I went back to my chair and Craig took his on the other side, and that’s how it was for the next 36 hours, Craig at Henry’s left flank and I at his right. They had their arms all wrapped around each other, and their eyes were red. Was he still angry after all these years? He’d been polite on the phone two days ago, but Henry had been right there. I wanted to get the first encounter with him over with. He’s been sleeping right there ever since.” He got me here in the middle of the night. He shook his head and had to wait for his voice to come back. He always painted a bleak portrait of his social life: All of his friends got married and had kids and had less and less time for him. Occasionally I’d ask, and once a few years ago I set him up with someone, but it didn’t take. He had a serious relationship in his early 30s, and when that ended I never heard about anyone else. I asked how he was doing, and he said he was feeling great, humbled by all the visitors, all the love. He squeezed my hand and thanked me for coming. He had wires connected to his chest and that little plastic oxygen tube with the nose prongs, a brand-new Wildcats cap on his head. Someone found me a chair, and I pulled it up close to Henry’s bed and took his hand. They hushed for a moment, then cheered: Kentucky had scored against Duke. It was only men in the room, lots of them, NCAA basketball on the TV. It always took a few days for Henry and me to readjust after he saw Craig, for me to understand why he’d keep a friend who imposed such limits, and for him to let me fully back in. Even my name was verboten, a small black hole in the corner of their friendship. That fall, my second senior fall, whenever Craig came to visit, I dropped out of sight. During the years we were together, Henry carried on his friendship with Craig entirely separately from me, never speaking to him on the phone when I was there, always visiting him without me. He wanted Henry to break up with me, and Henry would not. When Craig returned from Europe, he was angry. Henry left for the summer, but he called me three weeks later, said he couldn’t find a job, was thinking of coming back to North Carolina could he stay on my couch for a few days until he found a place to live? He came, and, to my surprise, a week later he confessed his feelings for me. We’d come to the end, and it felt right to both of us. He was going to Europe, then moving back to his hometown I was staying in town to wait tables. I was also supposed to graduate, but at some point that spring I decided that I would write one of those honors theses, which would conveniently get me another semester-and Henry all to myself.Ĭraig and I broke up a few days after graduation.
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