“What is going on?” Kate asks, glancing between everyone.
I feel like shit. This was supposed to be her special day. But right now, I can’t hold this in anymore, not the way I have in the past.
Mom remains silent. It’s apparent she doesn’t want to get involved.
“Kate, we have no idea what your brother is talking about right now,” Dad says. “He's lost his mind, as far as I'm concerned. He's just trying to poison this family against each other, I guess, because he has some ridiculous vengeance against me for a reason I can't imagine.”
“You can't imagine it, Kirk?” I ask. “You can't imagine why I'm so fucking pissed at you after all these years?”
“I don't have a clue.”
I don’t see a reason to hold back. Not anymore. “Then I don't mind reminding you. Because you had an affair with a women named Sheryl, and you made a kid who stumbled across evidence feel like if he told anyone, our family would be on the streets, and that it would all be my fault. And Mom, when I came to you, you told me that you didn't believe me, only to later assure me that you knew all along what was happening. You both fucked me over, that's what you did.”
“Is this true?” Kate asks. “Is it?”
I look between Mom and Dad, waiting for them to reveal their part in all this, to fess up to this crime that they committed against me so many years ago.
“I don't even understand why this is coming up now,” Dad says.
Kate approaches him, her hands balled into fists. “But is it true?”
“Affairs happen all the time,” Mom says quickly, coming to his defense.
Kate doesn’t look nearly as confused as she did when this conversation began. “I knew about the affair, though, and I was willing to forgive that. Or at least try to push through it with you, Mom. The affair was one thing, but this? Making your child feel responsible for ruining their family? That’s another. Am I wrong thinking it’s the person having the affair who should be accused of that? Did you two really do this to Mikey?”
“I don't know what anyone's talking about.” Apparently, Dad’s sticking to his story.
Kate stands upright, her jawline sharpening. “Get out of my house.”
“What? We let you stay in our home for weeks without paying any rent, and—”
“Do I owe you for that? Is that how family works? Because up until now, I actually thought that family works by not dragging their children into their affairs. Lyle may have been a lot of things, but at least all he did was cheat. At least nothing happened to Roger, because I can tell you right now, Dad, if he had ever done anything like what you did to Mikey, I would have been dragged to jail because the cops would have needed to pry me off of him.” She turns her attention to Mom. “And Mom, you should be ashamed for not being there for your son. This all makes sense now. It was always hard to understand why Mikey was so upset, why he kept lashing out at you guys all through high school. Jordan and I never got it, but now that I do, you need to leave.”
“How can you believe him?” Dad asks.
“And now you’re doing it all over again?” I ask, horrified that nothing’s changed after all these years, that he’s not even willing to give me this moment.
“Get out,” Kate tells him. “Now.”
Dad grunts. “Come on, Dara.”
“Baby, we're so sorry,” Mom tells Kate.
“I'm not the one you should be apologizing to. And that’s why you need to leave.”
Mom tucks her head low and follows Dad out, still not offering any words to me, maybe because she’s just so ashamed of what she did.
As soon as they’re out the door, Kate turns to me. “How could you have kept that in all these years? How could you have not told us?”
“I didn't want to take your family away from you the way mine was taken away from me.”
“Do you think it was better for us to live that lie, like when I lived the lie that my husband still loved me?”
“I'm sorry, Kate.”
“I don't need you to be sorry, Mikey. This family’s been strained for so long, and Jordan and I especially haven't really understood the reason why. It's kind of a relief to know that it wasn't just in our heads, and to know what really happened. You shouldn't have had to deal with that on your own.”
“Yeah, well, Jordan shouldn’t have had to face being gay alone, either.”
