What Binds Us (18 page)

Colin’s arrival seemed to interrupt the horror; Dondi fell into an uneasy remission. For the first time in months we relaxed.

“I still can’t believe our father was gay,” Dondi said.

“Can’t you?”

“That’s why she made that comment about the apple not falling far from the tree,” I said, finally understanding what she’d meant. “I still don’t understand why she married him if he was gay.”

“I bet the three furies know,” Dondi said. “They introduced them. I’m feeling pretty good,” he added, “and I have a birthday coming up.” He was right. At the end of September he would be twenty-nine years old. “I want a party up in here. I think the three furies need to come.”

And come, they did. And tell us, they did. They seemed relieved to finally be telling the story.

“Your mother was our top model. You should have seen her—she was this great, elegant, aristocratic beauty. She was mink and diamonds and chauffeur-driven Rolls Royces.” Clare’s voice had taken on the dreamy faraway quality of memory relived. “She was
the
model of the fifties. She was on every magazine cover. All the great photographers—Avedon, Irving Penn, Miller A. Green—they all photographed her. There was no doubt she had ‘it.’ To a certain extent every model has to have ‘it,’ that indefinable something. But she had it in spades. The only person I’ve ever met who came close to having what she had is Dondi.” She paused. “Then it all fell apart. Fitters complained she was gaining weight. She had the tiniest waist you’d ever seen—”

“Eighteen inches,” Amelia added.

“Everyone was talking. We finally had to confront her. It was true. She was pregnant. We didn’t know what to do. She’d modeled for everyone—Balenciaga, Chanel, Revlon. Models weren’t exclusive back then. An out-of-wedlock pregnancy would have ruined her. And the agency.”

“At the same time Geo was having his own problems. He’d been involved with Reg Montgomery for years but Reg was on the verge of stardom and the Studio demanded that he end the relationship. He refused, quit instead and went into interior design. The Studio was furious. It was a big scandal. Geo’s father, your grandfather, found out and threatened to disown him.”

“So that’s why Geo set up our trust funds the way he did,” Colin interjected, seeming pleased to finally understand his adopted father’s motivation at last.

“Yes,” Clare acknowledged, nodding her head. “He said he’d never do to his children what his father did to him. Anyway, once your grandfather threatened to cut him off, Geo panicked. He was nearly forty-five years old and had never worked a day in his life. Well we, Amelia and I, saw an opportunity to help both your mother
and
Geo. And selfishly ourselves, as well. It was us who proposed they get married. I know that sounds ridiculous now but back then it seemed to make sense. And for a while they seemed to work it out. Of course, Reggie was hurt. He’d given up his career, after all. But he was braver than Geo, than us. He moved out and went to California. Refused to see or speak to Geo.

“But your father was able to keep his inheritance and Mrs. Whyte avoided a scandal and quit at the top of her game. Which was just as well, because the sixties arrived a few years later with its ‘mod’ fashion—its miniskirts and bright colors and vinyl boots. Your mother wouldn’t have been able to abide its tackiness. Anyway, your father moved your mother into his enormous place on Fifth Avenue—the one Reggie had decorated.” Clare stopped and sighed.

Amelia picked up the story. “Once Dondi and Matthew were born, we all relaxed. The danger seemed long past and your mother and father seemed to have settled in, maybe even loved each other. Then when Matthew was three, Reg moved back to New York—bought the apartment across the hall from your parents. Yes, he did. That was the beginning of the end. Your mother was devastated. One night there was an argument over the phone about your father’s attachment to Reggie. Your mother threatened to divorce him. He and Reggie rushed out to Aurora to talk to her. A tire blew out and Reggie, who was driving, lost control of the car and hit a tree. Your father was seriously injured but Reggie was killed instantly. Your father was in the hospital in a coma for weeks.

“We managed to keep his name, the fact that they were together out of the papers. I don’t think Geo ever fully recovered. And I don’t think your mother ever forgave him for loving Reggie more than he loved her.”

We looked at them in silence, stunned by what they had done.

“I don’t regret what we did for a moment. They were both in trouble. We helped as best we could,” Clare added stubbornly.

“Do you know who my father is?” Colin, the first to speak, asked.

