I rubbedmy hands over my pants as I followed Frankie up the walk to his childhood home. It’d been so long since I’d had to do the whole meet the parents thing, but this time there was the added anxiety of being the first boyfriend Frankie brought home to his mother who was doing her best to accept that she had a gay son. Who was dating an older man. And happened to love being dominated. Logically, I knew she wouldn’t know that last part, but I couldn’t convince myself she wouldn’t somehow figure out that aspect of our relationship and decide I was taking advantage of her baby boy.
The door opened before our feet hit the steps and a small, older woman walked out, assessing me with eyes nearly identical to Frankie’s. She drew her son down for a hug, narrowing her gaze slightly as she released him. “And you’re Calvin. It’s nice to have you here. Please, come in.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” She tsked at my proffered hand and pulled me in for a much shorter, less personal hug. It stunned me, which drew a laugh out of Frankie.
“Better get used to it,” he whispered as we followed her into the house. “That means you’re okay in her book. If she likes you, she hugs you. Just wait until she gets to know you and you’re trying to wipe lipstick stains off your cheeks every time we leave.”
“Sounds good to me.” No, I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to dark lipstick smeared on my face, but I’d take it if that meant she trusted that I wouldn’t break her son’s heart. First, I had to make her see that we weren’t an abomination, then I could work on proving to her that I would always value and protect Frankie’s happiness. I reached out for Frankie’s hand, withdrawing when I remembered him recounting his mama’s issues with public displays of affection.
Frankie shocked me by stepping closer, shoving his hand in my back pocket. His mama glanced over her shoulder, the corner of her mouth turning up slightly. Either she’d eased her stance or Frankie had exaggerated how uncomfortable she was. “You two go to the family room. I need to check on lunch.”
We’d barely settled on the couch when the squeal of a little girl echoed through the hall. “Uncle Frankie! Why you here and not at work? Did you have a good vacation? Did you bring me a treat? Can we watch cartoons now? Who’s that?”
Her rapid-fire string of questions only seemed to end when she ran out of breath. She jumped into Frankie’s lap and strangled him with her small arms. He held her tight and kissed her cheek. When he looked up at me, I could see the fear in his eyes. All week, he’d constructed this lie so his mama wouldn’t worry about him, but now a toddler threatened to unravel it all. Luckily, I was more experienced in the art of distraction, so I jumped in to save him.
“I’m Calvin,” I told her, answering the easiest of her questions. “I live with your Uncle Frankie.”
Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Like Uncle Tony and Uncle Enzo?”
“Sort of, sweetheart,” I responded, chuckling at the innocence of youth.
“But you’re not brothers,” she pointed out. “If you were, then you’d be an Uncle too, but you’re not.”
“No, we’re not brothers,” I confirmed.
“Then why you live together?” She held her uncle a bit tighter, as though she didn’t trust me and was trying to protect him.
“Sophia, quit bothering them,” Mama scolded, causing the little girl to frown. She looked up at me with sad brown eyes, and I knew I was sunk. This girl was even better at pulling heart strings than Ryan had been at her age.
“She’s fine, ma’am. I think she missed Frankie and she’s trying to figure out who I am to Frankie,” I told her. “So far, we’ve established that we’re not brothers because I’m not her uncle.”
“Oh, I see.” She crossed the room and took Sophia out of Frankie’s arms. I tensed, automatically assuming the worst: that she didn’t want her granddaughter exposed to the big gay couple in the room. She sat in an old rocking chair across the room and Sophia settled into her lap. “Honey, Calvin and your Uncle Frankie are friends.”
“Like me and Gabbie are friends? Does that mean I can live with Gabbie? Her house is quiet, not loud like my house.” Frankie’s fingers tightened around my hand with the little girl’s sad admission.
“No honey, they’re not quite friends like you and Gabbie.” She looked over to us and Frankie nodded. As he waited to hear what his mother would say next, he leaned closer to me. I took that for a silent plea to support him and draped an arm over his shoulder. Pieces seemed to fall into place for Sophia, whose eyes went wide. “Calvin is your Uncle Frankie’s boyfriend. That means he might not be your uncle like your daddy’s brothers, but he sort of is because he loves your Uncle Frankie very much.”
“But they’re both boys!” she exclaimed. “My mommy says boys kissing is yucky.”
Frankie let out a snort of disgust. I swallowed hard, because my first reaction was to tell the little girl her mother was full of shit and that type of bullshit statement was the reason I’d hidden for so many years. I did neither, not wanting to upset anyone on my first visit to the Marino home.
“Well, your mommy has said a lot of things.” She looked directly at us as she continued. “One thing you’ll learn as you get older is it does no good to judge people based on what someone else has told you. When you do that, you can accidentally hurt the people you love the most. It’s true that there are some people who don’t like seeing two men or two women kissing or anything else. There was a time when I felt that way, too.”
“You did?” Sophia asked. I wondered if this was all too much for someone her age to process, but decided that Mrs. Marino knew her family best and wouldn’t do anything to hurt them.
“I did, but then I got to watch your Uncle Frankie falling in love,” she answered quietly, her gaze stilled fixed on us, sadness in her eyes. “I knew what was happening, but he didn’t tell me anything. And that hurt. When I found out it was because he loved a boy and he worried I would be mad at him, that made me feel like a horrible mama.”
“But you’re not!” Sophia insisted at the same time Frankie said, “Mama, stop.”
Frankie slid out from under my arm and went to kneel beside his mama’s rocking chair. “You’re the best mama any of us could’ve wished for. It was wrong of me to assume you’d stop loving me or wouldn’t accept Calvin in my life.”
“I never gave you a reason to think otherwise, and for that I’ll never forgive myself,” she responded. My heart broke for this family who was experiencing so much pain that could’ve been avoided.
“You should, Mama. I already have.” He stood and kissed the top of her head. “But what you said to Sophia is good advice. We all need to make our own decisions and we need to be strong enough to admit when we might’ve been wrong. And you were, Mama. You showed strength and you made the situation right. I love you.”
“I love you too.” Both of them wiped tears from their eyes. The front door opened, and I heard one of the brothers’ voices. Mama eased herself out of the chair and disappeared, muttering something about needing to finish getting lunch ready.
Frankie scooped Sophia into his arms and spun around in time to see Freddie walk into the room. “Hey man, everything good at the restaurant?”
