Running Through the Words, 1-3

One.

The tears are there. Behind his eyes, at the back of his throat… in the clench of his gut. But Sebastian Porter doesn’t shed a single saltwater droplet. He swallows the grief and the fear and the unfairness of it all. And then he dumps another hearty splash of cabernet into his glass and swallows that too.

He’s perched on his kitchen counter, feet on a barstool, a half-empty bottle of wine standing beside his left thigh. Outside, a robin hops along the deck’s railing, enjoying the sunshine as a gentle breeze ruffles its feathers. Outside, tulips poke red and yellow heads through damp dirt, smiling up at that brilliant orb in the sky. Outside, the world is fresh and new and young.

But Sebastian feels hollow inside.

And numb.

And alone.

He feels so very alone.

There was a day, nearly two decades ago, when Bas had been the cause of this type of pain. It hadn’t been his intention, of course, any more than it was Bert’s intention now. Bas hadn’t done anything wrong; it was an unfortunate accident that had knocked him off his feet and placed him in the hospital. But he’d been in a coma for several days and the people he’d loved most—Bert and Lucy and Doc and even Jack—had been left in a state of unrest, not sure he’d wake up.

Not sure he’d remember who he was before the accident.

Not sure he’d remember who they were.

With Bert, the situation is different… but that doesn’t make it any easier for him to accept. He sets his glass on the counter, rests his elbows on his knees, and cradles his head in his hands.

That’s when the tears come.

That’s when the grief racks his body and shakes his chest and leaves him in loud, ugly sobs.

🍁

He wakes hours later on the couch.

He has no memory of relocating to the living room. Bas has no memory of finishing the bottle of cabernet and kicking off his shoes and pulling a blanket over his shivering body. He only knows this is how Lucy finds him.

“Hey,” she whispers, brushing a spray of long, dark curls from his forehead and tucking them behind his ear. Her voice contains the hint of a smile. “When did you get home? I thought you’d swing by the shop.”

He blinks, bringing her into focus, and reaches up with his right hand to rub sleep from his eyes. “What?” He runs a tongue over gritty teeth; his saliva is thick and nauseatingly sweet. “No,” Bas mumbles, pushing himself into a sitting position. “No, I just… I should’ve, I know, but I… I just really didn’t want to. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She perches beside him on the couch and focuses her worried gaze on his haggard face, studying the red-rimmed eyes and the bruised bags beneath them. “How long have you been here?”

Bas sighs. “I don’t know… a few hours, maybe? What time is it?”

“A little after five.”

More time has passed than he’d thought. “Bert’s appointment was at eleven; we got into town around ten, I guess.” He sighs, remembering the morning’s events and the attempt at normalcy that came afterward. “We grabbed lunch at the Tavern, but neither one of us had much of an appetite. It’s just…” Bas swallows hard, runs a hand across his scraggly beard, and then wraps an arm around Lucy, pulling her close. She melts into him, resting her head on his shoulder and a hand on his chest. “I haven’t showered since yesterday morning,” he apologizes. “I probably stink.”

Tilled earth, stale cigarette smoke, the sour odor of day-old perspiration, and that ever-present aroma of slightly burnt green beans. “You smell fine,” she assures him, filling her nostrils with his scent. Nearly two months have gone by since he last held her in his arms. Normally, the couple’s reunion would be a happy one: an impromptu visit to the pottery shop, followed by a lot of sex and a recap of the band’s most recent tour while wrapped in each other’s arms, naked limbs tangled together, between crisp cotton sheets.

Tonight, however, Lucy doesn’t ask about which venue was the most memorable. She doesn’t wonder if last night’s sold-out show in Boston was everything the boys had anticipated, or if any of their college friends had been in the audience.

Tonight, the single question Lucy voices is, “How bad is it?”

Sebastian bites his lip and wills the tears not to fall. After a shaky inhale, he leans his bristly cheek against the top of his girlfriend’s head and squeezes her tighter. “Stage two,” he whispers in the voice of a scared child. “Russo’s dad says—”

“Dr. Russo was there? But he isn’t an oncologist, is he?”

“No. He just met us for the appointment. Russo—Kenny, I mean—told him what’s going on and asked if he could be there. To explain stuff. To make everything… make sense, I guess. The oncologist—her name’s Dr. Nolan—she’s good. Motherly, you know?” Bas waits for Lucy to nod, acknowledging this tidbit of information, before continuing. “Anyway. Russo’s dad and Dr. Nolan say it doesn’t appear to’ve spread to the lymph nodes, so that’s a good thing… but they want to start him on chemo.”

