Someone To Believe In (47 page)

“Are you happy?”

He nodded. “My first boyfriend.” His
expression turned sappy and Maggie’s heart ached and rejoiced at
the same time. Then anger took over—that he’d been deprived of this
normal adolescent feeling for so long. “It’s fun, Mom.”

“Good for you, honey.”

They talked about the times Jamie had seen
Luke and his giddy feeling was even more evident, making it easier
not to think about all he hadn’t shared with her.

After a half-hour, she glanced at the clock.
Mike would be home soon. So she was forced to bring up the
mechanics of dealing with what Jamie told her. “How do you plan to
handle this at home? With the family?”

“Brian’s gotta know before anybody at school
finds out. I’ll tell him. You tell Dad.”

Which they both knew would be the hardest
part of all this.

Mike’s love for his son was deep. But how on
God’s earth was he ever going to reconcile Jamie’s homosexuality
with the Catholic religion? He was so single-minded about the
church. The thought of how his attitude would influence this huge
benchmark in their lives terrified Maggie. She squeezed Jamie’s arm
and left her hand there, more for herself than him. “Dad will want
to talk to you about all this.”
“I know.”

“What about the rest of the family?”

Since he was a baby, Jamie always got this
certain expression on his face when he was troubled. Maggie could
read it like a neon sign. “No.”
“No?”

“I don’t want to announce to anyone I’m gay,
Mom.”

“What does that mean?”

“That I’m a son, a brother, a friend and an
actor, not just a gay man.”

“I understand that.”

“And you didn’t feel the need to announce to
anybody that Brian’s straight, did you?”

How wise he was for sixteen. Of course, he’d
had time to think this out. And she was still reeling about the
effect his disclosure would have on Mike. On all their lives.

“All right. I can abide by that wish, until
it’s time for people to know.”

Like Brian’s graduation party, a few months
away, if Jamie decided to bring Luke as his date. There were
several possibly homophobic people in their lives.

A half-grin from her son. “We’ll tell people
on a need-to-know basis.” Standing, he reached out a hand to her.
She took it and prayed he didn’t feel hers trembling. When she got
to her feet, she hugged him. He held on longer than usual. “I love
you, Mom.”

“I love you, too.”

“Come on, Bucky,” he said to the dog, and
they both disappeared down the hallway. She heard his feet pound on
the steps, the bathroom door close and Buck bark at being left
outside.

Dazed, Maggie picked up Mike’s shirt and
stared down at it unseeingly. Her heart thudded in her chest as the
ramifications of Jamie being gay flooded her. She picked up the
stain spray to apply more to cuff, but dropped the can to the
floor. Gripping the shirt to her chest, she swallowed hard.

“Stop it Maggie,” she said aloud. This wasn’t
a tragedy. If Jamie had a terminal illness, or hit somebody while
driving and killed them, or was into drugs that would be a tragedy.
His sexual orientation was a simple fact of life.

Forcing herself to move, she put the white
clothes in the washer, but random images bombarded her: Brian
teasing Jamie about not having a girlfriend…Jamie’s dislike of
proms… discussions about having kids, and Jamie saying he wanted
some. She thought about Brigadoon. Her son was a boy who’d never
experienced longing for the opposite sex but he always played the
romantic, heterosexual lead in the plays he loved so much. What had
that been like for him?

Her heart ached for her child—what he’d gone
through alone, and what he would still go through, even in this day
and age. In bigger cities, gay kids were more accepted, but
Sherwood was different. And she knew the shattering statistics on
gay teen suicide—three times higher than others in the age
group.

After she closed the machine’s lid, she went
to leave the laundry room, but instead, slid to the floor and
wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to squelch her negative
thoughts—like the wish to go back to how her life was an hour ago.
Like the wish that…no, she wouldn’t even think about that. It took
her a while but she won the battle and chose instead to figure out
how she could help her son. And her husband.

With Buck at his heels, Jamie took the stairs
two at a time. He catapulted into the bathroom, slammed the door
and lowered the toilet seat. Dropping down onto it, he buried his
face in his hands.

Breathe in, breathe out. Again. And
again.

When his stomach settled and he didn’t feel
like he was going to hurl, he stood and crossed to the sink in
front of the mirror. He looked the same. Too skinny. Great hair,
now that it was longer, normal nose. Eyes that, some cheerleader
had told him, could get him into any girl’s pants. Showed how much
she knew. But as he stared at his reflection, he sensed he wasn’t
the same and never would be after what just happened in the laundry
room.

He’d told her! Finally, after years of
self-doubt that made him sick to his stomach, and when that passed,
months of feeling like he was going to bust open from the inside if
he didn’t let go of his secret, he found the courage to tell her.
Luke’s last text message said, If you do, I will. They’d made a
pact to approach both their mothers today.

But, oh God, he’d upset her, this woman who’d
been the most important person in his life. He could see it in her
face, always filled with gentle love and an acceptance most kids
couldn’t fathom.

Typical of her, she’d tried to be brave. She
said the right things. Yet he knew her almost as well as she knew
him and what he’d revealed would cause her worry and pain. He’d
pretended he was good, too, that he hadn’t had sleepless nights
over who he was, hadn’t gone through stages of self-loathing and
recriminations. He was, after all, an actor. And he had come out on
the other side, had accepted who he was. Rejoiced in it, even.
Finding Luke just brought it all together.

Still, this step was done. Finally, finally
done.

After throwing some water on his face, Jamie
opened the door and made his way to his own room. Flopping on the
bed, with Buck leaping to the foot of it, he checked his text
messages. None. He was dying to know how it went with Luke, who was
scared shitless of his parents. But like Jamie, being gay had
gotten too big to keep inside any more. It took too much energy to
keep the door closed on a closet full of secrets. How would Luke’s
Mom and Dad handle it? Would they explode, say awful things that
could never be taken back? Luke feared the latter, and having
gotten to know the Cranes in the last few weeks, Jamie expected the
worst.

Linking his hands behind his head, staring up
at the ceiling, he thought about his mom again. She hadn’t said any
of those awful things and she never would. She’d deal with his
being gay and any problems that caused inside her and make his
coming out easier for him. Yet Jamie wasn’t out of the woods. Brian
would freak, and Jamie would have to smooth over not telling his
brother sooner. But it was his Dad’s potential reaction that woke
Jamie up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Because of the
church he belonged to and the religion he embraced, his own father
could reject him. His Dad might say those things he could never
take back.

And Jamie didn’t know what he’d do if that
happened.

Probably sensing tension in him, Buck barked
and moved in to nuzzle him. Jamie petted the dog for a while, then
grabbed his phone and sent a text saying, So, how’d it go telling
your parents?

After a while there was a chime. I couldn’t
do it, Jamie. Maybe we should both wait.

Jamie’s hand curled around the cell. “Now you
tell me.”

Disappointment shot through him, harsh and
acute. When he got past it, he messaged Luke that it was okay, he
should wait until he was ready. But it wasn’t okay, really. The
plan was to share the joy of coming out to their parents. He wanted
to share everything with Luke.

“Shit!” he said aloud. Bolting up, he knew he
had to get out what he was feeling, so he went to the desk, to his
journal, which was the only place he’d been honest for months. Once
again, he poured his heart out on the pages.

Alone

I am alone in this.

I didn’t think I would be.

He promised he would tell.

It was too much for him.

Fear mixes with joy.

Joy colludes with hope.

Hope brings about expectation.

Was he wrong to have told all?

His real self speaks:

No, no, no.

It’s right. No matter what.

Right to be the person you are.

Isn’t it?