I don’t know how long we sit there, but I listen while half the town gets up to say something about Vance Hines, how he touched their lives in one way or another. Someone tells the story about the bear. Sefina laughs, recounting the punch Dad landed on her ex-husband’s nose. Hank remembers Dad pulling his drunk self out of a ditch one freezing winter night. Saved my life, Hank says through tears that glisten in his white beard. I am there, I am listening, yet I am frozen, a hard shell surrounding my heart. This loss is new to me alone, and it’s a fresh grief that tears me apart at the seams. I rub at my neck, see Ruth dabbing at her eyes, Kiko nodding at something Hank says, and I am an island among them. This moment will stay with them long after they leave, but mine will ebb into the waters that surround me, leaving me to grieve all over again. The thought rolls into a ball, settles into my stomach. I try to write it all down, but I can’t possibly record everything, especially this immense feeling of loss. This momentary grief.

Someone sits beside me, leans into me. “I’m so sorry about Vance, Claire.”

I turn to see Tate, older but with the same green eyes that seem to read my thoughts, and I cry out, surprised he’s here but comforted to share it with him. “He’s dead, Tate.”

He puts an arm around me, and even though it’s been years since I’ve seen him, touched him, spoken to him, I relax into his embrace because Tate feels like coming home.

There’s a notebook in his lap, and with his free hand he’s writing furiously.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to record everything for you so you don’t have to write, so you can just sit here and t . . . t-ake it all in and listen to how much everyone loved him. When you w . . . w-ant to remember, it will all be in here.”

His efforts move me so deeply I feel frozen in his arms. “Thank you,” I whisper.

He tightens his arm around me. “You’re welcome. And don’t worry,” he whispers. “I w . . . w-on’t miss a thing.”

My eyes drift to my own notebook, worn and bent, the pages fluffed out from so much use. It is full of desperate scribbles; my fingers throb from so much writing, and I set the pen down, grateful to rest my aching hand.