“No, your mother never said. And to be honest, once you were born Geo was so in love with you it seemed an unnecessary cruelty to bring up the fact that you had another father,” Clare answered.

Just then Portia wheeled in a brass teacart I had never seen before. “I thought everyone might like something to drink.”

We stared at her in amazement; Portia usually instructed us to get our own drinks.

“Thank you, Portia,” Dondi said. “That was very kind. And
most
unexpected.”

Portia ignored the taunt.

“Yes. Thank you,” Colin put in. “Please, won’t you join us?”

Their eyes met and held.

“Thank you. I think I will.”

Colin rushed over and pulled out a chair for her.

“Thank you,” she said, smoothing her dress and sitting with uncharacteristic daintiness.

Dondi, after thanking everyone, excused himself, saying he wanted to watch
Dynasty
. He was just twenty-eight but he seemed exhausted, old. When I went to check on him a few minutes later he’d fallen asleep.

***

Later that evening I was watering the plants on the terrace. Strolling through the twilight park below were the unmistakable figures of Colin and Portia. Colin’s hands were folded behind his back and he was nodding gravely at something Portia was saying. Abruptly she threw back her head and laughed; a high, girlish giggle lifted itself on the still air.

***

Those first few weeks after their reunion Colin spent every waking moment with Dondi.

“Go back to work, Colin,” Dondi finally said.

We were sitting on the balcony overlooking the city. Colin started to cry, softly at first then louder as the spasm took hold. He rocked. A keening cry rose from his throat.

“Why are you crying?” Dondi asked him gently.

“I don’t want to lose you. Not again. I don’t want you to leave me.”

“Ah, but darling, I must.” Dondi spoke with easy, casual drama, as if he were acting out a part.

Hearing Dondi acknowledge what we each knew to be inevitable but had never said out loud left us without words. Colin sniffled into the silence.

“Colin,” Dondi said, his flippancy of a moment before gone. “You will survive this. You’ve always been strong. Be strong now—for me.”

“Strong? You think so?”

Dondi nodded.

“That’s funny. I’ve always thought you were the strong one.”

“Me? Why? You stayed.”

“But you defied her. You got away. I never had the strength to break free.”

“You loved her. I never could. I was afraid to love anyone.” I noticed he avoided looking at me. He brought a finger to his mouth, gnawed on a nail. His eyes were shiny, as if he was fighting back tears. His veneer of equanimity, of distance was beginning to crack.

“It’s all right,” Colin explained. “I’m not complaining. It hasn’t been a bad life—being her son. I don’t suppose I was unhappy, although I don’t know that I have ever been really happy, so I have no frame of reference.”

Colin returned to work. He took the train into New York every morning and came back every night. He called Dondi midafternoon from his office religiously.

***

The horror continued. Dondi was hospitalized. They drilled a hole in his chest and put a port in it. I never asked why. Matthew kept track of their reasons. It was all I could do to cope with the circumstances and manifestation of Dondi’s illness. I did not need explanations.

***

An anguished cry pulled at me, buried in sleep. I opened my eyes to find Matthew wild-eyed, the lamp behind his head burning like a midnight sun, making his face a chiaroscuro study in fear.

“Promise me you won’t die before me,” he rasped.

“What?” I asked, twisting in the sheets, trying to shake off a sleep heavy as an old winter coat. “Matthew, don’t be ridiculous. I can’t promise—”

“Promise me!” he screamed, his fingers digging into my flesh with the strength of the mad.

“Okay, I promise,” I said, prying his fingers loose. “What is the matter with you?”

His eyes were far away; his voice, however, was so close it might have been inside my head. His words made my stomach turn over. “You see this face and body that you love so much?” He kicked the covers off violently to reveal the naked wonder of him. “If you die and leave me, I will destroy it. I swear it. I will rip apart my skin and smash every bone—”

“Matthew! Stop it!”

“I mean it,” he said. “If you die, I will jump out that window.”

I grabbed his shoulders, shook him, pulled him to me. I could feel his panic. “I won’t ever leave you. Ever. I swear it.”

He laid his head on my chest and sobbed. “Don’t,” he muttered. “Don’t leave me alone. You are my world—”

“And you are the moon. Together we are eternal. Remember?” I kissed his salty mouth.

He stopped shaking. The madness stilled, he slept like a child in my arms.

