Two Boys Kissing(35)

“Yes, Neil,” Mrs. Kim says, not bothering to hide the irritation in her voice. She picks the paper back up. “Now if we can get back to our Sunday morning …”

Neil feels he should be pleased by this brief acknowledgment, should take the truce that’s being offered once more. The conversation is clearly at its end. His mother has started reading the paper again, and his father is telling him to have some breakfast. We figure this is it, this is all—most of us found acceptance through small steps such as these. Our families were rarely willing to make leaps, at least not until the end.

But it’s not enough for Neil. He feels if he accepts the truce now, it will be months, maybe years, before he gets to this point again.

“I need you to say it,” he tells them. “I need to hear you say it.”

Mrs. Kim throws down the paper and hits the table. “What? That we’re sorry? For not turning off the radio when some idiot said something idiotic? You’re acting like a baby.”

“No.” Neil tries to keep control of his voice. “I don’t need you to say you’re sorry. I need you to say that I’m gay.”

Neil’s mother grunts and looks at his father. You deal with this.

“Neil,” he says, “is everything okay? Why are you acting this way?”

“Just say it. Please. Just say it.”

It’s Miranda who speaks up. “You’re gay,” she says, with complete seriousness. “And I love you.”

Tears spring to Neil’s eyes. “Thank you, Miranda,” he says. Then he looks to his parents.

“Neil …,” his father says.

“Please.”

“Why is this so important to you?” his mother asks. “Why are you doing this?”

“I just want you to say it. That’s all.”

“I don’t have to tell you that you have black hair, do I? I don’t have to tell you that you’re a boy. Why should I have to tell you this? We know, Neil. Is that what you want to hear? We know.”

“But you don’t mind about the other things—that I have dark hair, that I’m a boy. You mind that I’m gay. Which is why I need you to say it.”

“Just say it,” Miranda chimes in.

Just say it, we implore.

Miranda’s words make their mother angrier. “Do you see what you’re doing to your sister?” She picks up the paper and pushes back her chair.

Please.

When Neil’s mother caught him and Peter holding hands, he was relieved. Relieved that it was undeniable proof. Relieved that he hadn’t had to say a word.

But then she didn’t say a word. If Peter hadn’t been in the room, he would have thought he’d made the whole thing up.

“You’re gay,” his father says now.

“And Peter is my boyfriend,” he says.

“And Peter is your boyfriend.”

Miranda reaches out and holds her father’s hand. They all look to Mrs. Kim. We all look to Mrs. Kim.

“Why does this mean so much to you?” she asks.

“Because you’re my mother.”

So many of us had to make our own families. So many of us had to pretend when we were home. So many of us had to leave. But every single one of us wishes we hadn’t had to. Every single one of us wishes our family had acted like our family, that even when we found a new family, we hadn’t had to leave the other one behind. Every single one of us would have loved to have been loved unconditionally by our parents.

Don’t make him leave you, we want to tell Mrs. Kim. He doesn’t want to leave you.

She genuinely doesn’t understand what it means to hear the words out loud. She genuinely doesn’t fathom why it’s such a big deal for Neil to hear his parents say that he’s gay, to say it like a fact, to grant it the articulation of her voice.

Mrs. Kim stands there, newspaper in her hand. She stands there and looks at her son. Both mother and son are coiled and lost in their own defensiveness. There is something plaintive in Neil’s argument, a vulnerability that can easily be overlooked in the heat of battle. He wants a truce, desperately wants a truce, but this time he wants a truce on his terms, not theirs. Mrs. Kim recognizes this. Even if the memory doesn’t actually play for her, she feels the echoes of the moment she told her mother she was going to start a new life, thousands of miles away. That her mind was made up and there was nothing her mother could do to stop her. How much had she wanted her mother to say, I understand? How much had she wanted her mother to be on her side?

In fairy tales, the mother often needs to be dead. In mythology, the father must die for a prince to become a king.

But who wants a family life like fairy tales, like mythology?

You’re gay. Mrs. Kim can hear the words in her head. She can hear them clearly. Once she’s said them to herself, it should be easy to say them out loud. But still she hesitates, for the same reason that Neil needs so much to hear it.

Saying the truth out loud makes it more real.

Peter is your boyfriend.

Somehow, this seems a safer place to start. So she looks at her son and says it.

“Peter is your boyfriend.”

That would be enough for Neil. Just to hear these words from his mother. Because the implications are clear, even if not said.

But it’s not enough for Miranda.