Last Saturday, Nick walked cheerfully into my house and said,
“Hey, you know what? My nephews have been reaching out to me!”
“Oh, that’s wonderful!” I replied with a happy smile.
“I’ve got a family again—and I owe that to you!”
“Nonsense! I merely helped you with a decision that was yours, and yours alone. You wanted to reach out to your sister, even if that wish wasn’t quite clear in your mind. My role was simply to bring some light to what was still shadowed up here,” I said, tapping my temple. “The hard work was all yours.”
“I’ve got a family again,” he repeated, serious now, taking me by the shoulders. “And I owe that to you. I wish I could repay you somehow—but I have no idea how!”
I held his arms and said, just as seriously, “Your joy is payment enough, Nick. I don’t need anything more.”
He hugged me tight and said, “Man, I’ve never met anyone like you.”
I returned his affection and smiled. “Few people have—and there are some who thank the Almighty for that.”
“How’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m no better than anyone, Nick. The person I loved most in this world swore I was a selfish monster who respected no one. And who knows? Maybe he was right. Perhaps that’s why I never invested in long relationships.”
He looked at me, still serious.
“You don’t want me to like you?”
“I just don’t want you to idealize me. I want what’s good for you, and I could kill or die to make sure you have it—but that doesn’t make me good.”
“You just wanna be a good Catholic.”
“Any goodness in me isn’t my own doing.”
“That person you’re talking about—that’s the guy in the photograph, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“He hurt you bad. I think he killed something inside you.”
“It’s over. Poor thing’s been dead for years.”
Nick sat down at the table, something dense and heavy passing through his mind.
“What is it?” I asked with a smile.
“I spent all the eighties and part of the nineties smoking, snorting, and mostly shooting up every kind of crap I could find—while selling myself to all sorts of men. When I survived that overdose, I also survived AIDS. How? What kind of miracle was that? I survived two deaths.”
Nick paused, searching for his words, then went on:
“You didn’t survive yours. He died—and you went on living with him still whispering in your head, filling it with junk way worse than what I used to shoot up.”
His words struck me like a slap in the face.
Nick looked at me, serious, his gaze steady and firm.
As I stood there in shock, searching for something to say, he got up and said,
“That food smells way too good to keep waiting. Sit down—I’m serving tonight!”