***

It was Dondi’s turn to scream. I ran down the hall and burst into his room. He sat up, rigid, as if in the grasp of rigor mortis. His face was discolored with fury.

“Dondi, what is it?”

“She won’t give me a mirror.” He thrust a bony finger at his nurse. His arm seemed impossibly long. His muscle had melted away. His biceps-less arm looked like a woman’s.

I found the sight of his naked arm unbearable. I turned to his nurse, Margarite. She was a skeletal misery whose complexion was the color of bleached bone. Her spirit was as ungenerous as her spare flesh.

“What is going on here?” I demanded as she efficiently adjusted the flow of IV fluid while ignoring Dondi, who was shrieking.

She pushed a thatch of white hair off her forehead with a gloved hand. “I took away the mirrors,” she explained crisply, raising her voice to be heard over Dondi, who was still screaming. “When they get sick, it’s sometimes best that they don’t see how bad they look. It takes away the will—”

“First of all, Dondi’s a ‘he’ not a ‘they.’ Second, Dondi has always gotten exactly whatever it is he wanted. We are not paying you to tell him no. If he wants a mirror,
give him a mirror! Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly.”

I gave Dondi a small silver hand-held mirror.

He drew it to his face and stared at his reflection. “Here I am,” he said. “Here I am. Here I am.”

He was sleeping when Colin called. “He always waits for my call. Is he ill?”

“No.” I told him what had happened, that Matthew had fired the nurse on the spot.

“So now he doesn’t have a nurse. What about a replacement?”

“I don’t know. Dondi can be difficult. He always hates them at first. And frankly, I’m not up to interviewing one more person.”

“Wait,” Colin said. “I have an idea. Sit tight until I get back. Tell Dondi I love him.”

When Colin came home that night, he had Marquis with him. Marquis looked…spent. His perfectly coifed hair was thin and he carried bags under his eyes. His eyes were hard, as if they had seen too much. Once after an argument with Dondi, I had seen him cry; I couldn’t imagine anyone making him cry now.

“Marquis! I don’t believe it,” Matthew said, greeting him, hugging him. “What happened to you? Why’d you leave Dad?”

“I didn’t want to but he became unmanageable. His memory was starting to fail and he kept wandering off, getting lost. Really I wanted to stay, wanted him to be at home, but it was impossible.”

Colin nodded with infinite sadness. “I was there. It was for his own good. He set fire to the library drapes one day. And once we found him strolling down Fifth Avenue in his underwear. Marquis couldn’t keep up with him. None of us could.”

“I know,” Matthew said. “They told us one day he’d need to be in a residential facility.”

“I had to sign the papers to send him to Vermillion Hills. In an ambulance and a straitjacket.”

“God.”

“How’s Dondi?”

“Sick. Getting sicker,” I answered. “Truthfully, I can’t imagine that this can go on much longer.”

“Don’t say that,” Colin said harshly.

“I’d like to see him,” Marquis said.

“Sure. But, he looks…different.”

He looked at us with tired eyes. “I’ve seen it before. I worked in an AIDS hospice until they lost their funding.”

“Then you know about AIDS,” Matthew said.

Marquis nodded. “I wish I didn’t know as much as I do.”

Matthew told him of Dondi’s various illnesses, the treatments he’d undergone in the last two years. “Tell me,” Matthew pleaded, “what you would do if it was you, if it was your lover?”

“I can tell you what I would do for myself. What I have done for myself. You see, I’m positive, too.” His words rocked us. Marquis continued before we could offer pointless words of encouragement, of sorrow. “I wouldn’t take AZT,” he said. “I know that much.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a toxin. It poisons the system.”

“But if you take it early and in small doses—”

“Right! Well, you can take arsenic in small doses too. The question is, would you? In fact, arsenic in small doses was used as an early treatment for syphilis. In a few years, maybe a decade, the truth will come out that at best AZT was worthless, as benign as a sugar pill. At worst, a deadly attempt at a cure. But by then the drug company will have made hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. And don’t be fooled, this
is
about profit. Watch and see the lawyers fight to protect their patents.”

Later we would wonder if we’d erred in letting Dondi take AZT. He had come off it fairly quickly. He’d been unable to tolerate it. Still, damage may have been done.