Coming Together: With Pride (16 page)

"Mom?" I croaked.

Her eyes opened. They were just as blue as ever. "Daniel," she rasped. "Gabriel said you would come." She reached over to squeeze the robot's hand. He beamed. "Tell me, boy, are you married yet?" she demanded. "Are you a family man, and a man of God? Or have you strayed too far to ever truly come home?"

"But he has come home," Gabriel reassured. "He is not lost. No one is beyond redemption."

My mother nodded. "Gabriel has such faith. But tell me, Daniel, at least that you've settled down with a nice girl..."

Oh Christ, what the hell was I supposed to say? The truth?
I choked back tears. "Sorry, Mom. I just haven't found the right one, I guess."

"Ah, well. At least you came. Gabriel will straighten you out. You'll see..."

Her eyes closed. Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell. And then it stopped.

One of the strangers leaned over my mother. He put a hand to her throat and frowned. From a pocket, he pulled out a stethoscope. Her doctor, I realized blearily. He put the scope to her chest and listened.

"I'm sorry," he said, straightening up. "She's gone."

Just like that. I traveled all the way out here on Father Raphe's say-so, and the most I got to do was tell my mother a little white lie. So much for closure.

The other man cleared his throat. "My condolences, Mr. Cain. I'm Stephen Probst, your mother's attorney. I'm the one who called you earlier."

"The guy I cursed out," I said dully. I glanced at him and noticed a conspicuous absence of religious symbols on his person. "You're not Minority."

"No. Your mother couldn't find a Minority lawyer so she had to look outside the community to handle her affairs."

"No lawyers?" I looked at the other man' clothes. "No doctors either, I guess?"

The physician nodded. "The Moral Minority is such a small community these days. I'm afraid it's dying out..." He paused, looked at my mother and bit his lip. "Sorry, I meant no offense."

"None taken," I whispered.

"Mr. Cain," the lawyer went on, "I realize this is a great loss for you, and you'll obviously want some time to mourn. I don't want to bother you now, but just so you know, your mother left everything to you—"

"Why?" I interrupted. "I thought she wrote me out of her will years ago."

"She, uh, did. But as Doctor Farrell just pointed out, the Minority community is very small these days."

"And aging," Farrell added.

"There was just no one else for her to leave it to," Probst finished.

"So I get it all by default."

"Well, it was either you or the government, and being Minority your mother certainly wasn't going to leave it to them."

I nodded. Nice to know there was at least one thing Mom had despised more than me.

"Here's my card," Probst said. "When you're ready, call me. Gabriel has the number as well. Your mother has already made arrangements for her remains, so Doctor Farrell will be taking the body with him. She'll be buried in the family plot tomorrow. It's to be a Minority ceremony, so..."

"Only members of the Moral Minority allowed. I know." I looked up at him. "Don't worry. I wasn't planning on going anyway."

Probst nodded and took his leave. Farrell pulled the sheet over my mother's face. I got one last glimpse of her before Gabriel took me by the arm and guided me out of the room.

"Come. We'll go
to the chapel and pray."

****

I did not go to the chapel. Once outside my mother's room, I dug my heels into the threadbare carpet and forced Gabriel to come to a halt.

"What is it?" he asked, head cocked to one side as he studied me.

"That guy, Probst. He said everything belongs to me now."

"Yes?"

"Including you?"

"Yes, Daniel. Including me."

"Good." I pulled my arm away from him. "Do me a favor, Gabe."

"Yes?"

"Fuck off."

"What?"

He stared at me. I could almost see the cogs in his computerized brain spinning as he tried to make sense of what I just said.

"I own you. Therefore, you have to do what I say. And I say go... a... way. Get lost. Beat it. I don't want to be around you right now."

"Daniel, I am your guardian angel. Your mother set me to watch over you."

"My mother is dead. You do what I say now. So go."

Gabriel took a step back, frowning. "Go where?"

"To Hell, maybe? Anywhere. I don't care so long as you're not hanging around me."

"Are you going to the chapel to pray for your mother?"

"No, I'm not."

Another frown. "Very well then. I will go to the chapel. I will pray. For you and your mother. Perhaps you will join me later."

"Fat chance."

I spun on my heel and stalked off. I needed some time alone.

I needed time to confess.

****

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."

I sat in an abandoned office on the first floor of the church, staring at the familiar grille pattern on an ancient vid screen.

"Where are you, Daniel?"

I swallowed hard.
Sermon on the Mount
. I got here just in time to see my mom die."

