Saturday Story 

Thank you for joining me for part 18 of my first Saturday Story: Rags to Riches! I look forward to posting part 19 next week.

Have  a great weekend!

Give your life the green light. It’s A Go!

Amber Green

Rags to Riches

Part 18:

To Riches:

It didn’t matter how much money my sister gave us, I could never buy my father’s approval.

We’d come a long way over the past few years. I went from being his beloved son to a pariah of sorts, all with one small (albeit important) admission of truth. The announcement that I am a gay man went off with the power of a nuclear bomb in terms of the destruction it rendered in my relationship with my father. At the time, it felt like what remained lay in tatters when the dust settled. Here driving alone with my father, I was worried that my next announcement would send him over the edge, yet again, into a nuclear wasteland, which would send me head first in a downward spiral of outdated judgement and standards I had never consented to be measured against. None of us volunteer to be judged based on our parents’- or family members’- view of the world; still, it was exhausting to fall short of my father’s preconceived notions of what a man’s- his only son, in particular- sexual orientation should be. But what could I do? I am who I am.

“What’re you thinking about, Chris? You’re awfully quiet,” my dad said, looking over from the driver’s seat.

Chris’s mouth went dry. He was scared of his father’s reaction, but he knew that he had to tell him before tonight. Chris cleared his throat as he braced himself for yet another helping of his father’s disappointment. “Dad, can you pull over? I wanna tell you something.”

“Okay,” he replied, as he safely pulled to the side of the road. He killed the ignition and shifted in his seat to look at Chris. “What is it?”

Chris took a deep breath. “Dad, I’m- I’m going to ask Dave to marry me.” There, I said it. Chris held his breath as he waited for his father to reply.

Carlos broke eye contact with Chris and shifted again, so that he was looking out to the road. He took a deep breath, and Chris felt himself break into a sweat. “You’re lucky you’re with Dave; no woman that wanted to get married would’ve waited for a proposal for this long.

Chris exhaled a sigh of relief that was as forceful as if he’d been under water for the last 90 seconds. Chris smiled, hesitantly, as he looked over at his father.

“How does that work between men anyway? Like, who’s supposed to propose to whom?”

“Well, there’s no rule, Dad- it’s just whoever asks first, I guess,” Chris replied.

“Was that all you wanted to talk about?” Carlos asked, as he paused before restarting the car.

Chris smiled without hesitation this time, “Yeah, Dad. That was it.”

They drove for a couple of minutes before Carlos spoke again. “Will Dave take our name?”

“David Bruno?” Chris asked. “I don’t know. It’ll be up to him, just like it is for any married couple.”

“Mmm,” Carlos nodded, as he continued to look at the road.

Chris relaxed for the first time in weeks. Fear of his father’s rejection ebbed away, and excited energy began to set in. This time tomorrow, Dave and I may be engaged, Chris thought happily.

……

From Rags:

The next couple of days passed in a tear-soaked blur. My sister, Priscilla and her husband, Luke, welcomed me into their home until I could sort through my emotions; I had discovered that my boyfriend, Kevin, was cheating on me with Anna, my roommate and best friend (or so I had thought) on the very day that my younger brother, Chris had been admitted to the hospital for alcohol poisoning.

I told my sister everything, but kept my mom in the dark. Though she and I are close, she was dealing with enough- especially since my brother still hadn’t been discharged from the hospital, and my father had not swallowed his pride and gone to visit their only son (he had been pretending that his only son did not exist after finding out that Chris is gay. After which, my brother drank himself into unconsciousness, and landed in the hospital).

I knew that my mom would have some very choice words once I finally tell her about what happened between Kevin and me. She had run hot and cold in regards to my relationship with Kevin from the very beginning. Call it mother’s intuition. I knew that she would be very upset by both of Kevin and Anna’s actions and betrayal.

For one reason or another, each member of my family seemed to be living in a state of emotional turmoil.

My sister, Priscilla, carried on like the warrior we knew her to be. She made sure that I was comfortable in her own home, checked on my brother at the hospital twice a day, ran errands for our mother and carried on in her own life as a working woman, wife and mother of three young boys. Upon staying with her for a couple of days, I was agog at how she managed to keep everything running so smoothly. Superman had nothing on my sister.

“How are you doing all of this?” I asked my sister in state of awe the third day I was at their house.

She looked up at me from her smartphone (from which I suspect that she was busy answering work emails) as if perplexed by my question. “What do you mean?”

“This-” I said as I motioned to the neatly folded laundry, bags of shopping, a completed ‘To-Do’ list (the first I’d ever seen in my life, by the way). “-I mean, how can you possibly do so much in the same 24 hours that all of us have? Do you have a DeLorean in the garage? Perhaps Hermione’s time-turner?”

Priscilla smiled, “Frankie, when you have a family, you just figure it out.”

“You must be exhausted,” I said, ignoring her explanation.

“I’ll relax once Chris is out of the hospital, okay?”

“Yeah, right,” I scoffed. “Did the doctor say he could be discharged tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Priscilla said with a sigh of relief.

“And Mom is okay with him staying here?”