“Aww, Bas…”

“Yeah.” The knowledge has sat with him since late this morning, but Lucy is hearing the truth for the first time. “I just… I… I can’t lose him, goose. I can’t. And… And I’m so scared I’m going to.” Now, despite his best efforts, the floodgates open and he’s crying again. A plethora of emotions choke him as he continues, “It should be me, you know? Not Bert. I’m the one with the support system. I’ve got you, my dad and Doc… Martha and Nol… Bert—” He cuts himself off, swallowing a sob. “Bert doesn’t even have his mom anymore. It’s not fair. It’s so not fair.”

Lucy leans back, wriggling out of Sebastian’s grasp so she can peer into his swimming eyes.

Her eyes, too, are glassy with tears.

She rests a hand lightly on his cheek and says softly, “Every single person you just listed? Me? Jack and Doc? Martha and Nol? Bert has them too, Bas. And he’s got the band. But most importantly? He has you.” She pulls him to her, rubbing his back as he sobs into her breast, and allows her own tears to drip into his dark, unruly curls.

Two.

Last night, before climbing beneath a down comforter and folding herself into Sebastian’s arms, Lucy had cracked open the bedroom window. Now, a crisp breeze far more reminiscent of autumn than spring filters into the room, causing goosebumps to cover her arms and legs. She rolls onto her side, pulls the blanket tight beneath her chin, and studies her boyfriend’s face. In slumber, there is a sense of peace that hadn’t been there yesterday evening.

Always scruffy, Bas’s cheeks currently sport an unkempt beard. The wiry coating isn’t enough to hide their sunkeness, though. He’s lost weight. Lucy supposes this could be a result of the tour, but she suspects it has more to do with his best friend’s diagnosis. Bas’s dark curls, tousled and tumbled across the pillow, have grown long enough to be contained in a sloppy man bun. Purple-tinged bruises linger beneath his eyes, marking him with a visible exhaustion.

Bits of the story have been shared with Lucy over the past two weeks, but she has yet to hear the tale in its entirety. At this point, she knows about the lump Bert noticed in his left breast and the doctor’s appointment Bas demanded he attend once being informed of the discovery. She knows the boys had visited an Urgent Care in Maine last week, arranged for a scan and needle biopsy to be done the next day in New Hampshire, and then met with Dr. Nolan just yesterday to determine the results. She knows Bert has stage two breast cancer. She knows the same disease killed her boyfriend’s mother, Amelia Porter, when she was only thirty-one years old. And she knows Sebastian is both devastated and terrified.

Growing up together in the little development with its streets named after trees, it had always been Bas and Lucy and Bert. When their parents talked about them, the names ran together: Bas ‘n’ Lucy ‘n’ Bert. All one word. A single unit of friendship. A single entity prowling the neighborhood, riding bikes to the park and skipping stones on the lake. They’d been constants in one another’s lives… and they still are.

Things had certainly changed over the years. Jack Porter had moved to northern California almost two decades ago, having forfeited his professorship at Lake Caywood University to accept a part-time position at a tiny liberal college on the coast. For a while, he’d rented his Pennsylvania property to his almost-fiancé, Martha Pond, who had raised her daughter in the stone cottage at the end of Sycamore Drive, secluded in its tree-sheltered cul-de-sac. Magnolia had eventually graduated from high school, though, and when she did, Martha returned to New York. Before listing the house on the market, Jack offered it to his son, and since Flannel Lobster had by that point secured regular residency on the airwaves and Billboard charts alike, Bas was in a financial position to purchase his childhood home. So he did.

For a while, he and Lucy had lived in her childhood home, but then her father retired from his presidency at Conway College in Virginia. Elliot and Grace Campbell moved back to Lake Caywood, reclaimed their tuxedo house on Sycamore Drive, and, for a while, Lucy and Bas relocated to an apartment in town.

Now, however, they’re established in the cottage Sebastian has bought with his own earnings and neither one of them has any intention of ever leaving. The only thing that could make the living situation better would be if the house backing up to theirs was still owned by the Robinsons. Unfortunately, though, Louise had unexpectedly passed away almost three years ago as a result of a heart attack. Unlike his best friend, Bert hadn’t felt compelled to buy the tiny Cape Cod he’d grown up in. He’d sold the property, invested the profit, and opted to rent the second floor of a craftsman-style house on the outskirts of town. It’s a quiet location that allows for a captivating view of the lake, but is still close enough to civilization that a pizza can be delivered.

