The Perfect Family (8 page)

You aren’t smart enough for college. You’ll stay in Cornwall, work at the factory and get married to a nice Italian boy…

It was no wonder that, after Caroline left, Maggie had fled the house with Jack or someone else every chance she got, as well as joining clubs and activities to escape. Thank God life was different with her own boys. They never tried to avoid her and Mike, so she banished thoughts of her mother and concentrated on all that was right with her family.

Jamie had been magnificent in
Brigadoon
and his drama teacher said he’d be a top candidate for a drama scholarship if he sent out a tape of the performance with his college applications next fall. Brian was flying high because he’d been chosen captain of the baseball team, and Mike was happy with his church activities. She and Mike were doing okay, too. Thinking of last night’s lovemaking, she sang louder.

Jamie appeared in the doorway of the laundry room. “Rockin’ Mama!”

Glancing up from Mike’s shirt—she was trying to get a stain out of the sleeve—she grinned and lowered the music. “Hey, buddy.”

“You sound happy.”

“I am.” She angled her head to the CD player. “Reminds me of my old boyfriend.”

“Yeah? Do tell.”

She shrugged. “Not much to tell. He was pretty well-off. Grandma Lorenzo didn’t like him, so I snuck out to see him.”

Slouched against the doorjamb, her son cocked his head. “I’m sorry you had such a tough childhood.”

“You know what I finally figured out? Some people have wonderful childhoods, then hard times with their kids. I had it bad when I was young, but hit the jackpot with you guys. I wouldn’t trade the two.”

“And you might even get your sister back.”

“I will, Jame. I know it.”

“It’s so weird, having three people in my family I’ve never met.”

Gertrude Lorenzo’s legacy. Though she tried not to ponder what her mother would do when she found out Caroline was in their lives again, fear washed over her like a cold shower at unexpected times like this.

Jamie sank down on one of the two steps that led to the laundry room from the hallway. Buck came up and nosed at him, wedging in the space between the doorway and Jamie’s knee. He began to rub the dog’s neck.

Maggie stopped scrubbing and watched her son. “You want to talk, honey? You seem, I don’t know, sad. Or nostalgic.”

“Maybe nostalgic.”

“Is it the letdown from the play? You always feel blue after the school musical is over.”

“No. It’s not that.” He bit his lip. “I gotta talk to you, though.”

Her pulse rate sped up. Good news never followed that statement. She dropped the shirt on the washing machine and leaned against it. “Shoot.”

“I have a date Friday night.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

“I think so.” His gaze locked with hers. “I hope you do, too.”

“Of course I do. Can we meet her?”

“It’s not a her, Mom. It’s a him.”

“A him?” She stared at her son blankly. The sound of the refrigerator across the room, the ticking of the clock on the wall seemed unnaturally loud. When the realization hit, her mother’s heart tightened in her chest. “You have a date with a boy.”

A long pause. “It’s okay, isn’t it?”

Please, God, let me handle this right
. After a moment of speechlessness, she said, “O-of course it is.”

Jamie’s fingers tightened on Buck’s collar. Suddenly he seemed smaller, more fragile, in his jeans and sweatshirt.

Maggie crossed to him, knelt down, and took both of his hands in hers. His were freezing cold. “Honey, you know there’s nothing you could ever tell me, ever
do
or feel that would make me love you less.”

A frown. “Yeah, I know that.”

Well, she’d done that right. At least he knew her love was unconditional. But oh my God…the ramifications of his admission were far reaching.

“I just…I don’t want this to make you sad. Especially now that you’re so happy about Aunt Caroline.” He glanced down at the linoleum, then back to her again. “Are you upset?”

“That you’re gay?”

“Yeah.”

You have no idea
. “No, honey. I love you for who you are.”

“Do you feel bad?”

How honest could she be? With Jamie and herself?

