by Mel Gough
He rests his forehead against Damien’s neck, and Damien asks, “Wanna go lie down?”
Brad nods. They get off the floor with difficulty, and Damien leads him all the way up the stairs and into the bedroom. There, he settles Brad back under the sheets that still smell of their sweat from the night. Brad curls up on his side and watches Damien step out of his boots and take his jeans off. When he has slid into bed, Damien reaches for him again, and Brad scoots close. He buries his face against Damien’s neck with a sob. Damien kisses the top of his head and whispers, “I’m so sorry this happened.”
As Brad’s body warms up in Damien’s arms, he can hear the low sound of that Yiddish song again and lets himself be carried away into sleep.
Brad wakes himself up crying. He hadn’t known that was possible. Damien holds him for a long time, humming the song again. When Brad insists on getting up Damien makes him tea and pesters him until he’s eaten a few bites of a freshly toasted bagel with cream cheese. Then they curl up on the sofa together, letting the action of an old country western wash over them.
“Eric called,” Damien says after a while. “Your phone kept buzzing, and eventually I took the call.” He waits for Brad’s reaction.
“I should’ve called him back,” Brad says, feeling guilty. “He always takes care of me… Was he okay?”
“Yeah, he was fine.” Damien hesitates.
“What is it?” Brad prompts.
“He asked if he should come over. He sounded pretty flu-ey, and you were asleep, and I didn’t want him to come all the way without asking you…”
Brad feels even more guilty. “No, he should stay in bed. I don’t want him to get pneumonia or some shit.” Then something else becomes glaringly obvious. He twists around until he can see Damien’s face. “Hey, I’m sorry, I ruined your day. You must’ve had plans. I didn’t—”
Damien makes a dismissive noise. “Do you really think I would’ve left you alone? And anyway,” he adds, stroking Brad’s chin with his thumb, “I want to be nowhere else right now.”
Brad buries his face against Damien’s shoulder, letting the tears come again.
After a while, when he’s cried out, Brad starts to tell Damien about Aiden. About how the depression changed him, how it drained them both of life, but also how proud he’d felt of Aiden for pulling himself back from the brink again and again. How he’d been hopeful at their last meeting that, this time, the treatments would work.
“I never wanted to hurt him,” he says at one point. It’s one of the few times Damien replies.
“Of course you didn’t,” he says. “And you did not hurt him. It’s the depression that hurt him and you both.” He looks at Brad with sad eyes. “Depression is the same as any other illness. You couldn’t love my migraines away, and nobody would suggest it. So why would it work with mental illness?”
There it is again, that word. Love. Brad swallows hard. He won’t let those thoughts derail him now.
“But I feel so guilty,” he whispers. “He couldn’t leave the house, sometimes for weeks. And he couldn’t bear to be alone. He got jealous and paranoid. And sometimes,” he swallows, wondering if he’ll be sick again, “I hated him. Hated what we’d become.”
Damien hugs him without speaking, and Brad stares at the TV through a curtain of fresh tears.
“When he left of his own free will, I was actually glad,” he continues after a while, just as a wild chase on horseback gets underway on the screen. “I felt guilty, and I missed him, and I hated how we’d left it. But after a while, I felt like I could breathe again, for the first time in years.” Why he feels that he can tell Damien these things Brad isn’t sure. But now that he’s started it doesn’t feel strange any longer.
Later, when they sit at the breakfast bar in front of bowls of sweet and sour chicken on rice that Damien ordered from a local Chinese place Brad has never heard of, other memories come back. “On the night we met, Aiden and I had Chinese,” he says, smiling at the memory. “A colleague had tickets for an art show…” But here he trails off, glancing at Damien and feeling like he betrays Aiden’s memory. He tells his brand-new lover secrets about his dead ex-boyfriend when he’s not even in the grave yet.
Damien holds his gaze. “Your colleague had tickets to an art show,” he prompts.
