What Binds Us (14 page)

Matthew called me from his pink luxury hotel at the other end of the island the afternoon of his arrival. “I miss you,” he said, sounding miserable.

“I miss you too.” We hadn’t spent a day or night apart once he’d transferred to Penn. “Maybe, I can sneak away. Dondi’s terribly busy,” I whispered.

Dondi passed in the hall, a caterer in tow. “Dondi is not
that
busy,” he trilled. “Tell my brother to go take a cold shower. He will have to wait until tomorrow.”

“Matthew —”

“I heard.” Matthew groaned.

***

Dondi had had the interior of the ruined church whitewashed and as the building filled with dusk, two hundred beeswax candles were lit, giving off a delicate peach glow. Two dozen delicate gilt chairs with red velvet cushions were lined up in neat rows. A neat, highly polished parquet floor had been laid over the dirt. A woman in frothy lace sat holding an oboe. Behind her were four tuxedoed men with violins. Ten thousand pale pink roses—an entire crop from Holland flown in that morning—gave the stark whitewashed space an air of magnificent opulence.

I looked around the church for Dondi. He walked up behind me, dressed in an excruciatingly plain, severely tailored gray suit.

“When did you start shopping at Brooks Brothers?” I asked him, shocked.

“Darling, you look marvelous.” He adjusted the lapels of my jacket, tugged at my sleeves. He seized my wrist, held it up. “What’s this?” he demanded. My French cuffs were fastened with twist ties.

“I lost the cufflinks,” I admitted sheepishly. Leonardo had chosen something in heavy gold, studded with rubies. I’d hated them, then lost them.

“Just don’t let Leonardo see,” he advised, dropping my wrist.

“Dondi,” I asked sternly, “Why are you dressed like a lesbian?”

Before he could respond, the church echoed with the sound of running hooves. The entire congregation stood as if on cue and craned their necks to see out the doorway (there had been no doors when we discovered the church—nor windows, for that matter).

“Today there will be a total eclipse of the sun,” Dondi warned, gesturing toward the doorway.

A large white horse drew to a stop just before the entrance and Matthew swung expertly to the ground. He wore snakeskin boots and a stunning red linen suit. He took my breath away.

“What a lucky earth you are,” Dondi whispered as he surrendered me to Matthew, who took my hand in his. He flashed me a smile as we started down the aisle together.

***

“If I could,” Matthew said solemnly in that apricot light, “I would pull the moon from the sky and lay it at your feet. If I could, I would give you a lifetime of sunny days and dreams that come true. But none of those gifts are mine to give. What I can and do give you is my heart and all the love that lies inside. Everything that I have, everything that I am, that I shall ever be is yours. Neither time nor distance nor even death shall ever separate us. I offer you this ring, this circle of gold, which, like my love for you, knows neither beginning nor end.

“Thomas-Edward, accept this ring and come and live with me and be my lover and my friend as I shall be yours. The two of us together, as one for all the days of our lives.” He slipped the narrow gold band on my finger as I looked at his beloved face, the contours and textures of which I knew as well as those of my own.

I looked into his shining silver eyes and knew absolutely that I was loved.

“Gosh, I’m so nervous,” I said with a little laugh. “I’m supposed to be a writer and yet at what is the most important moment in my life, words fail me.” I drew a breath. “What can I say to you? I love you? Thank you? Those are but pauper words. Forming an impoverished language, making it impossible to tell you what is in my heart. How can I describe to you a love that burns in my heart like the sun, bearable only in the cooling shade of your embracing arms?

“Because of you, I’m better than I was, more than I am. Because of you, who I am now is who I wanted to be. Because of you, I’m stronger than I used to be. In gratitude I offer you this ring, this circle of gold, which like my love for you knows neither beginning nor end. With this ring I promise to be your lover, your best friend, your life’s companion. With this ring I promise to walk by your side all the days of my life, bound and freed by love. Accept this ring, Matthew.” I spoke as solemnly as he had, slipping a matching gold band over his knuckle. “Kiss me,” I said. “And free me.”

