Page 98 of Winging It with You

“Mija, put that thing away,” my mother scolds like, her mouth full of cherries thanks to an overzealous Frankie. She sounds just like she did when we were teenagers.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she says, typing a few more words on the screen before shoving her phone back into her purse. “Um, excuse me, my favorite son in the whole world. Do you have a cherry for your mama?” Elise crouches in front of Frankie, pinching his cheeks as he looks for the perfect one to gift his mother.

“Here you go, Mommy,” he says, giving the cherry he’s selected a little kiss before offering it to her.

She smiles, her eyes sparkling like only a mom’s eyes do, and takes the fruit from his little hands. “Thank you, mi amor,” my sister says, plopping it into her mouth.

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“Is that your boy, Carla?”A man who I’d always thought could pass as Father Time’s older brother greets us at the old diner’s door. My mom bribed me out of bed the following morning with a trip to Hank’s and the promise of my favorite pancakes. “I thought we’d seen the last of you when you took off for basic training.”

He extends a frail hand forward, which I take with a firm shake. “It’s good to see you, Mr. Greer.”

“You too. We were all sorry to hear about your discharge,” he says. His voice is somber, but his tired eyes are laced with sincerity.

“Thank you.” I don’t really know what else to say. I never have.

“It’s good to see you, Hank,” my mom says as the two share a warm hug.

“You tell Elise she better bring those kids of hers in to see me soon. It’s been too long,” he says, patting my mom affectionately on the face. “Go on, sit in your usual booth if you’d like. Penny will be right over.”

I follow my mom through the near-empty diner to a small booth in the corner. The vinyl cushions are still a deep maroon, and they crack and crinkle when we sit. She passes me a menu that’s seen better days, which I nudge in front of me with my knuckle, trying to avoid whatever sticky residue lingers on its edges. It’s a formality, really. Our entire family has ordered the same meal for years.

“I’ve spent so many hours in this booth with Elise,” I say, sliding the menu to the edge of the table. “We’d leave schoolearly and eat our weight in short stacks. This place hasn’t changed one bit.”

There’s soft music playing in the background. The lighting is dark but comfortable, casting an amber glow across every surface from the vintage globe fixtures above each booth.

“This place is all Hank Greer has left,” my mother says. “His wife passed two…maybe three years ago now,” she adds.

“I didn’t know.” Hank and Alice Greer were a staple in our small town. They were front and center at every high school sporting event, decked out in our school’s colors. They always made sure everyone felt cheered for. When we would come into the diner, Alice would sneak my favorite snickerdoodle cookie into my pocket, and it was just our little secret.

Without fail.

“A lot has changed since you left,” she says, a painful nostalgia filling her voice.

She reaches across the booth, taking each of my hands in hers.

“What happened, mi vida?” my mother asks, her eyes brimming with tears. I don’t know how to answer her plea. It took me all of five minutes alone with my mother to remember why I’ve been avoiding this conversation all this time.

How do I articulate the forever pain of being outed like that? How it felt to have every neatly woven thread of my life so easily undone against my will. Every insecurity and moment of self-loathing laid bare for the world to see as I scrambled to pick up the pieces of the truth bomb that had been detonated on me.

“I don’t know, Mamá,” I say. A cop-out, I know.

“Can you try? Where did I go wrong?”

“Don’t say that, Mamá. You didn’t do anything wrong…It’s not about that,” I say, clasping her hands in mine.

“Why? It’s the truth. It kills me to say this, but on some level, I led you to believe I wouldn’t be there for you when you needed me most.” She takes a deep breath, straightening in her seat. “Right or wrong, that’s the reality ofyourtruth and something we’ve had to live with all these years. But when you put up that wall…I think a part of me has not recovered from that.”

I know I was doing what was best for me at the time, but I didn’t realize just how deeply my actions impacted those around me. These are the feelings I’ve been trying to avoid. The insurmountable feelings of loss and shame and knowing now there was so much I could have done differently. So much I wish I had done differently. So much that was outside my control.

All this time, I kept my family at arm’s length because it was easier than having to face the judgment I thought would go hand in hand with being an out gay man. The unease and the growing pains of figuring out myself. And when I was outed, the opportunity to sit with that unease on my own terms was taken from me. The words I’d been saving for my loved ones had been spoken on my behalf but were twisted and misconstrued, and instead of correcting the record, it felt easier to run.

“When everything happened,” I start. “When everything happened with Ethan,” I clarify. “There was a period when I didn’t know if life was worth living anymore.

“Ay, dios mío, mi amor,” she says, tears spilling over now. “You could have talked to me,” she whispers. “You could havegiven me all your pain and confusion and I would have helped you make sense of it. Or at least tried.”

“I didn’t know where to start, Mamá.” And that’s the truth. I didn’t even know there was anything to be confused about until I met Ethan. “It’s not like I was living this lie my entire life. Sure, I may have had moments here and there that gave me pause. Or made me wonder if perhaps I was different from the other boys. But growing up, it wasn’t some painful existential crisis.

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