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

I find Andy’s shorty robe on a hook. It, too, goes into the trashcan.


This takes all day. It’s dusk by the time I’ve stacked the last box in a charitable wall curbside for Goodwill.


Nightfall activates landscape lighting. Children in goblin costumes dash by.


Keep running, kids. I don’t have any candy in the house if you come to the door. Plus, I’m way scarier than you.


I awake every morning to saturated sheets. I may drown from crying.


Maybe this GRPL card, which I found on my bureau, which I now tap against the steering wheel, is my life jacket.


Chapter 28