There was a reception at the house after the ceremony.

There was a steel band. Everyone insisted that Matthew and I dance the first dance. Together. We did. I danced with my mom. I danced with my dad.

There were tables so laden with food that had they had the power of speech, they would have cried at the burden they bore.

There was champagne and locally brewed beer.

There was a great lemon cake with two miniature grooms perched on top.

There was swimming at midnight.

Panther was the first person I saw when we returned to the house. “Darling!” she exclaimed, kissing the air on both sides of my cheek. “Wonderful ceremony, but why were there so many flowers?”

“Dondi.”

“Ah,” she said knowingly. “Dondi, for whom excess is an exercise in style.”

“Precisely,” I agreed. “And speaking of style, isn’t it bad form to wear white to someone else’s wedding?”

She had on a white Chanel suit with a short skirt and a gold chain link belt. Several yards of freshwater pearls hung about her neck, taking the place of a blouse. A cascade of diamonds like falling stars hung from her ears.

“Do you mind, really? I didn’t think you would.”

Matthew and Dondi were walking toward us.

“For what it’s worth,” Panther said softly, “I think you made the right choice.”

“It wasn’t a choice. Once I met Matthew everything changed. Everything stopped.”

“And started again,” she finished for me.

Clare came up to us. She wore a navy man-tailored linen suit with a Panama hat and carried a walking stick of chased silver. “Matthew,” she said, taking his face in her hands, “you are the most beautiful man I have ever seen.” She kissed him on the mouth. “Congratulations to you both. I’m so happy I could cry.” She touched my arm, kissed my cheek.

Amelia made her way toward us, touching an arm here, bestowing a smile there. Predictably she wore seamed stockings, heels and floral chiffon. Beneath her soft hat her eyebrows and mouth were carefully drawn on the powdered porcelain slate of her face. Her eyes were wet. “Looking at the two of you at the front of that church,” she began, “looking at your courage, I wish we’d had your courage.”

“Amelia. Don’t,” Clare warned.

“Don’t what? It’s true. We were afraid, and look at what our fear wrought.”

“Precisely, my dear.
Look at what our fear wrought
. Perhaps we had to be afraid to give birth to a generation that was no longer willing to be hidden, that had the courage to make a place for themselves in the world.”

Amelia nodded, dried her eyes. “Tell me, who is that tawdry child following Dondi around?” she asked.

“That, my love,” Matthew said, kissing her cheek, “is Leonardo.”

“Leonardo? What kind of a name is that for a child?”

“We think he made it up.” I snickered.

“He’s gorgeous,” Panther commented.

“In a cheap sort of way,” Amelia allowed.

“He’s hollow gold,” Clare said dismissively. “Whatever
does
Dondi see in him?”

“The answer,” Panther said, “is obvious, if you look at the vulgar display of his crotch. Dondi does love excess!”

Suddenly I was weary. The day’s activity, the champagne caught up with me. Matthew was getting ready to swim; it was midnight. My parents were dancing a quadrille.

I thanked everyone, said my goodnights and retired to our room.

***

Matthew came in after his swim. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” I said. “Just a little tired. It’s been a hell of a day.”

“Okay. Just let me go take a shower. You want to take one?”

“I already did.”

He came up to me and took me in his arms. He kissed me. I leaned into the kiss and he pulled away. “Hold that thought,” he said, slipping into the bathroom.

I stepped outside into the walled garden. The party had wound down and the steel band had gone. I could hear the whispered movement of the wait staff and the hum of the sea.

The rustle of fabric made me turn. Matthew stood in the doorway in an astonishing robe. It was red terry cloth; the fabric had been cut into triangular pieces and sewn together, patchwork style. It was belted loosely at the waist with a floor-length tasseled cord so that his smooth white chest and red terrycloth boxers of the same patchwork design were revealed. The sleeves were very long and ended in red braids covering his slim hands. A fringed hood covered his shower-slicked hair. A cascade of fringed terrycloth pooled on the ground around him. He was beautiful.

