Chapter 39
HANNA
This was it. Hanna stared up at her kitchen ceiling as she waited for the moment her parents would come home.
Nerves wracked her, and while she knew her girls would be there for her no matter what, she had insisted that she needed to talk to them alone.
Maya and Lily would be there for her after, no matter the outcome of the conversation.
She didn’t expect for everything to be fixed, not really, but Hanna had realized just how much she and her family didn’t talk about.
The unspoken walls between them. This had just been the thing that, when she’d pulled it out into the open, had destabilized everything else and brought it all crashing down.
It would take a long time for them to sort through the mess.
But at the end of the day, these were Hanna’s parents, and she wanted to at least give them the option to make it right before she went off to Providence.
She’d texted them the night before to say she’d be waiting for them after church. She and her father had texted back and forth; namely he’d wanted to make sure she was somewhere safe. She hadn’t heard from her mother, but she assumed her father was acting as their go-between.
Hanna had avoided her parents over the next couple of weeks by essentially living at the Blake’s.
She hadn’t seen her parents since Lily’s birthday dinner.
Instead, along with Lily and Maya, she’d gone by the house one Sunday when she knew her parents would be at church and grabbed the things she needed.
Since the treehouse really wasn’t suitable for full-time living, she, along with Maya, piled into Lily’s room.
Maya wasn’t really in the same boat. She and her mom spent dinners together talking and sharing, and then Maya would come back to the Blake’s and climb in between Hanna and Lily—just the way they liked it. Diana didn’t seem to mind; if anything, it was like she understood.
As if to distract them, Lily had been presenting Hanna and Maya with various potential apartments, asking them to pick their top three. She was adamant that the final choice would be a surprise.
“You both have a lot going on, let me take care of the home, as your soft masc housewife,” Lily had said, making Maya and Hanna laugh.
Hanna’s heart startled and a pit bloomed in her stomach as she heard the sound of a slamming car door.
She looked from the ceiling to the microwave on the counter: 12:43pm.
Right on time. She waited in anticipatory silence.
It wasn’t far from the car to the front door; Hanna suspected her father and mother were prepping on the doorstep before coming in.
She hoped her father was talking some sense into her mother.
He was often a quiet but strong presence in the house.
If her mother was the captain of their ship, her father was the wind in the sails.
She’d never seen him angry or even raise his voice before Lily’s birthday dinner.
It seemed though, with people who were of few words, when they did speak, you listened, for they made them count.
Hopefully they would today.
Hanna heard the jingle of the bells her parents kept around the handle of the front door, the telltale sign they’d entered the space.
“Hanna?”
Hanna was surprised to hear that it was her mother calling out for her. “In the kitchen,” she called back.
There was a pause, some rustling as they took off their shoes, her father dropping his keys into the dish as he had for as long as Hanna could remember, her mother putting her purse next to that very dish. Same every time.
It wasn’t long before she was staring at both of her parents as they entered the kitchen. Her mother wore her signature low bun and a multicolored coral dress that fell modestly to her knees. Her father was in his usual slacks and button-down, even in the August heat.
“Do you–do you want lunch,” her mother started, her voice shaky with what Hanna knew were nerves. This was uncharted territory for them, they’d never had to have a tough conversation with each other before. “We ate at church, but I can—”
“It’s okay Mom, I grabbed something earlier with Maya and Lily,” she said the names of her two girlfriends defiantly. She watched her mother swallow and her father set a hand on her shoulder as he walked them both over to the kitchen table.
The table was a rectangle, and so her parents sat opposite Hanna. Hanna had never felt that the table was particularly big, but now it seemed obscenely small. She removed her hands from the top and dipped them in her lap to create some space.
“So, thanks for letting me come say goodbye,” Hanna started. She had tried to rehearse what she was going to say with Maya and Lily, but in the end, decided to go off vibes. The situation was too unpredictable.
“Hanna, this isn’t goodbye,” her mother’s voice was at the high pitch she used when she was momentarily shocked.
“Well I mean, before I leave for Providence,” Hanna offered.
“So you’re going then?” her mother asked.
Hanna stared back at her.
“Mary,” her father’s deep voice seemed to float out of him and attempt to fill the space between them.
“Mom, of course I’m going, I got a job I’m excited about and I get to be with two people I love.”
At the last part her mother scoffed. “You’re young, you —”
“You and Dad were married at twenty-five,” Hanna countered, already feeling anger prickle down her spine.
“Yes well, I mean,” her mother took in a deep, shuddering breath. “Hanna, when did all of this happen? I just don’t understand.”
At the sound of her mother’s voice breaking, she knew her mother meant it. It was a bit of a plea. The sound of it quieted Hanna’s building anger.
They just want you to be okay.
“So, you also like girls or–” Hanna’s eyes flicked over to her father, who had gone red in the face but seemed determined to marshal on. “Because we don’t care about that. We’ve known about Lily for years, and Mary and Diana were even friends back in high school.”
Hanna’s chest swelled at her father’s peace offering. She was so grateful for his declaration of acceptance that she didn’t even try to work out the part about Lily being the poster child for homosexuality in Maplewood, nor what he meant by bringing Diana into the mix.
“You don’t?” and Hanna heard the need in her voice, more need than she had wanted to admit to herself. She looked at her mother, who she saw had started to cry.