“Yeah.” Brad pushes the words past the lump in his throat. “I’d only moved to Brooklyn a few months before, the house was still a mess, and I knew nobody. But one night, Chloe, my first partner, asked me if I wanted to come along to this gallery opening. Her boyfriend had cancelled last minute. So I said yes.” Brad glances at the far wall, the memories so strong now he can still smell the rain on the air on that damp November day. “We went to this rundown warehouse out in Queens. It was this huge place, and it looked like it should’ve been condemned.” He gives a chuckle. “Maybe it was, but it’s still there. Aiden moved back after we broke up...” With a great effort he returns to the memory of their first meeting. “They had sculptures and paintings and photographs from half a dozen starving artists. I don’t think any of them sold anything that night, it was all very bohemian. We drank wine and gin from paper cups…”
“Why gin?” Damien asks.
“Who knows?” Brad shrugs, smiling to himself just as the tears start coming again. He wipes them away with a paper napkin from the Chinese restaurant and continues. “There was this tall, handsome guy. He had the most amazing smile. And beautiful hair.” He glances at Damien. “It was a lot like yours. Really long and shiny, only not so dark.”
Damien reaches for his hand. “You’ve got taste, no doubt about it,” he says, smiling.
Brad laughs again. “Yeah. Aiden was quite striking looking, especially then. He was always slim, but when he was working with stone and wood he’d get really toned. It was only later, when he got so bad, and stopped eating…” He doesn’t go on. He wants to hold on to a good memory, at least for a while. He blinks away the specter of the emaciated creature with shorn hair who had haunted this house for so long. “It’s not often I’ve taken home a guy on the first night. Aiden might’ve been the first one ever. But I just couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him again. I wanted to keep him, forever. The way he talked about his art, and how he moved.” He can see Aiden on that first night, just like it was yesterday. They’d been like night and day, but Aiden’s creative soul had spoken to something in Brad that, once awoken, was very difficult to put back into its box. “We went to this tiny Chinese place by the gallery, and then we came here in a cab. I was sleeping in the basement then, on an old mattress. The whole place was a construction site. I don’t think we left the house for three days straight.”
“Live-in artist in the middle of your renovations. Was he any good at painting walls?” Damien asks, his fingers tightening on Brad’s.
“The best,” Brad says, laughing, feeling lighter than he has since Eric’s phone call. He looks at Damien. “How come you know how to keep me talking? You ask exactly the right things.”
Damien shrugs. “I just listen. These first few days, they’re always hard. It’s easy to forget that grief takes all kinds of forms. Talking about the person, and about happy memories, is a good first step.”
“I hadn’t realized empathy is taught at drama school,” Brad says, only half teasing.
“It’s not,” Damien says, serious now. “But maybe it should be.”
Eric calls again in the afternoon, and he and Brad talk for some time. Discussing the funeral brings more tears, which Damien anticipates. He’s right there with a cup of tea when Brad hangs up the phone, and they curl up on the sofa again. Brad drops off for a while, and when he wakes again Damien has laid out the leftovers from their lunch. To his surprise, Brad finds that he’s hungry.
They drink a couple of beers with their dinner, which make Brad feel drowsy. Damien clears away the plates and cutlery, then beckons. “Let’s go to bed.”
Brad comes along without protesting. Even though they’ve done nothin
g all day he feels exhausted. When they get to the top of the stairs, Brad stops. “You’ve been amazing,” he says. “You didn’t have to do all this.”
Damien smiles and takes Brad’s hand. “Just returning a favor,” he says. “I don’t think being alone would be good for you now.” He looks down at his T-shirt where the now dried orange juice stain is visible. “I would appreciate that fresh shirt, though. And a shower?”
“You really don’t need to ask,” Brad says, and pulls Damien into the bedroom. While Damien showers he finds a fresh shirt and some of his nicer boxer shorts in the dresser. Then he brushes his teeth and gets undressed. He’s already dozing when Damien comes to bed. They’ve been in almost constant physical contact all day, but Brad finds that he craves more. He scoots close as soon as Damien lies down, and Damien pulls him into his arms.
