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It’s not the Bar Mitzah any of them had had in mind. There’s no band playing, no decorations save a single vase of flowers and a few blue balloons placed strategically in front of the medical equipment Marvin doesn’t have names for and yet are unable to be ignored. Mendel lights a candle and its dim light can barely even be seen against the harsh fluorescent strip lighting constantly flickering above their heads. Cordelia produces container after container of food that none of them can even begin to stomach, except Charlotte who is sparing her love’s feelings more than anything else. Trina, brave, kind, composed Trina pours a bottle of good champagne, bought specially for the occasion, into plastic cups and passes them round with a careful smile.
No, it’s most definitely not the Bar Mitzvah any of them had in mind, and yet it is the Bar Mitzvah that happens. And for that, it couldn’t be more perfect. It doesn’t matter that Jason is the only one in a suit or that his kippah sits a little crooked. It doesn’t matter that it takes place in the love of his life’s hospital room or that the whole proceedings are set to a quiet but constant soundtrack of a heart monitor. Marvin is more grateful for the beeping of the heart monitor than he can say. It means that his love is still alive - how could he have a problem with that?
All that matters is that everyone Jason loves is there. His son, on the brink of becoming a man, is more mature than words can accurately express, and Marvin knows Jason wouldn’t have his special day any other way. A few short months ago, Jason was heard to describe his upcoming Bar Mitzvah as a celebration where he got presents. Now, there isn’t a present in sight, not one of the many young ladies he agonised over inviting has appeared, but Jason doesn’t care at all. All he wants and all he cares about is having all the people he loves there, so that’s all Marvin cares about too.
There’s Cordelia and Charlotte, who have ceased to be just next door neighbours or even friends, but are part of their strange little family unit, like the lesbian aunts they didn’t know Jason needed. Mendel, once Marvin’s psychiatrist, then Trina’s psychiatrist, then Jason’s psychiatrist, now Trina’s husband, now Jason’s stepfather. Ironically, Marvin would need a psychiatrist to help him work through exactly what his own relationship is with Mendel these days, but he’s grateful that he’s here for Jason and Trina. Trina. How she has managed to at least pretend she’s fine with all of this, Marvin can never even begin to understand, but there she is, decorating the hospital room, visiting nearly every day since this whole nightmare began, even though she has no obligation, none at all. Whatever has gone down between the pair of them in the past, he’s glad she is here. He sees her there, fussing with Jason’s tie, absently calling to Marvin to fix something else, like they still are that tight knit family, like the last few years have never happened, before Mendel, before Whizzer.
Oh, Whizzer. Thin, frail, broken, beautiful Whizzer who Jason wanted there most of all.
He seems to be both there, and not there, at the same time. He was standing up wen they entered, hands gripping tight to the end of the bed, knuckles gone white with the exertion. He’s unsteady on his feet and Marvin knows they need to get him sitting down before he falls down. It’s Mendel who gets there first, surprisingly gentle as he helps Whizzer sit down, helping him to perch on the edge of the bed even though they all know he really should be lying down, tucked up nice and warm beneath the covers. He appears grey against the snowy white sheets and the hat pulled low down his forehead, watching with a smile on his face. It looks strangely out of place on his pinched, drawn face, and it’s barely a shadow of how he used to smile, but he’s smiling and that’s what matters. And as Jason finishes his prayers in a clear, impossibly grown up voice, there he is, grabbing at Marvin’s arm with a surprisingly strong grip, pulling himself upright, his teeth gritted with the effort. Marvin is there to help him at once, an arm around his thin shoulders, helping him stand him on unsteady legs, Charlotte hovering worriedly on his other side.
It looks like he’s about to say something. Maybe well done, maybe thank you, maybe I’m so proud of you.
I love you, Jason.
They never find out.
Before he can get to Jason, before he can even put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, Whizzer falls, slipping away from Marvin’s grip and landing in a crumpled heap on the floor.
“Oh my God, Whizzer!”
