- what had my strong partner, who was so often my rock when I felt like I was falling apart, falling apart himself -- but now wasn’t the time to ask. All I could do was hold him and trust that he would tell me when he was able.

The minutes ticked by as we sat there together in the closet, me holding Brian as he cried. Him clinging to me, his fingers digging into my back, his tears soaking my shirt. All I could think of was how this wasn’t like Brian at all. Whatever was wrong, it was really, really bad. I fought to keep my focus on Brian -- to keep from running scenarios in my brain of what possibly could have happened.

Slowly, the shaking stopped and I felt Brian’s breathing become a little softer, a little more even, against my chest. I kept rubbing his back, trying to soothe him. Wishing I could take away his pain but knowing that I probably wouldn’t be able to, even before I knew what was causing it.

Brian lifted his head, keeping his eyes closed for a moment before he blinked them open, still shining with wetness.

“What is it?” I whispered.

He bit his lip, looking at me like he would rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, besides telling me what he was about to tell me. He closed his eyes again and took a breath, like he was trying to gather the strength to do this. On one hand, I wanted him to tell me so I could help him, but on the other, I was dreading hearing whatever he had to say.

I was right to dread it, because when Brian was finally able to speak, his words turned my own world upside down as well.

“It’s Deb,” he said, his voice hoarse and sounding just as broken as he had on the phone. “She’s gone.”

“What?” I breathed. I must have misheard. Misunderstood. There was no way Brian had just told me Debbie was gone.

“She’s dead. Michael found her this afternoon. They were supposed to meet for lunch and she never showed up. He went to her house and found her in bed. I guess she never woke up.”

I had never heard Brian’s voice sound like this before. Like a scared child who didn’t want to believe the words that were coming out of his own mouth could possibly be the truth.

Meanwhile, I was struggling to process the reality of what he’d said -- Deb was gone.

The woman who had been a true mother to Brian at a time when he’d so desperately needed one. The woman who had welcomed me into her home, no questions asked, when I had nowhere else to go, even though she’d only known me for a few weeks. The woman who had been the matriarch of Liberty Avenue, always there with whatever she felt you needed, be it advice or a caring touch or a lemon bar or a gentle smack upside the head. She’d been a mother and a caretaker over the years to so many lost souls struggling to find themselves and their place in this world. And now, she was gone.

Her presence had always felt larger-than-life. It was hard to imagine that light -- her light -- being extinguished. But that was the reality.

As that reality sank in, I felt its heaviness weighing me down as a mixture of emotions rose up within me -- shock, disbelief, and an overwhelming sense of sadness. Tears welled up in my own eyes and started to fall as I felt Brian’s arms come around me, pulling me in close -- but now, instead of Brian clinging to me, his touch felt protective. Now, he was comforting me as we cried together, mourning the loss of the woman who had been a lifeboat to both of us at a time when we’d been left adrift in a sea of confusion and uncertainty.

Brian and I sat there for a long time -- holding each other, crying in our walk-in closet -- before Brian loosened his hold and pulled back a little so that we were face to face, then said, “I have to finish packing. Our flight leaves at 9:30.” His voice was still hoarse and unsteady, and too quiet for Brian.

“Okay,” I said, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. I slid off of Brian’s lap and picked up the shirts I’d set down on the shelf, so I could carry them out to the bedroom and help Brian finish the task he’d started for both of us.

Brian reached out and grabbed my wrist, stopping me. He looked up at me, with eyes that were still so sad, and I could tell that he wanted nothing more than to keep doing exactly what we were doing -- just being there for each other. Supporting each other in a situation that felt so unbelievable -- like there was no possible way it could be real. But it was real, and we had to face it.

“We’ll get through this,” he said. His voice sounded strange, and I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince me or himself.

I nodded, not able to find words at that moment -- or maybe I just didn’t want to say them out loud because that would be one more step in making it real.

Brian let go, and I turned and walked out of the closet. He followed behind me, then rounded the corner to go into the bathroom. Together, we finished packing our suitcases, making sure we had everything we would need for a funeral. Still wishing that wasn’t why we were going.

We’d been going home pretty regularly since Brian had bought the house in Pittsburgh. At first, he’d claimed it was merely an investment property, but I eventually got him to admit that what had triggered him to buy it was my saying that I missed my mom. I’d known for a long time that Brian would do anything for me, but that certainly proved it.

We tried to visit every other month if at all possible -- sometimes just for a weekend, other times for a week if it was during a break from school. But the last few months had been crazy for Brian and me -- the start of my second school year as a full-time teacher, and Brian hiring a few new employees as Kinnetik NYC’s market share grew. So we hadn’t made it home last month.

The last time we’d gone back was for Carl’s funeral, three months before. He was older than Debbie, and he had a heart condition, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected, but Deb took it hard. I knew Michael had been worried about her because she wasn’t taking care of herself -- I’d overheard enough of Brian’s phone calls with Michael to know that. But I never thought it was that bad -- that she’d be dead herself within a few months’ time.

To be honest, I don’t think I’d ever really entertained the idea that Debbie Novotny was, in fact, a mere mortal. I guess I assumed she’d live forever. I think we all did.

Brian was sliding his laptop into his carry-on bag and holding the phone with his shoulder, apparently lining up our ride to the airport with the car service, when I rolled both of our suitcases into the living room. Fifteen minutes later, we were in the backseat of a black town car, headed to the airport.

It took a long time to get there, and I could feel Brian’s agitation in the tension of his muscles as he held my hand. He was worried that we weren’t going to make it in time. I could tell that all he wanted was to be home in Pittsburgh right then, with our family -- he didn’t have to say that for me to know it. I felt the same way.

When we finally arrived at the airport, Brian’s disposition changed. I saw a version of Brian that I hadn’t really seen before -- one that was focused more on getting onto the plane and getting to Pittsburgh than anything else. He wasn’t demanding a seat in the first row so he could avoid the indignity of being pushed down the aisle by a member of the flight crew. He wasn’t grumbling about any of the little inconveniences we ran into where people hadn’t thought about accessibility. He simply nodded and took everything as it came, seeming almost numb.

We barely made it to the gate on time because it had taken forever to get Brian through security, but even that process -- one that normally pissed him off -- didn’t faze him that night. He just sat there through the full body pat-down. Still numb.

Our flight was on a tiny commuter jet, and it was full, so to say it was tight and uncomfortable would be an understatement. But Brian didn’t say a word. He took it all in stride. The only words he spoke to me through the entire process were to ask if it was okay if he took the window seat so his knee wouldn’t be in the aisle. That was fine with me, of course -- I just wanted him to be comfortable.

As we watched the lights of New York get smaller and smaller as the plane ascended, Brian reached over and took my hand, interlacing our fingers.

For the next hour, it was just us -- Brian and I -- cut off from the outside world, but still unable to ignore the harsh reality that was weighing heavily on each of our minds.

Debbie had meant a lot to me in my life, but I knew that she’d meant a lot more in Brian’s. I knew what Brian’s home life had been like, even though he never would tell me much about it. Mostly, he insisted that it was in the past and there was no point in dwelling on it. So I didn’t know specific details, but I did know that his parents had been physically and emotionally abusive, and I still saw the lingering effects of that in my partner, mostly in the way he saw himself. He’d come a long way in the years I’d known him, but I also knew that there would probably always be a part of him that felt he was unworthy of love and caring.

Debbie had probably been the first person in his life to try to prove to him that he did deserve those things -- and that he didn’t deserve the way his parents treated him. She’d treated him as if he was her own -- nursing his wounds, celebrating his achievements, and calling him on his shit. For all intents and purposes, she was his mother. More so than Joan Kinney ever had been or ever would be.

So for Brian, this wound would be deep, and it would be painful. And it would probably take a long, long time to heal.

I laid my head on his shoulder and felt his cheek come to rest against the top of my head. He let out a loud exhale and tightened his fingers around mine.

“We should have gone home,” he said, his voice low. “I should have made time to go.”

I lifted my head up and turned to look at him, my eyes meeting his, which were full of pain and regret.

“Brian,” I said, knowing that Brian probably wasn’t going to truly hear any of what I had to say but also knowing that I had to say it anyway. “You couldn’t have known. None of us could have known.”

“I did know, though. Michael kept telling me -- how she kept forgetting to take her medication, how he could hardly get her to eat a decent meal, how she kept insisting that she was ‘needed’ at the diner and that was why she came out of retirement again. But I didn’t feel like there was anything I could do.”

“There wasn’t. There wouldn’t have been anything you could have done that Michael wasn’t already trying to do. Debbie would have done whatever she wanted to do, regardless of whether you were there or not. You know that.”

“At least the last time I saw her wouldn’t have been at a fucking funeral.” Brian turned his head and looked out the window into the dark nothingness of the night sky at 10,000 feet. “I could have told her one more time that I loved her. I could have fucking called. I don’t know why I didn’t. I owed her that. I at least owed her that.”

“Brian, listen to me,” I said. He turned back to face me, and I could see the tears in the corners of his eyes before he blinked them away. “Are you listening?”

He didn’t say anything, but he held my gaze in silent affirmation, so I continued.

“She knew. She knew you loved her. She didn’t need you to tell her to know that. She was so proud of you, for so many things, not the least of which was your success with Kinnetik. She understood.”

Brian looked out the window again and sighed. “That doesn’t make it right.”

“Beating yourself up isn’t going to make it right either. She wouldn’t want you to do that. She’d want you to honor her memory by continuing to kick ass at whatever you do. No excuses, no apologies, no regrets.”

Brian snorted. “I’m pretty sure she hated that mantra.”

“But the thought still stands -- she would hate that you’re sitting here in pain because you wish you’d told her one more time that you loved her. You told her over and over again -- with your words and with your actions. She knew.”

He was quiet for several seconds, just gazing out the window. When he spoke, he sounded like he was on the verge of tears again.

“I still can’t believe it,” he said. “I don’t want to believe it. I’m not sure I do yet.”

“I know,” I said, squeezing his hand more tightly and laying my other hand on his forearm. “Me either.”

Brian spent most of the rest of the flight staring out the window, occasionally swiping a hand across his face to wipe away tears he probably hadn’t wanted to fall in the first place. I spent most of the flight holding his other hand, watching him, and wondering what we were both going to be in for whenever he did start to believe it.

Eventually, we touched down in Pittsburgh, and for me, things started to feel a bit more real. We were back “home” -- our first home -- but this time, we were there to say goodbye to someone we loved. It wouldn’t be easy, but it was something we had to do.

Brian, meanwhile, seemed content to stay in his own little world, watching the activity outside the window as airport workers started unloading baggage from the plane’s cargo hold. After everyone else was off the plane, a member of the flight crew brought the aisle chair to retrieve Brian, and he went through the motions again, without any of the usual complaints he would have had about the process. I led the way down the aisle of the plane, occasionally glancing back over my shoulder at Brian, who was demurely holding his knees together with his hands, his seat cushion and his carry-on bag on his lap.

We were dropped off at the bottom of the jetway, in the middle of a crowd of other passengers who were waiting for gate-checked bags that hadn’t yet been brought up. A few people bumped into Brian as they were picking up their suitcases, and I kept waiting for him to lose his patience and say something, but he never did. Finally, they brought his wheelchair up and we were free to go.

We made our typical stop at the restroom -- having to go pretty far before we found one that wasn’t closed for cleaning, since it was so late at night -- then continued on to baggage claim and ultimately the rental car counter, which was where things started to take a turn.

It began when Brian put his license down on the counter and the man behind the counter studied it carefully, turned to the computer and studied it as well, then leaned over the counter to look Brian up and down before declaring that he could only rent Brian a vehicle with hand controls and he didn’t have any available that night.

“It’s fine,” Brian said. “I brought my own.”

“I can’t let you do that, sir. It has to be our equipment,” the man said.

“I do it all the goddamned time. I did it just a few months ago. It’s never been a problem before.”

I could hear the edge starting to creep into Brian’s voice. I hoped he would be able to stay calm, but I also knew that his emotions were raw and probably on a hair trigger, and we were likely beginning to tread into dangerous territory.

“Well, I don’t know why no one has questioned it, but it’s against our policies to allow customers to install things in our vehicles.”

“You can’t refuse to rent me a car. I know my rights.”

“I’m not refusing to rent you a car -- I’m saying that you can’t use your own adaptive equipment. You’ll have to use ours. And I’m sorry, but I’m not able to accommodate you tonight. I can probably get something in by tomorrow night though, if that would work.”

“I need a car tonight,” Brian said. I could see the muscle in his jaw twitching as he clenched his teeth. “I have somewhere I need to be. I need you to rent me the car I reserved.”

“I’m sorry sir, but I can’t do that. If you’re renting a car from us, you’ll have to wait until we can get one in with the appropriate equipment. For liability reasons, we can’t--”

“I don’t give a fuck about your fucking liability!” Brian interrupted the man with the explosion I’d been dreading. “I need a damn car, and you can’t refuse me!”

“Sir--”

“Don’t give me that bullshit about how you’re not refusing me, because you fucking are!”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave--”

“Not without the goddamned car I reserved!”

“Sir, I’ve already told you, I can’t do that.”

I laid my hand on Brian’s shoulder right when he opened his mouth to argue again. “Brian,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm and hoping it would help calm Brian down too. “It’s okay. I’ll drive.”

“But you--”

“It’s fine. Go outside. I’ll take care of it.”

I knew that Brian’s anger wasn’t really about the car at all -- it was his grief manifesting itself, and the man from the car rental company just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, on the wrong end of a sticky situation. And, to be honest, I wasn’t sure Brian needed to be driving with as upset as he was at that moment, but I couldn’t say that, and I wasn’t going to.

I had to agree to be the only one driving the car, but I was able to complete the rental process and exit the building with keys in my hand. I hadn’t driven since my accident. I remembered how -- that wasn’t something I’d forgotten -- but it was a situation that simply hadn’t come up, since Brian and I lived in the city and he usually drove whenever we visited Pittsburgh.

