Chapter Text
Do you remember that one afternoon, when you sat down with me at that café?
It was at the end of the winter, just before spring, a little more than a year after his attempt, you were wearing what Harold and I, behind your back, called your celebrity airport outfit–dark sunglasses and a black jacket.
You confirmed to me that day, for the first time, something I had always wondered about, something I had witnessed unfold for years, but hadn’t been able to put a name on it until you did.
Do you know how sometimes you would be speaking, trying to elaborate on a point, and there is one very specific word that would string your thoughts together, but it is the one word that you cannot seem to remember? It’s the perfect thing to articulate everything you meant to say, and you think and think of what it could be, because you just know it, it’s on the tip of your tongue, and you try to say the words that seem to work, but nothing is right, nothing fits.
And the great satisfaction you have once you finally remember it–ah.
That’s how it felt when you told me that day.
I felt that same satisfaction, the last, perfect word on a decades-old crossword puzzle, and finally, the tapestry was complete, the bigger picture all made sense. I don’t think I expressed fully the extent of my happiness for you–for him, especially–when you said it, because it was dampened quickly when I started to envision what came next. But I was so happy, I promise you.
You know how much I love him. He was truly such a pain in the ass, so often turning me into a fucking joke in my own office, of my own practice, but I loved him to death (quite literally, actually). And because I did, and because I think at the time I was the one who knew most of his tormented past, I wanted only a love for him that knew perfectly how to dance along the delicate corners of his mind, that knew and understood and accepted the turbulence and fragility a life intertwined with his would demand. Because I loved him, I wanted for him to have someone who wouldn’t be just willing to compromise, but truly willing to sacrifice a lot of the things that you–you horndog–had gotten used to enjoying.
I think I told you, right away, that it would be difficult, and I meant it.
And I’ll tell you this with honesty. I was skeptical.
I knew you loved him, that part I had been sure about. That part, I had seen countless times over the decades I had seen you two together, had seen you take care of him in a million little ways the way we both know he deserved but never truly accepted. I had seen you be angry for him, be angry at him, for his disregard for his health, for his steadfast belief in the things he’d been taught as a child, for his willingness to accept the mistreatment neither you or I or Harold could ever imagine he should receive.
I remember the day they found him in the bathroom.
I had been out with a friend then, in the middle of dinner when I got Richard’s call, and I almost vomited as I left the restaurant and walked out and the world had swayed beneath my feet as I tried to get a cab.
The weeks before that, he had been so calm, so himself, and I guess I was just so glad to see him well that I didn’t investigate further as to not shake the illusion, because the past few months were rough.
I should have, of course. I should’ve made him speak to me and I should’ve told him over and over again how much we loved him, how much happiness there was still left for him, but Christ, you know how he is with those things, Willem. You could physically see it sometimes, when you even so much as thought about mentioning how much you cared about him, you could see him withdraw, eyes alert, as if a gentle reminder of his worth was a predator he could sniff out from a mile away and had to avoid.
Harold had been a mess. I was, too.
And then you came in, a few hours later, after having flown in from Sri Lanka for your movie, and your eyes were red and honestly, you know you’re a handsome guy, but you looked terrible, and I was so happy to see you then. I think I believed–because I felt that Jude believed–that if you were there, if you were around for him, he would be okay because he wanted to be okay, because if you were around he’d still want to fight.
You didn’t cry in front of me. But I remember when I left for the night, you had stayed in the hospital, and when I came back the next day, you were still there, and I watched you before I made my presence known. You had your head on his thigh, and you were shaking, crying, obviously, violently, and I could hear the faint please, please, you were muttering, I’m sorry, Judy, I’m sorry.
I didn’t step into the room then as I had intended to, and instead slipped into the bathroom and sobbed on the toilet. So far I had cried for myself, and for Harold and Julia, but then I was crying for you, because had we lost him, you would have had to suffer the biggest loss, wouldn't you?
