She was on her feet again. She paced. The earrings shuddered.
“What colossal stupidity! A student! And bringing her into this house? Didn’t you think the neighbors would notice?”
She raised her hands in trembling supplication to some lurking god, then dropped them to her sides. Her ears above the earrings were tomato red. “Take whatever you want. Get out. Now.”
“I thought we were going to talk it through—”
“Not after today. I want you as far away from me as possible. I want some tiny piece, some particle of self-respect.” She looked at him without moving. “You demean me.”
Martin snapped his eyes open, lifted his head from the table, and scanned the brown light through the window. He smeared the sweat on his face and the back of his neck. The bottle waited like a silent testament to his sins. Why did he allow himself to remember? It was four years ago.
Catherine had been only fourteen then, going through tiny rebellions to get her mother’s attention. She’d taken to wearing Martin’s old shirts. They billowed over her unwashed jeans, almost to her knees, like kaftans. Vivien threw a fit. She accused Catherine of dressing like a homeless harlot. What would the neighbors think? “Homeless harlot?” Catherine had said. “More like the hamlet hermit. You won’t let me go anywhere. And you’re home so little, they’re not sure you still live here. Let’s see . . . we’re playing Alliterations. How about deserted denizen? Hapless hooligan? Motherless mutt?” Martin was secretly amused.
When he went to Catherine’s room to break the news, she was on the floor, leaning against her bed, her knees pulled up to her chin, her body draped in one of Martin’s castoffs. She wouldn’t look at him as he talked.
“So Mom and I have decided we should live apart. I’ll find a place to live . . .”
“Something I did?”
“Nothing you did.”
She frowned. “Daddy, will you ever live here again?”
“Not anymore.”
“It won’t be the same. Not ever.” She shook her head. “Daddy, will you ever come back for me?”
“I’ll be back to see you every chance I get, as often as I can.”
“Take me with you.”
“Wait until I get settled, have some money . . .”
He hugged her before he left, but she sat passive, as if she were still trying to understand.
He should have taken her with him. She was lost to him the moment he said good-bye. He had abandoned her and deserved her punishment. By last winter, when Catherine stopped returning his calls, he had screwed up everything that mattered in his life. He himself no longer mattered to anyone. Then Johnny. In—what?—February?
Lanky, blond, and shy—a sweet kid with a constant grin and large hands that always got in his way. Martin was Johnny’s faculty advisor, his mentor, his coach. Johnny was Martin’s favorite. Never mind that they struggled over Johnny’s wild harmonic writing and experiments in atonalism before he even knew how to write in the chorale style. Never mind that Johnny was now a graduate student and no longer in Martin’s classes. Johnny was Johnny, and there was no one like him.
He sat in Martin’s office, his eyes on the floor. The grin was gone.
Martin studied the black-and-blue on Johnny’s nose and one cheekbone. “What happened to your face? Were you in a brawl?”
“Doctor James, I need to change my course schedule. I need to speed things up. I have so little time.”
“Only the rest of your life.”
“I need to finish my studies within the year or stop now.”
“Take your time and do it right, Johnny. What’s the rush?”
“I have AIDS.”
Shock stretched the skin of Martin’s face. Fear shot through his intestines. His eyes darted to see where Johnny had touched his desk.
After that, Martin avoided Johnny. The papers said AIDS was probably spread through contact with body fluids, but no one knew for sure. In March, the campus newspaper printed his obituary—“Talented Young Composer Dead at 22.” “Death from AIDS Sudden,” the sub-head said. At the end of the article, Martin found the time and location of the funeral.
He stayed, ashamed and alone, in the back of the church, far from the mourners. He hadn’t even tried to help Johnny. He’d been too frightened. He waited until the casket was gone and the crowd had dispersed, then made his way to the church steps and squinted into the spring sunshine.
“Friend of Johnny’s?”
A small blond man in a tan overcoat stood next to him.
“He was my student,” Martin said.
“I never met him,” the blond man said. “I called and offered to help, but he wouldn’t see me. I’m a volunteer for the Charbonne Clinic and the Hospice of Saint Anthony. We act as buddies for AIDS patients.”
“Aren’t you afraid of infection?”
“Of course, but somebody has to help. Some of these guys are too sick to earn a living. They get evicted and die on the street because everyone’s afraid to get near them.”
Martin’s heart contracted. “At least you tried to help.”
The man put his hand on Martin’s shoulder. “You could help.” He handed Martin an ochre card, put his hands into his coat pockets, and walked down the steps.
Martin raised his eyes to the window. The daylight was all but gone. He wiped his wet hands on his pants and remembered Peter’s gorgeous face—not handsome, not masculine enough to be handsome—as Peter examined the ceiling and told Martin to leave. Peter was a real bastard. Martin was fortunate. He was free of Peter before becoming committed to him. Let some other volunteer suffer through Peter’s unflagging, shameless, self-centered, flagrant nastiness.
I’ve really made a mess of it. His mind churned. He’d get drunk—again. He poured Scotch into the tumbler and chugalugged it. The Scotch burned on the way down. In a few minutes his consciousness would blur. He dumped more Scotch into the glass, guzzled it.
The phone rang. He jumped. The tumbler capsized, rolled, hit the floor. The phone rang again. It rang a third time. He wished it would stop. It went on ringing, every few seconds. Goddammit! He walked to the living room and answered it.
“Martin, this is Peter Christopher.”
Martin couldn’t think.
“I’m very sick,” Peter said in a trembling voice. “Worse than before.”
“I’m sorry. I—”
“I need help. Martin, will you help me? Right away? Tonight?”
Martin tried to make his brain work. “Peter, has something happened? Are you okay?”
“Nothing ever happens.”
Martin sucked air. As it flowed from his lungs, he nodded. “I’ll come. Right away.”
After he hung up, Martin walked to the kitchen. The tumbler lay in a pool of Scotch on the discolored linoleum. His stomach knotted. For a long time, he stood before the bottle. Finally he put it in the cupboard beneath the sink. He mopped up the spilled liquor, washed the sink and counter, and went to his room. He gargled with mouthwash, took his car keys, his wallet, and his oldest briefcase—packed before his first visit to Peter with latex gloves, denatured,