to get her through this. “He said, ‘You’ve taken care of your brother all your life, and I want you to know I’ve got it from here.’ And he did. He didn’t know what he was signing on for, but he was with Nico to the absolute end. And now he’s taking care of him again.” She barely got it out. A girlfriend walked her down from the lectern, rubbing her back.
One of Terrence’s teaching colleagues read a poem Yale couldn’t focus on. The minister led everyone in a meditation. Asher, who was a classically trained baritone, sang the “Pie Jesu” from Webber’s new requiem—a song Yale had only heard a soprano recording of, but that worked just as well for Asher, for the cello Yale had always imagined living in Asher’s throat. Yale, no more Catholic than Asher was, reveled now in the sound of Latin, those pure, liturgical vowels, the crunch of Q’s and C’s. The song wasn’t just a lamentation; it was a wringing out. Yale was a wet washcloth, and someone was squeezing everything out of him over a sink.
He didn’t look at Charlie. He could hear him breathing, hear him blowing his nose. At Nico’s vigil, they’d held hands.
He did look back at the rows behind him. Seven teenagers sat together, without parents. Yale imagined they were students who’d somehow gotten word. Behind them sat Teddy and Richard. Teddy drummed his left hand on the chair back. Some of Terrence’s family sat in the rear. Or at least he assumed they were family. A tall young man who looked remarkably like Terrence, three young black women. No one who looked the right age to be Terrence’s parents, but one woman old enough to be his grandmother.
When it was over, Yale and Charlie walked out together, and they each hugged Fiona.
Yale spotted Julian across the church lobby. He hadn’t seen him in the sanctuary, but here he was now by the coatrack, eyes wide and glassy. He’d lost weight. Yale didn’t imagine it was the virus; the odds of Julian getting sick precisely when he learned he had the thing were low.
He realized Charlie was staring, too, and for an instant Yale and Charlie were aligned again, communicating telepathically.
Yale whispered to Charlie, “Did you tell him?”
“No.”
And then they were apart once more, thinking completely different things, and Yale knew Charlie was remembering whatever he’d done with Julian, memories Yale was forever—mercifully—locked out of. Yale took off down the hall to the youth room for his box.
But when he’d picked it up and turned around, Charlie was there in the doorway. Just looking at him.
Yale said, “For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry you’re sick. But beyond that, I have very little sympathy for you right now.”
The lights were off in the room. Streetlights through the windows, but that was all.
Charlie said, “I think I’ve figured out why I did it.”
“Oh, do tell.” Yale held the box in front of him, a barrier.
“This might not make sense, but I think I did it because I was tired of being scared.”
“You were terrified of a disease, so you went out and got it?”
“No. No. I was scared of you leaving me, of you cheating on me with someone younger and better looking and smarter. I know it’s fucked up, but somewhere in my mind it was like, if I did the worst thing I could think of, then every time I saw you flirt with someone else I’d almost hope you would go for it, so it would even the score.”
“You thought this all through.”
“Not at the time, no. I was blotto, Yale. And Julian had these poppers he’d stolen from Richard’s house.”
“Poppers last all of ten seconds.”
“That’s not what I meant, I mean what we did in bed, I wouldn’t have—”
“Jesus, Charlie.”
“I wouldn’t have let him.”
“I think your little self-analysis is way off. I think you were absolutely trying to get sick.” Yale was yelling, and he didn’t care. “Why is the question, but that’s for you to figure out. Maybe you hate yourself. Maybe you hate me. Maybe you want the attention. There’s no good reason, is there? When you know the risks. You’re not naive. You’re the fucking condom czar of Chicago.”
Charlie was shaking his head. Charlie never seemed to cry actual tears, but his eyes would turn pink and puffy. He hadn’t come far into the room, was standing near the doorway as if he might run out. He said, “We used a rubber. We