Without You: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Musical Rent

by Anthony Rapp

  “Anthony, this is Mary,” Mom said. Mary didn’t get up out of the chair she was sitting in, but she smiled up at me.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said, her voice mild. I hoped she’d heard only good stuff. “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  Mom had made her little house into her cozy haven, surrounding herself with flourishing plants and shelves of books and her adored Charles Wysocki prints, and I perched myself on the sofa, taking it all in again. Sunlight streamed in through the windows. I was proud of her for creating such a comfortable environment for herself, even though I didn’t share her taste for countrified furnishings.

  I chatted with Mom for a little while, extremely conscious of the brevity of my visit, and hoping for an opportunity to be alone with her. Rachel and Anne didn’t leave, though, and they began to talk intensely to each other, and soon Rachel whined, “No! I don’t want to go!”

  I glanced over at Mom and asked her softly, “What’s going on?”

  Mom worriedly watched Rachel talk to Anne as she answered. “Anne and Ken want to take Rachel up to the Smiths’ cabin in Michigan for the Fourth of July.”

  “Why doesn’t she want to go?”

  “She’s afraid of leaving me,” Mom said, her brow furrowed. “She’s afraid of being away in case anything happens to me.”

  “Well, that’s understandable,” I said.

  “Yes, but it’s important that she learns that she can go and that I’ll be okay,” Mom said.

  “I guess that’s true.”

  Rachel began to cry, her wails enormous and heartbreaking.

  “Rachel, come here,” Mom said, her voice a blend of authority and compassion. Rachel reluctantly headed over to Mom, her face twisted up from her crying.

  “I don’t want to go,” she said.

  “Well, you have to go,” Mom said. “You’ll have fun.”

  “I don’t want to have fun!”

  “Oh, Rachel, yes you do.”

  “Rachel,” Anne said, sounding like she was trying to control exasperation, “we’ll have a good time.”

  “I don’t want to have a good time!”

  I decided to step in, putting my hand on Rachel’s back, trying to soothe her. “Rachel, honey, you’ll be okay. It’s only for a couple of days.”

  “Nooooooooo,” Rachel said.

  “Well, Mom,” Anne said, “I’ve got to get going. Ken’s waiting for me.”

  “Okay, Annie,” Mom said.

  “Let me know if she changes her mind,” Anne said as she left.

  Rachel’s crying had quieted down, and she stood staring mournfully at the floor. “Come here, honey,” I said. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her onto my lap, squeezing her tightly. She’d had so many difficult and transformative circumstances to get used to in her young life, and I figured Mom was often too weary to give Rachel the kind of attention that she craved. Rachel clutched me tightly and buried her face into my neck. I glanced over at Mom and saw how concerned and conflicted she was, but I didn’t know what to say to her, and so in my usual fashion I said nothing.

  “Rachel, honey,” Mary said. “Why don’t we go for a swim?”

  I could feel her sigh in my arms. “Okay,” she said. Part of me was sad to see her go, and part of me was relieved that I’d have time alone with Mom, and still another part was dreading that alone time.

  “Have fun,” Mom said.

  “Oh, we will,” Mary said, and then she and Rachel were gone. For the first time since I’d arrived home, there was silence in the house. I glanced over at Mom, my head spinning around, trying to figure out where to begin our conversation.

  “So how are you, Tonio?”

  “I’m fine, Momma,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Oh, pretty good. I’m just tired a lot. The radiation makes me tired. But I’m basically pretty good.”

  “That’s good,” I said, then sat in silence, waiting for the next move.

  “How’s the show going?”

  “It’s amazing,” I said. “I’m having such a great time.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “Yeah,” I said. And finally I decided to say, “I got my third-ever HIV test. Negative.”

  “Well, you’d better stay negative, Anthony,” she said, quickly.

  “Oh, I will, Mom, I promise,” I said, just as quickly.

  “Don’t ever take any chances.”

  “I won’t. I haven’t yet.”

