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I felt embarrassed "I’m just a kid fro about lass, then said, "I’ve never asked you about your family, Tim, and I don’t mean to pry All I knohat Jonas has told me You never mention thee with this woed "She’s not so bad"

"I’m sure she isn’t I’m sure she’s a saint And I like cats as ht quantity"

"There’s not really much to tell"

"I doubt that verytook a great deal of effort; my windpipe felt as if it had constricted When at last I spoke, the words seemed to colasses, Liz’s eyes were intently fixed on my face "Who died, Tim?"

I sed "My mother My mother died"

"When was this?"

It would all co it "Last summer It was just before I met you I didn’t even know she was sick My father wrote me a letter"

"And where were you?"

"With the wo was co undammed I knew that if I didn’tof s--I would fall apart

"Tim, why didn’t you tell us?"

I shook my head I felt suddenly ashaently took un to cry For my mother, for myself, for my dead friend Lucessi, who, said so It wasn’t the note in his pocket that told me so It was the fact that I was alive and he was dead, and I of all people should have understood the pain of living in a world that didn’t seem to want him I did not want to takeand could not make myself land were it not for this wo, "it’s all right, it’s all right…"

Ti, I didn’t knohere Liz was still holding my hand I sensed the presence of water, and then the Hudson eers into the water Across the river’s broad expanse, the lights of Hoboken made a diorama of the city and its lives The air tasted of salt and stone There was a kind of park along the water’s edge, filthy and abandoned-looking; it did not see Twelfth Avenue, neither of us speaking, before turning east again I had given no thought at all to ould happen next but now began to In the last hour, Liz had spoken of things that I felt certain she had told no other person, just as I had done with her There was Jonas to think of, but ere also a s that, once said, could never be unsaid

We arrived at the apartment No words of consequence had passed between us for many minutes The tension was palpable--surely she could feel it, too I couldn’t say for certain what I wanted, only that I didn’t want to be away fro duneeded to be said And yet I could say nothing

It was Liz who broke the silence "Well, I’ to turn in The sofa folds out There are sheets and blankets in the closet Letelse"

"Okay"

I could not h I wanted to, very badly On the one hand there was Liz, and all we had shared, and the fact that, in every way, I loved her and probably had since the day we’d iven me a life

"Your friend Lucessi What was his first name?"

I actually had to think "Frank But I never called him that"

"Why do you think he did it?"

"He was in love with somebody She didn’t love hiht, in all its starkness, co,to tell him that love is all there is, and love is pain, and love is taken away