(Then another photo.) His father, forever young, robust and handsome.
(Then another photo.) Toby then finds a photo of himself at seven years old. Standing in his pajamas, his eyes staring directly at the camera. So sweet, so unformed and so trusting. This young boy’s only request of the world was that he be loved. This boy looks at the camera, his life ahead of him – a life that Toby was never allowed to live. Toby stares at the photo, searching for himself in his seven-year-old face. He cannot find it. The boy in the photo bears no resemblance to the man who is holding it. How could this boy have done all the damage that Toby has done? How could this innocent child hurt as many people as Toby has? The ache of Toby’s shame suddenly feels too much to bear. And in that moment, Toby knows that he can never heal, that he was only built to destroy. The poison is too deep inside him for the antidote to work. Toby grabs a pencil and a piece of paper and quickly scrawls across it. He grabs his keys and flees the house. Toby careens down the empty thruway. Eighty, then ninety, then one hundred miles an hour. And in that last second as his car hurtles toward the concrete wall, Toby wishes he had told Leo how sorry he –
Young Man 1 In the morning, Eric goes to the attic and finds Toby’s note. Its message encapsulated in two words:
Eric ‘I can’t.’
Young Man 1 Later that morning, a phone call. Eric and Leo are told of an accident on the southbound side of the thruway. A single car, upside down in flames. And inside of it, Toby Darling, who could not heal. Burned alive by the fire that consumed him long before help was called, a lifetime before help arrived.
End of Scene Five.
SCENE SIX
Spring, 2018.
Young Man 1 They buried Toby’s ashes in the small cemetery on Walter’s property.
Young Man 8 It was not the funeral Toby had imagined in his darker fantasies.
Young Man 5 There were no celebrities in attendance, no great speeches were given.
Young Man 2 The Jasons drove up from the city.
Young Man 7 Jasper did as well.
Young Man 3 Henry returned from Dubai.
Young Man 6 Tristan flew in from Toronto.
Young Man 1 Adam sent flowers.
Eric Eric read from Toby’s early writing and then, one by one, they bid their friend farewell.
Young Man 6 Eric, as was his nature, made lunch for everyone.
Young Man 1 It was a fine spring day. The house was once again full of people.
1. Walter’s House
Eric and Henry.
Henry I’m traveling back to Dubai tomorrow. It can’t be helped.
Eric I understand. Thank you for coming. I know how hard it is for you to be here.
Henry I assume you and … I assume you and Leo plan to stay here a little longer.
Eric We do.
Henry I shouldn’t be gone more than two weeks.
Eric I’m not coming back to you, Henry.
Henry Eric.
Eric Because I know you’d do everything in your power to make this pain go away.
Henry Yes, of course I would. Why shouldn’t I?
Eric Because I don’t want it to go away. I have to put it to some use or else all of this will have been pointless.
Henry But there is no point to suffering.
Eric There is if you can learn from it. And I do want to learn from it.
Henry No, you want to torture yourself.
Eric I want to feel things! I want to stop running from the things that frighten me.
Henry Don’t you see that this is running away? This is where I came to be lost to the world.
Eric And don’t you see that this is where I’ve come to live in the world?
Henry Eric, please.
After a hesitation:
I know that I haven’t always … I haven’t said the things I know you’ve needed to hear. I’ve spent the last year trying to find a way to tell you. Maybe I just needed to say the words. I love you, Eric.
Eric I love you too, Henry. I do. I was with you because I wanted to be. But I married you because I was afraid not to.
Henry Please don’t leave me.
Eric I’m sorry, Henry. But if I don’t do this, I’m afraid I’ll never do anything again.
Silence.
I have one thing to ask of you. I know I have no right to, but … I wondered if you would be willing to give me this house.
A chill crawls up Henry’s spine.
Young Man 3 And here we are again –
Henry – back where we started.
Eric What do you mean?
Henry?
Eventually …
Henry When Walter was ill, after you had been so kind to him, he wrote your name down on a piece of paper indicating that he wanted you to have his house. I decided at the time … I decided it wasn’t … that it couldn’t have been Walter’s true desires. So I set it aside. I ignored his wishes, never knowing what you’d come to mean to me in time. And not knowing that Walter had known all along what was best for this house, and what was best for you.
