What Binds Us (17 page)

I was just coming out of the stall when I saw the boy sidle over to Dondi at the urinal. The tile was acoustical and their voices carried down the length of the restroom. The boy stood at the urinal closest to Dondi and glanced down with slow deliberation. When he raised his eyes to Dondi’s face, he said, “Hi.”

“Hi, yourself.”

The boy glanced down again. This time his eyes lingered.

Dondi shook himself off and the boy’s eyes grew wide.

“My name is Alex,” he said, watching Dondi’s eyes.

Dondi walked over to the sink, started to wash his hands.

Alex followed, stood at the sink next to his.

“Alex, do you think me handsome?”

“Yes, very,” Alex said with a grin, sure of himself now, on familiar ground.

“And would you be willing to do whatever I say?”

“Sure,” he agreed enthusiastically, turning his back to the sink and sitting on its lip. “You’re very handsome,” he added.

“You like faces, do you?”

“You might say I’m a collector of faces,” Alex boasted.

Suddenly Dondi grabbed him roughly by the chin and forced him to his feet and around until he was facing their twin reflections in the mirror. “Look at my face,” Dondi said harshly. “This is the face of AIDS!”

Alex blanched. Dondi let go of him. His eyes stayed on Dondi’s reflection. His face was twisted in what might have been a grimace or a smile. He seemed caught between terror and hilarity.

“Remember my face the next time you think of picking up a stranger. Now, get!”

Alex scrambled from the room, scarcely glancing at me as he hurried to the door.

***

Dondi lost his appetite. Some days he ate everything that was put in front of him and asked for more. Other days he would not eat at all. Or he would ask for something special and then refuse to eat it. He would look at the plate of food with disdain and get up from the table or request something else. Often the sight of food made him physically ill. He would eat ravenously one day and spend the next three ill with unstoppable diarrhea.

Dondi was wasting away. The extra flesh he’d carried so sexily his whole life was melting away like butter in a microwave. He seemed to be collapsing from within, flesh falling against bone, the bone itself pushing through the flesh, as if desperate to escape the disease within.

“It’s just vanity, you know,” my mother said to Dondi.

She had arrived the day before, with numerous bags, for a short visit. I’d told her that Dondi hadn’t left the house in weeks, had said he didn’t want the prying eyes of strangers on him. More than their curiosity, he feared their pity.

“What?” Dondi asked her.

“Your refusal to leave the house.”

Dondi started to object but my mother held up her hand.

“Don’t deny it. I
know
you. I know you because you’re me. I know about vanity. Look.” She brandished the cane she’d been using for months because of a deteriorating bone in her knee. “I went back to St. Croix for my father’s funeral. In the church I heard a woman whisper like an old fishwife, ‘Who she be?’ Magdalene—the old bitch with her—I remember her from when I was a child. I couldn’t stand her then and I still hated her. Anyway, Magdalene said, ‘That’s the cripple daughter from New York.’ I realized I was using my cane and leaning on my husband’s arm. I was so embarrassed I wanted to run out of that church. Then I realized it was my father’s
funeral
. Nothing could have made me leave. And even if I
was
a cripple, so what? Crippled or not, I was still my father’s daughter. I was still who I was. Just like you, sick or not, are still you. Why should you lock yourself away because you’re sick? You can’t hide from God. And damn everybody else.”

“You really think I should go out?”

“Come,” she said. “We’ll go together. Just the four of us.”

Dondi raised his eyebrow quizzically.

“You, me, my cane and your chair.”

He laughed then and they made themselves ready.

“Wait,” I said as they moved to the door. “I’ll come too.”

“No,” my mother said. “We’re going alone. We’ll be fine. We’re just going to stroll around the neighborhood. Maybe we’ll go downtown and shop.”

I looked at Matthew. He looked dubious, but shrugged.

After they left, my mother with her cane in one hand and Dondi wheeling himself in his chair, Matthew picked up the phone and called the lobby. “Have our driver take the car and follow Dondi and Mrs. Lawrence. He’s just to keep an eye on them.”

They returned two hours later, my mother triumphant, Dondi nearly hidden behind the pile of boxes in his lap.

“Helloooo,” they trilled in unison. “We’re back.”

“Where have you been?”

“Everywhere…oh, and Wanamaker’s.”

“You went to Wanamaker’s?”

“And why not?” my mother asked, her tone haughty. “They have elevators. And we cripples had money to spend!”

“What did you buy?”

She and Dondi exchanged looks, then cried out, “Shoes!”

“Shoes?”

Dondi whipped the cover off one box and then another. Shoes tumbled to the floor: black suede pumps with stacked heels; chocolate snakeskin sling backs; shoes by Stuart Weitzman, Maud Frizon, Etienne Aigner, Manolo Blahnick.

“Dancing shoes,” Dondi cried.