His downstairs neighbor is a lovely woman by the name of Matilda who shares her leftovers and always bakes a pie or a casserole to welcome Bert home from his tours. She’s in her seventies, but seems younger, and still manages to mow her own grass and tend her own flowerbeds. “I don’t mind yardwork when I’m home,” Bert had explained when he’d decided to rent rather than buy, “but I don’t wanna have to worry about that kind of stuff when I’m away for weeks on end.”

Tears prick at the backs of Lucy’s eyes as she thinks of the simple upstairs space Bert now calls “home.” She thinks of those C-words Sebastian had used last night, cancer and chemo, and wonders how their dear friend will manage his recovery while living alone. Wonders if he can manage on his own.

Until yesterday, Lucy had never had anyone close to her with a diagnosis of cancer. She’d been five when Amelia passed away—the same age as Bas—and therefore remembered very little about her boyfriend’s mother. She doesn’t know what to expect, and she is undoubtedly scared, but she reasons Bas’s fear far outweighs hers. He knows first-hand the dangers of this disease; he’d watched his mother lose her fight to it, and now he will watch his friend gear up for his own battle.

With a shaky hand, she reaches out and rests a fingertip on his chapped lips, tracing their outline and then the ridge of his jaw. She isn’t trying to wake him—she merely wants to capture his presence in an invisible piece of art—but after a moment, Sebastian’s chapped lips form a smile and he says with lids still lowered, “What’re you doing?”

“Sketching you.”

“Lucy…” His eyes flutter open, piercingly blue. They find hers and hold the gaze. “You don’t have to do that. I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere.” He rolls onto his back and slides an arm underneath her, pulling her tight against his side. She rests her head on his shoulder and snuggles closer. “I missed you,” she whispers.

“I missed you too, goose.”

A term of endearment… Once Lucy-goosey, and then shortened over the years to a single syllable. The nickname is a comfort, but it doesn’t ease the ache in her heart. “I’m scared about Bert,” she whispers.

“Yeah. So am I.”

Bas fills his lungs with a large intake of air. Lucy can feel his heart thumping beneath her ear, can feel the whiskery brush of his chin against her forehead. “I’m really scared,” he says softly. “I just wish… I don’t know. I wish I knew what to do for him, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“I worry about him being in that apartment all alone.”

“Me too.”

“I’m thinking the guys and I might end up taking turns staying with him sometimes. Like, after chemo or whatever. Just to make sure he’s alright.”

“I think that’d be sweet. I’ll take a turn too.”

With the hand not holding Lucy, Sebastian reaches up and scratches his cheek. He lifts his head from the pillow, peers first at the foot of the bed and then around the room, and finally asks with real curiosity, “Where are the cats? I thought they’d be excited to see me.”

One might assume a professional musician’s bucket list would include locations where he’d like to perform and successes he’d like to achieve. Sebastian Porter isn’t the norm, though. For as long as Lucy can remember, he’s talked about owning two cats by the monikers of Scout and Jem. An avid lover of all things To Kill A Mockingbird, Bas had wanted to name a female Jean Louise and a male Jeremy Atticus. “That way, when they call ‘em back for their appointment at the vet’s, I can use their nicknames and everyone in the waiting room will laugh.”

“Assuming everyone in the waiting room is literate,” Lucy had informed him.

It had been a good idea, and Bas had almost made it a reality. The problem? Jean Louise ended up having a pair of testicles and some other equipment. “So we’ll call him Gene Luis instead,” Sebastian had reasoned. “No biggie.”

Lucy slips a hand over his stomach and rests it on his lower hip, then twines her left leg through his. “That was a really long tour, Bas. They’re probably hiding.”

He falls back onto the pillow and heaves a sigh of resignation. “Well, they’ll have lots of time to reacclimate to my presence. I’m not goin’ anywhere until Bert’s well enough to tag along. No more touring for a while.”

“Really?”

“Yup.”

It's the silver lining to this horrible situation: Sebastian will be home. He won't be touring for weeks on end and they can talk face-to-face rather than via cell phone. But it doesn't make Bert’s diagnosis any easier to accept. Lucy untangles herself from the man lying beside her and props herself up on one elbow. “What d’you wanna do today? I’m up for whatever.”

