A More Perfect Union

by J. Scott Coatsworth

  He pulled away. “I can’t believe you’re taking her side,” he said, feeling a little hurt and betrayed. “You’re my mother, for Christ’s sake. You’re supposed to support me.”

  She cupped his face gently in her hands and looked him right in the eyes. “And I do. One hundred percent. But Alex, she’s his mother, and she’s just been told that her son, whom she loves more than anything else in the world, is in the hospital and might die. What would you do to protect him?”

  Reluctantly he said, “Anything I had to.”

  She nodded. “You’re not her enemy. You have to find a way to make her see that. That you’re better for him at his side than out of the room.”

  He nodded. “You’re right. I know you are. I just don’t know how to get through to her. She hates me.”

  “How could anyone hate you, sugar?” She pulled him into a hug, and her silver bracelets jangled. “And if she won’t listen, I’ll sic someone from the State Department on her.”

  He laughed and gave her a big hug. “Thanks, Mom. He hears me. I know he does.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  He stayed another couple of hours for lunch, then kissed her good-bye and went back to Oscar’s place to get a little sleep.

  GIO SQUEEZED his eyes shut, trying to remember what had happened to him and how he had come to be in this desolate place. He searched what was left of his memory, but there was nothing there but heat and light.

  He opened his eyes and looked down at Devin. The little Wildcat’s glass eyes stared back up at him. He smiled and held the stuffed animal to his chest, taking some comfort from it.

  In the last few hours, wisps of other memories had started to come back to him. Memories from his childhood in Italy. He remembered his mother, a beautiful, strong woman from Sicily who had settled down with his father.

  His father.

  The man had never accepted the fact that Gio was gay. When he’d come out, his father had refused to speak to him again, a wedge between the two men that had lasted until Gio’s father’s death.

  He remembered the trips to Lago di Como as a child, and the weekend visits to Venezia together. As he sat there on the bed he and Alex had bought in Mexico, he felt his connection with his past growing, just a little.

  But he still didn’t know where he was or how he had gotten here.

  ALEX SET his things down in Gio’s room, happy to be back by his side for the night.

  As he sat next to his partner’s bed, Nurse Rosalind slipped in.

  “Thought I saw you,” she said.

  “Any changes?”

  She bit her lip. “Maybe,” she said at last. “His mother sat here with him all day, speaking to him in Italian. I think she was talking to him about things that happened in his childhood. She told Stefani, the translator, that he didn’t move an inch.”

  “He smiled for me,” Alex said. “When I was talking with him about some of the things we bought together.”

  “That’s a good sign,” she said.

  “I hope so. Listen, I am so grateful for what you’ve done for me.”

  “If I were in your situation, I would hope someone would do it for me too. How come you guys aren’t married?”

  He flinched. “Because I’m a stubborn ass.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think that. And I’ll bet he doesn’t either.”

  “Thanks. But it really is my fault. I wasn’t ready for the commitment.”

  “And now?”

  “I’d say yes. In a heartbeat.”

  “You’ll get your chance.” She gave his arm a quick squeeze. “I have to go on rounds, but I’ll check in on you guys later.”

  “Thanks.” He watched her slip back out and turned his attention back to Gio. “It’s just you and me, love.” He pulled out the list again. “Remember that mask we bought together in Venice?”

  Once again Gio’s world transformed. The drab, swirling gray around him took on shape and color and texture as palazzi rose out of the mist—two- and three-story buildings in the Venetian style, painted in rust and gold, with peaked windows.

  The ground beneath him coarsened and became a cobblestone street, and Alex was beside him once again. Gio looked behind them, but the bed and Devin were already gone.

  They strolled hand in hand through Campo Santo Stefano in Venice, the sky above cloudy and threatening showers. It had rained for three days so far, and the tiny rental unit they had found just off the square had leaked like a sieve. There were little pots and pans scattered throughout the unit—whatever they could find—and they’d put their suitcases on the tall bed to avoid any flooding should the leaks get worse. But hey, the place was cheap.

