A Mid-Winter's Tale
Ivo left the hospital on Christmas Eve. I imagine the medical staff felt they were doing him a great favor – allowing him out to be with his family for the holidays.
Danny had been buried almost two weeks before in his home town, the place where he had neither family nor friends. Ivo was still in a coma then. Isabel attended in his stead. She'd arranged it all – the headstone with the little angel to watch over him, the service, the announcements in the papers. Isabel's exactly like her brother; she is incredibly level-headed and thorough in a crisis.
Danny wasn't popular. Few people came to the funeral; his own father had died the year before and most of the students who knew him were already gone for the holidays. Even Ivo's colleagues (who should have come out of respect for him) stayed away. Everyone knew what had happened. Everyone knew the most poorly-kept secret in town, that Ivo and Danny were lovers. It was tragic but something they steered clear of. Isabel didn't tell Ivo that.
Martin came. He even stayed with Ivo in the hospital for a few days before returning to England.
Ivo didn't want to go back to Wolfville. He didn't ever want to see the house again – that place where Danny had been brutally wrenched from his life. He intended to resign his position at the university though he had no idea where he would go or what he might do. He didn't care where he went. He didn't care what he did. He didn't want to do anything. He didn't want to live anymore.
How could he live without Danny? What was the point?
He was still too weak to travel to Vancouver so they spent the holiday in a small dark hotel room in Halifax. Ivo didn't speak at all. He just sat and stared at the grey sea day after day. All around him the city was boisterously making merry – windows and trees decorated with pretty tinsel and popcorn and colored lights to set the stage for the festivities; sumptuous dishes prepared in every kitchen for the arrival of extended family and friends; the faithful flocking to churches to lend their voices to the joyous celebration that spilled out onto the streets and carried the revelry to others on that happiest of days.
How surreal it all must have been – watching the world rejoice while he mourned. How embittering to watch life go on when your own has suddenly ground to a halt. How utterly disconnected dislocated he must have felt. I understood Ivo better the day Isabel told me this mid-winter's tale, understood his scorn for frivolity and what he considered the facile nature of man. Like Danny, he had become an outsider, separated from the rest of mankind by circumstances beyond his control.