Daniel didn't ask another question that evening.
He took his phone into the living room and sat with it in his hand.
I remained in the kitchen.
The cups were still on the counter.
I washed them slowly, watching the water run over the rims.
Theo had not explained everything.
He had not told me the full meaning of the dress.
He had not described every part of his relationship with Jack.
But he had given me something I hadn't expected.
A little honesty.
It was more than I had received from anyone since the funeral.
I wasn't sure whether Daniel understood that.
I wasn't sure whether he wanted to.
Later, I found him standing near the window.
He was looking out at the dark garden.
"Did Theo say anything else?" he asked.
I leaned against the doorway.
"About what?"
He turned toward me.
"You know what I mean."
I didn't.
Or perhaps I did, and I was tired of pretending I could read his mind.
"If you want to know something, Daniel, ask me directly."
He rubbed his forehead.
"I just want to know what he told you."
"He talked about Jack."
"That's all?"
I felt the question settle between us.
It wasn't curiosity alone.
There was tension beneath it.
"Why are you so concerned about what Theo said?"
Daniel looked at me for a long time.
Then he sat down.
"I'm not concerned."
I almost laughed.
It would have been an unpleasant laugh.
"You keep saying that."
He looked toward the floor.
"I don't know what you want from me."
"I want you to stop acting as if there's something wrong with my wanting to understand."
He was quiet.
I sat opposite him.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
I could hear the clock on the wall.
Its ticking had always been easy to ignore.
That evening, every second seemed deliberate.
"I don't think the funeral was the right place for all that," Daniel said eventually.
"All what?"
He looked at me.
"The attention. The questions. The way people were looking at him."
I thought about Theo walking down the aisle.
"He wasn't the one whispering."
Daniel's mouth tightened.
"I know."
"Then why are you speaking as though he caused it?"
He stood and walked toward the hallway.
I felt the familiar fear that the conversation would end before it reached anything honest.
"Daniel."
He stopped.
"Did Jack ever talk to you about Theo?"
He didn't turn around immediately.
When he did, his expression was difficult to read.
"Of course he did."
"What did he say?"
"Ordinary things."
I waited.
Daniel seemed to understand that I wasn't going to accept that answer.
"He cared about him," he added.
I nodded.
"So did Theo."
Daniel looked away again.
I wanted to ask whether he had known how deeply.
I wanted to ask whether he had understood something about Jack that I had not.
But I couldn't tell whether I was looking for truth or simply trying to make sense of my grief.
I was afraid of both possibilities.
"Did Jack ever tell you he was unhappy?" I asked.
Daniel's face softened.
"No."
"Did he ever tell you he was afraid of how people might react to something?"
He stared at me.
For a moment, I thought he would answer.
Then he shook his head.
"Not that I remember."
I believed he might be telling the truth.
I also knew that people could forget conversations they hadn't understood were important.
I had done that myself.
I stood.
"I miss him."
Daniel's face changed.
"I know."
"No, I mean I miss being able to ask him what he meant. I miss being able to call him and hear his voice. I miss not having to guess."
My eyes filled with tears.
Daniel reached for me.
I let him hold my hand.
We stood together for a moment.
Neither of us spoke.
Then he said, "We can't change anything now."
I knew that.
But I was beginning to understand that accepting it didn't mean I had to stop asking questions.
The following morning, I went into Jack's room again.
I opened the curtains and sat beside the desk.
The photograph of Jack and Theo was no longer there.
I had left it in the kitchen.
The empty space on the desk bothered me more than I expected.
I took out a sheet of paper and began writing down things I remembered about Jack.
Not important things.
Not dates or milestones.
Small things.
The way he liked his tea.
The way he sometimes called me just to ask what I was cooking.
The way he would say he was fine when he wasn't, then eventually tell me what had happened after I stopped asking.
I wrote until the page was nearly full.
Then I stopped.
I had wanted to preserve my memories of him.
