"Wally. Son." Joe found me slumped over on his couch, sobbing my eyes out.

He'd given me a key a few weeks earlier, and I'd been coming over now and then in the middle of the day when I knew he and Barry would both be at work, to get away from the dorm I'd moved into, where there was never any privacy. In Joe's house, I could finally let out the tears I kept hidden away the rest of the time. I still felt embarrassed when I remembered breaking down in front of Iris outside the hospital. At the time, it had felt good, but I'd beaten myself up afterward. I didn't cry in front of people, ever, but there was no point in trying to stop this time, since Joe had already found me out.

He sat down beside me and put his big hand flat on my shaking back, like a warm anchor to keep me from drifting away on a sea of grief. I took my hands away from my eyes and looked over at him. "I'm sorry."

Joe just shook his head. "Sorry for what? Missing your mom?"

"For being—needy," I choked out. Needy had always been a bad word to me. I'd learned when I was very young not to ask my mom for things, not to bother her, not to do anything to make her feel like she wasn't doing enough. Not to show that I ever needed anything. It wasn't because she was a bad mom or because she would have gotten angry, but I could see how much she worked and how tired she was. She'd had enough on her plate raising me on her own, and I'd never wanted to make it worse. Of course, once she'd gotten sick, I'd been able to be there for her the way she'd always been for me, and my determination to take care of myself had solidified even more. I had eventually managed to convince myself I didn't need anything anyway. People needed things from me; I didn't need anything from them.

"Wally, you just lost your mother. You need the rest of your family more than ever. That's not something you get to pick. It's just how grief is. Going it alone doesn't work; trust me." Joe's tone of voice was soothing, but his words leaned on my resolve in an uncomfortable way.

I tried to stop crying, but I couldn't, so I shook my head and tried to argue through my tears. "It's not—I'm fine. I just needed somewhere quiet. I didn't think you'd be home."

"I left my cell phone here this morning," Joe answered. "And I'm really glad I did." All this time, he hadn't broken physical contact. "It's just you and me, Son. Nobody else. You don't have to be ashamed to cry in front of me. I'm your dad. That's what I'm here for." He scooted over closer. "Come here." I thought about fighting him, but I was tired, and not being alone felt good, even though it went against every ounce of my stubborn self-reliance.

Joe was a pro at the comforting thing. Within a few seconds, he'd maneuvered me into his arms with my head on his shoulder. You'd think it would have been weird, but it wasn't. I guess everybody's a kid when they're hurting, including me.

He didn't say anything else, just held me while I thought about my mama and cried. When you grow up with your dad, if he's not a psycho, every kid probably has some kind of memory of getting hurt and crying in his arms, at least when you're little. It's kind of a universal thing. But I'd never experienced it before.

My mama wasn't a very big woman, and it had been years since she'd been able to hold much of me. I'd been the one holding her for a long time, and it had always been the same with the girls I'd dated, not just physically, but in every way. They'd needed me, and I'd liked being needed. With Joe it was different. He was bigger than me, stronger, and I actually fit in his arms. For once, my need wasn't too big for someone else to meet.

"I love you," Joe finally said, when my tears were getting softer and less violent, "and I don't want you to ever talk that way about being needy again. Iris and Barry and I are your family now, and that's what family does—we need each other, and we're here for each other. You got that?"

I nodded against his shoulder, as my breathing finally leveled out. "Joe, I—love you too." His response was to give me a tight squeeze before he sat back and let me go.

I rubbed my sleeve across my eyes, feeling worn out but worlds better. "That didn't suck," I said, staring at the carpet, a little embarrassed.

Joe patted my shoulder. "Do you have a class later?"

I shook my head no. "This is my off day."

"Then why don't you take a nap here? You look tired, and you'll get more rest than if you try to sleep in a dorm room in the middle of the day." He wasn't wrong. Grief and finally feeling my repressed anxiety from the last few months of mama's life had been keeping me awake at night, and I was beat.

"Ok." Joe got up, and I stretched out on the couch. I was already almost asleep when he came back with a pillow and blanket, and he covered me up like I was about ten years old.

"You've got the dad thing down pretty good," I mumbled.

"Yeah," he chuckled, "that's one of the benefits of getting me after I've already done it twice. All right, time for me to get back to work." He leaned over and brushed his hand across my bare forehead, then stood up and shook his head. "Sorry, reflexes. I spent a lot of years trying to get Barry to sleep, and he liked it when I did that—calmed him down for some reason. Used to do it when I sat by his bed every night."

"Every night?" Even in my sleepy state, those words stuck out.

"Every night," Joe confirmed, "until he could handle the dark. Took a while. And—I'd have done the same thing for you."

He left, and I drifted off, feeling totally emptied of my self-reliance but filled up with something better. Like I said before, it didn't suck. Not at all.