Page 24 of Exquisite Things

“Oliver?” I approach him slowly. He doesn’t turn to face me. I haven’t seen him in forty-three years. That was the average

human being’s life expectancy when I was born. It feels like a blip in time to me right now. The years without him seem to

disappear now that he’s here with me again. “Oliver. Please. Look at me. Talk to me.”

Finally he says: “I hate this.” His eyes are on the river. The water that by dusk will contain Lily’s ashes.

“I know. Lily’s gone. Our mother.”

That’s when he turns to me. I examine his unchanged face. Search for signs of warmth behind the smoldering rage. He doesn’t

bother wearing a veil. He lets his eyes burn for all to see.

“ Your mother. I loved Lily. You know that. But I had a mother. You took me from her.”

“Oliver, we discussed all this over a century ago.... You could have—”

“Could have what?” His eyes are scorching. I forgot what it’s like to be looked at with those feline eyes in these decades

without him.

He repeats a variation on the same words he spoke to me by the Charles River.

It was the first sunrise after I had transformed him.

He knew something had changed inside him.

I knew I had to tell him the truth. I thought he would thank me for making his wish come true.

That’s how naive I once was. How stupid.

What he said then was: Now I must tell Mother that not only am I a homosexual, but I’m also immortal?! This is the state where they burned women

at the stake. You think the same people who put our friends at Harvard through a secret trial will be kind to the woman who

birthed a freak like me?!

What he said then was: I promised myself I would never love someone like my father. And you’re just like him. Selfish. Mercurial. You take what you

want without a care for others.

What he said then was: I hate you. I’ll hate you forever.

His words came out like a waterfall back then. Now they’re more a gush of resentment as his aching voice plays the same sad

theme. “I never wanted this. Mother is gone. Brendan is gone. And now...” A lump in his throat. His voice cracks. “Now

Lily’s gone. Everybody I’ve ever loved is gone.”

“I’m here.” I pull him close. He sobs into my chest. Hot tears that warm my heart. “Look.” I pull a vintage Oreos tin from

my satchel bag.

“You think I’ll forgive you because of some hundred-year-old cookies?”

I laugh. “The tin is vintage. I found it online. The cookies are fresh.” I open the tin to reveal rows of Oreos. “We walk

until we finish them all, remember?”

“I hate you.”

“I love you.” I repeat those three words until his tears subside and his body relaxes. I know I made him this way without

his consent. I hate myself for it. I tried to justify what I did for years. I would remind myself that I had no idea if it

would even work until I burned that page. I couldn’t be sure the magic would work twice.

But I wanted to make him immortal like me. Of course I did.

My desire is my guilt.

He accused me then of being like his father.

I worry I’m like my own father. Greedy. Insatiable. Cruel. The thought sickens me.

“Why did you do this to me?”

“Because I love you.” I know that’s no reason. Love is everything. Love is also not enough. I lift my veil so he can see the

sincerity in my eyes. “And because I thought... You said that if we could live in another world, a better time—”

He pushes me away from him. “Over a century and your argument hasn’t changed one bit.”

“It’s not an argument. I know what I did was wrong. But at the time I thought... that you would thank me.”

“ Thank you? For cursing me?”

“For making your wish come true.”

“You and your silly fantasies. That’s what I thought it was when you asked me if I would choose to live in a different world

with you. A fantasy. It’s like if you asked someone if they want some superpower. Like the power of invisibility. Of course

they’ll say yes, yes, a million times yes, because they don’t think it’s a real option . They haven’t pondered what it truly means. Just like you didn’t think of the implications of what you did to me.”

“I know that.” I don’t dare say more. I know myself well enough. I’ll say the wrong thing.

“You didn’t have anyone you loved when this happened to you.” There’s a new cruelty in his voice as he says this.

“What?”

“You didn’t have to leave anyone. Your mother was dead. You despised your father. You had no other family. No friends. You didn’t stop to think of what it meant for me. Never seeing my mother again. My brother.”

I step closer to him. “You hated your brother!”

He backs away from me. “Everyone hates their sibling at some point. You robbed me of the chance to resolve our issues. My

nieces are both dead and I never met them. I don’t know their children. I have nothing. You took it all.”

“You’re right. I was never loved.” I pause. “Maybe I envied you. The love you had with your mother. It was so pure. Maybe

I did what I did because I wanted pure love so badly.”

“So you admit you were selfish?”