Brad’s sleep is disturbed by dreams that wake him more than once. He doesn’t settle down until almost daybreak. When he wakes up, the clock on his bedside table reads eleven thirty a.m. There’s no sound of the radio downstairs today, and no smell of coffee. As Brad pushes himself to sitting, Damien appears through the bedroom door, wearing his boots and jacket.
“Hey,” he says, and sits down on the bed. “I was just coming to wake you. How’re you feeling?”
Brad rubs his face. “All right, I guess.” He glances down at Damien’s boots. “You leaving?”
“I have to,” Damien says. “I’m really sorry. I have a flight to catch in a few hours.”
“Oh,” Brad says. “Of course.”
Damien strokes Brad’s cheek with the back of a finger. “Wish I could stay here. I have to be in LA tomorrow.” He grimaces. “Court date.”
Brad is about to ask what for, but Damien preempts him. “I’ll tell you all about it soon, promise. Hey,” he says, taking Brad’s hand. “Your friend called. Maria? She tried several times, and I finally just answered. I figured she wasn’t going to give up.”
“She wouldn’t, no,” Brad says, feeling a lump of guilt in his belly. He should’ve called her last night. She must’ve heard by now, via Neal and Eric.
“She’s on her way now.” Damien gives Brad a stern look. “Don’t send her away, okay? I don’t want you to be alone today.”
Brad nods, the guilt niggling deep inside his gut. He’d already considered just not answering the door when Maria got there. That’s a mean thought. And Damien is right; it’ll be bad if he has too much time to brood today. But he doesn’t want to admit that. Instead he asks, “When are you coming back?”
“Thursday,” Damien says. “But I’ll call you as soon as I land tonight.” He leans close and kisses Brad on the cheek. Then he brings their foreheads together and sighs. “I wish I didn’t have to go. It won’t be pretty…” He straightens up. “Ah well. I better head out, or I’ll miss that damn plane.”
He gets up from the bed. “There’s coffee in the pot. Promise me you’ll eat. There are still bagels, and all that lox.”
Brad nods. “Yes, Mom.”
Damien grins. Then he gives Brad a wave and walks toward the bedroom door. He stops in the doorframe, looking as reluctant to leave as Brad feels to let him go. “Take care, Brad.”
“Will do. Thanks for everything.”
Brad has only just climbed out of bed and gone into the bathroom when the doorbell rings. He quickly finishes his business, hops into a pair of jeans and goes to answer the door. It’s Maria, of course, and she comes bustling in, carrying a casserole dish. Brad lets her concern wash over him for a few minutes, answering her questions as well as he’s able, and trying not to let the tears well up again. Then he escapes upstairs for a long shower. When he comes back, Maria has settled down somewhat. She heats the mac and cheese she brought for him and sets the table for lunch. Brad feels a twinge of guilt again. Maria knows him so well, she even remembered that he loves her mac and cheese the most.
Over lunch, Maria asks, “So, who was that charming man who answered your phone?”
“Just a friend,” Brad says. He’s not sure he could face Maria’s excitement if she found out about Damien now.
“I see,” she says with a raised eyebrow, but then drops the subject, for which Brad is grateful.
In the afternoon, Peter brings over the twins. It’s exactly what Brad needed, even though he would’ve never guessed. The rest of the day goes by quickly as he helps the boys set up their train set on his living room rug. Then he and Peter play soccer with them in the yard until the sun starts to set.
It’s not easy to convince Maria that he’ll be okay on his own for the night. She only agrees to leave when he promises to call her if he needs anything, and that he won’t go back to work the next day just yet. “I’ll come by and bring you lunch again,” she says, hugging him tightly. “Don’t argue.”
He doesn’t, and just buries his face in the collar of her coat. “Thanks, Maria,” he says, holding her close for a moment.
It’s strange when the house is empty again. Brad sits on the sofa for a while, not thinking of anything. He’s exhausted. He curls up and waits for Damien’s call.
