Until The End - 1. Chapter 1

Until The End

Eli wiped the moist handkerchief over his eyes. The tears wouldn’t stop, though he’d been crying them for days. “I don’t think they ever will,” he thought.

The wind was cold and biting that day. Most of the priest’s words flew away on it, but his own thoughts drowned most of Father Holowaty’s prayers. Though he’d loved David with all his heart, Eli just wanted to go home. He stared at the gray clouds, thinking that soon the snow would come.

“Eli … Eli.”

The young man turned to look at his mother-in-law. She put her hand on his right forearm. “It’s time sweetheart. Come. Everyone has said goodbye … now it’s your turn. You must ….”

“How? Mama, how can I?”

She tugged him, and he took several reluctant steps toward his husband’s grave.

~~~

“David! I’m home. You here, baby?” Eli slammed the front door to their apartment. Frowning, he pulled off his coat and hung it in the small closet, pulling the door closed. “David’s usually home by now ….” he thought.

As he walked down the hall Eli noticed the light in the living room. “Oh, he is home.”

David rose as Eli entered the room. He opened his arms. “Hey, beautiful.”

It was his standard greeting, and normally Eli flew to his husband, but not this time. Something struck Eli as wrong and he said, “David, what is it?”

“Nothing … well.” David sat back on their buttery beige-leather sofa. “We need to talk.”

“What does that mean?”

After a sigh, David replied, “Means we need to talk, Eli. Please … please come and sit.”

“Okay.” Eli did as he was asked. He reached for David’s hand. “Something’s wrong.”

“Yeah.”

“With us?”

“No, baby,” David said. He leaned and kissed his younger husband passionately. “I love you, so, so much.”

“You’re scaring me, D.” Eli searched David’s face for signs this wasn’t as serious as it felt.

“I’m sorry.” David paused and drew in a deep breath. “Last month … I found a lump.”

“A lump? Oh my God, where? Where?”

“Under my arm. So, I—”

Eli’s voice was harsh. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

David sighed. “I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Damn it!” Eli stopped. Tears gathered in his eyes. He sat in silence for a moment. “It is bad, isn’t it?”

David pulled Eli into his embrace. “Yes, baby it is. Bad as it can get.”

"There's treatment, chemo and stuff."

“Not for me baby … it’s stage four.”

“No! No, no, no … that’s wrong.” Eli pushed away and got up. “There’s stuff, David. What did the doctor say?”

Reaching for his husband’s hand, David gently pulled Eli back down beside him. “Eli … Elijah, baby, it is stage four. There is no treatment, except for the pain. I’m sorry.”

Tears fell unheeded as Eli hugged his husband. He sobbed against David’s shoulder.

It was some time before David said, “Shhh …it’s scary but it’ll be all right.”

“How will it be all right, D? You’re telling me … how long?”

“Not long, baby. Six months, maybe less.”

Eli couldn’t breathe. “Six … There has to be something that can help ….”

David stroked his husband's beautiful face. "God, I love you."

“David!”

“No, Eli. There isn’t anything that can be done. I’ve gotten a second opinion, they’ve run the tests twice.” David held Elijah’s hands in his. “We need to face it. I just want to be with you. Love you … until the end.”

~~~

Eli picked up a handful of dirt and looked down into the grave. David's casket was black. It was covered with earth that mourners had thrown, and red and white roses. Eli let the soil fall through his fingers. He squatted down, heedless of the rain that had started.

“I love you. David, I love you so much. It’s not fair. What am I going to do without you?” The young widower’s soft words were whipped away by the wind.

The wake was held at his in-law’s large comfortable home. Eli felt numb. While he was grateful for everyone’s kindness he wanted to go home. Finally, at 8:00pm his in-laws drove him there.

“Will you be all right? You can stay with us ….” Joan Wallace said.

“I’ll be fine, Mama.” He smiled at the woman whom he loved dearly. “I’ll keep in touch. I just need some time on my own ….”

Frank Wallace had been subdued for months as he awaited the death of his only son. "We love you, Elijah. Call us please, anytime, you know I'll be here."

“I know, Pops. I know it.” Eli’s voice caught with emotion. “We’ll talk soon.”

Everyone got out of the car. They stood for a few moments in silence before Eli spoke. “Okay, well, thank you. I love you both. I’ll call you.”

After hugs, Elijah tore himself away and walked into the apartment building. With a final wave, he pressed the elevator button and waited for the waiting car’s door to open.

