Chapter 41

Joel carriedan armful of his old journals downstairs, Daniel following with another stack. They would box them up and read the rest later at home—but only one per day, max, because diving so deeply into 1987 made Joel's brain feel like it was floating between decades, looking for a solid place to moor itself. What year was it again now?

They set the piles of journals on the dining room table, then Joel turned to Daniel. "Would you mind putting together some boxes while I wander around down here a bit?"

"Not at all." Daniel picked up the packing-tape dispenser and raised it like a swordsman going into battle. "Call me if you need me."

"I will. Need you, that is."

Joel entered the small living room at the front of the house, a room his mom had always called a "parlor," out of a pretension that was only sometimes ironic.

Near the window, their upright piano held an almost imperceptible layer of dust. He folded back the key cover, then slid a finger along the ends of the white keys, stopping at middle C. With a soft press, the note doooooonnnnged forth.

Oh, what the hell. Days like this were made for following one's gut. He pulled out the piano bench and sat down.

First came scales and arpeggios, his fingers stiff after touching only computer keys for more than a year. From the dining room came the oddly soothing brrrrp! of packing tape.

What had Mom played that last time she'd given a "Zoom concert" for him and Ella and the kids? His memory was an infuriating blank now, but whatever the song was, the next time he heard it he'd be right back there. Music was memory's most loyal pal.

As he paused to stretch his hands, the hardwood floor creaked behind him, at the doorway to the kitchen.

"Sorry," Daniel said in a low voice. "I don't mean to intrude. I've never heard you play."

"It's no intrusion." He gestured toward the floral-patterned couch. "Have a seat and rest while you can. Much manual labor awaits us."

Joel continued noodling, switching between A Minor and C Major as the Belgian juggler's words scrolled through his mind like a movie's closing credits.

What have you done, these seventeen years?

How have you grown? What have you seen?

Definitely A Minor. He kept going, mouthing the words that crawled up into life, guided by the light of each note.

It's of no use to turn back the clock

Keep pressing on, and paths convene.

"What is that?" Daniel asked.

"I think…" He tried a different melodic line, then played his initial version again. Yes, that first instinct was right. "It could be the chorus to our song."

Daniel gave a sharp gasp. "I can hear it."

Joel's fingers stuttered in their search for a transition from chorus to verse. Composition had never been his forte. But maybe there was the seed of something here that could sprout through to…

When next we'll awake, where shall ye be?

We'll trill our song across the land.

Yeah, maybe it could work.

Joel played the chorus twice more—then twice again—to lock it into muscle memory. Finally he pulled the key cover shut. "I'll have a piano mover bring this to my house ASAP."

"That would be great," Daniel said. "For you, I mean. And for whoever gets to listen to you."

"Yes, for that otherwise profoundly unlucky person." He offered a faint smile that quickly faded under the weight of the moment.

Without the piano notes, the blistering drone of cicadas pressed in through the walls, demanding to be heard. Not a single Magicicada understood how extraordinary they were among beasts, how much meaning humans had painted and penned upon their septendecennial returns and returns and returns and returns.

He got up and went to sit beside Daniel, who had already left a Joel-size space beside himself.

He took Daniel's hand and met his eyes. This was the last moment before forever began, one way or another. "Listen…"

Daniel's salt-and-pepper brows dipped. "Yeah?" he whispered.

Fuck, what to say now? How to phrase it in a way Daniel couldn't resist? He couldn't even untangle his thoughts into a coherent line. For the first time in over a year, Joel's brain felt chemo-muddled.

He looked away, through the living room door into the unbearably empty foyer.

Oh. It wasn't vinblastine or any other cytotoxic compound clouding his mind. It was this house, the sadness sidling over every inch like invisible fog. He had to face that first.

"It still doesn't seem real," he said, staring at the photo of the five of them hanging on the wall at the bottom of the stairs—Mom, Dad, Ella, himself, and Freckles. "I saw her in that hospital bed, but I saw it on my iPad screen. That's the same screen I watch TV on when I'm doing the dishes, so how could that have been an actual thing happening in life and not on a show?"

