“You and Dad were married at twenty-five,” Hanna countered, already feeling anger prickle down her spine.
“Yes well, I mean,” her mother took in a deep, shuddering breath. “Hanna, when did all of this happen? I just don’t understand.”
At the sound of her mother’s voice breaking, she knew her mother meant it. It was a bit of a plea. The sound of it quieted Hanna’s building anger.
They just want you to be okay.
“So, you also like girls or–” Hanna’s eyes flicked over to her father, who had gone red in the face but seemed determined to marshal on. “Because we don’t care about that. We’ve known about Lily for years, and Mary and Diana were even friends back in high school.”
Hanna’s chest swelled at her father’s peace offering. She was so grateful for his declaration of acceptance that she didn’t even try to work out the part about Lily being the poster child for homosexuality in Maplewood, nor what he meant by bringing Diana into the mix.
“You don’t?” and Hanna heard the need in her voice, more need than she had wanted to admit to herself. She looked at her mother, who she saw had started to cry.
“Hanna, what makes you think we’d care about that? If that’s what is making you– experiment,” her mother replied, rekindling the anger Hanna had quieted.
“Experiment? I’m not experimenting!” Hanna gritted her teeth.
“Perhaps, Mary, we can hear from Hanna?” her dad tried.
“Yes, well, okay, so you like girls and boys, I mean men and women or–? Because you had Jeff in?—”
“Mary,” Evan McAvoy cut his wife off, another rarity. Hanna couldn’t help but let the gratitude for her father in that moment wash over her. They were never particularly close, in that they didn’t spend a lot of one-on-one time together, but she had always feltlovedby him. And in this moment, that’s what mattered.
“I am bisexual, like I said, so for me, yes, I am attracted to both those who identify as menandwomen. That’s what I know for sure now, though, I could see that evolving over time. I don’t think I’m pan like Maya, I definitely seek out body—-well,” Hanna took a deep breath, “I am bisexual, at the very least.”
“At the very least,” her mother repeated, not as a question, but as a statement she was trying to digest.
“And,” Hanna continued, “it appears I am also polyamorous, because yes, I have fallen inlovewith both Lily and Maya.”
“Love,” Mary McAvoy said the word like it was dirty.
“Yes Mom,love.I love them.”
“Hanna, if you want to experiment, you can keep it behind closed doors, keep it in the bedroom. I mean you can’t honestly think there is any longevity to this ‘relationship,’” her mother spat out the last word.
“Mary we?—”
“I mean okay, so you all live together, but come on, you can’t all get married? Kids? How would that even work? And you’re throwing away your future to play house in that?—”
“Mary!”
At the harshness in her father’s voice, Mary McAvoy took a breath, but still pushed forward. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you hang out at the Blake’s house so much. And that Maya girl?—”
“Let me? Mom. I am over twenty years old, I go where I go. And just so we are clear, it’s not like I caught Lily’s gay or whatever.” Hanna was fuming.
Seething.
She thought she might be able to take whatever her mother had to say about her, but she saw red at the mention of Lily and Maya.
“Oh I know that! I am not this uptight ignorant woman you’d like to think I am! I’m just practical, we have sacrificed so much for you, given youeverything, and now you’re, you’re?—”
“Mary, don’t you dare, we?—”
“It’s okay, Dad. I don’t know what the future brings, all I know is how I feel right now.Right nowI am in love with both Lily and Maya. Right now, I am in a relationship with them. A real relationship, not an experimentation that is purely for ‘the bedroom,’ but something that is ours, something we plan on carrying with us as we move through the world.” Hanna was breathing quickly now, trying to keep her voice cool and controlled. She felt her eyes sting with tears. This was one of the hardest conversations she’d ever had, mainly because it wasn’t like she and her family had any practice at this. And now she was sitting here having to fight for validation from hermother.If her own mother wouldn’t believe her, believe them, then who would?
Hanna took another breath and let her tears fall. She was coming to the conclusion that itdid, in fact,matterto her what her parents thought when her father spoke.
“Look Hanna, we love you, okay?” He reached across the table and turned his hand over. Hanna took it.
