The Wedding: A Family's Coming Out Story (10 page)

No reaction. I’d have to get tough.

“You leave
with
a
couch
, or you
leave with
out
me
.”

Nothing. So turning on the drama wasn’t going to
do it. I had one last idea that I hoped would demonstrate how ludicrous this
struggle was. “So why don’t we flip a coin?”

To my dismay, his eyes lit up.

“Forget it,” I snapped. “If we’re ever going to
make
us
work, we’ve got to be able to make
this
work. We’re
making a decision, and sticking with it, and leaving this store with a new set
of living room furniture.”

We stood, locked eye to eye, stock still.

He blinked.

And two months later, we took shipment of the
furniture that graces our living room to this day. Two lovely Bloomingdale’s
couches.

ANDREW   
And yes, they were
sea-foam green. So don’t let Doug tell you I can’t compromise.

After that, it became apparent that everything
would work itself out. And eventually, it did. With counseling and mutual
understanding, we both made it through a frightening time. And we had a new,
stronger connection. It was as if, having weathered the tempest of our first
months, we were survivors of the same catastrophe, sharing the bond of
veterans.

DOUG   
Our small circle of two was
much stronger, but there was a subtext that I began to sense lurking almost
imperceptibly around the edges of our familial dynamic. On the surface, Sheldon
and Roslyn were uncommonly open and accepting of Andrew, and me, and our
relationship. Speaking for myself, I never felt Sheldon and Roslyn treated me
like a lesser person, or somehow different because of my sexuality. And yet I
began to recognize an undercurrent that suggested that Andrew and I, as a
couple, were indeed seen as different.

At least they saw us as some kind of couple.
Until our engagement, the independence I’d long had from my own parents - and
the communication we’d never had - allowed key truths to remain veiled, and
pushed Sheldon and Roslyn to the center of our increasingly pressurized
extended family, placing a great unspoken burden on them.

As it would for so many things, the wedding
eventually exposed many of the unexplored issues that had quietly chipped away
at the foundations of our familial relationships. It would force new awareness
on many fronts, from the distance built up between me and my parents, to the
conflict spurred by my moving in with Andrew.

ROSLYN
   
The
conflict Doug sensed in our family had been brewing for a long time; although I
did my best to smooth over any potential problems, trying to keep everyone
happy and comfortable. One night, however, so much that had been below the
surface bubbled up.

Sheldon’s 60th birthday party had been in the
planning stages for months. I had gone all-out in an effort to make it unique,
to personalize it for Sheldon, reserving one of our favorite restaurants,
putting together a menu with all the food he liked, creating a multi-tiered
sports-themed birthday cake (one layer was a basketball court, another a tennis
court), laboring for weeks on a video I planned to show that night. By the
evening of the event I was on overload, from the basic logistics to the menu,
seating, video, music, and the comfort of our guests.

From the minute we began getting dressed,
Sheldon became another person, harsh, overbearing, overreacting to anything and
everything. By the time we arrived at dinner and sat down at the head table
with our children and their respective partners, I had an idea of what had set
Sheldon off.

Here we were with Bonnie, her husband David,
Debbie, her husband Abraham, our son Mitchell, and Andrew - with Doug. This was
the first time we’d all been together in a public spotlight, outside of family
gatherings that were strictly in the family.

DOUG   
Getting out of the house that
night was an ordeal.

“What are you doing?” Andrew fumed. “Your hair
is fine!” He tried to take my ‘fro’ comb out of my hand.

“Leave me alone!” I combed my hair out further.

“You’re getting poofy!” Andrew warned. I kept
right on poofing. “Come on, my father’s pacing downstairs. He wants to get out
of here.”

“I need a minute.”

“You
need a haircut! Stop playing with it, you look fine. Would you hurry up!”

I
obsessed over every article of clothing, like I was deciding on the clothes I’d
get buried in. An apt comparison, it turned out. The evening turned into a
three ring circus, of sorts. Once at the head table, we were the center ring.

I’d
met many of the extended Merling family at holiday dinners, but this was my
introduction to the community at large. And though I fretted about each of
those events, this was a heart-pounding, hangnail-pulling, shirt-dampening
night.

ANDREW   
The evening started out
downstairs at the restaurant, where cocktails were served. People approached us
warily. Whether it was because they didn’t know Doug, or because he was male, I
couldn’t tell. An uncle who is usually very gregarious seemed to avoid any
contact with Doug. I wasn’t constantly on the lookout for sleights, but I
couldn’t help but notice some people avoiding contact with him. None of this
struck me personally, rather I was concerned that Doug, sensitive as he is,
would feel stung by the few cool responses.

ROSLYN
   
I must
have had some discomfort of my own about this, since I was concerned with how
other people were reacting to the presence of Andrew and Doug together at our
table. Throughout the evening I was hyper vigilant, looking to see who was
avoiding meeting Doug. I was playing the role of gatekeeper, a position I’d
held in my parents’ home. The present circumstances only exacerbated this
tendency. I was observing to see who was being warm, who ignored him. It was an
exhausting evening of surveillance. I grew more sensitive, and watchful, as the
night wore on.

