56
“You like him,” Tennyson says around twenty-five seconds after we drive away.
“I mean—” I shrug. “He was nicer to me than either of our parents ever were, so—”
His face pulls uncomfortably. “Don’t say that.”
“Am I lying?”
“Maybe to yourself. Didn’t you hear him? Dad was proud of you.”
“And what the fuck does that matter if he could never tell me or show me himself?” I scowl over at him. “That his proudness of me had to be spelled out for me by some random French guy in Louisiana? Like, what does that say about his proudness?”
Which I guess Tennyson considers to be a fair point, because he mashes his lips together and drops it.
It’s quiet for a couple of minutes, but it’s not bad. I don’t mind quiet with Tennyson. I never thought I’d say that, but it’s true.
Eventually, he breathes out his nose and grips the wheel tighter—he could be frustrated, could be grasping for control—at this point, there are so many possible and understandable emotions swirling around.
“I wish I didn’t like him,” Tennysons says, his brow straining. “I wish he was an asshole, so it was easier.”
I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. “So what was easier?”
“Telling Mom…”
I look at him like he’s mad. “We can’t tell Mom.”
Now he looks at me like I’m crazy. “What?”
“Of course, we can’t tell her.” I overenunciate my words.
“Are you joking?” He stares at me, incredulous, and I stare right back.
“Are you?”
“We have to!” Tennyson says loudly.
“Tens, tell her that her whole life is a lie? Are you crazy?”
“Yes!” he yells (probably louder than he means to) as he whacks the steering wheel, frustrated. “Fuck! Maybe I am, I don’t know—” He starts shaking his head a lot. “I don’t know anything. At all.”
I watch him for a second, feeling sad and nervous about how sad and nervous he looks. “Tennyson…”
“No, Georgia, listen.” He shakes his head more now, frantic, almost. I think his eyes are glassy. “I don’t know who I am if I’m not his son—”
“Tenny, you’re still his son—”
“Am I?”
“Of course,” I tell him emphatically.
He shakes his head again, shrugging this time too. “But it’s all a lie.”
“No it’s not—”
“Yes it is!” he yells. “You just said it is! That my whole life is a lie…”
“I said Mom’s whole life is a lie.”
Tennyson swats his hand through the air. “It’s the same thing.”
“No it’s not. Listen to me—” I grab him by the arm and shake him a little so he hears me. “Our father’s gayness does not impede his capacity to be a father, but it does impede his capacity to be a husband to his heterosexual, monogamous wife.”
I lift my eyebrows, hope that it makes him hear my point better before I keep going.
“Everything he’s ever said to you about being your dad and loving you still holds true, regardless of his sexuality, okay? He can love you and believe in you and champion you as your father, who happens to be a gay man, but that’s not the case for Mom.” I pause again to make sure he’s following me, and I think he is. “Dad can’t be the devoted, doting, adoring, faithful husband Mom’s always painted him to be and be a secretly gay man with an active lover on the side. And I understand why you feel betrayed by this revelation, Tens, I do—but it’s not the same, and we can’t tell her.”
“She deserves to know the truth,” he says firmly to the road in front of us.
“Why?” I shake my head a million times. “For what? To what end?”
Tennyson glances over at me, face contorted in confusion. “You love the truth! Your entire existence is wrapped around the pursuit of truth. The truth at all costs, isn’t that what you say?”
“It. Would. Crush her,” I say slowly and clearly. “And I don’t mean like, an anvil falling on her—I mean it would obliterate her. Evisceration. She’d lose everything. And she already feels like she has!” My voice breaks and my eyes fill with tears, and I don’t even really know why. I guess all of it’s sad. I wipe my eyes because I don’t want those things in there. “The life she had would become vapor.”
Tennyson glances from me to the road then back to me. “So what are you saying? We just—lie to her?”
“Yeah,” I say, quietly, more and more sure that I’m right.
He glances at me. “Forever?”
“Yes.”
He swallows. “I don’t know that I can do that.”
“But you can strip her of everything she’s ever known and the identity she’s built around it all?”
My brother gives me an unimpressed look before his mind starts ticking over things. “We’d have to make sure Oliver doesn’t say anything…”
I nod in agreement.
“To anyone…” Tennyson gives me a look, eyebrows up.
“Yeah.” I shrug. “Who’s he going to tell?”
***
Sam:
how was today?
Georgia:
Informative.
Sam:
Good informative?
Georgia:
I really don’t know.
Sam:
can’t wait to see you.
Georgia:
same XX