“You don’t have to work?”

“Nope. Rex and Teddy are manning the shop.”

“Hmm…” A sly grin flits across Sebastian’s lips. “If that’s the case, I have some ideas.”

“Like…?”

“Well, I definitely want to spend some time with Jem and Scout… and I really need to trim my beard. It’s out of control at the moment.”

“Okay…”

“The grass needs to be mowed.”

“It does,” Lucy concedes.

“Yeah. And I’ve got a shit-ton of laundry to do, but first…?” He rolls over and positions himself on top of the golden-haired woman, straddling her. A mischievous glint dances in his eyes. “But first, I’d really love to make love to you.”

“I was sort of hoping you’d say that,” she giggles, “because I’d really love to make love to you.”

Three.

Springtime in Lake Caywood is a colorful, fragrant affair. Though the crepe myrtles lining Main Street won’t bloom for another month or two, the bulbs nestled beneath the soil at their roots wake slowly and stretch toward the sun. First come the daffodils, puckered faces smiling cheerfully in varying hues of gold, and then, right behind them, are the tulips. These heavy-headed flowers spring from the earth in rainbowed clusters: red, orange, yellow, indigo, and violet. They adorn the bases of mailboxes and lamp posts alike.

Next come the irises, their purple petals marred by built-in caterpillars. Some are yellow; others are white. Now, at the age of forty-five, Bert realizes the proper name for this particular flower feature is “the beard,” but as a child he’d referred to that fuzzy pipe-cleaner-esque attribute as a caterpillar. And his mother had never corrected him. Bert sighs and pushes thoughts of Louise from his mind. Now is not the time to allow his spirits to plummet; he needs to remain upbeat.

The first day of May should be a fresh start.

A new month and a new beginning.

An unexplored chapter in the big Book of Life.

And, Bert reasons, it is if he chooses to view his first chemotherapy session as an occurrence yet unexperienced. It seems fitting, however, that it’s the steady sound of rain rat-a-tatting on his metal roof that wakes him this morning.

Bert has no qualms about precipitation—rain and snow are among his favorite things—but he’d prefer to spend this rainy day in bed rather than at the hospital. He stands in front of the bathroom mirror, studying his reflection and the latest addition to his body: a port-a-cath on the left-hand side of his chest, installed last week and ready for its first use today. Hesitantly, he brushes two fingers over the incision before covering it with fresh gauze.

He’s not yet comfortable with the port’s presence.

He wishes it weren’t there, but can find no point in dwelling on the fruitless thought. Instead, he turns from the mirror and walks down the hall to his bedroom, where he pulls on a t-shirt and then a hoodie. Sebastian will be here any moment to pick him up and Bert wants to be ready when he arrives.

The apartment in which he resides isn’t large by any means, but it offers all the necessary amenities: a place to sleep, a place to bathe, a place to cook, and a place to entertain. The home’s layout makes this last requisite exceptionally easy as the open floor plan easily accommodates large groups of people. Nearly an entire wall of the living room is composed of windows, flooding the home with natural light, and sliding glass doors open onto a deck off the back of the house. This is how Bert comes and goes so as not to disturb his downstairs neighbor Matilda, and this is how he exits the house now when he spots his friend’s Jeep Wrangler coasting down the street.

There had been a time—back in the boys’ twenties, before Sam Clark orchestrated a contract with Lollygag Records and “Kick It One More Time” topped the Billboard charts—when Bert and Bas had shared a red Wrangler. They’d driven it to and from swim practice in high school, to and from concerts in college, and eventually to a car dealership that offered a better-than-expected trade-in for two new Wranglers. Bas had gone with a steely blue finish this time around; Bert had opted for black.

Sighing, he pulls up his hood, grabs his backpack, steps into the drizzly morning, and hustles down the deck stairs to meet Bas. “Hey,” he says quietly, climbing into the Jeep and tossing his bag at his feet. “Thanks for picking me up. I could’ve driven myself, though. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“But we don’t know that yet, B” is Bas’s simple response, “so as far as I’m concerned, you’ve got yourself a personal chauffeur every Wednesday of every week for as long as you need it. Until this round of treatment is over. Okay?”

