What Binds Us (11 page)

I was nervous. A little afraid of what I knew I must tell my parents. We got a late start because I was reluctant to go, inventing excuses to delay our departure. Finally we were on the New Jersey Turnpike heading to Willingboro. Matthew drove.

Growing up an only child, without cousins or close friends, my parents were everything to me. Having seen how Mrs. Whyte reacted to her gay sons, I worried that they would behave similarly. Then, too, I worried how Dondi would take the news that I was in love with his brother, that his brother was in love with me. Would I lose him too?

Matthew reached over and squeezed my knee but said nothing. I looked at his profile as he stared at the road ahead, knew suddenly that if tomorrow the whole world around me fell away and only he remained, I’d still have everything.

They were just sitting down to dinner when we arrived. My mother hugged me, searching my eyes. “I was wondering when you’d get home. Phipps dropped off your things yesterday.” She looked from me to Matthew.

“Mom, this is Matthew. He’s Dondi’s brother and, um…my friend.”

“Hello, Matthew. You look like you could use a hug. And some dinner.” She hugged him, surprising us both. “Come in. Come in.” She put two more plates on the table—the plain white everyday dishes. “Did something happen at Aurora? Is that why you’re here?”

“My brother got caught having sex with the gardener. By our mother. There was a fight and she pretty much threw Dondi out.”

“Oh.”

“It got kind of crazy after that.” Matthew paused, unsure.

“Matthew’s gay,” I said, “And so am I.”

“You can’t know that,” my mother said. “I mean, how can you know for sure? You’re only twenty. You’ve never even had sex.”

I opened my mouth, closed it again. Beside me, Matthew flushed scarlet from his neck to the roots of his black, black hair.

“Oh!” she exclaimed.

My father looked surprised as if someone had slapped him unexpectedly.

“I can know that. I
do
know that. I know who I dream about, who I imagine a life with. I’ve known since I was twelve, so forgive me if this seems rather precipitous, but I’ve had eight years to get used to the idea.”

“You sound like you’ve made up your mind.”

I laughed. “Made up my mind? No, I just decided to accept myself. I won’t ever lie about who I am or pretend to be someone I’m not.”

My father was quiet, giving me room. Matthew was nervous. His leg pressed up against mine.

I told them I loved Matthew and he loved me, that we were lovers. I told them everything I’d held back for two summers. Dinner was forgotten. The iridescence of the roast beef’s flesh faded. The gravy in the well of mashed potatoes congealed as the entire meal went first cold, then to ruin.

“Dad?” I asked into the silence.

“What can I say? You’re my son. You’re my son.”

“He’s your son,” Matthew said, “But he’s my
love
. I won’t let anyone or anything hurt him, I promise you that. We came here because Thomas was sure you’d understand or at least accept what you don’t understand. Your support is important to him, to
us.
But I will tell you this: with or without your support, we intend to build a life together.”

My father nodded, wiped his eyes and got up from the table.

After he’d gone, my mother reached across the table and patted my hand. “You’re both so young.” Then silently, she left the kitchen.

I stared dully at the empty place she left behind.

Matthew nudged me. “Go.”

I followed her outside. The roses Dondi had had planted were in full bloom. The air was pungent with their perfume. “I always liked Dondi,” she said. “He was so kind, so generous. But I thought he was a little
fast
for you. Matthew seems like a nice boy. You know your father and I just want what’s best for you.”

“If you want that, truly, then you’ll accept that Matthew is what’s best for me. I’ve grown up a lot in the last two years. Growing up is about finding your place in the world, right? Well, I’ve found my place and it’s beside Matthew.”

“You’re only twenty!”

“How old were you when you married Daddy?”

“That was different. People are so mean to faggots. Oh God, I can’t believe I just used that word. How many times in the past have I used it? How that must have hurt you.”

“It’s okay. I know people might treat me differently or not like me because I’m gay, but hell, there are people who will dislike me because I’m black. What am I supposed to do? Move to a remote island? Bleach my skin? Die? What?”

She had no answer for me. Neither of us had any answers. Only questions. And love in our hearts.

***

The next morning Matthew was the first one to get up. My father found him in the kitchen, poking around, looking for the cereal.

“Sit down, Matthew.” My father pulled out a chair from the kitchen table. “Ever since Tom was a boy, I would get up and check on him at night. You know, make sure he hadn’t kicked off his covers or forgotten to turn off his radio. Last night I got up to check on him. Force of habit I guess. I forgot you would be in there.”

“You put that blanket over me.”

“Yes, I thought you might be cold.”

“I’m sorry. I was in the other bed but Thomas was crying in his sleep. I wanted to comfort him. I guess I fell asleep. Look, Mr. Lawrence, I’m sure this isn’t easy for you. I don’t know that it’s easy for any of us. I didn’t expect to fall in love with a boy. Not really. I didn’t expect to fall in love with Thomas. But I did. Life’s funny that way. You plan one thing and it plans another.”

