It's All Relative

Chapter 1: Dinner

Chapter 1: Dinner

It’s Saturday night, the first time I’ve sat down to dinner with my parents since the day after Christmas the year before, and I’m so nervous, I can’t eat the food on my plate. Pot roast and boiled potatoes, green beans, cornbread stuffing, everything looks so good but I can’t taste it. Dan sits to my right. Beneath the table, his knee rests against mine, a small comfort. Tonight I’ll lie beside him in my childhood bed and tell him how much worse this would’ve been if he hadn’t been there beside me. Already my hands ache to stroke over the bristles along the back of his head, and in the mirror that hangs above the credenza across from me, I admire his buzz cut, the top of his hair sheared dark. The Army keeps it that way. He looks up from something Caitlin is saying to look at my reflection and when our eyes meet, he winks at me.

Caitlin doesn’t catch the gesture. My sister, sixteen going on twenty-nine, wears more makeup than most drag queens. Her hair is dyed so dark, it absorbs the light, and silver earrings run up the length of both her ears. She wears nothing but black—black jeans with a pattern of studs along the cuffs, black shirts with ripped necklines, a black jacket with silver chains draped from one pocket around her back to the other. When I walked in the front door a few hours ago, I stared at the Goth girl who had taken over my little sister’s body, the pierced eyebrow, the pierced tongue that she stuck out at me from behind my mother’s back as I was hugged in greeting. “It’s Cat,” she said, before I could even say hello. She crossed her arms and glared as if daring me to touch her, and with a jerk of her head to indicate Dan, she asked, “Who’s soldier boy?”

It’s the hair, I’m telling you, people see it and just know a cut that bad has to be military-enforced. He didn’t wear anything overt, no ARMY sweatshirt, no fatigues, but he still looks every inch the soldier. It’s his muscular build: nice arms, thick thighs, a tapered waist and barrel chest, tight abs and a tighter ass that his jeans frame nicely. I could see my sister checking him out, despite her disinterested act. My lover, I should’ve said then. Everyone was there, both parents, Caitlin, my older brother Raymond, who for some reason still lives at home. I could’ve just answered her truthfully and gotten it out of the way. This is Daniel Biggs, I could’ve said. My boyfriend. Oh wait, you didn’t know?

Only it didn’t quite come out that way—I stumbled over the word roommate and my sister shrugged like she didn’t care. “Mom thought you were finally bringing home a girl,” she remarked, then turned and left. As she trotted up the steps to her bedroom, she called back over her shoulder, “I told her not to get her hopes up.”

At the time, my mother just laughed in that nervous way she has that is anything but funny. I expect I’ll hear that laugh again tonight, when I finally gather up my courage and spit out the reason why I’ve come home. The reflection I see in the mirror behind my parents bolsters me: it shows the man Dan must see when he looks my way, intelligent eyes behind small wire-thin glasses that give me a professional appearance, blonde highlights streaked through casual, wavy hair that frame my face in a boyishly attractive way. Confident, sure. In love. I can do this.

But when I look around the table, I feel my nerve slip away. My dad is on the other side of Caitlin, Cat, shoveling food into his mouth and glancing past me every few minutes to the television in the other room as if I’m invisible. Twenty-five and somehow when he looks through me like that, I’m all of eight again, racking my brains for a way to get his attention, good or bad, anything to prove that I exist. When he looked up the first time, I gave him a tight grin, sure he would ask about school or the firm, but he didn’t. I watch him closely, taking in his thinning salt-and-pepper hair, the deep lines on his face, his battered hands and dirty nails—he’s a mechanic, self-employed since the layoffs at the plant left him without a job, and already scowling from the few beers in his system. I’m afraid of what he’ll have to say when I tell him.

But to be honest, it’s my mom who scares me the most. She sits beside Dad with a smile plastered to her face, and she’s chattering about a girl she ran into at the grocery the other day, “Mary Margaret what’s-her-face, didn’t you go to school with her?” She nibbles at her food and laughs, pats her dyed orange hair like it might have somehow slipped out of place, then spears the beans on her plate with a vendetta. “She’s grown up pretty, that girl, and she’s unmarried, Michael. I told her you were coming in this weekend and she asked about you—”

“I wish you wouldn’t do that, Mom,” I mutter. From the sound of it, she has this Mary Margaret waiting in the kitchen with dessert.

