Danny and Marcus at what I recognized as a football game, both of them in team colors, both of them in mid-sentence to each other about something.
Danny at thirty, outside the movie theater where he worked, in his uniform, smiling the smile that was fully Danny, the one that contained no reservation.
Leo looked at each photograph.
“He looks happy,” Leo said.
“He was happy,” I said. “Genuinely. Not because his life was easy. Because he was himself, completely, and he was surrounded by people who knew that was enough.”
“How did he die?” Leo said.
“Heart problems,” I said. “People with Down syndrome have a higher risk for certain heart conditions. He was thirty-two.”
Leo was quiet.
“What was his name again?” Leo said.
“Daniel,” I said. “Danny.”
He looked at the photograph from the movie theater.
“Did he know?” Leo said. “When people made fun of him?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “Not always. He was better at some social cues than others. When he didn’t know, I was grateful he didn’t know. When he did know, I watched him handle it in a way I could never fully explain, just absorb it and keep going, keep being himself, and I was in awe of him for that even when I was too young to say so.”
“How come you never told me about him?” Leo said.
I sat with this question.
“I’ve been asking myself that for about forty minutes,” I said.
“And?”
“Because grief is complicated,” I said. “Because I kept thinking I would find the right moment and the right moment kept not being now. And because I think I was also protecting myself a little bit from the conversation this would require.”
“This conversation,” Leo said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Because you knew it would require talking about tonight,” he said.
“I didn’t know tonight was going to happen,” I said. “But I knew that bringing Danny into your life fully would eventually require talking about the way people respond to people like him, and I knew that conversation would be uncomfortable for both of us.”
