Since We Fell

by Dennis Lehane

“A man is the stories he tells about himself, and most of those stories are lies. Never look too closely. If you uncover his lies, it’ll humiliate you both. Best to just live with the bullshit.”

She could feel the power dynamic shifting and she knew from the housing projects and the ride-alongs and the long nights in Haiti that when power shifted it stayed shifted unless you grabbed it back immediately.

If it’s ever within your power to do so, she considered saying aloud to Brian (but didn’t), you have to bear witness to your dead. You simply have to. You have to step into the energy field of whatever remains of their spirit, their soul, their essence and let it pass through your body. And in the passing, maybe a wisp of it adheres to you, grafts itself to your cells. And in this communion, the dead continue to live. Or strive to.