His hands shook violently as he tried to put the key in the lock of their apartment. “Fuck, stop it. Stop,” he cursed in frustration. “Damn it, do not cry!” Using both hands, he pushed the key in and turned it.

Eli stepped over the threshold, flicked on the lights and closed the door. He hung up his coat and called softly, “Baby, I’m home.”

He cried for two days, slept, and ate little. On the morning of the third day, he rolled around in their big bed. He held David's pillow close. Eli pressed his face into it and breathed in. It smelled like the man he’d lost. Eli just let himself weep.

Finally, he got up, pulled on a pair of track pants and padded into the kitchen. “D would not approve of me acting this way. I need to make a coffee, eat a piece of toast.”

He settled with his meager meal at the kitchen table. Eli opened his laptop, looking first at the news, which he shut down immediately. He thought for a moment. “Oh, man. Should I?”

From his favourites, he clicked on the link to Great Stories. "It's been over three months since I signed on. Will anyone I know still be here?" Once the site's landing page opened, he typed in his login credentials and hit enter.

Things looked the same, more or less.

“Over a hundred notifications … a bunch of PMs too.” He clicked on the PMs first. Eli smiled. “Nice people looking for me. That’s sweet.”

As he looked over the names, his heart hitched as he saw a number of messages from Ray. He opened the most recent.

"Hey there. It's been some time. We are all missing you, boy. I miss you. Hope to hell that you're okay. I've left messages here and on Hangouts. Just get in touch and let me, us, know that you're okay."

A wisp of a smile settled on Eli’s lips. “Ray is sweet." Eli typed simply: I'm doing okay, Sir. Sorry, I worried you.

He looked over the site and then headed into the chat room. He typed: Good morning everyone.

It wasn’t long before people started to say hello. Eli chatted for a while, but he wasn’t yet ready to tell his online pals about his husband.

During the two weeks he was off on bereavement leave, Eli, with the help of his father-in-law, dealt with the flotsam and jetsam of someone's passing. David had been a lawyer and made sure his husband would not have a huge mess to deal with. Frank Wallace, also a lawyer, helped Eli with each step.

“Eli, everything is done. There is only David’s final tax return, and we’ll look after that when the time comes.”

Nodding, Elijah looked at his father-in-law. "Thank you … for everything. Your being here made it all easier."

The older man squeezed his son in-law’s arm. “We miss him.”

“Me too.”

“Eli … Joan and I want you to know … well when it’s time, that. Oh damn, well we know you’ll move on one day. We want you to know we understand.”

Tears slipped from his eyes as Eli nodded.

Time has a way of softening life’s sharp corners. Eli slipped into the routine of life without David. He went back to his job as assistant to Dr. Philip Anderson at his busy vet clinic. The animals rarely complained, and Eli was glad of the hectic pace. He spent a lot of his downtime with Joan and Frank. They shared meals and time together, each of them using the other to cling on to memories of David.

When he was home Eli would sometimes hang out on Great Stories and chat with friends. He looked for Ray, whom he liked but who had a busy life. There had been a period of flirty chat long before David had died, but that had changed somehow. Ray was more of a ghost.

This day, about six months after David’s passing, Eli was in the chat room talking with Lori-Ann. Family was a big topic for her, and she wrote, “You haven’t mentioned David much. How is he?”

Eli’s fingers hovered over the keys for a moment, and then he typed, “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t say before. I couldn’t. But well, those months I was away, I was spending with him. He had terminal cancer … he died at the end of September.”

There was no response for what felt like several minutes. “Oh, E! I am so sorry. That seems so empty, but I truly am.”

“I know. It’s still hard, but one day at a time.”

They talked a little longer as other people came and went from the chat room.

Several days later Eli was out shopping when his phone buzzed. He stopped and pulled the device from his pocket, noted a PM in the Great Stories app, and pressed the icon to open it. It was a message from Ray.

“Hey, just read about David. I am sorry, boy. Listen meet me on hangouts at 7:00pm your time? If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume it’s a date.”

After staring for a few minutes, Eli called his in-laws and cancelled with them. Frank came on the line once Joan explained.

“Are you okay, Eli?”

“Yes, honestly I’m fine. It’s just been a hectic day, and I’m tired, that’s all. We can still do the flea market tomorrow.”

Eli pictured the smile on Frank’s face as the man said, “Sure, no problem. We’ll be at your place about 8:00am, if you’re okay with that.”

“I am. I’m looking forward to it.”

"Great … well, get some rest. We'll see you in the morning."