Daniel said nothing, but held that stillness he took on when he was listening closely.

"Sometimes when my phone rings, for a millisecond I still think, ‘Oy, what does Mom want now?' Or I need advice, so I reach for my phone to get her thoughts and—" His eyes burned. "There's nothing. No more thoughts. That was the end of her."

Daniel let that statement hang in the air. Then he said, "She still lives on in you and your family, and that's not nothing. As for her advice, it's already inside you somewhere."

Joel gave a soft laugh. "That's truer than you know."

"How so?"

"My mom was highly intelligent, but she was not a complicated person, and she was, um, generous in sharing her opinions. Name any topic in the world, and I can tell you what she thought of it, or what she would think of it. Go on, anything."

"Okay. Horses."

"Horses, yeah. ‘Overrated and treacherous.'"

"Based on…"

"Based on her one experience riding a trail pony on vacation in the Poconos. Her horse bit her while she was on its back."

Daniel nodded. "That can happen if they've got a bendy neck and don't like you. How about…the Sargasso Sea?"

"Random. Nice." He had an answer even for this. "The blue of the ocean there is the bluest blue in the world." He looked at Daniel. "She'd say the Sargasso Sea matches your eyes, and she'd be right."

Daniel's lashes fluttered, all but a few still dark and thick. "Don't forget, she still has new thoughts for you." He glanced down, in the general direction of Joel's butt.

Joel twisted to look behind himself. "Oh!" He pulled Mom's letter out of his back pocket. "I need to read this." He slid a finger beneath the seal, but it stopped halfway. "Not here, though. Not in her house. It's too much."

"Makes sense. Be right back." Daniel got up and went into the kitchen. There came the sound of the fridge opening and closing, then he reappeared holding two water bottles and Joel's hat. "Bring the letter with us."

"Where are we going?"

Daniel tugged on his Rockies cap and gave Joel a luminous smile. "You'll see."

"You sure this is the spot?"Daniel looked back up the bike trail. The distance to the road was so much farther in his memory.

Up ahead, Joel stopped humming the chorus of their song and waved his phone showing the surveying app. "I'm Map Master J!" He plowed toward the tree line in the giant army-green sun hat he'd bought at the beach, the brim of which was almost shoulder width. Wildflowers and waist-high grass parted in his path. "It won't be like before, though."

"I know." Satellite images showed their old haunt indistinguishable from the rest of the woods, at least when viewed from space.

On the edge of the trees, they passed between two bushes of honeysuckle, the blooms releasing the sugary perfume adored by some moths, according to Joel. As the woods engulfed them, the temperature dropped and the cicadas' buzz spiked.

"Did you go back to the meadow a lot after I left?"

"Just once," Joel said. "Mom put two and two together, based on how long it took my sister to retrieve us that day. She'd always suspected Ella and I had a secret hideout. By the way, she knew you were stoned at the hospital."

Oops. "She never said anything."

"Considering the circumstances, it would've been heartless to tell you to ‘Just Say No.'" Joel looked down at his phone, then veered to the left. "Anyway, she went with us to retrieve our stuff. I had no hash left, but I still got in trouble for the cigarettes."

"What was in your sister's box?"

"Mostly same as mine—music, smokes—plus a bottle of cheap vodka and a dogeared Playgirl." His laughter rang out. "Porn was so chaste back then. And the guys were so hairy. Everyone wanted to be Tom Selleck."

"How did your mom react to the Playgirl?"

"It was the only time that day she laughed." Joel stopped. "I think this is it." He pointed up. "See how these hickories and oaks are a lot shorter than the ones behind us? And there are still a few pines here. Textbook secondary succession—how cool is that?"

At least one of them was excited about the new state of their place. Daniel stepped past him into what had once been their meadow. "No way this is our spot. Nothing looks the same."

"It's been thirty-four years. We're lucky it's not a strip mall."

Daniel pressed his palm to the trunk of the closest pine. Maybe this had been one of those little saplings, half his height, that had ringed the meadow back then.

Or maybe not. Maybe there was nothing left of them here.

