1
The bedsheet next to me is cold, absent is my lover.
“Giovanni?” I murmur, throat roughened by sleep. Squinting in the dark, I roll over and sweep the room to find him kneeling on the rug in front of our family portrait. Naked, bathed only in moonlight, he stares up at his beloved Master. The glow falling on his golden hair is the same that illuminates the oil painting. He must have angled the easel for the light to shine on my brother’s face, his features sharp but not yet gaunt from illness. Stately and severe, Valentin surveys the bedroom that used to belong to him, taking in the condition of his villa and his boy.
Not just his boy, hisschiavo.
“I didn’t mean to wake you, Sir,” Giovanni says, still gazing at the portrait as if hypnotized. The artist was masterful in capturing our moods. Heavy strokes, somber too. A nude Giovanni rests his head in Valentin’s lap while my brother pets his hair. The look on the boy’s face is blissful, content, an expression I’ve not seen since my brother passed away months ago. Valentin’s eyes are guarded but knowing. He alone holds the keys to the locked doors of Giovanni’s heart. I stand behind them both as an afterthought, a late addition to their intimacy. Perhaps even an intruder. I feel that way now, disrupting this late-night communion. I never know when to tighten the reins or when to loosen them. Perhaps I should let go completely.
“Have you slept?” I ask him.
“No, not really.”
I don’t like it when he wanders. I prefer him tucked in right beside me where I can hold him close and know that he’s safe.
“Come to bed, Giovanni.”
“A few more minutes, Sir? Please?” His voice is thick—he’s been crying. Should I go to him or stay back? Demand his obedience or give him space to grieve? What is best for him? What can my heart endure?
Valentin would know what to do.
“Giovanni,” I say, firm this time. Reluctantly, he tears his eyes away from his Master, stands in a soft wash of white, and makes his way over to the bed. He’s too thin, a mere shadow of himself. He’s been losing weight ever since Valentin stopped eating solid foods, as if mirroring his Master’s decline. The prominence of his bones is a glaring reminder of my lesser care. Valentin has left me everything—his fortune, his villa, hisschiavo. But what Giovanni and I have is fragile.
I hold the covers open for him to slip inside, and he presses his cold body forcefully against mine as if knowing how tenuous the thread is that connects us. I wrap my arms around him to offer him my warmth, at least.
“It’s okay to miss him,” I say to acknowledge the loss, both his and mine.
He nods and lowers his head so that I can’t see his face.
“Please do not hide from me.” I tap his chin, and he lifts his gaze, showing me his sorrow and his pain, a deep longing for what once was. It is a morbid, selfish thought that comes to me then.I hope he grieves for me the same one day.
“I miss him too, Gio. It’s not the same, but I do miss him.”
He blinks, wetness gathering like droplets of ink on his long lashes. “Thank you for understanding. And for being here, for not leaving me alone…”
He buries his face in my chest, and I inhale deeply the scent of his hair. He chokes out a broken sob, and I grip him tighter with a kind of wild desperation while my brother stares down at me from his noble throne. I imagine him grimacing and shaking his head slightly, a slip in his stoic expression as if trying not to let his disapproval show.
You are failing him,my brother says.
He is right.
Giovanni is not eating.He moves his fork around the plate to make it look like he’s participating in the meal without putting any of the food into his mouth. To be polite. To go unnoticed. It’s aggravating and it worries me. He is fading before my very eyes, becoming more ghostly and gaunt with each passing day. Following his Master to the grave, even though I’m sure that is the last thing Valentin would want. I wish I could physically drag Giovanni back to the living, slap him until his cheeks are pink and he’s woken from this grievous stupor.
But you’re not supposed to do that to depressed people. I’ve tried to be understanding, to be patient, but it’s a struggle, and it’s not working. If there were an endpoint in sight, perhaps I could hold on, but I cannot stand by while he slowly starves himself to death.
While I watch Giovanni from across the table, Ma and Anthony carry on a conversation about some local feud between two brothers who own the same deli and can’t agree on where to purchase their meat.
“They may have to open a second store just to settle it,” Anthony says. “Or buy the other one out.”
“Che brutto,” Ma says.That’s ugly.“It shouldn’t be like this. They are acting like children.”
“I think they should let the customers decide,” Anthony says and takes a big bite of Ma’s baked ziti. “I’d be up for taste-testing.”
I got Ma an apartment in town so she can be closer to her church friends and social activities, but she stays here with Giovanni when I must go to Napoli for work. I’ve been doing as much as I can remotely to limit my time away. I’d like to bring Gio with me, but he’s reluctant to leave the property. Valentin is buried here, and Giovanni visits his gravesite every day. He rarely goes into town, not even for church, and he hasn’t played a gig since before my brother needed intensive care. Even around here, there is no music to be heard. Giovanni says he doesn’t feel like playing, but there is the unspoken part of it,not without my Master.
To combat his self-imposed isolation, I’ve revived our Fortuna family dinners. They were a tradition in our household when we were growing up. No matter how busy my father was, or myself when I got older, Sunday night was for family. Even after I’d come out as gay to my mother at 23 years old, she expected me to be there for Sunday dinner. To me, it meant nothing had changed. Family was family. And we both need family right now.
“Why aren’t you eating?” I ask Giovanni from across the table. It comes out louder than I expected. Conversation dies.
