“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.Wemust.”
“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’reprepared. 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.
