Mal trailed off.
Jag didn’t say anything.
Mal kept going, and when he did, it was the first time sinceJagger met him that he sounded like a little kid.
“There wasn’t anything I could do to make things better.She’s my mom, Jag, and she hurt, and I didn’t know how to make things better.”
Christ, he felt those words.
He felt them deep.
“I get that, buddy,” Jagger said quietly.
Mal shook his head, turned away, and there was a thread ofdisgust in his voice when he said, “You can’t get it.No one—”
“My dad died when I was three.”
Mal’s head whipped back around so he could look at Jagger.
“I don’t remember him, not at all,” Jagger told him.“But mymom loved him, brother.I mean, like,for real.Like,once-in-a-lifetime, lost-forever love.All my life, she was in pain.Every dayof it.And I had to see that and couldn’t do dick about it.So when I say I getit, Mal, I’m not handing you a line of bullshit.I really get it.”
Mal just stared at him.
Jag held his gaze.
Then Mal turned away again, but after several long beats, hefell into Jag’s side.
Jag slid an arm around his shoulders.
“I’m sorry about your mom,” Mal mumbled.
“She’s good now, happy.Found another love, and it’sonce-in-a-lifetime too.And just to say, we’re lucky, because that’s what everykind of love is.You justgottaopen yourself to it.”
“Yeah,” Mal said.
They were quiet.
Mal broke it.
“Sorry about your dad.”
Jag swallowed.
Nodded.
Realized Mal couldn’t see him nod.
So he said, “Yeah.And goes without saying, but I’ll say it,sorry about your gramma, bud.Losing someone you love sucks.And that’s justall there is to it.”
It took a sec, but eventually, Mal replied, “Yeah.”
After that, they sat together on the stoop, in the cold,until Archie came out and said it was time to get Mal inside, warm and with hismom, and then it was time to leave.
So they took care of Mal, gave hugs to his mom.
And they left.
It was under his seriously watchful eye that he andArchie walked into her apartment after leaving Mal and Shanta.