"Daniel, close your eyes."

"Why?"

"Just do it and listen."

He closed his eyes, and there they were, the same sounds he'd heard back then: leaves whispering in the breeze, woodpeckers jackhammering for their next meal, and of course cicadas weeeee-oooooohing in a never-ending chorus. The only noise missing was the warbly boom box.

Hearing is the last sense to go.Maybe not just in life, but in memories, too. In Daniel's work, vision was everything, but his eyes had deceived him today.

This. This was their place.

Joel's hand slipped into his. "Are you there yet?"

"I'm there."

If only he could've touched Joel then like he was touching him now. If only they could've been seventeen in 2021 instead of 1987.

But the who of them came from the when of them. Born under Nixon and Vietnam, not Bush and Iraq. Coming of age in the AIDS epidemic with Prince and R.E.M., not the Covid pandemic with Billie Eilish and Lil Nas X. Too young to be boomers, too old to be millennials, and too whatever to be defined.

Maybe living half a century as an unknown quantity—maybe that was what left them so many possibilities.

Joel gave his hand a quick squeeze. "Okay, open your eyes."

The woods looked different now. Ahead, the forest floor was wilder than behind them, the tree species more varied, the undergrowth thicker and messier. Their ex-meadow was still in flux, still finding its way.

Holding hands, they stepped forward. If this had been a movie, they might've slipped into a portal in the space-time continuum. But it wasn't, so they didn't.

Joel stopped short. "Wait. Is that—" He let go of Daniel's hand and dashed to the left, bounding over a woody vine. Then he crouched down in front of a flat stone the size of a pillow. "It is! This rock used to cover our secret stash!"

"You're sure it's the same one?"

"Positive. I remember this little divot on the corner." He traced the indentation with his forefinger. "How do I remember that?"

"Is there anything under it? Maybe it's someone else's stash now."

Joel lifted the near side of the slab, but there was no hole beneath, just worms and bugs and part of a tree root. "Damn, I could go for an expired Pop-Tart." He lowered the rock gently, then brushed his hands on his jeans as he stood up. "Still, pretty cool we found that."

"Yeah." Daniel looked around. Had anything else from their first hours together lasted as long as stone and memory?

The wind stirred the trees, shifting the dapples of sunlight. Something shiny glinted to his right. Probably a beer can left by one of the teens who'd come this way over the years.

But maybe not.

Daniel went over to the shiny thing and used his foot to shove aside a clump of dead leaves covering half of it.

No. Way.

He dropped to his knees and clawed at the damp dirt to expose the rest of the gleaming mint-green artifact. An earwig scuttled away, tiny pincers raised in indignation like a pair of middle fingers.

Daniel wrenched the vintage ashtray out of the ground. "Check it out!"

"Whaaaaaaaaat?" Joel darted over and snatched it from his hands. "My initials! I can't believe it's still here in one piece."

"Ceramics last thousands of years."

"I packed up in such a hurry that day, I must've missed this." Joel examined the ashtray's lumpy interior. "And it was such a piece of crap, no one coming after us would bother to steal it."

"Or maybe they saw a kid's initials and thought you might come back for it one day. And you did."

"You were the one who wanted to come here." He beamed down at Daniel. "Thank you."

"Thank you for humoring my nostalgia." Daniel took his hand and let Joel help him to his feet, though he could've stood up on his own.

Joel tucked the ashtray under his arm, then took his mom's letter from his back pocket. "You were also right about me being able to read this here. As able as I'll ever be." He tore open the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of college-ruled notebook paper, both sides full of a neat scribble resembling Joel's own.

Daniel waited, letting the cicada chorus lull him into a more patient state of mind.

"Her handwriting," Joel said finally, "it's so shaky." He put a hand to his mouth and drew in a deep breath. "Okay, here goes. ‘Dear Joel. You said to toss your journals, but I knew one day you'd be glad to have them.' She was right, as usual. ‘I promise I didn't read them before boxing them up. You're welcome.'" Joel looked up. "Not reading them had to have been one of the hardest things she'd ever done."

