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“You’re lying,” he hissed, shaking his head “It’s not true”

But he

saw in her eyes that it was true

“Oh, Christ,” he whispered, waiting for his secondhand heart to stop beating The grief was a great, crunching pain on his chest, filling his throat, stinging his eyes “God damn it, who doesn’t wear a seat belt in the nineties?” He latched on to anger instead of the grief that greith each indrawn breath “And what the hell was he doing in Portland, anyway? He’s a priest, not a traveling salesman He never could drive for shit I remember ere kids—”

No, he thought desperately, don’t think about that now Oh, Jesus, don’t think about anything But he couldn’t help himself He reht him to drive How they’d driven around and around the school parking lot, that old I every tihed and cursed and then laughed again…

“Not Franco,” he whispered, looking to Mad “It should have been me instead”

The sadness in her eyes el”

“Did … did he suffer?” He hated the question the minute he asked it—it was so ordinary and useless—but he needed an answer

Her gaze skittered away from his “The doctors on the scene said he was killed instantly There was nothing they could do”

They sat there, crying side by side for what felt like hours Angel cried for so s—all the times he hadn’t called Francis, all the Christht, that they would all live forever?

“Jesus, Mad,” he said brokenly, “I didn’t say …” His words trailed off There was so much he didn’t say So many mistakes and lost chances and selfishness Christ, so much selfishness

“He knew you loved hiel He always knew that”

The knowledge sank through hi him down He wanted it to help—wished it helped—but it didn’t It onlythat Francis had always loved him “He died on the way to Portland” He tried to make sense of it “That must have been hours after I saw hione all this time?”

Madelaine looked away again, stared at the clock on the wall, then slowly aze “On the way to Portland,” she said slowly “Yes Yes”

“Why did you wait all this time to tell me?”