  “Never, never, never, not even one.”

  I paused for a second, swallowed, not looking at her.

  “But, um,” I said, feeling the color rise in my cheeks. “The real reason I got tested now, too, is that—I was sort of waiting to tell you this until some more time had passed and so I could tell you in person—but I’m…seeing somebody.”

  My mother’s hand started plucking at the stitching on the couch. She didn’t say anything.

  “He’s really great,” I said. “I assumed Adam had probably said something about him to you.” Adam always told Mom everything about me.

  “No, he didn’t say much,” she said.

  I took a deep breath. “His name is Todd,” I said.

  “What does he do?” This was almost a mumble.

  “He’s a playwright and screenwriter.” I could feel my cheeks really heating up now. “We’ve been going out for a little while. We’ve been taking it slow, but…” I sighed. “It’s the best beginning I’ve ever had.”

  I looked over at Mom, who didn’t look sad, at least, having this conversation. But she was very, very still, her only movement in her hand, as it plucked away at the couch. I sat and waited for her to say something, steeling myself. And after she remained silent for a long moment, I asked her, “How do you feel about that?”

  She regarded me steadily, and then quietly said, “It was hard for me at first to grasp the whole thing about your sexuality, but now it’s not, you know, it’s not so hard. I know a lot of people are, and it’s no different from having blue eyes or brown eyes, really.”

  And that was more than enough acceptance for now.

  Waiting

  In August I got a call from Mom. “I’m going to have another surgery,” she said. This one was to repair one of her vertebrae, which had been eaten up by a tumor; her cancer was now spreading into her bones. “If they don’t repair it, and it collapses, I could be paralyzed,” she said.

  “I’ll come home,” I said.

  “Good. I want you to be here.”

  So Adam and I flew home the day of the surgery, and headed right over to St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Joliet. Mom was already in prep, and Anne, Grandma, Roberta, and Mom’s friend—and our honorary aunt—Gloria were already in the waiting room. Gloria was one of Mom’s oldest and closest friends, who, like Roberta, was almost the complete opposite of Mom, with her raspy, loud voice and vulgar, hilarious jokes. As with Roberta, I envied Gloria’s ability to make Mom laugh so readily and fully. I was grateful she was there; she was a lively antidote to the silence my family tended to fall into.

  As soon as I arrived, Gloria rushed up and gave me one of her tight, crushing hugs, kissing me on each cheek. “Anthony, how are you? How’s Rent going?” Gloria had recently flown to New York to see the show several times over one weekend, reveling in the crowds at the theatre and the music pouring off the stage and the emotions washing over her as she watched the story unfold. She was now one of the show’s biggest fans, although she had a lot of competition for that title.

  “It’s going very well,” I said.

  “Of course it is,” she said. “How could it not be? It’s so wonderful.” And with that, she gripped my hand in both of hers and guided me over to everyone else in the waiting room. We all exchanged our hellos in our customary fashion—Anne and I shared a brief, insubstantial hug, Grandma and I barely made eye contact, and Roberta and I embraced.

  “So can I see her?” I asked.

  “They said she’ll be out and on her way so
on,” Gloria said, her eyes wide and wild. “I can’t stand this. I hate this waiting around, it drives me crazy.” She clutched my hand even tighter. “I need a cigarette.” And with that, she left.

  In the wake of her departure, the waiting room felt more cramped than it already was with its low ceiling and too many chairs and tables for its small space. But there were windows all along one wall that let in the hazy, grayish, warm late-summer sun, a welcome addition to the usual fluorescent lights. Multicolored construction paper cutouts fashioned by children adorned the walls, and magazines—People and Sports Illustrated and Highlights for Children—littered the floor and tables.

  Without Gloria’s presence, the room grew silent, as I’d known it would. I contemplated heading outside so I could be with Gloria as she smoked, but I stayed put. I hated that I felt so stifled and still in my family’s presence. Why couldn’t I just be myself and open up? Why couldn’t we all just turn to each other and say, “I’m scared for Mom, are you?” I knew Gloria had spoken for all of us when she said she couldn’t stand all the waiting, but she was the only one who’d had the guts to actually admit it.

