What Binds Us (21 page)
Authors: Larry Benjamin
Under the terms of Dondi’s will I became a wealthy man in my own right. The money, he said in a handwritten note, was to ensure that no matter what happened, I could continue to write undistracted by the mundacities of earning a living. My “mad money,” Matthew calls it.
“Write,” Dondi had said. “It’s what you were born to do. Write and love us.”
This is the book, the story that had to be told, the story of the Sun, the Earth and the Moon.
June 7, 1987: The day Dondi died. The day our story ended. And began again. Even now, after he’s gone, Dondi continues to be a part of our story, like a footnote on the pages of our life. We remember Dondi in odd ways at odd moments. Matthew has stopped wearing red. He calls me “T.” He says I laugh like Dondi. Occasionally I’ll say a word—particularly “darling”—and give it Dondi’s inflection.
It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since he left us. It’s spring again and all around us, things are coming back to life. We too are coming back to life, leaving behind the long winter of our grief. Matthew has started to talk about children again. I can picture us in a great old farmhouse. If I really try I can almost hear their delighted squeals through the open window of my study as they roughhouse with their dad. “Shhh,” he tells them. “Your dad is trying to work.”
Already I worry that they will love him more, that I won’t be as good a father.
***
Matthew and I are booked on a flight to London tomorrow morning. We don’t know if we will be coming back. Neither of us is sure he can live here without Dondi.
Colin is staying behind to close up the house and oversee the myriad other details of expatriation. He will join us in London in a few weeks.
Once again, we will be three.
Larry Benjamin considers himself less a writer than a wordsmith—an artist whose chosen medium is the written word rather than clay or paint or bronze.
Several of his short stories have appeared in STARbooks’ anthologies, including
Dangerous Boys; Seduced; Big Boys, Little Lies;
and
Unforgettable. What Binds Us
is his first novel.
He lives in Philadelphia with his partner and their two dogs.
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ISBN: 978-1-4268-9346-9
Copyright © 2012 by Lawrence Benjamin
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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