Page 124 of Any Port in a Storm

God, I so badly want to fix this for him. Want to gather him in my arms and dry his tears; wash away the pain he’s bearing largely on his own, so far away from his family. From his home.

“I can do it,” I whisper.

He looks up sharply. “What?”

“I mean, if you want me to. I can read a poem.”

I watch the tears pool in real time. “Oh, Laurel. You don’t have to⁠—”

“If you don’t want me to, then I won’t,” I say. I reach for his hand across the table. “But I’m happy to do this for you, Nick. I want to help.”

He hesitates, then nods. “Okay. Yeah. That would be.…” He swipes at his face, and his hand comes away wet. “Thank you.”

I squeeze his fingers in mine. “We’re in this together.”

“In what together?”

I wave my free arm above my head, showing him the whole world. “Everything. We’re in everything together.”

For the first time in a week, he genuinely smiles.

I spend the next day poring over my poetry anthologies, trying to find the right thing for Nick’s grandfather. The quest is complicated by the fact that I never met the man, but Nick’s said so many wonderful things over the years that I almost feel like I have.

I try Wordsworth and Frost and Dickinson, but nothing seems to fit. I go darker, with things by Edgar Allen Poe, and lighter, with things by Walt Whitman. I’m coming up woefully short when it hits me—I know exactly which poem to read.

I grab my book and head to my bedroom, where Nick’s just finished giving a lecture at his dresser-desk.

“Can I run something by you?” My heart’s ready to pound right out of my chest, because this matters—tremendously, in fact. I have to get this right for him.

He shuffles some papers into a pile. “Of course. What’s up?”

My courage starts to slip. “I think, um…I think I found a poem. For the memorial?”

His shoulders sag, as if I’ve just delivered the blow of his grandfather’s death all over again. But he nods, and then, with much effort, says, “Okay.”

“Here.” I open the book and pass it to him. “It’s this one.”

I wait with bated breath while he reads it, my body humming with nervous energy all the while. I don’t know why. If he doesn’t like it, I’ll just find something else. I didn’t write the poem; it’s not a reflection on me.

Still, I have the vague sense that choosing the right poem for Nick will prove I can take care of him. Prove that I can be what he needs. And, after so many years living in the shadow of his giving nature, I guess I’ve always felt a little insecure that maybe I don’t measure up. That I can’t be enough for him, even though he’s more than enough for me.

Nick clears his throat, then looks up from the book, eyes glistening with gratitude. “Thank you,” he says. “This is absolutely perfect.”

The day of the memorial dawns without a cloud in the sky. I wear a green dress, because Nick says that was his grandfather’s favorite color. I help him with his tie, even though he insists he can do it on his own—but I just need to feel like I’m taking care of him. I can tell from the look on his face, right before he opens his mouth to brush off my help a second time, that he understands. Instead, he smiles gently and thanks me.

His tie is green, too. He says it reminds him of that first view when the clouds break away before his plane lands in Dublin. That it feels like coming home.

It both overjoys and crushes me to hear him say that—because, at the end of the day, how will Boston ever measure up?

How will I ever measure up?

We sit together in front of his laptop, then watch as countless rectangles pop up to join us—first Lucy and her parents, then Aisling and Aoife, then Nick’s cousins and aunts and uncles and friends of his grandfather’s from the nursing home. When all’s said and done, the screen has so many squares we have to toggle to see everyone.

It’s staggering to witness someone’s legacy this way.

Nick’s mother says a few words, then passes the torch to her sister, who reads an excerpt from their father’s favorite book. Each of Nick’s sisters offers a remembrance, and then it’s our turn.

“Laurel and Nick have prepared a poem,” his mother says.