“Uh…what’s going on?” he asked, chuckling in confusion. “Did you have to hire attendees for my party or something?”
“No, Joshua.” Lee’s dark eyes softened with love. “This is your present.” He gestured to everyone in the room. “Every person in here, including me, benefited from Neil’s life. I tracked down every former graduate student of his that I could find—privacy issues made that hard, but I managed to find some. And, wow, Joshua, a lot of his lab assistants didn’t like him very much, even all these years later. Said he was impatient and yelled at them a lot. Talk about holding grudges!”
Joshua didn’t know if he was going to laugh or cry. He bit on his lip, his smile hurting, and a lump forming in his throat.
“I also found every person I could who’d received any organ donation from him after his death. Again, privacy issues prevented me from getting a full list, but I had the names of the people who’d emailed you in the past, plus others who’d given permission for you to contact them. I invited them all and their families.” He motioned around again. “This isn’t even everyone. But every person here? They’re here because they knew and admired Neil, or they benefited from his life through organ donation. So, happy birthday, Joshua.” Lee put his hands on Joshua’s shoulders and looked into his eyes seriously. “So long as all of these people exist, so long asyouexist? Well, to quote Celine Dion, babe—his heart will go on.”
Joshua burst into laughter at the same time he burst into tears, pressing his hand to his mouth he tried to hold them back, but it was impossible. Lee hugged him tight.
A chant of “speech, speech, speech” began, and Joshua shook his head, not sure if he could get it together enough to even begin.
Still, Lee steered him to the front of the room and positioned him in front of the podium. Joshua cleared his throat, looked out at the room full of people, caught his mother’s eye, and cleared his throat again. She smiled encouragingly at him, her gray eyes glinting with pride. He remembered when he’d been with Neil, in the closet and afraid, he’d thought if he ever came out, he’d never see that pride in his mother’s eyes again.
Now look.
Pride for him. And pride for Lee.
Even pride for Neil, though she’d never known him.
He’d underestimated them all.
“So….” he started. “Wow. I don’t know what to say.”
There was applause at that.
“Well, first, I do. Thank you. Thank you for coming here and for remembering Neil. He was…well…he was sometimes an asshole.”
Laughter spattered through the room.
“But he was never anything but gentle with me, even when he shouldn’t have been, maybe. Even when, looking back, I wished he’d pushed me harder than he did. I know he was tough on his students, but he was only ever tender to me. And I loved him.”
Silence fell, but it lasted only a beat, and then there was more applause.
“Neil loved when his work got attention,” Joshua said. “He was always puffed up like a peacock every time his work was published or cited by a fellow researcher. He liked everyone to know that what he did was important. He wanted to change the world with nanites. And I suppose, given the work his foundation does, he has. But somehow I think he’d be appalled by this…this big show of sentimentality. He’d probably say, ‘What are you doing? This is ridiculous! Don’t waste your life on boring birthday parties for my idiot boyfriend. Go do something real with your time!’”
The crowd shuffled nervously.
“And you know what I’d say to that? ‘Stuff it, Neil. This one’s for me.’ And to all of you—thank you. So much. I…I truly appreciate it.” Joshua turned to Lee who was standing behind him, and he took his hand. “Thank you. I love you. Thank you for doing this for me. You’re amazing, and I’m so happy that I met you, and that I can have you in my life.”
“Ditto, babe,” Lee said. He jerked his chin toward the room full of people, directing Joshua’s attention back to everyone that Neil’s life had touched. “Happy birthday.”
PART TWO
Chapter Six
September 2027—Scottsville, Kentucky
Joshua woke upsweaty and sick to his stomach, on the verge of tears. It had been ‘the dream’ again. Well, one of them. He had two dreams that came frequently enough to earn that term of familiarity. At least it wasn’t the one that woke Lee up, too, though that one left Joshua less conflicted, if only because Lee knew about it. There really was no way to hide the jerking sobs that usually woke them both.
After that dream, Lee would rub his back and tell him, “It’s okay. It was a long time ago. You’re here with me right now.”
It was what he needed to hear because in the dream the present didn’t exist. He was back there, in the hospital, and Neil was dying, hooked up to machines and covered in blood, brain already dead and gone forever. And people were telling Joshua, not asking but telling him, that it was time to say goodbye, to do what Neil would have wanted, to give his organs away. So much responsibility, so much grief and pain, and he hadn’t even been prepared for it. He hadn’t known that Neil had changed his will. The terror and the gut-wrenching pain filled him up like an ocean, and he’d wake up from the dream sobbing, “Neil, Neil, Neil,” with the drumming of his heart. It was kind of stupid that it hurt that much. It had been fifteen years. He should be past all of this by now.
He’d tell Lee as much afterward, wiping the snot and tears off of his face, half-laughing, but his mouth still twisted up with old pain.
“Shut up,” Lee would whisper good-naturedly. “I hate that you hurt so much, but I love that you’re the kind of person who loves that hard. It’s selfish, but I’m glad to know that if I die, you’ll still miss me this much years later, too.”
Joshua laughed a little between leftover sobs. “You better not die on me.”