“Wouldn’t do what?” she asks. There’s that laugh again, like she doesn’t know what I could possibly be talking about. “She’s a friendly girl, real pretty, works at the orthopedist’s across from the deli.”

The deli, meaning the tiny sandwich shop where Ray works. He’s twenty-eight and a night cook—“night manager,” to hear him tell it, but there’s only one other person there in the evenings and she’s almost half his age. Whenever my classes threaten to drag me down, I think of my brother and pray to God that I’m never that bad. The fact that he moved out of the basement to the room above the garage this past summer is a big deal to him. “My own entrance,” he said, showing off his digs earlier. “You know, like the Fonz? On my own, man. On my own.” He doesn’t even own a car, still rides a bicycle to work. Twenty-eight. Already balding, too, I hope I don’t have that gene.

Throughout dinner he’s sat beside me, an eerie imitation of Dad, elbows on the table as he leans over his plate to snarf up his food. At the mention of Mary Margaret, his ears prick up, and he narrows his eyes as he asks Mom, “Who’s this again?”

From across the table, Caitlin rolls her eyes. “No one interested in you,” she tells him.

Ray glares at her, suddenly twelve years old. “I didn’t ask you,” he growls, and beneath the table, I feel a small foot kick out past my leg to connect with his shin. “Ow! Mom—”

“Caitlin, don’t,” my mother warns.

“It’s Cat,” my sister replies.

With an embarrassed duck of my head, I half-turn to Dan and whisper, “Welcome to hell.” I almost forgot how wonderful these family dinners could be. I knew there was a reason I didn’t come home more often.

Dan raises his glass of water to hide the smirk that tugs at his lips—pretty lips, well defined, almost heart-shaped when he smiles. He rarely smiles. When we first met, I thought he was just another hard-nosed grunt, but it’s shyness that makes him seem so aloof and distant. Once I dug past the hardened Army exterior, I found a soft, wonderful boy inside, and even now I can look into his dark eyes and see my lover peering out. Tonight, I think, after this dinner is over, after the coffee and the cake and whatever else my mother has planned for this evening. Tonight, in the darkness of my old bedroom, he’ll hold me the way he does that makes everything alright again, his breath faint in my ear, his hands flat against my stomach, his legs entwined with mine.

But first, we have to get through this. My mom starts in on the girl again. “Wasn’t she in your math class?” she asks, frowning at me as if she’s sure I’ll swoon once I remember just which Mary Margaret she means. “Fourth grade, Mrs. Lingenfelter’s class, sat in the last row. I’m almost sure that’s her.”

I clear my throat and look around, and before I can even think of how I’m going to put it, I tell them all, “I have something to say.”

Mom stops in midsentence. Dad’s gaze flickers from the weather report to me, then back again. Ray’s still glowering at Caitlin, who glances at our parents to make sure they’re not watching her before she sticks her tongue out at him, far enough so that we all get a glimpse of the thick silver ball rammed through the middle of it. But our parents don’t notice it—Dad’s glued to the TV and Mom’s watching me, waiting. Beside me, Dan sets his silverware down, wipes his mouth neatly with a corner of his napkin, then folds the cloth into his lap. He knows what’s coming—we went over it in the car all the way here. Beneath the table, his hand squeezes my thigh.

I’ve played it out a million different ways in my mind. I’ve rehearsed this moment until the words rest on the tip of my tongue like the stud that pierces my sister’s. I could be witty about it, or solemn, or nonchalant. I could blow it off like it’s no big deal, or get all teary-eyed and break down, or beat around the bush about the whole thing. I’m running the show here. Everyone’s waiting on me.

I slip a hand beneath the table and take Dan’s, my fingers folding over his for strength. I love him, he loves me. That won’t change, regardless of whatever I say to my parents, whatever they have to say to me. He loves me. Taking a deep breath, I look at my brother, my sister, my dad, my lover in the mirror behind my parents, but it’s my mom’s face that I concentrate on, it’s her eyes that I stare into—the others disappear and she’s the only one I see. My throat is dry, my tongue thick, my lips chapped. “I’m…”

My voice cracks and Dan’s hand tightens in mine. When I try again, I squeak like nails on a chalkboard. “Mom?” She nods, a faint ghost of a smile on her face, as if she’s sure she’ll love whatever news I have for her, she just knows it, so she’s getting her happy face ready to put on. Only the smile never fully materializes. “I know you mean well, but I’m really not interested in…this girl. I’m—” I look at Dan, his high and tight hair dark above his eyes, and he nods at me to continue. “I already have someone. Dan.”