“Well, I know that she would prefer that he stay with her, but Dad is still being…” words failed her as she trailed off. She shook her head as she struggled to find the word that would describe the man who was being stubborn and cold, but who was the same person all three of us had looked up to our entire lives. Priscilla is a protector, a natural guardian to all of us, and until this time of turmoil with our brother, we had always known our father to be the same way.

“I know,” I said, allowing my sister’s sentence to remain unfinished.

She sighed. “I invited Dave to drop by tomorrow evening after he’s finished work. He wants to be there when Chris is discharged, but he can’t leave work until the evening.”

“That was nice of you to invite him. Dave and Chris make a cute couple.”

“Yeah, they do,” Priscilla agreed. “I have to get things ready for Chris.”

“He can have the basement; I’ll take the living room. It’ll be better for him to have some space,” I reasoned.

“Are you sure? I’m sure CJ wouldn’t mind staying in his little brothers’ room for a while.”

“No, no,” I said. “Thanks, but I don’t want to disrupt the kids’ lives more than we already are. Plus, would they ever stop fighting?”

Priscilla smiled, “CJ is used to his own space.”

“Don’t worry about the basement. I’ll get it ready for Chris.”

……

The next day, Priscilla and I drove to the hospital to pick up our brother. Our mother was already there. I was hoping that our father would have joined her, but he was nowhere to be found. I could tell by the crestfallen look on my sister’s face that she too had been hoping the same thing.

“Hi girls,” our mom said as she hugged us hello.

“Hi mom,” we said in turn.

“They just told me that it’s going to be a little while before Chris is discharged. Everything’s fine, but they’re running a bit behind.”

“That’s okay. We’ll wait,” Priscilla said. “So, Dad’s not here, huh?”

My mom’s pursed her lips into a tight line. “No, Priscilla,” my mom answered in a mildly aggravated tone.

“I know that you two are the kind of couple that maintain a united front, but this is ridiculous, Mom. I know- we know-” Priscilla motioned to me, “-that you don’t agree with Dad on this. So what’s going on?”

Our mother’s cool facade cracked momentarily. Her shoulders slumped, then she raised her hands in surrender. “What do you want me to do, Priscilla? Hogtie your father, and drag him here?”

“Yeah,” Priscilla said. “If that’s the only way to get him in the same room with Chris, then, yes.”

“We’ll help you, Mom,” I said with a small smile.

My mother sighed. “As difficult as that would be, I wish it were that easy.” She looked off for a moment, and then returned to the task at hand. “Mrs. Viola asked me to run a few errands with her today. I thought Chris would be ready by now, but if I’m going to help her, I have to leave now. The poor woman and her cats need groceries.”

“That’s okay, Mom. You can go. We’ll get Chris back to Priscilla and Luke’s,” I said, reassuring our mother that everything was fine.

“Okay,” she said, still hesitating. “I’ll go say goodbye to Chris, and you guys call me later to let me know that everything is okay, please?”

“Of course,” Priscilla said.

With that, we said our goodbyes, and our mother walked down the hall to see Chris before leaving the hospital. My sister and I sat staring at our phones for a while before we saw Chris being wheeled towards us.

“Hey,” Chris said. “Don’t worry, I’m fine,” he said referring to the wheelchair. “It’s just hospital policy.”

“Hey, little bro,” I said, in greeting. Chris looked pale and tired, but I was so happy that he could finally come home.

“Hey,” Chris said as he quickly hugged Priscilla and me.

“Let’s go, guys. We’ll catch up at home,” Priscilla said, aware that the hospital attendant pushing our brother had other tasks to complete that day.

We piled into Priscilla’s car and she was just backing out of the parking space when Chris said, “Damn. Guys, stop.”

He didn’t speak loudly, but Priscilla and I jumped. “What? What is it?”

“Do you not feel good?” Priscilla asked, concerned.

“No, no, I’m fine. It’s just- I forgot my phone charger.”

My sister and I exhaled in relief and rolled our eyes into the back of our heads.

“Boy, you two are jumpy,” Chris said, smiling.

“No, you think?” Priscilla asked sarcastically.

“I’ll go get it,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt.

“Thanks, Frankie. It’s plugged into the wall on the far side of the room.”

“Okay.”

I got out and made my way back to Chris’s former hospital room. Fortunately, no one was occupying the space yet, so I was able to get in and out quickly. As I looked down the hall towards the exit, I saw a familiar hulking figure. I walked towards him. “Dad?”

He turned. “Hey Franca,” he said quietly.

“Hey, dad,” I said as I gave him a hug. “Chris is in the car. Do you want to walk out with me?”

For the first time in my life, my father looked unsure. He avoided eye contact for a moment, and looked embarrassed. “Is he okay?” he asked, as he avoided my question. I noticed that his eyes looked a bit puffy. The harsh fluorescent light bounced off his misty eyes.

“Yeah, Dad, he’s okay. Dave made sure that he got to the hospital in time,” I said. “Are you sure you don’t want to walk out with me? Say hello?”

“Uh- uh, no, no. I- I have to get going,” he said quietly.

“Okay,” I said. He started to walk away.

“Dad?” I called after him. He turned to me. “I love you. We- we love you.”

My father nodded, raised his hand like he was waving goodbye, and continued towards the exit.

I guess we won’t have to hogtie him after all, I thought.

…………

Continue reading Rags to Riches: Part 19 here.

*This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

© 2018 Amber Green