He was shocked. “How did you know I was going to ask that?”
“Figured.”
He frowned. “I’m not trying to be nosy, I just… I don’t know. I guess I like hearing about you.”
It would not do to shove my entire head into dirty dishwater. Jesus Christ, he had to know how that sounded. “No,” I said as evenly as possible.
He hesitated. “Why? Don’t you want to know where you came from?” He sighed as he glanced out the window at my people. “Or maybe it doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe.” And I made a decision then. To tell him something that only a few people knew about, something I’d kept to myself for the longest time. It felt so easy, so natural that I could tell him this, and I wondered when I’d become so comfortable with him. “On my eighteenth birthday, my fosters didn’t throw a party. No one wished me a happy birthday. It was just another day to them. Not to Sandy and Paul. They picked me up after school and took me shopping and made a fuss about me. It was… nice. Having them do that for me.” I took a deep breath. “But my fosters did get me a present. It was an envelope with my name on it sitting on the kitchen table. There was a sticky note attached. My foster mother had written it. It said, ‘Here is all the information we were given about your parents.’ And that was it. That was all it said.”
“Christ,” Jeremy said, sounding aghast. “What the hell?”
I scowled down at the sink. “It was par for the course with them. I didn’t… it’s whatever.”
“What did it say?”
“I don’t know. I never opened it.”
“What?”
Yeah, that was the reaction I expected. And though I didn’t need for him to understand, I wanted him to
. “Look. Some people in my position probably would have done something different. You see stories all the time about people reuniting with their parents years down the road after being given up for adoption. And it’s… good, for them. That they did that. That they wanted that. They found where they came from and got answers to the questions they always wanted to ask. But that’s not me. It’s not what I wanted. And those reunions always seemed so fucking harsh to me, because how do you reconcile why you were given up in the first place? People give up their children for all sorts of reasons, but the why of it was never something I was interested in. I know there are people in my position who want to know where they came from, to get a sense of who they are, and to find out if they have a family out there in the world.” I nodded toward the backyard. “I have my family right there. And I know who I am. Maybe that will change one day and I’ll want to see what was inside that envelope, but today? Now? I don’t need it.”
Jeremy swallowed with an audible click. “So it’s never been opened?”
I shook my head. “No, it has. I gave it to a doctor I went to in New Hampshire so he could see if there was any medical history he needed to be aware of. I also shared it with my therapist, though I told her I didn’t want to know what was inside. But other than that? No.”
Jeremy was quiet for a long moment. I didn’t look at him because I didn’t want to see what I was sure was an expression of pity. I was surprised when he finally spoke. “You’re one of the bravest people I know.”
I looked up at him. There was no pity on his face. Instead, it was something akin to awe. “It’s not a big deal—”
“Just… take the compliment, okay? Because I don’t know that I’ve meant anything more. You astound me, in all the best ways.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I said nothing at all.
We stood shoulder to shoulder as we did the rest of the dishes.
Chapter 11: Armageddon
IT HAPPENED in the middle of July.
We saw it coming, though it was still unbelievable. We had hope. We believed that it wouldn’t happen, that people were smarter than that, that they actually gave a shit about us, regardless of political ideologies.
It was July 15, 2016 when a notorious bigot from Indiana was announced as the vice presidential nominee to the motherfucking Cheeto. We sneered at it, sure that it meant the death knell of a campaign that had no business getting as far as it did. It wouldn’t go any further, we told ourselves, because people wouldn’t let it. For the most part, queer communities all over the country scoffed at the idea of someone with a known hatred of LGBTQ being second-in-command of a country that had recently made same-sex marriage legal and ended Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell only a few years before.
Yes, there were the ridiculous outliers who didn’t know their asses from their elbows (I’m looking at you, Twinks for Trump), but they were in the minority. I refused to believe that after the past eight years, we’d allow ourselves to sink so low.
And I’ll admit that I was distracted. I didn’t pay as much attention as I should have. I had a life to worry about. I had kids to focus on at Phoenix House. We talked about it, sure, just as much as we talked about the growing epidemic of persons of color getting shot by white cops, but even though we tried to reassure the kids as much as we could, we tried to keep things as apolitical as possible. That was a mistake, and one that we should have avoided. We knew better, but we had hope.
Diego especially seemed to get riled up over it, ranting about how Mike Pence oversaw some of the worst anti-LGBTQ legislation in the country during his tenure as governor of Indiana. “How could anyone think this is all right?” he demanded, angry tears filling his eyes as Kai leaned over to kiss his cheek. “How could anyone think this is okay? Do they really hate us that much?”
And that didn’t even begin to touch the immigration issues I knew we were all thinking about. Living in Arizona, we were all acutely familiar with ICE raids and the reach of the Border Patrol. Marina confided in me that she was already speaking with an immigration lawyer she’d known for years to see what their options were for someone like Diego, just in case. I was a little appalled with myself for asking her why Diego’s mother didn’t just become a naturalized citizen, especially after Marina schooled me about how difficult and expensive that could be, not to mention the years it could take. I didn’t know why I’d assumed it was something as simple as filling out paperwork and taking a damn test.
We were distracted. Marina was troubled over the lack of funding for Phoenix House. She was trying to keep it from the kids, but behind closed doors in Jeremy’s office, she’d rant and rave about how money was barely trickling in, how fucking terrible it was that a not-for-profit had to be so concerned with actual profits all the time. Donations were coming, but they weren’t enough. We brainstormed, trying to come up with ideas. Sandy offered to hold another fund-raiser at Jack It like he’d done when Mike had convinced him the bar was going to close. Darren even said he’d be willing to do drag again if he needed to. I had stared at him for a moment before jumping into his arms and hugging the crap out of him, telling him he was the best worst person in the world.
He complained loudly, but I felt how hard he hugged me back.