  Gloria soon came back upstairs, and then an orderly in surgical scrubs poked his head into our waiting room.

  “Mary’s about to head into surgery. If you want to come out to say hello to her, now would be a good time.”

  We all jolted out of our chairs and filed out into the hallway. Mom looked tiny and frightened in her oversized hospital bed, with her thin, dark hair splayed out around her pillow, and her confused, milky eyes swimming and darting behind her glasses. We allowed one another to have a private moment with Mom, and as I waited for mine it occurred to me that this was the first of Mom’s many surgeries for which I’d been present before she went under, not after.

  When it was my turn I approached her bedside and held her slim, tender hand and said, “Hi, Momma.” It was strange to be hovering over her, to see her so prone.

  Her eyes were wet and her voice wavered as she said, “Hi, Tonio.”

  I felt calm and strong with her in that moment. “I’ll be waiting for you when you get out,” I said.

  “I don’t want to do this,” Mom said quietly, almost in a whine. It was the first time I’d heard this kind of fear from her.

  “You’ll be okay,” I said. And I believed it.

  The orderly then said, “All right, we’ve got to keep moving, they’re waiting for us in the OR.”

  We all trailed after Mom as they wheeled her to the elevator, her eyes locked on us the whole time. And as I stood there, watching the elevator doors slide shut, I refused to believe that this would be the final image I’d have of my mom: so small and frightened and alone, weakly waving to us from her hospital bed. It couldn’t be. She’d survive the operation, I had no doubt. Or at least no doubt that I was going to allow myself to feel.

  Hours and hours passed in the waiting room. Silence prevailed between us, as usual. Even Gloria was quiet. Anne broke out a Scrabble game, invoking an old family ritual, and Adam, Anne, and I huddled around the board for the next few hours, clicking our lettered tiles, building our makeshift crossword puzzles, giving us something, anything to do. Anne was usually the family champion, but on this day I won every game we played; it seemed the distraction of waiting for Mom was too much for Anne to handle, while it just helped me to focus even more on the game—something over which I could have some control.

  The expected hour of the end of Mom’s surgery came and went, with no word from any hospital staffer as to how she was doing. An uncomfortable anxiety crept around the outskirts of my mind, and I stuffed it away as best as I could. But when a garbled voice announced over the intercom, “Would someone from the Rapp party please contact the operator?” adrenaline flooded my system and I leaped out of my seat. This is how it happens, I thought. This is how they tell you people have died. I glanced over at my family and saw that they all were thinking the same thing. No one made a move, and then Roberta bravely headed over to the phone and dialed. I watched her face for some sign of dreadful news as she listened to the voice on the other end, but as usual she was simply stoic.

  “What was it?” I asked when she hung up.

  “They were just calling to say she’s still under, it’s taking longer than they thought it would, but it’s going fine.”

  I realized I’d been holding my breath, and let it out. “That’s good,” I said.

  “Oh, I can’t stand this,” Gloria said.

  I was growing so tired of hospitals and waiting rooms and hospital food and hallways and hospital smells and waiting and waiting and waiting.

  Finally, another orderly popped his head into our room. And we all once again leaped out of our seats. All those hours of dazedly sitting melted away in one moment.

  “She’s doing fine,” he said. “The surgery was a success. She’s in the ICU now, and in a little while you’ll be able to go see her.”

  “She’s okay?” Anne said.

  “Yes, she’s fine.”

  “Okay. Good.”

  And I thought to myself, Well, I was right.

  After visiting her in the ICU—I was also growing weary of the all-too-familiar image of my mother surrounded by beeping, whirring machines, with tubes snaking out of her nose and arms—Adam and I headed back to the airport and back home to New York City.