Silence. Eric seems to be shaken in his innermost recesses.
Eric Why did you tell me that?
Henry Because no man should ever have to ask for that which is rightfully his.
Margaret And for the second time in as many years, Eric Glass said goodbye to a partner and began his life anew.
Young Man 5 Unbeknownst to Eric, Toby had named him the executor of his literary estate.
Young Man 8 He never once saw Toby’s play in the two years it ran on Broadway, nor when it was revived off-Broadway thirty years later.
Young Man 7 Three years after Toby’s death, Eric authorized the publication of his last play. Finally, the world understood who Toby Darling really was.
Young Man 6 Five years after Toby’s death and his divorce from Henry, Eric met the man who would become the love of his life.
Young Man 3 They were married at Eric’s house upstate, Leo serving as Eric’s best man.
Young Man 2 Eric found his path in life by illuminating it for others.
Young Man 4 Without ever planning to, Eric became a teacher, a mentor, and eventually a wise old man to so many who encountered him.
Eric Eric’s life was filled with love, with friendship, with family.
Margaret Eric Glass died at the age of ninety-seven at his beloved house in upstate New York. He fell asleep one night while reading in front of the fire and never woke up.
Young Man 6 He was buried next to his husband in the cemetery on his property, and among the countless men who had died there nearly a century before him during the time of the plague.
Young Man 8 Eric’s three children, seven grandchildren and fourteen great-grandchildren inherited the house, which they maintain to this day as a cherished family home.
Young Man 4 And what of the young man Leo?
Young Man 1 Leo stayed at Walter’s house – now Eric’s – for six months after Toby’s death.
Young Man 7 He was healthy and strong. And while his body was quick to heal, his spirit moved slowly toward recovery.
Young Man 3 He received his GED and enrolled in college.
Young Man 1 Eric paid his tuition from the income he received from Toby’s royalties.
Young Man 5 There wasn’t a Christmas or a Thanksgiving the two did not spend together for many years.
Young Man 2 When he was forty, Leo met the man who would become his partner for the next twenty-seven years.
Eric Leo rarely felt alone, for he seldom was.
Young Man 1 And, in his later years, when sickness returned or when sadness visited, Leo would think of his life and conjure immense feelings of gratitude for all those he had loved and been loved by.
Margaret Leo died in Eric’s house, in the room where he always stayed, the room where Walter’s friend Peter and Margaret’s son Michael had died decades earlier. He was sixty-seven, an age too young by most standards but far older than he ever imagined he’d see. Leo died h
olding Eric’s hand, listening to the sound of the breeze rustling through the curtains. The house stood then as it had for centuries and would for centuries more: as a shelter, a refuge, a place of healing; a reminder of the pain, the fragility, and the promise of life.
End of Act Three.
Epilogue
1. Eric’s House
October 9, 2022. Eric’s fortieth Birthday.
It is late afternoon on a brilliant autumn day. The cherry tree is aflame in brilliant red and orange leaves. The sun filters through them, casting a golden glow on the house and property.
The yard is festooned with lights and balloons. Off in the distance, the sound of a wonderful party: people talking, laughing, music playing. There’s a magical quality in the air.
Leo enters. He approaches the house, having just arrived. He holds a gift bag in his hands. He stares at the house lovingly. Eric enters from inside the house. He sees Leo and rushes to him, pulling him tightly into an embrace.
Eric You made it!
Leo Sorry I’m late. I got a late start and then traffic / was –
Eric You’re here now, that’s all that matters.
Leo Happy birthday!
Eric Thank you.
Leo You’re forty!
Eric Shhh … maybe no one will notice.
Leo I have something for you.
Eric Is it what I think it is?
Leo It is. Although I feel it’s a little self-serving as a gift.
Eric No. It’s the greatest gift you could ever give me.
Leo hands over the gift bag and Eric pulls out a bound manuscript.
Your first novel. I’m so proud of you.
Eric looks at the cover.
‘The Inheritance’.
Leo Read the dedication.
Eric flips to it and reads:
Eric ‘For Eric, who saved me.’
Thank you, Leo.