“For when my leg gets better,” my mother explained.

“She’s going to go dancing for me,” Dondi finished.

I sat on the floor in the midst of that mother lode of shoes and cried. “I’ve never seen such beautiful shoes,” I explained.

***

As I helped my mother into the back of the Stutz I said, “Give Daddy my love. And thank you for helping with Dondi.”

“It was nothing that I wouldn’t have done for you. I’m just grateful it’s not you.” She settled herself against the luxurious upholstery. “That boy needs his mother.”

***

“No,” Matthew said tensely. “I will not go to Mrs. Whyte. Dondi has lived without her. He can die without her.”

I knew better than to try and change his mind.

I mounted the steps—a series of brick half-moons of diminishing size—as I had so many years before. The mortar between the bricks had cracks in them, like a fissure in time.

Phipps opened the door. “Mr. Thomas,” he boomed in his baritone voice made gravelly with age. “You’ve grown into a fine-looking man.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, then gave in to the impulse and hugged him. He was less powerful than a genie, but he still towered over me.

“Come in. Come in. It’s been too long. This house needs young people. Mrs. Whyte is expecting you.”

She chose to receive me in her sitting room. If the rest of that mansion by the sea had been created to invite and fascinate, this room had been designed to intimidate. It was archly formal, cold with gilt furniture and pale silks. Over the mantel hung a large photo of a young woman, dressed in a pleated column dress with a white sash. Her chestnut hair was parted in the center and gathered in a bun at the nape of her neck. Her arms stretched out gracefully in the air, resting improbably on the trunk and ear of two elephants standing behind her. Her draped body was one elegant line, her face slightly turned away from the camera: terra cotta lips smiled, smoke-gray eyes danced, white-white skin glowed. With a start I realized I was staring at Matthew. Matthew as a woman. Mrs. Whyte.

She entered the room behind me. She still wore Opium. The smell took me back all those years to the first time I’d met her, when she’d descended the stairs so elegantly and called me Thomas-Edward.

Colin moved into the room and stood behind her. He was still stooping. His hair had thinned.

“What do you want, Thomas-Edward? I only agreed to see you because you said it was urgent. And because I felt sorry for you,” she said. “I haven’t much time.”

“Then I’ll be brief. Matthew wouldn’t come, so I did. Dondi needs to see you.”

The lines around her mouth tightened and her eyes closed briefly then fluttered open. “Dondi?” she repeated in her elegant voice. “I know no one with such a silly name.”

“Mrs. Whyte—” impatience made me cruel, “—your son is dying.”

She staggered back. A look that may have been fright passed across her face like a shadow. She rearranged her face into a flawless, fashionable mask. “My son,” she said, “has been dead to me for some time.”

“I see. I’m sorry to have troubled you. Matthew was right not to have come.” As I faced her I could see Matthew in her, like the moon hiding behind a cloud. “How sad it must be for you, to look in the mirror each morning and see the son you banished.”

“Get out!” she cried. “
Phipps!
”

I turned to leave.

“Wait!” It was Colin. “Is he really dying?”

I nodded, tears filling my eyes at my failure. “He has AIDS.”

“Let it be, Colin,” Mrs. Whyte warned.

He looked at his mother. I sensed his hesitation. I turned to go.

“Wait,” Colin said again. “I’m coming with you.”

“Sit down, Colin,” Mrs. Whyte commanded.

He hesitated, pinned by her determination. “Dondi’s my brother.”

“You don’t have a brother.”

His colorless eyes flashed blue. “I have to go to him, Mrs. Whyte. He’s dying. You heard Thomas-Edward.” Colin was almost begging for her permission.

“Choose,” Mrs. Whyte said suddenly.

“Choose?”

“Choose.”

Colin stared at her with naked disbelief. “I’m not choosing but I am going to see my brother. Let’s go, Thomas,” he said, turning his back on his mother.

Mrs. Whyte’s carefully maintained beauty deserted her. She was suddenly old and spiteful and ugly. “You,” she screamed, thrusting a finger twisted with arthritis in my direction. Time had been as cruel and relentless as her enmity. “You did this. I will never forgive you!”

“Like you wouldn’t forgive our father?” Colin asked.

“What do you know about Geo and me?”

“I know he loved Reggie. And that you couldn’t forgive him for that.”

“You know nothing!”

“I know he loved you too.”

“He loved me
too?
”

“It wasn’t enough, was it? His loving us and Reggie and you too. You couldn’t stop looking back at what you’d once had. Memory made you bitter. Bitterness can be a poison, like salt.”

Now I understood why Mr. Whyte, in his dementia, had called her Lot’s wife. I looked at the photo over the mantel, at a woman on top of the world, a woman who had it all, who had everything except the devotion of the man she loved. I could almost feel sorry for her.

“He’s not your father,” she cried savagely. “He’s Donovan’s and Matthew’s. Not yours!”

