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Show CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Andrew stopped in the hall and leaned against the wall, his bandaged hand covering his eyes. I waited, twisting the strap of my hat in my hands. After a moment, my friend wiped his bare hand across his eyes and turned to me. "Come on, Annie. Let's go outside." We went through the open doors onto the patio and out under the trees to our favorite table. I sat beside Andrew and put my hand on his arm. We sat quietly for a time watching a chess game. "Your poor mom. Maybe I shouldn't have told her. A real shock." "Why? Why does it matter where Paul died?" I asked. He turned to look at me. "Don't you see?" I did see, for myself. Andrew's words had, in a moment destroyed my picture of Uncle Paul, dying to save a friend. I now saw him, a child again, lying in his room at my grandparent's house, the room he had shared with John, lying in a dark room and crying like a baby. But I wanted to know if the adults, my mother and father, also saw him like that now. Was he less a hero to all of us? Would Grandmother now take the black ribbon off his picture? "Annie, dying is always hard. Especially if it's the dying of someone you love. Your mother just has to face something she hadn't expected, and maybe she thinks now, well, maybe your uncle didn't have to die." Andrew put his arm around me and pulled me close to him. He hadseldom done that before. We both seemed to need each other's closeness today, to touch each other and feel the warm breath of our words. |