She almost missed him. If she hadn't turned around one more time, she wouldn't have seen the man detach himself from the shadows, and move to stand over the newest grave. She'd never met him before, but still she knew who he was.
"Go on," she told her husband thickly. "Go, take the kids. I'll be along." She marched toward the still figure in the coat, looking almost like another statue in the graveyard.
She didn't know what to say when she reached him — but as it turned out, he spoke as soon as she stopped. "I don't see the point in funerals, really." His deep, accented voice was calm and flat.
"We'll miss him," she said fiercely. "It's the right thing to do, to give him a proper burial and remember his life. Nice of you to show."
He didn't look at her, which would have infuriated her if not for what he did instead. He knelt in the grass, reaching out to brush his fingertips along the name in the headstone.
"This doesn't look much like his life," he said, gesturing at the pictures scattered around the stone. "How well do you think you knew your brother?"
Once, her hackles would have risen at such a question. Now, she felt this man's soul-deep exhaustion, standing at her brother's grave, and she could only sigh. "I dunno," she admitted quietly.
"I don't know, either," he said unexpectedly. He bowed his head. "I'm sorry."
She wasn't quite sure who he was speaking to, so she stayed silent.
After a time, a light rain began to fall. She began to gather up the pictures to take with her. He watched her, carefully, with a pain as old as stars etched into his face. He didn't look much like a film star anymore — except maybe one in a tragedy. She glanced at him, musing that even celebrities and heroes and people who seemed larger than life turned out to be human sometimes.
With that thought, she looked him full in the eyes. Her brother had done that: made this strange man, with his stern unlined face and fathomless ancient eyes, human. The shield she'd glimpsed in that photo was gone now — and so was the light he'd carried with him — and so was her brother. His lover. Still weird to think of him like that, to think that she'd had no idea. Still hurt to recall the little smile he'd worn unconsciously as he'd told her about this man, the first and only time.
"I hope you know how much he loved you," she said now, almost casually, as she gathered up pieces of the past. "Be a shame for all that to go to waste."
She caught his wince out of the corner of her eye. "Yeah. I know." Then, so very quietly, "I didn't deserve it."
She glanced at him. "He thought you did." She rested on her knees, disregarding the water soaking through her black skirt. "Did he know how much you loved him?"
He raised his eyebrows at her. She scoffed. "You bastard. Don't even try to deny it. And you never told him, did you?"
He closed his eyes to her, to the world, to the fresh grave. "No," he admitted softly. "I hope he knew… but I never said it."
She sighed. "He was brilliant, my brother," she said proudly. "But I bet if there was something he never figured out, it was that. He never thought he was… well, enough, I suppose. I dunno." She riffled through the stack of pictures, and pulled one free. "That woman left this. She didn't say, but I figure it was just in case you showed up." She held out the photo.
He took it with a hand that shook minutely. His eyes studied it carefully, hungrily, taking in every detail. She didn't know where or when the picture had been taken, but it was a pretty typical candid shot of her brother: wearing one of those neatly pressed suits he'd been so fond of, with a cup of coffee in his hands (god, ever since he was fourteen or so, nearly half her pictures of him also included coffee). But he was also obviously comfortable wherever this was: his hair was just slightly tousled, and a hint of a smile touched his face as he quirked an eyebrow at the photographer.
A pained laugh fell flat amongst the silence of the graves. "Perfect," he murmured. Unconsciously he had shifted his body to shield the photo from the drizzle.
"Keep it," she said, standing up. He remained still for another long moment before he stood and slid the photo, with infinite care, into his coat. If only he'd taken as much care with the original, she wondered briefly, and saw by the flash of bitter agony in his expressive eyes that the same thought had occurred to him.
~fin~