Straight Talk

My father raked the leaves for four days straight when Michael came out. As soon as he put down Michael’s letter saying he was gay, my father didn’t say a word; he just went outside and started raking. In between raking from morning till night, he ate, sat in his rocking chair, and then went to bed, not saying anything for most of the four days, despite my mother’s frantic pleas for him to say something about how he felt. Einstein once said “Look deep, deep into nature and then you will understand everything better.” I don’t think all that extreme raking helped my stoic, blue collar, macho father understand my brother’s bombshell disclosure about his sexuality any better, but the yard looked fantastic.

I remember my mother calling me, almost incomprehensibly wailing, “Your Daddy’s outside raking and not talking because Michael’s a homosexual. You have to do something.”

Although not shocking news to me (or my mother) about my brother, I was surprised that my mother tried to suck me back into the communication maelstrom that was our family dynamic. I had stopped doing the Peacemaker Polka many years ago. My psyche and stomach just couldn’t dance around all the family members who couldn’t talk to each other directly. When I confronted my mother to say I wasn’t going to do it anymore because it was making me sick, she said with great certainty, “Someone in the family has to do it.” Well, it wasn’t going to be me. I firmly told my mother no, and said I would support the two of them, but I would not do the talking for them. Not surprisingly, my mother slammed the phone down, but I only felt a calm satisfaction that I was strong enough to choose my self over old sick family patterns.

After calling me a few more times to no avail, my mother called Michael, the instigator of the whole yard work marathon. As I learned later, between telling Michael how he was killing my father, I also was killing my mother by refusing to be the go between. Michael for his part, wanted only to talk to my father himself so he could gauge how he was really holding up after Gay Day. After a lot of coaxing and crying from my mother, my father agreed to talk, well actually, mostly just listen, to Michael. The phone conversation was super tense. At one point, Michael, choking on his words said, “Dad, I’m your son, and I love you, and I wanted you to know who I really am. Do you still love me?” My father’s response was “Is your sister gay too?” Shortly after, my father quietly hung up and went back to his steadfast rake and acquiescent leaves.

Michael told me that my father’s Guilty and Gay by association question made him laugh, but it also made him sad that my father’s way of dealing was to try and move the focus onto me. “Dealing” it appeared, was going to take a long time. The jury was out on whether the distance provided by the both of them being on opposite coasts would help or hurt the situation. Yet painful as the aftermath of the disclosure was, Michael told me then and still maintains today, that he just couldn’t live a lie anymore.

A few weeks later, Older brother and my parents visited my brand new condo to celebrate Thanksgiving. Almost immediately after Older brother walked in, he got me on the side and said, “We have to get Dad to talk about Michael. It’s the only way to help him through this whole thing.” I didn’t want anything to do with that plan and felt like I was being ambushed. Bad juju was not on my Thanksgiving menu, and Family Therapy had never been one of my favorite party games. My goal was to have a drama free holiday, if possible, in my brand new space. I was nervous enough about the phone call I knew we

would have with Michael at some point during that day, and I didn’t want to have an ongoing psychodrama before and after the call.

But Older brother could not be dissuaded. When we were all settled in the living room after dinner, he began, “So Dad, what are you thinking about Michael?” Looking right at him, my father said, “I don’t wanna talk to him, and I don’t wanna talk about this.”

“Dad, you know Michael’s a grown man, and he can live however he wants. We all get to live our own lives. That’s just part of growing up.” Then gently, “He’s still your son, Dad. And he loves you, and you guys need to find a way to be OK with this.”

My father’s eyes shifted and he looked down at the floor. It looked like he was struggling with whatever he was getting ready to say. He looked right at Older brother with a twisted face and a shaking voice, and very slowly, with emphasis on every single word he said, “Every_ time_ I_ think_ of_ Michael_ with_ those_ stinky, _ hairy_ men, _ it_ makes_ me_ sick._ It_ just_ makes_ me_ sick.” And then he looked down at the floor again, and sank into the couch.

All I could think of was, Michael? Michael? What about me, Dad? I wanted to shout. What about your daughter with all those stinky, hairy men? It’s no picnic for me, either! And then I just wanted to laugh out loud at the absurdity of the whole thing, but of course didn’t, reminding myself that I didn’t want to get in the middle of this issue.

“Dad,” Older brother continued, “He’s still your son. He lives far away. You’ll never see anything like that. Michael will always respect you.”

My father once again straightened up and looked down at the floor. Then with the same twisted face and shaking voice from earlier, he turned to me and asked, “What kind of ice cream do you have?” And without waiting for an answer, he got up and went to look in my freezer.

The whole mood of the evening shifted after that. We all ate some dessert, and then we played cards. Every once in a while, someone would say something along the lines of wishing Michael were there with us, and we would raise whatever we had in remembrance of Michael. In some bizarre way, talking about hairy, stinky men followed by Rocky Road had gotten all of us to relax.

Later that evening Michael called and it seemed we all wanted to tell him how much we missed him. My father was the first one to talk. I didn’t hear anything about being gay or any blaming or anything negative in the conversation. In fact, for the first time ever, I heard my father end a phone call with one of his children saying, “I love you, too.” My mother started crying (again!), Older brother winked at me, and I thought to myself that this certainly wasn’t the Thanksgiving I had hoped for, but I definitely had no regrets.

Rose Jakubaszek lives in the Greater New York City area and embraces being a little spice, a little ice, and mostly always nice. Her mantra when writing is “Make them feel it, and make it funny.”