It’s Italian. Sicilian dialect, actually, I tell him.It means balls.
When a staff member waves my parents through to see me in bed, my mother instantly bursts into tears, covering her face with her hands.
My father puts his arm around her shoulder and gapes at me, aghast. I’m so used to my parents using their emotions to manipulate me, I’m not ready for how real this is. They are truly upset to see their kid in a hospital bed. My mother’s face is pallid. Possibly for the first time in my life, I feel genuinely sorry for her.
‘What happened, exactly?’ Dad asks, once they move up to the head of the bed to kiss me. ‘Your housemate said some chemical spilled on you during a party?’
Hell of a double euphemism, Rex.
‘Look, Mum, Dad, I’m gonna be honest with you for once,’ I say. ‘It wasn’t a chemical, it was a drug.’ My mother gasps. ‘And it wasn’t a party, it was sex. I was having sex with two guys, and too much of a drug got into my system, and it nearly killed me.’
My parents are horrified. My mother stares at me like I just unmasked myself as a villain.
‘That’s – too much information,’ Dad says, his gaze lingering on the chart beside my bed. ‘We don’t want to hear this about our son.’
‘Tough titties, Dad,’ I say, with the same voice I’d use on the footy oval.
‘Youwhat?’ Dad snaps.
‘Tough titties. I don’t care if you want to know or not, this is who I am,’ I say, locking eyes with him. ‘I’m not bisexual. I only said that cos I thought it might make you hate me less. I’m not into girls, only guys. I don’t want to live with Sabrina. And I’m not gonna move into your flat. I want my own place.’
Italian boys aren’t allowed to say this, but this is the truth.
‘Are you trying to hurt me?’ my mother cries, clutching her chest. ‘Why dump this on me now? I’m already upset about my poor boy in hospital. And we can’t pop in and stay in apied-à-terreif you’re not living in it!’ She presses her palms to her cheeks. ‘No. This is too much to take in.’
‘Well, it wouldn’t be if you’d listened to me the first time,’ I say flatly. ‘I told you who I was years ago. You made me feel like shit for it. I’m done bending myself out of shape to fit your life. You can bend to fit mine.’
While that verbal bitch-slap ricochets off the walls, my new nurse in this ward, Siobhan, trundles in with her obs kit on wheels and utterly fails to read the room. ‘Oh, do we have visitors?’ she asks in her Irish lilt.
‘Uh, yep. These are my parents. Sam and Anna Calogero.’
‘Lovely to meet the pair of you,’ Siobhan says, but in a bit of a jaded monotone. Unlike Pooja, who had an upbeat energy, Siobhan’s a stocky forty-something brunette with a clenched jaw like she’s perpetually had enough of everyone’s shit but has to smile cos she’s at work. ‘I just need to do Zeke’s obs – five minutes and you can have him back …’
Something savage overcomes me. ‘They were just telling me how proud they are of me, Siobhan,’ I lie. ‘Because I’m gay.’
Siobhan presses her hand to her chest. ‘Oh, bless, that’s too sweet!’ Her mouth forms a shocked ‘o’ shape, like something genuinely unexpected has snapped her out of her monotonous shift. ‘Goodness, I didn’t interrupt you – coming out …?’
‘No, no, my parents have known for years,’ I say. ‘We were just talking about how hard it is when you’re from a small town, and Italian, and Catholic. How it made me hate myself. But it made all the difference, having loving, supportive parents.’
Both my parents look like they could sink through the floor.
‘I came out at my brother’s wedding,’ I tell Siobhan. ‘My parents could have cared what everyone else thought, but they didn’t. All they cared about was me.’ My laser vision tunnels into my mother’s eyes. ‘Mum gave me an extra big piece of wedding cake and told me nothing could change how much she cares for me,’ I lie. I shift to my father, whose mouth is hanging open slightly. ‘Dad walked up to me, and I thought he was going to hit me, but he didn’t – he would never hit me, would you, Dad? He said, “You’re my son, and I love you no matter what.” And he hugged me.’
My father looks at the floor.
Siobhan’s teared up. ‘Oh darlin’, that’s so beautiful, honestly,’ she says, beaming at Mum and Dad. ‘I worked in a regional hospital for a while and I know how tough some of those country boys have it when they can’t face coming out. Honestly, if I could tell you the things I’ve seen, it’d break your heart. What wonderful parents you both are.’
My mother’s smile is as frozen as her eyes. ‘He’s a special boy,’ she tells Siobhan. ‘I – uh – need a coffee. I’ll be back.’
She flees my cubicle without a look back.
I expect my father to follow, but he doesn’t. He sinks into the chair where Hammer spent the night. His eyes are welled up, hands clasped over his lap, like he’s at a funeral. As Siobhan does my obs and chats with me, he glances at the chart beside my bed and taps away on his phone.
‘Blood oxygen sats are at ninety-four,’ Siobhan says, her demeanour much chirpier than when she walked in. ‘They want it back to ninety-seven at least. Let’s check again soon. If you’re back to normal, you’ll be free to go, darlin.’
I thank Siobhan. She leaves.
The air is heavy between me and Dad. My mother hasn’t returned. He puts his hand on the white sheet on my mattress, rubbing his hairy knuckles against the fabric like he’s summoning a memory.