I pushed our two suitcases out the sliding glass doors and looked around for Brian. I found him several yards away, his chair tilted backward so that his back and shoulders were against the wall. He had his head leaned against the wall too, and his eyes were closed.

“Hey,” I said gently as I walked up to him. “We’re all good now. I've got the keys.”

Brian opened his eyes and sighed as he came back upright. “Thanks,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay.” I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “I know that’s really frustrating, and it wasn’t what you needed tonight.”

“If you don’t want to drive, we can just take the car around the corner and--”

“It’s fine. I’ll drive.”

“Are you sure?”

“I promise I didn’t forget how,” I laughed, trying to play off the tiny bit of anxiety that was rising up in me. “It’ll be fine. I’m fine.” Hopefully speaking those words aloud would help to make them come true.

As we made our way to the car, suitcases in tow, I could see in Brian’s posture and how he moved that he was exhausted. And I knew it wasn’t just physical -- it was mental, too. He’d had a very early morning at the office -- leaving before I was even out of the shower -- and then this.

Suddenly, I realized that I didn’t even know when he’d found out about Debbie. How long had he been dealing with this all on his own before he called me? Hopefully not for too long, but knowing Brian, he probably had taken some time to himself before he called me. He was much more open with his emotions now than he had been in the first few years we’d known each other, but he was still very much Brian, and it wasn’t easy for him to be vulnerable, even with me. He often had to warm up to it, and that meant some alone time to try to process whatever was happening and start to deal with his emotions on his own before he was willing to let me in to help.

We put the suitcases in the trunk, and I stood outside the car, trying to gather up all of the inner strength I could, as I watched Brian take apart his chair and put it in the back seat of the car. I reminded myself that I could do this. I needed to do this. It was necessary, and I needed to stay calm. This was a way for me to be there for Brian and be a good partner to Brian -- and for once, to not have that be directly related to Brian’s health.

He needed my emotional support right now, and in order to do that, I had to keep it together. I couldn’t fall apart. And that included being able to drive the 20 minutes or so to our house in Pittsburgh without freaking the fuck out.

Once Brian was settled in the car, I climbed into the driver’s seat, taking a deep breath almost involuntarily. It had become something of a habit in the last several months that any time I felt nervous or anxious, I’d end up taking one of those deep, cleansing breaths without even thinking about it.

I noticed Brian giving me a sidelong glance from the passenger seat.

“You’re sure?” he said, giving me one last chance to change my mind, which was more tempting than it probably should have been. Now that I’d seen how tired he was, I knew for sure there was no way Brian needed to be driving tonight.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said, smiling and hoping that it was more convincing than it felt. I started the car and put it in gear, and we were on our way.

The hardest part turned out to be the first minute, trying to get a feel for the gas and brake in an unfamiliar vehicle. And there was the weird feeling of my right hand against the steering wheel, because the sensation in it still didn’t quite match that of my left hand. (And at this point, it looked like it never would.) But I got past that, and soon we were on the freeway.

All I could do was keep telling myself that it was going to be okay -- that everything was fine. Repeating that to myself over and over again, like a mantra.

I also kept glancing at Brian in the passenger seat. He was staring out the window, much like he had been on the plane, looking every bit like he was trying to hold himself together, and finding that to be a difficult fight.

“Do you want to go to our house first?” I asked, taking my right hand off the steering wheel and laying it over his left, which was resting on his thigh. “Drop off our things, maybe take a minute to relax. It’s been a long day.”

“No,” he said flatly, still gazing out at the suburban landscape flying by outside the window. “I want to go to Michael’s first.”

“Okay,” I said, not really wanting to object even though part of me felt I should. I knew how badly Brian probably wanted and needed to be with Michael as soon as possible. They were basically brothers, and they were going to need each other to get through this.

So instead of turning down the street where our house was, I turned one corner and then another, soon pulling up in front of Michael and Ben’s house. Watching how much Brian was dragging as he got himself out of the car made me hurt for him -- it was plain to see how much this was affecting him. Probably more than he wanted to let on.

Michael and Ben already had their portable ramp set up outside just like they always did whenever Brian and I came to town. Brian stopped at the top and I heard him take a deep breath and let it out very slowly, before he raised his hand to knock on the door.

Ben answered, giving Brian and I each a hug as we entered their small foyer and turned to go into the living room, where Michael was sitting with Ted, Blake, Emmett, and Drew. Emmett got up and came over to me, sweeping me immediately into a hug and greeting me with a tearful, “Hey, baby. It’s so good to see you.”

When Emmett let me go, I could see Michael and Brian at one end of the couch, embracing each other -- Michael on the couch and Brian in his chair. Brian was rubbing Michael’s back gently, and his eyes were closed. Michael had his face buried in Brian’s shoulder, sobbing quietly. Brian opened his eyes briefly and made eye contact with me. He looked lost and desperate and like he wanted to break down too, but he closed his eyes and took a breath, tightening his hold on Michael.

It was like a little family reunion, albeit for a very sad occasion. I was sure that everyone had probably gathered here simply because they needed to be together -- arms around one another, providing support in this time when none of us could believe what was happening.

Mel and Linds would be arriving in the morning with Gus and J.R., but other than that, everyone was there. The mood was somber to say the least. There wasn’t much conversation happening, just random tears and words of shock uttered occasionally, as we all sat there together in Michael and Ben’s living room. Ben made a pot of coffee, and there was a sandwich tray and a plate of lemon bars that I recognized as being from the Liberty Diner sitting in the middle of their kitchen table.

I kept watching Brian with Michael, noticing that he seemed like a completely different person than the one I’d been with back in New York and on the plane, or even in the car on the way over to Michael and Ben’s. He appeared to have shifted into a caretaker role the second we came through the door -- now, he was being strong for Michael. But that was making me dread what would happen later when he finally let go of all that he was holding back. And I knew he was holding a lot back.

It was a little past midnight when Ben brought Emmett another cup of coffee and said, “You know, Deb would hate all of us sitting around here being sad over her.”

“She’d probably be the one telling us to get the fuck over it already,” Ted said, staring into his own coffee cup.

“So why don’t we share some good memories? Let’s think of her and smile,” Ben said. “I’ll start. I’m grateful that she brought Hunter back to us. When Michael was in the hospital after the bombing, Deb was the one who took him aside and made him think about whether or not he really wanted to go back to Florida, or if he’d rather stay here with us. He chose to stay, and it was all because of her. She changed his mind.”

My eye was drawn to Brian beside of me, who was absently running the tip of his left thumb up and down his thigh, staring down at the floor in front of him, his eyes dark. He was clearly somewhere else, but I wasn’t sure where. I reached out and took his other hand, squeezing it. He looked over at me and gave me a look that tried to say, “I’m okay,” but really didn’t.

“How about her gaudy Christmas display she’d put out in the yard every year?” Ted said. “I’m surprised her neighbors didn’t pass around a petition to make her cease and desist. I mean, bears in leather? Come on.”

We all laughed, remembering how ridiculous Deb’s yard had always looked every November and December (and sometimes well into January), with dozens of lighted displays and multicolored lights on every surface of the outside of the house -- a sharp contrast to the person who lived in the other half of the duplex who never decorated at all. I guess maybe they felt like they didn’t have to -- Deb decorated enough for both of them.

“She always had an open heart and an open home,” Emmett said. “That’s what I’ll always remember about her. Sometimes she gave some tough love, but she was always there to help you whenever you needed it.”

“Yeah, she helped everyone,” Brian said, his tone strangely bitter. “But what the fuck did any of us do for her? Sit around and tell stupid stories?” He pulled his fingers out of my grip and ran his hand over his mouth. Everyone in the room was looking at him, their faces full of confusion and surprise, save for Michael, who just looked sad. “I need some air,” Brian muttered, starting toward the front door, then going outside.

Everyone watched Brian go out the door as I got up from my chair and followed him. When I got out to the porch, Brian was sitting right outside the door, slumped forward with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. I could tell by the way his shoulders were shaking that he was crying, even though he wasn’t making a sound.

I grabbed one of the chairs that sat to the left side of the front door and pulled it over closer so I could sit next to Brian. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him in close to me, and soon his arms were around me as well.

“Why don’t we go home?” I said softly. “You’re exhausted. We can come back in the morning.”

Brian let go and pushed away from me a little, raising his head to look at me as he said, “No. I just… I need a minute. I’m okay.”

“You’re not okay.”

Brian didn’t say anything to that. We both knew he wasn’t okay. But I also knew that he felt it was his duty to be there for Michael, no matter what. I watched as he wiped his tears, rubbed at his cheeks roughly with his palms, and took a few deep breaths -- transitioning into what he felt he needed to be at that moment, which was worlds away from what he actually needed. What he needed was to let go of what he was holding on to, and sit with Michael for awhile and just cry and grieve together, instead of trying to stuff down all of his own pain in an effort to be strong for Michael. But I knew there would be no convincing him of that.

I followed Brian back into the living room and took back my seat while Brian got himself positioned between me and Michael again. We’d come in to laughter, but Brian still looked like he was ready to break down at any moment. I saw it, and I was pretty sure everyone else saw it too, but no one said a word.

Brian spent the next hour disengaged, just sitting there, not saying anything, most of the time staring at his hands or the floor, while everyone else shared stories and happy memories of Deb. I couldn’t bring myself to pay attention to any of them, because my focus was on Brian -- on making sure he was okay. I was so absorbed in that task that I didn’t hear what was said that made Michael break down and sent Brian into action, soothing and comforting Michael alongside the others, now back in full caregiver mode until Ben took over, helping Michael up from the couch and taking him upstairs.

Ben came halfway back down the stairs a few minutes later, just far enough to see us all to tell us that he was going to try to get Michael to lie down for a while, but we were all welcome to stay for as long as we liked. It wasn’t long, though, before everyone else decided to head home for the night, which meant Brian and I were finally headed back to our house as well.

I hadn’t really thought about how long Brian had been up until I heard his pained grunt as he got into the car at Michael’s and then out of the car again at our place. I remembered his alarm going off at 5 a.m., so by that point, he’d been up for more than 20 hours, and in his wheelchair for most of it, which we both knew was a quick ticket to exhaustion and pain for Brian.

A light had been left on for us in our living room, and there was a note on the kitchen counter from my mom, telling us that she’d picked up a few things for us at the grocery store. When I opened the fridge, I saw that my mom’s definition of “a few things” had still not changed over the years, because it was practically overflowing with food, and I was thankful that I had sent her a quick text message while we were on our way to the airport, because it was nice to not have to worry about things like that.

I’d tried to get Brian to eat something at Michael’s, but he told me both times I asked that he wasn’t hungry. The look on his face as he sat there in the kitchen -- zoned out and bone tired -- told me that there was no way I was getting him to eat anything tonight, even though we’d never had dinner. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him looking that spent, even when he was sick.

I closed the refrigerator door and turned back toward Brian. My heart was aching for him, and I wished there was something I could do to make this easier, even though I knew that was impossible. I hurt for all of us, really, but from what I’d seen tonight, it seemed like Brian was taking this harder than anyone -- Michael included. The only difference was that Michael was the one who had broken down, and Brian had been fighting to hold it all in. He still was, sitting just a few feet from me in the middle of our kitchen.

“Do you want anything?” I said, figuring I would offer, knowing that it was a long shot. “Food? Water?”

Just as I thought he would, Brian shook his head. I knew he probably wouldn’t drink water this late at night anyhow, but I wasn’t sure he’d had anything to drink since we left New York, since he’d turned down coffee at Michael’s. I made a mental note to myself that I was going to have to be extra vigilant the next few days to be sure Brian was taking care of himself, while at the same time, trying to process my own grief.

Brian’s grief ran much deeper, but that didn’t mean mine wasn’t there, and I knew the next few days would be a delicate balance of not letting myself replicate what I’d seen earlier that night with Brian -- setting my own needs aside for his, to my own detriment.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” Brian mumbled, running his fingers through his hair before he turned and went toward the bedroom. I followed him, pushing our suitcases along, and watched as he stripped his shirt off, then started working his pants down, which he barely had the energy to do at that point.

I wasn’t sure whether or not he’d want to shower together, but he left the bathroom door open, so I took that as an invitation -- one that I was glad for, because I wanted to take care of my partner tonight.

I pulled towels out of the linen closet while I watched Brian transfer to the built-in seat in the shower, depending more on the grab bar to pull himself over than I’d seen him do in a long time. He held onto it while he leaned forward to turn the water on, then leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, letting the water run over him.

I quickly stripped my own clothing off and stepped into the spray of the second shower head -- grateful for this shower that Brian had obviously had designed with two people in mind.

Brian was tiredly reaching for the shampoo when I took his hand and laid it back in his lap.

“I’ll take care of everything,” I said. “You just relax.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes while I washed his hair and then his body. I couldn’t tell if this was all just fatigue, or if the emotional numbness was back as well. I was using the handheld sprayer to rinse Brian off when I felt my own emotions start to bubble over.

Thankfully, Brian seemed too lost in his own tiredness to notice me sniffling and wiping my eyes as I thought about what it really meant that we were never going to see Debbie again. Her smile, her red wig, her gaudy jewelry, and her funny t-shirts. Never again would she be calling us just to check in and give us unsolicited advice like mothers do. I wondered how hard it was going to be for Brian on his birthday next year when she didn’t call him to sing. How hard Christmas was going to be for all of us in less than two months’ time. How different everything would be from here on out -- every holiday, every moment, every day.

Our world had been changed forever -- swapped for one without Debbie Novotny in it.

I stood there under the shower spray, letting the water run down my face and my body, mingling with the tears that were running silently down my face. Brian was still sitting with his back against the wall, eyes closed, looking like he was ready to fall asleep right there. I hoped he would be able to get some rest tonight -- I knew he needed it. We both did.

