A Purple Winter Read online

  Helga pressed her hands against Nick’s expressionless face. “Vaer rolig—”

  “Okay. Okay.” Nick frowned, nodding his head inside his mother’s small hands but staring at the ground. “Okay. I need to get Esco inside the house.”

  We watched as he went to the car and carried the dog past us all. Tears were streaming down my cheeks and I couldn’t see very well through the blur. I was crying without making a sound, some knot inside me coming undone. David. My dancer from the dance. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real.

  “Come on, Derek,” Johan said, rubbing my shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s gonna be all right. Don’t get like this. Nicolai’s gonna need you.”

  David. No. Not David.

  “Red, oh, baby.” My mother was near me now, gently caressing my back. “It could have been you.”

  Nick. Had to see Nick. I moved away and looked up at the Lunds’ open front door. All of us were staring at it as though it would speak. I was the first one to walk up the steps, then Helga and Johan followed. My mother stayed in the door, glimpsing the inside of the Lund apartment. She wouldn’t come in. “Nick?” I shouted, checking the living room and hallway.

  “Johan,” Helga said, her voice like a little girl’s. She held herself, standing stiffly in the hall, looking small and defeated. “Do something for him.”

  Then Nick appeared at the end of the hall. “Where is he?” He stormed by us, knocking his father’s shoulder on the way to the door. “What hospital?”

  “Verdun. We’ll drive—”

  “No.” Nick stepped out. “Take care of my dog.”

  I wiped my eyes and nose with the back of sleeve. “Nick!” I called out to him, my voice breaking.

  He came running back inside, grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the apartment.

  By the car, I tried telling him that he couldn’t drive in this state, but he wouldn’t even look at me. He climbed into the driver’s seat, and I barely had enough time to shut my door before we took off in a screech of tires.

  The hospital was less than five minutes away, but Nick drove fast and recklessly, while I wiped at my eyes, the tears turning hot and bitter now. David should have stayed with us last night. But he’d left because of me. He’d never dance again. No. God, no, that wasn’t fair. He’d had such a shitty bloody life! His father beating him. His uncle…abusing him. Being gay in a straight world. But he’d bloody danced, hadn’t he? He’d tried. He’d tried to survive. To strive. To make something of himself. Why did it have to be so hard to live!

  When Nick pulled into the parking lot, I took a few breaths and looked over at him. “I’m s—s—sorry.”

  “Let’s go.” He jerked the keys out of the ignition and popped his door open.

  Outside, I followed Nick up the stairs, through the sliding doors and listened to him calmly inquire about David’s state and what room he was in. In the elevator, he stared at his reflection in the silver doors, a look of sheer hatred in his blue eyes. I wanted to touch him, but didn’t know how. We stepped out on the third floor. “Room 356,” he said in an even voice.

  At the room’s door, Nick paused, a hint of emotion finally showing on his face. He walked into the room, with me on tow. Sebastian, David’s brother, and David’s parents were standing around David’s bed. Not a word was said.

  I was barely breathing, not quite able to look at David’s face. I glimpsed the tubes. The machines around him. Heard the sound of an electronic heart somewhere.

  This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

  Nick stood a few feet away from the bed, motionless and silent. In two long strides, he was at David’s side. He quietly pulled up a chair to David’s bed. David’s mother stepped back a little, giving him some space.

  I waited, the silence in the room choking me. We were like people standing around the wreckage of some beautiful creature washed up on shore. I stared at David’s father—his face was a mask of white clay. He was responsible for this, too. He’d hurt David. He’d inflicted wounds on him, physical, but deeper than that, far into his soul. I knocked my head back against the wall behind me, feeling enraged and helpless.

  David was special. I knew that now. His heart was as fragile as glass, but I could look into it and see myself.

  Then without a sound or warning, Nick dragged his chair closer to the bedside and collapsed, pushing his face into David’s chest. “Davie…”

  I took a step forward, but stopped. Because against David’s stomach, Nick was sobbing uncontrollably, the sound of his pain resonating all through me like a low and powerful vibration.