“I know that!” Colin snapped. I had never before heard him raise his voice, much less address his mother in such a tone. “My biggest regret,” he continued, “is that Geo is not my father. Let’s get out of here, Thomas-Edward.”

Mrs. Whyte collapsed into her chair, defeated by what she could only see as Colin’s betrayal. How sad to discover that she had only been a paper tiger, after all: brittle bone and parchment skin.

“Colin, wait. I shouldn’t have said that. It wasn’t fair. And Geo has always loved you as if you were his own.”

“Thank you for that, Mrs. Whyte.”

“Colin, will you come back?”

“Yes. Yes, of course I will.”

“When?”

“When it’s over.”

***

I followed Colin out of that house for the last time.

Phipps caught my arm as I walked out the door. “Don’t judge her too harshly,” he said. “She’s been through a lot.”

I started to say something, but a light in his fading eyes stopped me. “You love her.”

“I love them all,” he replied.

“Yeah, but—”

“I love them all,” he repeated and gently closed the door.

Colin stood indecisively on the portico.

“We can take my car,” I told him. “Or we can take yours and Felix can follow us.”

He looked onto the apron of the drive, noticed the Stutz, Felix in cap, behind the wheel. “I don’t feel up to driving just now,” Colin said.

“How is Dondi?” he asked me when we were in the car.

“He’s dying,” I told him as gently as I could.

“Isn’t there anything that can be done?”

“Everything that can be done has been. We’ve seen all the doctors, tried every drug available. There’s nothing else.”

“Where is he? Is he in the hospital?”

“No, he’s at home.”

“He’s not alone, is he? You didn’t leave him alone?”

“No. He has a nurse, and Matthew’s there.”

“Matthew. How is he? He was still a kid the last time I saw him.” Regret tinged his words.

“He was twenty, almost a man. Matthew is fine. He grew into a wonderful and handsome man.”

We had driven some distance in silence when the ring on my finger caught the light and Colin’s attention. “Is that a wedding band?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered, slightly self-conscious.

He leaned back and laughed. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “You should have told Mrs. Whyte.”

“Somehow I don’t think she would approve,” I said, rueful.

He glanced at me.

“Dondi?”

“Matthew.”

“Matthew? My brother?”

“I love him, Colin.” I felt suddenly uncomfortable. It occurred to me that I had never been alone with Colin.

“Shit,” he exclaimed. The profanity sounded odd coming out of his innocent mouth. “I always wondered if you two ever became lovers.”

“Excuse me?”

“It was always so obvious you were in love with each other. Somehow, though, I was never sure if either of you knew the other was in love with him.”

“As it turns out, we didn’t. How did you?”

“You used to spend all that time at the house, remember? I would watch the two of you together. You were always together. Even Dondi seemed left out. You two seemed to exist on your own higher plane—the rest of us could see you and talk to you, but we could never really reach either of you—not after you found each other. It was confusing because I thought you were sleeping with Dondi.”

“I was, for a while.”

“I’ve thought about all of you a lot over the years. I thought about getting in touch, but I wasn’t sure anyone wanted to be in contact with me. I mean, I was so much older than both of them. And I’m only their half-brother.”

“Do they know that?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Well, for what it’s worth I think they’re lucky to have you for a brother.”

“I think they’re lucky to have you. It took a lot of guts to come to Mrs. Whyte. I’ll always be grateful that you came. Brother-in-law.”

I knew then that Colin and I would be friends.

***

Portia was vacuuming the hall when Colin and I entered the apartment. He stopped just ahead of me. “Who is that?” he asked softly.

“That’s Portia. She’s our housekeeper.”

“My God.” He sighed. “She’s…beautiful.”

Portia looked up and I gestured for her to come forward. “Portia, this is Colin, Matthew and Dondi’s brother. Colin, this is Portia.”

She removed her sunglasses and offered him her hand. “Colin,” her voice quaked, “it’s a pleasure.”

“Likewise, ma’am,” Colin stammered, blushing furiously.

I had occasionally wondered about Portia’s sexuality, had almost ruled out her being a lesbian. I thought she was probably asexual. Now, watching her with Colin, I reassessed that judgment.

“We haven’t seen Colin in years,” I began to explain.

“I see,” Portia rasped. “Well, I’ll leave you boys to your reunion. Dondi’s asleep, but Matthew’s in the study. Colin.” Her knees trembled and I feared for a moment that she was about to curtsy.

“Thomas, is that you?” Matthew called from up the hall. “Where the hell have…” His voice trailed off as he walked down the hall and his eyes fell on Colin.

“Hello, Matthew.”

Matthew covered the distance separating them in three long strides and then they were holding each other.

Colin found his voice first. “Matthew. Oh, Matthew.”

I turned and stepped back out the door. I left the brothers to their reunion.