Family Man (24 page)

“Vinnie! Of course we’ll help. You could have told me on the phone, you know—goodness, what she must think, not even meeting us and here we are. Why have you kept her a secret? Do I know her? You didn’t have to—”

“
Listen
, please, Ma. I really need you to listen to me right now.”

His mother stilled, looking confused, but she quieted too, as much as Lisa Fierro could. “I’m listening, darling. But you know it doesn’t matter what’s going on. We’ll help her family, because as long as she’s seeing you, she’s our family too.”

Vince’s heart pounded so hard he wanted to double over at the pain, but he swallowed it and made himself press on. “Will you help her even if the someone I’m seeing isn’t a she?”

His mother blinked at him. Then again. And then again, and then she frowned. “Vincent, this isn’t funny.”

No shit.
“Do you see me laughing?”

She frowned harder. “If this is about politics, if you’re trying to make some kind of ridiculous point—”

“I’m not talking about politics.” He swallowed another load of bile and fear. “I’m talking about me. And Trey Giles. That’s who I’m seeing. That’s whose mother is in the hospital, who needs us. It’s killing me, doing it by myself. I need the family to help. But first I need the family to understand who they’re helping, because I’ll probably be holding him and comforting him and doing everything else boyfriends do when their partner is upset, and I don’t want Trey to have to see a bunch of Fierros freaking out.”

For the first time in Vince’s experience, his mother seemed unable to speak. She opened and closed her mouth several times before sinking back into the sofa as if someone had let the air out of her. “You’re serious. Oh my God in heaven, you’re serious.”

Pushing aside the hurt and uncertainty, Vince pressed on. “I am. I’m sorry it’s all coming out like this. I’d wanted to be more careful and slow, but to be honest I think I’d have put it off until the second coming if I could have gotten away with it.” He paused, because the next part cut even to say it out loud. “If you hate me, if you’re going to abandon me, please, help me first. Please don’t turn them away because of me. Help them as neighbors and friends and ignore me. But they need us so bad, Ma. They’re exhausted and wrung out, and they don’t have anyone but me, and I’m not enough.” He blanched and fished wildly around for a tissue. “Oh God, please don’t cry.”

“
Don’t cry.
” Lisa withdrew a tissue from her purse and wiped angrily at her tears. “
Don’t cry
, you tell me. But first you tell me I’m going to abandon my son, and you remind me what my Christian duty is to my friends, as if I wouldn’t remember on my own.”

She sobbed once, but when Vince tried to reach out to comfort her, she slapped him away. She was still crying, but she was pissed too. Furious in a way only Fierro women could be.

“Is that what you think of me?” she went on. “That I would turn you away, turn your lover away? You think the family would turn you away?”

Vince paused. Well, yes he did. “I heard them talking at the baptism. About Hank. About how awful he was.”

“He was caught with a hooker. Of course they were talking about him.” She waved her hand angrily in the direction of the northern suburbs. “He gives everyone plenty to talk about. Has he ever come home with a nice boy? No. He comes home high and drunk and breaks his mother’s heart. He gets diseases and yells and has boyfriends who beat him up. Then he blames us for his problems.”

Vince was not buying this. “Well, in his defense, it’s not like you make it easy. Find a nice girl. Find a nice boy. Have babies. Get a good job. Go to church. So many goddamn rules, we about choke on them.”

The other patrons in the coffee shop were starting to watch them uneasily, and for half a second Vince felt bad. Then his mom started up again, and he forgot everyone else.

“Rules! Rules to protect you, to guide you? Maybe. The rules of the church, of God.”

“The church that says my loving Trey is a sin?”

Lisa rolled her eyes. “Please. They say the same thing about birth control, and do we pay attention to that?”

“Oh, so it’s a buffet now, is it? Good to know.”

“You’re not too old for me to paddle your backside, young man!”

“I heard them.” Vince didn’t shout, because getting the words out hurt, every one. “I heard them talking about Hank. I heard them say people like that aren’t family. And they meant that he was gay, Ma. I could tell.”

