Dorian Gray III was smiling back at his wonderful son, but as with his mother, the infant could tell it was halfhearted. Dorian, Sr.’s deep, reassuring voice had always given him hope, but he sensed trouble now, and he started to cry.
“Don’t cry, Dorian, everything is going to be so good for you.” The elder Gray nuzzled his cheek until his son’s tears sputtered out and were replaced with soft, happy giggles.
They called him “Dorian.” That was his name. Dorian, Sr. was his father. And his mother was Olivia. They were his family.
JOHN GRAVAGLIA
• 31 •
His father carefully lifted him from the soft blankets and held him facing their wall-sized window in Olivia’s hospital room to look out onto New York City.
Then he looked down on his child with his eyes filled with sorrow and worry. “My son, I don’t know if you can understand me, but there are times that some things can’t be explained. One day I’ll be gone and you will have to take care of your mom. In the meantime I want you to know I love you very much and I will do anything for you.”
“Do you have to go?” Olivia interrupted, taking the baby for his next feeding. “It’s dangerous and you have a newborn son.”
Dorian, Sr. heaved a world-weary sigh. “I have to, Liv.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s no one else.”
Olivia lowered her head and kissed her son’s cheek, then made a sucking sound against it. He giggled again, and her tears, thought long ago spent, began anew.
“It’s not fair.” She said. “You won’t see him crawl or learn to walk. Is there some other way?”
Her husband shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. But he will walk. He’ll even talk. And when he gets there—he’ll do much more.”
The baby cooed as his mother held him tightly, afraid to let him go. He heard her heartbeat quicken. It was not the same comforting, steady beat he had gotten so used to for all his short existence.
DORIAN GRAY
• 32 •
Things were not right.
He wanted to cry, to bring their attention back to him, but instead he sputtered and gurgled some meaningless sounds.
JOHN GRAVAGLIA
• 33 •
CHAPTER TWO
Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more conversation, one more chance to make up for the time when you thought they would be here forever? If so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.
Mitch Albom.
SIX YEARS LATER…
All of it was strange.
That was the first thing that Dorian noticed. The moment he stepped over the threshold, he noticed the furniture and door of the apartment. It was…it was metropolitan, somehow. Not that young Dorian standing there so neatly attired in his khaki shorts and red collared shirt would have known the word “metropolitan.” Most six-year-olds hadn’t used it in context, and couldn’t even come close to spelling it correctly. To Dorian, it sounded like an ice cream flavor. In this regard, Dorian Gray IV who had celebrated his birthday the previous August at a big splendid party where his mother had made a marvelous fuss over him was no different. All Dorian was concerned at this very moment was the here and now. And what was here, and what wasn’t.
DORIAN GRAY
• 34 •
He was here.
These people were very close family friends were here.
His mother was not.
The living room in which he was standing didn’t seem even remotely involving. The couch alone must have cost over $5,000, and the cushions, which were made by the finest and most expensive fabric. He tried to sit on one and hadn’t liked the way it had stuck to the underside of his legs.
The man and woman who were bringing the last of his things into the house, were speaking in hushed whispers to the woman name Miss Johansson—the “social worker,” she’d been called—those people weren’t paying any attention to him.
That suited him fine.
Perhaps he could simply reside there like a ghost, no one noticing him. When he was hungry, he could sneak food from the kitchen, presuming they had one, and otherwise be left alone.
He wanted that more than anything to be left alone by the man, who was practically a father to him. The man’s son, Henry, has been Dorian’s best friend since they were both babies.
The door closed, shutting out the outside world. The carpet felt like wood. It felt slightly moist under his feet, as if it had been just washed. Just to add to the assault, there was a lemony smell coming from all the wooden furniture. He stared down at his reflection on the coffee table. There were flowers arranged neatly on a small lacy thing in the middle of it.
“Well, Dorian,” said the man, coming into the room.
JOHN GRAVAGLIA
• 35 •
He was a tall black man with a slight paunch. He clapped his hands once and rubbed them briskly together. The magician at Dorian’s birthday party had done something similar, right before he’d produced coins from out of nowhere. He’d pretended he’d pulled them from thin air, but Dorian had spotted the sleight-of-hand. In a loud voice he’d explained every single one of the magician’s tricks, to the irritation of the conjurer and the endless amusement of his mother. Her laugh still rang in his ears. He hadn’t yet been able to grasp the notion that he would never hear that laughter again.
“Well, Dorian,” the man said again, “would you like to sit down?”
“No, sir,” Dorian said politely, addressing the older man as “sir,” just as his mother had always taught him.
“Good lord, child,” the woman said. “You can’t just plan to stand there forever. Why don’t you sit?”
He saw no reason to lie. “I don’t like the couch. It’s kinda stiff.”
“Oh.” She seemed vaguely disappointed. He felt as if he’d let her down in some way.
“Please, Dorian, call me George.” Said the man. “I’ve known you since the day you were born.”
“Okay.”
He was studying the woman now. Her face was narrow and her hair was black and it shimmered in the light. She had a long neck and her hands tended to flutter toward it, as if she was trying to cool down waves of heat.
DORIAN GRAY
• 36 •
“I’m Lori,” she told Dorian. She said this with a giant deal of gravity, as if she were revealing one of the great secrets of the universe.
“Okay,” he said again.
The man clapped his hands together again. Dorian waited for a dove to appear or a coin to drop out of the air. None was forthcoming.
“Would you like to see your room, Dorian?”
“Can’t I go back to my old room?”
“Dorian, dear,” said Lori, and she took his hand in hers. Her hand felt cold, but smooth as if she’d put some sort of lotion on it. “I thought the social worker explained it…you’ll be staying here with us.”
“Can’t we stay