Because I’d just been arguing about where the wedding would take place.
Our
wedding.
The one I would have with Darren. And me. Together.
Again
.
“Oh sweat balls,” I managed to say.
“Well,” Matty said. “I know what
I’m
making for the weddings. Green bean casserole, for the win!”
IN AN
effort to avoid Darren as much as possible, I volunteered for dishwashing duties. It seemed like an appropriate plan and would give me time to figure out how to fake my own death in order to not have to deal with Darren directly, seeing as how I’d spent a good part of Thanksgiving dinner describing our perfect wedding ceremony.
Darren, for his part, seemed shell-shocked and didn’t even try to follow me from the table. It probably didn’t help that I’d gone slightly shrill and once again looked like I’d fallen into an exceptionally large pile of bathroom crack.
I expected Corey or Paul to be the one to follow me in. To my surprise, however, it turned out to be Sherry.
“I offered,” she said with a shrug as I stared at her.
“You’re a guest,” I said, rather scandalized. Even if I was in the throes of an epic meltdown, I was still a gay man; therefore, my sense of propriety took center stage over my hysterics. Guests were never allowed to do the dishes. It was almost considered insulting to have them even try.
And even
more
than that, she was Darren’s mother and I’d just forced an engagement on her son when this whole thing was a big fat lie. Part of me wondered hysterically if she was coming in to negotiate his dowry. I didn’t know if I had any goats to exchange for Darren’s hand in marriage.
Goddamned bathroom crack.
I didn’t know what to say to her because I obviously hadn’t made the best first impression. I thought maybe it was better if I didn’t say anything at all. I told myself that silence was my friend and that I couldn’t make things worse if I didn’t speak.
But it was like she
knew
what I was doing because she didn’t say anything either. She just stood by my side, humming quietly to herself as I handed her the dishes, some to put in the dishwasher, others to dry by hand. And if she
knew
, that meant that she was aware that it was only a matter of time before I cracked.
She continued to hum. I think it was “Oops!… I Did It Again.”
She fought dirty.
Everyone knew that song was my big gay weakness.
I handed her a fork.
She smiled at me.
Sweat trickled down my neck into the collar of my shirt.
She put the fork in the dishwasher.
I scrubbed a plate until it was spotless.
I handed her the plate.
She smiled wider.
“I’m not playing with his heart,” I blurted out. “And I’m
not
getting lost in the game, oh baby, baby.”
She stared at me.
“I feel better,” I said.
“Because you’re not that innocent?” she asked.
“Can I be honest?”
“Sure.”
“I’m pretty sure this was the gayest moment of my life.”
“Wow,” she said. “Coming from a drag queen, that’s impressive.”
“Well, we did just use Britney lyrics to have the beginning of a conversation.”
“You should have seen when she first came out,” Sherry said. “Darren listened to that album over and over again. I thought he had a crush on her. I should have known better.”
“You have to tell me everything,” I demanded. “Every embarrassing thing you can about him.”
“That could take days.”
“I have all the time in the world,” I said.
“Do you?” she asked. “For Darren.”
“Uhh,” I said.
She snorted as she took a plate from my hand. “You two are idiots.”
“That’s something I’ve heard before.”
“Often?”
“More than I would have thought,” I admitted.
She watched me for a moment, before glancing out toward the living room. We heard a loud burst of laughter, followed by Darren and Vince trying to speak over each other about
something
, and I tried not to focus on how
nice
it sounded, having him here. How perfectly he fit with the rest of us.
She looked back at me. “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Sure,” I said. “As long as it embarrasses Darren, I’m down.”
“When he was little, I used to worry about him,” she said, looking down at the sink. “He never really seemed to need anyone, least of all me. And it was just the two of us, you know. I learned very quickly that Andrew Taylor wasn’t going to be a part of our lives, at least not physically. Financially, sure. It was hush money. I wasn’t fooled by it at all. But I was a single mother raising a son, so I had no qualms in taking it.”
