The Perfect Family (33 page)

Mike took Brian by the shoulders. His son’s face was taut with worry. “It’s no secret I’m having a hard time reconciling Jamie’s homosexuality with my faith. But make no mistake, Bri. I love Jamie and you, more than I love anyone in the world.”

“What about Mom? Don’t you love her, too?”

Silence. Then, “Of course I do.”

“She said you should go to marriage counseling. Because of me. Because I handled this so bad.”

Maggie stepped forward. “No, honey, this discussion has nothing to do with you.”

He went on as if they hadn’t spoken. “You’re gonna get a divorce over the problems we’re all having, aren’t you?”

“No, no.” She soothed his arm. “We’re working out our differences. Don’t worry about a divorce. It’s not going to happen.”

Brian seemed unconvinced. Mike wished that his son was a toddler again and he could drag him onto his lap and make everything all right for him with calming words and a big hug.

“I’ll be better. I promise. I know you’re disappointed in me. But don’t…” Then he, too, rushed off through the doors.

Staring after his son, Mike knew exactly how he felt about disappointing Maggie. So be it.

He didn’t go into the house. Instead, he walked down the stairs and stood over the trapped raccoon for a minute. With his wife watching, he bent over, picked up the cage, and headed around to the side of the house.

*

Brian took the steps two at a time to the second floor. His whole life was a freaking train wreck and he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t believe his mother and father were having problems! Jamie and him used to joke about how they were an indestructible force. Now Brian had split them up because he couldn’t accept who Jamie was.

He knocked on Jamie’s closed door. “Jame, it’s me.”

“Come on in.”

His brother was at the desk, online, probably talking to Luke. Jamie scowled. “What’s wrong?”

Brian shrugged. “It’d be easier to tell you what’s right.”

Like a little boy on a playground trying to make friends, Jamie asked, “Wanna talk?”

“Yeah.” Brian went inside—where he hadn’t been since Jamie told Brian he was gay. He started to tell Jamie about their parents, but he noticed his brother’s face. Jamie seemed so sad, Brian couldn’t do it. Once again, he wondered how much shit his brother was getting at school.

“Is it about Heather?”

“Heather’s history.” He dropped down on the bed.

“You tried talking to her?”

“Yeah, she won’t take me back. I knew when I did it what I was risking. What her father did hit her hard. Cheating was a deal breaker.”

“I’m sorry. It was my fault.”

“No, Jame. I acted stupid.” He picked up a CD and studied the face of Emm Gryner, one of Jamie’s favorite musicians. “Eric Cummings asked her to the Junior Prom.”

“Fuck.”

He swallowed hard. “Mom gave you a psychologist’s name, didn’t she?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You gonna go?” Brian asked.

“I’m not sure. You?”

“I wasn’t, but now…” He thought about his parents. “Anyway, I’m gonna try to be better, Jame. About you. I said it at Kenny’s service, but I didn’t do it. I can change, Jame.”

“From what I hear, you already did something. Luke said you slammed Cummings into a locker. I wish I’d been there for that one.”

“The team’s been better about all this.”

“Yeah, Luke told me that, too.”

Feeling really jealous of the guy Jamie talked to now, Brian stood. “Okay. I gotta go.”

Jamie stood, too, and put out his hand.

Hell
. Bypassing it, Brian hugged Jamie.

Jamie held on tight.

Neither spoke again. Then Brian left.

On Melissa Fairchild’s advice, Maggie decided to attend a meeting of PFLAG in downtown Rochester. All along, she’d had it in the back of her mind she might visit the group, and now seemed the time to do it.

She asked Gretta to go with her. Not Mike. He’d never give an organization like this a fair shot, and she was tired of begging him to be more open-minded. So she drove with her girlfriend to a meeting one Thursday night. On the way, Maggie was preoccupied.

“What are you thinking about?” Gretta asked.

“The list of
Dos and Don’ts
on the PFLAG Web site. It’s for parents to use when their kid comes out.” She shrugged. “I did some of the
don’ts
.”

“Like what?”

“For one, I rushed the process. Our family needed time to internalize the whole issue of Jamie coming out and I intervened too much.”

“You know what I think is most important? That Jamie understands you love him for the person he is. Now that has to be a
do
on the list.”

“It is.” She smiled at her friend. “Thanks for being here for me.”

“You didn’t ask Mike to come?”

“No.”

“Maybe that wasn’t such a hot idea, sweetie.”

“Maybe not. But I didn’t.”

“Well,” Gretta said pulling into the parking lot, “let’s go see what they have to offer.”

The meeting was held in an old building that housed the Gay Alliance offices in downtown Rochester. Up on the fifth floor, they found five men and twelve women gathered around a table. They all said hello, then Maggie and Gretta took seats. Brochures, newspapers, and flyers advertising certain events were in display racks around the room.

Sam, an attractive, prematurely gray-haired guy with a friendly smile, was the leader that night and introduced himself as a staff member of the Gay Alliance. Others followed suit, giving their names and situations. One woman had two gay sons, another had a lesbian daughter, the treasurer was a lesbian herself, and a woman with dark hair was just dealing with her son coming out. All of them spoke of how they were advocating for gay rights locally and nationally. Sam said, “The mission of PFLAG is threefold, Maggie: support, advocacy, and education.”

He went on to give her a brief history of the organization. PFLAG was headquartered in Washington, DC, but currently had 200,000 members with affiliates in more than 500 communities. One of them was in downtown Rochester on Main Street. The group was started in 1974 by a mother who marched in the Gay Pride Parade in New York City. Afterward, she was surrounded by walkers asking her for help in enlisting their parents’ support. The nationwide group grew from there.

