Chapter 56
“We’ve heard so much about you,” Nolan’s father says. He looks exactly like Nolan plus two and a half decades. Even has the same floppy mannerisms, the ones that I’d attributed to Nolan not yet familiarizing himself with his recently grown body, but I guess he’s just got floppy genes.
“So much, dear,” his mother agrees. The “dear” feels habitual, not specific to me, just a term of endearment she uses on anyone younger than her. She embraces me with a depth of sincere affection that makes me uncomfortable, and I get a waft of freshly baked cookies and too much rose perfume.
His parents give me a brief house tour. They’re fully equipped with polite small talk and an invisible but palpable air of stability.
It’s in their settled eyes, their understanding head nods, their courteous, boundaried phrasing.
This explains Nolan. People who come from functioning families just don’t have the same charge as the rest of us.
Functioning families make for boring, flavorless people who just go through the motions of life, never knowing what it really means to live it.
Or maybe that’s a false narrative I cling to in order to feel better about my dysfunction.
My lot in life. Myself. Maybe coming from a functioning family doesn’t resign someone to a bland, muted, watered-down existence.
Maybe it’s better. A lot better. Maybe that person learns how to navigate their emotions more effectively, and not be led by them or ruled by them or so disrupted by them all the goddamned time.
Upended by them. Maybe that person learns how to communicate better, and how to curb impulsivities, and fit into systems, and be more okay, and grin even as bullshit is being shoveled into their mouth, and keep grinning as they chew that shit and swallow it, letting the sludgy stream slide down their throat.
We break out the board games and eat sliced fruit off a fancy porcelain platter.
Nolan’s dad tells me about his accounting firm, and his mom tells me about teaching second grade, and midway through our third round of Codenames Nolan gives me a look and glances upstairs.
This will be good for me. This will help me to move on.
And it’ll be good for him too. It will help him gain experience, get more comfortable in his skin. This will be good for both of us.
“Think we’d better head up and do some homework before it gets too late,” Nolan says.
He takes my hand in his and I take one last look at Nolan’s parents through the staircase banister. They share a nervous but accepting parental look.
Upstairs, I take Nolan’s quivering virginity under his Star Wars bedsheets. Thought seventeen was too old for C-3PO. Guess not. Afterward, he’s sweaty and grateful, and I feel bad.