“Do you know how much I love you?” I asked him when I’d found my voice again.

“I know.” He looked at me for a moment. “Come here,” he urged huskily.

I went and stood before him. I was still wearing pink, this time pajamas in a woven fabric so delicate it was transparent. He brushed his thumbs across my nipples. I reached for him. His fantastic robe fell from his shoulders. I knelt. He pulled me to my feet and pulled my body, my mouth against his. We stepped out of the garden and fell to the sand.

We slept on the beach, the black and silver sky, a magnificent counterpane, the whispering Caribbean, our lovers’ lullaby.

When we returned to Philadelphia two weeks after our wedding, Dondi, surprisingly, wasn’t at the airport to greet us. In his stead, two liveried chauffeurs stood holding signs that read “Lawrence-Whyte.”

“That must be us.” Matthew chuckled.

“Why are there two of them?”

Matthew put his arm around my shoulder. “One is for us. The other is for our luggage.”

I gazed up at him. “Why?”

“So we don’t have to wait to claim our bags. Good evening,” Matthew said to the men. “We’re the Lawrence-Whytes.” He handed our claim checks to the one closest to us and we followed the other out to a silver Cadillac. The car looked sleek against the sea of dirty yellow cabs pressed around it.

Inside was a fully stocked bar and a bottle of champagne in a silver bucket.

“Shall we?” Matthew asked, expertly popping the cork and deftly filling two Baccarat flutes. “To us.”

“To us.” As we touched glasses, the gold band around my finger caught the light and I felt its weight, a comforting reminder that I was no longer free.

“Do we need to make a second toast?” Matthew asked me with unmistakable hope.

I waited a beat before answering. On the plane a woman had had a colicky baby. She’d looked exhausted and Matthew offered to hold the infant while she slept. He cooed at the baby and held her up high, nudging her little belly with his nose. She smiled and settled. Matthew cradled her in the crook of his arm.

“You’re a natural,” I told him, settling in my seat. “You should have been a father.”

“I hope to be,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow.

He looked at me. “Dondi does that—what you’re doing with your eyebrow.”

I let my eyebrow settle into its rightful place. “What do you mean, you hope to be a father?”

“I’ve always wanted children. We can adopt. I don’t mean now, but soon. I think we’d be good parents,” he went on in a rush. “And we can certainly afford to give some children a home.”

“It takes more than money.”

“I wasn’t talking about money—although we have plenty of that. I meant love. I love you enough to share you. Loving a child wouldn’t diminish my love for you.”

“I know that.”

“I want to raise children with you. Just think about it, okay?”

“Okay.”

He’d held my hand for the duration of the flight. The steward, a dark-skinned Puerto-Rican I would have thought handsome if all the beauty in the world were not seated beside me, stared at our clasped hands, at the baby in Matthew’s arms.

I hadn’t thought much about children once I realized I was gay. And now I wasn’t sure how I felt about the prospect of raising children. Matthew was the most loving man I knew, had more love in his heart than he could shower on me alone. Would I resent sharing him with kids? I knew he’d be a good father, but would I? I liked children well enough in the abstract, but was that the same thing?
Could
we do this?

Matthew was looking at me expectantly. I knew if I said no, he’d give up his dream. I loved him so much. I could share him. Would, in fact, find joy in his joy, would want what he wanted simply because he wanted it.

I lifted my drink. “To our children,” I said.

We touched glasses. Then we touched lips.

The phone rang. Matthew was still smiling as he answered. First the smile faded. Then his face drained of color. I heard him say, “We’ll be right there.” He hung up and buzzed the driver’s compartment. “There’s been a change. We’ll be going straight to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. The Silverstein entrance will be fine.” Then, turning to me, he spoke the words that would forever alter the course of our lives: “That was Dondi. He’s in the hospital.”

***

Dondi was sitting in bed, propped up by about twenty pillows. He wore a pair of monogrammed silk pajamas. He was still tanned from Barbados, but his mouth was white around the edges. And the skin around his eyes was tight.