In an instant, Marvin is back on the racquet ball court, the day Whizzer fell, the day this all started. Though they know now, of course, that it actually started weeks, maybe months earlier. But Marvin is there again, watching Whizzer fall as if in slow motion, yet helpless to stop or help. That day, he was filled with uncertainty, wondering just what the hell was going on. Back then, he’d still had that stubborn, unflinching hope that Whizzer just had the flu, some kind of virus, that he’d be fine after a few days of bedrest, that of course he hadn’t contracted the mysterious illness they’d only heard discussed in hushed, frightened tones. Whizzer had cried that day, the first time Marvin had even seen him cry, holding tight to him, burying his face in Marvin’s shirt, his whole body shaking with uncontrollable sobs. Whizzer had cried because Whizzer understood what was happening.
Marvin doesn’t have that same hope he once had now. He isn’t uncertain. He knows exactly what is going to happen.
He just doesn’t want to believe it.
As though someone else is operating his body, as though this is happening to anyone else in the world but him, Marvin gets a disconcertingly silent and pliant Whizzer back into bed with help from Mendel and Charlotte. He could have done it by himself. Whizzer has lost so much weight in the past few weeks and months that he is quite literally half the man he used to be. Still. It’s good to know Mendel and Charlotte are here for him. Here for them. It’s good to know.
Marvin steps into Trina’s waiting arms and feels Jason’s arms circle tightly round his waist. His tight knit family. He’s always wanted one. Little did he know that he had one all along. He only wishes it might have revealed itself under different circumstances.
He eventually pulls himself away, knowing where his place is and where he needs to be now, and meets Trina’s eyes. An unspoken sentiment passes between the two of them. They still know each other so well, even after everything that has happened and she knows exactly what she has to do.
“He’ll be fine,” she says brightly to Jason. “We just need to give him a minute.”
Mendel catches her eye across the room and, in an instant, he knows what must happen too.
“Come on, Jason,” he echoes.
Marvin watches Jason’s face contort into a frown, eyes darting between his father and his mother and his stepfather. He tries, in vain, to look for his other stepfather, as Marvin knows Jason would describe him, but he’s hidden from view. Marvin wills Jason not to argue back, not to ask clarification, not to ask why. He knows he wouldn’t be able to answer and he can’t make Trina or Mendel do it either.
To his eternal relief, however, Jason simply nods and holds on to him even tighter for an all too brief moment before breaking apart from him in a moment of what feels like unbelievable finality. Jason is gently, but firmly, ushered from the room with Trina and Mendel on either side of him, looking for all the world like a proud mother and father on the day of their son’s Bar Mitzvah. It’s only a little bit of a lie. Cordelia goes next, leaving with a brief squeeze of Marvin’s hand and a gentle hand on Whizzer’s cheek. Charlotte goes last, immediately back in her role as the doctor, despite taking the afternoon off for the festivities. She adjusts the machines round the bed, smoothing the crumpled sheets, checking the trailing IV lines, before seeming to realise that she must leave too. She doesn’t say anything as she exits the room but Marvin knows it all anyway.
This is it.
It’s time.
I’m so sorry, Marvin.
There’s nothing more we can do.
Something that kills. Something contagious. Something that spreads from one man to another.
“Marvin?”
And in that moment, nothing else in the world matters. Not a single thing.
“I’m here, Whizz,” he says hurriedly, rushing to the bedside and taking Whizzer’s hand, as thin and frail and delicate as a baby bird. “I’m here, Whizz, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, I promise you. I’m staying right here, with you.” He doesn’t finish the sentiment, that he’ll stay here until Whizzer is - he still can’t finish the sentiment. It doesn’t matter. They both know anyway.
He doesn’t know if Whizzer can see him or even hear him, but Marvin takes him in his arms and holds him as tight as he dares. If he tries hard enough, he can almost imagine that they’re at home, the home they made together, with the bedclothes Marvin picked and the art Whizzer chose for the walls and the lesbians in the apartment next door.
Almost.
He can imagine that Jason will arrive home soon from school and dump his school bag by the front door, ready for his weekend with them. It’s the best part of his week, and he knows Whizzer would agree. His tight knit family. Well, part of it anyway.
“Marvin?”
If anyone asked, and especially if Jason ever asked, Marvin would say that Whizzer went peacefully, that he passed in his sleep, that he didn’t even know it was happening.
It isn’t peaceful. Not at all.