“Only that you didn’t tell me sooner.” Not quite the whole truth, but part of it. The easier part. Again, she thought of all they’d shared. Yet, dear Lord, he hadn’t told her something so vital to who he was. The notion made her stomach cramp.

“There wasn’t any need to tell you. I never wanted to date before. Now I do, which is why I said something today.”

“I guess I can accept that, for now.” Later, she knew, it would haunt her. Pushing away the selfish thought, she cleared her throat. “Does anybody else know?”

His expression was wry. “The guy I’m going on a date with.”

“Who is it?”

“Luke Crane.”

Her jaw dropped open. “Luke Crane? Brian’s teammate?”

“Ma,” he said, sounding like the adult in the situation. “One out of every ten people is gay.”

She knew the stats, had brushed up on them for a section of her Psych 102 course.

“Even jocks.”

“I know. I never suspected it about him, though.”

“Did you, about me?”

Maggie had had some concerns. Once or twice she’d brought them up to Mike. The discussion always upset him, so she kept her worry to herself. One night, though, over a bottle of Merlot, she’d confessed her fears about her son to Gretta. She’d sensed all along Jamie was different, but in the end she decided the best course of action was to let Jamie tell her. “I had some suspicions, honey.”

“Why? Because there were no girls in the picture?”

“Uh-huh.”

And because he’d been interested in theater, and then started hanging out with a group from the plays. Paul and Nick were gay, she knew from Jamie himself. Also, Jamie had no desire to participate in sports beyond a brief stint at diving. Stereotypical thinking, which embarrassed her but had been there nonetheless.

Maggie moved to sit next to her son on the step. Buck compensated by lying at their feet. “Does Brian know? About you or Luke?”

“No.”

“Did you tell any of your friends? Julianne?”

“No, definitely not her. She’s so right-wing Christian, Mom, I can’t talk to her anymore. Especially about something like this.”

“I’m sorry.” Maggie knew she shouldn’t ask, but like prodding a toothache with your tongue, or taking off a Band-Aid to check a wound, she couldn’t leave this alone. “Did you talk to an adult, honey?”

“Um, yeah. Ms. Carson.”

A sudden prick of tears, which she mercilessly battled back. He’d told another grown woman and not his mother. “H-has she helped you?”

“Yeah. A lot.”

“That’s good.”

“Luke and I aren’t gonna hide being together, Mom. We’re not going to broadcast our dating either, but kids will find out.”

She groped around her mind for the mother role, one she usually fell into so easily. “How close are you two, Jamie?”

“We’ve been hanging out since the Valentine’s Ball. We got to be friends, then it turned into more.”

“Are you happy?”

He nodded. “My first boyfriend.” His expression turned sappy and Maggie’s heart ached and rejoiced at the same time. Then anger took over—that he’d been deprived of this normal adolescent feeling for so long. “It’s fun, Mom.”

“Good for you, honey.”

They talked about the times Jamie had seen Luke and his giddy feeling was even more evident, making it easier not to think about all he hadn’t shared with her.

After a half hour, she glanced at the clock. Mike would be home soon, so she was forced to bring up the mechanics of dealing with what Jamie told her. “How do you plan to handle this at home? With the family?”

“Bri’s gotta know before anybody at school finds out. I’ll tell him. You tell Dad.”

Which they both knew would be the hardest part of all this.

Mike’s love for his son was deep. But how on God’s earth was he ever going to reconcile Jamie’s homosexuality with the Catholic religion? He was so single-minded about the church. The thought of how his attitude would influence this huge benchmark in their lives terrified Maggie. She squeezed Jamie’s arm and left her hand there, more for herself than him. “Dad will want to talk to you about all this.”

“I know.”

“What about the rest of the family?”

Since he was a baby, Jamie always got this certain expression on his face when he was troubled. Maggie could read it like a neon sign. “No.”

“No?”

“I don’t want to announce to anyone I’m gay, Mom.”

“What does that mean?”