  Alex had jumped at the chance to practice his Italian this trip. They’d been together four years, and he still didn’t speak it all that well, but he was trying. Even the disastrous three days they’d spent with Gio’s mother hadn’t turned him off.

  “Mi scusa, dove essere quell’indirizzo?” he asked a passerby.

  Gio grinned to himself. Only three errors in that one. And hey, at least his boyfriend was willing to ask for directions.

  The man pointed down the street.

  “It’s right down here!” Alex smiled.

  Gio glared at him. “In italiano?”

  “Um, I mean, eccolo!” Alex led him to a shop just a block down with a window filled with Venetian masks.

  Gio was from Bologna, which was practically next door, so this whole Venice thing was a bit pedestrian for him, but this was Alex’s first time, and he was like a kid in a candy store.

  They entered the shop, crossing the high threshold that helped to keep out the annual floods that usually came with the fall. Venice was a sinking city, after all.

  “Che belle maschere,” Alex said, picking up one, then another. The shopkeeper looked on, concerned. “Beautiful masks.”

  Gio mouthed, “È americano,” and she laughed.

  “What are you saying?” Alex asked, looking at the two of them suspiciously.

  “Nothing, handsome,” Gio told him reassuringly. Then he saw it.

  The mask was made out of leather, stained a beautiful mahogany brown. And it was the spitting image of Alex’s face. Gio pulled it down from its peg reverently. “This is the one.”

  Alex looked at it. “Why?”

  “Because it’s you.”

  Alex looked at it again and then up at Gio. He took it gently from Gio’s hands and laid it over his own face. It fit like a glove.

  It was a sign—they were meant to be here together.

  “Vieni a vivere con me,” Gio said.

  “What?”

  “Let’s get our own place together.”

  Alex looked shocked for a moment, and then a smile spread across his face. “Even though your mother wouldn’t approve?”

  Gio nodded. “Even so. I’m not a mammone.”

  “You are a mamma’s boy,” Alex said, still grinning. “But the answer is yes.” Then he wrapped his arms around Gio. “And this will be our first piece of art to decorate our new place together.”

  “It’s perfect,” Gio repeated. “But you’re the mammone,” he whispered in Alex’s ear.

  “Mammone.”

  Gio said it so softly that Alex thought he was mistaken, that he hadn’t really heard it. Then it registered. “Oh my God, Gio… you heard me. You remember.” He teared up as he searched Gio’s face for a sign that he was in there, that maybe he was waking up.

  But there was nothing more.

  He waited a few more minutes to be sure, then crawled up onto the bed and gently lay next to Gio, careful not to hurt him where he was burned. “I’m here, Gio,” he whispered.

  He missed Gio’s snoring. It surprised him a little, because Alex had always hated it at home when Gio sawed logs. But he’d always known Gio was there, still alive, still his. The silence at night was unnerving, as if it contradicted the other evidence that said Gio was still in there somewhere.

  But Gio had sp
oken. Alex was certain of that.

  He lay there for a long time, listening to the steady rise and fall of Gio’s breathing.

  At some time in the middle of the night, he fell asleep.

  GIO SNUGGLED with Alex in their bed. Devin was tucked between them, and for the first time in an untold amount of time, Gio forgot he was trapped in a strange place.

  Alex was here. That was all that mattered.

  Chapter Five

  Wednesday, September 16

  A HAND on his shoulder woke Alex up. He glanced up blearily at the clock on the wall. It was 7:00 a.m., and he’d forgotten to set his alarm.

  “Oh crap,” he said, disentangling himself from Gio.

  He sat up and turned to face his awakener. It was Cinzia, Gio’s mom. She took three staccato steps, her heels clicking on the tile floor, and faced him across the bed.

  They stared at one another, like two gunfighters about to draw, and the moment stretched out.

  At last she said, “Vattene,” and pointed to the door with a perfectly manicured nail.