Sleep, however, didn’t come as easily as I had hoped it would.

I watched as Brian tiredly pulled his legs up onto the bed, one at a time, then crossed them at the ankles and rolled himself over onto his stomach. He breathed out and closed his eyes, and I laid my arm across his back, running my fingers lightly over his shoulder as I closed my own eyes and tried to settle into sleep.

But Brian was restless, moving around and shifting positions under my arm.

“You okay?” I asked, after several minutes of Brian moving and shifting and sighing and grunting.

He stopped moving, but he didn’t say anything at first. It probably took him a full minute to speak, and when he did, it was barely a whisper.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do this,” he said, his voice so small and sounding not at all like Brian. The last time I’d heard him sound like this was outside of Babylon on the night of the bombing. “I know I have to. But I don’t know how.”

I rolled over onto my side so that I was facing him, using my arm to pull our bodies closer. “You don’t have to know how. You’ve got all of us with you,” I said. “You’re not alone. We’ll figure it out together.”

I could see the tears shining in his eyes as he blinked slowly, biting his lip. “I couldn’t even listen to people tell stories about her,” he said, “because all it reminded me of was how Claire tried to do the same thing after Pop’s funeral, and no one really had anything to share. Nothing genuine, anyway. Not even my goddamned mother, and she was fucking married to him. When he died it was…” Brian paused and closed his eyes for a couple of seconds. “I don’t know, it was almost relief. Letting go of the baggage, and all of the pain he’d caused me. Knowing he could never do it again.”

I kept running my fingers over Brian’s shoulder as he spoke. I hadn’t been there for his father’s funeral -- at that point, we weren’t really together yet, although Brian had long since stopped referring to me as his stalker and seemed to even like me a little bit. I was still in high school, and at the time I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have one of my parents die. I still couldn’t. I remember that I didn’t really know what to say to him then, and I didn’t know what to say to him now, but I was thankful he was talking to me. Opening up, even a little.

“But with Deb… there’s this… hole.” His voice was getting softer and softer. He closed his eyes and turned his face toward the pillow. “And it hurts.”

Brian’s body trembled under my arm as the dam he’d built around his emotions broke, and everything he’d been holding back for the past several hours came flooding out. His breath was coming in short, shaky gasps, as he pushed his face into the pillow. I tried to get as close to him as I possibly could -- holding him, rubbing his back, kissing his shoulder. Just letting him know I was there.

I was back to not being able to imagine how he felt, because I’d never been there. My mother was alive. My father might as well have been dead to me, but there was no love lost between us. To be honest, I wasn’t sure Brian had ever been there before either -- losing someone he cared about so deeply, who cared about him just as much.

I didn’t say anything to Brian for a long time because I didn’t want him to feel like he needed to pull himself together for me. I didn’t want to tell him it would be okay, because I knew it really wasn’t. He needed to let this go, and I wanted him to be able to do that. Most of all, I wanted him to feel safe doing it. To know that he didn’t have to pretend with me. He could be exactly as he was, no matter what that was, and it was fine. I’d be there to love and support him through it all.

I tried my best to comfort him as he cried, but every touch and caress only made him cry harder. And as much as I knew he needed to let go, I knew he also needed to get some rest.

“Did you bring your sleeping pills?” I asked softly, after he’d cried for most of an hour, with his pain only seeming to intensify with the passage of time. I could tell how desperately he wanted to check out for a while -- to feel nothing at all -- and I wanted that for him just as badly.

“I don’t want to take one this late,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “I want to get up early to go to Michael’s, so I can help him.”

I sighed quietly to myself, wishing I could find the right words to say to convince Brian that he needed to take care of himself so he could be there for Michael, but knowing that there probably wasn’t anything I could say that would accomplish that.

“You need to sleep,” I whispered, slipping my right arm under Brian’s body so I could hold him, savoring the feel of his body against mine as I felt him lean into my touch. He turned his face towards mine, tear tracks staining his cheeks. I pressed our foreheads together. “I’m right here,” I said. “You’re not alone.”

I felt his body tremble slightly as he started to cry again, and I felt tears start to fall from my own eyes too as his right arm wrapped around my back, hugging me close.

That night, we cried ourselves to sleep.

The next morning, I don’t think either of us felt like we’d slept at all.

Brian was up before I was, and I laid in bed, listening to him in the bathroom, going about his morning routine. Early morning light was just beginning to peek through the blinds in our bedroom, which happened to be turned just the right way to get most of the sun in the morning. Brian usually hated it, but judging by the streak of sunlight that was stretching across his pillow, I guessed that morning it had been to his benefit, helping him to wake up so that he could go do whatever it was he felt he needed to do for Michael.

We’d only briefly talked about funeral plans the night before, because Michael had broken down into tears at the prospect, and Ben had gently suggested that we wait until morning to try to take care of all of that. Michael did manage to say, however, that Deb had planned everything already after Carl had passed away, because she didn’t want him to have to go through what she had while trying to plan Carl’s. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to sit in an office and try to figure out what another person’s last wishes would have been, nor would I want Michael, Ben, Brian or anyone else to have to do that for Debbie. Not to mention what a tall order it would be to even begin to do such a thing for Debbie Novotny -- a woman who had lived her life in the most non-traditional way possible, and who deserved a send-off just as unique as she was. It was best that she had made those decisions on her own.

I pushed myself up to a sitting position, trying to clear the thick fog from my brain just like I did every morning now -- a lingering effect from my accident that was always worse if I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. I put my feet on the floor, stood, and stretched, then padded into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee while I waited for Brian to finish in the bathroom so I could take a piss.

He emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later fully dressed -- jeans, a sweater, and boots -- with his hair done, looking ready for the day, and nothing at all like the man I’d spent the night holding as we both cried. I knew that man was still underneath of Brian’s perfectly poised exterior, though. He’d merely put on his armor.

I did what I needed to do and came back out still in my pajamas, looking every bit as out-of-sorts as I felt. Thankfully, by then the coffee was done. I was going to need a lot of it to even begin to get through the day.

I made us both breakfast -- mentally thanking my mother for leaving enough food to feed a small army in our refrigerator -- and we ate in silence. There wasn’t really anything that needed to be said. There probably wasn’t much that we could say, anyhow.

The whole situation sucked. It was bound to happen eventually, and I think on some level we all knew that, but being right in the middle of it still felt surreal.

I picked at my plate, feeling the first pulses of a headache starting behind my eyes -- another side effect of not getting enough sleep. Now Brian was the one asking me if I was okay. I wasn’t, and normally it wouldn’t have taken much to get me to agree to go back to bed, but that wasn’t really an option, given that I had to be the one driving if Brian was going anywhere in our rental car. I told him that, and he looked pissed, but he stopped trying to convince me to go lie back down.

I yawned as I stood up from my chair and scraped what was left of my breakfast into the trash can before I went to get dressed. When I came out, Brian was nowhere in the house -- I found him in the driveway, sitting in the driver’s seat of our rental car, installing his portable hand controls.

“Brian,” I sighed, rubbing my fingers over the space between my eyes and wishing this headache would go away because I needed to be able to function. “You can’t do that.”

“Fuck that guy and fuck what he said.” Brian finished tightening the wing nuts that would secure the device to the pedals and sat up straight. I could see in his eyes how little use it was going to be to argue with him, but my tendency to worry pushed me to anyway.

“What if you get in an accident? You’re not covered by the insurance.”

“Then I’ll buy them a new car.”

“Brian--”

“I should probably just buy my own damn car to keep here, if I’m not going to be able to rent one now without a damn escort.” Brian was continuing on as if I hadn’t spoken at all. “I could do that and leave it in the garage, and have Mikey drive it once a week so long as he promises not to get it fucking vandalized.”

I knew exactly what this was -- this was Brian getting agitated over something irrelevant just to have something else to focus on. I pinched the bridge of my nose and squeezed my eyes shut as a stronger pulse of pain worked its way through my head -- the sunlight was starting to get to me. That was what got Brian’s attention, and he stopped mid-unintelligible-grumble the second he saw it.

“Justin,” he said, his tone suddenly much softer. “Please, go lie down. You don’t have to go with me. I’m okay. I promise I won’t get in an accident.”

“You don’t know that. That’s kind of what ‘accident’ means -- you don’t know it’s going to happen.” I rolled my eyes and tried to ignore the pain in my head, but that was getting steadily more difficult. I really didn’t want to let Brian go by himself, but it was becoming apparent that my head had other plans, and I knew he was right -- I should go lie down, even though it made me nervous that Brian was going to take off in the car without me. Particularly since his mood the day before had turned on a dime several times, and today was likely to be much the same. I didn’t have the brain space at that moment to entertain the various options, though -- I was too tired, and I was quickly realizing that I really, really didn’t feel good.

“Well, I’ll try my best not to,” Brian said, gently bringing me back to reality. He hoisted himself from the car back to his wheelchair and took my hand, pulling me back toward the house, where he led me back to the bedroom and practically pushed me down onto the bed -- still gentle, but insistent. He dug my medication out of my suitcase, opened the bottle, and palmed a couple, handing them to me before he went to get me a glass of water, which he left on the nightstand. “You rest here, and I’ll be back this afternoon.” He laid his hand over mine and squeezed it reassuringly.

“Okay,” I whispered, the pain in my head having escalated quickly enough that I really wasn’t inclined to argue anymore. Not that Brian was going to take no for an answer.

He leaned in and kissed my forehead -- one of those sweet things Brian does just for me that he’d probably kill me for telling anyone else about -- then squeezed my hand again and said, “I love you,” before he turned and left the room.

I heard the car start outside just before I closed my eyes and let myself drift off to sleep.

When I woke up, my mom was sitting in the armchair in the corner. But she wasn't holding a book or her phone or anything else. She was just looking at me.

“Were you watching me sleep?” I asked, rubbing my eyes. My head felt a little better, though I was still tired and a bit… unsettled.

She smiled. “Maybe.”

“I’ll pretend that's not creepy,” I laughed.

“Hey, a mom always loves to watch over her baby.”

“I’m not the baby, though. That’s Molly.”

“You’ll both always be my babies.”

I pushed myself up into a sitting position, propping myself up on pillows. God, I still felt like I was in a fog. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“Brian asked me to check on you. He said you weren't feeling well.”

Yet another one of those sweet things that I knew to be very much Brian that few people outside of our inner circle would ever believe.

“What time is it?” I mumbled, suppressing a yawn.

She glanced at her watch and said, “11:15.”

“Jesus,” I said. “I don't even remember what time Brian left.”

“He called me a little after nine. Said he was sitting outside of Michael's house. How is Michael?”

“About as good as could be expected, I guess.” I sighed. “I don't know how he's doing it. I can't even begin to imagine losing you.”

“Well, I hope I've got at least a couple of good decades left in me. But you never know.”

“No, you don't.” Brian and I knew that better than anyone, what with three near-death experiences between us.

“Anyway, my point is I don't want you to have to worry about that for a long time.” She paused for a moment, then added, “How's Brian?”

I truly had no idea how to answer that question. I honestly wasn't sure how Brian was. Sometimes he was numb, sometimes he was angry... sometimes he was more devastated than I’d ever seen him.

“Not okay,” I said. That was the only way I could think of to put it into words.

“She meant a lot to him. And I know he meant a lot to her.”

My stomach chose that moment to growl loudly, reminding me that I’d never really had dinner the night before and I’d barely eaten breakfast that morning. Mom laughed and smiled.

“Come on,” she said, getting up from the chair and walking over to me, extending her hand to help me up. “I’ll make you some lunch.”

I sat at the table while my mother made me a grilled cheese sandwich and generally made me feel like a little kid again, which was comforting. She made herself a cup of tea and sat down across from me.

“Debbie meant a lot to everybody,” I said. “This whole community. I think that’s why I can’t wrap my head around it. It’s like… who’s going to take her place?”

“I don’t think there’s anybody who could ever come close. And that’s okay. I wouldn’t want there to be another Debbie.”

“The world kind of would have been a scary place if there were two of them, huh?” I smiled and took a bite of my sandwich.

“I’ll never forget the night she and Michael showed up at my door with you, bringing you home. I know I wasn’t the friendliest that night, but it really meant a lot to me that she put herself out there. Told me that she was there for me if I ever needed to talk. At the time, I couldn’t imagine ever reaching out to this red-headed woman standing on my porch in her red aztec print coat and flowered shirt, but a few days later, I did. She helped me so much when I felt lost, when you came out. I’ll always be grateful for her support.”

“I’m just thankful to have a mom who really cares about me. You loved me even when it wasn’t easy. Even when I was a brat. Debbie did too. When I felt like I couldn’t go home, she invited me to stay. Made me feel welcome. I sort of felt like I had two moms.”

“You did, sweetheart.” Mom laid her hand over mine.

“I’m really going to miss her.” I felt the lump in my throat before the tears sprang to my eyes, and before long, I was crying in my mother’s arms -- something I hadn’t done in a long, long time. But it felt almost cleansing. Comforting. Like it was just something that I needed to do. I’d been spending so much of my time thinking about Brian and taking care of Brian, that I hadn’t been able to feel my own feelings -- not really.

Mom didn’t say anything to me, much like I hadn’t said anything to Brian the night before. She just held me until my breathing slowed back to normal and the tears stopped flowing.

“Thanks,” I said, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand when I’d finally calmed down enough to speak. “I needed that.”

“I know, honey.” She smiled at me sadly. “You can’t just keep it inside.”

“I know,” I sighed. “I’m worried about Brian, though. I don’t think he knows what’s hit him, or how to deal with it. Hell, I’m not sure I know how to deal with it. And I think there's a lot he's not telling me.”

“All you can do is be there for each other. You’ll get through it together. We all will.”

“I know that too, but he’s hardly eating or drinking anything, and I don’t know if he slept last night at all. I’m afraid he’s going to make himself sick again.”

