Daniel standing up.
For several minutes, almost every adult in that room thought we understood what we were looking at.
We didn’t.
We saw a teenager in a red dress at his best friend’s funeral and invented reasons before he had said a word.
Theo knew that would happen.
Jack knew it too.
He had predicted it six months earlier.
That might be the most Jack thing about the whole story.
The last line of the note wasn’t read at the funeral.
Theo showed it to me later.
Under the part about judgmental relatives, Jack had written, “If Mom looks mad, give her thirty seconds. She’s nice when she has all the information.”
I stared at it for a long time.
Then I told Theo, “He gave me far too much credit.”
Theo smiled.
“No.”
He folded the note carefully.
“He knew you.”
Maybe he did.
Maybe that is what I remember most now.
