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“Good,” she said before turning to smile at me. “It’s settled. We’ll be there, and if there’s a change and I can’t, you’ll come back to see me, won’t you, Trevan?”

“Yes,” I promised her.

She reached for me and took my hand. “Thank you, for everything.”

“You’re welcome.”

When she let me go, I turned back to my boyfriend. He was looking at me.

“What?”

“It won’t ever be like yours, Trev. You get that, don’t you?”

His family was not like mine—yeah, I knew that.

“It’s cold in Detroit,” Scott muttered a second later.

We all looked at him.

“It is, right?”

“You can borrow a coat,” I promised him.

He shot me a look and I laughed, which turned the grin he was working hard at not allowing into a full-blown smile.

Landry was stunned.

Jocelyn burst into giggles.

Chris obviously had no idea that Scott’s face could do that, smile.

It was nice.

“Trevan.”

I looked back at Cece.

“It’s you, you did this. You gave me my family back.”

“No,” I corrected her, tipping my head at Landry. “It’s him. My dad always said if your family is together, everything will be all right. Your family wasn’t together, but now it is.”

“Now it is,” she agreed, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Dr. Armstrong, are you all right?” Landry asked him.

“Yes, Landry,” he said and cleared his throat. “I am.”

My boyfriend turned and smiled at me. “You’re right, weird couple of days.”

Truly.

MR. CARTER, who I’d thought didn’t love his son, mauled Landry at the breakfast table, hugging him so tight he couldn’t breathe. I liked it; breathing was overrated anyway. And after that, the light came from heaven just like it did on Paul on the road from Damascus, and the man apologized to me. Gay or not, poor or not, ethnic or not, I seemed to be an excellent influence on Landry, and his wife liked me. He actually hugged me, which freaked Landry out a little and his brother Scott a lot. It was funny.

Jocelyn explained about Hugh after Dr. Armstrong and Dr. Kellum left, about how she had been cheating on her husband and how great Hugh was being about it, how he just wanted an amicable divorce and for them to split everything fifty-fifty. She thought that they might even still be able to be friends and really hoped so. He was her best friend, and not being able to talk to him about the affair was the part that had hurt.

I didn’t understand about being friends with exes unless no one had done anything wrong and you just got sick of looking at each other. It was beyond me. But more power to Hugh if he could let it go, his wife’s betrayal, and not be bitter. He was a better man than I was.

While I enjoyed sitting there listening to everyone talk, watching Landry, I realized that he was still not engaged. At home, at family dinners, holidays, barbecues, whatever, Landry sat and argued and laughed and was loud. He was asked his opinion and gave it, sometimes harshly, sometimes gently, but never shyly, never like he was being now. It was not in him to sit back and simply observe. That he was doing so pained me.