At that moment, I heard the front door open, and seconds later, Brian was next to me, wrapping his arms around my shoulders from behind and giving me a kiss on the cheek.

“Hey,” he said softly. “How’s your head?”

“A little better.”

“Good.”

I could feel the tension radiating from Brian’s body. I knew what he’d been doing that morning -- accompanying Michael and Ben to meet with the funeral director -- so I knew what he was probably about to tell me. And I could tell how much he didn’t want to do it. He took a deep breath before he spoke again.

“So it looks like the visitation is going to be Monday, with the church service and a private burial on Tuesday,” he said, still holding onto me. “Rob and Adam are flying in tomorrow. They’re bringing the girls. I told Rob they could all stay here with us. I hope that’s okay. If it’s not, I’ll get them a hotel.”

“It’s fine,” I said, wrapping my own hands around his, which were clasped in front of my chest. “I’d rather we all be together. They’re family too.” They might not have known Deb as well as Brian and I did, but they certainly cared about her and recognized the importance she had in Brian’s life as well as mine.

Discussing the arrangements was yet another piece in the puzzle of making the events of the last 24 hours feel real -- perhaps a little too real. I was sure it probably felt that way for Brian as well.

“I also had something else I wanted to talk to you about,” he said, letting me go and maneuvering himself so that he was sitting between me and mom. He looked nervous, which was odd. “We were talking about what to do after the service on Tuesday, and I had an idea.” He picked up the spoon Mom had been using to stir her tea and started fidgeting with it, like he was looking for a distraction. “What if we invited everyone over to the Liberty Diner? I’ll pay for it, sort of an ‘open diner’ thing where people can get what they want. It just seems like her. And better than a potluck in the church basement.”

“I think that’s perfect.” I smiled, trying to reassure Brian, who was obviously very uncomfortable with talking about this. “I want to chip in too. And you’re letting me.”

“Me too,” my mom cut in. “It sounds like the perfect tribute. The diner was so much a part of her, and she was a huge part of it. I think we’ll all miss having our morning coffee with a side of unsolicited motherly advice.”

“Well, that’s settled then.” Brian rubbed his palms over his thighs, skipping right over Mom’s memory of Deb that I knew Brian shared because I’d witnessed it myself on more than one occasion. “I just wanted to come by and check on you, and run that idea by you before I said anything to anyone else. Mel and Linds are at Michael’s with Gus and Jenny Rebecca. Hunter’s there too. I’m going to head over in a few minutes if you want to go too.”

I wanted to go, but I really wanted a shower first, in hopes that it would help me wake up and get the fuck out of the awful brain fog I was experiencing. And I wanted to be with Brian -- I wanted to be with our family. So I left my mom and Brian in the kitchen -- hoping she might be able to get Brian to eat something -- and went into our bedroom to get a change of clothes before continuing on to the bathroom, where I made good use of Brian’s fancy custom-designed shower. It felt positively sublime, and I did feel a lot more awake when I was finished. It was funny how something so simple could make such a huge difference.

The entire time, however, I was also trying not to think too much about what Brian was masking -- what emotion he was stuffing down -- with all of this action, and what might happen when he couldn’t hold it back anymore. He was clearly keeping himself busy with all of these tasks and all of the running around, and I knew it was because he just didn’t want to think.

When I came out of the bathroom, I was surprised to see Brian stretched out in bed, his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

“Your mom sent me in here,” he said, turning his head slightly to face me, before I could even ask if he was alright. “She’s making me food. And making me drink that.” He unfolded one of his arms and gestured toward the bottle of water on the nightstand. “Told me she didn’t care what I did but I was going to be horizontal while I did it.”

I could think of a lot of things we could do while Brian was horizontal, but none of them seemed appropriate at that moment. I wasn’t surprised Mom had told Brian any of those things, but I was a little surprised that he’d listened.

“She’s right,” he said, as if he’d somehow heard my thoughts. “I don’t want to be sick again. That fucking sucked.”

Brian took a few gulps from the water bottle and laid back down, looking at the ceiling again. It was easy to tell how much stress Brian was carrying in his body simply from looking at his face -- the way his jaw was set, and his brow slightly furrowed.

“Want a back rub?” I asked, wanting to do something to try to help my husband, even though I knew my options were limited and there probably wasn’t much I could do to relieve his pain, since it was more emotional than physical.

Brian rolled over without saying a word, and I climbed up onto the bed alongside him, carefully working my hands over the taut muscles in his back. After a few minutes, I started to feel the slow transition in Brian’s breathing, from short and shallow to deep and even -- he was asleep. And I was relieved, because I knew he needed it.

I kept massaging for a little while longer, then laid down next to Brian, being careful not to wake him. I wondered how we were going to get through the next few days -- completing the actual actions of saying goodbye to Debbie. Going through the rituals that were intended to comfort the living, that I knew weren’t really going to be of any comfort at all. Not for Brian, not for me, not for any of us.

But my mom was right -- we’d all get through it together. We still had each other.

I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and looked over to see my mom leaning against the doorway, smiling.

“I made him a salad,” she whispered as she approached the bed. “I’ll put it in the fridge. And I’ll see you both later. Call me if you need anything.” She reached out and brushed my hair off my forehead, the way she’d always done since I was a kid, then caressed my cheek. “Love you.” She bent down and kissed my cheek.

“Love you too,” I whispered back. “Thanks.”

“Anytime. That’s what moms do.”

I smiled at her as she turned and left the room, grateful that I still had her. That we both did.

I woke Brian up about an hour later, as much as I hated to do it. He needed to sleep, but I also knew that he would kill me if I let him sleep all afternoon. So an hour seemed like the happiest balance I could strike at that moment -- though it came along with the hope that I might be able to get Brian to go to bed earlier tonight than he had the night before. We ate, and then we went to Michael and Ben’s, which still felt like a bit of a surreal experience, having everyone together at the same time, and not on a holiday. Now that we’d all sort of moved on and had lives of our own, family dinners where everyone was present were pretty rare, and generally only happened on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

But on that Saturday night in October, we were all there, gathered in Michael and Ben’s cozy living room, their dining room table covered in food that had been brought over by the neighbors, most of whom were gay couples who knew Debbie or at least knew of her. All afternoon, people kept stopping by to offer their condolences. And all afternoon, I watched Brian try to keep his own feelings at bay for what I assumed was Michael’s benefit, all the while knowing that I’d be the one holding him when he fell apart later.

It was nice to be with everyone, though. Enjoying each other’s company as we mourned together. Brian spent most of the afternoon on the couch with Gus and Lindsay, save for the times when he needed to use the restroom, which wasn’t the best arrangement because Michael and Ben’s house was old, but he seemed to be making it work. Every time he’d go in there and come out, though, I could tell he’d spent at least some of the time he was in there releasing some of his pent-up emotions.

I didn’t understand why he wasn’t willing to cry in front of Michael. Why it was such a big deal in his mind that he needed to be the strong one in this situation. He didn’t need to be -- we were all supporting each other, and he had as much of a right to be sad as any of the rest of us did. He didn’t need to pretend to be okay when he really wasn’t. But I also knew that Brian was stubborn enough that there would be no convincing him otherwise.

We did make it home earlier that night, which I was thankful for. I was still feeling tired and out of sorts, and I figured Brian was probably pretty close to his breaking point. Thankfully, there was enough food at Michael and Ben’s that I didn’t have to cook anything when we got home, although Brian’s appetite was still almost nonexistent.

It didn’t take any convincing to get Brian into bed early, after a slow, gentle fuck in the shower, just to be with each other, connected and intimate. Sex had always been an effective stress release for Brian, and it still was, even though things were different now. I knew there were tears mingling with the hot water as it cascaded down on both of our bodies, but that didn’t matter. It was cleansing -- physically, mentally, and emotionally. We both needed that.

We fell asleep quickly that night, holding each other in the warmth and comfort of our home.

When I awoke the next morning, Brian was already awake, lying on his side, looking at me.

“Morning,” he said, trying to smile, but I could see something else in his eyes. Something aside from the sadness and the intense sense of loss that we were both feeling. This was the look Brian got in his eyes when his nerve pain ramped up to the point of distraction. A look that was usually accompanied by a twitch in Brian’s jaw and a tightness in his voice -- both of which were also present at the moment. This was the price Brian typically paid for not getting enough sleep. It was almost always his body’s initial protest -- the proverbial canary in the coal mine that told him he was headed in the wrong direction.

Thankfully, it was a protest he no longer ignored.

He closed his eyes and held his breath through what I knew was a stronger wave of whatever he was feeling. This pain ebbed and flowed. Sometimes it was burning, sometimes it was stinging, and sometimes it felt like pins and needles, but no matter what it was, it was horribly uncomfortable for Brian and there tended to not be a whole lot he could do about it. He took medication for it daily, and he had others he could take when it got really bad, but those would knock him out, so I wasn’t sure he’d be very inclined to take them.

He surprised me, though, when he got up, went to the bathroom, stayed in there for his usual thirty minutes or so, then came out and got back in bed, burying his face in the pillow with a soft moan. I rubbed his back for him again, this time being extra careful to avoid the area near his waistline that I knew would be more sensitive today. Another half hour later, it became apparent that he had taken the medication, when I felt his muscles relax under my fingers as he fell asleep again.

I pulled the duvet over Brian’s sleeping form and carefully slid out of bed, heading into the bathroom to take care of my own morning routine. When I came back out, I grabbed Brian’s phone as well as my own, so that if someone called him, it would be me they ended up talking to. He needed rest, whether he wanted to admit that or not.

I sent a quick text to Ben to let him know that I wasn’t sure if we’d be over today, hoping to head off any potential phone calls before they happened. I got a reply from him fairly quickly, telling me to take care of Brian, but also reminding me not to forget about myself and telling me to let him know if we needed anything at all. Most of all, it reminded me of what good friends we had -- how lucky we all were to have our little family.

Brian was still sleeping when Rob, Adam, and the girls arrived at the house a couple of hours later, but I knew he wouldn’t be sleeping for long after that, since a child’s version of “quiet” was a lot different from an adult’s. He joined us in the living room just as Adam was carrying in the last of their bags and was immediately attacked with a bear hug from Sophia that I was afraid might end up being painful, but if it was, he didn’t seem to mind. When she let him go and slid down off his lap, I saw the first genuine smile I’d seen from him in three days. Esme was quite a bit more cautious, as she always was, but her hug was just as well received.

The hug Rob and Brian shared was long -- reminiscent of the one Brian had shared with Michael when we’d first arrived in Pittsburgh, although instead of both of them clinging to one another like it had been with Michael, this was just Brian clinging to Rob. I knew Rob was another person Brian would be willing to be “real” with, so I was grateful they were there.

Rob immediately took on the caregiver role -- showing his midwestern nature that Brian always teased him about. He made sure Brian and I had everything we needed, and started turning the food my mom had stocked our refrigerator with into things we could eat with very little effort. It was nice to have someone else taking care of both of us, so I wouldn’t have to keep trying to find the balance of making sure Brian was okay while simultaneously making sure I wasn’t neglecting myself. Much like Brian’s nerve pain, my headache the day before had been my warning sign that I needed to do things a little bit differently.

However, I knew the next couple of days were going to be hard to get through, no matter how we felt.

I was also so, so thankful Rob and Adam had brought Esme and Sophia. I never could have imagined what a benefit their distraction would provide, but just sitting in the living room drawing a picture or two with Esme had transported me to a place where I felt like I didn’t have a care in the world, at least for a few minutes at a time. And I hadn’t realized how much I needed that.

Brian was at the kitchen table, talking quietly to Rob, who was busy transforming vegetables into soup, while Esme and I worked on a drawing and Sophia took a nap. Adam was out for a run, since they’d left New York very early in the morning and he hadn’t been able to do it before they left. All in all, it was a peaceful moment in the midst of the chaos we’d been swept into on Friday afternoon.

Eventually, Sophia wandered out of the bedroom, rubbing her eyes, and joined Esme and me on the floor of the living room. But her attention span was short lived, running out once she was fully awake and back to her normal energy level. Soon, she was standing in the kitchen, tapping Brian on the arm and saying, “Uncle Brian, will you take me to the park? The one I saw down the street?”

Rob put down the spoon he’d been using to stir the soup and turned around. “Soph,” he said patiently, “I told you Daddy or I would take you later.”

“But I wanna go now,” she whined.

“I can't take you right now. I'm busy, and Daddy isn't back yet. Maybe he can take you when he gets back, if you're good.”

“I'll take her,” Brian said, already disengaging his brakes and backing up from the table. “I could use some air.”

“Yeah, we need air,” Sophia mimicked matter-of-factly, her hands on her hips.

I chuckled, imagining what she was going to be like as a teenager, considering how much of a spitfire she already was at only six.

“You sure?” Rob asked, giving Brian a questioning look. “She's a handful.” Rob also knew exactly what Brian had going on today -- with the added benefit of having experienced it himself -- so I was sure that was playing into his hesitation.

Brian shrugged. “It's fine.”

“Okay,” Rob agreed, though I could tell he was reluctant. He gestured for Sophia to come closer to him and put his hands on her shoulders, saying things to her in a low voice that I couldn't hear.

She kept nodding, then said, “I promise.”

“Why don’t we go too?” I said, gesturing to myself and Esme. I hoped that it might help alleviate some of Rob’s apprehension, if both Brian and I would be there. To be honest, I was also a little unsure about Brian going alone, because I could see that he still wasn’t feeling great. “That would be fun, right?” I turned to Esme and smiled.

The look on Esme’s face, however, told me exactly how not-fun she thought my idea was. “I just wanted to draw,” she said, sounding dejected, her shoulders slumping forward as she looked down at her sketch.

“We can find something to draw at the park,” I said, keeping my tone upbeat and positive. The park near our house in Pittsburgh was small, with just a couple of swings and a slide and a set of monkey bars, but I knew it would be a good opportunity for Sophia to run off some of her energy.