Instead, I had begun listing all the ways I had never fully understood him.
I folded the paper and placed it in the drawer.
I wasn't ready to read it again.
At lunchtime, I called Theo.
He answered after several rings.
"Hello?"
"It's me."
"Hi."
I could hear movement in the background.
I asked whether I had caught him at a bad time.
"No. I'm just doing a few things."
I hesitated.
"I wanted to thank you for coming yesterday."
"You already thanked me."
"I know."
He was quiet.
I realized I had called because I wanted to hear his voice again.
That felt selfish.
I didn't want him to become responsible for helping me understand my son's death.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't really know why I called."
"It's all right."
I heard him breathe out.
"Sometimes I pick up the phone to call Jack before I remember."
My eyes closed.
I pressed my fingers against the edge of the desk.
"I do that too."
"I keep thinking I'll tell him something later."
His voice faltered.
"Then I remember there isn't a later."
I couldn't speak.
Neither of us tried to fill the silence.
For once, the quiet didn't feel like a wall.
It felt like something we were both sitting beside.
After a while, Theo spoke again.
"Your house still smells the same."
I opened my eyes.
"What do you mean?"
"Yesterday. The kitchen smelled the way it always did."
I looked toward the hallway.
I had never thought about the smell of our kitchen.
Tea.
Soap.
Whatever we had cooked the night before.
Ordinary things.
"That's good," I said.
"Yeah."
He paused.
"It made me feel close to him."
I felt tears moving down my face.
I didn't wipe them away.
"I'm glad."
We spoke for another few minutes.
Before we ended the call, Theo said something that stayed with me.
"I don't want people to remember Jack only as the person who died."
I understood.
I had been doing exactly that.
Every conversation about my son began with the loss.
Every memory seemed to lead back to the funeral.
I had allowed the final days of his life to take up so much space that I had almost forgotten the years that came before them.
"I don't want that either," I told him.
After the call, I returned to the kitchen.
The photograph remained on the table.
I picked it up and carried it into the living room.
Daniel was sitting on the sofa.
I placed the photograph on the small table beside him.
He looked at it.
Then he looked at me.
"I spoke to Theo," I said.
He waited.
"He misses Jack."
Daniel lowered his eyes.
"Of course he does."
I sat down.
"He said he keeps thinking about things he wants to tell him."
Daniel nodded slowly.
For a moment, we were simply two people who had lost someone.
Then he looked at the photograph again.
"Jack cared about him."
"I know."
Daniel rubbed his hands together.
"I always knew they were close."
I watched him.
There was something in his tone I couldn't quite place.
Not guilt.
Not necessarily.
Something more like discomfort with a memory he hadn't expected to revisit.
"Was there something about their relationship you thought I didn't know?" I asked.
He looked at me sharply.
"No."
I held his gaze.
He looked away first.
I didn't press him.
I was learning that forcing an answer out of someone rarely produced the kind of honesty I wanted.
But I was also learning that silence could be an answer of its own.
That evening, I made a simple meal.
Daniel ate without saying much.
Afterward, I put the photograph back in the kitchen.
I wanted it where we would see it every day.
Not hidden in Jack's room.
Not tucked into a drawer.
Visible.
A reminder that Jack's life had belonged to more people than the two of us.
I stood beside the table for a long time.
I had spent days trying to understand Theo's dress.
I was beginning to see that the real question was not what he had worn.
It was why his grief seemed to frighten people who claimed to care about him.
And why my husband, who had loved Jack as deeply as I had, seemed so determined to keep that grief at a distance.
I didn't know the answer.
But I no longer wanted to pretend I hadn't noticed the question.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: I Had Always Believed My Son Could Tell Me Anything, Until I Began to Wonder Whether My Own Comfort Had Set Limits on His Honesty
The Funeral Had Barely Begun When the Person I Trusted Least to Surprise Me Walked Through the Chapel Doors
Part 6 of 20
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