SPOILERS!
SPOILERS!
SPOILERS!
SPOILERS!
SPOILERS!
SPOILERS!
SPOILERS!
AN: If you are reading Shells, be warned that this drabble contains spoilers, in particular Danny!
Danny Reyes appears courtesy of Carlos Pedraza and Judas Kiss.
The Book of Daniel
Surely there could have been no better setting for my conversation with Isabel. I thought to myself that Danny would have loved it. The rain came hard and heavy and the lights in the cottage flickered off and on with the wind's every violent exhalation. It was as close to a hurricane as the island had ever experienced. If I believed in ghosts, I would have believed him there with us. I envisioned him in a frenzy, trying to break out of the shadow lands and come back, make himself heard one last time.
We were alone in the house. Ivo and Kit had gone to move the boat in, racing to beat the storm. The opportunity had landed in my lap like a gift from Heaven. She sat on the day bed, eyes firmly fixed on her wine glass; I at her feet, eyes firmly fixed on her. The weather intensified our emotions, leaving us both a bit unhinged. I wasn't about to let her get away.
"Tell me," I commanded, sensing that she was weakening.
She sighed, eyes closing shut. "Ivo will be angry. He doesn't want you to know anything about it."
"I already know a great deal," I pointed out.
"Yes. But you aren't supposed to." I was suddenly aware she had aged that night, she had the same world-weary look that had long haunted Ivo. "It was all so long ago, Tim."
"Did he kill himself?" It seemed logical to me that he had. It explained so much - about Ivo. About me. About his reaction to what I did.
"What - ? Why would you - ?" She was momentarily at a loss. And then, "No," she shook her head firmly. "No. Danny was killed. As Ivo almost was."
I waited for her to continue, holding my breath in anticipation of the information. After nearly a year, the moment had finally come.
"They were coming home. From a party, I think. Ivo never told me exactly. Most of that night was pieced together at the trial. Things the boys said. They contradicted one another some of the time. I think they just weren't really aware of what was going on. They were high and looking for trouble. But it was near the house. They were walking home. Wolfville is so small. You could walk from Acadia to their house. And they were close. Close enough that they could have gotten in and escaped. If Danny hadn't - " She took a drag of her cigarette, exhaled loudly, and began again.
"There were three of them waiting on the foot path. I don't know if they actually knew that they would be coming. They claimed they didn't but one of them had told his girlfriend he was going to rough them up. So they must have known something. The prosecutor couldn't make the pre-meditated charge stick. There was just no way to prove it.
"Once Danny's film was released, everyone knew that he was gay. And that Ivo was, since they were together. I suppose people just ignored it before then - thought of them as inseparable friends or some such. But after the film -
"There was some unpleasant talk going round – not permitting faggots on the faculty, that sort of thing. Somebody wrote something on Danny's car. Ivo said it would die down eventually. He'd seen it all before. He knew how to keep his head down and steer clear of trouble. But Danny didn't. He was a fighter through and through. He wanted to confront them.
"I don't know what Danny said to them that night. But that's what started it. Ivo begged him to go inside but he turned and walked across the street to them. He was drunk and belligerent. Ivo followed to try and reason with him, with all of them.
"The attack came in two waves. It took a long time. Longer than for most victims, the police said. He was alive for an hour or more. They left for a bit but came back to be sure they had finished him off. And nobody called for help. Not until later. They were their neighbors and they didn't help." She shook her head in disbelief. "Nobody called the police.
"Ivo was unconscious through most of it. He remembers seeing Danny on the ground, the boys circling him, kicking him. He was terrified but rushed to his aid. The first strike he delivered broke his wrist. He fell to the ground in agony. He said that that was the only thing that saved him – his breaking his own hand. He was screaming from the pain. They kicked him some but he was too pitiful. Danny was their target. Because he kept getting up. He kept coming at them, shouting at them.
"I spent months imaging how it must have happened. How Danny provoked them. 'You assholes!' he'd have said. But maybe it was just the fact that he kept fighting. They left for a while. Ivo was already unconscious and couldn't help him. Maybe they heard something and that's why they went away before coming back.
"Why did they come back?" She clutched her forehead and rocked back and forth in agonized grief. I knew she was crying. "Why did they come back? He might have lived…" It was a long moment before she could continue.
"They showed me a photo of him. I couldn't even recognize him. " And here her voice broke. "They beat him so badly, I couldn't even tell it was him. At first it was like I wasn't even part of it, I was just standing on the outside looking at the body. I didn't even register what was happening. And then one thing after another, and I understood that he was dead.
"They showed me his ring. It was the one Ivo had given him. He'd gotten it in Egypt a few years before. It was his favourite, and he gave it to Danny.
