Page 18 of Exquisite Things

On the street, a poet offers to write us a poem for twenty-five cents.

“Why, that’s the cost of three heads of lettuce,” Mother observes.

The poet brushes his beard away from his mouth with his dirty fingernails and asks if she believes a poem is worth more or less than three heads of lettuce.

Mother laughs and says poetry is priceless.

She pays him and he asks us a few questions about us before scribbling some words down on paper and placing them in an envelope that he seals with red wax.

He tells us not to read it in front of him.

His own words embarrass him. They’re meant to be read and heard by others, never by himself.

We meet fishermen who tell us of the lasting damage of the Portland Gale on their trade even two decades later. We meet an

actor who lives in Greenwich Village. He invites us to a show he’s a part of that evening that he warns us is quite experimental.

Mother wants to see the local church, and inside, we’re told that the church was turned into a hospital during the flu crisis,

and that all the town’s residents wore antiseptic cloth on their faces for the duration of the pandemic. We’re told this is

a community that cares for its members, and Mother says, “Care is what makes community.”

Every turn we take, people seem to talk to us. Perhaps this is just a friendlier place than the city. Or maybe it’s us, so

high-spirited here that people want to get to know us, this mother and son who wander the Cape together like giggly best friends.

As evening comes and we approach our hotel, I see a group of people laughing outside a theater, no doubt going to see the

experimental play we were told about. I ask Mother if she’d like to go, but she says she’s tired. “You should go,” she suggests.

“You’re young and your feet don’t hurt after a day of walking.”

I’m about to say I’m tired too, but then I make eye contact with one of the people outside the theater and realize it’s Edna.

She stands with a group of young women who all appear to be recent college graduates like her. I wonder if these are her Radcliffe

friends.

There’s a look of urgency on her face, which could simply be because she’s not sure whether to approach me when I’m with my mother.

“You know what?” I say to Mother. “I think I will see about getting a ticket. I can walk you to the inn first, though.”

“I’m a capable woman, son. I can get myself across the street, but you’re very sweet. And this time was very special to me.

A memory I’ll cherish forever.”

“Me too, Mom.” She flinches sadly. I realize I never call her Mom. Mother is formal. Mother is dutiful. This woman in front

of me is Mom. “You sure you’re okay?” I ask.

“I’m just too happy is all,” she confesses. “I’m not used to being this happy, and I suppose it’s made me realize that with

happiness comes the fear that you might lose it. Or the certainty that you will lose it. Because no earthly happiness lasts

forever. Soon, you’ll be at Harvard.”

“We don’t know that.”

“Well, some university. And then you’ll start your own life, as you should. A wife. Your own children. Life might take you

far from me. Another pandemic could come. A war could take you.”

I hold her tight. She’s never felt more human to me. It should go without saying that parents are humans, but it doesn’t always

feel that way. “Mother, I promise I’ll never leave you. I’ll go to school close to home. If life takes me far from Boston,

you’ll come with me. There will always be a room for you in our home.”

“Wait until the woman you marry hears those words. It will scare her right off.” She laughs off her fears and gives me a strong kiss on the cheek.

“I’m sorry I burdened you with my thoughts,” she says.

“A mother is meant to be a container for her children’s emotions, not the other way around.

Go to the theater. Enjoy our last night here before real life puts its lobster claws in us tomorrow.

” She turns her hands into claws and mock stabs me with them.

We laugh, but not as boisterously as we did earlier.

The moment has passed, ephemeral like a sunset.

Mother takes her shoes off and holds them in her hand as she crosses the street. She looks back at me from the other side.

Waves to me. I wave back as she disappears into the dark night.

I rush to Edna, who seems to be waiting for me. “What are you doing here?” I ask.

“What am I doing here?” she asks. “What are you doing here?”

“You’re like the Cheshire cat,” I say jokingly. “You seem to appear everywhere.”

“Or perhaps you’re like the Cheshire cat,” she says with a sad laugh. “I suppose it depends whose perspective we’re seeing things from.”

I laugh at the truth of this. “What play are you seeing?”

“I’m not sure.” She shrugs. “Some new young playwright now that Eugene O’Neill has become too big for us.” A worried look

crosses her face. She seems to search mine for similar concern. “Are you all right, Oliver?”

