Once they get there he'll follow Ron to wherever Ron wants this conversation to be. 

Ron goes into a side bedroom. 

"What did Chris have to say?"

"That she loves you and you should forgive yourself and she's sorry you got a straight sister instead of a gay brother. And that she can't imagine you'd want to hear from her. — she also said I could tell you that she's joyfully serving God but I have seen her smile for real exactly once and it was during this conversation, so." 

"Yes, I imagine he's miserable."

"I... probably shouldn't leave camp too often but I can pass a message back, if you want." 

"I don't know what I want to say. Mostly because what I want to say is whatever string of words will convince Chris to stop making himself miserable."

"Yeah. 

I'm sorry. She — he? — said you probably wouldn't want to hear from him and I told her — if it was my sister I wouldn't care, I'd just want to know she was okay."  

"...Yes. Of course I want to hear from Chris."

"...I don't know how much good it'll do but I'll tell him." Her? Why does language have to be complicated. 

"Chris ran away from home when he was fourteen because he would rather be homeless than have to continue to present as a girl."

This is probably not information Christine wants him to have but at this point he doesn't really care. 

"...do you know what changed? When — he — was at camp?" 

"Chris would rather be homeless than be a girl, and he'd rather be a girl than fail to serve God."

He nods. 

...does Ron look like he wants a hug, because Marlo can think of zero useful things to say. 

Maybe so. 

"I have never in my life," he says, "been able to stop Chris from doing something he wanted to do. Even when he was two years old and wanted to climb higher than me in the tree."

He nods again and hugs Ron. He's been told that he's good at hugs; the theory is somewhat different when he's hugging someone larger than he is but the result turns out all right. 

"I am not much of a God person but I have to figure that God loves Chris at least as much as I do and if I wanted Chris to do something that made him miserable for his whole entire life I would be a shitty fucking brother."

"...I wish I'd had that line of logic around five years ago," he says, very quietly, and pulls Ron closer. 

"It is one I end up using on the religious kids."

"You're really good at the thing you do. Thank you." 

"Competence is a Parker family trait! I think by this point I'm doing quite well, given that I started as a half-Hawaiian Jew who did not know what Veggie Tales is."

"You are. I've never seen Raine as happy as she was when she was here.

...but what I really meant was, thank you for the time I got to have with Lev." 

"You have it bad."

"Yeah. I do." 

"Good luck. --I guess you can tell Chris I love him, and of course I want to hear from him, and maybe the bit about God not wanting him to be miserable."

He nods seriously. "I will. — I should find Asher. Thank you."