"Then we went to the morgue. The only thing I recognized was his hair. It was always a mess. I'd know that hair anywhere." She laughed ruefully. "Ivo said he needed to invest time in personal grooming, but Danny liked it that way. It was his signature, like wearing his shirt tails out when he was in a tux for opening night. He had a chip on his shoulder from growing up poor, Ivo said. He wanted to tell society to fuck off. Danny's hair..." She smiled at the memory before continuing. "His face –" she shuddered. "He was so swollen, I couldn't even make out the features. They told me later that every bone in his face had been broken, his skull shattered with blows from the baseball bat. They hit him other places but they wanted to destroy his face. They couldn't stand the sight of it.
"I had a maternal instinct – I wanted to kill them, the boys who had done this to him. If they'd been there, if I'd seen them before the arrest, I would have killed them. And they deserve to die, for what they did to him. His beautiful face…" She drew a shaky breath and reached for another cigarette. I lit it for her, not trusting her hands to contain the flame. "I wanted to take him in my arms and nurse him back to health. I wanted him to be well. For Ivo. That was my next thought. My first was to kill those boys, those killers. My next was to protect Ivo.
"Ivo had been awake for only a few hours when I told him. He woke up and he remembered everything. The doctors said it was unusual that he didn't have some sort of amnesia. I could see how desperate he was – to know Danny was okay. I thought about lying to him. But he knows me too well. So I told him. Not even in words. I looked at him and I could see the hope in his eyes. And I shook my head. And he collapsed. Silently. He never made a sound. Like a huge weight was crushing him. After that, he never looked the same to me again. It was as if that moment broke him completely. He never wanted to live again. He just climbed inside his shell and stopped talking to any of us. I never thought he would be able to feel anything for anyone again.
"Until you." She absentmindedly ground her full cigarette in the ashtray – anger or fear? She was still shaking. "When he met you, he was Ivo again. Hopelessly in love. Hopeful." She laughed but it sounded off to me. "He'd send me letters. He was so happy, so totally in love, and so terribly afraid. You were so young. Like Danny. He was afraid you might get hurt being with him."
"Did he love me because I was like Danny?" It was what I feared the most.
"God, no," she laughed loudly, "I think he loved you because you were nothing like Danny. He thought he might actually have a chance with you."
"But - " I hesitated. "I'm… I'm nothing like him. Ivo. He's so educated and - " I felt dismay fill me again. "I'm not."
"You're young." She laughed again, and she sounded amused this time. "I can assure you Ivo was hardly the erudite professor at your age. He was hanging out in parks and toilets in London having sex and weeping to me about his lack of a proper love life. He flunked out of university and was working as an usher at the theatre, mostly so he could pick up boys. And then he was unemployed for a long spell. He slept on my couch for about three months. That's why he went back to school. Father agreed to support him if he did something with his life. Though why he chose paleontology - " she shook her head. "Sometimes I think he did it just to be a pig. Sort of 'Fine, I will cooperate but I will choose something so arcane, I shall never be employed.' Father was furious about it later. He never did understand him. He never could accept him, even after he became successful."
I realized I knew nothing about his family. "Is that why he doesn't see them?"
"Mother died last year. She's the one who had the most trouble with it anyway. She hated Kit as well." She laughed again. "I suspect Father would like to see Ivo. He asks about him every time he writes. I would have mentioned it but - "
But Ivo was busy worrying about me. She didn't need to speak that part aloud. I already knew it.
"I didn't know," I said quietly. In fact, I knew nothing about Ivo. I knew Isabel because he had sent her to spy on me. And I knew Danny by accident. "Why did you come to Juneau?" I'd wanted to ask that for a long time and it seemed the night for confessions.
"Ivo was worried about leaving you alone. You were so young and impetuous and it's a rough town. I knew it from all the times I'd been there with him. He thought I might be an escort for you. Keep you entertained and out of trouble," she shrugged apologetically.
"Keep me out of trouble," I repeated bitterly. Yes, that sounded like something Ivo would say. I was torn between feeling angry over his controlling ways and feeling sorry for what had happened to him. And Danny. In the end I arrived at understanding. He was only trying to protect me.
"I always felt so inferior around him," I confessed. "I hated going anywhere with him. We were fine at home but he was so different in public. I thought he was ashamed of me." I would have said more but her utter astonishment made her choke.
"Ashamed? He was prouder of you than anything else in his life. He couldn't wait for me to meet you. He spent so much time singing your praises. When he called to ask me to keep an eye on you, I warned him I might fall in love with you myself." She laughed again. And the she sobered, because of course I had fallen in love with her. Or thought I had. "I confess I did wonder if you were like Danny. I thought maybe that was what he saw in you. But as soon as I met you, I knew that wasn't the case."
"You loved Danny?" I could feel the poison of envy seeping into me.
"Very much," she said quietly. And then she bent down to kiss my forehead. "But I love you even more. Because you are here with us now."
That silenced me. I sat for a moment before deciding that what I felt was something near contentment. Isabel loved me and Ivo loved me. That was more than I had ever had in life.