“I love you,” I’d tell him and he’d laugh. And laugh. And then he’d beat me some more.

“I love you,” I said once as he rammed my head into a door, and he spun me around and spit in my face.

“I hate you,” I told him, very calmly, not long before he died.

He laughed at that one too. “Score one for the old man.”

“I love you,” I told Grace now.

And she laughed. But it was a beautiful laugh. One of surprise and relief and release, one that was followed by two years that dropped off her cheekbones and landed in my eyes and mingled with mine.

“Oh my God,” she groaned, lowering herself to my body, her lips grazing my own. “I love you too, Patrick.”

14

Grace and I weren’t quite at the point yet where one stayed over at the other’s house long enough for Mae to find us in bed together. That moment was coming soon, but it wasn’t one either of us was going to approach lightly. Mae knew I was her mother’s “special friend,” but she didn’t have to know what special friends do together until we were sure this special friend would be around for a long time. I had too many friends growing up who had no fathers but an amazing supply of uncles parading through their mothers’ beds—and I’d seen how it had fucked them up.

So I left shortly after midnight. As I was fitting my key into the downstairs lock, I heard my phone ringing distantly. By the time I made it up the stairs, Richie Colgan was talking to my answering machine:

“…name of Jamal Cooper in September of seventy-three was—”

“I’m here, Rich.”

“Patrick, you’re alive. And your answering machine’s working again.”

“It was never broken.”

“Well, it must not like taking messages from the black man, then.”

“You haven’t been getting through?”

“I’ve called you half a dozen times in the last week, got nothing but ring-ring-ring.”

“Try my office?”

“Same thing.”

I picked up my answering machine, looked underneath. I wasn’t looking for anything particular, it just seemed like what one did. I checked the jacks and portals in back; nope, everything was hooked up properly. And I had received other messages all week.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Rich. It seems to be working fine. Maybe you misdialed.”

“Whatever. I got the info you need. By the way, how’s Grace?”

Richie and his wife, Sherilynn, had played matchmaker between Grace and me last summer. It had been Sherilynn’s theory for the past decade that all I needed to straighten out my life was a strong woman who’d kick my ass on a regular basis and take none of my shit. Nine times she’d been wrong, but the tenth, so far, seemed to be working out.

“Tell Sheri I’m smitten.”

He laughed. “She’s gonna love that. Love it! Ha-ha, I knew your ass was done the first time you looked at Grace. Cooked and smoked and marinated and hung up in strips.”