My father leaned his head down and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger, rubbing as if he had a sinus headache. When he raised his head, he began talking in his slow way, which as a child I’d found annoying and now found stately. “My wife got pregnant shortly after Tom was born. She was horrified. Angry, really. At me. I understood it was too soon but I wanted that child. I prayed for another son, a brother for Tom. She lost the baby. It was a boy. After that she had an operation. I knew I’d never have another son. Now it was my turn to be angry. I was mad at God for taking my son. Not a day has gone by that I have not thought about him, wondered what he would have been like now as a young man. I think about Tom and I realize that given a choice between having him here and gay or dead and straight, I would choose to have him here. And that’s really all it comes down to, isn’t it? Am I willing to lose my son over who he chooses to spend his life with? The answer is no.” He paused. “You know, they say when God closes a window, he opens a door. I never much believed that but now I find myself staring at that doorway and there stands a healthy young man who my son has chosen to love. Maybe you’re meant to be my other son.”

“I would like that very much, sir.”

He pushed back from the table, leaned across it to offer Matthew his hand. Gripping it, he said, “Last night you said you would never let anyone or anything hurt Tom. You realize you can’t do that, right?”

Matthew nodded.

“That was young, foolish love speaking,” my father continued. “But I appreciate your intent to protect my son. You should also know,” and here my father leaned in closer to Matthew, “if you hurt my son, I will break your neck.” He straightened up. “Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, good.”

I stood just out of sight, listening, watching them—the two men I loved most in the world.

We stayed with my parents for a week. We made love in the mornings after they left for work. He tasted of butterscotch. I called him my butterscotch prince. He snuck across the street and stole peonies from Mrs. Chang’s garden and presented me with a contraband bouquet. He told me I was his world.

We explored the woods that ran behind the houses in our neighborhood. I showed him the tree under which I’d received my first kiss. He kissed me and carved our initials into the tree’s trunk. I took him to the mall and showed him the pizza parlor where the kids, the cool kids, the
straight
kids, had hung out on Saturday nights, sipping Cokes and scarfing down pizza. Afterwards they would make out in the backseat of their parents’ Pontiacs.

I took him to my old high school.

“What was school like for you?” he asked me.

I remembered high school as an agony, a blur of flushed, angry faces, pursed lips erupting in vile, hateful words: sissy, faggot, queer. I remembered bruises and falling blood, not always mine.

Sensing my mood, he said, “You don’t have to tell me. I don’t really care about your past. I only care about your future. And that I’m a part of it.”

“My future? You’re all of it.”

***

Matthew watched the news with my father, played Stratego with him after dinner, cut the grass one day without being asked—all things I never did. One night, as I watched him and my father playing Stratego, drinking beer, my mother said, “You know he’s good for your father. And he seems good for you.”

“So you’re okay with this? With us?”

“I am,” she said, standing to clear the table, kissing the top of my head. “Besides, this way you’ll always be mine. No woman will ever take you away from me.”

***

We were walking in the woods when I asked, “What about Dondi? Do you suppose he’s all right?”

“Sure,” he assured me, putting an arm across my shoulders and pulling me close so that we walked shoulder-to-shoulder. I slipped my arm around his waist.

“What if he doesn’t have any money? I mean, Mrs. Whyte was so mad she might cancel his credit cards or cut off his allowance. Shit! She might do that to you too!”

He squeezed my shoulder. “She can’t do any of that to either of us.”

“Why not?”

He sighed. “When we each turned a year old, our father placed twenty-five million dollars into an irrevocable trust for each of us. When we turned eighteen, the trust was dissolved and we got our money. Principal and interest in one lump sum.”

“You’re joking.”

He shook his head. “Dad said he did it that way because he wanted to avoid the temptation to try and control us through money. Or course, it’s just as well that he did that. He is, as you know, in no condition to control anyone.”

I was astonished. When Dondi had told me he was rich, I’d always assumed he’d meant his parents. “Still,” I insisted, “he should have called by now.”

We needn’t have worried; Dondi showed up on our doorstep a couple of weeks later like a thundercloud.

***

The apartment the three furies loaned us was a turret in a narrow brick mansion in the heart of Penn’s student ghetto. Inside it was a gothic nightmare of wine-colored velvets and cracked ox-blood leather. In the bedroom was a massive black walnut bedstead, elaborately carved and dark with age and neglect, with a sagging mattress and mismatched sheets. At the big square leaded glass windows, fat taffeta curtains elaborate as old-fashioned ball gowns bullied the sunlight. There was a cut-glass chandelier wrapped in white net and a marble mantle in the living room. Over the mantel hung the woolly head of an old antelope, its antlers tissued in spider webs. Black and white marble tiles played hopscotch beneath our feet. I noticed that there were no mirrors.

When I pointed this out, Matthew just shrugged. “Do we really need any?”

“How will we see ourselves?”

“The only face I need to see,” he said, “is yours.”

For my part, I had only to look at his beloved face, at the love reflected there to see the world. Still, I persisted. “But how will you shave?”

He was unconcerned. “I’ll grow a beard.”

“Like hell.”

We lived that entire first summer without mirrors; I shaved him every morning.

***

“Dondi!” I cried, relieved when I pulled open the door two weeks after we moved in and found him standing on the threshold.