His mother deflated. “That was probably Olivia. She’s always been a bigoted little bitch.” Lisa closed the distance between them and took Vince’s hands, squeezing them tight. “I won’t lie to you, Vincent. I’m surprised. Upset too, I’ll admit that, because…well, it’s not what I’d pick for you. And yes, the family will be tricky. Hank made sure this road is littered with trash. But what you say to me, your mother! To have you stand here and imply I won’t love you because—because—”

“Because I’m gay?”

She reached up and touched his face. “You think I would turn you away for that? You think that of me?”

Vince was having to blink, a lot, to keep his own tears away. “I was afraid of it, yeah.”

She slapped him, but without any heat. “Don’t you ever think that again.”

He gave up and let the tears roll down his cheeks. “Yes, ma’am.”

Kissing him on the cheek, she drew him into her arms. Vince hugged her back, and over her shoulder he saw several of the other patrons wiping at their eyes. Trey’s coworkers were openly blowing their noses and hugging each other.

He smiled. Nobody did drama quite like the Italians.

Lisa patted him and went back to business. “So you said Mindy is in the hospital? How long has she been there? Have they gone home? Do they need food? Of course they need food. What about the house, has anyone been tidying up for them? And you, have you been getting any sleep? Poor little Trey, he works so hard. You’ve been watching out for him, yes? He’s such a young thing, so sweet, grew up so fast. You take care of him, Vincent, and we’ll take care of the rest. I wonder if Flora is home?”

She kept going, pulling out her cellphone and texting people as she continued to rattle off questions and demands, and Vince simply stood there and watched her, grinning and beaming and bursting with familial pride.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The funny thing about the ICU is that there is no time. Walking into it is like stepping out of life, out of the regular daily routine, away from a world of lattes and streetlights and reality TV and into some hushed dimension where everybody speaks in whispers, and each second is ticked off by the steady beep of heart monitors and the
whish—click—fffft
of the ventilators.

A stream of people wandered in and out of my box of consciousness: Vin, bringing me food; the nurses, smiling apologetically; people asking what we needed. A number of those people turned out to be Fierros, which surprised me, but I didn’t have the brain power to think much beyond that. Vin’s family was helping. That was nice of them.

At first, I was uncomfortable by their offers.
No, we don’t need anything. We’re fine. Thanks for asking.
I’d try to smile, then worry that was wrong, and try to frown.

“Let them help,” the grief counselor told me. I hadn’t asked to see him, but he’d appeared in her room anyway. “Don’t be afraid to tell them what needs to be done.”

After that, I strived for honesty. We needed rides for Gram to and from the hospital. Gram needed meals. Vin’s family sprang right into action, and Rachel even offered to stay a couple of nights with my mom so I could go home and sleep in a real bed. When I got home, I found out they’d been doing dishes and cleaning, and the fridge and freezer overflowed with amazing, wonderful food. Whatever else I needed, they told me, just ask.

Vinnie himself was great. Solid. Present. Most of all, silent. I didn’t know if it was because he didn’t know what to say, or because he sensed it was what I needed. Either way, I appreciated it. I wished there was a polite way to tell the others to do the same.

They meant well. I knew that, but the repetitive awkwardness of the conversation wore on me.

“How is she?” they’d always ask.

Mostly dead, just like she looks.
“They say her MRI doesn’t show any new degeneration.”

“What happened?”

She abused her body for forty years.
“We don’t really know.”

“Are you holding up all right?”

“I’m fine.”

The conversations made me self-conscious. Was I behaving the way a son should? Did I sound too sure when I told them I was fine? Was I too callous? Did I seem properly mournful? Maybe I should seem more grateful?

“There’s no right or wrong here,” Vinnie said to me when I tried to make sense of my unease.

How could that be true?

