Cody Whitley teaches creative writing at Brockton State College in upstate New York. As he struggles to keep a few unruly students from failing, a larger dilemma hits close to home. His father Henry is in the last stages of his life, dying of liver cancer. Cody visits him everyday in the hospital, bringing him tea from the cafeteria and sitting by his hospital bed, sketching him in his notebook and watching the man he admired as a child slowly deteriorating. Having watched his mother die a few years ago, Cody is in a state of worry and flux, wondering how he will go on after he loses his father. When he receives a text message from a handsome man named Liam he met on a dating app, Cody realizes there is still hope for happiness and a promising future. Amidst the turmoil, Cody accepts Liam's offer to meet him for lunch the next day. Not everything goes as planned, but Cody learns that he is not the only one going through hard times. Will Cody allow the death of his father to alter his chances of finding lasting friendship with a complete stranger? Or will both men find comfort and romance in each other's painful pasts?

The Two of Us

I went to work that morning after my father’s body was picked up by Wheeler & Sons funeral services and driven away for cremation. Five hours later, I was standing in front of my creative writing students, waiting to discuss today’s reading assignment.


Papers rustled, and the spines of students’ textbooks cracked open for the first time that semester. I scanned the dozen faces staring back at me. I smiled demurely, walking around from behind the podium, and sitting on the edge of the table. My eye caught an arch of white light glinting off a pocket of glass from one of the windows in the back of the room. As if it was winking back at me, it felt like a small hope of faith that it was my father’s spirit.


I turned my attention to the room and noticed Robert Gallagher sitting upright in his chair in the second row, nodding at me, holding a pencil in his left hand, his notebook opened to a clean sheet of paper, ready to take notes.


Chapter 22