"She would've enjoyed them, I think," Daniel said. "I know I am."

Joel offered a fleeting smile, then continued. "‘First I need to say I'm sorry about our argument the other night. I didn't want you to go to the BLM rally because I was worried about your health.'" Joel sighed, his lids heavy. "That argument was our last conversation before she got sick. I didn't know she was feeling bad even then. She went—" His lips trembled. "She went so fast, all she could do was send a WhatsApp to me and Ella from the ambulance."

Jesus God. "You never spoke with her again?"

"We Facetimed once before she went into ICU." He rubbed his forehead hard, as though trying to squash the memory. "So then she writes, ‘I'm still worried—I will always worry—but I am so proud of you for not'…" he squinted at the page, then held it at arm's length and nodded "…‘for not desisting.'"

"What does that mean?"

"Pretty sure she's referring to part of the Mishnah. There's a quote she loved enough to write on a scrap of paper stuck to her mirror. ‘It is not your task to complete the work, but you are not free to desist from it.'"

Daniel put a hand to his own heart. Joel had taken up that thread of wisdom even at seventeen. "You wrote something like that in your journal. About making the world a little better and raising kids who would do the same."

"Except I never had children," Joel said with a frown. "Just dogs."

"Are you kidding? How many students have you had? How many young people have you inspired to heal the world?"

"I don't know." Joel looked off into the near distance. "A lot, I guess." He lifted the letter again. "She says, ‘I was also deeply disappointed I couldn't join you at the rally.'" He paused, his eyes turning thick and wet. "That would've been really good," he whispered, "to do that together."

Daniel went to touch him, but he stepped out of reach. "Sorry, I need to get through this." Joel sniffled. "Then she writes, ‘Un-retiring is my own form of not desisting. I will never regret returning to save lives and to ease the burden of my colleagues. My only regret is not being able to hug'—" His lips pressed together, contorting his mouth.

"Take your time," Daniel said softly.

"I can't read that part out loud." Joel flipped over the sheet of paper and scanned it. "Oh, boy." He shut his eyes hard, then opened them again. "‘If I-I die, please know that I won't be alone. Before my eyes close forever, they will see the faces of my friends.'" The tears flowed, but he pushed on with a cracking voice. "‘And in my mind, in my last moments, I will see your face. Love'—"

Joel lowered the letter to his side and raised a shaky palm in a silent plea for space. Then he wiped his cheeks, first the left, then the right. "‘Love, Mom.' Hang on, there's more. ‘PS: Be nice to your sister. PPS: Would it kill you to'—" Joel froze, then shook his head. "Un-fucking-believable." He handed the letter to Daniel.

PPS: Would it kill you to look up Danny Evans and apologize for being a jerk? Honestly.

Daniel reread the PPS twice. "How did she know about Columbia?"

"It came up when Sam and I split." Joel took back the letter. "She was like a dog with a bone about that incident. Anyway, I'm truly sorry."

"You already apologized. I told you, I forgave you."

"I know." Joel shoved the heel of his hand against his forehead. "This time I'm saying sorry to myself."

"What do you mean?"

"That note I left you in the hotel? It wasn't one of those, ‘It's not you, it's me' blowoffs. I left you that morning because I thought it would stop me falling in love with you." He gave a sharp sniffle. "But it didn't work."

Daniel's breath caught on the way into his lungs.

"I hurt you to save myself," Joel continued, "and it didn't even work. I spent the next seven years looking at your magazine, falling deeper in love through your photos. I pretended each picture was a postcard you'd sent only to me. I got so stuck. You moved on into two marriages, and I couldn't even manage one, because I never stopped thinking about you." His words were tumbling out faster and louder. "Not until I got sick, and then I finally let myself forget you, because I needed strength to survive. And then, just when you'd finally left my head, you popped up again in my Facebook, wanting to be friends!"

The final word echoed through the woods.

"Joel…" Daniel pressed his fingertips to his own lips and closed his eyes. He had one chance to say this for the first time. "I knew you'd subscribed to Great Plains Life. You weren't the only one pretending those photos were postcards to you."

