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

Something with more heft is stowed in the back. Olivia withdraws a puffy pink baby book, Daisy needlepointed on its silk cover. It still slightly smells of powder and lotions.


I hand it to Olivia. She acts like she’s been scalded. “Why would Mom lock something like this away?”


“Made her melancholy. Out of sight, out of mind,” I decide.


“Maybe this was her way of ensuring it wouldn’t get overlooked and that we’d accidentally toss it.”


I make it to the first page, to our mother cradling her newborn, a little wizened face. I spin toward my sister. “I found our obituary picture.”


This finally clarifies the gallery of dead faces in the newspaper. No matter how easily mocked it will be by strangers, it’s the last chance for survivors to reclaim when the deceased was fun, excited, at their best.


Chapter 102