Theo watched me approach the podium.
He didn't move.
I could see the uncertainty in his face, and it made me ashamed of every thought I had entertained that morning.
He was waiting for me to tell him he had done something wrong.
I had no right to make him wait any longer.
When I reached him, I put my arms around his shoulders.
For a moment, he remained stiff.
Then he bent toward me, and the paper slipped slightly between his fingers.
He began to cry.
"I'm sorry."
His voice was muffled against my shoulder.
I held him more tightly.
"You don't need to say that."
"I should've explained before I came."
"You didn't know how."
He pulled back just enough to look at me.
"I didn't want you to think I was making fun of him."
I shook my head.
"I know."
I didn't know everything yet.
But I knew enough to understand that he had come out of love, not mockery.
I touched his arm.
"Finish what you wanted to say."
He wiped his cheeks.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, Theo."
I glanced at Jack's coffin.
"He would want you to finish."
Theo nodded, though he still looked overwhelmed.
I returned to my seat.
Daniel reached for my hand before I had even settled beside him.
His eyes were red.
He squeezed my fingers, and I squeezed his back.
Neither of us needed to explain what had just happened.
We had both been wrong.
Theo adjusted the microphone.
He looked toward the mourners and took a slow breath.
"I wrote a speech."
A small, embarrassed smile appeared.
"It's seven pages long."
One of Jack's classmates called from the seats, "You wrote seven pages?"
Theo looked in his direction.
"I did."
He glanced down at the stack of papers he had brought with him.
"But Jack would've complained about it after about thirty seconds."
A few people laughed.
Theo lifted the pages, considered them, and set them aside.
"So I'm not going to read all that."
That was when his tribute began to feel less like a formal speech and more like the boys themselves.
He told us about the time Jack broke the garage window with a hockey puck.
I remembered the crash.
I remembered running outside and finding both boys standing in the driveway, looking at the broken glass.
They had spent far too long trying to agree on an explanation.
Eventually, they decided a bird must have caused the damage.
Daniel had asked them how a bird could possibly break a window with a hockey puck.
Jack had answered without hesitation.
"A really strong bird."
I laughed before I could stop myself.
The sound surprised me.
For days, I had felt as though laughing would be a betrayal of my grief.
But there I was, sitting in a chapel, hearing a story about my son's childhood and laughing through tears.
Theo smiled when he heard us.
He continued with their games of Monopoly.
Jack had never been content to follow the printed rules if he thought he could make the game more interesting.
He invented extra payments, special exceptions, and ways to get out of trouble that nobody else was allowed to use.
When Theo objected, Jack would insist that cheating couldn't be happening because the bank was insured.
Theo had spent years arguing with him about that.
He had never won.
"He was impossible," Theo said.
There was affection in his voice.
"Especially when he knew he was wrong."
Daniel laughed under his breath.
That was our Jack.
He could admit a mistake when he wanted to.
He simply didn't always want to.
Theo moved on to their first year of high school.
He told us about a day when he had become overwhelmed and hidden inside a bathroom stall.
He didn't explain every detail, and he didn't need to.
He said he had been struggling, and the last thing he wanted was to face a hallway full of people.
Jack had found him.
Instead of demanding that Theo come out, Jack sat down on the floor outside the stall.
He pretended they had planned to skip class together.
He talked about the teacher they were supposedly avoiding.
He complained about homework.
He made the whole thing sound like a joke they had both chosen to share.
Eventually, Theo had felt ready to leave.
Jack hadn't asked him to explain himself.
He had simply walked beside him.
I lowered my eyes.
I remembered how many times Theo had been in our home without telling us what was wrong.
We had thought of him as the quiet one.
We hadn't always understood how much he kept to himself.
Jack had understood.
Or at least, he had known when not to ask questions.
Theo paused and looked at the audience.
"When Jack got sick, everybody kept telling him how brave he was."
I felt my shoulders tighten.
I had said those words myself.
So had Daniel.
So had the doctors, relatives, and friends who wanted to encourage him.
Theo looked down at the podium.
"Jack hated hearing that."
I could almost hear my son arguing with him.
Theo continued.
"He used to say he hadn't signed up for any of it. He hadn't chosen to be sick, so he didn't think the word brave made much sense."
A few people nodded.
I remembered one evening when Jack had become irritated after a visitor called him a fighter.
He had waited until the person left before asking me why everybody talked as if he were in a competition.
I hadn't known what to say.
I had told him they were trying to help.
He had accepted that answer, but I could tell it hadn't satisfied him.
Theo rubbed his hands together.
"I think he was brave, though."
He looked toward us.
"Not because he was sick."
His voice grew steadier.
"Because he kept caring about everybody else when he had more than enough to deal with himself."
I felt Daniel's hand close around mine again.
Theo spoke about the days Jack was too tired to do much.
He remembered the days when his friend barely spoke and the days when he talked so much that Theo couldn't finish a sentence.
He remembered the jokes, the complaints, the movie arguments, and the ordinary conversations that continued even when everything around them had changed.
Jack had been afraid sometimes.
Theo did not pretend otherwise.
But he had also been happy.
That was something I needed to hear.
I had spent so much time worrying about the bad days that I had begun to fear those were the only days Jack remembered.
Theo was reminding us that there had been more to his final months.
There had been moments when he forgot about the hospital.
Moments when he laughed so hard he had to stop talking.
Moments when he was simply an eighteen-year-old boy teasing his best friend.
Theo glanced down at the red dress.
"This was partly Jack being Jack."
A few people smiled.
"He thought it would be funny to make me do something I never would've chosen myself."
Theo touched the fabric near his knee.
"And he probably would've enjoyed seeing everyone's faces today."
I looked around the chapel.
Several guests smiled despite themselves.
Daniel shook his head, almost fondly.
Theo continued.
"But I think it was also a way for him to decide something when so much else had been decided for him."
The room became quiet again.
I thought about the treatments.
The appointments.
The medicines that changed Jack's appetite and the procedures that left him exhausted.
I thought about how many choices had disappeared from his life.
He couldn't always decide what he ate.
He couldn't decide whether he had enough energy to see a friend.
He couldn't decide when his body would cooperate or when the next bad day would arrive.
Even the future he had imagined had become uncertain.
Yet he could still make a promise.
He could still make a joke.
He could still choose red.
Theo looked at Jack's coffin.
"So, this one's for you."
He glanced down at himself and let out a breath.
"And I need everyone to know that I hate this dress."
From the back of the chapel, Emma called out, "It looks good on you!"
People laughed.
Theo turned toward her.
"Thank you, Emma."
He shook his head with the expression of someone who knew he would hear about this for years.
Then he faced the coffin again.
"You got your way, Jack."
He stepped back from the microphone.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then someone began to clap.
Another person joined in, and soon the chapel filled with applause.
It wasn't loud or cheerful.
It was the kind of applause people give when they don't know how else to show what they feel.
Theo stood awkwardly beside the podium, still holding Jack's note.
I watched him and understood something I hadn't understood when he first walked through the doors.
The dress hadn't made him the center of the day.
Our reaction to it had nearly done that.
Theo had come to speak about his friend.
He had brought a promise, a few memories, and a piece of paper written by a boy who had known there was a chance he might not recover.
The rest of us had brought our assumptions.
After the service, I went to find him.
Click here to continue reading: PART 4: After the Applause Faded, the People Who Had Judged Theo Began to Understand What the Red Dress Really Meant
I Thought My Son’s Best Friend Had Chosen the Worst Possible Day to Make Himself the Center of Attention
Part 3 of 12
