Chapter Twenty-Five A Suggestion
Arriving back in London late on Sunday evening Danny found Luis reading in his chair.
All the lights were off except for an antique floor lamp – discovered in an auction, formerly from a department store.
The unusual bronze stand branched around the bulb in the vague approximation of a heart.
If it had been deliberate, it would’ve been tacky, but the impression was an accident of the design and Danny didn’t even mention his observation to Luis for fear the sentimentality might spook him.
During the long British winters Luis read under it most evenings, making it one of Danny’s most successful gifts and seeing Luis under it gave him a misjudged burst of confidence.
‘I have a suggestion,’ Danny said, before hello.
Luis placed his book on his knees, taking off his reading glasses, observing Danny’s energies were elevated, as though he had bounded up the stairs, eager to share urgent news.
They had been messaging throughout the weekend so Luis was aware that the visit had gone better than expected and that Danny’s parents not only wanted to attend the wedding but also wished to meet beforehand, proof of a wedding’s healing power.
There was an idea that Danny had held back from discussing on the phone, wanting to say it face to face and he blurted it out before he lost courage.
‘On the train back to London I was thinking maybe you should do the same. Return to Spain. Speak to your mother and your father. Invite them to our wedding. I’m happy to travel with you. I just thought, why not? I learned so much. This is a chance to—’
Luis closed his book with a snap, cutting Danny off. He stood up, moving out of the light and into the darkness.
Belatedly, Danny realized that he should have taken a few moments to better assess his partner’s frame of mind – to ask how he was, how his weekend in London had been.
Luis’s parents had always been off-limits.
A third rail in their relationship. Trying to backtrack, Danny said, ‘Luis, it was just an idea. If you don’t want to go to Cádiz, that’s your decision.
I respect that. If you don’t want to speak to your mother or your father, I understand. I was scared too.’
When Luis replied his voice was clipped and cool. Danny was unable to see Luis’s face.
‘Do you know who you sound like when you talk about marriage? A convert who’s found religion late in life.
Not only is marriage the answer to all your problems, it’s also the answer to all my problems – it’s the answer to every problem.
Tell me. What happens if we follow every convention? What do you win?’
Danny said, trying to make peace, ‘I win you.’
But Luis rejected this as glib.
‘You already have me. You have all of me.’
The pent-up frustrations from the past few months broke loose as Danny answered.
‘Do I? Because it seems like you’re on the sidelines, watching me arrange everything, as if this wedding were only for me.’
Without missing a beat, Luis said, ‘This wedding is only for you.’
The two men were silent for a time. Their most serious arguments were often the quietest. Luis hadn’t intended to talk to Danny in this way, but perhaps this was the only way, provoked unexpectedly, the honesty of a reflex response.
Trying to pull his thoughts into a calmer and more coherent argument, Luis said, ‘Danny, we live together, travel together, eat together and sleep together. The truth is that we’ve done everything together except for this marriage.
Which you’re doing on your own, for reasons of your own. ’
Misinterpreting this as an olive branch Danny moved closer.
‘So be more involved. Luis, that’s what I want. More than anything, I want you to be a bigger part of it.’
Luis shook his head.
‘I can’t be.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s not a wedding. It’s a midlife crisis.’
Danny realized he was holding his breath.
Luis explained, ‘These past few months have felt manic. You haven’t been sleeping.
You wake at four in the morning to write save-the-date cards.
And if even a single letter is crooked, you rip the card up.
You spent all your savings on an engagement ring.
At the engagement party you were jumping off tables and shouting at strangers in the street.
And I’ve been waiting for it to settle down, but it’s only become more intense. ’
Danny closed his eyes. He had experienced events like this before – a rip in his reality. Such as the night he realized that he was homeless. Marriage had been a kind of madness. He had done a great deal of talking these past few months. It was time to listen. Luis’s voice began to waver.
‘It doesn’t feel like a celebration of our life together. It feels like a test. Am I as excited as you? Am I laughing as much? Changing as much? I would prefer if you just said – I’m not enough for you anymore.’
Luis put down his book and turned to the window.
‘When you proposed, in the Highlands, the first thought that came into my head was not that you wanted to marry me. But that you were breaking up with me. And because that idea is so painful you couldn’t say it with those words so you said it with the question – will you marry me?’
Danny broke his habit of rushing to speak and took a moment to plan his reply.
‘Luis, I can’t imagine my life without you. This marriage is because I love you.’
Luis stepped close, placing a hand on Danny’s arm, the first moment of contact during their exchange.
‘I know that you love me. There isn’t a day where I doubt it. That’s not what we’re discussing. We’re discussing whether this is the beginning of something. Or the end of it. Is this a marriage? Or a midlife crisis?’
Unsteady on his feet, Danny took a seat in Luis’s reading chair, as if it might better help him understand.
‘I admit that I’ve been a lot to deal with these past few months.
Too intense. I don’t know why marriage has become so important to me.
I want our relationship to be recognized.
I want it to exist in law. I want anniversaries, a photograph on the mantel, honeymoon stories.
All the sentimental stuff that I mocked and ridiculed, I want it. ’
Luis nodded.
‘Because you feel something is missing. But it’s not a honeymoon or an engagement ring or even a wedding. In your head you’ve searched for what it might be, and you’ve decided it’s marriage, but what if marriage is a stand-in for something else?’
Danny asked, ‘Like what?’
Luis replied, ‘Whether you want us to be the only love story in your life.’
Danny understood he was being asked to peer deep inside their relationship and tell Luis the truth. He stood up.
‘Luis, part of you is still in the closet. You’ve outsourced being gay to me.
You’re still the insider. Without me by your side, who would know?
And that’s how you like it. It’s not that you’re not out enough.
You’re not us enough. When I asked you to marry me, I was asking you to wear our relationship all the time, not just when we’re together – not just when you clock off. Even when we’re apart.’
As he was trained to do, Luis reduced the marriage to a motive.
‘You were sad in the summer. And out of that sadness came this proposal. You asked a question, but the question was not will I marry you. The question was – will the next twenty years be like the last twenty years. And you’ve already decided that they can’t be the same.
You’ve been presenting this marriage as a way to repair the past. Except the truth is – it might be your way of escaping the future. ’
Plotting a potential path out, Danny said, ‘Couldn’t this be a marriage and a midlife crisis? We both have a breakdown. We pick up the pieces. We build something new.’
But Luis said nothing.
Danny asked, ‘Are you leaving me?’
Luis raised his hands.
‘That’s the question I’ve been asking for months. Are you leaving me?’