  Alex shook his head. The moment had come to confront this. He would not leave without a fight this time. “Parliamo,” he said. “I want to talk to you.”

  His right hand tightened around Gio’s.

  She shook her head and pointed to the door again. “Va’ via. Go.”

  She turned as if to call someone, and Alex took her hand. She looked back at him, her tight curls snapping back into place.

  “He spoke to me, Cinzia.” He pointed at Gio. “Mi ha parlato.”

  That stopped her. “Quando? Cosa è successo? Si è svegliato? Dimmi!” Her grip squeezed his hand almost painfully.

  “Un momento.” She was going too fast for him. “Mi scusi… um, excuse me,” he called out the door to a passing nurse. “We need the translator.”

  The nurse held up a finger to indicate they should wait.

  Cinzia nodded. “Figlio mio.” She laid her hand on his forehead. “Parlami!”

  Gio was silent. Eventually his mother sat down next to the bed. Alex let go of Gio’s hand, and stepped back toward the door, not wanting to risk breaking this fragile treaty between them until Stefani arrived to translate.

  Alex was powerfully hungry—he’d skipped dinner the previous night—but he had to get through this first.

  At last Stefani came in, looking like she’d been roused from sleep. She gave him an appraising look, as if to say she didn’t know he’d had it in him. Then Alex started to describe what he’d been doing: the nighttime visits to see his partner, reading the list of the things they’d lost in the fire and talking about the memories they brought up for him.

  How Gio had responded.

  “Ha fatto in sorriso,” the translator said, miming the smile for Gio’s mom.

  “Veramente?” Cinzia asked, looking at one, then the other.

  Alex nodded. He guessed from her question that Gio had been unresponsive to her. “Last night I talked with him about our trip to Venice. I reminded him that I’d called him a mamma’s boy.”

  He waited for the translator to repeat that in Italian and saw Cinzia’s mouth quirk up in a slight smile at the word mammone. “And then he said that word. Mammone.”

  She looked over at Gio and back at him, considering.

  “He doesn’t snore anymore,” Alex said, not quite sure why that was important.

  Stefani dutifully repeated what he said.

  Then Alex took Cinzia’s hands, and the translator stepped back to give them some space. As Cinzia looked up into his eyes, he said, “Lo amo, mamma,” pleading with her with his eyes. “Cerca di capire. Let me stay with him.”

  She searched his eyes. “Anche a me manca il russare del mio amore. Da nove anni ormai.”

  Alex looked at the translator questioningly.

  “She says she also misses her husband’s snoring.”

  Alessandro Montanari had been dead for nine years. Alex nodded and put his arms around her, and something melted between them. She squeezed him tightly, and when she let him go at last, he knew she would let him stay.

  The two of them sat together next to Gio’s bed, silent. Cinzia seemed lost in thought.

  Alex kept quiet, afraid to disturb this new balance he’d so precariously achieved between them. He and Cinzia had a difficult history that had started when she first discovered Gio was not only gay but had brought his American boyfriend home for the holidays.

  It had only gotten worse since.

  Alex looked over at her and found her staring back at him with a curious look on her face.

  “Mi ricordo bene quando ci siamo conosciuti,” she said.

  “She says, ‘I remember well the day we met.’”

  He nodded. “I remember too.”

  “Yes. I like you then.”

  Before she had known he was gay. “Mi eri piaciuto—I liked you too. It was raining.”

  The rain was coming down a dirotto—in buckets. Gio and Alex sat in the rented car in Bologna, outside Gio’s mother’s house, and looked out the window dubiously.

  “I have to tell you something,” Gio said at last.

  Alex looked at him curiously. “That it always rains like this in Italy?”

  Gio laughed and shook his head. “My mamma doesn’t know.”

  “Doesn’t know what? That I’m coming?”

  “That I’m gay.”

  Alex stared at him. He’d lost the ability to speak.

  “I told her you’re a friend from college who wanted to come with me to see Italy.”