Dad’s eyes focus on me—finally, he sees me. He looks at me the way he looks at the TV, like any minute something interesting might happen and he doesn’t want to miss it. I give him a grin that he doesn’t return, and when I glance at my mother, her face has turned ashen, her eyes wide in her head. She stares at Dan as if he’s just insulted her and she hasn’t quite recovered from the affront.

My brother looks at me, at Dan, back at me again, then leans close and asks in a loud whisper, “So what, you like it up the ass?”

“Raymond!” my mom snaps. Her knuckles have gone white where she grips her fork, and when she attacks the food on her plate, I get the distinct impression that she wishes it were me beneath her angry hand.

Only Caitlin doesn’t look impressed. “I knew you were a fag,” she mutters, twirling one finger sardonically. “Jeez, where the hell have you people been?”

Before Mom can reply, Dad speaks up. “Caitlin,” he says, still staring at me like I’m going to spout the stock reports in a minute, “go to your room.”

“What’d I say?” she wants to know. She doesn’t move.

In the hall, the phone rings. Mom jumps, startled, then hurries from the table to answer it. Once she’s out of earshot, Ray leans across me to get a good look at Dan. “I thought they didn’t let gays in the military,” he says. Dan gives him a stare that terrifies new recruits, but my brother’s too stupid to be afraid. “Does he have a big d**k?” he wants to know. When Caitlin kicks him beneath the table, he cries, “What’s the use of f*****g a guy if he doesn’t have a big d**k?”

“It’s not the size of the ship, dorkus,” she tells him, rolling her eyes. “Everyone knows it’s the motion of the ocean, right, Mike?” For emphasis, she wiggles in her seat, then smiles brightly at me.

My fingers have gone numb in Dan’s grip. I came home to this? “Michael,” I correct her, my voice wooden. I haven’t been Mike in years.

From the other room comes a muffled sob, then the phone receiver drops into the cradle with a loud clatter, and when Mom comes back into the dining room, her eyes are filled with tears. “Mom,” I start, Jesus. I didn’t mean for it to go quite this way. “I’m sorry—”

With a reproachful look, she glares at me as she takes her seat. “That was Penny,” she says, sniffling. She means her sister Penelope, her only sibling, who never wanted us to call her aunt. Call it a hunch, or gaydar, or what have you, but I always suspected my mother’s sister was a lesbian. Somehow her calling right this moment, when I chose to come out to my family, seems to confirm this fact. I have a half-formed vision of her miles away, suddenly overcome with an undeniable urge to call because she knows I need support. With this family, I need all that I can get.

But it wasn’t out of charity or some misplaced psychic sense that Penny phoned—that much is evident when my mom daubs her eyes with her napkin. “Mom?” I ask, concerned. “I didn’t think you’d be so upset…”

“Aunt Evie’s passed,” she cries, dissolving into tears. So that’s the reason for the call. A hole opens in my heart. The only thing I can feel is Dan holding my hand. Aunt Evie.

Ray doesn’t get it. “Passed what?” he asks, looking around the table. Even Caitlin can’t rise to that—she’s staring at the potatoes on her plate and blinking rapidly, trying unsuccessfully not to smudge her makeup. Twin black lines streak down her cheeks, like tears of a clown. To my mother, buried in her napkin, Ray asks, “Is this about those gallstones again?”

Because I’m closest to him, I kick his ankle and hiss, “She means she’s dead.” Dead. Once released, the word takes on weight and hangs between us over the table like a chandelier. My eyes feel hot and tight, my heart hurts, I want to crawl into my bed now and let my lover hold me close. Dead. I don’t want to believe it.

Mom blows her nose noisily, then glares at me like this is somehow all my fault. I admit I’m gay, her worst fears realized, and Aunt Evie dies. My fault. Her gaze drifts to Dan, sitting proud and stoic beside me, his hand in mine beneath the table, lending me strength I simply don’t have. “Oh God,” she sighs. “What else?”

As if waiting for this moment, Caitlin opens her mouth and out pops her tongue. With her front teeth, she jiggles the silver rod rammed through the center of it.

The color drains from my mother’s face, her hands fist in her napkin, and then she bursts into fresh tears. Without looking at either my sister or his wife, Dad takes another bite of his pot roast and says, “Caitlin, go to your room.”

This time she doesn’t argue.