Once they’d said goodbye, Eli headed to the frozen food section to pick up a pizza. From there he went to the produce department to buy a bag of salad. That would be enough for dinner. As he headed to the cashiers, he passed the wine section, and on an impulse, he stopped and added a bottle of rosé to his cart.

He fixed his dinner and drank a glass of wine.

It was nearing 7:00pm when he’d finished eating and tidying the kitchen. Both he and David had liked their home neat. “Not about to stop that, babe.”

Eli booted up his laptop and clicked on his Hangouts window he’d set up with Ray.

“I’m here,” he typed.

“Hey.”

“Hi. How are you?”

“Good, Elijah, I read what you said about David. I wish you’d have told me. Not much I could do, but I could have been here. I’m really sorry. You guys seemed happy.”

Eli smiled at the screen. “We were. It’s dumb but I just couldn’t type it back then.”

There was a brief moment before Ray wrote, “So, really now. How are you, boy?”

"I'm okay. I still miss him. It was so fast but he made all the arrangements before he … passed on. Everything was in order, and my father-in-law is a lawyer too, so all that was looked after quickly. But I still expect to see him when I come in or shout hello. It's getting easier as time goes by.”

“I suppose it would. Maybe this was a bad idea.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Eli … you must have realized how I feel.”

“Yeah … I sort of thought there was something.”

“So maybe it’s too soon to remind you ….”

“Ray … Sir … well we don’t even live in the same place.”

“Travel? Airplanes?”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“Think about it. What I know, I like. I’d like to spend some time with you. See if we get on.”

Eli let himself think about that. He’d be eligible for some vacation soon. David had left him more than enough money. “Where exactly do you live?”

“Phoenix.”

“Oh, it’s hot there.”

“LOL, yes but we have this strange miracle called air conditioning.”

“Haha! I could get a week off in a few months. Maybe then ….”

“Okay, until then, boy, we talk. 😊”

“That sounds really good to me.”

Once he and Ray said goodnight, Elijah slid into bed. As he thought about the future, he remembered the past.

~~~

Eli turned over to nestle into his husband’s shoulder. David wasn’t able to make love any longer, he was ill and gaunt, but Eli wanted him to know he was still loved. They kissed.

“Eli, I love you.”

“I love you too.” Elijah stroked his husband’s cheek.

David was quiet for a moment. “Sweetheart, you’ve been a good husband.”

“Been?”

“Don’t fuss. When I’m gone—”

“No! Don’t say it, David,” Eli interrupted.

After a soft sigh, David kissed his young husband once again. “Eli, listen to me. Please. When I’m gone, when you’re ready, you need to move on. Find another man to love as you’ve loved me.”

“Please don’t.” Eli wiped away hot tears. “I’ll always love you.”

David smiled gently. “Of course you will. We never stop loving people on some level. But there will come a time when you meet someone ….”

“David?” Eli raised himself onto his forearm. He touched his husband’s contorted face. “David?”

“I think you’d better call me an ambulance now, beautiful.”

And Elijah did. David slipped away from this life three days later.

~~~

Eli told Frank and Joan about going to visit Ray, saying he was simply a friend. It wasn’t a lie—not really. He arranged his ticket and a small hotel for a week. He packed what Ray had suggested. Frank drove him to the airport early.

The flight was uneventful. Eli felt his nerves building, his heart pounded and he wondered, not for the first time, if this was a good idea. Though he'd talked to Ray a lot, and recently on the phone, he still didn’t know him, not really.

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport wasn’t as busy as Toronto Pearson had been. Eli found his luggage easily and then walked through customs and out. He scanned the people who waited, and then located Ray.

Eli smiled and walked toward the man. Ray had an easy but confident smile. He walked with a self-assurance and quiet power Eli could feel as they drew closer.

“Hello, boy.”

Eli put the suitcase down. "Hi." He smiled and felt a little weak in the knees. He put out his right hand. “It’s really good to meet you.”

Ray grinned at the outstretched hand. Stepping closer, he pulled Eli into a full hug.

Eli never wanted to move. The arms around him were muscular and held him tightly. The body against which his own rested was powerful, masculine and solid. Eli closed his eyes and drank in the man’s redolence.

“I’m glad you’re here, boy.”

“I’m glad I’m here too.”

“You’re glad you’re here too, what?”

Eli paused for a moment. “Sir. I’m glad I’m here, Sir.”

Still holding Eli tight, Ray smiled. “Welcome to Phoenix, boy.”

c'est fini