His eyes flicked over me then jumped to Matthew, who was walking up behind me, tucking a red plaid shirt into his jeans. Dondi sailed into the apartment, a flame-eyed man-of-war.

“Where have you been? Why didn’t you get in touch with us? Are you okay?” I asked in a rush.

What he was—I could tell by looking in his eyes—was high.

“Spare me your concern,” he said coldly. “I’ve seen the three furies. Panther, that bitch, couldn’t wait to tell me about this little romance of yours.” He was breathing hard, the plumes of righteous indignation like feathers of fire behind him. “You’re sleeping with T,” he said flatly to Matthew.

“I’m in love with T,” Matthew corrected him.

He grabbed Matthew by his collar. “He used to be in love with me.”

“Yeah, well, he’s in love with me now.”

“What have you done?”

“It wasn’t me. It was you.” Matthew placed his hands flat against Dondi’s chest and shoved him away. “You were too busy popping every bird in the bush to realize what you had in your hand.”

Dondi shoved him back. They started to struggle.

“Stop it. Stop it, both of you,” I screamed. “I won’t have you fighting over me like two dogs over a bone!”

Dondi shoved Matthew away. His fingernails seemed unnaturally white and sharp as they folded into his palms. His fist looked very brown against the white flesh of Matthew’s face. I noticed all this calmly as if from a distance. When his fist connected with Matthew’s jaw, I jumped on him. We both fell on the floor.

I grabbed his shoulders and slammed his head against the floor. “Stop it. Dondi, just stop it!”

“He’s my
brother!
” he shouted at me.

“I know that!” I shouted back. “If you’d stop being so self-centered for just one minute—”

“Oh, let’s not talk about being selfish. You’re sleeping with my brother!”

“Dondi, stop being so goddamned egocentric. Matthew is not just your brother. And you are
not
the center of the universe.”

“I am the
sun!
” he shouted. “I’m the goddamned sun.”

He was breathing hard. I was straddling his hips, literally sitting on him. I still had his shoulders pinned to the floor. I released him and stood. Matthew’s nose was bleeding. I sent him to the bathroom to clean his face.

“Look, Dondi,” I said when Matthew had gone. “Maybe I
am
being selfish. Falling in love with your brother is the only selfish thing I have ever done. I’m sorry if that hurts you. Truly. But there it is.
I—love—him
.”

Dondi seemed to deflate; the fight left him. “You really love him?”

“I do.”

“Do you love him more than you loved me?”

“That’s not worthy of you.”

He sat on the cracked leather sofa. “I feel…I don’t know,
eclipsed
. You’re my best friend.”

“I’ll still be your best friend.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” he said suddenly, standing and walking to the window.

“Dondi, you’ll never lose me.”

“What will I do without you?”

“You’ll replace me with someone else.”

“You know me,” he said wryly, turning from the window to look at me. “I’ll replace you with a thousand someone elses.”

I nodded and turned to leave.

“But there’ll never be another you.”

I turned back around. “Thank you for that.” I found myself in his embrace. “I’m so sorry if I hurt you but I won’t give him up. I want this chance to love someone who loves me back.”

“I know,” he said, holding my head and rocking us both.

Matthew came in then. “Everything okay?” he asked, eyeing our forlorn embrace.

Dondi released me. “I’m sorry I hit you. I wish you both the best. Make him happy, Matthew. I couldn’t, and he deserves to be happy.”

Matthew smiled, relieved.

***

The next morning we were in the kitchen, Matthew at the rickety table eating a bowl of cereal, me at the sink, watching him, loving the sight of him, when Dondi appeared.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi. How about some breakfast?”

“Sure.” He sat opposite his brother.

I poured a cup of coffee and placed it on the table before him.

He looked up, grateful. “Thanks. I’ve been up all night. Thinking. I’m leaving school.”

Matthew brought a spoonful of crackling oats and wheat to his mouth and looked around the room. Then he started eating as fast as he could, staring intently at the bowl, at the spoon as it hovered before his open mouth.

The spoon was scraping against the bottom of the empty bowl before I could speak. “Dondi. No!”

“There’s no more,” Matthew said, disconsolate. I knew him well enough to understand his panic. I laid a hand on his shoulder, trusting my touch to tell him what he should already know:
whether Dondi goes or stays, I am not going anywhere
.

“What will you do?” I asked Dondi.

“I thought I might spend some time in Europe.”

Matthew looked at him, then at me. His look said, “This is my fault.”

I shook my head. I hadn’t yet had time to sort out how the relationship between the three of us would change, but it had never occurred to me that Dondi would leave.

We drove Dondi to the airport the following week. He hugged us quickly then walked away, a leather knapsack over his shoulder. He didn’t look back. We waited until his plane taxied and watched as it sailed into the sky, staring at it until it was a dot, more memory than actuality.

Nothing had been settled by Dondi’s leaving. There was the issue of school. Matthew was due back at Bennington at the end of August. Having missed an entire semester, I absolutely had to return to school in September. As it was, I’d graduate a year late.

Nothing in my past, neither Dondi’s extravagance nor my parents’ adoration, had prepared me for the opulence of Matthew’s love.