  Alex looked out the car window at the little house, with its porch light aglow, awaiting them. “You’re just telling me this now?”

  Gio shrugged. “I didn’t know how. My English not so good.”

  “Bullshit,” Alex said, but he cracked a little smile. “So, what? You’re going to tell her while we’re here, right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We’re not doing the whole ‘sleep in separate beds’ thing, are we?”

  Gio looked away.

  “Shit, we are.” Alex’s smile was gone when Gio looked at him again. “I’m sorry. I’m not going back in the closet. Not for you, not for anyone. It was bad enough the first time.”

  “Just give me a day or two. Then I’ll tell her.”

  Alex looked out the window at the house again. “Tell her by the day after tomorrow. Or I will.”

  “I promise,” Gio said. “Come on. I want you to meet her.”

  They got out of the car, and Gio led Alex up to the front porch. He knocked on the door, and soon his mother opened it. When she saw who it was, she flashed him a big smile and beckoned them inside. “Entrate, entrate, belli,” she said. “Maria, il fratello è a casa!”

  Gio breathed in deeply. “Mamma is telling my sister Maria that I’m here.”

  The house smelled like home, full of pomodoro sauce and salsiccia and fresh-cut flowers. His mother ushered them into the kitchen, where she was making la pasta fatta a mano.

  Gio settled in with Alex at the kitchen table to watch.

  He could come out to her tomorrow. Right then he just wanted to enjoy being home.

  AT LUNCHTIME, Alex and Cinzia sat down together in the cafeteria to have some lunch. The place was busier than usual, but they found a table in the corner where they could have a little privacy.

  Alex was tired of hospital food, but he was hungry and needed to eat something. And he really wanted to work things out with Gio’s mother.

  They opened their plastic-wrapped sandwiches.

  “Che brutto,” Cinzia said, wrinkling her nose at the prepackaged meal. “Questo sarebbe un panino?”

  “Sandwich? In name only. Solo in nome.”

  She snorted, the first time he’d ever heard the usually dignified Italian woman make such a coarse sound. She took a bite and spat it out. “Fa schifo!”

  He took a bite of his own sandwich—the label claimed it was egg salad. He gagged. It was pretty bad. “Lo so,” he agreed. The
apple and chips were much better.

  They were silent for a few moments, eating what they could stomach of their lunch. Finally, he cleared his throat.

  She looked up at him, her eyes narrowed.

  “Grazie, signora Montanari,” he said, addressing her formally. “Gio è molto importante per me.”

  She sighed. “Lo so, Alex.” The way she said it sounded like Aleex. “But is hard for me to accett… accept.”

  “The Church?”

  She nodded. “They say it is… come si dice? Peccato?”

  “A sin,” he guessed.

  “Sì.”

  “We’ve been together for ten years. Dieci anni! I love him.”

  She took his hand. “I see it. Perhaps… forse La Chiesa su questo si sbaglia.”

  His heart beat a little faster. “Maybe they are wrong. About this.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Devo pensarci. Time. Some time.” She stood and leaned over to give him a quick kiss. “Grazie di averlo aiutato. Thanks for help… him.”

  Then she walked away, leaving Alex a little bemused. Maybe things were shifting between them.

  He needed to talk with someone else, so he called Oscar.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Oscar, you have a sec?”

  “Alex? Sure. Did something happen? How’s Gio?”

  “Everything’s fine. He spoke to me.”

  “Holy shit. He’s awake?”

  “Not yet. But he said a word to me. And even better, his mother said I can stay.”

  “That’s great news. What did you do?”

  “I told her he was responding to me. And that I loved him.” Alex looked down at the remnants of the disgusting hospital sandwich on his plate. “Hey, can I ask one more favor?”

  “Of course. Whatever you need.”

  “Can you stop by Rigo’s and pick up something for us to eat for dinner after work? The food here sucks.”

  Chapter Six

  Thursday, September 17-Sunday, September 27