Sam smiles broadly at me. “Your friend from the cemetery. Mr. Cross. He came by with the funeral director the other day and set a date. Next Monday. That is…” His smile slips. “That is what you wanted, isn’t it? He seemed pretty adamant that you wanted the service to take place as quickly as possible.”
I can’t believe it. I have no idea how Callan managed to get the ball rolling on Malcolm’s funeral, but I feel light all of a sudden. And conflicted. He shouldn’t be running around, making plans behind my back, but I’m so grateful he has been. “No, no, that’s perfect. Really. You really can do whatever you like about the flowers. Callan was right.”
Sam the Priest nods, though he seems a little unsure of himself now. “If you need more time—”
“No! I definitely don’t need more time. Thanks, Sam. I’ll come by the church later and write out a check for whatever I need to pay for.”
Sam sets off jogging again, slotting an ear bud back into his right ear. “No need,” he calls over his shoulder. “Your friend took care of everything.”
******
I find Callan in the back yard of his mother’s place with a chainsaw in his hands. He doesn’t hear me over the loud snarl of the machinery. His old Leica is sitting on the back step all by itself, and as soon as I see it I’m hit with a flood of memories. I can’t believe he still has the thing. He owned it long before he met me. Seems it should have fallen to pieces by now. I sit down on the back step, unnoticed, and I pick up the camera. I barely remember anything Callan taught me, but I know enough to alter the light settings, focus the lens and take a picture of him as he moves swiftly around the garden, slashing at the overgrown bushes and plant life that his mother used to tend to so lovingly.
I’ve tried not to notice, but the fact that Callan’s not wearing a shirt and there’s sweat running in a river down his back is hard to miss. He’s not as tanned as he used to be when we’d run around Port Royal barely wearing any clothes at all. New York doesn’t strike me as the sort of place people go around topless. I watch him work, oblivious to the fact that I’ve joined him, and I take a second to admire him.
The other night was frantic and hurried. We couldn’t get each other’s clothes off fast enough. I didn’t have the time to appreciate him, to marvel at the strong, muscular lines of his body. To appreciate how much he’s grown into himself since the very first time he stripped out of his clothes and stood before me in all his unabashed glory.
Now, there are two deep dimples at the base of his spine, one on either side, where the lines of his back arch up to meet his shoulder blades. I watch his muscles shift and flex as he works, and I can’t help but find myself remembering what it felt like to cling on to him as he fucked me the other night. His body is phenomenal. I’ve lived in California long enough now to be slightly desensitized to a guy with a hot body—there are hundred of them literally everywhere—but this is Callan. This is the man I fell in love with when he was really just a boy. It will always be different with him.
“Are you just going to sit there, spying on me and taking pictures, or are you going to bring me a glass of water?” Callan hollers. So I’m busted. Should have known he would have his peripherals firmly fixed on his precious Leica, after all. I carefully put his camera down and get to my feet. I should say something to him, I’m sure. I was terrible to him the last time we saw each other, and it seems as though he’s been very busy sorting my life out for me ever since then. He didn’t have to do that. By rights, he should have been on the first flight back to New York, and I’d still be figuring out how to sort out this whole mess.
I can’t say thank you to him yet, though. I can’t say anything at all, so I brush off my skirt and head through the back door into his kitchen to fetch him his water. My breath catches in my throat when I see the dusty cardboard boxes stacked one on top of the other on the kitchen table.
“Oh my god.” I cup my hands over my mouth. It’s been a very long time, but I would recognize those boxes anywhere. I opened them and taped them shut enough times for them to be seared into my memory forever. My mother’s things. How? How the hell did he get them?
I spin around, about to run outside and ask him, but I can’t because he’s right there, standing behind me, covered in sweat, his quiet presence towering over me. “You got them for me,” I whisper.
“I did.”
“How?”
He scratches at the back of his neck, one dimple forming in his cheek. “I asked nicely.” He says this in a way that leads me to believe otherwise, though.
“I can’t believe you got them back.”
“You’re welcome.”