“It’s getting late,” Fred said. “People are already putting out blankets. Maybe I missed him.”

Evanelle saw James approach before Fred did. James was a tall, handsome man. He’d always been very thin, the way moody, creative poets with long fingers and soulful eyes were thin in days of old. Evanelle had never had a bad word to say about James. No one did, really. He worked for an investment firm in Hickory and kept to himself. Fred had been his one and only confidant for over thirty years, but suddenly that had changed, and neither Fred nor anyone else in town could figure out why.

But Evanelle had her suspicions. You stick around long enough in this life and you start to understand its ebbs and flows.

There was a type of craziness caused by long-term complacency. All the Burgess women in town, who never had less than six children each, walked around in a fog until their children left home. When their youngest finally left the nest, they always did something crazy, like burn all their respectable high-neck dresses and wear too much perfume. And anyone who had been married for more than a year could testify to the surprise of coming home one day and finding that your husband had torn down a wall to make a room bigger or your wife had dyed her hair just to make you look at her differently. There were midlife crises and hot flashes. There were bad decisions. There were affairs. There was a certain point when sometimes someone said, I’ve just had enough.

Fred went still when he finally saw James approach.

“I’m sorry I’m late. I almost didn’t make it.” James was a little out of breath, and a fine sheen of perspiration dotted his forehead. “I was just at the house. I took a few things, but the rest is yours. I wanted to tell you that I have an apartment in Hickory now.”

Ah, Evanelle thought. That was the reason James wanted Fred to meet him here, so James would know when Fred wasn’t going to be in the house and he could take things out without having to discuss it first with Fred. One look at Fred, and Evanelle knew he’d figured that out too.

“I’m taking early retirement next year, and I’ll probably move to Florida. Or maybe Arizona. I haven’t decided yet.”

“So that’s it?” Fred asked, and Evanelle could tell there were too many things he wanted to say, all fighting to get out. Ultimately, the only thing that escaped was “That’s really it?”

“For months, I was angry. Now I’m just tired,” James said, and he leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “I’m tired of trying to show you the way. I dropped out of school for you, I came here to live with you because you didn’t know what to do. I had to tell you that it was all right for people to know you were gay. I had to drag you out of the house to show you. I had to plan the meals and what we did with our free time. I thought I was doing the right thing. I fell in love with your vulnerability in college, and when your father died and you had to leave, I was terrified you wouldn’t be able to make it on your own. It’s taken me a long time to realize that I did you a great disservice, Fred. And myself also. By trying to make you happy, I prevented you from knowing how to figure it out on your own. By trying to give you happiness, I lost my own.”