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I sigh deeply. Part of me wants to tell my mom everything, to have her empathy and hear her advice. But another part of me just wants to sweep the whole situation under the rug, move on, and pretend nothing is wrong.
But then I look at my mom affectionately, her pretty brown hair streaked with gray, her face etched with deep laugh lines, her wedding band worn and scratched and loved. She met my dad when she was twenty-two, right after college. They’d fallen madly in love and never looked back.
I want that.
“The engagement is off,” I tell her bluntly and sit down, hard, on the kitchen chair. My mom sits down too, more slowly and with a confused look on her face.
“But why?” Her disbelief is echoed in her voice. “I thought you two were in love. Is there something I don’t know?”
I shrug.
“It’s insanely complicated.”
“Tell me, honey. What happened?” My mom cups my face with her soft hand and suddenly I start crying. Not sobbing like Marky had been a few nights before, but an almost silent weeping from deep in my core. Immediately, my mom springs up from her chair and wraps me in her arms again.
For a few moments, we stand like this, my mom cooing and comforting me, while I just let myself be sad.
Finally, I pull away from her.
“Our tea.” I go to the counter and retrieve our lukewarm drinks and sit back at the table.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I nod as I take a sip of the soothing chamomile. “It’s all a little shocking,” I warn her.
“I can take it.” My mom sits up a little straighter, as if bracing herself.
I laugh feebly. “Shocking about Marky, Mom, not me.” I inhale deeply and decide to go for it. “Marky is gay.”
“What?” Her jaw drops at the revelation.
I nod, hardly believing it myself. “Yeah, and not only is he gay, he’s in love with someone else. A man. Brett Cunha. The guy I went to high school with? He was at the engagement dinner, ironically, and I think he’s an assistant football coach at Blue Mountain High now. Anyway, yep, they’re in love. And Marky told me after the engagement dinner.”
“But honey that was three nights ago! You’ve kept this to yourself all this time?” My mom takes my hand in hers, looking genuinely worried.
“Mom, it’s okay. I just needed the time to think, to process. But I still can’t wrap my mind around it all. It’s crazy. Ugh!” I rest my head in my hands.
“Cora, I’m so sorry.” She pats my shoulder lovingly.
I smile wryly. “It’s okay, Mom. Well, mostly okay. I’m happy for Marky. I’m happy he can finally be himself. Imagine having that bottled up inside! And I’m happy we didn’t let things go too far. You know, like actually get married.” I shake my head. “So I’m okay. I’m not really that upset at all anymore.”
“But sweetie, you just found out your fiancé is gay and that he loves someone else… that can’t be an easy thing to go through.” My mother is wearing her ‘concerned parent’ look so I try to brush off her apprehension.
“No Mom, really, I’m okay. That’s life, full of all kinds of crazy twists and turns.” I smile, hoping that my face doesn’t convey my actual emotional distress over everything.
We each sit silently, sipping our tea and lost in our own thoughts.
The truth of the matter is that I’m not that upset about Marky. Sure, I’m disappointed our relationship had to end on such a wild turn of events, but I think I suspected that something was off with us almost throughout our entire relationship. I just chose to ignore it because I was so happy to be engaged to someone as handsome and kind as Marky Harrison.
I look at my mom again, envious of her happy marriage.
“What was it like, when you met Dad?” I ask her, feeling sad at the thought that I could be alone forever.
“It was absolutely perfect in every way.” My mom grins and fiddles with the string on the tea bag. “Especially because we hated each other the first time we met.”
“You did?” I’m surprised to hear this – my parents’ relationship is one of the most affectionate ones I’ve ever seen.
“Oh yeah. The very first time we were introduced, he insulted me, saying something about how people who play the violin are stuck up or something.” She laughs easily, thinking back on the memory. “I was so mad at him. But I ended up seeing him again the next day, because my friend made us all go out together. And it turns out he’d just been nervous, and he didn’t really feel that way. And the rest you know.”
“I didn’t know that about you guys.”
“Yeah, we tend to stick to the next story, about our first date.” She leans forward in her chair so she can stroke my arm. “What about you, kiddo? Did you feel some sort of spark with Marky?”