With a little prodding from Rob, Esme was eventually convinced to go with us, and she and I sat on a bench, drawing the fall wildflowers that made up part of the border between the park and the yard next door. Sophia, meanwhile, ran around the playground, giggling and squealing. Brian pushed her on a swing for a bit, until she got herself swinging high enough that he couldn’t reach her, then they moved on to the slide, where he sat at the bottom and “caught” her each time she came down. Most of all, though, I noticed the smile on Brian’s face, and I knew he was feeling the same thing I had when Esme and I started drawing in the living room -- a much-needed reprieve from the heavy emotion of the last couple of days.

After awhile, Brian and Sophia ended up sitting on the grass together, talking and laughing and pointing at things around the park, while Esme and I worked on our sketch with the colored pencils I’d brought.

We stayed at the park for well over an hour before making our way back to the house, where Rob’s vegetable soup was smelling delicious. We invited Michael and Ben over for dinner and spent a couple of hours chatting in the living room before we all parted ways -- Michael and Ben back to their house, Rob and Adam to their bedroom to get the girls ready for bed, and Brian and I to our own room.

Brian and I had showered and were lying in bed, me absently running my hand over the smooth, still slightly damp skin of his back, when Brian suddenly spoke, his voice soft and pensive. “She asked me if Debbie went to heaven.” I could clearly hear the emotion behind his words. “When we were at the park.”

“What did you tell her?” I asked gently, wondering where this conversation was headed, but already having an inkling that it might not be good.

“I told her yes, I guess she did.” He sighed. “But I don’t know. I’ve never…” He stopped and took a breath. When he exhaled, it was shaky. “I’ve never had to think about this.”

I kept running my hand up and down Brian’s back. Brian and I never really talked about religion. It was a painful subject for him, to say the least, given that his biological mother had used her own religion as an excuse to not accept her only son.

“I guess I need for there to be something,” he whispered. “Even if it’s just that she’s out there among the stars.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that.” I wrapped my arm around Brian and pulled our bodies close. This was something I hadn’t thought much about either, but I completely understood his need to feel like there was somewhere for Debbie’s kind, loving spirit to have gone when it left her earthly body -- that it hadn’t just faded away into nothing. “I think you’re right. She’s out there among the stars, shining bright, just like she always did.”

Brian gave me a half smile, and I could see the tears glistening in his eyes before he closed them. “I like that,” he said, his voice barely audible.

I kept my arm around Brian long after his breathing had evened out and he’d gone to sleep, before I rolled over onto my back and looked up at the ceiling, imagining the night sky beyond it. Thinking of Debbie, out there among the stars, as I sent up a silent prayer for the strength I knew we would need to get through the next 48 hours.

The next morning, neither Brian nor I wanted to get out of bed. Neither of us wanted to start this day. But we had to. We didn’t have a choice.

I ended up being the first one to drag myself out of bed, leaving Brian lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. I knew he was dreading the events of the day just as much as I was -- I could feel it in the slight hesitancy of the good morning kiss he’d given me, as if he didn’t want to admit it was morning at all.

When I made it out into the living room, I found Rob’s empty wheelchair by the window and Rob on the floor on his yoga mat, sitting in a deep forward fold. He lifted his head when I came into the room and gestured toward the kitchen. “Coffee’s almost done,” he said quietly. “I’ll start breakfast when more people are awake.”

I nodded and walked into the kitchen, noting that the day still didn’t quite feel real. My brain knew that today was Debbie’s visitation, but my heart didn’t want to embrace that fact. It wanted to believe that she’d come barging through the door at any moment, her arms full of breakfast casserole, the way she’d done on more than one occasion when Brian and I were in town. But that wasn’t going to happen. Not this time. Not ever again.

I pulled a mug down out of the cabinet and poured myself a cup of coffee, then grabbed the carton of half and half out of the refrigerator, where most of the food my mother had filled it up with had now been made into various prepared dishes in neat stacks of glass containers. Once my coffee was sweetened and lightened to my liking, I sat down at the table and watched Rob move through his yoga practice.

We’d been going to class together once a week, on most weeks, for more than a year, and I never ceased to be impressed with the things Rob could do on his yoga mat, and the creative ways in which he’d use blocks, blankets, or a bolster -- or whatever else he could get his hands on if he wasn’t at the yoga studio -- to help himself get into certain positions. But I also knew that it wasn’t really about the postures at all. For Rob, yoga was about natural pain relief as well as the mental benefits he got from the practice -- the mental clarity he gained from taking an hour or so to just be in his body, being mindful of all of the different sensations within it, whether they were muted, normal, or missing.

I had been getting the same things out of it, even though my physical abilities were different. I’d found that yoga calmed my mind and gave me an anchor I could return to whenever I felt overwhelmed. I often wished I could get Brian to join me, because I knew it would help with his back pain if nothing else -- although Rob swore up and down that it helped with his own nerve pain as well. But Brian never would do it -- he preferred instead to continually tease Rob about corrupting me.

I closed my eyes right there at the kitchen table and breathed along, drawing a deep breath into the tension I could feel in my body. Trying to soften it with the exhale. Taking a moment to just be present and breathe, without worrying about what was to come. Wishing I’d be able to get Brian to do the same. Today was probably the day he’d need that the most.

Brian hadn’t slept very well -- he’d been up at least twice during the night, and had even taken a shower around 3 a.m., which I knew meant he was hurting and desperate for relief. I’d been able to tell from his breathing when he was in bed that he was extremely uncomfortable. He’d been fitfully sleeping when I woke up, but my movement quickly woke him too, unfortunately.

When he joined me in the kitchen, his hair was sticking up in every direction, and I could tell by looking at him that he felt like shit. He looked exhausted. But there wasn’t any more time to sleep. We were due at the funeral home before noon for the private family viewing before the visitation, when we’d all have to be “on” for the throng of people coming to pay their respects to Deb. I was dreading that, and I knew everyone else was too.

But what we did have to look forward to was a family dinner at Debbie’s house -- one last gathering before Michael and Ben planned to sell the house to help pay some of Debbie’s final expenses. Rob and Adam had volunteered to take care of all of the food, so all we would have to do was show up -- much like it had been when Debbie was alive. What really mattered, though, was that we would all have time together as a family, in the place where we’d celebrated together, mourned together, and truly become a family.

The last 24 hours had served to remind me of how our New York family was just as important. I honestly had no idea what sort of shape Brian or I would be in if it weren’t for Rob, Adam, and their girls, stepping in to take care of whatever we needed -- on purpose, in the case of Rob and Adam, or by accident, with Esme and Sophia. I had already thanked Rob several times for everything, but he kept insisting that no thanks was required -- he was simply doing what friends do. “Friends take care of each other,” he’d said.

I knew he was right, but I still felt that Brian and I were so lucky to have met them. Just as I was lucky to have been made a part of our little Liberty Avenue family all those years ago.

Rob made us all breakfast, and we showered and got ready for the day -- at least, as ready as we ever would be. I wasn’t sure we ever could truly be ready for this. The drive over to the funeral home felt like it took forever, but I think I was okay with that, because I honestly didn’t want to go. If I could have turned back time and somehow brought Debbie back to life, I would have done it, no questions asked. But that wasn’t an option.

Eventually, we got there -- whether we wanted to or not -- and we had no choice but to get out of the car and go into the building. Brian hesitated at the front door, biting his lip and staring straight ahead, his hands gripping his wheels hard. I stopped behind him, laying my hand on his shoulder, feeling the tightness there, along with the slight hitch in his breath. After a moment, he reached forward and pulled open the door, waiting until I’d grabbed it to hold it open before he pushed himself through it. Next to the door stood a sign, printed in calligraphy, bearing Debbie’s name, that told us where to go. I didn’t want there to be a sign with her name on it in this place. Part of me still wanted to believe that none of this was real.

My heart was pounding in my chest. I’d always hated funerals, but I’d never had this sense of dread before. I had no idea how any of this was going to go. My stomach was in knots, twisted with the anxiety of being stuck in the unknown, feeling powerless.

Everything was getting far too real, and I wanted nothing more than to run.

I felt Brian’s fingers close around mine as he reached up to grab my hand, bringing me back to the present moment. Anchoring me. It was a nice reminder that I wasn’t alone -- that he was there to support me too, as much as I was supporting him.

We made our way down a short hallway, with Brian holding my hand until he couldn’t anymore, and we soon arrived at a room filled with chairs, with a couple of couches along one wall. Michael and Ben sat at the end of one of the couches, closest to the back of the room. Michael was clutching a tissue, slumped forward with his elbows resting on his knees while Ben rubbed his back. I focused all of my attention on the two of them, not wanting to look toward the front of the room, where out of the corner of my eye, I could just barely make out a casket. A casket that I knew held the body of the woman so many of us had thought of as a mother, whose sudden absence I was still having a hard time reconciling.

Brian got as close as he could to Michael, and the two of them shared a long hug. Those hugs had been frequent over the last few days. It was as if the two of them were drawing their strength from each other. I was glad they had one another -- that they always had, ever since they were boys -- but it still pained me to know what Brian was holding back. What he seemed to think he didn’t deserve to feel or show in front of anyone but me.

I stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to do or say. I felt a hand on the small of my back and turned around to find Emmett, wearing a dark purple suit, with Drew standing behind him. Emmett pulled me into a hug that felt like it should have brought me a lot more comfort than it actually did. I wasn’t sure there was anything that could have comforted me at that moment, besides Debbie herself walking through the door, alive and well.

We were all still gathered at the back of the room when Mel and Linds walked in with Gus and J.R. behind them, and when Ted and Blake arrived shortly after that. Hugs were given and hushed whispers exchanged, but none of us moved from the back of the room.

Now was our chance to say our private goodbyes. Only it was a goodbye that clearly none of us wanted to say.

Michael and Ben were the first to get up and start moving toward the front of the room. Ben’s arm was around Michael’s shoulders as they progressed slowly up the aisle between the rows of chairs. Brian turned and followed them, as if he was being pulled by gravity -- or at least, by his impulse to take care of Michael. I followed Brian, and Emmett followed me, and soon we were all gathered around the casket, looking down at the still, unmoving face of Debbie Novotny.

It was weird, looking at her in her red wig and lipstick, her mischievous, sparkling eyes hidden behind closed lids. She looked like she was sleeping -- which was strange enough in itself, because Debbie had often seemed like the woman who never slept. She didn’t need to; she was essentially superwoman. Taking care of everything and everybody.

Now, we were on our own.

I felt Brian’s arm come around my waist. I looked down at him and saw that he had his other arm around Michael. Holding both of us, in the best way he could.

I was a little surprised Debbie wasn’t wearing one of her famously irreverent t-shirts that had become the stuff of Liberty Diner legend, but I figured Michael was probably the one who’d picked out her clothes, and he’d always hated those shirts. Some of them I think she wore just to piss him off or embarrass him. She was still dressed in bright colors with her big costume jewelry though, so she was still Debbie -- just a more muted version.

Michael broke down, turning toward Ben’s waiting embrace. Brian dropped his right arm back to his lap, staring straight ahead at Debbie’s body, barely blinking. Barely even breathing. I put my arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer to me, but he didn’t even acknowledge my touch. Ben led Michael to a chair, but Brian still sat there, staring. Emmett and Ted were holding each other, while Melanie and Lindsay did the same, their eyes shimmering with tears. I felt tears well up in my own eyes as my brain tried to process the seemingly unbelievable situation I was in.

Brian was blinking back tears of his own, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths, obviously fighting hard to hold himself together. I wanted to whisper to him that it was okay to cry -- to let it go, that he didn’t have to hold onto it all -- but I couldn’t make my voice work. It was as if we were both frozen there, trying to stay strong against the flood of emotion swirling around us, trying to pull us under.

I felt Brian let go of my waist, and watched as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Then, he sat up, shrugged my hand off of his shoulder and abruptly turned, pushing himself past Melanie and Lindsay, who stumbled trying to get out of his way, and back down the aisle, then out the door. I followed behind him, not sure where he was going, as he made his way down a narrow hallway, where I could see a door at the end. This felt like someplace we shouldn’t have been going, but I’d be damned if I was going to let Brian go alone, so as long as he was still moving, I was going to keep following him.

When he got to the door, he shoved it open and we ended up outside, toward the back of the building. The heavy, metal door slammed shut behind us, and that was the moment when Brian lost his grip on his emotions. He folded in on himself, his chest heaving with the force of the sobs that seemed to be wrenching themselves out of his body, unwilling to be held back any longer. I reached out for him and held him the best I could, still wishing I could do something to somehow make this hurt less. Still knowing that there was nothing. All I could do was what I was already doing.

I closed my eyes as we embraced, feeling my own tears making their way down my cheeks. Feeling a lot less strong than I wanted to be.

We stayed outside for a long time -- holding each other, crying, sometimes talking quietly, until Brian felt ready to go back in. By then, other people were starting to come in as well, and the rest of the afternoon became a blur of shaking hands and sharing hugs with near-strangers, all of whom seemed to have a story or two or three about Debbie. I kept eyeing Brian, but for the most part, he seemed okay -- like he’d flipped a switch and was back to being perfectly put-together, though I could still see the undercurrent of emotion running just beneath the surface.

Every time I looked around the room at the crowd that had assembled to pay their respects to Debbie, I couldn’t help but smile, even in the midst of the deep sadness we all felt. There was a literal rainbow of human beings -- probably the most diverse group this funeral home had ever played host to -- all of whose lives Debbie had touched in some way.

Soon, the crowd faded away, and we all said our goodbyes before making our way back to our vehicles with the promise that we would see each other later at Deb’s. Brian slumped down in the passenger seat of our rental car, his long, loud exhale a tangible sign of the relief I knew he was feeling inside. I felt it too. As nice as it was to hear everyone’s stories and share memories of Debbie, it had also been exhausting.

