Chapter Twelve But I’m a Cheerleader, dir. by Jamie Babbit #2
“Come on! It’s Weller, double barreled.” John sets the glasses down, clearly not taking no for an answer.
“Speaking of Peter...” Rue pulls her hair free of the bun she’d walked out of the house in. “When am I meeting this boy?”
Eli swallows. “He’s pretty busy.”
“Oh, come on, how about this weekend? We’re heading into the city, Les wants to go ice-skating!”
“I’ve got plans,” Eli says.
“Cancel them,” Rue sings, waving Eli off. “I want to meet him!”
“I just don’t think it’s such a good idea.” Eli takes the whiskey, sipping on it slowly as he’s directed by John. It’s a good
whiskey, he’ll give John that, but he can’t appreciate the full flavor, not with the sour taste that already lingers on his
tongue.
“Why? Did something happen?” she asks.
“No, it’s just that...” Eli lets his words drift off into the ether. “It’s nothing. I just don’t want to go.”
The moment hangs, empty, before Rue turns to John. “Honey, can you give us a moment?”
“Yeah!” John says, like he’s come to some large epiphany. “Of course. I’ll go shower. Have a good night, Eli. And thank you
again!”
“Of course,” Eli says slowly. His eyes follow John as he exits the large kitchen, but Rue’s gaze stays focused on her son’s face.
“Mom...”
“What’s wrong, Eli?”
“Nothing. Why do you have to assume that something’s wrong?”
“Well, for one thing, I’m not assuming.” Rue’s glass clinks against the granite bar as she sets it down. “I know you think
that you’re impossible to read and all mysterious and private or whatever. But I’ve known you since the literal moment the
doctor had to cut open my stomach to get your stubborn ass out after seventy-two hours of the worst pain of my life.”
“You really don’t have to remind me of that every single time.”
Rue raises her eyebrows. “But I will.”
At least with her dress on, she can’t show him the C-section scar this time.
“Well, nothing’s wrong,” he repeats. “I’m fine.”
“And years ago I might’ve believed that. Because I wanted to give you the space to tell me about yourself on your own time.
But you’re an adult now, Eli. And adults talk about their feelings.”
He despises the way that his mother sees right through him. At least she’d given him the space to be invisible at one point
or another, eventually admitting months after both of his coming-outs that she’d suspected something but she’d wanted to give
Eli the space and time to figure out the pieces of himself that he wanted to find alone, doing her best to show him that she’d
be there to help when he needed it.
Of course, the hospital visits, the medical bills, the funeral, the ongoing years of grief, they’d slowed things down.
But Rue never faltered in being there for her child. And he’s so unendingly grateful for that.
“I...” he begins to say, wondering just which truth he might give her, which one might slip out without his permission. “How did you know that you were in love?” he dares to ask her. “After Dad died... how’d you know how to fall in love again?”
“Oh, wow... deep question...” Rue picks up Eli’s whiskey and downs the rest of the drink in a single swallow.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“No, no. I mean...” She sets the glass down again. “I know that we never really discussed it.”
“Right.”
There were those messy weeks when Eli resented his mother for moving on “too quickly.” At least, what he’d determined to be
too quickly. He remembers the promises that John wasn’t a replacement, that he wasn’t out to get anything from Eli’s mother,
that he genuinely loved her.
But they’d never talked about it more than that, besides the apologies that Eli had offered in return when he realized it’d
been so long since he’d seen his mother as happy as she was on her and John’s wedding day.
“In all honesty, Eli... I didn’t know.” She lets out a long breath, moving around the counter toward her son, her hosed
feet padding softly on the wooden floors. “I had no idea that I was ‘ready to love’ again, or however you want to phrase it.”
“It just happened?”
“Maybe... It’s hard to know. There’s no sign, there’s no sudden sensation, you just know when you’re ready, even if you might not actually feel that way.”
“But wasn’t it tough, after Dad?”
“Oh.” She lets out a sad laugh. “It was impossible. When you think that you have your person, when you think that you have
the one that you’re supposed to spend the rest of your life with and they’re taken away from you in such a slow, cruel way...
there’s a feeling you can’t explain. It’s a nothingness, a void. You’re just... you’re numb, apathetic.”
Eli doesn’t know the feeling as well as his mother does. His father was his father, but that’s just it.
He was his father.
To Rue, he was the man she adored, the man that she’d shared decades of her life with, the man that she’d built a home with,
raised a child alongside. He was the man who encouraged her to pursue her dreams at the press, who listened to every complaint
that she had, who bought her flowers even on her good days because he loved how she smiled when he gave them to her.
Whatever Eli’s father was to him, it can only pale in comparison to the man he was to his mother.
“And after he died, everyone called me a fighter.” Rue scoffs, rolling her eyes. “I was a fighter for dealing with it, for
‘coming out the other side,’ for surviving when all I ever had to do was sit at his bedside and make sure he never felt alone
as life ate away at him. John mentioned once in the group sessions that he’d gone through the same thing. He was a ‘fighter.’
Because he’s the one who survived, he was the one who was alive. He admitted that it bothered him, and a lot of us shared
the sentiment, but then he said something. Something that’s stuck with me for years, ever since he said it.”
“What?”
“He said, ‘There’s more than one way to be a fighter.’” Rue smiles. “And I think about that almost every single day.”
“Huh...”
“And if there’s one thing I know about you, Eli... it’s that you’re a fighter.”
“Mom.”
“You are.” She puts a soft hand on top of his. “I know that you doubt it, but you are. You’re a fighter because of your smile,
and because of your heart. The way you care about other people, and about yourself.”
Eli balls his other hand into a fist under the counter.
“Maybe that means less to you coming from your mom, but I like to think I know you better than anyone.” She rubs the small of Eli’s back.
It’s been years since she held him this closely, since he felt this protected by her warmth.
The last time he can remember was after the funeral, when they’d both returned to the apartment by themselves, and for the
first time in a week, they were totally alone. None of Eli’s aunts or uncles were racing around, freezing the surplus of food
that people brought for them, no one was asking about funeral arrangements that hadn’t been made yet, no one was asking Eli
how he felt, promising that his father’s suffering was over without admitting that Eli’s had just begun.
They sat on the couch, his mother holding him close as they turned on Who Framed Roger Rabbit , his father’s favorite.
For the first time in weeks, they both laughed.
And Eli felt like he was home.
Now, he tries to feel the same sense of comfort, the same sense of belonging. But he knows what’s coming. What’ll happen if
Peter decides that he doesn’t want to be around Eli anymore? Every part of Eli’s being tells him that Peter would never do
anything like that. But he never believed Keith would break his heart either.
“Now.” Rue continues to rub the small of his back. “I forget, do you already own ice skates?”