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

Our second favorite was when somebody decked the halls and took their inside dispute outside by hurling the family tree lights, tinsel, ornaments and all, onto the front lawn. How bad had it gotten in that house? It’s really hard to retract that kind of gesture.


When? Why? How did it become too much a hassle to go look at Christmas lights? Was it after we took Noel and Gertie and they puked all over their cranberry sweaters, then the seats, then into a heat vent? It’s also exactly what happened to our weekly date night, when it became our weekly crash-on-sofa night. It wasn’t remarked upon. How were we so tired we couldn’t even share lettuce wraps at PF Chang’s?


So here they are, those time-release misgivings Mom predicted, home for the holidays to piss in the snow. Andy might have died on my birthday, but he also died on Christmas, he died on the Fourth of July, he died on every holiday I will spend without him.


Chapter 38