Dante and my mother were seated in the kitchen. She was sobbing into one of his monogrammed handkerchiefs. As I came into the room I almost stepped on Peaches, who got up from the floor and growled at me, his hackles rising. I ignored him, and he went and sat by my mother.
As soon as she caught sight of me, her wailing increased tenfold, and she pushed up off the chair and crossed the room to me quickly, grabbing me in a hug. I went completely rigid. “Oh Charlie,” she cried, crushing me to her. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t my idea. I just want you to know that. None of it was my idea. It was all your father’s doing. I don’t care that you’re gay. I don’t.”
“Has something happened?”
She let go of me and blew her nose in Dante’s handkerchief, then said, “I’ve left your father.”
“But…you’re Catholic. You don’t actually believe in divorce,” I pointed out, totally dumbfounded.
She shrugged and pushed her blonde hair back from her face. My mother was in her late fifties and had long since stopped making an effort with her appearance. The one exception was her hair, which she colored platinum blonde in an act of vanity I’d never been able to grasp. “So, I’m not going to divorce him. But I’m not going to live with him anymore either.” She took a couple deep breaths, and Dante came up to us and handed her a glass of water. She accepted it with a warm, “Thank you, Dante,” and then drank half of it before coming up for air.
“Why don’t you sit back down, Mrs. Connolly?” Dante said. He was being unfailingly polite, but his eyes were wary.
She returned to one of the kitchen chairs, and I remained rooted where I was. I said, “If you don’t care that I’m gay, why didn’t you say something sooner? Why did you let him throw me out, and then eliminate every trace of me from your house?”
“What could I say? You know how your father is.”
“Gee, I don’t know. How about, stop, he’s our son. We shouldn’t do this to him.” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Charlie, I’m so sorry. I was weak, I didn’t know how to stand up to him. I wanted to go with you when he threw you out, but you know I don’t have my own money, I didn’t know what to do. I was at his mercy.”
“So, how are you leaving him now?”
“I called my sister Joan in Dayton. She mailed me money for a plane ticket. It got here yesterday, and today when your father went to the post office, I packed a bag and Peaches and I took off.” She sat up a little straighter and said, “I left him a note. It said this is for what you did to Charlie.”
“Great, now you have my back,” I murmured.
“I didn’t know if I’d be able to get out of there, Charlie. I didn’t know if my sister would send me the money for the plane ticket.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Ohio, to live with Joan. She’s a widow now, she’s got plenty of room. The farther I can get from your father, the better.” She looked up at me, her green eyes red from crying. “I just came to say goodbye, Charlie. I’m on my way to the airport.”
“Ok. Well…see ya.”
But then she burst into tears again. “Aw gawd Charlie, please don’t hate me. I couldn’t bear it if my only son hated me.”
I just couldn’t take her tears. Even as hurt and angry as I was, they wore me down, and after a while I crossed the kitchen to her and patted her shoulder, and said, “Come on, Ma. Don’t cry. I don’t hate you.”
She jumped up and crushed me in another hug, and it was a good couple minutes before she finally stopped crying. Dante was ready with another clean handkerchief, and she took it from him when she let go of me and thanked him, then told me, “I’m glad you found yourself such a nice boyfriend, Charlie. So handsome and polite.” To Dante she said, “You make sure you take care of my son, you hear?”
“Count on it,” he said quietly.
She wiped her eyes with the handkerchief, then straightened her old brown wool coat. “I’m going to need to get going soon, Charlie,” she said. “I got one of those airport shuttles coming to pick me up downstairs. But before I go, I have a favor to ask you.”
Really? I resisted the urge to roll my eyes, and said, “What is it, Ma?”
She hesitated for a long moment, biting the inside of her cheek – it was an odd habit of hers. And finally she said, “So, you know Aunt Joan has eleven cats.”