  * * * *

  A few minutes later, in the hospital hallway, I stood leaning up against the wall, staring at David’s open door. Nick was still at David’s side, but silent and stern, his blue eyes fixed to that invisible point again. He wouldn’t talk to anyone. Wouldn’t move from that chair by David’s bed. I was invisible again. A little frustrated, I’d left the room a few minutes ago, but Nick hadn’t even noticed. I knew trying to comfort him would only widen the trench between us, so I kept my mouth shut and my eyes and ears open for any clue as to what he needed.

  But obviously, I wasn’t it. The bond David and Nick had shared, that sacred alliance I’d never truly been privy to, was being tested and somehow I knew that if David didn’t open his eyes soon and recover, Nick would never be the same. There would be a part of him I’d never be allowed to access, see, hear, or even touch. I was probably the most selfish person to have ever walked to earth. How could I be having these terrible thoughts? David was fighting for his life and I was standing here measuring my own losses?

  Maybe I should have been the one in that hospital bed.

  “But you are, honey. You are.”

  I turned to see my Aunt Fran standing in the busy hall. Heart in mouth, I stared at her. How could she have known about David’s accident and made it back from wherever she’d been traveling so fast?

  “Derek, now listen to me.” She wore a white tunic over white silk pants and her long hair was loose, flowing down her shoulders in waves of amber and red. “It’s time for you to return to your life. It’s time, Derek.”

  My stomach lurched and I instinctively stepped back. “What are you doing here?” I hadn’t stuttered a word. My speech impediment was gone.

  “You know what I’m doing here.” Carefully, she moved closer. Around us, everything had come to a stop. The hospital hall was deserted. “You know none of this is real…”

  “I need to stay with Nick.” I darted my eyes to the room door. But something felt wrong. I swallowed the panic down, inching away from that open door.

  “Go ahead, honey, look into that room.” Aunt Fran now stood close to me, leaning over my shoulder and whispering into my ear. She wore her Chantilly perfume and the scent of it brought back memories of my childhood. Of our talks. Of all those precious moments we’d spent together laughing and commiserating on those long winter nights during my mother’s illness and father’s absence. She’d been everything to me. She’d made my life magical.

  Aunt Fran touched my hair. “When I passed out of this material world, you were there at my side, remember? You were the one holding my hand. You witnessed my last breath, Derek. And I stayed with you, in that room, while you wept over me. I waited until I knew you were strong enough to stand and leave the room. And Nick came to you. He held you in his arms. Washed a little of the pain away.”

  I couldn’t break away from her. My eyes were riveted to the door. She couldn’t be speaking the truth. How could she have died if she was right here next to me?

  “You’re afraid of looking into that room because you know who’s lying in that bed.” Aunt Fran’s voice was putting me in a trance.

  “Of course I know.” My voice faltered. “David.” The walls were receding. The hall seemed to be stretching. I was dehydrated or hungry. Probably needed to sit down. To rest.

  “David isn’t in that bed, my darling.” Aunt Fran pressed her red lips to my
ear. “You are. You’re in a coma, Derek. And Nick has been sitting by your bed for the last five days, begging you to open your eyes.”

  I tore my eyes away from the door and looked at her. “I’m dreaming. You’re not real.”

  “Derek.” She pinched my arm. Hard, too.

  “Ouch.” I snatched my arm away and gave her a cold look.

  “Enough. Come with me.” She pulled on my elbow. “Now. There’s someone here to see you. He hasn’t much time. This traveling thing is not as easy as you think. We’ve got to hurry before he’s ordered to return to Nick’s side.”

  “Who? What are you—”

  “Just follow me. Right into this room.” She led me away, to a room a few doors down. Where were the nurses and doctors and patients and visitors? “Go ahead,” she urged me. “Step inside. He’s waiting.”

  I hesitated, lingering by the door.

  “Derek…We can’t waste any more time. It’s over. Get in there. That was the deal.”

