We stayed at the Ritz, an unremarkable building, smack in the midst of city bustle, looking out over The Magnificent Mile. You have to take an elevator up twelve floors to the lobby, which opens up to a vast expanse of tasteful gilt and creamy marble. One side is entirely lined with a huge bank of windows that soar to the ceiling and looks out over an endless sea of glass patched with sky.

On our first night there, Polo went to bed as soon as we returned to the hotel, tired from a day of cheering himself hoarse at Wrigley Field and exploring all the food in the city— deep-dish off the streets, unholy steak at the Ralph Lauren restaurant and cheesecake slices the size of small kittens. Sleep well, little brother, sleep calm, sleep deep and let all the restlessness straining inside my DNA never rear its ugly head in yours.

A storm broke, bending the building. A butler had come in to warn us about that right after we checked in. The taller buildings in the Windy City were engineered to move with the elements instead of against them, escaping the erosion of opposition.

They bent easily, but that’s what kept them from breaking. I have held on to that fact. I try not to forget it, to keep it in mind, while counting steps and making Japanese flags.

I took an elevator down to the lobby to watch the storm thrash against the wall of windows. It brought to mind the note I’d written—to Jay, to me, to the universe—all those months ago (oh, but it had already been three years), after dancing to the music only we could hear.

Last night, you happened. Everything changed. I don't know how or why, but time will probably figure that stuff out.

For now, all I know, with a clarity surprising in its absoluteness, is I will grow to find you in all the places that call for me to feel deeply, to plumb my own depths.

I know I will think of you at every triumph, fleetingly but surely, and use you as a salve whenever I fail or am felled.

I know I'll feel you tingle in my fingers at the dignified howl of a piano playing Rachmaninoff and in the soaring plummet of my insides as planes take leave of the ground.

I know that, one day, I will stand warm-toed in the sand, on a shore, as a storm rages around me; as it lights up the sea and rings out the skies, validates and questions God. I know that I will miss you then, intensely, sharply, with a piercing feeling that is part need, part hurt, part love, part loss.