"Oh," Joel mouthed, his voice drowned by the drone of cicadas.

"Every single layout was done with the thought, ‘Wish you were here.' Because I never stopped wishing you were with me. Sometimes that feeling was quiet, in the back of my mind, and sometimes it was so loud I couldn't hear myself think." He swept his arms toward the treetops. "Ever since these bugs' grandparents serenaded us thirty-four years ago today, I've never not been in love with you."

Joel stared at him for a long moment. Then he slipped the letter back into the envelope. He held the flap shut with all his fingers, as though the contents would fly out.

Daniel's throat ached. "Say something."

Joel slid the envelope into his back pocket, then took the ashtray from under his arm and studied it for a moment.

A quick nod, then he whipped off his hat and went down on one knee. "Daniel, I'd give anything to go back in time and give us a long life together, but in this universe, time only moves forward." He swallowed hard. "So whatever life I have left, I want to spend it with you."

Daniel put a hand to his own chest and pushed. Breathe. He had to breathe.

"Not just every now and then," Joel continued, "when one of us can travel halfway across this gorgeous, impossible mess of a country. I want every day and every night to be ours. Forever." With both hands he offered up the ashtray, its rim chipped and its bowl grimy but its lumpy form as solid as ever. "Will you marry me, dude?"

Daniel hesitated for the blink of an eye, long enough to fix this image onto his forever-memory. Then he took the ashtray and dropped down onto the knee he was born with. "Hell yeah, I'll marry you."

He pulled Joel into the first kiss of the rest of their lives. As long as they walked this earth, they would never endure another kiss-less—another them-less—day or night.

"I love you, Joel Mendel."

"I love you too, Danny-Dan-Daniel Evans." Joel's words came out in a rush. "You're sure about this? It probably means you moving in with me."

"I know. You've got tenure and your own house. Besides, the pandemic taught me I can run my business from anywhere."

"Okay." Joel's grip on Daniel's shoulders tightened. "But if I had to go west to be with you, I would do it in a heartbeat. I mean, you have to move your cat, and cats hate moving."

"Luna will deal. She'll love having a yard to look at instead of just sky and buildings. Plus, she loves dogs. We host my neighbors' Shih Tzu when they're traveling."

"Ooh, Florey and Archie will be so jealous that Luna gets to sleep on the bed with us." Joel tilted his head. "Which is good, because it'll reinforce her dominance in our family's hierarchy."

Our family.Holy cow. "I can't wait for you to meet Hailey in person."

Joel gasped. "Me neither! Holy shit, I'm gonna be a stepfather. You think she'll call me Dad? Or just Joel?"

The giddiness in Daniel's chest spilled out in a laugh. "She'll call you by some silly nickname no matter what."

"Excellent." Joel rubbed his beard. "Wow, Ella's gonna flip when we tell her."

"Maybe let's wait until tonight? She's got a lot to deal with being at your mom's house."

"Good point. You're already such a thoughtful brother-in-law." He stood up and pulled Daniel to his feet. "Speaking of Ella, we should get back to the house and make more boxes, but first…" He bowed deeply. "May I have this dance?"

Daniel nearly fell over from a literal swoon. "From now on, you may have every dance."

Joel drew up straight and tall. "How about a commemorative waltz? I can teach you better now than I did last time."

"I know how to waltz. I'm all grown up."

Joel stepped into Daniel's arms. "Then you can lead."

It wasn't easy to waltz in the woods, given the undergrowth, but they managed, stumbling over roots and scraping knuckles against tree trunks. They had no music but the song of the cicadas, and it was enough.

"So what kind of wedding do we want?" Daniel asked. "Big, small, Vegas elopement?"

"We deserve a giant-ass matrimonial spectacle. Maybe a ten-tiered cake with a different flavor on each level. Plus cicada ice sculptures. And obviously a Smiths tribute band."

"Wow." Clearly Joel had already put some thought into this. "That's gonna take a while to organize."

"We've got time." Joel gazed up at him as their feet moved over old ground made new. "At long last, we've got time."