She sighed and gave me a sardonic smile. “Darren never really asked questions about him. Not even when he was younger. It was always understood that he had a father, that his father was alive, but that his father wasn’t there. I didn’t talk shit about him to Darren. I didn’t force my own opinion of Andrew on him. I always told myself that if he asked me, I would answer any question he had honestly. But he never really did. It was like there was an understanding there, like he knew Andrew was never going to be a real part of his life, at least nothing more than a distant figure who fed us cash to keep us quiet.”
That… explained a lot. Probably more than it should have. The Darren I knew didn’t ask questions, at least not before this whole thing started. He either did something, or he didn’t. There was never really an explanation required. It made him seem cold, sure, and certainly unapproachable. At least, that’s what it seemed like from the outside.
I thought of telling her as much, but didn’t want to interrupt.
She said, “Maybe I let him have too much freedom.” She looked down at her hands. “I worked a lot because I wanted one day to be able to sever ties with Andrew, to be able to support the both of us on my own. But I never really had to worry about Darren. He didn’t cause trouble. He went to school. He got good grades. He made his own dinners on the nights I worked late, and did the laundry and cleaned the apartment we lived in and… just. He was a better son to me than I was ever a mother to him, I think.”
“He doesn’t see it that way,” I said lightly. “You have to know that by now.”
She laughed. “Oh, I know. I figured that out a long time ago when he told me to stop feeling so guilty all the time. He said he’d already had an absent father, he didn’t need a martyr mother. He was thirteen when he said that.”
“Snarky even then,” I said, sounding terribly fond.
“Even then,” she agreed. She looked back up at me, studying me with a fierce determination. I don’t know what she saw, but it must have been enough, because she said, “There’s only two times in his life that I ever really saw beyond that, though. Beyond the little boy who could take care of himself. Beyond my kid who was so independent, he probably could have been on his own as a teenager and come out just fine.
“The first was when he met Vince. He called me one day when he was in college and told me he’d found him. He’d always known Vince was out there. I didn’t hide that fact from him, nor did I hide who his father was. He knew Andrew was married to someone else, that I didn’t know it at the time. He’d never really seemed interested in finding out anything more. Or so I thought. Apparently, they were both at the University of Arizona. Apparently, they’d just run into each other one day and got to talking. Apparently, they’d figured out on their own who they were to each other. And when he called me, there was such
light
in his voice, such
warmth
, because he’d found his big brother, he’d found Vince. Vince was amazing, he said. Vince was so cool. Vince wasn’t the smartest, but that was okay. Vince liked the same things Darren did, and wasn’t that
awesome
?” She shook her head, a small smile on her face. The dishes were all but forgotten. “I don’t know that I’d ever heard him like that before. Certainly not years later when he told me he’d spoken to Andrew. And most certainly not when he told me he was taking a job with the city after he graduated. My sweetly indifferent little boy sounded
alive
, and it was something wonderful to hear.”
I didn’t want to ask, for fear of the answer. But I had to. Because I didn’t know if my heart could take not knowing. “And the second time?” I asked, hoarse.
“The second time….” She coughed and cleared her throat. “I didn’t know if it would happen again. I didn’t think there would really be a reason for it to. There were differences, sure. Now that Vince was in his life. He smiled more. He laughed more. I remember him coming up to Phoenix on his break from class and just hugging me for a while. That wasn’t something he normally did and I remember thinking I never wanted this to go away. He didn’t change completely, mind you. It wasn’t the way things worked. He was still reserved and aloof about most things, but there was just something
more
to him after. And that was good, you know? It was great. And I hoped it could become something bigger, that he’d finally let people in rather than keeping them at arm’s length. He never really had friends growing up, more like people who worshipped the ground he walked on because he was handsome, or good at sports. Got the good grades and the wicked smile. He had those things now, so I told myself it would be enough. And it was. Until you.”
