Inclination (8 page)

I attempt to
speak, my lips even move…but no sound comes out.

“Did you hear me,
Mr. Del
Vecchio
?”

I hear, but I
don’t think I understand. “You don’t want m-me in Our
…
Our Way…anymore?” I lift
my eyes to look at her and I try to establish some kind of emotional
connection. But she’s always looking away from me. She won’t return my gaze.

“I do not think
Our Way is the right place for you to participate in a teenage worship
situation any longer.” And Mrs. Martine turns, takes several shoe-clicking
steps, and then stops. I think that maybe she’s changed her mind, and I wait
for her to turn around. But Mrs. Martine doesn’t turn. She simply says, “Please
be sure to close the door at the top of the stairs tightly on your way out.”

I’m wrecked.

It’s very late
now and I’m still behind the church where I parked my car before my meeting
with Mrs. Martine. When I first came out here I couldn’t drive because my tears
made it too difficult to see, and then, strangely, I’d drifted off into an
unsettled sleep. And when I woke up, I immediately remembered what happened in
the basement of the church. So instead of calling or driving home, I let myself
sink—like a brick tossed into a pond—headlong into depression. At this point,
I’ve been sitting here in my car for at least an hour, running scenarios
through my brain.

A. I could go to
Mrs. Martine and tell her I was wrong when I said I was gay.
Yeah, right.

B. I could go
home and tell my parents the truth, “I got kicked out of Our Way for being
gay”, and let the chips fall where they may. I figure the “chips falling” would
include Mom and Dad crying harder than I had, screaming out, “Our son is
gonna
burn in hell!” and wondering why they ever adopted me
in the first place.

I am being
unfairly harsh to Mom and Dad.

C. I could keep
what happened this evening to myself, which would require pretending I’m going
to Our Way on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night, but instead go to the mall
and get myself an Orange Julius and a soft pretzel, hang out at the arcade, and
waste money I don’t have. And my little retreat into “the great mall escape”
would last until next Sunday at church when all of the other parents ask Mom
and Dad why I’m no longer in Our Way, which would come as news to my parents.
And then the charade would be over, wouldn’t it?

Not a wise
choice, choice C.

D. I could tell
Mom I developed a strong passion for Buddhism, the largest religion in South
Korea, which would appeal to her desire for me to be in touch with my birth
culture. “I feel that now it is the proper time in my life to explore this
spiritual option.”

This one feels a
lot like abandoning Jesus, and that’s intolerable to me.

E. I could find a
way to put myself out of my misery. As in, permanently. But isn’t this option
also a sin?

And then all I
can see in my head are my mother’s eyes, red and puffy from days of crying over
the loss of her son.

This is the worst
choice of all. Not going to happen.

F. I could stay
here in my car, staring out on the frozen church parking lot, hoping that Jesus
will take the wheel.

I go with F.

When my Dad finds
me just before midnight, I’m semi-asleep in my car, slumped over the steering
wheel. He literally lifts me up, carries me from my car, and then belts me into
his own car, speaking gentle words about how everything will be okay in the
morning. I don’t respond to him at all, as I think I’m in a sort of emotional
shock.

What happens when
I get home is also much of a blur. I can’t miss that Mom has been crying, but
still she rushes toward me as soon as I have one foot through the front door.

“You didn’t
answer your cell phone, Anthony! We were terribly worried about you!” She hugs
me, her tears dripping all over my face, and again I feel like a fraud.

Mom is crying
over the image in her mind of a good Catholic boy, her loving and obedient son,
Anthony. But I’m not good, at least not according to Mrs. Martine, and I don’t
know if I can be Catholic anymore.

“I found him—he
was exactly where you said he’d be, Gina.” Dad leads me down the hall and into
the master bedroom. Mom follows along, stopping only to grab a set of sheets
from the linen closet. And as Dad undresses me like he used to when I was a
kid, Mom makes up the air mattress that they keep on the floor in the corner of
their room, always ready and waiting for frequent, late-night “I’m scared of the monster under my bed!”
visits from my sisters.

They hover over
me, kneeling on either side of the mattress, and kiss me one-by-one. Then they
tell me they love me, right into my ear, and assure me that we will work everything
out in the morning. I close my eyes.

