Page 132 of Whisper

Oh Beloved,

take away what I want.

Take away what I do.

Take away what I need.

Take away everything

that takes me from you.”

The officiant wilted. Kris, frozen, tried to come up with something, anything to say that could come near David’s love, near his intensity. He scraped his brain, but David’s vows kept repeating on an infinite loop, his love drowning everything else out.

Kris grabbed him and pulled them together, capturing David’s lips, kissing him with everything he had, every part of his being. David wrapped him up, held him close, and somewhere, they both heard the officiant exclaim, “I pronounce you married! Congratulations!”

There were claps from passersby who had stopped to watch, three walkers and a pair of old ladies. David buried his face in Kris’s neck as Kris waved, thanking them. The officiant shook their hands and snapped a few pictures, part of the package, and promised he’d email them as soon as he could.

“Husband,” Kris said, squeezing David’s hand.

“Husband,” David repeated. “Beloved.”

After two more days in Toronto, they flew back to DC. David had already started looking online at houses to buy, and he had a long list of homes ready to check out with a realtor. Buying a house seemed all the better after they returned to their cramped studio, which, shut in for a year without air or light, was covered in dust and musty with disuse.

On the third day, they found their home. Older, with a North Eastern style, it sat on a couple of acres within a dense woodland outside of Leesburg, Virginia. It was pure Americana, the kind of home from sitcoms and television shows. The backyard had a porch and a grill and a patio set, and miles of uninterrupted woodland views. From the moment they walked through the door, it was home. They both felt it, immediately.

“We’ll take it.”

The seller balked, at first, at a gay married couple purchasing their house. But when David offered to pay cash, they accepted. The house was already vacated, the previous couple already moved on to their new home on the West Coast.

Kris and David moved in ten days later.

For a month, they lived a dreamscape, a fantasy life their childhood selves might have once imagined, but pushed away as unattainable, too far-fetched. Happiness that pure, that distilled, wasn’t possible in their lives, they’d thought. Nowhere was there a future with a husband, a home, professional respect. Not for scrappy gay brown boys from the Lower East side, or for an exile separated from everything he’d once known. His home, his country, his family, his faith.

But how life curved and turned and twisted.

Happiness was waking up in their bed together, making love with the windows open and hearing the birds in the trees. David, baking breakfast, cinnamon rolls and French toast and mimosas. Eating together on the porch, walking hand in hand through the trees. David grilling as the sun set. Curling together in front of the fireplace until they were kissing, making love, flickering flames casting glowing light against their sweat-warmed skin. Day after day of perfection.

Kris called his mother, the first time he’d called her not on Christmas or Easter in almost a decade. She immediately, of course thought he was dying, that he had cancer and was in the hospital. “Mi chico, Dios mío, what is wrong? You’re in the hospital, you’re dying? You have cancer?Dios mío, what is it?”

“Mamá,Mamá!” He’d laughed at her. “Mamá, no.Mamá, I have a surprise for you.”

“Ay, I cannot take surprises. You know I do not like them. You know!”

“Mamá, I got married!”

Silence. “Ahhhh!” She’d cried, a blubber of Spanish and English and exclamations, happiness that blurred into noise over the scratchy call to Puerto Rico. “But,mi chico….” His mother had hesitated. “Mi chico, I thought you…”

“His name is David,Mamá. We have been together for five years. He’s the love of my life.” He couldn’t stop the happy sigh in his voice, the joy in his words.

“Cinco años? Ay, ay, mi chico! You are happy? This man, he makes you happy?”

“The happiest I’veeverbeen,Mamá.”

She’d clucked at him, telling him she was happy for him, that she kept praying for him every night, always praying for his happiness, his safety. She was happy her prayers had been answered, she said. “I just want you to be happy,mi chico. I love you so much. I couldn’t make you happy when you were little. I’m so sorry,mi cariño.”

“Mamá, you were great. I love you. I’ll always love you.”

“I love you,mi cariño. Tell David hello.”