PART 1

My son’s best friend read the eulogy at his funeral in a red dress.

I’ve known Wes since he was seven. He lives four houses down. He’s slept in our spare room more times than I could count, and he was at our table three Christmases in a row when things were bad at his house.

And when Miles got sick, Wes was there every single day.

We found out late. Too late, as it turned out, and the treatment never caught up with it.

Fourteen months. Wes sat on that bedroom floor through all of it. He did homework there. He fell asleep there. There were weeks he saw my son more than I did.

So when he walked in like that, I didn’t understand.

I thought maybe they’d fallen out and nobody had told me.

I actually turned to the boys sitting near me and started asking: did something happen? Did they argue? Is this about something?

Nobody knew. They were all just staring at him.

And I’ll be honest. Part of me thought he’d done it on purpose. To be looked at. At my son’s funeral.

I didn’t know what to do. Whether to have somebody take him outside or just sit there and get through it.

We were already in pieces. And then this…

My husband stood up. He didn’t say a word, just stood, and I grabbed his sleeve because I knew exactly where it was going.

That’s when Wes walked up to the podium.

He stood there a long time without saying anything. People were whispering behind me.

Then he looked out at the room.

“I know half of you want me out of here right now.”

He stopped. He had to.

Then he looked down at the dress.

“And I know how this looks. It isn’t even mine. I borrowed it from my sister. The reason I’m standing here in it is very simple. And it’s the saddest thing I know.”

He reached out and pulled the microphone closer.

Wes swallowed. His voice cracked. My husband, Russell, was still half-standing beside me, and I still had one hand wrapped around his sleeve.

The room went quiet.

My son Miles died 17 days after his 18th birthday.

Cancer.

Fourteen months from diagnosis to funeral.

It still feels obscene to reduce his life to those facts.

Miles loved old horror movies and burned grilled cheese because he refused to cook it on low heat.

He hated tomatoes but ate ketchup on everything.

He could name almost every capital city in the world and couldn’t remember to bring his laundry downstairs.

And Wes had been beside him for most of it.

The boys met when they were seven.

Wes lived four houses down.

By ten, he practically lived at ours.

He slept in our spare room so often that I eventually stopped calling it the spare room.

It became “Wes’s room.”

His home life wasn’t easy.

His parents separated twice, reconciled twice, then finally divorced with enough bitterness to poison every holiday afterward.

There were years when Wes spent Christmas with us because neither parent could agree whose house he was supposed to be at.

Miles never made a big deal about it.

He’d just say, “Mom, Wes is staying.”

Not asking.

Informing.

I always said yes.

When Miles got sick, Wes returned the favor in a way I still don’t know how to describe.

He came over after school.

Did homework on Miles’s bedroom floor.

Watched bad movies with him.

Hair loss.

Steroids.

The days Miles didn’t want to speak.

The days he couldn’t stop speaking because he was terrified that if he went quiet, everyone else would get scared.

There were weeks Wes saw more of my son than I did, because Russell and I were working opposite shifts, trying to keep our jobs while living at the hospital.

Wes never complained.

So when he walked into the funeral wearing a red dress, I didn’t understand.

It was bright red. Knee-length.

Simple, but impossible to miss in a room full of black, navy, and gray.

People turned.

Some openly stared.

One of Russell’s brothers whispered, “What the hell?”

My first thought embarrasses me now.

I thought Wes was trying to make the funeral about himself.

Then I thought maybe he and Miles had fought before Miles died.

Something secret.

Something ugly.

I leaned toward two of Miles’s school friends.

“Did something happen between them?”

Both shook their heads.

One whispered, “No, Mrs. Bennett.”

Wes sat alone near the aisle.

His hands were clenched together so tightly.

Russell saw him a few minutes later.

“What is he doing?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is Miles’s funeral.”

“I know.”

He started to stand.

I grabbed his sleeve. “Don’t.”

“He’s wearing a dress.”

“I can see that.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Russell’s face was raw from 17 days of barely sleeping.

Mine probably looked the same.

Grief makes you less patient with mystery.

Everything feels like one more insult you don’t have room to absorb.

Then Wes’s name was announced for the eulogy.

I had forgotten he was supposed to speak.

He stood.

The whispers followed him all the way to the microphone.

Now he was staring at the coffin.

“About six months ago, Miles and I were watching this terrible movie in his room.”

A tiny smile appeared.

“He said it was a classic. It was not.”

A few of Miles’s friends laughed softly.

Wes continued.

“He’d just gotten back from another scan. His parents weren’t home yet.”

I looked at Russell.

I remembered that scan.

The results had been bad.

Not hopeless. Not officially.

But bad enough that the doctor had started using phrases like “next-line treatment” and “managing expectations.”

Wes said, “Miles asked me if I’d speak at his funeral.”

The air left my chest.

Russell sat down.

Wes looked toward us.

“I told him to shut up.”

His eyes filled.

“I was mad at him for even saying it.”

Then he laughed through his tears.

“I told him, ‘I’ll speak at your funeral when you show up to mine wearing a dress.’”

Several people smiled.

I didn’t.

I already knew where this was going.

Wes continued.

“Miles said, ‘Fine. Then you have to wear one to mine.’”

Wes looked down at the red fabric.

“I told him absolutely not.”

He paused.

“Then he said red.”

My hands began shaking.

“Specifically red. Because he said black makes me look like an undertaker.”

Someone behind me laughed and immediately started crying.

Wes’s voice weakened.

“I told him there wasn’t going to be a funeral.”

He stopped again.

This time he couldn’t hide the tears.

“I said he was going to get better.”

The room was completely silent.

“He said, ‘Probably.’”

Wes wiped his face with the back of his hand.

“But then he made me promise.”