Chapter 17 Bonds and Boundaries #2
‘It should be a wonderful occasion.’ He leans forward and claps as Rosalie gets herself unsteadily up from another fall and totters towards us, beaming toothily. ‘Brava! Brava young lady!’
I hand her a baby cheese puff thingy and clear my throat. ‘So you’re doing okay without Mum?’
He gets his stern, unimpressed look. It’s a very standard look for my father. ‘Your mother is a lost sheep at the moment, and I’m praying hard for her. But I know I have to leave her to find her way back to the light. I miss her terribly, but I’m offering it up.’
Of course he is. It’s hard to argue with moral superiority and even harder to argue with that belief that suffering is worthy, is something that can be exchanged at the gates of Heaven for redemption.
‘Got it,’ is all I say.
‘But it’s hard to be glum when this little angel is smiling like that,’ he says, face softening, eyes fixed on my little girl, drinking her in.
‘It certainly is.’ I clear my throat. Again. ‘Which is why I can’t understand how you can be so cruel about rejecting Dex’s little baby before he’s even come into the world. He’s just a baby! How can you possibly say no to more of the kind of happiness Rosalie brings you? I honestly don’t get it.’
After all we’ve been through, I honestly think it still surprises Dad when I stand up to him. To be fair, I don’t bawl him out often. That’s not my style. I communicate more through my actions. But given the message I have to impart imminently, I’m damn well going to try this avenue first.
His face closes up immediately, and he shakes his head. ‘No. No. It’s not about the baby. I wish the baby no ill, of course.’
Well, have a fucking Nobel Peace Prize, you pious git, I think. I push on.
‘Rafe and I are no more married in your eyes than Dex and Darcy are.’
‘There’s a difference between living in sin and living in a godless, deviant relationship with two other people. How does he even know it’s his child?’
‘DNA tests, Dad!’ I shout. ‘They did a DNA test, for Pete’s sake! It’s Dex’s baby.’ And even if it wasn’t, my brother would still love it like it was his own flesh and blood, and so should my fucking father.
‘I cannot condone,’ he says, the quiet coldness in his voice feeling like a rebuke for my emotional outburst, ‘debauchery like that. It’s wicked, and it’s so, so far from what Christianity can even begin to tolerate or forgive that I have no choice but to stand with my faith and pray hard that your brother can come back from this darkness.
I fear he can’t, but I don’t give up hope. ’
I am absolutely not about to enter into a theological debate about sexuality, because Dad will quote Old Testament bullshit at me until I’m screaming and tearing my hair out in rage. Besides, this conversation is far from new in our family.
Instead, I say, ‘Dex is still the same person. He’s still the same incredible human being, and I can’t begin to understand a religion that would tell you to turn your back on your own son because you don’t agree with his lifestyle choices.
’ My voice is trembling. I’m sick with fear and horror.
After years and years of having no voice, no right to an opinion, no right to challenge him in our household, having showdowns with my Dad is still my worst nightmare.
‘I’ve told you, I pray for him every day,’ Dad says. His voice sounds unsteady too. ‘It’s all I can do. I really don’t know where I went wrong with him. For him to have chosen such a wicked, unnatural path for himself…’
I can’t sit here and listen to this bullshit. ‘My God, you didn’t go wrong with him! He’s literally perfect! He’s one of the most wonderful human beings I know, and if you can’t see that then I’m devastated for you.
‘We’ve talked about this before,’ I continue. ‘You’re entitled to your view—however sad and messed up I think it is, and so am I, and so are Mum and Dex. Just because your opinion is that something is wicked, that doesn’t make it so.’
‘But I’m entitled not to tolerate that kind of behaviour in my home and in my family,’ he insists, and my shaky little spine grows steelier. I sit up straight. Rosalie has wandered to the grassy edge of the playground and is picking up fallen cherry blossom wonderingly.
‘You are entitled not to engage with it,’ I clarify.
‘But actions have consequences, Dad. I know you think you’re making these noble sacrifices for the sake of your beliefs, and I know nothing about this situation makes you happy, but you’ve torn your family apart.
You’ve driven Mum and Dex away, and I can’t sit by and just hang out with you like nothing’s happened, because if I do nothing, then I’m basically absolving you. ’
I don’t know if it’s my tone or my language of forgiveness that has him jerking his head around to look right at me.
