The wine I was about to swallow nearly spurts out of my mouth. I give Ben a pleading look before I turn to my fiancé, Jean, and put a hand on his shoulder in case I need to calm him down. Luckily, his amused expression shows he’s taken the joke lightly.
I mentally replay Ben’s words: “My friend Amy—you know, the nurse—got yelled at by one of the doctors on her ward today.”
Jean, who is a doctor himself, can’t stand the power play between doctors and nurses, and was about to ask for more details when my eldest brother continued:
“He told her, ‘For the last time, when you fill out a death certificate, write the actual cause of death in the space provided, not the name of the attending physician!’”
Now that I’ve swallowed my wine, I can laugh heartily. Although I have to admit, Ben has taken me by surprise. I’m used to my brother giving people shit. So why did I expect him to treat Jean any differently?
I’m about to clap back at Ben when another voice booms across the far-too-small room, “Get out of here, you faggots!”
The room goes silent.
The world seems to hold its breath for a moment as the ugly words echo around us. As if compelled, my hand slips from Jean’s shoulder. My heart stops for a moment, and my throat tightens painfully until I can no longer breathe.
I’ve made the cardinal error of forgetting where I am—just for a moment. Where we are. Jean and me.
It took me a while to come around to the idea of us as a couple since we met two years ago, although we’ve been engaged for almost a year now. However, it’s taken months—until just before Christmas—and a lot of intervention from my wonderful siblings to get my parents to invite Jean round to their house for Sunday lunch.
“Get out!” my father shouts again.
The aggression in his voice is a direct contrast to the cozy dining room, and I feel his words physically as if he’s hit me. Tears gather in my eyes, but I have no intention of letting them fall. It would only provoke another reaction from my father.
I have no idea what went wrong. Admittedly when we came in, my father refused to shake Jean’s hand or meet his eye, but that didn’t seem to bother my fiancé much. Everyone was a little awkward, maybe, but apart from that everything was going okay. Jean was tolerated at the dining table. We were tolerated. Then Ben’s stupid story made me drop all the inhibitions I hold onto so tightly when my parents are around. I was myself—totally myself for a moment—gay and all. How I always am when I’m around to Jean. I love touching him. It’s second nature to me now.
“Get out of my home!”
I flinch as if I’ve been whipped. Then I hear more than my father’s vile voice raised in this cramped room. My younger sisters Kathlyn and Sheila are on their feet and are yelling back angrily.
“You can’t treat Elmar like that!”
“Leave them alone!”
Then Ben’s voice joins in the cacophony. “Elmar is perfect just the way he is!”
I sit there paralyzed, staring at the cut meatloaf on the table in front of us. Everything blurs around me, including the words shouted only a few inches above my head.
I want to get out of here, but I can’t. The chairs in my parents’ living room are the same ones they’ve had since I was a child, and it’s like the one I’m sitting on has trapped me in place. The dark wood of the dresser against the wall and the deep green velvet of the heavily upholstered furniture adds to my sense of oppression. So little has changed and yet everything is different.
A hand grips mine. Elisa, my best friend and Ben’s future wife, has risen from her chair. Despite being seven months pregnant, her freedom of movement is impressive right now as she pulls me up.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a movement. Jean has pushed back his chair and is standing up too. Maybe Elisa has taken his hand as well. She’s looking at me, and her lips are moving. But whatever she’s saying, I can’t process it. Nothing is penetrating my brain fog except for the raised voices—there’s general chaos in my head—and everything is blurred by the tears I haven’t yet shed. I feel like I’ve been encased in treacle.
On autopilot, I follow Elisa into the hall. The tiny room is even more cramped than usual. It takes me a moment to realize that it’s not only Jean, Elisa, and me that are leaving. It was a traditional Sunday lunch at my parents’ house today with all the family, and now I watch as Kathlyn, Sheila, Keiran, Thomas, and Ben put on their shoes. All five of my siblings and their partners are leaving.
I swallow hard and can barely process what’s happening here—can hardly believe what’s happening here.
Is everyone leaving because of me?
The tears I’ve been holding back threaten to fall. Is that a sob coming out of my mouth, or is it just in my head? I hope I kept it in.
The next moment, we’re outside, and cold air rushes into my lungs. Despite my warm jacket, I’m freezing. I wonder if it’s the cool February weather making me feel so cold or the ice that’s spread from my heart and settled deep in my bones. At least that’s what it feels like to me. Maybe I should ask Jean for a diagnosis; after all, he’s the expert on bodies.
A while later, I’m sitting in the cozy pastry shop on the corner of the street surrounded by the cheerful voices of my brothers and sisters, and I have a slice of chocolate-mango cake in front of me. It’s normally my absolute favorite, but today it tastes like cardboard.
I haven’t taken in much of the chatter around me, but I do notice when it suddenly goes quiet. Ben has been on top form with one joke after the other spilling from his lips, so why did he stop? Surprised, I lift my gaze from the piece of cake on the table in front of me, and it lands on my mother’s face.
She’s standing stock still in front of our big table looking at me. Her now-graying hair is threatening to fall out of the bun she styles it in for church and Sunday lunch. Her clothes look rumpled as if she’s been pulled through a hedge backwards, but those brown eyes—so similar to mine—rest on me. I can’t read her expression, but they don’t seem as bright as they used to be when she looked at me. They seem empty somehow.
Tears fill my eyes again, and I hide my hands under the tabletop when I realize they are shaking.
I look at my mother expectantly.
She continues to gaze steadily at me.
Please, I mentally beg. Although what I’m asking for isn’t clear to me.
Say something! Say something! Say that it’s okay that I’m with Jean! Say that I’m okay!
Her lips don’t move.
Someone places a chair near her, and she takes a seat. A piece of cake arrives in front of her.
The hubbub of my siblings has become mere murmuring.
Later, when we’re all getting ready to leave and I’m putting on my jacket, I notice my mother standing beside me. She takes my hand and squeezes it briefly before anyone can see.
Does that mean she still loves me?
Is it an apology for my father’s behavior? Or for hers?
Is it a peace offering?
Who knows?
Certainly not me.