“That I’m a son, a brother, a friend and an actor, not just a gay man.”

“I understand that.”

“And you didn’t feel the need to announce to anybody that Brian’s straight, did you?”

How wise he was for sixteen. Of course, he’d had time to think this out. And she was still reeling about the effect his disclosure would have on Mike. On all their lives.

“All right. I can abide by that wish, until it’s time for people to know.”

Like Brian’s graduation party, a few months away, if Jamie decided to bring Luke as his date. There were several possibly homophobic people in their lives. Now, however, she had two big secrets to keep from her family.

A half-grin from her son. “We’ll tell people on a need-to-know basis.” Standing, he reached out a hand to her. She took it and prayed he didn’t feel hers trembling. When she got to her feet, she hugged him. He held on longer than usual. “I love you, Mom.”

“I love you, too.”

“Come on, Bucky,” he said to the dog, and they both disappeared down the hallway. She heard his feet pound on the steps, the bathroom door close, and Buck bark at being left outside.

Dazed, Maggie picked up Mike’s shirt and stared down at it unseeingly. Her heart thudded in her chest as the ramifications of Jamie being gay flooded her. She picked up the stain spray to apply more to the cuff, but dropped the can to the floor. Gripping the shirt to her chest, she swallowed hard.

“Stop it, Maggie,” she said aloud. This wasn’t a tragedy. If Jamie had a terminal illness, or hit somebody while driving and killed them, or was into drugs, that would be a tragedy. His sexual orientation was a simple fact of life.

Forcing herself to move, she put the white clothes in the washer, but random images bombarded her: Brian teasing Jamie about not having a girlfriend…Jamie’s dislike of proms…discussions about having kids, and Jamie saying he wanted some. She thought about
Brigadoon.
Her son was a boy who’d never experienced longing for the opposite sex, but he always played the romantic, heterosexual lead in the plays he loved so much. What had
that
been like for him?

Her heart ached for her child—what he’d gone through alone, and what he would still go through, even in this day and age. In bigger cities, gay kids were more accepted, but Sherwood was different. And she knew the shattering statistics on gay teen suicide—three times higher than others in the age group.

After she closed the machine’s lid, she went to leave the laundry room, but instead, slid to the floor and wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to squelch her negative thoughts—like the wish to go back to how her life was an hour ago. Like the wish that…no, she wouldn’t even think about that. It took her a while, but she won the battle and chose instead to figure out how she could help her son. And her husband.

*

With Buck at his heels, Jamie took the stairs two at a time. He catapulted into the bathroom, slammed the door, and lowered the toilet seat. Dropping down onto it, he buried his face in his hands.

Breathe in, breathe out
. Again. And again.

When his stomach settled and he didn’t feel like he was going to hurl, he stood and crossed to the sink in front of the mirror. He looked the same. Too skinny. Great hair, now that it was longer; normal nose. Eyes that, some cheerleader had told him, could get him into any girl’s pants. Showed how much she knew. But as he stared at his reflection, he sensed he wasn’t the same and never would be after what just happened in the laundry room.

He’d told her! Finally, after years of self-doubt that made him sick to his stomach, and when that passed, months of feeling like he was going to bust open from the inside if he didn’t let go of his secret, he found the courage to tell her. Luke’s last text message said,
If you do, I will
. They’d made a pact to approach both their mothers today.

But, oh God, he’d upset her, this woman who’d been the most important person in his life. He could see it in her face, always filled with gentle love and an acceptance most kids couldn’t fathom.

Typical of her, she’d tried to be brave. She said the right things. Yet he knew her almost as well as she knew him, and what he’d revealed would cause her worry and pain. He’d pretended he was good, too, that he hadn’t had sleepless nights over who he was, hadn’t gone through stages of self-loathing and recriminations. He was, after all, an actor. And he
had
come out on the other side,
had
accepted who he was. Rejoiced in it, even. Finding Luke just brought it all together.