We began walking toward a veterans’ center a few blocks away.
Adrian carried James’s duffel.
I carried the roses.
Halfway there, I suddenly stopped.
“One more question.”
Adrian turned.
“Did James ever change his mind?”
His eyes dropped.
That was answer enough.
“Adrian.”
He said nothing.
“Did James ever tell you not to lie?”
Finally, he whispered,
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“When?”
“Near the end.”
“What exactly did he say?”
Adrian looked as though the fifty-six years he had carried suddenly settled onto his shoulders all at once.
“He said, ‘Tell her I was here.’”
My breath caught.
“He told me not to let you believe he simply vanished. He wanted you to know he survived the attack.”
Adrian wiped his eyes.
“And later, closer to the end, he changed his mind completely.”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘Tell her everything, Adrian. I was wrong. She’s stronger than I gave her credit for. Tell her all of it.’”
I stared at him.
James had changed his mind.
James had asked for the truth.
Yet Adrian had returned home and lied anyway.
“Why?”
Adrian looked away.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“At first, I convinced myself I was honoring his original request. I thought the first version was what he truly wanted and that changing his mind near death came from fear.”
“And after that?”
He swallowed.
“When I arrived at your parents’ house, I had already rehearsed the story. The explosion. Quick. Painless.”
His voice lowered.
“Then I saw you.”
He looked at me.
“You hugged me.”
I remembered.
Painfully clearly.
“You thanked me for being with James. For being his friend.”
My stomach twisted.
I had comforted the man who was lying to me.
“And once I left your house,” Adrian continued, “telling you the truth meant admitting I had already lied. One month passed. Then a year. Then five. Every year made admitting it harder.”
“So you kept lying for fifty-six years.”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t protecting me.”
He lowered his head.
“No.”
“You were protecting yourself.”
“Yes.”
That single word contained more truth than anything he had told me in half a century.
I looked at James’s paper rose again.
“You came to my parents’ funerals.”
Adrian nodded.
“You mailed Christmas cards.”
“Yes.”
“You let me thank you all those years.”
His shoulders sagged.
Then he whispered,
“There’s something else.”
I waited.
