James Rockton is ready to die. In fact, he plans on it. Having lost his life partner to AIDS, he books the South Pacific cruise Richard didn't live to share. James will spread Richard's ashes at sea, and then slip overboard to join him forever. He’s too old and too heartbroken to continue on alone.<br><br>But James doesn’t count on meeting a young man whose parents constantly put him down. Then there’s the obviously gay young art dealer who ogles a crazy young photographer traveling with an older gay man about James’s own age.<br><br>James and Herb begin spending time together, trying not to laugh too hard or get too involved with these young men, who circle each other in rapidly shrinking orbits. After all, James and Herb are old, with gray hair and less stamina. With time, talk, and martinis, will love manage to find them, too?

Fade to Gray

I said, “We’ll tell him it’s the ship’s cat. He won’t know the difference.”


When we got to Herb’s old cabin, he and Savin got busy playing with the dog. Herb was also quietly sounding the younger man out about his plans for college, etc. I sat down on the bed and finally remembered something rather important. I had given up the lease on my apartment before I’d left because I hadn’t been planning on coming back again. I’d sold most of my things and put the rest in storage, and now I, too, had no home. I started worrying about how that was going to affect the future I now had. What to do about my daughter? What about Savin? What about Herb? For God’s sake, what about the ship’s cat? All these wonderful blessings that had been thrown into my path as if God Himself had been riding by on a bus and just tossed them out right in front of me, and I had been hiking along, homeless, with only a backpack full of ashes.


Chapter 28