Brian rubbed his palms roughly over his thighs, kneading at them, and I knew in that moment what else he'd been fighting all afternoon, because that was something he only did when his legs were really bothering him. Not that the action or the touch actually did anything to relieve it, because the origin of the pain wasn't really his legs -- it was his spinal cord, sending exaggerated messages up the line to his brain.

When we got back to the house, Rob was in the kitchen again, this time preparing food for our family dinner that would start in a couple of hours, and Adam had taken the girls to the children's museum. Brian stayed in the kitchen with us for a few minutes, fidgeting and looking uncomfortable, before he mumbled something about needing to lie down and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Part of me wanted to go in there with him, to make sure he was okay, but I also knew he probably needed some private time. This was a difficult day for all of us, and I could only imagine how much harder it was for Brian.

It still seemed like it was even harder on Brian than it was on Michael, and I wasn't sure why. I kept getting the feeling there was something Brian wasn't telling me -- something deep beneath the surface that was exacerbating Brian's feelings about letting go of Debbie. But I didn't want to ask, because I didn't want to cause him any more pain. All I could do was hope that he might tell me, in his own time. Perhaps once he was ready to face it himself.

After a few minutes, Rob encouraged me to go check on Brian, pressing a glass of water into my hand to take to him. I knocked lightly on the bedroom door, hearing a muffled response that sounded more like a moan, before I pushed it open.

Brian was lying on his side in the middle of the bed, his knees pulled up toward his chest and his arms wrapped around his head.

“Head hurts,” he breathed. “My legs hurt. Everything fucking hurts.”

“Have you taken anything?” I set the glass of water down on the nightstand, hoping that if he hadn't, I would be able to convince him to do so. He had to stop trying to push through this. His body was already screaming at him, and it was only going to scream louder if he kept ignoring it.

Brian shook his head, not moving his arms from around it.

“I'll get you something,” I said gently. Maybe if I didn't ask -- if I left him no choice -- he would do what we both knew he needed to do.

But it wasn't that easy.

“I don't want to be late for dinner,” he said, finally unwinding his arms from his head and looking at me. I could see then that he'd been crying again, and I wished harder than ever that he would just let me in, all the way. Instead, I felt an odd distance between us -- the chasm created by what I didn't know and he wasn't willing to tell me.

“If we're late, then we're late. It's okay. You need to rest for a little while, or you aren't going to make it through dinner. And you need to take your meds. This is what they’re for -- so you don’t have to suffer through this.”

“That shit makes me dizzy.”

“Then we'll stay here in bed for a couple of hours.”

We went back and forth a few more times -- Brian arguing and me trying to be the voice of reason -- before Brian's pain kept him from responding for several seconds, and I took that time to go into the bathroom and retrieve the medication that I knew Brian desperately needed. By the time I got back with it, he seemed to recognize how desperately he needed it too, and he took it without protest.

I climbed into bed and laid down behind him, closing my own eyes as I pressed my body against his back, wondering what he was keeping inside.

Wishing he'd tell me, so I could help, or at the very least, just listen.

Brian and I both must have fallen asleep, because my next recollection was feeling a hand lightly touch my shoulder, and looking over to see Rob sitting by the side of the bed. I gently untangled myself from Brian, who was still sound asleep, and rolled over onto my back, carefully and slowly, hoping I wouldn’t wake Brian up.

“We’re going to head over and drop off the food,” Rob whispered. “We’ll take the girls with us. Take your time. I’ll let everyone know where you are.”

“Thanks.” I nodded. “Tell them to go ahead and start without us. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“Will do.” Rob paused for a moment and looked over at Brian. “He’ll be okay. You both will.” Rob gave me a small smile, apparently sensing my need for reassurance that somehow we’d both get through this, even though right now that felt like it was a long ways away.

I watched as Rob turned and left the room, then I settled back onto my back. I heard Brian’s soft snore and was grateful that at least for a few moments, he had some peace. Space where he didn’t have to think, and where he wasn’t in pain -- physical or emotional.

He woke up less than an hour later -- shortly after I’d heard the front door open and close, and Rob’s hushed voice urging the girls to be quiet because Uncle Brian was sleeping. When we came out into the living room a little while after that, I figured Rob must have given them a briefing of some sort, because neither of them touched Brian, and Sophia resisted her urge to greet him in the way she usually did, by climbing into his lap and giving him a hug.

If Brian was upset at me for letting him sleep for so long, he didn’t let it show. But I knew he wouldn’t want to waste any time in getting to Debbie’s now that he was awake, so we said a brief goodbye to Rob and Adam, thanking them for helping us all pull this dinner together, and headed over to Debbie’s house one last time.

As we pulled into the alley out back, parking in the same space we’d parked in every time we’d visited for the past eleven years, I felt the heaviness -- the finality -- of what we were about to do. Many an important conversation had been had in that backyard, and many a cigarette -- both tobacco and otherwise -- had been smoked. Many a heart-to-heart had been had in that kitchen, and many a loving smack upside the head had been delivered as well. This was the house that only a few of us had called home at one point or another, but it felt like home for the rest as well, because it was always so full of love.

And that love -- Debbie’s love -- was still there, in this house, even though her physical body was not. Her spirit remained. I could feel her presence. I hoped Brian and the others could too.

When we entered the house, everyone was in the living room, talking and laughing, no doubt telling stories and sharing memories. One by one, they got up and greeted Brian and me with hugs and kisses on the cheek.

“There’s plenty of food, if you’re hungry,” Ben said.

I was, and I eagerly made myself a plate of Debbie’s lasagna, cooked by Rob in our kitchen. I offered to make a plate for Brian too, but he shook his head and said he wasn’t hungry. I wished I could get him to eat, but for the time being, I was just going to be grateful that he’d taken a couple of hours to rest. It wasn’t everything that needed to happen, but it was something.

I sat down in the recliner by the window, balancing my plate on my lap as we all told stories and just enjoyed each other’s company. Brian sat next to Michael on the couch, looking a lot more comfortable than he had just a few short hours before, though I was so attuned to him that I still noticed when his facial expression changed a bit, no doubt against his will, as he rode a wave of nerve pain.

I was about halfway through with my lasagna when Michael got up and retrieved a box from the foot of the stairs and plopped back down next to Brian, the box in his lap.

“We were going through Ma’s will, making sure everything was in order…” Michael paused and cleared his throat. “And she had some things she wanted each of you to have.”

One by one, Michael pulled items out of the box and handed them to their intended recipients. Some of them were framed photographs, while others were little trinkets that represented a memory and obviously had special meaning to the person she’d intended them for. Mine was a sketch of her and Vic dancing in the kitchen that I’d done on a napkin one morning before school. I’d just been doodling while I ate breakfast, and I’d left it laying there when I left for St. James Academy that morning. I had no idea she’d even kept it, much less had it framed. But she had.

It made me wonder how many of my other drawings she might have, stashed away somewhere. And if she did, then she was probably the proud owner of dozens of nudes of Brian Kinney -- which made me want to laugh.

Most of all, though, the fact that she’d kept that drawing reminded me that she’d thought of me as a son, too. And that I was as special to her as she had been to me. To all of us.

I was running my fingers over the edge of the frame, my now-empty plate still sitting on my lap, when Michael removed the final item from the box and handed it to Brian. It was a small figurine of a teddy bear holding a heart-shaped pillow. It reminded me of one of those little gifts we could buy at the “Santa Shop” back in elementary school every December, that gave us kids an opportunity to buy a little something for our parents without them knowing about it.

I watched as Brian held the small figurine in his hand, staring at it wistfully, as if he was lost in a memory, while the others looked a little confused at why Debbie would have left Brian a teddy bear figurine.

“I remember when you gave that to her,” Michael said, smiling -- his expression the exact opposite of Brian’s, which was caught somewhere between deep-in-thought and heartbroken. “She loved it.”

It took Brian a few moments to speak. When he did, his voice was soft and slightly hoarse. “I paid two dollars for it at a thrift store, but it was all I had, because Pop had taken all of my allowance as a punishment. Fuck if I know what for.” Brian was still looking down at the bear in his hand. “I wanted to give her something for Christmas. I had to sneak off and buy it while Joan had her back turned, critiquing some pair of pants on Claire.” Brian paused, the tiniest hint of a smile spreading across his lips as he remembered. “I knew she loved bears. Maybe in more ways than one,” he chuckled. “But I can’t believe she kept it all these years.”

“Are you kidding? Have you seen this house?” Michael laughed. “But seriously though, she really did love it. She kept it on her dresser. I remember one time, right after you graduated from college, I asked her why she kept it there. She said it reminded her of you...where you’d come from. How proud she was of you and what you’d become.”

I saw the brightness in Brian’s eyes before he closed them. I saw the single tear fall from the corner of his left eye and make its way down his cheek, leaving behind a trail that glistened ever-so-slightly in the light. I saw his fingers tighten their grip on the bear, right as he bowed his head and his shoulders started to tremble. I knew him well enough to know that he really didn’t want to be doing this in front of anyone -- he’d merely lost the battle to hold it all back.

Michael scooted closer to Brian on the couch, pulling him into a hug, which Brian crumbled into, his sobs quickly becoming stronger as so much of the emotion he’d been trying not to show came spilling out.

The others started to whisper to each other about going upstairs to see if there was anything else they wanted to keep to remember Debbie by, then got up and made their way up the narrow staircase, until Brian and Michael were alone on the couch, and I was the only other person in the living room. I got up slowly from my chair and walked into the kitchen, placing my plate in the sink as quietly as I could, before tiptoeing upstairs to join the others, leaving Brian and Michael to mourn privately -- leaning on each other, as brothers. The way they should have been for a few days now.

As much as it hurt me to see my husband break down, at least he wasn’t holding it back anymore. He needed this time with Michael.

By the time we came back downstairs -- each of us having found a few more memorable items we wanted to keep -- Brian and Michael were talking quietly, laughing a little, still sitting next to one another on Debbie’s couch. We all gathered together again, sharing our finds and the memories that went with them. As soon as everyone else started talking, though, Brian got quiet again. I could tell he was lost in his own thoughts, and I wanted to ask him what he was thinking about. But he looked like he was okay, so I didn’t press.

The home movies came out a little while after that, providing a much-needed lightness and distraction as we all remembered sitting in that very living room watching the slideshow of David and Michael’s overly pretentious trip to Paris, and how Debbie had reinterpreted each slide in her own very non-sophisticated way. I didn’t remember a whole lot of it, because I’d spent most of the slideshow with my tongue in Brian’s mouth or his in mine -- frenching, which Brian felt was apropos.

There was a lot of footage of teenage Michael, but what these videos really did was give me an appreciation for just how inseparable Brian and Michael had been at that age, because Brian was in almost all of them. And, of course, there was a much younger Vic, for whom the worst of HIV had yet to take hold at that point. There were birthday parties and family vacations and snippets of everyday life, and Brian had been there for almost all of it. He was a part of their family. More so than I’d ever really understood or realized.

We had just started watching the tape that was labeled, “High School Graduation,” when Brian slid himself from the couch back to his wheelchair. I made eye contact with him, silently asking him if he was okay, and he nodded, giving me a small smile. He went to the bathroom first, then rummaged around for a few minutes in the kitchen, where I assumed he was making himself a plate of food from the leftovers we’d stuck into the refrigerator hours ago, since he still hadn’t eaten. Meanwhile, I was totally absorbed in the video, as well as the laughter and witty, smart-assed commentary being provided by Hunter, Emmett, and Ted while Michael rolled his eyes. We were all treated to a close up of Brian making a funny face at Vic, who was the cameraman, right before flipping him off. I turned around to tease Brian about his haircut, which I was pretty damn sure was a mullet, but my laughter quickly faded from my lips when I realized Brian wasn’t in the kitchen.

Confused and more than a little concerned, I got up from my chair and peered down the short hallway toward the bathroom again, but the door was open and the light was off. There wasn’t really anywhere else for Brian to go, so he had to be outside, although I wasn’t sure why he would have gone out there by himself without saying anything to anyone. I walked toward the back door and looked through the window, breathing a quiet sigh of relief when I saw the shape of Brian’s wheelchair in the middle of the backyard. He wasn’t in it, though. He was lying beside it on the grass, his form illuminated by the soft, orange glow of the street light in the alley, a lit joint in his right hand.

I looked over my shoulder at the rest of our little family as I laid my hand on the door handle, but everyone’s attention was focused on the television or on each other as J.R.’s high-pitched laughter rang out over something someone else had said. As quietly as I could, I opened the door and slipped out.

“Hey,” I said softly as I walked closer to where Brian lay. “I was wondering where you’d disappeared to. You okay?”

Brian took a long drag off of the joint, slowly blowing out a thin stream of smoke before he answered. “I wanted to talk to Debbie,” he said, his gaze trained upward, staring into the night sky.

“Oh, sorry,” I said, suddenly feeling incredibly awkward -- like I’d interrupted a private conversation. “I’ll go back inside.”

I had just turned back toward the door when I heard Brian say, “No. Stay.”

I looked back toward Brian, who motioned for me to come closer. I laid down next to him and looked up at the sky -- it was clear and full of stars, more than you could normally see in the city, with just a sliver of the moon visible close to the treeline. Brian offered me the joint, but I shook my head. I still needed to drive us home, and the few times I’d smoked pot since my accident, I’d found that it had a totally different effect on me now than it once had, and I wasn’t sure I liked it.

“Where did you get that, anyway?” I looked over at Brian, who was taking another long drag. I knew he hadn’t brought it from home, because we’d flown and there would be no getting that through security without getting in trouble. Brian had a medical marijuana card, but that still wasn’t enough to make it legal for him to travel with it.

“Detective Horvath’s blushing bride was a pothead.” Brian smirked, still looking up. “And I knew she kept her stash behind the silverware tray in the kitchen. She’d always kept it there… ever since Michael and I were kids. We used to get into it all the time. We’d sneak out here after school and light up. I’m pretty sure she knew we were doing it too, but she never said anything.”