My parents don’t
yet know that the monster in the Del
Vecchio
house
isn’t crouched under a little girl’s bed, but is lying on the air mattress in
the corner of the master bedroom room, trying to sleep.

For the first
night I can remember, I fall asleep without praying.

Mom and Dad don’t
wake me up to help with the breakfast zoo/mob scene/relay race. They don’t even
wake me up for school.

Dad never leaves
to go to work either. After I hear the school bus drive away, the front door
closes and I hear Dad’s voice, and then, maybe a minute later, Mom’s. They’re
sticking around the house, waiting for me to wake up. Waiting to talk to me.
I’m not going to make them wait any longer, although I’m not planning on spilling
my big fat gay secret. I honestly have no plan at all for how I’m going to
explain last night’s behavior. Which probably spells trouble.

When I get
downstairs Mom and Dad are in the kitchen, sitting on the barstools at the
island, sipping coffee, and speaking in low tones. I can hear a Veggie-tales
Christian video for children playing in the living room and know that Lulu will
be basically spellbound for its duration, which gives us a good hour to talk.

My parents regard
me as if I’m the creature from the black lagoon when I enter the kitchen. Mom’s
eyes are puffy; it’s clear she’s been crying again this morning. Dad looks like
he aged a decade overnight. I figure I don’t look much better.

“Anthony!” Mom
gushes, unable to stop herself from coming to me and taking me in her arms.
“Talk to us about what’s going on, please….”

Dad is behind
her. “Son, last night your behavior was very disturbing, and very unlike you.
You
always
let us know where you
are…and you never came home and….” His voice transcends from angry to worried
to desperate and then trails off.

I stand there in
nothing but my white T-shirt and plaid boxers, feeling so small, and I glance
blankly back and forth from one of them to the other until Mom takes charge of
the situation. She places her hands on my shoulders and looks into my eyes.
“Sit down, Anthony. It is long past time we talked.”

Without a word, I
gently shake myself free of her grasp and go to the kitchen table, taking my
usual seat. Mom and Dad join me, choosing their usual seats as well, so we end
up scattered around the big table.

Finally, I speak.
“There’s no place for me in the church I love.”

Mom again focuses
her eyes on me, and her words cut through any hope of me pretending. “Are you
gay?”

Dad doesn’t gasp
in surprise at her question. It’s obvious that they have discussed this
possibility. I wonder if he’ll avert his eyes from me, in total disgust that he
even has to entertain the possibility that his son is so abnormal, but he
doesn’t. My father’s gaze stays glued to mine, slightly bewildered, but not
appalled.

“No…no, of course
I’m not
gay
.” Although I pretty much
came out and told them the truth with what I first said, my impulse is still to
lie…to hide my shame.

The absence of
further conversation proves that they don’t believe me.

“It won’t change
the way we love you, you know, if you think you are
like that.”
Dad offers me that bit of consolation, but I note what
he said was “you are
like that
” not
“that you are gay.” He can’t even use the real words to describe “The Problem”
his son is suffering with.

My eyes fill with
tears, just like my mother’s. She swallows and says, “We spoke with Abby
Martine, as we knew that you had a meeting with her last night. And we didn’t
know where you were, and it was eleven, and we were getting worried and so we
called her and….” Mom rarely rambles.

When I hear that
news—my parents have talked to Mrs. Martine—I literally jolt back in my chair,
almost falling off of it. Not to mention that for the life of me I can’t get a
breath.

“She told us…
Abby told us that she asked that you no longer participate in Our Way because
of your admission to being homosexual… and we know how important your youth
group is to you and….” Mom’s crying in earnest now. The word
sobbing
fits the bill much better. And
it’s all because of me.

“I, uh…well,
she’s wrong. I’m not gay.” It still seems easier to deny the truth than to face
it. “I’m a Christian… so I’m not
gonna
be gay
anymore.” I realize I have confirmed their suspicions.

Again, it’s quiet
in our kitchen, with the exception of the sound of Mom and me crying.