  A few days after my return, and for no concrete reason, I decided it was finally time for me to attend a group meeting at Friends In Deed.

  On my night off, I headed down to the Friends In Deed offices, situated on Broadway just below Houston Street. Cy greeted me with a warm “Hello there!” and a hug; we had grown close over the past few months, since her visit to Rent’s rehearsal room back in January. She had seen the show more than a dozen times since then, bringing practically every friend she had, and we had shared numerous dinners after those performances, talking about how much she loved the show and how the work at Friends was going and sharing stories about our lives in and out of theatre circles.

  Thirty or so people shuffled quietly around the Friends In Deed offices, and then they all began heading into a serene, silent, cream-colored room lined with rows of chairs. The bulk of Friends’ clients were there to deal with HIV or AIDS issues, and I immediately felt self-conscious, as if I were an impostor. Not only was I not affected directly by HIV or AIDS at the moment, I wasn’t even ill, as I was sure many of these people were.

  “I’m so glad you came,” Cy said to me, as usual projecting grace and ease and a quiet joy.

  “Well, I felt like it was time,” I said.

  “Well, good. Good, good, good.” She grinned her gorgeous grin and grasped my hand in hers. “We’ll talk afterwards.”

  “Okay,” I said, and I found an unobtrusive, hidden seat in the middle of the third row.

  Cy began the proceedings by welcoming everyone—giving special attention to any and all newcomers—and asking for everyone to agree to respect everyone else’s confidentiality.

  “Now I want everyone to close your eyes and breathe deeply and just get yourselves here,” she said. Ah, this was a guided meditation. I could certainly handle that. “Notice any thoughts you’re having,” she said. “Just notice them. Picture yourself on the bank of a river, and the river is full of your thoughts, your feelings, your opinions. Now watch them as they float on by. Notice if there’s anything lingering in your mind from outside of this room. From your day. See if you can let all of that be, if you can leave it outside this room. It will still be there when you leave here. Now notice the sounds of this room. Just listen to the sounds of the room, and notice them. There’s nothing to do but be here.”

  As the meditation continued, I relaxed; my concerns over what the other people in the room might think of me began to evaporate.

  “All there is to do in here is to tell the truth, to tell your truth, and to speak from your heart.” She let this sink in. “Now open your eyes.”

  The room, which had already been
tranquil, seemed even more so upon opening my eyes. I had never been particularly skeptical of meditation, but I had never really practiced it either, and right away I felt its power to alter my experience of reality, at least in this context.

  I sat quietly and listened as, one by one, different people in the room raised their hands and Cy called on them. She conducted the group very much as she had led our meeting in rehearsal those several months ago—with confidence and intelligence and a keen and compassionate ear. Eventually I put my hand up, and Cy called on me.

  “Well, I’m not sure where to begin,” I heard myself say, my palms sweating already. It felt somewhat strange to be speaking so formally, in front of a group of strangers, to one of my friends. But I continued, not knowing what was going to come out of my mouth. “As you know,” I said, “my mom has cancer, and I feel like I’m doing okay with it, but I don’t know, I’m just trying to figure out how to deal with everything. Life’s pretty intense right now, with the show and everything else.” By “everything else,” I was referring to my relationship with Todd, which had continued to intensify, but not always happily.

  “You have a lot on your plate right now,” Cy said. “A tremendous amount.”

  “Yeah,” I said. And it was the first time that simple truth had been uttered, by me or anyone. I breathed in the relief I felt with its utterance. “And I’m going home to visit my mom as often as I can, and I don’t always know what to say to her. I feel like we have a pretty good relationship, but there are things I’d like to talk to her about, and I’m afraid of upsetting her or saying the wrong thing.”

  “Okay, first of all, you need to give yourself a big break,” Cy said. “You really do. You really need to let in the fact that you have a lot on your plate. An extraordinary amount. That’s step one. You need to acknowledge the way things are.”

  This made a lot of sense. I breathed deeply. “Okay,” I said.