  I shut my eyes, my mind reeling with fragmented thoughts or memories I wasn’t sure were mine. Aunt Fran pushed the door open for me and then stepped aside, gesturing for me to enter. Her eyes were stern and I knew we’d have a fight if I didn’t obey her. When I took the first step, there was a loud noise, right inside my head, and I tasted metal on my tongue. Weak and scared, I stepped into the white room. There weren’t any walls in this room and yet I felt enclosed.

  “I’ll see you soon, Derek.” Aunt Fran was no longer in the room.

  A dark-haired man stood with his back to me. He was tall, narrow-hipped—clad in a beautiful white suit.

  I heard the door being shut behind me and glanced over my shoulder. But there was nothing there. My heart beat so fast and hard, I could hear my blood pounding through me. I’d been in this room, this dream, before. I’d spoken with Aunt Fran then. I’d…made a pact with her.

  But what was it?

  “You wanted—needed—to go back to that winter.” Why did this man speak with David’s voice? “She gave you that gift. You used it very well, I have to say.” He still wouldn’t face me. “I’m impressed. You have a wild imagination.” At last, the man slowly turned around. “Hi, Lucky.”

  My breath hitched and I froze, wide-eyed. How could this be? This man was David. But he wasn’t seventeen.

  “I’m twenty-nine.” His dark and furious eyes bore deep into mine. “I’m the age I was when I died.”

  “But you’re not—you’re—”

  “Yes, Lucky.” He spoke softly, walking to me. “I died.” He sighed, tipping his head. “In Vancouver. It was a beautiful morning. The sky was…like a blue dream.”

  I blinked. Stared at the white floor.

  “It was AIDS related, yes.” He now stood inches from me. I recognized his perfume. This was David. It was him. “There were cruise ships in English bay that day. If I lifted my head off the pillow, I could see one. Huge and white. Going places. South maybe. Or west. And I knew, or at least I hoped, that my travels were only beginning, that I could see the world now, all those places I’d dreamed about. All of those…marvels I’d only seen in those glossy books I collected.” David put his hands on my shoulders. He was real. I felt the weight of him. “Nick was there,” he whispered. “In my tiny, eccentric apartment by the waterfront. I’d tried to hide the truth of my rapid decline from him, but my brother Sebastian managed to reach him. You see, Nick was on some hiking adventure up a Grouse Mountain—that was our spot, you know. He used to take me there whenever I was feeling down. Which was often in the last year. And anyway, when Nick found out, he hurried back and moved in with me. I had him all to myself for four long days and nights. Then…I died.”

  I looked into David’s black eyes.

  “I’d spent so many years chasing him. Waiting for him in train stations and airports. He was always running after something. Going from ship to ship, resort to resort, restaurant to restaurant, learning, improving, searching for the best in him and always coming up a little short. And I’d hate him while he was away and fall in love with him all over again the moment I heard he’d blown back into town. But whatever happened or didn’t happened between us, I knew in my heart that he loved me, in his own way.” David’s eyes filled with tears. “That he would be the one at my side when the end came. Because he had been the one to awaken me to life. When we were both kids. Young teenagers. He’d been the one.”

  I stared at him through my own tears.

  “He was there when I left my body. When I followed something on the air, a scent, a trace of happiness, a voice beckoning. I followed it down to the harbor. Followed it until I was so unhinged, so blessedly pain-free, satisfied, content. The need was gone. That wretched need which had haunted me all my life, that longing that had hollowed me out and caused me so much sorrow. It was gone. I was fed. Fed with something so exquisite, it closed every hole in my being.” He briefly shut his eyes and wiped at them. “But I left him there. In my room. Sitting with my stiff hand in his fingers. Sitting there crying over my young old body covered in purple lesions.”

  “David.” I couldn’t take it. Couldn’t hear this. “We danced together. To that song. ‘Purple Rain.’ Don’t you remember?”

  “Oh, Lucky, you were a child of eleven when I knew you, and even then, I didn’t know you really. But when Nick and I left that winter, you were devastated. And I’m sorry. I never understood how much you needed him. How alone you were. But you see, I needed him, too.”

