Page 44 of Any Given Lifetime
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, the kid claimed not to know who Neil was when I asked him, but he was obviously holding something back. And I mean,come on, Joshua.” Chris shoved a stray lock of hair behind his ear. It blew gently in the wind. “Look at him, you know? So, what’s the real story? Is he related to Neil or what?”
“I—”
Chris didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m trying to remember. Neil and I didn’t talk about his family a lot. Hell, I did most of the talking. He just listened to me yammer on about all the guys I was screwing and sometimes he’d get up the nerve to hit on guys at the clubs. Or we’d watch baseball at his place and shout at the television together.” Chris tapped his front teeth with his index finger. “Did Neil have a nephew? Or a brother? Or—never mind—I doubt he had a kid of his own. He’d have told me.”
“You think?” Joshua asked.
“Yeah. I can’t imagine he wouldn’t have told me if he had a kid somewhere out there. That’s a kind of big deal, isn’t it? And, besides, Neil wasreallygay.” Chris elbowed Joshua. “But you know that.”
Joshua grimaced. He didn’t know it nearly as intimately as everyone assumed, or as intimately as he’d have liked. “Yeah. But maybe he donated sperm?”
“Hmm. I could see Neil doing that. Is that what happened?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I…have no idea.”
“But I thought you knew the guy from the bench. Can’t you just ask him?”
Joshua shook his head. “’Fraid not.”
He couldn’t ask Neil Green anything. He could barely even think about calling him without shaking so hard that he had to hold on to something. He glanced toward the entrance to the resort, longing for the bar again.
“Why?”
“It would seem like a conflict of interest. For the grant funding.” He never lied and now he’d done it twice in a week. But he wasn’t going to tell Chris the truth either.
“Ah,” Chris said, like that made sense. “I wish I’d gotten to talk with him longer. What was his name? He told me, but I forgot.”
“Dr. Green.”
“Right. That’s it. He was scrawny, just like you know Neil would’ve been.”
“I’m not sure Neil would have appreciated that description.”
Chris grinned. “Probably not. Still, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Neil since I saw that kid. I miss him, Joshua. He’s been gone a long time, but he gave me a safe place to go when I needed one. And I’ll always be grateful for that.”
Joshua swallowed hard. Could a person be brought back to life? In another body? In a body that was exactly like the one they’d been in before? He rubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah, me, too. He gave me a safe place, too.”
Chris seemed to clue in to Joshua’s grief at that moment, and he leaned closer, touching his arm. “Joshua, are you okay? I know you’re probably still missing Lee. But it gets better. I promise. We both know that.”
“I do miss Lee, Chris, and I know it will ease over time,” Joshua said quietly, reminding him with his tone that he’d grieved hard for Neil for a long while, but had gone on to have a good life after that. “And it’s not Lee. It’s….” He trailed off. What could he say? That he’d become convinced that Dr. Green was Neil incarnated into a new body? Chris would call his mother, and she’d have them take him into the hospital for an involuntary commitment if he said that.
“It’s what? You know you can talk to me, Joshua. I’m here for you.”
Joshua forced a tight smile. “You know, Chris, I think this is something I have to deal with alone.”
He frowned. “You’re never alone, Joshua. You know that, right?”
Joshua patted his friend’s hand and forced more brightness into his smile. “I know. Thanks.”
That night, after tossing and turning for hours before finally falling to sleep, Joshua woke up sweating and sick to his stomach. He reached for the side of the bed Lee had slept on and grabbed the pillow, holding on tight.
In his dream, he’d been sitting on the bench outside Barren River, handwriting notes in a paper journal, when Neil sat down beside him.
“Oh my God! It’s you!” Joshua said, just like always.
Neil looked the same, love and affection shone in his eyes, and a small smile tugged just on the corners of his lips, almost like it was involuntary.