DOUG   
I was on hyper overdrive as I
groped for names of the family I’d met. After a minute of talking with one
table of cousins our own age, I turned around to find Andrew was gone. My Siamese
twin was ripped from me, and I had a gaping hole where my confidence should
have been. Suddenly I couldn’t think of a word to say to anyone. I excused
myself and headed for the bathroom, hoping to find Andrew there.

It was the only thing I got right all night. We
were alone at the urinals. “Don’t leave me alone out there tonight, please?” I
pled nakedly. As he shook his head and chuckled, all I could think of was that
line from Broadcast News that goes something like, “Wouldn’t it be nice if
insecurity and neediness made us more attractive?” Well, if it did, I was
downright gorgeous that night.

So you might expect that I would have been more
sensitive to Roslyn’s predicament as one-woman envoy between the heteros and
the homos. Unfortunately, I was too self-obsessed to see what she was up
against.

Once all of us were seated at the head table, it
was quite a while before any of the Merling family’s friends stepped over to
say hello. When one woman finally did approach the table, it came time for
Roslyn to make a round of introductions. You could sense that everyone was
curious as to how she would navigate the uncharted etiquette challenge before
her.

Roslyn stepped squarely into the breach, without
batting a well-mascaraed eyelash. “You know Bonnie and her husband David, our
son Mitchell, Debbie and her husband Abraham, Andrew... and his
partner
Doug.” We all smiled politely, amused glances were exchanged. (What did we
expect
Roslyn to say? In our discomfort with the situation, we all reacted like
schoolchildren). At last, amid the titters, Mitchell cracked a wicked,
insinuating smile, and chimed, “Andrew, I didn’t know you two were in business
together!” The table erupted in laughter, leaving Roslyn twisting in the
breeze.

ROSLYN
   
All my
hard work was going down the drain. The audio for the band and the videotape
weren’t working, my family was imploding in squabbles that don’t warrant
repeating, and Sheldon was on a rant.

“It’s too hot. The service is too slow. What’s
wrong with the tape? Are the wires connected? What’s the problem? When are we
going to get the music back?” He wouldn’t quit.

I was going down, and hard. And no one seemed to
care. No one even attempted to help work out the glitches or to offer advice on
how to deal with what was fast becoming a tragicomic opera.

By the end of the night, I was ready for a
rubber room.

SHELDON   
Roslyn has long insisted
that my bad mood that night was in response to Andrew and Doug being at center
stage with all my friends present. And I’ve always told her it simply isn’t so.

Perhaps I wouldn’t have chosen Roslyn’s words if
I’d been the one to introduce Doug. I’d say “This is Andrew’s ‘friend’, Doug”,
and let it go at that. This was the full extent of my discomfiture.

The truth is, I was angry at myself that
evening, because I felt stupid and embarrassed. We’d arrived at the party, and
as I gazed around the room at my assembled friends and family, it dawned on me
that I had inexplicably forgotten to invite a friend with whom I have lunch
each and every day. He’s also a tenant in the same office building as myself.
The next Monday I spoke to him about my oversight, and he accepted my abject
apology. But on Saturday night I was miserable, and it had nothing to do with
Andrew and Doug.

ROSLYN
   
Sorry,
Shel.

At the risk of sounding analytical, I have to
wonder why he turned all of the anger he said he felt toward himself, and
directed it at me? How did it help to continue dwelling on the negative to the
point of excluding any of the evening’s many joys?

Anyway, the fact that I was on the receiving end
of a barrage of complaints leads me to believe that this irrational behavior
was coming from something deeper than a forgotten invitation. I still attribute
it the “partner”-ship at our table.

And while I’ve confessed that I felt my own
unease about Andrew and Doug, I don’t believe I’m projecting my fears onto
Sheldon. This was an altogether new and unpleasant side of my husband - or, at
least, a side that, after all these years of marriage, I’d never witnessed
myself.

When Andrew announced his engagement to Doug, it
was that night that appeared first in my mind. Not the usual visions of a
ritual imbued with joy and honor, or the elation that I shared with my
daughters on the word of their intended betrothal, but a bitter struggle fought
between the lines, the true sources of anger never addressed, and therefore
without hope of reconciliation.

Having already been involved in all aspects of
both my daughters’ weddings, I knew that under the best of circumstances an
affair of this complexity is a trying business. And this promised to be
anything but the best of circumstances.

Reflecting on the night of Sheldon’s birthday
party, I honestly wondered if our family was capable of surviving this wedding.

People
might not get all they work for in this world, but they certainly must work for
all they get.

-
Frederick Douglass

September,
1995

One
year until the big day.

And
Montreal was talking.

...
This
sort of thing isn’t
done
in our community

...
Why
does it have to be so
big
?

…
Why
does it have to be
here
?

…
After
all, this thing isn’t really
necessary
-
is
it?

…
This is
radical

…
Why
can’t they do it in
New York
?

…
It’s
so
selfish
of
them

…
Why
are you doing this to
Daddy
?

...
You’re
simply
ruining
our Labor Day weekend

...
Where’s
Doug from - can’t they do it
there
?

…
A
lot of people don’t like this
thing

...
Why
do you have to put us through this
nonsense
?