I sat on the fake leather bench in her ICU room, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. The nurses came in regularly to check the bank of monitors. They straightened the tubing across the white sheets of the bed. Tucked the blankets tighter around her feet. The ventilator caused fluid to collect in the back of her throat, and they’d suck it out to prevent it from falling into her lungs. That was the only time she’d make any sound—a sort of low-pitched whine that spoke of primal pain. I learned to put on my headphones and crank the volume until they were done.

I quickly decided those working there were saints, but they’d lost a bit of touch with reality. “We’re going to put in a suppository today. A good bowel movement will probably make her more comfortable.”

Good Lord. What could anyone say to that?

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The monitors went on.

I lived each second as if it were the only second. No thoughts of the past. Anything that had happened before our admittance to this strange universe seemed foggy and dull. To say there were no thoughts of the future would be inaccurate, but it felt like walking a tightrope. They did not expect her to live. We would need to have a coffin. There would be a service. I had a brief vision of myself, in a suit I didn’t own, standing in front of a faceless congregation.

No.

That was as far as it could go.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

It wasn’t grief. I’m sure that’s what everybody thought. It was certainly what was expected. I wondered if the grief would come. I worried that it wouldn’t. I wondered if at some point it would crash down on me from above, taking me by surprise. In the next room over, a man twice my mother’s age lay unmoving. Unresponsive. Three women sat with him. They had a book, and they took turns reading from it, rocking gently as they did, their lips moving, but their voices too quiet to hear. The book wasn’t in English. A Koran? A Torah? I didn’t know. But when they looked at me, I saw the pain in their eyes.

That
was grief.

That wasn’t what I felt.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Maybe it would come. Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it would be something else entirely. And that was where I couldn’t allow myself to go. I couldn’t bear to open that door, to acknowledge what might be behind. Whatever paths were there, whatever endings they may hold, whatever emotions they may create, I couldn’t ponder them. I stared at the floor.

Square tiles. White. Blue chips.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I should call someone. People from her past. The lady who’d been our neighbor. The man she’d dated briefly years ago. Somebody should know.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

My friends didn’t call. Tara texted once, but I let Vinnie handle it, and whatever he said to them, they left me alone after that. I was glad. I didn’t want anyone else in the way. I’d go to the hospital cafeteria with Gram, and we’d sit in silence, pushing mashed potatoes around our plates. Then back through the veil to the tiles and the curtains and the whispered prayers.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“If you have something to say to her, you should say it now,” the counselor said.

I nodded. Because he expected me to agree.

I had plenty to say to her. Vile, angry things. I doubted that was what he meant.

“This may be your last chance,” he said. “You’ll regret it later.”

Yes, that was probably true. Later, when the grief finally found me, I’d probably remember the good times. I’d probably remember what it had been like to have a mom. I’d probably wish I’d lied and told her all was forgiven.

But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear the thought of telling her it was fine. Of telling her I loved her. Of telling her I understood, because there was still a chance, however remote, that she would wake up. And when she did, I’d have to live with my lie. I’d have to look in her face, see her smiling and pleased that somehow this trip to the hospital had earned her exactly what she wanted—my approval. My acceptance that drinking bottles of cough syrup was fine. My bullshit confession that having her drunk through most of my life had somehow been a mistake. That her saying, “I couldn’t help it,” somehow made up for the years of lies and deceit and hiding and selfishness. That a few nights in a hospital bed somehow absolved her of it all.

Because it didn’t.

Years of cleaning up after her. Finding the bottles. Going to meetings. Picking her up drunk from work. Apologizing to bosses and neighbors. Years of excuses and pandering and blaming every fucking problem we ever had on “the disease”. It was still there, lurking just beyond my periphery. In the hush of the halls, under the sound of the prayers, behind the
whish—click—fffft
of the machine that kept her breathing, was the anger. The fury that somehow she’d made herself a victim. The ultimate martyr. The fucking Virgin Mary of the ICU. Somehow, the world expected it to be washed away in tears and grief, each measure of it ticked off by the
beep, beep, beep
of the monitors, draining away like the endless bags of saline emptying into her veins.