No less than half a dozen white-coated doctors crowded around his hospital bed. Harsh fluorescent light glinted off half a dozen pairs of glasses. They all seemed to be talking at once, several heavy accents mixing so that the effect was one of a many-headed creature speaking in tongues. Not a single word could be understood.

Dondi was very animated and even more violently affected than usual. “Darlings,” he practically screamed when he saw us. “Come in. Come in. Meet my doctors—all of whom have been brought here at great expense so that they may contradict each other and give
me
dirty looks. I can’t understand a word they’re saying.”

“Dondi,” Matthew said impatiently. “What exactly are you doing here?”

“They tell me,” Dondi said, “that I have AIDS.”

I felt dizzy, disoriented, as if someone had suddenly and without provocation slammed my head against a brick wall.

Dondi’s eye caught mine and held; I realized with a start that he was frightened, trapped, pinned by the specter of certain death. I looked over at Matthew. He looked as if he were under water and had unexpectedly run out of oxygen. His chest heaved, his lips moved, soundless, in a paroxysm of grief.

Dondi, the doctors explained to us, had a severely compromised immune system, seven separate infections and little hope. The disease had apparently been waging a silent war against him for some time. The extraction of his tooth had loosened the mortar in the wall of his immune system, releasing the floods of infection.

Many things were missing in that room: flowers, cheer, hope. The most glaring absence was Leonardo’s.

“Where’s Leonardo?” Matthew asked.

“He’s not here.”

“I can
see
that. Where is he?”

“He’s looking at houses,” Dondi said with what I knew was feigned casualness. Dondi, I was sure, was scared. And alone.

“
Excuse me
?”

“Oh, don’t look like that,” Dondi said irritably. “He doesn’t even know I’m here. And I wish you didn’t dislike him so much.”

***

In the six weeks following his diagnosis, the three of us flew from country to country, city to city, halfway around the world and back. We went from hospital to hospital—the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C., Boston General Hospital, San Francisco General Hospital—and from doctor to doctor. We searched for a cure like ancients searched for the Holy Grail.

Dondi, whom I’d once scarcely been able to believe was mere flesh-and-blood human, was proving altogether too frail: the bone pressing through the flesh, the blood bad. He’d lost weight, his skin was sallow, the flesh beneath his nails a bluish-gray, the nails themselves grown grotesquely thick.

When we stepped off the plane in Philadelphia two weeks before Dondi’s twenty-seventh birthday, we were all exhausted. I looked at Matthew and Dondi, faces drawn and white, eyes dark with defeat. We had grown up sheltered. Me by my parents. Them by their parents’ money. I knew I was stronger than either one of them. It would be up to me to get us through this. I would take care of us all.

I had never before had to take care of anyone. It seemed I’d always been the one taken care of—by my parents, by Dondi, by Matthew. When had I gone from protected to protector? Strange, I thought, how the roles we would choose for ourselves are often not the roles into which life casts us.

Despite his illness, Dondi remembered to arrange for the requisite two limos to pick us up. “Details,” he commented. “I’ve always been good with details. It’s the big things that fuck me up—like remembering to use condoms.”

The limousine dropped Matthew and I off first.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay with us?” Matthew asked his brother.

Dondi shook his head. We’d been together for six weeks. We all needed a break.

***

When we got upstairs and had thrown down our bags and tossed back two drinks each, Matthew said, “Between us, we are worth somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy million dollars.” He turned to look out the window. “That’s not enough money, is it? There’s not enough money, not enough doctors in the world to save my brother!” He turned from the window. His gray eyes, dark with grief and unshed tears, shone. “He’s going die,” he said, his voice filled with disbelief. “He’s going to die and there’s nothing we can do to save him.”

“I know,” I concurred softly in the twilight. I could scarcely believe it. During the last six weeks I’d held onto the belief that we would find a cure for Dondi. I’d grasped hope like a crucifix or a cross of gold; I’d brandished it against the doctors’ deadly words, against the disease itself. Now I realized that cross of gold might as well have been a clove of garlic or a bag of asafetida for all the power it had.