“I didn’t know what to say,” Asher says, and he hears pleading in his own voice. “You were so mad when you left.”

“You only had to say you were sorry.”

“You were too stubborn for that,” Asher says. “If I had found you, you would have never listened to me. Not after what I said. And I can’t hardly blame you.”

“But you shouldn’t have stopped trying, Asher. You should have done whatever you could to make it right.”

“I know,” Asher says. “It took me years, but that’s what I’ve tried to do. I’ve given up everything to stand up for you. My church. My marriage. Even my—”

Luke shakes his head. “Please don’t sit here and tell me how much you’ve sacrificed for me. The good Christian laying down his life for his faggot brother.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“You rushed into that marriage just to please our mother. You convinced yourself that you and Lydia were the perfect couple but she always wanted something you didn’t. I never much liked Lydia but I also knew it wasn’t fair of you to marry her.”

“Not fair of me?”

“The only thing you two ever had in common was church, man. You shouldn’t have married her.”

“Well, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have Justin. So I can’t have any regrets about that.”

They are silent for a time, listening to the small sound of the water washing up on the shore and the low talk of the men behind them. A man in denim cutoffs stumbles so close to them that he kicks sand up onto Asher’s feet. He’s humming as he goes along—it’s “Blackbird,” Asher realizes—his eyes fixed on the water.

There is a gale of laughter from the men behind them as the humming man wanders into their group and starts a drunken, barefooted tap dance to entertain them. He and Luke have brought a box of canned goods to the homeless people who gather under the shelter houses. Luke had set the box on one of the tables and walked away, not wanting to shame them or make them think he was there to convert them.

“For all you knew, I could’ve ended up like those men,” Luke says. “I left with next to nothing. Two hundred dollars in my pocket. A gym bag of clothes and books.”

“I worried about you, every day.”

“I wish I could just get over it, but I can’t, Asher. All those years of remembering how you acted that day. For you, all this time you’ve been changing and getting used to that, but for me, when I saw you yesterday, you were the same person I left ten years ago.”

“I understand that,” Asher says, and he does, although he has not thought of any of this until this moment.