forget-me-not, neil

Neil's Todd

"Todd?"

...

"Todd, it's me, Charlie."

...

"Charlie Dalton, I got your number from Jeff, I hope that's alright."

"Yeah, of course Charlie," I knew who he was the moment he said my name. Even after all these years. "How have you been?"

"Good, Todd, I've been good, listen man, I um," he hesitates, and I hear a sigh on the other end of the phone.

"What is it Charlie?"

"Listen Todd, I hate to tell you this, but I wanted you to hear it from me. It's Mr. Keating. He's, um, he passed away."

The funeral was small, 20 people at most. The five of us were there, me, Charlie, Knox, Pitts and Meeks. Cameron wasn't there, and I was glad not to see him. Not after how rude he'd been to Keating, how he'd torn the Poets apart after Neil's death. I hadn't seen him since, and I wanted to keep it that way. He wouldn't have deserved to be there even if he had shown up.

The ceremony wasn't long, but people stayed around for a while afterwards. I found myself gravitating away from everyone, to a bench a hundred or so yards away. I sat there a while, with my eyes closed, hunched over with my head in my hands, elbows resting on my knees.

"Todd?"

I look up to see a woman before me I don't recognize. She is older than me, old enough to be my mother, but there was something about her that was familiar, something I just couldn't place.

"Hello Todd, I know we've never met," she says with a shy smile. "I'm Neil's mother."

Of course. I should have known by those deep brown eyes. And it's true, we never have met. Even at Neil's funeral, which I think I was half delirious for, I saw her only from a distance. At the time, I was too busy being angry with Mr. Perry to have actually noticed her.

"Of course, Mrs. Perry, I should have known."

She sits down next to me on the bench.

"No worries honey, it's no secret what age does to you." She stifles a laugh. "You on the other hand, haven't changed one bit my love." I smile back at her, but quickly avert my eyes. It had been too many years since I'd looked into those eyes last.

"He resembles a lot-" I stop. "He resembled a lot like you."

"He does, doesn't he." I look up long enough to see her wink at me.

"So how is Mr. Perry?"

"Oh honey," she says with a sigh. "He died a few years back."

"I'm so sorry."

"Me too." She shifts, and reaches over to rest her hand on mine. "He never was the same after Neil."

"I don't think anyone was." I give her hand a squeeze, but keep my eyes angled down. We sit there a moment in silence.

"I didn't expect to see you here." I say, trying my best to be genuine and not sound rude.

"Neither did I." she says. "But I think I owed it to him."

"Yeah, Neil would have been here if he could've."

"Oh don't worry," she says, reaching over to take my chin, and moving my head so that I'm looking right at her. She then drops her hand, and not breaking eye contact, pats my chest over my heart. "He's here, Todd."

If only she knew how much I missed her son.

"I have something for you Todd, something of his." She reaches into her purse. "I've been holding onto it for years, hoping I'd see you again." She hands me a small piece of folded paper. I open it up, and a stinging comes immediately to my eyes, a gasp escaping my lips. Turns out it wasn't a piece of paper, but a photograph. A strip of them, actually, from the photobooth in the park on Carleton St.

Four little squares of Neil and I, worn and faded over time, but the smiles still vibrant nonteheless. The top square, Neil and I laughing, mouths open, eyes squinting, over something stupid Neil had said. The second one, rosy cheeked smiles and bright eyes. The third, my eyes wide, a shocked look on my face as Neil has his lips pressed against my cheek, his hand cupped around the opposite side of my face. And the  fourth and final picture on the strip, daring at the time, but so secluded and special behind the thick velvet curtain of the photo booth. Two boys, arms around each other, lips together, in their own little world.

Neil had insisted that we split the strip in half, so we could each keep a little part of that day. But for me, the memory was enough, seeing as I could literally daydream about him all day. And I knew how much having those physical photos meant to Neil. So with some convincing, and more kissing in the booth, he ended up keeping it whole. The memory was still so vivid in my mind, I had completely forgotten about the actual photographs that had slipped out of the side of the booth that day.

"It was tucked in the breast pocket of his shirt the morning they found him."

I look up at her, at how absolutely calm she is with the fact that I, a boy, was kissing her son.

"You knew?" She reaches over and puts a hand back on my thigh.

"Always."

"And you were okay with it? I mean, with him and I?"

"I never cared what Neil did, just that he was happy. And boy did you do just that."

I can't stop the tears now, as they roll down my face, splashing onto my lap.

"I always wanted to meet Neil's Todd, I'm just sorry it took so long."

"It's okay, Mrs. Perry, I understand." This time I reach out and take her hand. "Thank you, for this."

"You're welcome Todd." She leans in and pulls me in for a hug. And I'm immediately wrapped back up in her sons arms, in our dorm room, in the photo booth on Carleton, in back rows of the library where no one ever went. "He really loved you, you know."

I pull back, and wipe the tears away from my eyes, smiling.

"I know." And with that, she's up and walking away.

I lean back on the bench, stretching out my legs, and tilt my head back, resting it on the back of the bench. Such a beautiful day, I think to myself. I sit there a few minutes more, holding the picture to my heart.

"You ready Todd?" I tilt my head forward, and Charlie is standing in front of me. He was letting me crash at his house while I was down for the funeral, hotels are so expensive these days. "The guys and I were thinking of stopping somewhere, getting a bite to eat, do some catching up. Think you'd be up for that?"

"Yeah," I say, standing up, and slipping the photographs in my breast pocket, just as he had done all those years before. "I think I'd be up for that." He wraps an arm around my shoulder, and we walk back to the car.