‘What are you talking about?’ he demands.
I close my eyes for a second. God, this hurts so much. To be knowingly inflicting pain on someone I love, to be denying him access to the little person whose mere presence is a miracle is excruciating and inhumane and godawful.
But so is every single thing he’s knowingly done to Dex.
‘I love you,’ I tell him beseechingly. ‘But you have a daughter and a son and one grandchild, soon to be two. If you insist on cutting Dex and his spouses and baby out of your life, there’s no way I can let you have a relationship with Rosalie.
It’s absolutely impossible to imagine that she gets to have a grandfather and Dex’s baby doesn’t. No way.’
He’s staring at me in horror, and I stare back with, I’m sure, equal horror.
‘Belina. You cannot be serious. That’s a cruel, cruel thing to even suggest.’
I press my lips together before responding. ‘I’m as serious as you are, and what you’re doing is way crueler.’
‘But she’s my granddaughter.’ He rises and picks her up under her arms, cuddling her against his body before he stands in front of me. His large palm cradles her head, covering her ear, as if what her mother is suggesting is too wicked and sinful for her to hear. ‘I have rights.’
I almost laugh then. ‘Dad, you have two grandkids—or you will do soon—and you’re proposing fighting for access to one of them while refusing to acknowledge the other? I don’t think so!’
He stares at me then, his face cold. It’s like he’s had a reminder of what I’m truly capable of.
I’m not his little baby girl anymore.
I can’t be placated with praise and kisses and chocolate coins.
I have opinions, and I have agency, and I have the means to act based on my values.
Even when he doesn’t like it.
Even when it hurts like fuck.
Even when upholding these boundaries is the hardest, most exhausting task I’ve ever faced in my life.
Unfortunately for him, I’m a mother now. And that means I will do whatever it takes to protect my family.
His face changes. ‘You wouldn’t deny me the chance to see this precious little thing grow up, would you?
’ he asks, like he knows how soft I am inside, how easily I might crumble if he tightens the screws.
It’s a shrewd move. Apply to the Belle he knows, the people-pleaser, the good girl who wants to do right by everyone.
‘What if she grew up to be someone you didn’t approve of?’ I ask. ‘What if she decided she was gay, and she and I were both terrified that you’d judge her when she told you. That she’d lose your respect, that you’d withhold your love.’
‘That’s preposterous!’ he blusters. ‘Of course she’s not gay!’
‘That is not your call to make.’ I stand up and cross my arms. ‘She’s perfect, however she is, and the idea that you might ever make her feel less than makes my skin crawl.
But that’s not what this is about. You don’t get to pick and choose here.
You accept your children for who we are, you accept the people we love, and you accept the grandchildren we give you… ’ I shrug.
‘Or you reject us. But it’s a wholesale decision, Dad. In or out. It’s not too late. I mean, it’s too late with Mum. But it’s not too late for me and Dex.’
‘I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, missy,’ he says, the venom in his words at odds with the tenderness with which he’s stroking Rosalie’s hair. ‘But I’m going to get your mother to talk some sense into you.’
‘Mum knows,’ I say and watch his face fall.
‘She’s as devastated about it as I am, but she gets it.
No one’s asking you to abandon your faith for us.
We’d never ask you to choose. But we are asking for some Christian acceptance and compassion, and that decision is yours to make.
You either get to have a wonderful relationship with however many grandkids we produce, or you don’t. It’s entirely your choice.’
He doesn’t answer, merely bows his head over Rosalie’s, pressing kisses to the top of her soft blonde head.
‘None of us want this,’ I tell him softly. ‘Dex has come to terms with what you’ve done to him, but it’s not too late to ask for his forgiveness.’
Silence.
‘I’ll let you guys have a cuddle,’ I tell him. I turn and walk slowly to where I parked the pushchair. Everything feels like lead. My head. My feet. My heart. Everything pounds and aches.
My parents reared two pretty decent humans, and we’re popping out beautiful babies. Why my father has taken what should be a golden time in his and Mum’s lives and torn our family apart with his doctrine and his intransigence and his judgement is unfathomable.
There’s only one villain in this scene, and it’s the guy who goes to Mass every fucking day.
So it shouldn’t hurt so appallingly when I catch the agony in his eyes as he gives Rosalie one last kiss, hands her over to me, and walks silently, abruptly, out of the sunny playground.