The next few days passed quietly.
People stopped calling as often.
The flowers began to wilt.
Cards remained on the counter, their envelopes gathering beneath a bowl of spare keys.
I left them there.
I couldn't decide whether putting them away would feel like moving on or simply admitting that the funeral was over.
I wasn't ready for either.
Theo sent me a message every few days.
Sometimes he asked how I was doing.
Sometimes he told me about something small that reminded him of Jack.
Once, he sent me a photograph of a meal Jack had made when they were together.
The food looked terrible.
I laughed when I saw it.
Then I cried because I couldn't show Jack the picture and ask him what he had been thinking.
Theo wrote that Jack had insisted it was better than it looked.
I could hear my son's voice in the words.
For a moment, the distance between memory and the present seemed almost manageable.
Then the feeling passed.
I was beginning to accept that grief did not move in a straight line.
Some mornings, I could make breakfast and finish a cup of tea.
Other mornings, I stood in the kitchen and forgot what I had come there to do.
Daniel seemed to be managing better.
He returned to his usual routines.
He checked the mail.
He answered work calls.
He spoke to people who wanted to know how we were coping.
I admired his ability to keep moving.
I also wondered whether movement had become his way of avoiding the things he couldn't face.
One afternoon, I found him looking at the photograph of Jack and Theo.
He was standing near the kitchen table, holding the picture by its edges.
I stopped in the doorway.
I had never seen him pick it up before.
"What are you thinking about?" I asked.
He placed it back on the table.
"Nothing."
I waited.
He sighed.
"I was thinking about how young Jack looks."
I came closer.
"He was young."
"Not to us."
I felt my throat tighten.
"No."
We stood side by side.
For a while, neither of us said anything.
Then Daniel spoke.
"I keep remembering things I should have done differently."
I turned toward him.
"What things?"
He shook his head.
"Nothing specific."
I almost told him that he didn't have to explain.
Instead, I asked whether he wanted to talk about it.
He looked at me.
"Would it help?"
"I don't know."
It was the most honest answer I could give.
He sat down.
I took the chair opposite him.
Daniel looked at his hands.
"I think we both assumed we had more time."
I nodded.
"We did."
"No. We thought we did."
The difference hurt.
He was right.
We had lived as though the future were a room waiting for us to enter.
There would be more conversations.
More dinners.
More opportunities to ask questions.
We had treated time as something we could rely on.
Now every unfinished conversation seemed permanent.
I looked at the photograph.
"Do you think Jack knew how much we loved him?"
Daniel answered quickly.
"Of course."
I wanted to believe him.
I did believe him.
But love was not the only thing I was thinking about.
I wanted to know whether Jack had felt understood.
Whether he had felt safe bringing the complicated parts of his life into our home.
Whether he had ever looked at me and decided that something was better left unsaid.
Those questions were harder.
I didn't ask them all at once.
Instead, I said, "I hope he knew he didn't have to be perfect with us."
Daniel's expression changed.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I hope he knew he could tell us things even if they made us uncomfortable."
Daniel looked toward the window.
"He could tell us anything."
I watched him.
I had said the same thing about Jack for years.
I had said it with complete confidence.
Now I wondered whether I had meant that he could tell us anything, or whether I had meant that he could tell us anything we were ready to hear.
I didn't know how to separate those two things.
That night, I dreamed about Jack.
He was standing in the kitchen, looking for a glass.
I was sitting at the table.
He asked me whether I had seen his keys.
I told him they were beside the door.
He thanked me and started to leave.
In the dream, I called after him.
There was something I wanted to ask.
He turned around.
But I couldn't remember the question.
I woke before he answered.
The room was dark.
Daniel slept beside me.
I lay still and listened to his breathing.
For a few seconds, I felt the terrible certainty that Jack was somewhere in the house.
Then I remembered.
I pressed my face into the pillow and cried.
In the morning, I went downstairs and made tea.
The photograph was still on the table.
I sat beside it.
I thought about the dream.
I thought about all the times Jack had stood in our kitchen and started telling me something before deciding to keep it to himself.
I couldn't know whether those moments had meant anything.
