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sister, Mary, who has been lifelong friends with my sister, Claudia. Danny and I were as close as brothers. We went to school together, played sports together, cycled together, and travelled together, everything that you could imagine boys do, we did together. At the time he died, Danny was living with and was engaged to marry Lara. Watching the devastation his death took on Lara in the months following his death ha s undoubtedly contributed to my . . . let’s say . . . hesitation at even the idea of falling in love. Love hurts, bad, I conclude.  Then again, maybe that was just an excuse for avoiding it altogether.
    “I’m going to drop by and visit Mr. Callahan next time I’m at mum and dad’s,” I promise Claudia. The Callahans and my parents still live in our childhood homes, a few houses apart.
    “Is everything all right with you? You don’t sound like yourself,” Claudia asks. Leave it to the big sister to probe, or is that just the lawyer in her fishing for information?  
    “I’m all right. Just had an interesting day,” I say.
    “Well, do you want to talk about it?” she asks with genuine concern.
    “Thanks, but not right now. I’m just tired,” I say. Claudia and I end our call leaving off that we will talk some more on Saturday when I pick up David. How would I begin to explain to Claudia about what’s bothering me? I’d sound like a sulking fool describing how I liked a girl but she didn’t like me back. Claudia would probably fall off her chair in shock if she heard how crazy I have fallen for this unknown stranger . Eric doesn’t fall for girls, they fall for him and hard , she’d say.
    With the depressing news of Mr. Callahan’s prognosis, I log off my computer and make my way to bed. Even as exhausted as I am, once under the blankets, I grab my iPad from my nightstand and tap on the photo album icon. Thinking about Danny again. I pull out the slide show of pictures Mary forwarded to me after his funeral. The Elton John song “Daniel” accompanied the slide show. To induce even further self-suffering on myself today, I listen to the song and watch the slide show for the thousandth time since he died. If you’re at all familiar with the lyrics of this song, you know what I mean when I say that it’s a tearjerker.
    By the time the song ends and I have looked at all of the pictures of Danny as a young boy, of him having fun , smiling with friends and family over the course of his life. Now that I’ve looked at the dozens of photos of the two of us happy together, I am numb with feeling. No matter how many times I watch the slide show, I always feel like I’m looking at Danny for the first time. 
    As I slide my right index finger upward to shut off the iPad, my thumb accidentally brushes the screen, and that is when I see the picture I took of Caroline this morning pop up. I’m frozen. I completely forgot that I snapped these images of her at the airport. I slide the screen again and find another shot of her; this one slightly more of a close up. Then, I brush the screen again and on this last shot I see Caroline smiling down at something.  I enlarge the screen with the pads of my fingers and pull the iPad up closer to my face so I can soak in the details of her face. I stare at it some more.
    Then, it hits me. Her smile.   It was her smile this morning that grabbed me as she was collecting her change from the server at Starbucks, her smile as she was speaking to the airline attendant, her smile as she was heading into the gangway boarding the plane, and of course, that bright-as-day smile when she turned around to look for the passenger who sent her the note. All those magnificent smiles were speaking to me. I stare at it some more and I begin to smile. Then, unintentionally, I brush back the screen to the pictures of Danny and begin to study all of his smiles more closely. Magnetic and full and real, just like Caroline’s. I find myself smiling again. When Danny smiled at you it