We met at a wine and cheese party thrown by his a capella group. The event was intended to be classier than the standard campus party with Busch Light and beer pong, but in practice the wine came from a bag. Sean had been out since high school, and he didn’t like that I wasn’t. I was out at school, but no one at home knew, especially my parents.
Out at school wasn’t good enough for Sean. Before we left for summer break he gave me an ultimatum: tell my family while I was home or we’d have to reevaluate our relationship in the fall. In hindsight, this was super fucked up, but at the time I took his demand with the utmost seriousness.
I decided to make my announcement at dinner my first night home. Not because I expected it to go well, but I figured this would give my parents until the end of summer to adjust to my news, the same way Sean’s parents had. “Trust me,” he told me, “my parents are old-school Irish Catholic. If they can accept it, yours will be fine.”
It was not fine.
After lodging his objection, my father stood up from the dinner table, poured a double bourbon from the decanter on the sideboard, which until that moment I thought was only for decoration, and locked himself in his office for the rest of the evening, slamming the door behind him for emphasis.
My mother’s reaction was just an “Oh, Finn” before she got up to start the dishes even though she hadn’t touched her salmon.
Oh, Finn, what, I wondered. Oh Finn, how could you? Oh Finn, give him some time?
That night, I sat in the shadows at the top of the stairs waiting to hear my parents’ conversation when Dad emerged from his office.
“He’ll change his mind real quick once I stop paying for that fruity-tutty liberal school of his. Just you watch, Suze,” I overheard him tell my mother in the kitchen. He poured another bourbon and went back to the office.
I was shocked that she didn’t stand up for me. I really thought she would. But she didn’t say anything.
I’m jolted from the memory by the buzz of my phone against my leg. I pull it out of my pajama pants and see a text from Theo: How’s it going at home?
Awful, I text back.
Last year, I went home with Priya for Thanksgiving. Usually, I’d spend the holiday at Hannah’s sister’s, but Hannah and I weren’t speaking. Priya’s mom cooked a feast of tandoori turkey for the meat eaters and a pumpkin and chickpea curry for the vegetarians, but my favorite thing was the masala mashed potatoes. The house was overflowing with people and Priya was treated like a returning hero back from the big city. Especially by her teenage cousins, who were dazzled by the duffel bag of beauty samples she brought for them, freebies sent to her by PR reps in hopes she would write about them. I was awed by how wonderful it must be to belong to so many people. I should have gone with her this year instead of coming here.
On my text thread with Theo, three dots appear and then disappear.
After two more starts and stops, all I get is a frowny face emoji.
I wait to see if the dots appear again, but they don’t.
I’m about to text Theo and ask what he’s up to today, but my phone dies. Oh well, Theo doesn’t need me bumming him out. He’s in Napa with his boarding school friends, probably halfway into a case of cabernet even though it’s only 9:00 a.m. there.
* * *
? ? ?
My mother and I have different definitions of a small dinner. This becomes clear when she asks me to put the leaf in the dining room table, which seats ten without it. A steady stream of aunts, cousins, and neighbors arrive throughout the afternoon. We sip sweet tea and mill around the formal living room we only use when company visits. I stay glued to Amanda’s side so I don’t have to explain my ten-year absence or sudden reappearance.
But I needn’t have worried. Everyone is in their church clothes and on their best behavior. They were raised right; they won’t say anything to my face, but I know I’ll be the topic of gossip on everyone’s ride home. The closest thing my absence gets to an acknowledgment is an “I’ve been praying on you,” from my great-aunt Eunice.
By the time Aunt Carolyn calls everyone to the table at 2:55, the house is packed and the table is groaning under the weight of a dozen serving dishes, including three kinds of potato salad, every auntie convinced theirs is the best.
“Kids’ table is in the kitchen,” Aunt Carolyn scolds a child in a miniature Lacoste polo shirt when she catches him sidling up to a chair at the dining room table. I don’t recognize him. He must be a cousin born during my exile.
I follow Amanda to the kitchen table. We’ll be the oldest, but at least I’ll be spared the adult table. We can filch extra wine from the pantry and gossip about the boys she has crushes on at school. There are always plenty of those.
“Not you.” Aunt Carolyn holds her arm out like a militant crossing guard to block me from the kitchen. “You graduated college, you graduated to the adults’ table!” She makes it sound like a reward, not a punishment.
“But I want to sit with Amanda,” I protest.
“Nope.” Her tone leaves no room for negotiation.
I end up seated between Aunt Ruthie, my mom’s older sister, and my second cousin Travis, who I gather is Polo Shirt Kid’s father. As a teenager, I assumed Aunt Ruthie was a lesbian, but had the good sense not to make a big production of it. She worked as a park ranger at Tallulah Gorge State Park and went on yearly trips to other national parks with an all-women’s tour group. But maybe I was wrong and she just didn’t want to be tied down by marriage like her younger sister. After all, Aunt Ruthie never lost her place at our family’s holiday table, although maybe that’s putting too much stock in the infallibility of my father’s gaydar.
Dinner passes without incident. My mother is quick to interfere when Uncle Robert asks whether I have a girlfriend back in the city. “Did you know Finn got a new job at Netflix? We’re so proud of him,” she interrupts. A collective ooooh goes up from the table. I’m not sure whether to feel happy that I’m finally worthy of my mother’s pride, or disgusted that she’s still doing everything she can to hide my sexuality.
“Do you think you can get them to bring back Bloodline for another season?” Uncle Robert asks, taking the bait.
Aunt Ruthie and I are the only people availing ourselves of the wine. “It’s good you made time for us,” she tells me in a tipsy whisper after her third glass of Chardonnay, and the “us” sounds more like “ush.” “I’ve heard all about how busy you are back in the city, but you’ve been away too long. Your mama missed you.”
I choke back a bitter laugh at the implication that my absence was by choice.
* * *
? ? ?
?Later, after the relatives have cleared out and the dishes have been scrubbed by hand—“The dishwasher doesn’t get them clean enough,” my mother argued—the three of us are installed in the den in front of the TV.
“Let’s watch Schitt’s Creek,” Amanda suggests. “I think you’d like it, Mom, it’s about a family.”