Not Quite Oedipus

*Sensitive Content Warning: Cursing, mention of sex acts, substance abuse*

“Can we stay with you for a while?”

I watch my son as he teaches his cousin how to swing on her own. He patiently explains to her how to use her legs to make it move and she happily takes the instruction to heart. The playground was empty except for us. The sky was gray, but the air was warm for November. It was the perfect day to be here.

“They make me think of us when we were that age,” I say.

“Did you hear me?” My brother, Trent, asks and I begin to lower to the ground as he raises higher in the air.

I pulled my attention away from the kids and looked at him on the other side of the see-saw. There was tightness around the eyes and his jaw was clenched, something was bothering him.

“What did you say?” I asked as I pushed off of the ground again.

“Can we stay with you guys for a while?” he repeated from the ground. 

I looked at him for a moment, unsure of an answer. He never asked to stay with me. He was a minimalist and a neat freak and my house was a cluttered mess. 

“For how long?” I asked, apprehensive.

“A few months,” he replied.

“Why?”

I looked at him for a moment, unsure of what answer I would give him. Even less sure of what answer he would give me.

“I’m leaving Henry,” he said.

I stared at him blankly, slowly blinking, trying but failing to form thoughts on this news. The words came slowly at first but gained speed as what he said to me processed.

“Henry, the guy you went no contact with our family for months over?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“The same one that you married and paid forty-THOUSAND dollars to have that precious baby with?” I said pointing to his daughter. “The one I warned you not to do that with because he was wildly immature, and you’d end up becoming a married single parent?”

His head dropped and he let out a breath, “The same one.”

“The same Henry you uncloseted yourself to Dad for who then ex-communicated you until he became a grandparent for the second time and decided to attempt to be a dad for the first time in two and a half decades?”

“Yes, Patricia! Jesus!”

At this point we had stopped moving on the see-saw and sat evenly across from each other. He pushed off of the ground and we began our back and forth once more at a steady pace.

“Why?” I asked.

“A number of reasons,” he said, “but mainly, remember when Dad stayed with us a few weeks ago?”

“Yes, Dad drunk dialed me and asked uncomfortable questions about mom while Henry shit-talked you. What about it?”

“They were high too. They both had a few gummies.”

“You mean the hyper conservative, ‘weed makes you stupid,’ ‘I’ll disown you if you ever do drugs,’ dad was stoned?”

“That’s the one.”

“Gross. OK.”

“Right, so you know how he had been complaining to mom that Henry was hitting on him, and he was uncomfortable with it?”

“He never complained to me, but I know of it.” I paused at the bottom to study his face. I didn’t like where this was going. I kicked off of the ground and he continued. His manner stayed cold, as it often was when he recounted difficult subjects involving him.

“Well, apparently our extremely conservative homo-hating, right-wing father wasn’t too upset with it,” he stated.

 “I left them alone downstairs to go to bed because I had to be at work in the morning. I woke up around 1 A.M. and noticed that Henry hadn’t made it to bed yet. I got up to check on him and make sure he hadn’t done anything terrible like knock himself out.”

“I take it he was pretty gone when you went to bed.”

“Extremely, and they were still drinking when I went up,” he replied. “He had started talking shit about me which is another reason I went upstairs.”

“He became verbally abusive,” I said, pushing off of the ground again.

“Sure,” he said on the way down, “Anyway, I came out of our bedroom to find our dad sitting naked on the stairs.”

“Oh god,” I said with disgust.

“That’s not all,” Trent said pushing up. “I walked towards him to make sure he wasn’t having some kind of episode and found Henry, also naked, blowing him.”

“I’m sorry, what?” I said stopping the see-saw and looking at the kids to make sure they were out of earshot.

“That’s what I saw,” he said starting us up again. 

“That’s awful,” I said, though I began laughing uncontrollably. 

“Yep,” he said.

 “What’s worse is that when I walked past them to step outside and process what I saw there was no shame or remorse from either of them. They just picked up and went into the guest room.”

My thoughts began spinning out of control. Our entire lives, our father lacked any form of progressive values. Most of his opinions were parroted from his favorite conservative news sources. Anything that didn’t depict the 1950’s nuclear family was wrong. He refused to talk to Trent after he married Henry until he found out he was going to have another grandchild. Now, not only was he using THC freely, but he was also sleeping with my brother-in-law? I was in shock.

The realization that everything was shattered sank in. His family, the relationship Dad had been trying to rebuild with us, the relationship he had been trying to rebuild with Mom, the work Henry had done to build bridges with our ultra-conservative family-- all of it was nothing more than dust in the wind now. 

Sobering up on that thought I said, “I’m sorry, that's really terrible. Also, incredibly traumatizing”

“It was definitely that,” he said.

 “What did you do?”

“I sat outside for a bit, then I called mom, which I now regret.”

“I told you so’s?”

“Not outright, but it was felt when I did talk to her. She didn’t answer right away, so I called Angel to see if I could bring Cecily to stay with him for a few days. He agreed.”

“But it wasn’t a permanent solution?”

At this point we had stopped see-sawing and were just bouncing slightly. My body had become tense and sore with the new weight of the conversation. I assumed his had to. He watched the kids who had moved on to playing hide-and-seek in the wooden castle a few feet from us.

“No,” he said. I came back after picking up Cecily from school and Henry was at the kitchen counter crying to Angel about how terrible he felt, and Angel sided with him.”

“What a dad maneuver,” I said as I pushed away a memory of our dad doing the same thing to our aunt when Mom left.

“Scary, right?” he replied.

“A bit,” I said. “Did you go back?”

“At the time it was either that or go to mom’s and put up with all of her friends' pity and dirty looks since she had relayed the story to all of them.”

“Fair enough. That woman does love drama.”

“So, after an attempt at therapy where Henry lied to the therapist to avoid making himself look bad and screaming at me in front of Cecily for calling him on it, I decided to ask you.”

“Very well,” I said with a deep exhale. “How long do you need?”

He watched Cecily run, screaming after my little Charlie. 

“Well, if you’re OK. with it, I’d stay for a few months; until I could secure an apartment or another condo, or until we get a court date for the divorce, whichever comes first.”

“OK. What about your stuff?”

“I don’t have much. He’s laid claim to almost everything since he makes the most. It’s not worth the fight to battle him for it in front of Cecily.”

“Understandable. Are you coming today?”

“Next week, if that’s fine with you. Then I can prepare her for it.”

“OK. I’ll get your room ready and do the same with Charlie. I’ll try to clear some stuff out a bit too. I know you hate clutter,” I said smiling at him. He returned a half-hearted smile as two small figures appeared in my peripherals. 

“Mommy, I have to go potty!”

“OK sweets let's find the bathroom,” I said as Trent and I dismounted the see-saw.

I reached for my brother’s hand and squeezed.

“We’ll get through this, just like we have with everything else.