“Hanna, what makes you think we’d care about that? If that’s what is making you– experiment,” her mother replied, rekindling the anger Hanna had quieted.
“Experiment? I’m not experimenting!” Hanna gritted her teeth.
“Perhaps, Mary, we can hear from Hanna?” her dad tried.
“Yes, well, okay, so you like girls and boys, I mean men and women or–? Because you had Jeff in—”
“Mary,” Evan McAvoy cut his wife off, another rarity.
Hanna couldn’t help but let the gratitude for her father in that moment wash over her.
They were never particularly close, in that they didn’t spend a lot of one-on-one time together, but she had always felt loved by him.
And in this moment, that’s what mattered.
“I am bisexual, like I said, so for me, yes, I am attracted to both those who identify as men and women. That’s what I know for sure now, though, I could see that evolving over time.
I don’t think I’m pan like Maya, I definitely seek out body—-well,” Hanna took a deep breath, “I am bisexual, at the very least.”
“At the very least,” her mother repeated, not as a question, but as a statement she was trying to digest.
“And,” Hanna continued, “it appears I am also polyamorous, because yes, I have fallen in love with both Lily and Maya.”
“Love,” Mary McAvoy said the word like it was dirty.
“Yes Mom, love. I love them.”
“Hanna, if you want to experiment, you can keep it behind closed doors, keep it in the bedroom. I mean you can’t honestly think there is any longevity to this ‘relationship,’” her mother spat out the last word.
“Mary we—”
“I mean okay, so you all live together, but come on, you can’t all get married? Kids? How would that even work? And you’re throwing away your future to play house in that—”
“Mary!”
At the harshness in her father’s voice, Mary McAvoy took a breath, but still pushed forward. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you hang out at the Blake’s house so much. And that Maya girl—”
“Let me? Mom. I am over twenty years old, I go where I go. And just so we are clear, it’s not like I caught Lily’s gay or whatever.” Hanna was fuming.
Seething.
She thought she might be able to take whatever her mother had to say about her, but she saw red at the mention of Lily and Maya.
“Oh I know that! I am not this uptight ignorant woman you’d like to think I am! I’m just practical, we have sacrificed so much for you, given you everything, and now you’re, you’re—”
“Mary, don’t you dare, we—”
“It’s okay, Dad. I don’t know what the future brings, all I know is how I feel right now.
Right now I am in love with both Lily and Maya.
Right now, I am in a relationship with them.
A real relationship, not an experimentation that is purely for ‘the bedroom,’ but something that is ours, something we plan on carrying with us as we move through the world.
” Hanna was breathing quickly now, trying to keep her voice cool and controlled.
She felt her eyes sting with tears. This was one of the hardest conversations she’d ever had, mainly because it wasn’t like she and her family had any practice at this.
And now she was sitting here having to fight for validation from her mother.
If her own mother wouldn’t believe her, believe them, then who would?
Hanna took another breath and let her tears fall. She was coming to the conclusion that it did, in fact, matter to her what her parents thought when her father spoke.
“Look Hanna, we love you, okay?” He reached across the table and turned his hand over. Hanna took it.
“Yeah you love me because you have to,” Hanna spit out, and she was crying now, chest heaving with the fear she’d buried long ago. She could feel the questions that were going to fight their way out.
“Oh my girl, yes, because you’re our daughter.” Her father paused as if waiting for her mother, but Hanna couldn’t see their exchange. She was focused on her hand in her father’s on the kitchen table. She held on to it as if she’d blow away if she dared let go.
“Hanna, of course I love you, I just—this is your life, and you’re not thinking—”
“Mary.” Her father’s voice was a warning.
“Do you both regret it?” Hanna said softly, her mouth thick with saliva.
“What do you mean?” Evan McAvoy asked, squeezing her hand.
“I mean,” Hanna took a breath and looked up through her tears at her parents, “are you upset that I am your daughter now? Do you think–” She took a moment to work through another wave of tears and sniffled.
“Do you feel like you picked the wrong kid?” With her last fear bared, she put her head down on the table and sobbed.
Never letting go of her hand, her father suddenly crouched down beside her, pleading “Hanna, Hanna, look at me,” but she couldn’t. She thought if she saw the slightest bit of confirmation in his face, she really would shatter and blow away, never to be seen again.
“Okay, okay,” her father said as he enveloped her. “You are my daughter, and I know, there is a lot going on right now, but that will never change, will it Mary.” Her father raised his voice on that last bit.
There was a long pause as he stroked Hanna’s shoulder and rested his head next to hers.
“You are our daughter,” she heard her mother quietly say, as if resigned. It hurt like hell to hear it the way her mother had said it, but she had said it.
They sat like that for a while, Hanna crying and her dad rubbing her shoulder.
Eventually, she felt her father pull away from her and then his steady hands in her hair, guiding her to lift her head from the table.
When she did, she saw that her mother was no longer in the kitchen with them.
She turned to face her father, tears still making their way down her cheeks, but she had stopped sobbing.
At the sight of her mom’s absence, she thought she’d start again.
“She just needs some time, okay? This is new for us, and we are processing. Your mother just has a different way of doing so. I hate to ask this of you, but please just give her some time?”
Hanna let out a shuddering breath and nodded.
Her father pulled her in for a hug. “Listen to me Hanna, you are our daughter, that will never change okay? Give it some time honey, just give it some time.”