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CHAPTER 201

The week before the wedding was so fast. Monday I had my final costume fitting for September’s project. Tuesday Grayson had his last weekly appointment with Dr Osei before moving to monthly check ins. Wednesday Max and I had coffee and talked about nothing important for two hours which was exactly what we both needed. Thursday I went to see my mother alone. She opened the door and looked at me and said, “You look like your father when he was happy.” “Is that good?” I said. “It’s the best thing I can say,” she said simply. “Come in.” We sat at her kitchen table with tea and talked about Maria Santos who had sent a handwritten thank you letter to the foundation. About Eleanor who had apparently already planned her outfit for the wedding in considerable detail. About the September project and what Carol had written and what it meant. Then my mother said, “Are you ready?” “For Saturday?” I said. “For all of it,” she said. “The wedding.” I thought about it honestly. “Yes,” I sa

CHAPTER 202

Saturday morning finally arrived. I lay still for exactly one hour. Then I got up. Max arrived at nine with Sophie and coffee and the particular energy of a best man who had been preparing for this moment since the day I called him from a pavement in Midtown with debt collectors at my door and no options left. He walked in, looked at me standing in my kitchen, and said, “You look calm.” “I am calm,” I said. “Good calm or pretending calm?” Sophie asked. “Good calm,” I said honestly. Max handed me coffee. “Okay.” He sat at the counter. “How do you feel?” “Ready,” I said simply. He studied me for a moment. Then he nodded once. “Good,” he said. “Because we have four hours and I have a list.” “Of course you do,” Sophie said. “Lists are important,” Max said seriously. “You sound like Grayson,” I said. Max pointed at me. “Don’t ever say that again.” I smiled. My mother arrived at ten. She walked in and looked at me properly the way she always did. “Good,” she said simply.

CHAPTER 203

The reception was exactly what we had planned. Small. Eleanor had somehow transformed the main rehearsal room into somewhere beautiful without making it feel like a venue. Round tables. White and green flowers. Candles. Max stood and gave a speech that started funny and ended with him pressing his fist to his mouth briefly and everyone pretending not to notice. “Leo Carter walked into my life broke and terrified and completely certain he was going to make it,” he said. “I believed him immediately. Not because the evidence supported it.” He paused. “Because I knew him. And knowing Leo means knowing that whatever impossible thing stands in front of him he will find the honest way through it.” He looked at Grayson. “And you.” “You were the most impossible thing. And you found the honest way through too.” He raised his glass. “To Leo and Grayson. The most complicated love story I have ever had front row seats to.” Everyone laughed. Everyone drank. Grayson leaned toward me. “Fro

CHAPTER 204

We stayed until the last guest left. Which was Max, as usual. He lingered at the door with his jacket on saying goodbye for approximately twenty minutes while Sophie stood beside him with the patient. “Max,” I said finally. “I’m going,” he said. “You’ve been going for twenty minutes,” I said. “I’m savouring,” he said. “This was a significant evening.” “Go savour in the cab,” Sophie said gently and steered him through the door. He pointed at me over his shoulder. “Breakfast Sunday. My place. No excuse.” “We’ll be there,” I said. The door closed. Grayson and I stood in the empty reception room. Flowers still on the tables. Candles burning low. “Hello husband,” Grayson said calmly. I looked at him. That word. “Hello husband,” I replied back. We walked through the building slowly. Turning off lights. Closing doors. We stopped on the stage. Standing where we had stood a few hours ago saying the truest things we had ever said. “How does it feel?” I asked. “Like the beg

CHAPTER 205

Sunday breakfast at Max’s was interesting. Which was exactly what we needed the morning after the most special day of our lives. It was for this too. Eggs and toast and Max talking too much and Sophie quietly refilling everyone’s coffee without being asked. Eleanor came. She arrived twelve minutes after us with pastries and strong opinions about the eggs Max was making and within four minutes had taken over the stove completely while Max stood beside her looking. “You didn’t have to …” he started. “The heat was too high,” she said. “I like them that way,” he said. “Nobody likes them that way,” she said. My mother arrived at ten and sat beside me and accepted coffee from Sophie and looked around the table at everyone gathered in Max’s small kitchen on a Sunday morning and said nothing for a moment. “Mom,” I said quietly. “I’m counting,” she said. “Counting what?” I said. “Good things,” she said simply. “It doesn’t take long when there are this many.” I looked around the

CHAPTER 206

Moving day finally arrived, but it came with heavy rain. Max showed up at eight with Sophie and an umbrella he immediately lost somewhere between the cab and the building entrance and spent the rest of the morning pretending it wasn't bothering him. “I had an umbrella,” he said to no one in particular while carrying a box up the stairs. “You lost it immediately,” Sophie said. “It was taken,” he said. “By who?” she said. “The city,” he said. “The city takes things.” Grayson looked at me. “Does he do this often?” “Constantly,” I said. We carried boxes up four flights of stairs because the elevator was being serviced which Eleanor described as poor planning when she arrived at ten with lunch. By 4pm we were arranging. My mother arrived at five with dessert. She walked through the apartment slowly. Room by room. She stopped at the kitchen windowsill. At her photograph. She stood there for a moment looking at it. I watched her from the doorway. She reached out and straight

CHAPTER 207

It’s been six months since we moved into our apartment. The arts centre was full every day. Not just Maria Santos. Seventeen young people from across Queens come through those doors weekly. Acting classes. Music sessions. Writing workshops. The library Eleanor had built was growing with every passing month. I knew because my mother sent updates. On a Tuesday morning in November I sat at the kitchen counter of our Brooklyn apartment with coffee and the script for Carol’s second film and watched Grayson make breakfast. Actually properly. Eggs that weren’t burned. Toast that was timed correctly. Orange juice because Dr Osei had suggested it and Grayson had added it to the morning routine without complaint. “You can actually cook now,” I said. “I could always cook,” he said. “You could not,” I said. “I had potential,” he said seriously. “You had ambition,” I said. “Potential came later.” He set a plate in front of me. “Eat.” I ate. It was genuinely good. “Don’t s

CHAPTER 208

Maria Santos took her bow. I clapped until my hands hurt and watched this seventeen year old girl from Queens stand in the light After the performance she found us in the gathering outside the theatre. “Leo,” she said. She had stopped saying Mr Carter three weeks ago. “Did you see? I wasn’t nervous.” “I saw,” I said. “You were extraordinary.” “I kept thinking about what you told me,” she said. “That the most powerful thing you can do on a stage is simply be honest.” She paused. “It worked.” “It always works,” I said. She hugged me briefly and moved away into the crowd and my mother appeared at my elbow watching her go. “She’s going to be something,” my mother said. “She already is,” I said. My mother looked at me sideways. “Like someone else I know.” We stayed until the building emptied. Then the four of us … me, Grayson, my mother, Max … stood in the empty theatre in the quiet after everyone had gone. “Look at it now,” he said. Nobody added anything to that because noth

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