Whizzer is worried and frightened and panicked out of his damn mind and in unimaginable agony. He sounds impossibly small and frail, younger than Jason even. There’s nothing Marvin can do to help - if the doctors ran out of avenues to explore weeks ago, if Charlotte, the smartest person he knows, is at a loss, then what the hell is he supposed to do? He feels more helpless than he has in his entire life.
But he keeps trying, because Whizzer keeps calling his name. And as long as Whizzer still wants him, still apparently needs him, he will rise and obey.
“Marvin?”
“It’s ok, Whizz,” he murmurs again and again. He smoothes Whizzer’s hopelessly tangled hair off his hopelessly clammy forehead. He fixes the blankets closer around him. He presses kiss after gentle kiss to the top of his head, hoping Whizzer can even feel it through his knitted hat pulled low over his ears. “It’s ok, baby, it’s ok. I’m right here and I’m not leaving you. I promise. I’ll never leave you.”
Whizzer doesn’t seem able to say anything else. Marvin is simultaneously touched and moved beyond belief and heartbroken. He knows, without knowing exactly how he knows, that this is the last thing Whizzer is going to say. He deserves better than this. He deserves the entire world served up to him on a silver platter but the very least thing he deserves is someone better than Marvin with him at the very end, someone more worthy and deserving of this beautiful, brilliant man’s last words.
Marvin finds himself looking all around the room, looking for someone else, the person that Whizzer deserves to see. There’s no one else. Just the two of them. And it must mean something that Whizzer keeps calling his name, right? Right?
Do you know, all I want is you?
Marvin hopes Whizzer really does know that. It’s truer than he ever could have thought at the time.
He thinks, I never wanted to love you. He thinks, I’m so glad I did, and I do and I’ll never stop loving you. He hopes Whizzer loves him too. He wishes there was a God or something up there who could stop what he knows is about to happen.
Marvin holds Whizzer so tightly that he can feel the sharp poke of his all too protruding ribs even through the hospital gown and the hospital issue robe that still can’t quite keep him warm. He stares at his face, and while he’s sure that the room is filled with the others again, Marvin can’t quite bring himself to draw his eyes away from Whizzer’s face.
He feels like he should tell them to take Jason out, that the kid shouldn’t have to see what they all know is about to happen. He doesn’t want Trina to have to see this either. He’s dragged her through so much already - what’s one more? But he can’t find the words and he has the sneaking suspicion that, even if he could find them, they wouldn’t leave anyway.
If he wasn’t watching so intently, if he wasn’t so determined to miss a single second, Marvin might have missed the way Whizzer lets out a little breath that sounds more like a tired sigh than anything else. He might have missed the way his chest stills, so abruptly that it makes the whole thing even crueller, like Whizzer was caught out halfway through a breath.
He doesn’t miss it.
He sees every minute detail and he knows already, even through the haze of all consuming grief that immediately crashes over him like a tidal wave, that he’ll never stop seeing it. Not until his own dying day. In that moment, he knows, and almost hopes, that isn’t too far away.
He should probably say something,
He can’t and it’s not like Whizzer, the person who matters most, can hear him anymore.
But he keeps holding him anyway. Just in case. Until he can’t anymore.
Marvin drops Whizzer’s hand abruptly, Whizzer’s cold fingers still curved round as though holding his hand, even as his arm gracefully falls to the bed. His eyes are still open, his head turned to the side as though he’s about to say something, a witty joke, a quick retort, a devastating remark, something, anything.
Nothing.
It’s up to Marvin to speak instead, to whisper, “Hey, it’s ok, it’s ok, please don’t cry,” to Jason, who has found himself in his father’s arms once more and whose tears Marvin can already feel through his shirt. “It’s ok, it’s ok,” he repeats again and again. He’s never told such a blatant lie to his son before. What more can he say?
With the air of one who needs to do something to help, Mendel crosses the room, after a brief hand on Marvin’s shoulder. The weary psychiatrist asking how he can help one last time though nobody knows how to answer that question anymore, and blows out the lone candle left over from the Bar Mitzvah. It feels appropriate to Trina and Charlotte and Cordelia. Jason doesn’t like it. Marvin doesn’t notice. Whizzer doesn’t either.
And the scene turns to black.