And even though I knew it was coming, it still knocked the breath from my chest. My heart was tripping all over itself and all I could do was stare at her, slack-jawed and bug-eyed. It was probably not one of my more attractive moments, but I didn’t think I could be blamed. After all, she’d just said I was responsible in some major way for her son’s happiness. Or something. Maybe. Actually, I was probably thinking
way
too hard about those two words.
Until you
.
But she was obviously waiting for some response, so I tried to force together some kind of coherent thought and form it into tangible speech. I failed, and rather miserably, as the sound that came out of my mouth then would probably not be out of place in a nature documentary about the orgiastic mating habits of macaques (why I knew those monkeys had orgies to begin with, I’d probably never know). It was really rather unfortunate, that sound, because the Austers had a big kitchen with great acoustics, and it echoed quite loudly. Echoing monkey orgies is not the best sound to make when the mother of the man you are kind of hung up on tells you that you’re a big reason for said man’s happiness.
I clapped my hand over my mouth so that no sound like macaque sex could ever fall from it again.
“Um,” Sherry said. “Are you okay?”
I nodded furiously, not trusting myself to speak.
“Should I continue?”
I shook my head. Stopped. Then nodded. Stopped. Then did both at the same time.
“Are you having a seizure?” she asked, eyes wide. “It’s okay! I’m a nurse. Don’t choke on your tongue!” She tried to knock my hands away, most likely to hold on to my tongue so I didn’t choke on it.
“I’m fine,” I gasped, pushing her hands away. “I just didn’t want to sound like monkey orgies when talking to you!”
“What,” she said, lips twitching.
“It doesn’t matter,” I hissed at her. “Why would you
say
something like that!”
Her brow furrowed. “The truth?”
“Oh my god.”
“Sandy, you’re—”
“Oh my god.”
“It’s going to be okay—”
“How is this going to be okay!”
“Wow,” she said. “This kitchen really echoes. Great design choice.”
The TV muted in the living room.
Silence.
Then, “Everything okay in there?” Darren called, sounding like he was about to get up and come galloping in to save one of us from the other.
“We’re fine!” Sherry shouted back.
“Everything is super okay!” I yelled.
“Super okay?” she whispered. “Because
that
sounds like you mean it.”
“Monkey orgies,” I growled at her.
“I don’t even know what that means!”
“You sure?” Darren asked. He didn’t sound any closer.
“She’s telling me more about your lovely wedding to a ninja turtle,” I said. “Summer wedding, Dare, really? You’re so precious.”
“Jesus Christ,” Darren said as laughter began to spill in from the living room. It was only another moment before the TV was unmuted and turned up louder than it had been before.
“Well played,” Sherry said.
“I
am
a drag queen,” I said, as if that explained everything.
“It was you,” she said, looking determined. “Only the second time I’d ever seen it happen with him.” I wondered if Darren would forgive me if I knocked his mother down and made a break for it out the back door. I thought maybe he’d even approve, given what she was saying to me. “He called me and told me that he’d met someone, someone unlike anyone he’d ever met before. He said this person was good and kind and seemed to walk on water, if Darren was to be believed.”
My skin felt hot, and my feet wouldn’t work. All I could do was stand there and listen.
“He told me he thought he’d messed things up, though,” she said. “Because if there’s one thing that Darren inherited from his father, one thing that can almost always be counted on, is that at some point, Darren Mayne will be an asshole. And he said that he hadn’t meant to be, but that he’d panicked.”
“Did he tell you what he said?” I asked, unable to keep my words from sounding harsh.
She shook her head. “I didn’t want to know. Because I couldn’t bear the thought of him finding someone that could make him happy, only to have him ruin it because he had to preen in front of his little idiot friends. Was it bad?”
I nodded.
She narrowed her eyes. “But you seem to have gotten over it.”
Right. Because she thought we were together. “I guess,” I said slowly.
“He didn’t mean it, you know. Whatever he said.”
I laughed bitterly. “It sure sounded like it at the time.”
“He was what, twenty-one? Twenty-two?”