The Choice

control other people, and we can’t control the past.
At some point during their ĕrst year of loss, Renée and Greg came
to see me less and less frequently, and aer a while their visits tapered
off altogether. I didn’t hear from them for many months. e spring
that Jeremy would have graduated from high school, I was happy and
surprised to get a call from Greg. He told me he was worried about
Renée and asked if they could come in.
I was struck by the changes in their appearance. ey had both
aged, but in different ways. Greg had put on weight. His black hair
was Ęecked with silver. Renée didn’t look run-down, as Greg’s concern
for her had led me to believe she might. Her face was smooth, her
blouse crisp, her hair freshly straightened. She smiled. She made
pleasantries. She said she felt well. But her brown eyes held no light.
Greg, who had so oen been silent in their sessions, spoke now,
with urgency. “I have something to say,” he said. He told me that the
previous weekend he and Renée had attended a high school
graduation party for their friend’s son. It was a fraught event for them,
full of land mines, devastating reminders of what the other couples
had that they didn’t have, of Jeremy’s absence, of the seeming eternity
of grief, every day a new host of moments that they would never
experience with their son. But they forced themselves into nice clothes
and went to the party. At some point during the evening, Greg told
me, he realized that he was having a good time. e music the DJ
played made him think of Jeremy, and the old R&B albums his son
had taken an interest in, playing them on the stereo in his room when
he did homework or hung out with friends. Greg turned to Renée in
her elegant blue dress and was struck by how clearly he could see
Jeremy in the slope of her cheeks, the shape of her mouth. He felt
swept away by love—for Renée, for their son, for the simple pleasure
of eating good food under a white tent on a warm evening. He asked
Renée to dance. She refused, got up, and left him alone at the table.