Maggie especially liked how they stated their mission—to celebrate diversity, envision and work toward a society that accepts people’s differences, and advocate for an end to discrimination. Their goal was to create a society respectful of everyone.

“So, that’s the overview.” Again, the warm, gracious smile from Sam. “Tell us what brought you here.”

Maggie explained her situation and ended with why Gretta was with her. “My husband wouldn’t come to a meeting like this.”

Joan, the woman with the two gay sons, leaned forward. “Mothers are quicker to accept than fathers.”

With a glance at Gretta, who’d said the same thing when she told Maggie about Tim’s reaction, Maggie confessed, “That certainly applies to us.”

An older man asked, “And you’re angry about that?”

“I guess.” Then, “Yeah, I am.”

The male participants launched into a spirited discussion on how they had handled the discovery of their children’s homosexuality. They ranged from fathers of lesbian daughters to those of gay sons.

One man became teary-eyed. “I went through the typical stages of finding out: shock, denial, guilt, and grief. The old thinking, ‘If I’d been a better father, more of a man, my son wouldn’t have become gay,’ haunted me for months.”

Maggie wondered if Mike had been having those kinds of recriminations. She’d never asked him about it because, after years of being in tune with his needs, with helping him to deal with problems, they weren’t there for each other. She felt even more rotten about the state of her relationship with her husband than before. How on earth had they come to this?

“Any other kids?” a woman wanted to know.

“Yes, another son. An athlete. He’s having a hard time, too. I’m worried about him.”

They filled her in on their experiences with sibling reaction, some similar to Brian’s and some not.

“What can we do for you Maggie?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. I’m floundering and thought maybe this organization could help.” She shrugged. “Actually, knowing my experiences are common
does
help.”

Gretta spoke up. “I have a question. What about Catholics? Are they welcome in PFLAG?”

She must be asking for Mike.

“Yes, of course. We have a table over there displaying pamphlets about community life where we’re active. On it is a brochure about DIGNITY.”

“What’s that?” Gretta wanted to know.

Another man sat forward. “I can answer that, seeing as my wife and I are Catholic. DIGNITY is a group which seeks to reform the Catholic Church from within.”

Gretta’s brows rose. “I don’t think that works very well.”

The guy cocked his head. “Actually, we believe it’s the only way reform comes about. It used to be forbidden to eat meat on Fridays. And women had to wear hats to Sunday Mass. People
inside
the church worked to get those things abolished. That’s how change occurs in organized religion.”

After a long discussion, Sam checked the clock. “We’re going to take a break, then get into the advocacy part of our meeting.” He pushed a paper over to Maggie. “Here’s what we’re going to talk about next.”

On the list was the Gay Pride Parade in a few months, a fall March on Washington, a list of speakers who were going to area high schools to talk about gay rights, and the Day of Silence, where students nationwide spent the school day in silence as a protest of discrimination.

Gretta went to talk to the people who’d mentioned DIGNITY and Maggie picked up a brochure on education by the Gay Alliance, thinking of Sherwood High and also of her new college course proposal.

A woman named Patty approached her and nodded to the pamphlet Maggie held. “I head a subgroup on reform in schools, if you’re interested.”

Scanning the information, Maggie noted that some of it was not so radical—Sherwood High had antidiscrimination polices and library resources on gay issues. But she wondered if her sons’ school would ever have support groups for parents of gay children, or gay/straight alliance groups for students, or workshops on tolerance for teachers. Would her kids’ school ever sponsor a Day of Silence?

Patty had some insights. “Some of the larger districts in Rochester have already incorporated a lot of this.”

“Yes, but we’re more conservative in Sherwood.”

Patty smiled. “That’s why we need people from towns like yours to effect reform.”

When the break was over, the members had a spirited discussion of the advocacy efforts, surprising and pleasing Maggie with what was going on to help the gay community, particularly kids. She and Gretta left PFLAG with a pile of brochures and hope in their hearts.

“Will you join?” Gretta asked in the car on the way home.

“I think so.”

“Maybe I will, too. It’s for friends.”

“I appreciate this support more than I can say. I’d love it if you joined with me.”

“Then I will.”

As they drove away, Maggie was bombarded by a deep sense of sadness for not asking Mike to come along so that he might have found some solace, as she had. That notion led her to wonder if she no longer had her husband’s best interests at heart.

*

It exhausted Maggie to watch everybody tiptoe around each other. Since the raccoon incident and the inadvertent mention of divorce, all four of them had been cautious. Brian especially was putting up a brave front. As far as she knew, neither boy had taken her up on her suggestions for counseling. If something didn’t break soon, she was going to nudge them.

At least last night they’d gathered around the computer to make up invitations to Brian’s graduation party, which would be held at the end of June. They tossed out ideas, teased Mike about his typing skills, and joked around—just like old times. To add to the excitement was the knowledge that Caroline, Teresa, and Chloe would be in attendance this year. The jury, of course, was still out on Gertrude Lorenzo, who, after the fiasco with Jimmy, once again wouldn’t see Maggie.

“This is fun,” Brian said about the format Mike had been playing with—the invitation was in the shape of a baseball and on the stitching were the details of the party.

“How many of them will we need?”

Maggie was thinking about Sara and Mike’s siblings who would attend the party and what had to be done before that happened. If Jamie brought Luke as his date, people would have to be told he was gay. She was hit by a flash of resentment—against the world, she hoped—that having a simple get together wasn’t even easy these days.

“I want fifty,” Brian told them. “All the kids won’t come, but most of them will.” He grinned, the old Brian surfacing from the sullen teen he’d become.