I’ve earned some kind of concession. This one small thing. Surely.
* * *
“We’ll pray on it,”my father says. Standing in front of the stove, my mother doesn’t say anything. I’ve still got my outdoor coat on, my hands in the pockets because they’re clenched into fists. Elliott would hire security guards.
“That’s not what I asked,” I say, and the steadiness of my voice surprises me. It gets my father to look up from whatever he’s reading on the table and give me a long, level look. “I asked you to stop. Not to pray about whether you should stop.”
“And I said we’d pray on it,” he repeats, and stands slowly, his hands still on the table in front of him. “I don’t appreciate my own son thinking he can walk into my home and tell me what to do.”
When I was four and he was three, I hit my brother Matt with a toy fire engine. He got a black eye and I got the first spanking I can remember when my father got home from work that afternoon.
I remember how much it hurt. I remember how hard I cried and how much I tried not to. I remember Matt watching from the floor in front of the chair where my father was sitting. I remember that Elliott, still a baby, started crying at the noise and my father was annoyed about that, too.
But the thing I’m thinking of, right now, is that when I thought it was over, I had to sit on his lap, give him a hug, and thank him. If it wasn’t sincere enough, I’d get spanked a few more times, and over the years, I was plenty insincere.
I’m grown and he hasn’t laid a hand on me in decades, but that queasy feeling is still there, the uncertainty over whether he’ll hit me or not. The unsettling, unmooring knowledge that if he did, I’d stand here and take it. My mother, as always, is at the kitchen counter, her back to us.
“It’s a waste of everyone’s time and effort,” I say, my voice still steady. “I’m already seeing Andi and I’m not interested in going on other dates.”
“It’s true, then,” my father says. “I’d heard a rumor but I thought, no, if Gideon were serious about someone, he’d tell us himself. Your sister at least had the respect to do that.”
Something clatters on the counter, and we both look over, but there’s no sign of it. Just my mother’s back.
“It’s serious,” I tell him. “Now you know. Please stop trying to set me up on dates.”
“You’ll thank us,” my mother says suddenly, and I turn. She’s never hit me—not really, not more than a smack here and there—but she knew how to wield the power and terror of our father. It was up to her what he heard about and what he didn’t, and up to her what counted as a grave misdeed and what counted asboys being boys. She chose which injuries and tears she’d soothe and which she wouldn’t.
“Pardon?” I ask, when she doesn’t go on.
“We’re doing you a favor, sweetheart,” she says, and turns, wiping her hands on a tea towel. She comes and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Girls like her don’t know how to be with a good man,” she says. The compliment, that I’m a good man, thrills me and I hate myself for it.
“But we’re glad you’re finally showing interest,” my father goes on. “Listen, son, this thing won’t last, but once it’s over you’ll be ready to find someone right for you and settle down.”
“Girls likewhat,” I say.
“You know,” my mom sighs. “Here, sit down, I’ve got some—”
“No. I don’t know.”
“Gideon,” my father says sharply. “Don’t talk to your mother that way.”
“You don’t know her,” I say, and I wish my voice weren’t so tight. I wish I could control it better. “You don’t know anything about her.”
“Of course we do,” my mother says, and she’s got the gentlest face and the gentlest eyes, and even though I’ve got at least five inches on her my heart is pounding with a deep, instinctual fear. “She’s been prancing around like a tart since she was in diapers. With those parents it’s a miracle she’s not selling her body on the streets by now, or worse.”
It doesn’t take much to make me speechless, and that overdoes it by a mile. I stare at my mother, all soft smiles and a warm hand on my shoulder, and in silent desperation I look over at my father, who shrugs.
“We were so grateful when the Lord laid it on their heart to move away,” he says, and I feel like my brain might implode.
“Don’t,” I say, the only word I can think of. I back away from my mother’s grasp, and she frowns, and it’s her frown but it’s Reid’s frown and Sadie’s frown and I have to look away. “Don’t you fucking dare say that about her.”
My mother gasps and my father snarls, “Gideon!Apologize.”
I inhale and automatically my mouth makes the shape ofsorry, but it sticks in my throat. I swallow it, and there’s no replacement.
I wish there was. I want to come up with something biting and clever to defend Andi. I want to laugh at their astonishing ignorance and I want them to understand how wrong they are, how perfectly fucking wrong, but I can’t summon anything. I just stand there like I’ve been struck.
“Excuse me,” I finally tell them, turn, and walk out of their house.