Bert fastens his seatbelt and turns to face Sebastian. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Thank you. And… hey, B?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

Sebastian had been in the process of backing down the driveway, but now he puts his foot solidly on the brake, bringing the Jeep to a standstill. He fixes his friend with those unnaturally pale eyes of his, looking right into him, and asks, “Sorry for getting cancer? Because that’s just silly. It’s not your fault, B. It’s not anyone’s fault. It’s just… a shitty thing that happened.” And then, correcting himself, “That’s happening. It’s a shitty thing that’s happening, but you’ve got nothing to be sorry about.”

“But I am sorry,” Bert counters. “I’m sorry my life is impacting yours so much right now.”

“Are you being serious, B? Because I can remember this one time I got hit by a fucking car and you basically revamped your entire life to help with my recovery. So… no. Do not be sorry. You are not an inconvenience. You’re not something that’s getting in the way of other plans. You are my best friend and I will do anything for you. Right now, in fact,” he says as he eases his foot off the brake, “I’m gonna take you to your first round of chemo, and I’m gonna sit with you while you receive treatment, and then I’ll drive you home and hang out.”

“You don’t need to hang out. I’ll probably spend the rest of the day sleeping. Dr. Nolan says most patients are real tired afterwards.”

“That may be, but I’m not going anywhere. I packed a bag. I’m staying the night.”

“Sebastian…”

“Just shut up and let me take care of you, alright?” He gives Bert a sidelong look of bewilderment and rolls his eyes, a crooked smile lingering on his lips.

The expression earns a quiet chuckle. Bert closes his eyes and rests his head against the seat, shaking his head in resignation. “Alright,” he agrees. “I’ll allow it.”

🍁

They arrive at the hospital around nine o’clock. First there’s a blood draw, followed by a check of Bert’s vitals, and after a time, the men are led back to a private room on the infusion floor. “Until last week, I didn’t know Lake Caywood Hospital had an infusion floor,” Bert mutters, settling himself on a recliner and accepting a warm blanket offered by the nurse. Her name is Jacqueline and she looks as though she just walked out of the eighties. Her bangs are feathered, her hair is dyed a fake candy-red, and her eyeshadow is blue. She has a nice smile, though, which she flashes now before asking, “Are the two of you brothers?”

“Might as well be,” Bas answers at the same time Bert says, “Best friends since childhood.”

“You look so much alike,” she muses, and the boys simply nod because it’s something they’ve heard a lot in their lives. Both are tall and slim with angular features; both have dark hair and pale eyes, though Bas’s are blue whereas Bert’s are green. Bert, too, sports a somewhat tidier appearance: shorter (though still shaggy) hair and cleanly shaven cheeks. But for as long as they can remember, strangers have been mistaking them for siblings. In unison, they state, “We get that a lot.”

The nurse laughs and uncovers Bert’s port-a-cath. Then she hangs a bag of saline solution and proceeds to attach it to his port. “These fluids should help with the side effects,” she explains, “and as soon as your chemo cocktail arrives, I’ll hook that up as well. I’m going to step out for a few minutes, but I’ll return shortly. Do you need anything before I go?”

“Nah,” Bert responds, “I’m good for now.”

Jacqueline pats his shoulder. “Okay. I’ll see you soon.”

She disappears and Bas takes a seat on the empty recliner beside his friend. “Wanna watch TV?” he asks, but Bert shakes his head. “Maybe we could just talk,” he suggests. “About anything. I just… I wanna keep my thoughts off the fact that my body’s about to be pumped full of poison. I’m fuckin’ scared, B.”

“I know you are.” Sebastian reaches over and grips Bert’s hand, giving it a firm squeeze. “But I’m here for you, just like you were there for me when I broke my pelvis. I think about that sometimes, you know? About everything you did for me. Visiting me in the hospital… moving back to Lake Caywood… having my guitar restored… That, B, was probably your greatest friend move to date. I love that guitar.” His eyes grow glassy remembering the gesture.

All those years ago, when Bas had stepped into a crosswalk and the teenager who’d hit him had mistaken the accelerator for the brake, both he and his guitar had gone flying. His injuries had been more severe than the instrument’s, but the acoustic guitar had certainly suffered: cracked neck, fractured bridge, splintered body. If left up to Sebastian, he would have cut his losses and tried to move on. Bert, however, understood the object’s nostalgic significance: not only was that particular guitar Sebastian’s absolute favorite, it had also belonged to his mother. Bert had depleted a good chunk of his savings to have it restored, but he’d never regretted the decision.