“I don’t know
that you have much control over your sexuality, Tony.” Dad suggests, in
contradiction of my last statement, but he still looks and sounds puzzled. “But
maybe…you know, maybe
this thing’s
just a phase that you’ll someday grow out of.” Along with those words, I
clearly see hopefulness on his face, which cuts deep into my heart.

I lift my head
from my hands and stare at him, wondering if he actually believes human
sexuality can be that fluid. I certainly don’t know the answer for the rest of
the world—maybe for some people it is—I only know about myself. My gayness
isn’t a phase. I’ve always been this way. I always will be too.

But he continues.
“You know, son, if you give it time, a young lady might come along who will
make you forget you ever felt
this way
.”
I first notice that he again refuses to utter the term for what I am: gay. He
referred to my gayness as “like that”, “this thing” and “this way”. He can’t
even make himself utter the distasteful word, which hurts and makes me worry
where he stands on this issue. And I can’t miss the hopefulness in his voice
when he suggests that the right girl hasn’t come along yet.

“Paul, you aren’t
helping.” Mom sighs, and I realize that she must have noticed the same things.
She runs her hands through her long graying brown curls, pain and shock and
maybe even guilt visible on her face, and then she takes a deep breath. “We
love you—it’s that simple. Please level with us so we can help…no, that’s not
what I meant to say. Please be honest with us, and then we can be there for
you.” After a brief hesitation, she voices the first helpful words ever offered
to me on the subject. “After all, Anthony—who are we to judge?”

Mom looks at me,
but I find myself turning away from her to gaze at Dad, and as I do, I hold my
breath. I need to gauge my father’s reaction to the possibility of having a gay
son. First he shrugs and that befuddled expression lingers, but then he nods as
if he’s relieved that Mom put words to his own convoluted thoughts.

“I’m certainly
not without sin, Tony. I won’t be casting any stones.” Dad
hasn’t
acknowledged that acting on my homosexuality
isn’t
a sin in his eyes, but he
has
given me the acceptance I need to be
honest about who I am within the confines of our home. And then he says words
that let me know he’ll support me no matter what. “I think I need to go talk to
Father Joseph. That woman, Abby Martine, was wrong in what she did—you are a
good boy, in fact, you are one of the best—and
she
is the one who needs to find a new group to worship with.”

The warmth of my
father’s love, demonstrated by how he has changed his tune quickly and
radically in order to accept and support me, thaws every frozen corner of my
heart. But I still protest. “No, Dad. Please don’t do that. Instead, can…can I
go to the Catholic Church in
Lampert
for the next few
weeks? Until I’ve had a chance to think.”

“You will not be
attending church alone in
Lampert
. Our family will
attend Mass with you.” Dad is really stepping up for his gay kid. I’m not sure
how to feel about his fledgling support.

“I’ll call Saint
Mark’s and talk to the Sunday school teachers. I’ll let them know that for
personal family reasons the girls will not be in CCD classes for an
undetermined period of time.” Mom is already thinking details. “We already have
the catechism books, Anthony, so we can go over the girls’ lessons with them
here.”

But I can’t make
the girls suffer for my… my
problem.
“No, Mom. Don’t do that. Let the girls keep on doing what they usually do. This
has nothing to do with them.”

Then a weird
thing happens. My parents both turn, at the exact same time, to look at me—to
gawk at me, more accurately—like they’re joined at the neck. Dad abruptly gets
up from his seat and walks over to my chair. “In case you forgot, son, we are
the Del
Vecchio’s
. We love God and He comes first. We
will continue to provide our children with an opportunity to worship and learn
about Him. But we are also a family, and as such, we will worship together
as a family.”

In this brief
conversation in my kitchen, I have witnessed my father’s mind as it changed.
Dad has gone from uncertain to accommodating in a matter of minutes. I
recognize his love for me, not that I doubted it before—but this conversation
reaffirms it. He knows my heart and he adjusts to who I am.

Time for another
confession. “I want you to know that I never spent too much time worrying about
how
you guys
would react to me being
gay because I’ve been obsessed with my relationship with God. And I’ve been
trying so hard to
not
be gay and
worrying about going to hell and….” I’m being as honest as I know how to be.
“God was all that mattered when I thought about what it meant to be gay.”