“Give Jonah my condolences.” Then, “Elizabeth, too. Oh, and just so you know, you can’t trick me into fulfilling an abandonment fantasy. You’re a prick, but we’re stuck together, so don’t pity yourself over this. Call me when you can be decent,” he says, and leaves the chapel.

The ceramic dead Jesus sinks back into the wall, color-dull. Taking a seat in the closest pew, I drop my head into my hands and try to breathe. Breathe. Daydream of stretching out and sleeping on this dark wood, so tired and sick of fielding questions, of shaking hands and being civil—of being civilized, for that matter—when I’d rather break furniture or nap on it. My head won’t quiet. If only it would quiet.

I smell Elizabeth’s skin before feeling her hand on my shoulder. She thinks I’m bored, or crying, or verging on a breakdown, or breaking down, so I sit upright and smooth my sport coat, saying, “It’s okay, Lizzie,” and I smile to keep from doing those other things. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

She takes mercy on me. Or maybe she just wants to avoid a scene. Either way, she sits beside me and withholds words, questions, judgments, advice. For this, I’m beholden to her. Just as I coaxed her out of the pantry, she’s building me up for Round Two. She kneads my shoulder in the affirmative, Mickey to my Rocky, and I don’t mind, because she believes in me and deserves a strong man, so I lace my insides tightly inside. Even in the grit—perhaps especially here in the grittiest, ugliest, most tragic and wretched For Worse—we are Better. ’Til death do us part.

23.

Naomi Miller is a sweet lady and broken one. Through chatty friends and neighbors, I learn about her sister, who was Nick’s mother, who really did die of ALS, and about how Naomi carried Nick’s family after that. Before Nick’s dad took his own life, he named Naomi as Nick’s legal guardian. She was the one who helped Nick move into the dorm room he and Jonah shared. Naomi was the one who cosigned Nick’s loans, managed his debt, and so, I’m told by friends and family, she wasn’t just next of kin. She was practically a second mother. Aunt, mother, executor of his estate. Gracious hostess, gone to pieces.

We follow a caravan of cars from the funeral parlor to her house for the reception. It’s a nice house. Nice yard. On her walls and mantel, photos of Nick illustrate a happier, brighter boy than the one I met. Laughter, team photos, candid shots. Uncomfortably plain.

I say to Elizabeth, “I don’t get it. Didn’t he grow up in the system?”

“The system?”

“Yeah. Like, foster care. Juvy.”

Elizabeth rolls her eyes. “What?”

“He made it sound like that.”

“No he didn’t.”