“I’m not leaving New York for a while,” you said to me a few days later, “after this one.”
I didn’t argue, because I hadn’t thought about it before you offered, but it only made sense that you would, and I was grateful on his behalf.
“Thank you, Willem,” I said.
“But Andy, don’t tell him, okay?”
It was difficult to speak those days, difficult to breathe, like a fresh wound on all of our psyches, but you didn’t have to say anything more, we were both thinking the same thing.
I saw that you loved him. Even before that, I had already seen it, I didn’t need the proof, but I have a guess: something in you shifted that day.
Of course, this is all speculation, but I’m not a fool. I think that that day, you had realized your one truest fear. I think it realigned things for you, I think it pulled you into outer space for a bit and showed you where you had it wrong all this time, and gave you a chance to make it right. I think you had realized that if Jude had died, it would be the wound you’d never recover from, and that nothing, that no one else held that same importance to you.
Am I right? I probably am, right?
You came up to me in that café about a year later and, seemingly out of nowhere, started admitting to me how you felt about him.
“I feel like a teenager saying all these things Andy,” you had groaned, and chuckled a little bit, but I could tell you were dead serious. “But I’m starting to picture us together, as a couple, and it just feels right to me. All these months I’d spent living with, I wouldn’t mean to, but I’d catch myself thinking about how much I want to kiss him, or climb into bed with him,” you were blushing as you spoke, “and honestly I never want to leave him. And I know–the circumstances that I even came to live there at all are fucked, but I just… I’d been so happy lately knowing I’d come home to him. I used to worry about him all the time and try to call him and see if he was okay, it would be the most important thing to me, but now that we live together, it makes sense for me, it’s like… why couldn’t we just have done this this whole time?”
You apologized because you thought I’d find it strange, but it wasn’t–it was deeply satisfying.
I told you what I had to, what I knew you needed to know before moving a pawn forward, but again, let me apologize for this, I was skeptical.
Skeptical of you, and your capability to leave behind the things the world has always asked you to care about, to fully submerge yourself in the truth about his life, to try and restore a man whose foundation was built on lies about his worth, about himself.
Was I right, Willem? It was a tall order, even for you, who I had always seen take pleasure in taking care of him.
The way things panned out, I don’t think I’ll ever truly know if you succeeded, but after a long time this is what I’ve come to realize.
It no longer matters.
The way it came to be–that is a lifelong plague I will live with, but it doesn’t mean it did not come with its own twisted form of relief. And truthfully, when I would think about you or Jude, it would rarely ever be in the context of everything you and Harold and I had failed to do, but in the light of how much joy he had given us when he was well, how much pleasure we took in the days he was relaxed and happy.
I would like to be the optimist for once here, and tell you that despite himself, I think Jude knew this.
That he knew and truly believed in the love we had for him, that he believed the beautiful life he built with you, with us, was something he deserved all along. There was a child in him that was sick, that has been wronged in every way possible, but I want to believe there were days that it did not haunt him, that he was able to wake in the morning and look at all he had and believed that happiness was meant for him, too. That despite the inconceivable nature of his worsts, we had succeeded in the task to get him to abandon the things he’d been taught and re-learn the things that are truthful and right.
That he was worthy of joy. That he was beautiful. That he was loved.
And here is the optimist again: I’d like to hold faith that because of you, he finally, finally believed these things to be true.
And I want to thank you for that, Willem.
That painting of you at Harold’s house–you know the one–used to make me cry every time I would look at it for too long, but these days it only really serves as a reminder of all the goodness that came with your existence, all the goodness you gave him.
JB was right about it all. The expression was flawless, so faithful to real life, I would feel briefly warm and content to know you had once been so happy with him, and I will admit that I would believe for a little while that you hadn’t left us at all.
When this delusion would pass with a pain unlike anything else, I would then believe in something even better: that perhaps you are somewhere out there, floating in the cosmos with him, still listening to his stories.