The mid-40s are that time in a gay man's life when his major paradigm shifts from sexy to Sansabelts. But when Barry Grooms's partner of twenty years is killed on Barry's forty-fifth birthday, his world doesn't so much evolve as it does explode.<br><br>After navigating through the surreal conveyor belt of friends and family, he can't eat another casserole or swallow much more advice on what constitutes grief. Still numb, he leaves his homestore and design business in the care of others as he escapes to Key West, then New York. There he gets a thankless new job working for a crazy lady in a poncho, then has too many drinks with a narcissistic Broadway actor. Next it's a nude exercise class that redefines flop sweat, and from there he's on to a relationship with a man twenty years his junior.<br><br>Yet no matter how great the retreat from the man he used to be, life's gravity spins Barry back to the small town where he grew up for one more ironic twist that teaches him how to say goodbye with grace.

The Cool Part of His Pillow

Mom’s lanai has become enough of a wildlife sanctuary that her condo board has expressed concern. Everything from birdfeeders with squirrel spoilers as big as garbage can lids to chopped lettuce on Melmac for rabbit colonies festoons her cement slab, plus a birdbath, windsock, chimes. Her grocery bill must be more suet and sunflower seed than actual food. When Andy drank a glass of what he assumed was cherry Kool-Aid from her refrigerator, she cried out, “That’s the nectar for my hummers!” (This is what she calls hummingbirds.) He paled, she consoled: “It’s just boiled sugar water and food coloring.”


Mom wishes me happy birthday. I promise to call her later.


What appears to be a medical evacuation helicopter dips overhead, then chop-chops out of sight over our house, which is larger than its roofline suggests.


Chapter 8