We stood together for several silent moments. Only the wind spoke: a low, gentle lament. Finally Mark asked, “Why’d Hart do it, Uncle Jordy? Why’d he the to save me? Why’d he leave me everything?”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Well, Hart cared about your granddaddy and your father, very much. And he cared about you, too. I think he felt bad for you that you didn’t have them around when you were growing up. And he didn’t have family to leave this to. So he left it to you.”
“But to die for me-”
I turned Mark to face me. “He wanted you to live very badly. That’s all that matters. I’ll… forever be grateful to him.” I turned my face into the cooling wind. Why did Hart live the way he did, in secretiveness and sadness? Why had he never given the town-or at least the people who cared about him-a chance to accept him as he was? I wondered how very, very different events might have been if Hart had thought his friends more generous-hearted. Or had we given him reason to fear our rejection, with unthinking jokes or comments or slurs?
Mark leaned down and gently touched the turned soil on the grave. It was a gesture of timid tenderness I’d seen him make on top of Mama’s head. “Happy birthday, Hart. Thank you for my life.” His voice broke and he stood, turning his face against my jacket. I watched the top of his dark head, then stared at Trey’s grave, my teeth clenching together.
We stood for a few more minutes, till the dropping temperatures ushered us toward the house. We walked back, my arm around Mark’s shoulders. The sun shone brightly as we went up the porch steps. Mark held the door for me as I went into his new house.
“Kind of funny,” Mark said, “never to have lived here.” He glanced back across the land and the big empty sky. “Because it feels like coming home.”