  “And you had him. You took him from me.” Ashamed of my words, I shrunk back, holding myself. This wasn’t a man speaking. This was the little boy Nick and David had left behind that winter of 1988.

  “The story, our story, has already been told.” David gave me a tender look. “And now, you need to go back to it and resume your part. You can’t wallow in your mind forever.” He reached for my hands, taking them inside his. “Look at me.”

  “Are you really dead?” I asked gently. A memory, vague, yet painful, came floating around the edge of my mind. “I used to stand in the hall by Nick’s door when you were in his room. Used to eavesdrop on you two. And I heard you once. Heard you…. Were you lovers?” I squeezed his hands. “Please…just tell me.”

  “Yes…on and off. But never, as completely and wholly as I prayed and sometimes begged for.” There was a sharp pain in David’s eyes. “Then by the time Nick understood that he was…bisexual, well, I’d become ill and couldn’t take that risk.”

  “He’s so haunted by you. Still.” I was remembering, my life coming back to me in still frames. “Sometimes he calls your name in a dream. And it hurts.” I’d never said it until now. Never admitted it, even to myself. “It hurts because I don’t know who you were to him. What he misses the most. Nick never wanted to speak of that whole part of his life. Always…kept me out of it.”

  “And that was his grave mistake. By not telling you anything about me, about what we were to each other, you were left to fill in the details for yourself.”

  “I’m so ashamed. I’m jealous of a dead man.”

  “No, Lucky, you were never jealous of me. You were jealous of the space I held inside Nick’s soul.” He took my face in his hands. “But now I’m going to tell you something and you’re going to listen to me very carefully. When I died that morning, something inside Nick died as well. No, he was never the same. And that’s what you see in his blue eyes, sometimes, when you catch him staring out into space. That darkness. That place he shuts himself into when he’s been given good news. It’s always when he’s the happiest that it hurts the most. Because I died so young and he lived on. Because he will never forgive or forget that injustice. That anger fuels him and it is what makes him so brash at times. So selfish. You see, everything he does, he does it twice. Once for him and another time for me. But always all at once and always standing on the line between joy and pain.”

  “That’s a terrible existence. I can’t accept that for him.”

  “He enjoyed the suffering. It made
him strong. You couldn’t touch it. It was his beast and he had it chained, locked up, ready to pounce.”

  “But I love him and when he suffers, I suffer. Do you understand? I can’t just—”

  “No…Listen.” David brushed my hair back. “That was then. But things are going to change now. Now you’ve given him a hurt greater than the beast he’d caged. And it slayed it. There’s nothing left of that suffering. The threat of losing you wiped it out.”

  I frowned, thinking over his words.

  “While you were lying there in that coma, Nick made peace with his part in our story. His heart is clean. He understood that I was always going to die young. And it wasn’t his fault. That’s why we call it a tragedy.”

  “Were you ever happy, David? Did you ever swim in that big blue pool in your backyard? Did you ever have a moment of peace?”

  His eyes were so loving and full of grace. “Never while I was alive, my little Lucky.”

  “Why did you have to suffer so much? That’s what kills Nick. Don’t you know? And it tortures me, too.” I wiped my eyes, my nose. “I wish I could have been your friend. And not in some bloody coma-induced dream. But you real friend. I would have—I would have loved you, Davie. Would have tried to make your life bearable. And you could have taken me to Vancouver with you, instead of Nick. I wouldn’t have left you waiting in train stations and airports. I would have been your…lover, if you’d wanted me.”

  “And what of Nick then?” David smiled. “You see, Lucky, one of us always ends up alone.”

  I sniffled and took a few breaths. I could feel time running out. “And if I stay here? I go back into that hallway and Nick tells me that you woke up, and then after you’ve recovered, we leave together, all three of us, and go to Vancouver. Nick becomes a chef. You become a professional dancer. And I become an accountant. We live together. Nick cooks. You decorate. I budget.”

  David laughed quietly, shaking his head. “Tempting.” Then his expression turned somber. “And meanwhile, the man we both love…dies of a broken heart.”