“Coolest mom ever,” I chuckled. “Michael was a lucky bastard.”

“Yeah, he was.” Brian examined the half-gone homemade cigarette in his hand. “We both were.”

I reached out and looped my fingers through Brian’s, bringing our joined hands to rest on the grass between us.

“You were over here a lot, huh?”

“Yeah,” Brian said softly. “It was nice to be somewhere that I didn’t have to always be on guard, wondering when my old man was going to find something else to be angry at me about.” He took another hit off the joint. “It was nice to feel loved… and wanted. It was like I couldn't get enough. Like I was dying of thirst and I'd finally found the water. Somehow, she just knew. She gave me what I needed. Before I even knew I needed it.”

I tucked myself into Brian’s side, and he put his arm around me. I rested my head on his shoulder as he inhaled, then breathed out a smoke ring that rose above our heads and slowly dissipated into the night. Debbie’s death had torn open an old wound in my husband -- one that was deep and painful. Although it had healed long ago, it had left a scar. How could it not? Parents are supposed to love and protect their children, not give them bruises and broken bones and leave them feeling like nothing, the way Brian’s parents had done to him.

“Everybody keeps talking about how she saved them.” Brian’s voice was soft and thoughtful. “But she really did save me. If it wasn’t for her, I don’t think I would be here.” He finished the cigarette, then stubbed it out on the grass and let it fall from his fingers. “Nobody ever knew that. It was just between us. But she did. She saved me.”

I reached over to take Brian’s other hand in mine, resting our intertwined fingers on his stomach. Feeling the soft rise and fall of his chest with his breath. Wondering if he was going to continue, and at the same time, being afraid of what he was about to say.

“I was fifteen. My sophomore year soccer season ended early through no fault of my own, because my fucking father broke my arm. So that meant no more after school practices… and that meant more time at home. I tried to spend it over here, but Pop got pissed off because I kept missing dinner. And then he’d hit me again. I lost count of the number of times he told me I was a useless, ungrateful son-of-a-bitch. I came home from school one day and he was already drunk. I don’t know what he was doing home from work, but he was totally fucking blitzed. And I don’t even remember what I did, but I do remember him having his hands around my neck, choking me, holding me against the wall.” He paused and took a breath. “And that’s when he told me that if my mother had just been a good wife and listened to him and had an abortion when he told her to, their lives would all be so much better. If they hadn’t had me.”

Brian’s words made me feel like my own heart had been placed in a vise. It was hard to breathe. I didn’t want to believe the words I’d just heard. I couldn’t believe that a father would ever say that to his child. My own father hadn’t even been that cruel after I came out. And I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was like for Brian to be the child, hearing his father say he wished he’d never been born.

“When he let me go, I ran to my room, but he followed me.” Brian’s voice was barely audible now, just a whisper in the night. “I thought he was going to kill me. At one point I kind of started wishing he would. I was so scared of what he would do if he ever found out I was gay, if he got that mad over nothing, when I couldn’t even figure out what I’d done. I didn’t think I’d be able to take any more.”

I looked up at him, and I could see the tears shining in his eyes as he recounted the story, which was no doubt almost as painful to tell as it had been to experience it firsthand.

“I was over here one day, after school, dreading going home.” Brian’s voice was distant, like he was off somewhere else reliving this memory. “I’d had enough. I was desperate. I couldn’t deal with any of it anymore. Debbie was feeding me an early dinner and just sitting there listening to me, making me feel like somebody gave a shit. And I don’t know why I said it, but I told her that I knew they wished I was dead. That I wondered if maybe I should be. I’d been thinking about it for a while, but I didn’t have the guts to go through with it. I guessed my old man was right, I was a fucking fairy. Too weak to even kill my own damn self.”

Brian closed his eyes and pulled his lips into his mouth, in the way that he did whenever he was nervous or feeling insecure about something. I was aching for him, but all I could do was hold his hand a little more tightly and push my body closer against his. I didn’t want to believe what I was hearing, but at the same time I was so incredibly grateful that he hadn’t done it.

“She hugged me so hard I thought she was going to smother me. Told me how sorry she was that I ever had to think that… and that she was glad I was here. She told me she loved me and that I was special and I had something to offer the world -- that I was here for a reason.” He paused and took in a shaky breath. “Nobody had ever told me that before. She gave me what I needed to keep going and just fucking survive until I could get out of that house. But if it hadn’t been for her…” Brian let his voice trail off into nothing as a single tear fell from his eye and traced its way across his cheek. “She showed me I was safe. That somebody cared. That I wasn’t alone. I was loved. That I could love back. And that took me fucking forever, I know, and I’m sorry. She had to call me out on that too -- that I loved you and I was too chickenshit to admit it. So I have you because of her.”

I rubbed my thumb lightly over Brian’s and tucked myself in a little closer to his side, not knowing what to say. I wasn’t sure there was anything I could say. Not really. He’d said it all. I sensed that he just needed to get this out -- to release this long-held trauma into the universe. To let someone else in so he wouldn’t have to carry it all alone.

This had to be what he’d been holding back. What had been making Debbie’s death so much more difficult to accept.

“Things were good for a while, but then they got really bad,” he whispered. “I’d learned how to love, but then I found out how much it hurt sometimes to love somebody like that.”

I knew he was talking about when I went to New York, and it was still hard not to feel guilty about that, even though I’d been doing what he wanted me to do -- trying to live my dream.

“And then my whole fucking life fell apart -- or at least that was how it felt. After my accident, it was like I was back where I started all those years ago,” he continued, his voice still soft and contemplative. “I was back to trying to find my worth and my identity again. I didn’t want to do anything. Sometimes I was angry. Sometimes I was depressed. There was nothing in between. I didn’t want anyone to see me, and I didn’t want to see anybody. I went to work and home and that was it. And you didn’t even fucking know, because I was too chickenshit to tell you that, too. I went through the motions to keep people from asking questions, while I figured out what the fuck I was going to do and wondered when I was going to stop feeling like my whole goddamned life was in a tailspin. But Debbie… she wouldn’t let me withdraw. She put that fucking ramp up over there and told me that I was coming to family dinner the next week. She left me no choice. I didn’t really want to come, but in the end I was glad I did. It was kind of my first step out into the world. She got me to let the family back in, at least a little. And it helped lay the foundation for me being able to let you back in, too. For being able to move on. Move to New York. Everything we have is because of her, too. I fucking owe her everything. My life. This. Us. All of it. And I never fucking thanked her.”

“She knew,” I said softly. “You didn’t have to say it. She knew. And if she didn’t, you just told her.”

Brian didn’t say anything back, and I didn’t say anything for awhile either. We simply lay there together, in Debbie’s backyard, while I said a silent prayer of thanks for all she’d done for the two of us and everyone else whose life she’d impacted in some way, just by being who she was -- a caring, loving mother.

“She touched a lot of people’s lives,” I said gently, still holding Brian’s hand in my own as the stars twinkled above our heads. I thought of Debbie, out there somewhere, looking down on us, no doubt so proud of all of us, but especially of the man who lay there beside me, who had taken a truly awful set of circumstances and made something of himself, then turned around and did it all over again twenty years later. “I’m glad you met her. I’m glad we all did.”

I didn’t think there would ever be enough gratitude in the universe for me to thank Debbie Novotny for all she’d done in my life. I knew Brian felt the same.

We were due back at the funeral home the following morning, after far too late of a night spent together as a family, saying goodbye to the house that had represented so much love and acceptance and pride, where all were welcome and everyone felt safe. Although Brian still looked tired when the alarm went off and I could tell he was dreading the rest of the day, I no longer felt that odd sense of distance between us. I could tell he felt a little lighter, too -- like a burden had been lifted.

His pain, however, hadn’t gone away. Not that I was surprised, because I knew from past experience that when he stressed himself out to this point, it took a few days -- sometimes longer -- for everything to return to normal. What did surprise me, though, was when I came out of the bedroom after my shower and found him sitting on the living room floor with Rob, in that wide-legged forward fold that I’d always thought would probably help his back because it gave me such a good stretch in my own, breathing in the way Rob had taught me that day over a year before when I’d so desperately needed it.

As soon as he saw me, Brian was quick to say, “I’ll leave the mindfulness shit to you two. I’m just tired of this fucking pain. And I can’t be drugged up today. I need to be able to fucking function.”

Rob grinned at me from behind Brian and shook his head a little, and I smiled to myself as I poured another cup of coffee. I was glad Brian was at least trying it -- even if it was only because he was looking for an alternative to his current choices between being loopy and sleepy from medication or being in pain.

I looked out the kitchen window as I sat down at the table, watching the raindrops bounce off the windowsill. Dark clouds hung overhead, and it looked like the rain had settled in for the day. But for some reason, it felt appropriate -- almost like the sky was mourning along with us.

For the rest of the morning, no one talked about where we were about to go or what we were about to do. I don’t think any of us wanted to, least of all Brian and I. Even Sophia was a slightly more subdued version of herself, perhaps picking up on the overall mood of everyone else in the house. We drove to the funeral home in our separate rental cars, and I found myself overwhelmed by a sense of deja vu. Just like the day before, I didn’t know how Brian was going to react, but I hoped that he was feeling at least a little more at peace with the process after our conversation the previous night.

The attendees of Debbie’s funeral represented the diverse mix of people she’d always associated with -- the people who might have had trouble finding acceptance elsewhere, who were always welcome as far as Debbie was concerned. Father Tom -- who was still a priest, although he’d come to accept his own orientation and taken to sharing a truly Christian message of love and acceptance from his pulpit -- led the service and read several prayers, although not nearly the amount Brian informed me were typically part of a traditional Catholic funeral.

“Trust me,” he’d whispered, while Shanda Leer was singing her beautiful rendition of “What I Did for Love,” which I hadn’t heard since the fundraiser we’d held for Brian (a.k.a. the Concerned Citizens for the Truth) fifteen years before. “This is nothing. Wait until Joan kicks the bucket. She’ll have him reading every goddamned prayer in the book. That is, if we’re even invited to the service.”

After what Brian had told me the night before, a significant part of me hoped we wouldn’t be, because Joan didn’t deserve to call herself Brian’s mother. Debbie was the one who had shown him what a mother was supposed to be.

All in all, it was a beautiful service, and a fitting tribute to the woman who was a loving mother figure to so many lost souls. And, although I could still see the deep sadness in my husband’s eyes, he seemed to be doing a little better than he had been, and that was a good thing. I held his hand, and took pleasure in the feeling of his fingers, laced with mine, as we leaned on each other.

There were a few emotional moments for all of us -- especially Michael -- but for the most part, it seemed like we were all beginning to come to grips with the loss.

It wasn’t until the service was over and we all stood and started mingling with one another, that I realized just how many people had come to pay their respects to Debbie. When we’d taken our seats, the chapel had been fairly full, but when I stood back up and turned around, I saw that people were lining the side aisles and the back wall, and it was standing room only. If anyone ever had any doubt how much Debbie Novotny meant to Liberty Avenue and Pittsburgh’s LGBTQ community, they needed only to look around at the crowd that had come together to say goodbye to her.

All around the room, people of all stripes were shaking hands and hugging and sharing their condolences with one another. I stood behind Brian and took in the scene around us as the rest of our little family filed out of the aisle one by one, making their way over to the side door. We would all be heading to the private graveside service shortly, together as a family, to say our final farewell.

Gus and Brian were talking in hushed voices, while several of the others shared hugs and had quiet conversations of their own, commenting on the service and the flowers and how amazing it was to see so many people there. I was just about to say something to my mom, who was talking to Michael and Ben, when I looked across the chapel and my gaze fell on Joan Kinney standing on the other side, her own eyes trained in our direction, looking as uncomfortable as I would have expected her to be in this crowd. I patted Brian on the shoulder, told him I’d be right back, and hoped that the conversation he was having with Gus and the sheer volume of the crowd would be enough distraction for him to not see that his pitiful excuse for a mother had the gall to show her face at Debbie’s funeral.

“Hello,” she said primly as I approached her. “Justin, wasn’t it?”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I said, keeping my voice low. Fuck pleasantries. This woman didn’t deserve them.

“Paying my respects to Debbie, of course.”

“And you actually expect me to believe you care? Last I heard you referred to Debbie as ‘that Novotny woman.’”

“Of course I care.” Joan straightened her shoulders and stuck her nose up in the air. “I’m Brian’s mother, and Michael is his best friend.”

“No, Brian’s getting ready to bury his mother,” I growled, trying to stay quiet so we wouldn’t attract too much attention, but at the same time trying to speak firmly so she’d know I wasn’t fucking around. Joan looked taken aback by my words, but I kept right on talking, not giving her a chance to respond. “You need to get the fuck out. You’re not welcome here.”

“This is a church service. Everyone is welcome.”

“Sure,” I scoffed, “everyone except us, unless we deny ourselves, like you were always trying to get Brian to do, every time you came to try to save his soul. In fact, this room is full of people that you would condemn to hell just as easily as you did your own son. I’m surprised you’re not afraid you’ll catch something. You need to leave.”

She ignored me, instead turning her attention back over my shoulder in Brian’s direction.

“Is that boy his son?” she asked coolly, as if she was merely mildly curious. As if we weren’t talking about her fucking grandson.

I glanced back to be sure Gus was still with Brian, and he was. Thankfully, Brian had his back turned to us now. I made eye contact with Michael, and watched as his gaze shifted from me to Joan. I tried to wordlessly send him a message to keep Brian busy -- and over there -- until I could get rid of Joan.

The last thing Brian needed today was to have to deal with his pitiful excuse for a mother, so I was willing to do everything in my power to keep that from happening.

By the time I turned back to face her, she was staring at my left hand -- presumably at my wedding ring.

“So he did marry you, I take it?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to keep my tone just as cool, just as proper and polite, as hers. “We’ve been married almost eleven years.”