"Oh, Daniel." Father Raphe's voice reached out to me through the vid phone. It sounded warm and comforting. "I am so sorry. Did you even get a chance to speak to her?"

"Yeah, I had all of two seconds to tell her a little lie about how maybe I wasn't gay anymore."

"Is that why you called in to confess? Because you lied to her?"

"No." My shoulders started to shake. "I called because... because... Oh, fuck. I'm glad she's dead!"

I put my head in my hands and sobbed. Father Raphe waited on the other end of the line. When I was done crying, he spoke again.

"Daniel, you had a difficult, complicated relationship with your mother."

"I didn't have any relationship with my mother at all!"

"All right, I suppose that's true."

"All my life, that bitch kept me under lock and key. I couldn't go anywhere, do anything. Wouldn't have been so bad if I'd known that she at least cared about me. But she didn't! Not once did she ever reach out to me, ever try to hold me or even touch me. She treated me like I was some sort of sick freak!"

I was shrieking now, a real hysterical sound that climbed the office walls and threatened to shatter the windows.

"I know, Daniel, I know," Father Raphe soothed. "And I am sorry for that. You have lived a very lonely life, and you have every right to be angry at the way your mother treated you."

"Why does it hurt so much? She never hit me," I said between gasps for breath. "She couldn't even touch me to do that."

"Emotional abuse can hurt far more than physical," Father Raphe said. "The scars cannot be seen, but they run much deeper."

I cried for a while longer. Father Raphe waited. When I was done, I spoke.

"Will you give me penance, Father, for the sin of hating my mother?"

"No," he said. "Because I don't think you hated her. I think you loved her a great deal. If you didn't, would you hurt so much?"

I had no answer for that.

****

I found Gabriel in the family chapel the next day, kneeling before the altar. His lips moved in silent prayer. Even though I couldn't hear the words, I knew what he was saying.
Father, forgive the sinners who know nothing of love. They love not themselves, nor any other. They partake of each other's bodies and call that love, but it is a lie. Father, forgive these sinners and love them even though they do not love You.

"Still using that same old prayer, Gabe? You'd think that after all this time God might have heard you and done something about it. Maybe cured me of being gay."

Gabriel turned. "God does not interfere with free will. You choose to be what you are. You choose to stray from the path. Your mother set me to watch—"

"Yeah, yeah. Mom set you to watch over me and guide me, to keep me from sinning, and still I chose to be a fag. You know why I made that choice, Gabriel?"

He shook his head.

"I didn't," I said flatly. "It wasn't my choice at all. I was made this way. God made me gay. I just chose to accept that fact and moved on with my life."

"Your...
sexuality
is merely a trial God has given you. You still have free will. You could choose to be other than what you have become."

I walked over to the altar. Unlike the rest of the church, this place was well kept. The altar's surface was polished smooth, probably by Gabriel's hands. Imagine, a chapel lovingly tended by a robot; a robot who prayed no less.

"I could choose, huh? You mean I could find some girl, marry her and have sex with her, have a couple of kids, and go through my life pretending everything was okay?"

"You would not be pretending. Everything would be okay."

"Bull shit." I turned away from the altar. "Do you know, in the world outside this place, there are plenty of people out there just like me? Men who love other men, women who love other women. Some people even love both."

"Sinners abound," Gabriel replied. "They live their miserable lives and tempt others to join them."

"But they aren't miserable," I snapped. "They're happy because they can be themselves!"

"They do not know themselves; otherwise they would not live a lie."

"A lie? You think being queer is a lie?" I grabbed Gabriel by the collar of his robes and shook him. "Here's the lie, you fucked up piece of machinery! You and my mother tried to force me to be straight. You didn't watch over me, you hovered like a God damn vulture, waiting for me to stumble so you could come swooping in and tear me to pieces for it!"

"Your mother never laid a hand on you, nor did I. We never hurt you."

"Didn't you? Then what's this!" I shoved him back against the altar and yanked up my shirt sleeves. "Look at these scars. I ran away from home because I couldn't stand it anymore, and the first thing I did when I got free was take a razor blade to myself! I slit my wrists, Gabe, because you and Mom had me so fucking scared over what I was. I really believed that if you two didn't love me, then no one could, and what's the point in living in a world where nobody loves you?"

I shoved one of my wrists under Gabriel's nose, forcing him to look. The scars had faded over the years until they were nothing more than thin white lines, but they were still clearly visible on my arms.

"I don't understand," my guardian angel whispered. "Why did you hurt yourself? Your mother loved you, Daniel, and so do I."