Of course I was selfish. Still am. Greedy for love. For a life of meaning. I know how much it hurt him to leave those he loved

behind. Brendan—believe it or not—was readmitted to Harvard two years later. Became a dean at the university. Lived and died

single. He never exposed what Harvard did. No one did. The secret court wasn’t discovered until 2002. There were two more

Harvard suicides after Cyril. Eugene Cummings checked himself into the university’s infirmary after being questioned by the

secret court. Took an overdose of medicine. Keith Smerage died by suicide in 1930 by inhaling gas. Just as Cyril once did.

I think of Keith often. He made it to New York City. Appeared to have a good life. Yet the ghosts of his past won in the end.

Edna remained a lifelong activist. She lived long enough to see the Daughters of Bilitis, the Mattachine Society, Stonewall.

Long enough to see homosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s list of mental illnesses. But she passed

before Harvey Milk was murdered. Before AIDS. I hope she died feeling hopeful about our collective future. Passed into the

next world feeling the sheer terror of optimism.

“Say something!” His lips curl defiantly. “You summon me back to London, and you can barely say a word to me?”

“I’m sorry.” I bite my lip. Keep my head down. Looking at him when he’s angry at me is too painful. “I’ve tried to grow. To

truly see myself. Which means accepting the unforgivable thing I did to you.” I take a deep breath of cold air. It feels like

the distant fog enters my body. Becomes one with my thoughts. “And yet, I beg your forgiveness. You forgave me once.”

“And I was proven wrong.”

“Were you? We were happy, weren’t we? Living with Lily and Maud. Dancing. Music. Brixton. The Blitz. Pearl’s. It was our time.”

“Until it wasn’t.” He closes his eyes. I wipe the tears from his cheeks. His skin still as youthful as ever.

“Until it wasn’t.” A melancholy echo. I know all too well what I put him through. The escape. The loss. The grief. The fear.

“Do you forgive yourself?” He’s never asked me this before.

“I do.” I can see he’s surprised by the answer. “It took time. It took Lily teaching me how. I know what I did was horrible.

I also know I did it because I want what we all want. Eternal love.”

“No one wants eternal love in a literal sense. Some in our own community don’t desire romance or sex at all. This need of

yours to put romantic love above all else... It’s delusional. I did love you. Perhaps I still do. But that doesn’t mean

I would choose you over my mother and my friends and family. Over being a human . What you gave me isn’t eternal love. It’s eternal... loneliness.”

“I know that now.” I let out a sob. “I’m so sorry, Oliver. If I could go back...”

“Do you still have the last page?”

I put my hand on my heart. Inside the chest pocket of my jacket is the only remaining page of Wilde’s original manuscript in my possession.

I pull it out. Hand it to him. He seems to contemplate throwing it into the Thames.

Drowning any possibility of cursing another poor soul.

But he puts it in his own pocket. “It’s safer with me. ”

“I agree. You’re certainly less impulsive than I am.” I shake my head sadly. “I’ve spent over a century thinking about what

I did. How it happened. Why I did it. How much I regret it. How to forgive myself for it. But—”

“But?”

A pain in my chest. My weary heart aches. “Is it too much to ask to make today about Lily? They’re probably leaving Queen’s

Walk right now. Headed to Brixton. Our home. We can trail them together.”

He hesitates. His love for Lily pours through him as he speaks these words reverently: “Today is for Lily.”

I open the tin again. “We walk until the cookies are gone?”

He takes a cookie reluctantly. I do too.

I say: “You look good.”

He laughs. “I look the same. As do you.”

“No, I meant... You look happy.”

He shrugs. “I’m ashamed to say this, but I’ve found a medication that works for me. Those melancholy spells are gone.”

“Oliver, there’s no shame in mental illness.”

He laughs again. “I’m not ashamed of my depression. I’m ashamed because the medicine is manufactured and distributed by Whitman

and Whitman.”

My heart sinks at the mention of that company.

Jack Whitman. The Jackal. His evil sneer comes back to me.

I feel the need to escape again. To move as fast as we can.

I take Oliver’s hand. Lead him across the bridge.

Down the steps. Just as we walked that first morning after I burned the page and made him immortal.

On that walk...

One hundred and five years ago...

I confessed.

He raged.

Begged me to reverse it.

I had no idea how.

Still don’t.

His biggest fear was how he would ever explain it to his mother. He never did tell her.

My biggest fear was never seeing him again. Not being able to find him. He wanted to know where I was too. He still loved

me. Despite his hatred of me.

We devised a system to let the other know where we were. Classified ads. Paid ads when the classified section got shut down.

I would refer to him as a classical musician. He would address me as a great poet. He told me he never wanted to see me again.

I said the entire reason I did what I did was to be with him in a better time and place. That’s when he said, and I remember

every word...

If you ever find that time and place, I’ll come to you. I promise.

I thought I found that time and place with Lily. Here in London.

And I was right.

Until I was wrong.