“Your…” Nora waved her hand in the air almost dismissively. “Your predilection toward boys.”
“Oh,” Carver said, his heart speeding up.
“I really did think you could be steered toward women,” she muttered, “but I wonder if that was just wishful thinking, or me projecting Isaac onto you. Isaac loved women.”
“Clearly.”
“Don’t be a smartass,” she said, but there wasn’t much energy in it. “No, I noticed that you liked boys. And boys liked you, quite honestly. I think they sensed a feminine side to you, and some of them were more aggressive with you because of it, but some of them were actually more gentle. And you clearly liked that. I remember watching this happen and just being, you know…” She gestured, comically widening her eyes. “‘Oh my God.’ I was terrified for you.”
Carver was astonished to hear her report on this with such vivid detail. “And Dad apparently didn’t notice anything like that,” he said.
“No, he wouldn’t have,” Nora said. “Or if he did, he wouldn’t let himself recognize it. He was trying to ignore anything that… you know. But I saw it. A mother sees everything.”
“Yeah.”
“And now, of course… in one weekend, it’s just all come down,” she said, and laughed. “Just like that, you’re leaving your wife to pursue — what, Scott? It’s incredible.”
Carver, emboldened by this strange mood she was in, ventured: “Isn’t any part of you relieved?”
Nora exhaled, spinning a little in the chair again. “I don’t know.”
“I’m happier not pretending. Aren’t you happier not flinching?”
“Well, it’s as if you chose that strange Übermensch woman just to prove a point,” she said with a scowl. “‘See, see, now I won’t be happy even though she’s perfect on paper, so I must be gay.’ When, of course, the way the person makes you feel has just as much to do with it.”
“Sure, but I am actually gay.”
“I’m not even denying that,” Nora said. “I’m just saying life is complicated. And I thought you might not be happy living as a gay man, either, so if there was any part of you that cared for women, then maybe you could find a nice one who loved you very well, and it would be enough, and better than an honest but tragic life. There’s no nobility in tragedy.”
“Being gay isn’t as tragic now, Mom.”
“Yes, and that happenedverysuddenly. You know it did.”
“I do hear what you’re saying,” Carver said, feeling charitable. “You wanted to protect me, I get it. It backfired. Let’s leave it at that.”
“So everything backfired,” Nora said, throwing her hands listlessly in the air. “Every single thing we did for you.”
“Why don’t we just, uh, move forward,” Carver said, rising to his feet and tucking the print-out she’d given him into his pocket. “Let’s quit looking back. The shit that happened, happened. But I’m gonna live my life now, and if you really are as afraid of losing me as you say you are, then maybe you and Dad can swallow any disapproval about my personal life going forward.”
“Any?” she said. “Even if you come home scantily clad with piercings in your face, on the arm of your biker boyfriend?”
Scantily clad? “Biker boyfriend?”
“Scott.”
“Oh,” Carver said, laughing. “Would we call Scott a biker? It’s not like he’s in a gang.”
“It’s inherently a gang,” Nora insisted. “If you ride one, you get to be in the gang. That’s the whole appeal for these people.”
“I don’t think Scott is ‘these people’. You were just saying the other day how much you like him.”
“He’s always been polite, which I now feel manipulated by.”
“Sure,” Carver said, knowing damn well this didn’t even scratch the surface of her sudden dislike for him. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, Mom.”
“It feels like backfire after backfire. We tried to do what was best, it was a mistake, and now we’ve driven you into the arms of this vagabond.”
Carver went around the desk and leaned against it, looking down at her. Nora looked up at him; her fingertips were pressed to her right temple as if trying to alleviate her headache. “I might leave tomorrow,” he said, “but if I do, I’ll have breakfast with you guys first. And after I leave I promise I’ll keep in touch. Okay?”