It finally comes around ten p.m. Brad picks up the phone on the first ring.
“Hey,” he says, a little bit of warmth spreading through his chest in anticipation.
“You okay?” Damien asks. He sounds tired.
“Yeah,” Brad says. “Maria made sure of it. How was the flight?”
“Bumpy,” Damien says. “I wanna go to bed so bad, but I can’t crash. Not if I want to be of any use tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry, man,” Brad says. He’s worried; Damien sounds very cast down.
“I’ll be out of touch the next couple of days,” Damien says. “I’ve got…a lot going on, let’s say.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Brad asks.
“Not really, but thanks,” Damien replies. “Just the fact that you asked makes me feel better already.”
Brad swallows. Now the first shock about Aiden has abated, and with Damien so far away, he feels awkward about how close they’ve become in such a short space of time. And there’s so much he still doesn’t know about Damien. “Call me when you’re back, okay?”
“The second I land,” Damien says. “I can’t wait to see you again, Brad.”
“Me either,” Brad says, and means it. But that’s as far as he can let it go right now. “Listen, get some rest.”
“You too. Did you eat?”
Brad smiles. “All day long. Maria hates to be called on it, but she can be a proper Italian mama when she wants to be.”
Damien’s soft laugh is so familiar to Brad already it gives him goosebumps to hear it. “Good. Grief takes a lot of energy. Sleep well, and speak real soon.”
“Night, Damien,” Brad says.
“Sleep tight!” Damien replies, and then the line goes dead.
As Brad gets off the sofa and makes for the stairs he can still feel that warmth in his chest. Yes, grieving is exhausting, but he’s glad he didn’t have to be alone with it.
31
That weekend, Viv decides to rest. She’s been running around this loud, dirty city every day since she arrived, and she’s exhausted. Every time she stays on the West Coast for a while she forgets how enervating New York is.
She spends the days lounging on the sofa, and even orders herself a take out. She figures, with the new life growing inside her, it won’t hurt to start eating better. Also, the food might distract her from craving alcohol.
When the TV starts to bore her, Viv opens her laptop and scours the internet once again for details about Damien. She wants to know why he keeps going to LA. And she figures, the better she knows his history, the easier it’ll be for them to find some common ground.
She doesn’t find all that much she didn’t already know. Viv learns that the new season for Gaukur isn’t scheduled to start filming until January. She also learns that the show is made in Winnipeg, which seems logical, since a Scandinavian historical drama needs a cool cli
mate and lots of trees and greenery.
As she clicks through a fan forum for the show, Viv comes across another interesting tidbit. Apparently, there’s a rumor that this season, the third one, might be the last already. Viv scrolls on, unfazed. Even better for her and the baby if Damien doesn’t spend five months out of every year in Canada. She’ll talk to some contacts back West, find out if anyone’s casting for later in the new year. That way he won’t be bored, and he’ll be grateful to her at the same time.
Then she checks the usual gossip rags for news about the custody trial in LA. Finally, on the Daily Mail website, she comes across an article with photos. The article is just a rehash of what Viv already knows, but the photos she hasn’t seen before. They were taken on the day she waited for him in the bubble tea café.
Seeing him outside the downtown courthouse gives Viv a thrill. She daydreams for a few minutes about their stint in his room at the Four Seasons, where they made the little bean she now carries. It’s not a completely happy memory. He was so weird that day. But that doesn’t matter now; she got what she wanted.
He looks tired in the courthouse pictures, and no wonder, since he had just arrived in LA when they were taken. But in a couple of the half a dozen shots it looks like he almost smiling. That’s good. If the custody case is going better and he’s in a good mood she should go and see him soon.
There are also pictures of Idil Phoenix. Viv zooms in on them. No photos show Damien and her together; it makes sense that in the middle of all this they wouldn’t arrive at or leave the courthouse together. Idil’s expression is cool and removed. Viv studies her features.