Eric then flips to the first page.
Leo Don’t read it now!
Eric Just the first page.
(Reading.) ‘One may as well begin with Toby’s voicemails to his boyfriend.’
Leo I didn’t change his name. I just … it didn’t feel right to.
Eric I think that’s okay. It’s the truth.
Eric closes the manuscript, looking at it.
Oh Toby …
Leo wraps an arm around Eric.
I promised myself I wouldn’t cry today and I meant it. I’ve shed many tears for the dead and I will shed many more before I’m through. But not today.
Henry enters.
Henry Am I interrupting?
Eric Leo was just showing me his book.
Henry Have you finished?
Leo I sent it to my publisher on Friday.
Eric hands Henry the manuscript.
Henry My goodness. Congratulations. Am I in it?
Leo Yes, but I changed your name.
Henry Good idea.
Leo I called you ‘Henry Wilcox’, like in Howards End.
Henry I think Walter would have approved.
Mr Glass?
Eric Yes, Mr Wilcox?
Henry Everyone is waiting for you. We can’t have a birthday dinner without the guest of honor.
Eric Right.
Eric takes Leo’s hand.
Come on, I can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to. We have so many stories to tell each other.
Eric and Leo start to go off together. Eric turns to face Henry.
Eric Aren’t you coming, Henry?
Henry I’m actually a little chilly. Do you mind if I borrow a sweater?
Eric Not at all. You should find something in the top drawer of my dresser.
Henry Thank you.
Eric You have to see what I’ve done with the barn.
Leo Did you finish your dining pavilion?
Eric Yes! It’s going to be breathtaking at Thanksgiving.
Eric and Leo run off toward the party. Henry stands in place, watching them go.
He then opens the manuscript and begins flipping through until he finds a passage with his name in it.
He reads:
Henry ‘Henry was caught by the sight of the house. To see it alive once again, the lights inside glowing warmly through the windows. The sound of the voices and music filling the air. The late afternoon light diffused in the brilliant autumn leaves of the grand old cherry tree. How could Walter have known, how could he have seen how things would inevitably be? Henry looked all around him for the first time he truly saw the beauty of it. Not the property itself, although the property was beautiful. No, what Henry saw was the beauty of his life. A life blessed by this house and Walter and Eric and all his friends both living and long dead. Finally in that moment, Henry saw it all. The past, the present and the future all at once, all in concert, all around him.’
Henry looks around at the property. As he does:
Walter appears.
Walter Maybe we should plant some bluebells around the perimeter of the house. Or peonies.
Henry is struck by the sight of him. Then:
Henry How about both?
Walter I can’t believe we own this. I can’t believe all this is ours.
Henry We will be so happy here, I promise.
Walter I believe you, Henry. How could we not be?
I should probably get dinner started.
Henry No, stay with me. Dinner can wait.
Walter You say that now.
He starts to leave.
Henry Walter.
Forgive me. Please forgive me, Walter. I’m so, I’m so sorry. I wasted so much time.
Walter You have so much left.
Henry What do I do now, Walter? Tell me what to do.
Walter You do what they could not.
He lovingly takes Henry’s face in his hands and kisses him deeply.
You live.
The stage floods with golden light. The house glows intensely. Then black.
End of Play.
About the Author
Matthew Lopez is the author of The Whipping Man (Luna Stage Company, Manhattan Theatre Club), The Legend of Georgia McBride (Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Manhattan Class Company, Geffen Playhouse), Somewhere (The Old Globe, Hartford Stage Company), Reverberation (Hartford Stage Company) and Zoey’s Perfect Wedding (Denver Center for the Performing Arts). In London, he was represented in Headlong Theatre’s 9/11 Decade anthology with his play The Sentinels.
Copyright
First published in 2018
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2018
All rights reserved
© Matthew Lopez, 2018
The right of Matthew Lopez to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights whatsoever in this work, amateur or professional, are strictly reserved. Applications for permission for any use whatsoever including performance rights must be made in advance, prior to such use, to Creative Artists Agency (attn.: Kevin Lin), 405 Lexington Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, NY 10174, USA. No performance may be given unless a licence has first been obtained.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–34836–7
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