Page 40 of They Were Roommates

The servicehadbeen beautiful, and Diego had cried like the dutiful son he was, even if his mom had died never having accepted that she had a third son. His siblings and father had been receiving the family when they’d arrived. Diego held back, giving them all head nods but not bothering to approach since he knew most of the people who had come weren’t there to see him.

Diego hadn’t been back home since before he graduated from college, which had also been the last time he’d seen his father and siblings. The church the service was being held in was the one he’d gone to as a kid and young teen, but he’d stopped going at fifteen when the youth group he’d been in had condemned one of the members of the congregation for being bisexual. By then, Diego had begun suspecting he wasn’t a cisgender heterosexual woman, and he’d stopped attending services.

He recognized a lot of people from the congregation at the funeral, and he kept his distance from them as well, standing off to the side and doing his best to be invisible. For the most part, they didn’t recognize him. The few people who did approach him merely nodded their heads in greeting, or looked at him strangely, perhaps trying to reconcile the man he was now with the angry, sad child he had been.

Sofia bustled over to sit with them for the ceremony. She held Diego’s left hand and Frankie held his right. Diego tried to ignore the glares his father was throwing at him for not sitting with the rest of the family.

“I don’t think any of the church peepstotallyhated me,” Frankie said. “So that’s a good thing, I think. I absolutely love Sofia, and I figure she’s really the only person I had to impress, so I’m fairly sure she’s not going to ban me from future family gatherings.”

Diego let out a small grunt. “No, but the rest of the family might ban me for being both trans and gay.”

He’d tried to approach his father after the ceremony, but the man had taken one look at Diego in his black suit, flanked by Frankie on one side and Sofia on the other, and turned on his heel and walked away. At least that hadn’t given him the chance to dead name him or use the wrong pronouns like his abuelo and some of the older women from the church had.

At this point, they had to be doing it on purpose because Diego had a full beard and a newly touched-up undercut. There was nothing feminine about him, and yet some of the attendees couldn’t be bothered to use his correct pronouns. When Diego tried to introduce them to his business partner and boyfriend, several of them quite literally clutched their pearls. There were a few younger folks who nodded politely and a few even smiled and introduced themselves eagerly to Frankie, but for the most part, it was about as bad as Diego had assumed it would be.

Unfortunately, the worst was yet to come. The funeral had been overcrowded with all of the members of the community that weren’t invited to the reception. His mother had been very active in the church, and she was a part of several cooking and community groups. The reception was just going to be the extended family, and some of his father and sibling’s business associates, and friends.

When they got to the restaurant, Diego found a mass of people he didn’t know gathered around the food while his family was scattered throughout. He did his best to make civil conversation, accepting condolences and introducing himself as his mother’s third son. The responses varied; the conversations were tiresome, and Diego began to lose steam.

By the time they’d made it about a quarter of the way around the room, Diego was exhausted from explaining that he was the trans son who had brought his boyfriend/business partner to his mother’s funeral. At the halfway mark, he started telling anyone who didn’t already know him that he was just a friend of the family and none of them bothered to ask who Frankie was.

“Mon chéri,do you think maybe we’ve expressed enough condolences now? It truly doesn’t seem like anyone would miss us if we took an early exit,” Frankie tried to offer, but Diego kept catching his father and eldest brother, Oscar, watching them from across the room.

“I can pay my penance for not having been here for the past six years by making a full circuit around the room. Then we can go,” Diego said.

He placed a strong hand on Frankie’s back and led him to the next group, which consisted predominantly of family.

As they approached the group oftíasDiego found himself dropping his hand from Frankie’s back and standing a few inches away. His earlier conviction to stick it to his family by being openly trans and gay had left him sometime in the past twenty minutes and when one of his aunts pulled him into a hug and at least used his correct pronouns, something inside Diego cracked. He stepped back from the embrace and introduced Frankie as his business partner. They all cooed and fawned over him. Diego didn’t miss how Frankie’s lips tightened, but before he could remedy it, a group oftíossurrounded them and thetíaslaunched into explanations in Spanish about “Valeria’s nice young boy, his business in the big city, and his nice-looking business partner.”

Frankie watched this transpire and his eyes showed a level of language comprehension Diego almost wished he didn’t have.

Diego was just about ready to interject when his father appeared.

“It was very nice of your business partner to come with you… son,” his father said. Diego tried to speak, he really did, but his tongue felt glued to the top of his mouth, and he watched as the light slowly left Frankie’s eyes.

“Of course, sir. I am so terribly sorry for your loss. I didn’t want Diego to have to travel alone,” Frankie said.

His father looked Frankie up and down and then turned to Diego. “Yes, I am glad that…hewas not alone.”

Diego’s stupid, traitorous tear ducts chose that moment to unleash hours’ worth of pent-up stress, and he had to turn away. He listened with only half an ear as his father began asking Frankie questions about the business. Frankie was the epitome of professionalism and manners. It made Diego want to sink into the floor. All he had to do was reach for Frankie. If he just held Frankie’s hand, maybe his father would get the hint and they wouldn’t have to—

A solid hand landed on his shoulder, and he nearly leapt out of his skin. Oscar was standing behind him, and he pulled Diego into a bro-y, back slapping hug. “It’s good to see you, little sis… bro,” he stammered, and Diego had to fight back tears again.

“This is someone you work with? Damn, I don’t think I have a single colleague who would make a trip out with me for a funeral. Not even formamá.” Oscar turned and offered a hand to Frankie.

Frankie gave Diego a searching look and when he didn’t say anything, he shook Oscar’s hand in resignation.

Diego watched as all of the walls Frankie used to have, the ones he used to shield himself from ever getting too close to anyone, or letting anyone get close to him, slotted back into place.

Diego tried to engage him in conversation with Oscar. When his other siblings, his sister Antonia and his other brother Miguel, made their way over, they asked a few questions about the cafe, but Frankie only gave one-word answers.

Diego thought they had done just about enough socializing to be polite and was readying himself to make an excuse to leave when he saw Sofia approaching. She looked absolutely elated, and before he could think about why she would look so happy at a funeral reception, she threw her arms around Diego’s neck.

“Oh, Diego,” Sofia cried loudly as she squeezed him tight. She turned to look over her shoulder at what was left of his immediate family. “I’m so happy you told them about Frankie. I can’t even describe how happy it makes me to see you all together again.”

It was like watching a car crash. He tried to interject but Oscar asked, “Told us what about Frankie?”

She turned around to face him. “That they’re dating?”

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