Chapter 1 #2
All it had taken to finally get me moving was a Pride celebration with my beloved cousin Derek in the small town of Foggy Basin.
A place where so many folks had come to start over, including several queer folks whom I’d met over the past couple of months when I’d visited with Derek.
I’d already scheduled bi-weekly ballroom dance socials and crafting opportunities for locals.
I even had my first wedding booked for September, and I hadn’t even moved in yet.
The movers had already taken my stuff from storage and my car out to the new house, but I’d postponed the full move while a few cosmetic tasks were done to the property.
I didn’t have much to move. After college and grad school, I’d moved back in with my parents.
It was expected that I stay there until I got married, and I hadn’t been in a hurry to do so.
My work/life balance tipped the scales toward chronic workaholic-ism—was that a word?
—so we rarely saw each other. My excuse was that if I was going to plop down well over a million bucks for a decent place to live, I’d want to have a generous nest egg and pay cash for it.
I’d probably still be living with them if it weren’t for My Demise. My parents would likely have remained married as well. Not that I was carrying any guilt around.
None whatsoever.
My mom was coming to pick me up so we could drive out to my new place together.
She was still thinking about my proposition, that she and Aunt Judy move into the cottage on my property—my property.
Every time I thought it or said it, my heart did this wild dance, as if I’d been hit with a defibrillator—and help out with Maison de Reve.
Mom and Judy had grown up working in their parents’ restaurant, and when Mom had me, Judy took it over with her husband.
Mom watched me, Max, and Derek, and she supported my father in his career as an investment banker.
When Uncle Gordon passed away two years ago, Aunt Judy sold the restaurant, and she and Mom were thick as thieves once again, getting into trouble wherever they went.
I told them they could be involved however they felt comfortable, and they could go to the casinos and shopping whenever they wanted.
It didn’t have to be forever, but they could stay as long as they liked.
I showered, packed the rest of my stuff, and was doing the dishes when Mom arrived.
“I feel like I should be wearing cowboy boots,” she said. “Do people wear cowboy boots where we’re going?”
I rolled my eyes. “I would imagine a few do, yes, but for the most part, people there aren’t too different than here. Maybe they like life a little slower paced and are more involved with their neighbors, but we’re not moving to the wild west.”
She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Aw. That might be fun. I’ve never met a real cowboy.”
Mom talking about meeting men had me shuddering. I hadn’t thought about that aspect of her moving with me.
“What does Dad think of you potentially moving away?” I asked, as we got onto the freeway. “Have you talked to him about it?”
“What I choose to do with my life is no longer his concern.” She held her chin up high, but there was a crease in her forehead that let me know the topic troubled her.
“Mom,” I began. “I know you said it wasn’t about me—”
She flicked her hair behind her shoulders. “You’re right. It isn’t about you. It’s about him being a stubborn asshole who put his pretentious brother and friends before his only son. How can I have any respect for him when he’s so willing to disrespect his own family?”
My parents had both been born in California and raised by immigrant parents.
They struggled with their parents’ expectations of them and therefore had vowed that when they had their own children, they would be more realistic.
In a lot of ways, they were, but that drive to succeed in the proper career path had been drilled into me since childhood.
I’d wanted to please them, so I did the best I could in my studies and had been on the exact path my father wanted for me.
Until I wasn’t.
The lawsuit against my former employer for wrongful termination—and plenty of other ugliness I didn’t want to think about—was the final straw for Dad.
He didn’t want our family name to be dragged through the media.
He didn’t want his customers and clients to know his son damaged the reputation of his employer and then sued when he was let go.
He didn’t know that the wrongful termination was only part of the proceedings. He didn’t know how deep the hell I’d experienced really went, and the angrier he got, the less I would tell him.
When he finally demanded that I make other living arrangements, my mother told him that if he insisted I leave, she was also leaving. Dad didn’t put up a fight.
I had a feeling there may have been more behind her decision, but the fact that it had anything to do with me swept me up into a maelstrom of guilt and sank me further into depression.
She’d stood up for me, left her husband… and I hadn’t even told her the worst part of what happened.