It was not sentimental.

It showed up as action, as vests adjusted and forecasts checked and brothers coaxed off of sinking moods, as a thousand practical labors that most people would never think to call love but that were, in him, its purest expression.

Zachary was his.

The boys were his.

I was his.

And on a lake six years ago, for a few fatal minutes, two strangers in the water became his too, simply by needing him, and that was the end of the story and also, I came to see, its whole meaning.

Chapter 16 — What He Showed Up For