“Nice of him to invite his mother to his wedding.”

Before I could fire back the string of curse words I wanted to, to show Joan Kinney exactly what I thought of her, I felt a hand on the small of my back that I prayed didn’t belong to Brian.

“Hello, Mrs. Kinney,” came Michael’s voice from alongside me. Thank god.

“Hello, Michael,” Joan said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

The bitch was looking down her nose at Michael and making me want to smack that haughty, self-righteous look right off her face. I absolutely would have, if it wouldn’t have caused a scene, but it still wouldn’t have been enough to repay her for all the damage she’d done to Brian -- and all of the abuse she’d stood by and allowed to happen -- during his formative years. And after everything Brian had shared with me the previous night, Joan was lucky we were in public, otherwise she would have been the one wishing she’d never been born.

“Thank you, Mrs. Kinney,” Michael said politely. He was clearly a better man than I, because I was seething inside. “But I think you should go now. Thank you for coming.”

“I’d like to speak to my--”

“You need to leave,” I said, more insistently this time. “Brian doesn’t want to see you or speak with you. As far as he’s concerned, you’re out of his life for good, and you’d do well to stop trying to insert yourself into it. You didn’t give a shit about him back then, and I’m not sure why you’re pretending to give a shit now. We’re doing fine. He’s doing fine. Great, in fact. No thanks to you. Now, you can either leave on your own or I can have someone escort you out, but either way, you’re leaving, and you’re not speaking to Brian. If I have anything to do with it, he won’t even know you were here.”

Joan pursed her lips and looked at Michael.

“Again, my condolences,” she said. Her eyes were cold and calculating, and nearly made a shiver run down my spine. I wondered how in the hell Brian made it out of that house still able to feel any emotion at all. And, after that encounter, I certainly had a new understanding of why he had been the way he was when we first met.

Joan stared me down one more time, then turned on her heel and stalked out of the chapel.

Michael gave me a sad smile. “She never changes,” he said, shrugging. “I’m just glad Brian didn’t see her. I don’t want to know what would have happened if he had.”

“I know,” I sighed. I really didn’t want to think about it. Brian either would have killed her with his bare hands, or he would have lost it completely. Maybe both.

“J.T. and Zephyr save the day, huh?”

“Yeah.” I smiled. “Something like that.”

Michael put his arm around my shoulders, and we walked together back to where Brian and Gus were, joining the rest of our family.

“Everything okay?” Brian said, looking between Michael and I as we approached the group, confusion clear on his face.

“All good,” I said, giving him a small smile.

Brian reached up and looped his fingers through mine. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this,” he said, biting the inside of his cheek nervously. He and Michael were looking at each other, having a wordless conversation that said so much more than what Brian had spoken. In that look, it was easy to see the bond that they had with each other -- all of the history, shared pain, and shared joy of their teenage years and their lives as young gay men. They were still important to one another, and they always would be.

“Me either,” Michael said. “But I think we can do it together.”

I don’t think I was quite prepared for the sense of finality I felt as we stood gathered around Debbie’s closed casket, just our little family now. I looked over at Brian, who was sitting to my left, staring straight ahead at the scene before him, much like he had when we’d first seen Debbie’s body at the visitation. His eyes were dark, and I could see him blinking back the wetness in them. I reached over and rested my hand on his upper back in silent support as I blinked away tears of my own. Ben was holding Michael close alongside him, and I was wishing I could do the same with Brian, but I was doing the best that I could. Times like these were when I really wished Brian wasn’t in a wheelchair -- the times when I wanted to be close, to have my arm around his waist and tuck myself into his side -- and I couldn’t.

The rain was dripping off the edges of the tent we were under, spattering on the ground, making small puddles on the edges of the dark green indoor-outdoor carpet that had been laid out for our group. Debbie was to be laid to rest between Carl, her beloved, and Vic, whose funeral service I still remembered clearly, although the memory of it and the things Brian had said immediately afterward had taken on a much different connotation once I found out Brian had cancer. Brian had been facing not only Vic’s mortality, but his own, all those years ago. Now, he was facing the death of the only true mother he’d ever known.

Even though Brian hadn’t been a member of the Novotny family by blood, he certainly had been a significant part of it. This was maternal mourning for Brian as much as it was for Michael, and the expressions of sadness and disbelief on each of their faces told that story very clearly. Brian reached up and took Michael’s hand, and I saw Michael squeeze Brian’s fingers as he gave Brian a sad smile.

They were getting through it together -- supporting each other.

I watched the raindrops fall from the sky outside the tent, a little lighter than they had been earlier, bouncing off of the gravestones around us and soaking into the ground while Father Tom read Bible verses and said a prayer. Then, it was time. We were each invited to say a few words and share a personal remembrance as we each laid a single red rose on the casket.

One by one, each person stepped forward to say goodbye. Thanking her again for everything she’d done. Wondering what we were all going to do without her -- the head of our family, the matriarch. The one who made everyone feel welcomed, accepted, and most of all, loved.

“I love you,” I said, as I laid my own rose down on the surface of the mahogany-colored casket. “Thanks for everything.”

Brian and Michael were the last to lay down their roses, but neither of them said a word. And that was okay. They didn't have to. We all knew.

Then, one by one, people started to walk away, saying goodbye to each other with hugs and promises that we’d all see one another later that afternoon at the diner, for the informal gathering that Brian, my mother, and I had planned, with a little help from Rob and Adam and even the girls. My mom gave both Brian and me a hug and a kiss on the cheek and told us she loved us and she’d see us later. Father Tom closed his Bible and offered his condolences to the few of us who remained, then opened his umbrella and walked to his car, leaving Michael, Ben, Brian, and myself standing alone under the tent.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see one of the cemetery’s employees standing close by, waiting for us to leave so they could do what they needed to do to finish Debbie’s burial -- something I really didn’t want to think about and I knew neither Michael nor Brian did either. Brian closed his eyes for a moment, then reached for my hand and looked up at me.

“I need a minute,” he said softly, his voice thick with emotion. “If you want to go to the car, I’ll be right there.”

I didn’t really want to leave him, but I knew that was my cue.

Michael nodded to Ben, and Ben walked over to me, leading the way as we walked toward our cars, which were parked along the narrow road that wound its way through the cemetery’s lush greenery, leaving both of our husbands to bid a private final farewell to their mother.

The rain had lightened up quite a bit as the graveside service had ended, and by the time we got to the cars, it was barely a sprinkle, with the sun just starting to peek through a break in the clouds. Its rays gradually illuminated Brian and Michael at the edge of the tent as it made its way out from behind the cloud and shone down upon them. Michael had pulled a chair up next to Brian, and they were sitting there together, holding each other, as brothers.

I could see them speaking to each other, comforting each other, tear tracks glistening on their faces as they embraced. When they let go, Michael stood, then placed a hand on the casket and said a few words that I was too far away to hear. Brian did the same, and they emerged from the tent together, bathed in sunlight as the clouds slowly began to clear, while I imagined Debbie smiling down on both of them, surrounding them with love.

I drove both of us back to the house in silence, thankful that the rain had stopped and the clouds were gradually moving out, giving way to a clear, blue sky. In a way, it was symbolic -- like the rain had reflected how we all felt as we’d said goodbye to Debbie, and now it was being replaced with bright sunlight as we transitioned out of the deepest part of our mourning and stepped into a world that would go on without her physical body, but never without her radiant spirit.

When we arrived back at our house and went into the living room, Rob and Adam were sitting on the couch, watching television, their arms and hands intertwined. Esme and Sophia sat on the floor, surrounded by paper hearts in a rainbow of colors. Esme carefully cut out another, then added it to the stack in front of her.

“What’s all this?” I asked as I shrugged out of my suit jacket, ready to change into something more comfortable and a bit more “me.”

Esme smiled shyly, looking back and forth between Brian and me. “We wanted to do something to remember her,” she said, her voice soft like it usually was. “This way, people can write down things they loved about her on these hearts, and I thought maybe we could tape them on the wall of the diner.”

“Like a memorial,” I said, bending down to pick up a red heart.

She nodded and bit her lip, suddenly looking very unsure of her idea.

A smile spread across Brian’s face as he got closer, holding his hand out for Esme to grasp. She took it, and he pulled her up to her feet and into a hug.

“I love it,” he said quietly, into her ear. “I know she’d love it too.”

“Papa said it was a good idea,” she said, her voice slightly more confident. “He and Dad took us to get the stuff so we could do it.”

“It’s a great idea,” Brian said. “Thank you.”

“I told you they were gonna like it,” Sophia said loudly, rolling her eyes as she worked on sorting the hearts by color, making it sound like she’d been reassuring Esme all afternoon. And, knowing Esme’s more reserved nature and Sophia’s unflappable self-assuredness, I was sure that she probably had.

It seemed like the perfect way to remember Debbie -- bright colors and memories of love -- and, in that moment, I was grateful for the innocence of children and the benefit of their perspective, bringing a little more lightness to a time when it would have been easy for everything to be dark and depressing.

We had enough time to eat something and take a little break to rest, before we’d make our way over to Liberty Avenue. I spent that time lying in bed alongside my husband, reading a book while he scrolled through email on his phone, occasionally grumbling about his employees and their lack of ability to do certain tasks without him or Cynthia holding their hand -- another sign that things were starting to get back to normal.

By the end of the week, we would be back home in New York. Going back to work. Getting back to our lives.

Life would go on, without Debbie. Without the phone calls to sing happy birthday, or the ones that were made just to check on us and see how we were doing or to lecture one of us about something she’d heard through the grapevine and didn’t like. Without surprise packages from Pittsburgh containing slightly worse-for-wear but still tasty lemon bars or cookies or brownies. Without the monthly family dinners, the lasagna, the baked rigatoni, and the gingerbread cookies that had been a Christmas tradition as long as I could remember. Without her loud voice and incredibly refreshing lack of sophistication in the middle of all of the pomp and circumstance of an art show opening. Without her smiling face behind the counter at the Liberty Diner, asking, “What’ll it be?” as she chomped her gum and tapped her pen on the pad of paper she always used to take everyone’s order. Without her hugs that were so tight that you could barely breathe, but that left you with no doubt that you were loved. That you were special. That you were important to her.

I’d realized over the last several days just how important she was to all of us as well -- much more so than I ever could have fathomed.

Moving on would be strange, especially at first, but I knew we’d be okay. She’d see to that, from wherever she was, watching over us. Probably still chomping that gum or poised and ready to send down a posthumous, metaphorical slap upside the head the moment one of us needed it.

Liberty Avenue was full of the ghosts of memories past. The night Brian and I first made eye contact under that street light in front of Babylon. Standing in the middle of the same street, both covered in soot, as Brian said, “I love you,” to me for the first time. Dancing with him at my first Pride. Celebrating Stockwell’s defeat with a raucous party that took over all of Liberty Avenue. Chasing him down the alley beside Babylon after I’d pushed him a little too hard toward getting back to “normal” after his accident. Wearing our wedding rings there for the first time after we’d finally gotten married. And that was just a handful of the memorable moments that had shaped our lives right there on that little street in Pittsburgh where no one had to be afraid to be themselves. We were all safe there, and Debbie Novotny had played a significant part in keeping it that way.

We sat at the diner, sharing a booth with my mom, Michael, and Ben, watching as Esme and Sophia distributed paper hearts and brightly colored markers to everyone who came in, inviting them to write down a memory of Debbie and post it on the wall. The memories were heart-warming for us too, helping solidify the impact we knew she’d had on so many who called this neighborhood their home.

“This is perfect, having everyone here, where so many of us first met her,” I said to Brian, pushing what was left of my lemon bar toward him, since he’d already eaten almost half of it. “I’m glad you thought of it.”

Brian nodded, and I watched as his eyes scanned the crowd, some of whom we knew, and some we didn’t. But we were all a part of the same community -- the same extended family that practically knew no bounds. The one headed up by Debbie Novotny.

People drifted in and out of the diner, writing their memories on paper hearts and ordering their favorite dishes. A couple of times, I could have sworn I heard Debbie’s voice ringing out over the chatter in the diner. But whether I had or whether it was a figment of my imagination didn’t really matter. Either way, it brought me comfort -- the knowledge that she would always be here, in one way or another.

Mel and Linds came in after a while, Gus and J.R. trailing behind them, pushing their way through the crowded diner and over to our table.

“We had a terrible time finding a place to park,” Lindsay said. “And you should see the street outside -- I bet there are more than two hundred people out there.”

I turned and looked over my shoulder toward the window and saw a huge crowd gathered on the street. I could see rainbow flags waving, and people smiling and laughing and dancing with each other to music that I could just barely hear over the chatter in the diner.

Our curiosity drew us all outside, leaving our table for some of the hungry patrons who had been waiting in line to get a seat -- a line that turned out to be much longer than we’d thought it was from inside. It stretched halfway down the block, and traffic seemed to have long ago ceased on the street itself, which was full of people. People who were celebrating Debbie’s life, simply by being themselves.

It reminded me of the celebration we’d all had once Stockwell lost the mayor’s race and we knew that Liberty Avenue would stay the diverse, pride-filled place it had always been. The place it hopefully always would be, thanks to people like Debbie, who had laid the foundation and helped fight to keep it that way.

“I keep expecting to see her come walking out of the diner at any moment, rainbow flag in-hand,” Brian said, looking up at me, his lips turning up into a small smile. “I’m going to miss that. I’m going to miss her.”

“I know. Me too.” I wrapped my arm around my husband’s shoulders and looked around at our chosen family gathered on either side of us, then out over the crowd, knowing that they were celebrating Debbie’s life in exactly the way she would have wanted -- with love and pride. “But we haven’t lost her. Not really. She’s all around us. Her spirit is right here. I think it always will be.”

Liberty Avenue -- and the pride within it -- was Debbie Novotny’s legacy, in a way. She was a part of it, and it was a part of her. And so long as it lived on, so would she.