“Oh, Edna, I’ve never been better,” I confess. “I brought Mother here with the money I won, and you’ll never believe it, but

Shams showed up. He pretended not to know us, but we had the loveliest time. And she liked him. She genuinely liked him. And more importantly, or perhaps not, I don’t know... I like him. So much.”

“That’s wonderful,” she says sadly, like she doesn’t quite believe me. She feels different than before. There’s a layer of

defeat covering her like soot.

“And she was so wonderful today. We walked everywhere. We met everyone. What a town. I wish every day could be like this.” I hear the joy in my voice, and I love the way it sounds. Happiness suits me.

“You do know this has become a bit of a home for our kind of people?” she asks.

“The Cape?” I ask incredulously.

“No, just Provincetown,” she says.

“Really? Why? How?” I ask.

“Asking why and how is always tricky,” she says. “No question outside of mathematics ever has just one answer. It’s an arts

colony, and many of our people are artists, because we have repressed lives we need to find a way to communicate. Or perhaps

it’s simply because this is the very tip of the Cape, as far out as you can get. Land’s end, as they say. Makes sense we’d

want to get as far from what they call civilization as possible, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.” I look toward the water, but I can’t see it from here. Not in the darkness. “That makes sense. We don’t fit in anywhere

else, so of course we would find a place at the very edge of the world, where earth meets water, and say, This is us! This is where we belong! ” A few theatergoers look at me as they linger outside. “Oh gosh, sorry, I didn’t mean to deliver that like I’m onstage. Perhaps

it’s because I feel like a stage star. Like my life is big all of a sudden. I belong, Edna. We belong. Isn’t it grand?”

“You don’t know, do you?” she asks.

“Know what?” I search her face for a clue. All I find is grave sadness. Inside the theater, lights flash and everyone enters.

“You’ll miss the show,” I say.

“I don’t care about that. I care about you. And all your Harvard friends.” Some of her friends call out to her, and she tells them to go ahead without her. One of them, a beautiful woman with wild red hair, lingers longer than the others. This must be Edna’s love.

“My Harvard friends?” I ask. “Why? Life is a ball for them.”

“Oliver.” She hesitates before saying, “Cyril Wilcox killed himself.”

“No.” That’s the word that escapes my lips. No, this can’t be true. No, Edna is mistaken. Brendan would have told me.

“I’m sorry to be the messenger,” she says. “Were you close?”

“Close?” I echo. “No. But...” His birthday words come back to me. Be happy now. Why didn’t he take his own advice? “How did he...” I can’t even finish the words. They’re too painful to speak.

“They say he inhaled gas and his mother found him. Can you imagine? A mother finding her son dead like that....”

I feel my throat tighten. I can imagine it. I have imagined it. Throughout that whole dreadful pandemic, I prayed Liam and I would survive, more for Mother than for us. All

for her.

“She says it’s an accident, but of course we know.” She sighs sadly.

“What do we know?” I ask.

“We know that our kind end their lives too often and too young.” She looks in my eyes. “If you ever think of doing something

like that, you call me, and I’ll come talk you out of it.”

“I—I would never—” I can’t take the urgency of her in this moment. Minutes ago, I was the happiest I’d ever been. Time feels

like a fickle friend, teaching me not to trust its illusions. There’s no afterglow anymore. Just cold. “I have too much to

live for,” I say, as if trying to convince myself I don’t have an unrelenting sadness hiding in the deepest parts of me. Did

Cyril feel the same way? Always battling the gloom swirling through him like an incoming fog?

“I know you wouldn’t,” she says. “But if you ever feel alone—”

“Brendan!” I suddenly howl. “He must be so distraught. I haven’t visited him in so long. I’ve been so wrapped up in... my own life... I’ve been so selfish. So thoughtless.”

“You’ve done nothing wrong,” she says. “You have every right to wrap yourself up in joy.”

“Joy?” The word feels like a stranger to me now. Everything that made me happy just moments ago feels out of reach. Mother

and Shams, shaking hands over my heart. The ocean breeze. The salt in the air and on Shams’s lips when we kissed.

“Oliver, there’s something else,” she says gravely.

I can’t bring myself to look at her. Cyril is gone. Death is final. How can there be more?

