To this he could say nothing, for he knew it was true, and he knew Edward knew it, too. “But we could never be together in the West, Edward. Be sensible! It is dangerous to be like us out there—we would be imprisoned for it; we could be killed.”
“Nothing will happen to us! We know how to be careful. David, the people who are in peril are people who are, who are—excessive in who they are, who flaunt who they are, who ask to be noticed. We are not those kinds of people, and we never will be.”
“But we are those kinds of people, Edward! There is no difference between us! If we were ever suspected, if we were ever caught, the consequences would be dire. If we couldn’t live as who we are, then how would we be free?”
And here Edward stood, and pivoted from him, and when he turned back, his face was gentle, and he sat next to David on the bed and reclaimed his hands. “Forgive me, David, for asking this,” he said, quietly, “but are you free now?” And, when David was unable to answer him: “David. My innocent. Have you ever thought of what your life might be if your name meant nothing to no one? If you were able to escape from who you are meant to be and become instead who you want to be? If the name Bingham were just another, like Bishop or Smith or Jones, instead of a word chiseled into marble atop a great monolith?
“What if you were merely Mister Bingham, as I am merely Mister Bishop? Mister Bingham of Los Angeles: A talented artist, a dear and good and clever man, the husband—secretly, perhaps, yes, but no less true for that secrecy—of Edward Bishop? Who lived with him in a little house on a vast orchard of silvery-leafed trees in a land where there was no ice, no winter, no snow? Who came to understand who he might want to be? Who, after a period—maybe a few years, maybe many—might move back east with his husband, or might come alone to visit his beloved grandfather? Who would have me in his arms every night and every morning, and who would be loved by his husband always, and more loved because his husband would be only his, and his alone? Who could choose, whenever he wished, to be Mister David Bingham of Washington Square, New York, the Free States, eldest and most cherished grandchild of Nathaniel Bingham, but would also be something less, and therefore something more; who would belong to someone he chose, and yet would belong, too, only to himself. David. Could this not be you? Could this not be who you really are?”
He stood, yanking himself from Edward’s grip, and walked the single step over to the fireplace, which was cold and black and empty, and yet into which he stared as if gazing at the flames.
Behind him, Edward still spoke. “You are frightened,” he said. “And I understand. But you will always have me. Me, my love, my affection for and admiration of you—David, you will always have that. But would living in California really be so different in certain ways from being here? Here, we are free as a people but not as a couple. There, we would not be free as a people, but we would be a couple, real to each other and living with each other, and with no one to tut at us, no one to stop us, no one to tell us that within the walls of our home we might not be together. David, I ask you: What use is the Free States if we cannot be truly free?”
“Do you really love me?” he finally managed to ask.
“Oh, David,” said Edward, standing and coming behind him and wrapping his arms about him, and David remembered, involuntarily, the feeling of Charles’s bulk against him, and shuddered. “I want to spend my life with you.”
He turned to face Edward, and in that instant, they were tearing at each other, and when, later, they lay spent, David found the bewilderment come over him again, and he sat, and began to dress, as Edward watched him.
“I must go,” he announced, retrieving his gloves, which had fallen beneath the bed.
“David,” Edward said, wrapping the blanket about himself and climbing to his feet, standing in front of David and making him look up. “Please consider my offer. I have yet to even tell Belle. But now that I have spoken to you, I shall tell her of my decision—though I would like to inform her, in either this letter or in one soon after, that I will join her as a married man, with my husband.
“The Cookes had suggested that, were we to accept, one of us should leave in May, the other no later than June. Belle has no one else to consider but herself—I shall have her be the pioneer, and she will not only be worthy of it, she will enjoy it as well. But, David—I will go in June. I will, no matter what. And I hope, David, I do hope—I cannot convey to you how much so—that I will not be making the journey alone. Please tell me you’ll consider it. Please—David? Please.”
XIII
It was a Bingham family tradition to throw a party on March twelfth, on the anniversary of the Free States’ independence, though the gathering was meant to be less festive than reflective, an opportunity for the Binghams’ friends and acquaintances to review the family’s collection of artifacts and ephemera that documented the establishment of their country and the significant role that the Binghams had played in its founding.
This year, though, the date would coincide with the opening of a small museum that Nathaniel Bingham had founded. The family’s papers and memorabilia would constitute the primary holdings, but the hope was that other of the founding families would donate pieces, letters and diaries and maps, from their own archives as well. Several, including Eliza’s family, had already done so, and it was expected that many more would follow after the museum’s unveiling.
The night of the inauguration, David stood in his bedroom before his mirror, brushing his jacket. It had already been brushed, and rebrushed, by Matthew, and was not in need of further grooming. He was hardly paying attention to his ministrations, at any rate; the movement was meaningless, but soothing.
It would be his first evening outside the house since he last had seen Edward, now almost a week ago. After that extraordinary night, he had returned home and had taken to bed, and for the next six days, he had not left. His grandfather had been alarmed, certain his illness had returned, and although David had felt deeply guilty for this deception, it also seemed an easier explanation than trying to convey the profound disquiet he felt—for even had he the words to communicate it, he would have also to find a way to introduce the idea of Edward, who he was and who he was to David, and that was a conversation for which he felt completely unprepared. And so he had lain there, mute and unmoving, allowing their family doctor, Mister Armstrong, to come and examine him, to prize open his eyes and mouth, to measure his pulse and grunt at the results; the maids to deliver trays of his favorite foods, only to retrieve them, untouched, hours later; Adams to bring （at his grandfather’s order, he knew） fresh flowers—anemones and posies and peonies—daily, acquired from places unknown at prices unbelievable during the bleakest weeks of late winter. All the while, for those many hours, he had stared at the water stain. But unlike a true spell of sickness, in which he would have thought of nothing, here he could do nothing but think: of Edward’s inevitable departure, of his shocking offer, of their conversation, which David had not fully comprehended in the moment but to which he now returned, again and again—he argued with Edward’s definition of freedom, and his suggestion that David was chained, bound to his grandfather and his name and therefore to a life not fully his own; he argued with Edward’s assuredness that they would be somehow spared from the punishments visited upon anyone found to have violated the region’s anti-sodomy laws. Those laws had always existed, but since their reinforcement in ’76, the West, once a promising place—so promising that a number of the Free States’ legislators had even considered trying to bring the territory under their control—had become in certain ways even more perilous than the Colonies; it was not legal, as it was in the Colonies, to pursue discovery of their kind of illegal activity, but if it was discovered, the consequences were both severe and unpardonable. Not even money could secure the freedom of an accused. The one thing he could not do was argue with Edward himself, for Edward had not called upon him or sent any sort of message, a fact that would have bothered David had he not been so preoccupied by the quandary with which he had been presented.