St. Paul

I'm going to write this one carefully, because it isn't really mine to tell.

Jacob's from Minnesota. Before Vermont, before me, he lost someone here — someone he loved first, back when he was barely more than a kid, in a way that taught him it was safer never to love anybody that hard again. He carried that into my life like a stone in his pocket. Actually, more like a boulder, but for the longest time I didn't even know what "it" was. When I learned, it wrecked me.

So when he asked if we could come through St. Paul, I said yes before he finished the question. And when he went quiet on the drive in, I didn't rush to fill it. I'm not always good at that. I'm trying to get good at that, for him.

We drove out to a country road with an old oak tree on it. He didn't say much. He stood there a long time with his hands in his pockets and the wind moving the branches, and I hung back a little so he could have it, and when he finally reached his hand out behind him without turning around, I was already walking up to take it.

"Thank you for coming here with me," he said.

I said the only true thing I had. "I'm not going anywhere."

He let me hold him for a long time. Then we drove back into the city and got dinner and he laughed at something dumb I said — really laughed — and that mattered more than I know how to put down here.

I finally get to see his home. We're staying a couple of days. He's earned slow.

— E