“This is quite a house,” I said at one point, and although it wasn’t quite a compliment, or meant as one （I could feel Nathaniel staring at me, hard）， Aubrey smiled. “Thank you,” he said. Then there was a long story about how he’d bought it from the scion of a supposedly storied banking family I’d never heard of, and how the man had been nearly destitute, full of tales about his family’s lost wealth, and how it had been such a thrill to be a Black man, buying a house like this from a white man who’d assumed he’d have it forever. “Look at you,” I heard my grandfather saying, “bunch of dark-skinned men trying to be white,” although he wouldn’t have said “white” but “haole.” Anything I did that was foreign to him was haole: reading books, going to grad school, moving to New York. He saw my life as an indictment of his simply because it was different.
By then it was late enough to make a polite escape, and after sitting for what I judged to be about twenty minutes with my coffee, I made a big show of stretching and saying we had to get home to the baby: I had the sense, as one does about the person one’s lived with for fifteen years, that Nathaniel was about to suggest we go see Aubrey’s collection, and I had zero interest in that. I could also feel Nathaniel about to protest, but then I suppose he figured that he’d put me through enough （or that it was only a matter of time before I said something truly inappropriate）， and we all stood and said our goodbyes, and Aubrey said we should get together again so I could see the collection, and I said I’d be honored, even though I have no intention of doing so.
On the way back uptown, I didn’t say anything to Nathaniel and he didn’t say anything to me. We didn’t say anything as we entered the apartment, and as we paid the babysitter, and as we went to check on the baby, and as we got ready for bed. It was only when we were lying next to each other in the dark that Nathaniel finally said, “You might as well say it.”
“What?” I said.
“Whatever it is you’re going to say,” he said.
“I’m not going to say anything,” I said. （A lie, obviously. I had spent the last thirty minutes composing a speech, and then thinking about how I could make it sound spontaneous.） He sighed. “I just think it’s a little odd,” I said. “Nate, you hate people like that! Haven’t you always said that collecting native objects is a form of material colonization? Haven’t you always argued for their return to the Hawaiian state, or at the very least to a museum? And now you’re, what, best friends with this rich fuck and his weapons-dealing husband, and not only tolerating their trophy-collecting but complicit in it? Not to mention that he thinks the kingdom is a joke.”
He was still. “I never got that impression.”
“He called it secession, Nate. He corrected himself, but come on—we know the type.”
He was quiet for a long time. “I promised I wouldn’t get defensive,” he said at last. Then he was quiet again. “You make it sound like Norris is an arms dealer.”
“Well, isn’t he?”
“He defends them. It’s not the same thing.”
“Oh, come on, Natey.”
He shrugged: We weren’t looking at each other, but I could hear the blanket move up and down on his chest.
“Also,” I barreled on, “you never told me they weren’t white.”
He looked at me. “Yes, I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Of course I did. You just weren’t listening to me. As usual. Anyway, why does it make a difference?”
“Oh, stop, Natey. You know why it does.”
He grunted. There wasn’t much he could say to that. Then—another silence. Finally, he said, “I know it seems strange. But—I like them. And I’m lonely. I can talk about home with them.”
You can talk about home with me, I should have said. But I didn’t. Because I knew, and he knew, that I was the one who had taken us from home, and that it was because of me that he had left a job, a life, that he was proud of. And now he had become someone he didn’t recognize and didn’t like, and he was doing everything he could to not blame me, even up to and including denying what and who he was. I knew this, and he knew this.
So I didn’t say anything at all, and by the time I knew what to say, he was already asleep, or pretending to be, and I had once again failed him.
This was going to be our life, I realized. He would grow closer and closer to Aubrey and Norris, and I would have to encourage him, or else his resentment toward me would grow so large and unwieldy that he wouldn’t be able to pretend it didn’t exist. And then he would leave me, he and the baby, and I would be on my own, without my family.
So, that’s all. I know you have much bigger problems to deal with than your old friend’s, but I’d appreciate any words of comfort you might have. I can’t wait to see you. Tell me everything on your end, or as much as you can. I will be silent as the tomb, or the grave, or however the expression goes.
Love you. C.
My dear Peter, March 29, 2046
Instead of apologizing at the end of this message for being so self-absorbed, I’m going to start with an apology for being so self-absorbed.
But on the other hand, I don’t feel I should have to be so apologetic, when last week was all about you, and gloriously so. It was such a beautiful wedding, Petey. Thank you so much for having us. I forgot to tell you that when we were leaving the temple, the baby looked up at me and said, solemnly, “Uncle Peter looked very happy.” He was right, of course. You were very happy—you are. And I am happy, so happy, for you.
Right now, you and Olivier are somewhere over India, I expect. As you know, Nathaniel and I never took our honeymoon. We were supposed to, and then I had the lab to set up, and we had the baby to settle, and, I don’t know, it just never happened. And then it kept not happening. （We had, as you remember, wanted to go to the Maldives. I have a way of picking them, don’t I.）
I’m writing you from Washington, D.C., where I’m attending a conference on zoonoses—N and the baby are back home. Actually, they’re not home at all: They’re out with Aubrey and Norris at Frog’s Pond Way. It’s the first weekend it’s warm enough to swim, and Nathaniel’s trying to teach the baby how to surf. He had planned to teach him in January, when we were back in Honolulu, but there were so many jellyfish that we ended up avoiding the beaches altogether. But things are a little better between us, thank you for asking. I’ve been feeling a bit more connected to both of them—though, well, that could’ve just been because you and Olivier needed receptacles to catch the overflow of love you have, and the three of us were there to do just that. So we’ll see. I think part of our renewed semi-closeness is because, as you observed, I’m trying to get used to the fact of Aubrey and Norris. They’re in our lives for good, or so it seems. For months, I fought against it. Then I resigned myself. Now? Well. I suppose they’re fine. They’ve been very generous with us, that’s for sure. Nathaniel’s formal consulting work with Aubrey is long over, but he’s down there at least a couple of times a month. And the baby likes them a lot, Aubrey in particular.