After doing more research I’ve discovered that Chromium did away with the “reopen closed tab.” And that Brave developers are working to bring it back.
If anyone reads this with the same issue, you can regain the reopen close tab option by right clicking on the upper tab bar to the right of the ‘+’ icon. You can also reopen recently closed tabs by opening History, which lists them and permits you to choose the one you want to reopen.
It’s still available, but only with right-clicking on the tab bar, right of the “new tab” button (plus sign) – changed inherited from Chromium. Or you can use Ctrl+Shift+T as a workaround.
We also have an issue logged for this to bring back the option.