“You don’t understand.”
She sighs as if I am the biggest pain in her ass ever and then says, “Exactly how don’t I understand?”
“I needed time to figure it out. It takes a while, you know? You don’t just wake up one day and know,” I say. “Or at least I didn’t. I wasn’t lying. I was just figuring it out.”
“And I’m guessing we’re the last to know?” she says.
“Depends on who you include.” I so want to tell her that no one in Russia knows, but her sense of humor hasn’t shown up for this conversation (or any conversation in the last decade), so I keep it to myself. Also, probably no one in Africa knows, and that’s a lot of people.
“We shouldn’t be the last to know,” she says. “It makes us look like we don’t know our own children.”
And there it is. The Claire moment. I c**k my head. “So you’re angry because this makes you look bad? Because I didn’t tell you first? Am I getting this right?”
“No. I’m not angry at all. I’m just—uh—dis—”
“Disappointed?” I say. “Not the best word choice.”
She looks genuinely frazzled. “I didn’t mean it that way. I mean that I just wish I knew before now.”
“Well, you know now. Believe me. I told you as soon as I could.” I lean into the table toward her. “It’s just not easy to tell you stuff.”
She waits a second, and I think she’s going to be totally cool, and then she says, “How is this my fault?”
“Who said this had anything to do with fault?”
“You just did.”
Dad puts his hands up. “Astrid was saying that it’s hard to talk to you. That’s why she found it hard to tell us the truth.”
“Hard to talk to me? Are you saying that, too, Gerry?”
“Mom, you’re doing it now,” I say. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I just told you.”
“Yes. You did.”
Silence.
Awkward.
“Well, I guess that’s that, then,” she says.
“Yep.”
Dad says, “Thanks for telling us, Astrid.” He walks over and squeezes my shoulders from behind and gives me a hug from back there while I’m still sitting down. “Doesn’t change a thing about how we feel about you.”
“That’s right.” Mom leans over and holds my hand. “You’re our daughter no matter what.”
Not we love you no matter what but you’re our daughter no matter what. Not all that warm, but it’ll do.
At least it’s over.
Things do not miraculously become normal, either.
First, we go out for lunch to the Legion Diner. I order a grease-dipped grilled cheese sandwich. Mom orders a waffle and link sausage, and Dad orders the breakfast-all-day special.
While we wait for the food, Mom says, “I talked to Kristina this morning.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“She told me that she lied,” she says.
“And?”
She seems stuck. “And that’s it. Thought you’d want to know.”
“Well, yeah,” I say. “Thanks for letting me know.” I look at her and wait for the apology, but it doesn’t come. This time, though, instead of flaming up inside, I send love to her. Mom, I love you even though you can’t say you’re sorry or admit you were wrong. If only you’d stop thinking there’s such a thing as perfect, then you’d feel a lot better about yourself. And me.
While I eat my sandwich, I tell them that I’m not going to hide who I am in school. “I mean, I pretty much came out already. With F-words, apparently.” I laugh. “I hope that’s okay. It’s easier to just be real at this point.”
“But it’s still going to be hard, you know?” Mom says.
“Yeah,” I say.
“For all of us,” she adds.
We eat in relative silence until I say, “Do you think Ellis will ever stop being so freaked out about it?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t raise her that way,” Mom says.
Dad chews.
Mom chews.
I chew.
“I think you’re the only one who can help her with this, Claire,” Dad says. “She only listens to you.”
Mom chews.
I chew.
Dad chews.
“What do you mean, she only listens to me?”
No one answers her question.
“You did it?” Dee yells into the phone.
“I didn’t just do it,” I say. “I did it and got suspended for doing it so loudly.”
“Holy shit, Jones.”
“And you’re right. It does feel better. So far, anyway,” I say. “Meet me at the lake?”
It’s warmer today, and I’m too hot in my scarf and gloves, so I leave them in the car before we climb up the hill.
The ground is wet, so we lie on a picnic table.
“They took it pretty well,” I say when she asks me how it went. “My dad was stoned, so he didn’t care. Mom was… Mom.”
“Your dad was stoned?”
“Yeah. You’re in the inner circle now. I can tell you shit like that, right?”
“Inner circle, huh? How’d I get there?”
“You wanted me to come out. I came out. Now we’re bound for life or something. Isn’t that how it goes?”
“I didn’t want to force you out. I just thought—it’s just easier,” she says.
I point to the sky. “Look at that. Three in a row—all 747s, I bet.”
“You can tell that from here?”
“Sometimes. Those are pretty high up,” I say.
“Sweet.” She points. “What’s that one? It seems smaller.”
“It’s a little jet. Probably an ER4.”
We watch it zoom across the sky. “I like this,” she says. “I’d have never known that you knew anything about airplanes if we didn’t just hang out sometimes.”
“And I wouldn’t know that your favorite food is roast beef.”
She laughs and turns toward me and looks at me with that smile. The smile that brought me here—to this. To her. To the truth about why I didn’t really want to kiss Tim Huber while we were dating last year. To the truth about why I buried my head in all those books for my whole life.
When I kiss her, I place us in the future, where we are just like Mom and Dad. No. Scratch that. I place us where we are a happy couple who are madly in love, and we are kissing the way people kiss on their wedding day. With joy and relief and love. Without guilt. Without shame.