“It seems that after the suicide, some letters were opened by Cyril’s brother from other Harvard boys. The letters were full

of details. Not the sort of details Harvard wants to hear about its future titans.” She takes a breath. I wait for more. “They’ve

convened some kind of tribunal of sorts. They’re questioning the boys one by one.”

“But—Brendan? Is he... Is he being questioned?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I assume he is.”

“How did this all happen so fast?” I ask, almost to myself.

“That’s how things happen,” she says sadly. “Slow at first, and then all of a sudden. Cyril died a little over two weeks ago,

and already—”

“ Two weeks? ” I croak. “But Brendan hasn’t been in touch. Why would he keep this from me?” My heart sinks. The better question is why

haven’t I gone to see him? Because I’m selfish. I’ve been too focused on my own petty problems and illusory joys.

“He’s probably trying to protect you,” she says firmly. “From Harvard and their secret court.”

“If it’s so secret, how do you know about it?” I ask.

“They called my friend Harry to be questioned. He was seeing Cyril romantically. Did you know him? He runs Café Dreyfuss.”

I vaguely remember the boys speaking of that place. It was another meeting place for boys like us. “They seem hell-bent on

putting an end not just to homosexual life at Harvard, but throughout Cambridge and Boston as well. And Harvard has the power

to do as they please.”

“But— Can’t we stop them somehow? Can’t we— Aren’t there laws?” I plead.

“Of course there are laws.” She puts a hand on my shoulder. “And they’re not designed to protect us. That’s why I fight so

hard for the future. Because I must. We must.”

“I can’t... I-I’m not a fighter.” A wrestler, yes. A fighter, no.

She lifts my chin up with her steady hand. “You may not think you are, but you’ll see someday. We don’t all fight the same

way. My favorite professor at Radcliffe told me that. She fought by educating young girls like me.”

I feel my emotions wrestling each other. Fear tries to pin sadness down. Rage drags anxiety across my body.

“Oliver, listen to me. If they call you in—”

“ME?! Why me?” I ask it in a reverent sob, like I’m asking God to spare me this pain. If I’m called in, Mother might be told.

And what of my future at Harvard? All this time, I’ve studied and worked and mastered the piano and become my school’s strongest

wrestler so I could possibly be granted a scholarship to an institution that wants me dead. One of their students just lost

his life, and their response is to investigate his friends. Why would I want to be there now? It’s all tainted. My dreams,

my world, my future.

“I don’t know if they will. But if they do, make sure you’re prepared. The other boys will surely be called first. They can tell you what to expect. Knowledge is power.”

“No, it’s not.” I look at her firmly. “I didn’t have any of this knowledge when I walked your way. And I felt so powerful.

Like I was floating. I want to go back.”

“You’ll float again,” she promises. “Time only marches forward. And so must we.” She wraps her arms around me as I cry.

Mother notices the change in my mood when we check out of the inn. I tell her it’s just the melancholy of a trip ending, and

she believes me. She seems just as sad to be leaving this magical place. Land’s end, where time seems to stop so we can actually

enjoy it before it starts speeding forward again. On the ferry back, she says, “Perhaps the only bright spot of never having

gone on a honeymoon is that I’ve never felt this particular sadness of ending a vacation before.”

“You and Father never went on a honeymoon?” I ask.

“At first, we couldn’t afford it,” she says. “And then Liam was born.” Once again, I wonder if Liam is the reason she married

him. I can’t help but think that’s the truth. “Time passed, as it tends to do. You were born. There was never time for travel.

Soon it was just forgotten. You can’t take a honeymoon years after you’re married, can you?” She’s held back by social conventions

once again. Boston is visible in the distance. The old rules and boundaries are back, more frightening than ever.

As we approach the house, I’m half expecting some sort of summons to appear from Harvard. What will it look like? Will Mother

open it first and ask what this could possibly be about? How many more days of freedom do I have?

There is no summons, though. No letter. Just a void filled with my fear.

Before we enter, Mother takes me in her arms and holds me tight. “This was better than any honeymoon,” she declares.

I want to tell her I love her. That I need her. But I’m afraid that if I speak, I’ll break down. So I say nothing. I just

hold her tight. My mother, as sturdy as the trunk of a tree that’s survived the coldest of seasons. And me... I’m a leaf

that wishes it could be blown away. To another place. Another time. Anywhere but here. Anything but this.