JAVIER
We tell them the truth,but there are edits. Telling my momHey, I’m in a romantic relationship with my stepsisteris bad enough; I don’t need to start it withSo when I was fresh out of rehab, I picked up a total stranger at a bar and we had sex.
“Wow,” Gerald is saying, sitting opposite me at my mom’s kitchen table. “Well, gosh. I had no idea. SinceChristmas?”
Right. We omitted a few other details, too.
“We were going to tell you after the wedding,” Madeline says quickly. “But we weren’t sure how you’d feel about it, and we didn’t want to do anything to overshadow your day.”
“I gotta say, I’m surprised,” Gerald says. “And it’s a little unorthodox. But stranger things have happened.”
“Yes, they have,” my mom says, her eyes slicing at me.
“It’s not like they’re actually related,” Gerald points out to her. “Just related by marriage. Or at least, they will be in two weeks!”
Madeline laughs nervously, but she also seems relieved. At least one of our parents has taken this pretty well.
“Who else have you told?” my mom asks after a long pause. She’s using her Dangerously Neutral voice, and even though I’ve been an adult for over a decade, I start sweating.
I give her the list.
She gives me a long, hard look, her hands resting on top of each other on the table, dark red nails and a tasteful diamond engagement ring. Her hair is usually streaked with gray, but I think she’s gotten it colored recently because it’s the same brownish-black as mine.
I lean back in my chair and look right back at her, horribly aware that I need a shower and I’m wearing the same clothes I wore ice skating. God, I hope there are no sex fluids on me.
“Javier,” she says. “Could we speak in private?”
I briefly consider telling her that anything she says she can say in front of Madeline and Gerald, but neither of them really needs to hear the fight I think we’re about to have.
“Sure,” I say and stand. Before I can follow my mom, Madeline reaches out, squeezes my hand, and gives me a smile. I can’t help but smile back.
“Javier, I’m concerned,”is what she starts with. We’re in the room that was mine for a few years, after we moved here and before I left for the Marines. The sleeping bags and air mattresses are gone, the bed unslept in. I guess that was for me.
“About what?”
“About what. What do you think? About you and your stepsister!”
I shove my hands into my pockets and ball them up so I don’t fidget too much because she’ll probably get mad at me for that, too.
“You haven’t thought this through,” she starts. “I know things seem good now, but what if something goes wrong? You’ll still have to see her sometimes. You’ll still be family.”
“Then we’ll manage it like adults.”
My mom looks doubtful, which is fair, I guess. “Are you going to ask Gerald and me to take sides? Or pretend like nothing happened? What if she cheats on you or something, and you don’t handle it well?”
“What the hell, Mom?”
“It’s a valid question. These things?—”
“Is that really what you think of Madeline?”
“Of course not!”
I want to shoutThen what the fuck?!but heroically, I don’t.
“I’m just asking what will happen if she hurts you and you…spiral,” she says, both hands out like she’s trying to calm a strange dog. She’s using herI’m an adult and you’re an idiottone of voice, the one that drove me insane while I was in high school.
“I don’t know,” I say as reasonably as I can. “Is Gerald the kind of guy who’s going to kick me out and change the locks tohelpme get my shit together?”
