Theo stared at it.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Harris, I can’t take that.”
“You can.”
“But it belonged to Jack.”
“I know exactly who it belonged to.”
I placed the watch in his hand and closed his fingers around it.
“Jack would have wanted you to have it.”
Theo looked down at the watch for a long time.
Then he pressed it against his chest.
He cried, and I held him while Daniel put an arm around both of us.
We didn’t say anything for a while.
We didn’t need to.
People still ask me about the funeral.
Sometimes they remember the red dress. Sometimes they remember Theo’s speech. Occasionally, someone tells me that the story changed the way they think about judging other people.
For a long time, I struggled with the fact that the dress was the detail everyone remembered.
I wanted people to remember Jack’s life, not just the unusual thing his best friend wore at his funeral.