But I could no longer dismiss them simply because I hadn't understood them at the time.
I had always believed that being a good mother meant giving my son the freedom to make his own choices.
I still believed that.
But I was beginning to understand that freedom also required making room for him to tell me who he was.
I could have asked more questions.
I could have listened longer.
I could have resisted the urge to reassure myself that everything was fine whenever Jack said it was.
I couldn't change the past.
I could only admit that I might have mistaken his silence for certainty.
Theo came over again that weekend.
He brought a small container of food.
"I made too much," he said.
I took it from him.
"You could have just said you wanted to visit."
He gave a faint smile.
"I wasn't sure that was enough of a reason."
"It is."
He followed me into the kitchen.
This time, he moved more easily.
He placed his coat over the back of a chair and sat down without waiting for me to tell him where.
The small change made me happy.
I didn't tell him.
We ate together.
The food was simple.
Theo told me about a place he had visited with Jack.
I had never heard of it.
He described a long drive, a roadside stop, and a meal that had been worse than the one he had brought me.
I listened.
I asked questions.
Not because I wanted to find a clue.
Because I wanted to know what the day had been like.
Theo seemed surprised at first.
Then he relaxed.
He told me about the way Jack had laughed when something went wrong.
He described the face Jack made when he was trying not to admit he had made a mistake.
I knew that face.
I had seen it since Jack was a child.
For the first time, I felt that our memories were not competing.
They were fitting together.
I had my memories of Jack.
Theo had his.
Neither of us owned the whole of him.
We were both trying to live with the pieces we had been given.
After lunch, Theo helped me clear the table.
We stood at the sink, washing plates.
I handed him a towel.
He dried a cup and placed it on the rack.
Then he said, "I was afraid you wouldn't want me around anymore."
I stopped rinsing the plate in my hands.
"Why?"
He looked down at the towel.
"Because people can change how they see you when they find out something they didn't expect."
I knew he wasn't talking only about the funeral.
I turned off the tap.
"Theo, I don't want you to think you have to earn your place here."
He looked at me.
"I know you mean that."
"But?"
He took a breath.
"But it takes time to believe something when you've spent a long time expecting the opposite."
I had no answer.
He was not accusing me of anything.
That made his words harder to hear.
He was simply telling me what his life had taught him.
I thought about the chapel.
I thought about how quickly I had looked at the dress and wondered what everyone else would think.
I thought about how I had wanted him to explain himself before I could decide whether I understood.
"I can't promise I'll always know the right thing to say," I told him.
He smiled sadly.
"Neither can I."
"But I can promise I'll try to listen."
He nodded.
"I'd like that."
We returned to washing the dishes.
The conversation didn't solve anything.
It didn't answer every question.
It didn't tell me why the dress had been red.
But it changed something between us.
I could feel it in the way he remained beside me rather than stepping back.
I could feel it in the way he began telling me another story about Jack before we had finished cleaning the kitchen.
That evening, after Theo left, I sat with Daniel at the table.
I told him what Theo had said.
Not every word.
Only enough to explain why I had been thinking about the things we expected people to hide.
Daniel listened without interrupting.
When I finished, he looked at the photograph.
"Jack never seemed afraid to be himself," he said.
I thought about it.
"Maybe we only saw the parts he felt comfortable showing us."
Daniel's face tightened.
"Do you think we made him hide things?"
I wanted to reassure him.
I wanted to say no.
I wanted to make the question disappear because I knew how much he was hurting.
But I had promised myself I would stop using comfort as a reason to avoid difficult truths.
"I don't know," I said.
Daniel looked down.
I reached across the table and took his hand.
"I know we loved him."
He nodded.
"And I know we wanted him to be happy."
He closed his eyes for a moment.
"I hope that was enough."
I squeezed his hand.
"So do I."
We sat there together.
Neither of us had an answer.
For once, I didn't try to invent one.
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: The More We Remembered Jack Together, the More I Realized That Loving Him Had Never Meant Knowing Every Part of His Life
The Funeral Had Barely Begun When the Person I Trusted Least to Surprise Me Walked Through the Chapel Doors
Part 7 of 20
