Joe loves Kyle, and Kyle loves Joe. They tell each other so every day. Kyle is usually the first to say “I love you,” in a whisper, tentatively, as if he’s afraid the words will frighten Joe, though they always bring a smile to Joe’s craggy face—a smile that changes Kyle from a sad child into a beaming boy.
Kyle is eight, Joe is seventy-two. They have known each other for two years, being members of the same Buddhist community. Kyle was homeless with his mother, Susan, and sister, Ashley, for much of his first six years, and Joe’s kindness allowed Susan to move with her children from a terrifying existence on the streets to a sweeter life among friends.
Joe and Kyle do not live in the same house, but they spend time together almost every day. On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, Joe walks Kyle from school to Chaco’s café where Susan is a waitress. Joe has tea and Kyle has cocoa, and sometimes they split a piece of pie. From Chaco’s, they go to Joe’s house and either build things in Joe’s shop or sit in the kitchen giving technical support to Agnes, one of Joe’s housemates, as she cooks and bakes and sews.
On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings, Joe baby-sits Kyle and Ashley while Susan goes to her tap dancing and singing lessons. On Saturdays and Sundays something invariably throws Joe and Kyle together, and when Joe goes out of town, he calls Kyle every night before bedtime so they can tell each other about their days.
ONE SATURDAY MORNING in April—a night of rain having cleared away the dust and smog—Joe and Kyle are turning the soil in the community garden plot where Joe grows vegetables and flowers. Joe watches Kyle grasp the stout handle of the shovel and step up onto the footholds where he rocks his sixty pounds back and forth to sink the blade into the ground. Now he dismounts and pulls back on the handle to pry the little piece of earth away from its bed and bring air and light into the soil where the new seeds will fall.
The sight of Kyle digging is so emotionally overwhelming for Joe that he cannot contain his tears.
Kyle sees Joe crying and rushes to his side. “What’s wrong?” he asks, taking his great friend’s hand in both of his. “What, Joe?”
“Happy,” Joe manages to say as he picks the boy up and holds him on his hip. “Just happy.”
LATE THAT NIGHT, Joe taps on Agnes’s bedroom door. She is sitting up in bed—glasses perched on the tip of her nose—reading the Diamond Sutra—her face youthful in the lesser light beyond the main flood of the lamp.
Joe’s eyes are bleary from weeping, his hands trembling. “I . . . I can’t stop crying.”
“Come here, sweetheart.” She pats the bed beside her. “Talk to me.”
He sits beside her and gropes for her hand. “I can’t bear the thought of Kyle dying, Agnes. It’s too much for me.”
“You need to cry,” she says, holding him as he sobs. “This is good, Joe. This is good.”
He relaxes against her, knowing she prefers his full weight to his holding himself away from her. “It would be easier,” he says softly, “if he didn’t love me so much.”
“What fun would that be?” She kisses the top of his head. “Wouldn’t be love if it only went one way.”
Joe sits up, his sorrow blown away by sudden insight. “I need to tell him about Tommy. I thought I could never tell him. But it’s the obstacle, isn’t it?”
“Seems so,” says Agnes, reaching out to him. “I miss your body on mine.”
A FEW MORNINGS later, Susan and Kyle sit with Joe in his sunny kitchen—Agnes gone with Ashley to feed the ducks in the park. Susan has been told in advance what Joe wants to share with Kyle, and she has given Joe her unconditional approval.
Kyle knows something is up, but he puts on a brave face and waits patiently for the adults to speak first.
“So, buddy,” says Joe, swallowing his tears, “I want to tell you about something that happened to me a long time ago, something very sad about somebody you remind me of, which is why I’ve been crying so much lately.”
“I bet I know what it is,” says Kyle, afraid to look at Joe.
“What do you bet it is?” asks Joe, curious to hear what Kyle will say.
“You had a son,” says Kyle, nodding. “And he ran away and you think I’ll run away, too, but I never will.”
“He didn’t run away,” says Joe, gazing in wonder at Kyle. “He died when he was five. And I’ve never let myself love another child until you.”
Kyle, startled, looks at Joe. “Hey, and I never loved another man until you.”
“What other man did you love?” asks Susan, shocked by Kyle’s reply.
“My dad,” says Kyle, smiling shyly. “Even if I don’t remember him.”