“Greatest friend move, huh?” he confirms. “That’s a fun thing to think about.” He falls silent for a moment, running through a lifetime of memories shared with Sebastian. The first one that comes to mind is of course the most obvious, but it’s also the single instance in time that Bert has never again referenced since its occurrence. And for that reason, rather than mention it now, he lies, “Yours might be happening right at this moment. Being here, I mean. Being with me as I go through this.”

Bas raises an eyebrow. “Really?” he wonders. “Because there was that time in high school when you sneaked out of the house and hitched a ride—with that idiot Andrew Adams, of all people—to a party in Gettysburg, got stranded at a shady-ass gas station on some road in the middle of nowhere, and called me at one in the morning to come get you. Which I did.”

Bert laughs. “Yeah… you did. I mean, that’s kind of what you’re best at.”

“Being a chauffeur?” he asks, his tone rich with skepticism.

“Showing up,” Bert corrects. “You’re really good at showing up. To the point that…” He chuckles, remembering something from almost two decades ago that he would have given just about anything to witness. “To the point that your greatest friend move, period, had nothing to do with me at all. It had to do with Lucy and that fucking Cowardly Lion costume.”

Bas cocks his head to one side. “Are you talking about when we went trick-or-treating?”

“Nope. I’m talking about when you showed up at her house—mane, makeup, the works—that night she broke up with… What was that guy’s name? Chad?”

“Chet.”

“Right. Chet. I’m talking about that time.”

The expression on Bas’s face is one of humiliated confusion. “Wait. You know about that?”

“I do, yeah.”

“Did Lucy tell you?”

“Nol did.”

All these years after the fact, Sebastian’s cheeks still burn with embarrassment. “I hate that costume so much,” he grumbles, and leans back in the recliner, elevating his feet.

“The things we do for love…” Bert sighs, mirroring his friend’s posture and attempting to relax. Jacqueline returns a moment later with a smaller pouch of liquid. She hangs it beside the bag of fluid, opens the line, and sets it to a slow drip. “This will probably take about two hours,” she informs her patient, “and we ask that you stick around for another thirty minutes or so afterward, just to make sure you’re feeling okay. I expect you’ll be home by two o’clock at the latest.”

“Okay.”

“Let me know when the two of you get hungry. I’ll have lunch brought in.”

Bert forces a smile. “Okay,” he repeats. “Thank you.”

He’s quiet for quite a while after the nurse leaves.

Bas, too, seems lost in his own thoughts, but after a time he wonders, “What does it feel like?”

Bert rolls his head to face the man sitting beside him. His eyes are closed and his legs are crossed. His hands, fingers intertwined, support his head. “What does the chemo feel like?” he confirms.

“Yeah.”

“Not bad. It burns a little, but it’s not bad.”

Sebastian exhales a long breath through slightly parted lips. “I don’t want it to hurt.”

“It doesn’t,” Bert assures him. “I’m fine.”

“I brought along a deck of cards and some other stuff in case we get bored,” he offers.

“What kind of other stuff?”

“Mad Libs, a puzzle… a couple of books.” His eyes flutter open as he turns to face Bert. A shy smile flits across his face as he admits, “I thought I could read to you, if you wanted. That’s what Jem did for Mrs. Dubose when she was sick.”

Having grown up with a literature professor for a father, Sebastian’s offer of a read-aloud comes as no great surprise. He isn’t necessarily someone who spends hours at a time with his nose in a book, but Bas does generally always have a novel that he’s picking away at. He’s a solid reader, too: his fluency is exceptional and he changes his voice to reflect the voices of the different characters. It is, Bert realizes, the perfect suggestion for this moment in time. “What’re my options?” he asks, assuming the first on the list will be Harper Lee’s classic.

Sebastian surprises him, however, when he says, “Ordinary Grace or Me Talk Pretty One Day. One’s a mystery; the other’s more like… humorous memoirs.”

“I don’t feel very funny right now,” Bert quietly confides. “Let’s go with the mystery.”

So Bas hops up from his chair, strides across the room to retrieve his backpack, and unearths a tattered paperback with a cracked spine. It’s obviously been read once or twice before. “If To Kill A Mockingbird didn’t exist,” he says, opening to the first page as he reclaims his seat, “this would be my favorite book.” And then, in a voice soft and smooth, he begins reading.