I regretted saying it the moment it came out. My father was easily offended, and I struck him low. He walked to the bookshelf on the south wall, returning with a green, hardcover book and flung it at me. I thought it might have been the Bible at first, but when I opened it, several pieces of paper fell into my hands — every uncashed cheque I'd sent them. I looked at him, exasperated. "Are you out of your mind? There's at least ten grand in here!"
"Take it and go. I don't want it."
I placed the cheques back into the book and tossed it onto the sofa. Our argument, although brief, had exhausted me. "This is ridiculous. I didn't come here to fight with you."
"Then why did you come?"
"I already told you."
"No," he clarified. "Why are you here? In my house? You could have paid your respects and left again without ever having to see me."
My lips thinned. "You're my Father. I wanted to see you." He snorted. "Now, can the three of us sit down and discuss the arrangements for Saturday?"
Sensing it was safe to do so, Lauren emerged from the kitchen and our father retreated to his recliner chair. "The service will be small. Only family will attend. And you," he added, implying that I was not family.
I ignored the dig. "But didn't Mom have lots of friends in the --"
"Only family," he said again, harsher this time. "Your mother would not want a spectacle. She hated being the center of attention."
"Daddy, I think this is the one-time Mom would make an exception. It's a celebration of her life, after all." Lauren's tone was calm but louder than normal. It was her delicate way of yelling, and I could see our father flinch at her reaction.
I sat myself down in the center of the sofa and patted the seat next to me, encouraging her to sit. She did as instructed. I tried to speak soft and serious. "Lauren is right. Mom was active in the community. It's in poor taste not to open the service to all the people she touched, in one form or another. She would be humbled and honoured to know how much she was cared for."
He grunted in angry defeat. "Fine. But no open casket. I don't want her to be on display. She wouldn't want people to see her that way."
"I'd like to see her if that's alright," I was as shocked to hear myself say it as he was to hear it. It hadn't occurred to me that I would have any desire to see her body. I had told myself that I would want to remember her the way she was. Yet, as we discussed her illness and the way it had ravaged her body, it became clear that I needed to see her one last time. I needed to see for myself what had become of her.
"You're kidding," my father looked at me like I had two heads. "You didn't want to see her when she was alive, and now you want to gawk at her? Absolutely not!"
"I just want to say goodbye." I wheedled.
"No. You can do that the same way as everyone else. End of discussion."
"Parker, trust me," Lauren touched my shoulder gently. "You don't want to see her. You wouldn't recognize her, even if you did."
I was annoyed but relented. "Have either of you contacted Father Thomas? I'm sure he'd be honoured to officiate."
"You mean, Father Flanagan," Lauren then whispered in my ear, "Father Thomas died last year."
I felt a sting of awkwardness. "I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't," my father sighed. "I'm shocked you even suggested a church at all. I didn't think you'd want to risk stepping inside."
"I'm not going to burst into flame."
"Not yet, at least. But flames are where you're headed."
I knew he was referring to my dirty homosexual soul, writhing in the pits of Catholic Hell for all eternity. The Old Testament was widely considered outdated and offensive. That didn't stop him from clinging to the teachings of Genesis and Leviticus. It didn't surprise me. He had a fondness for the hateful sections of the Scripture, which was indicative of his character. My father had never been discreet with his intolerance. It extended far beyond sexuality. Anyone with a different sexuality, race, faith or gender was a moving target.
My earliest memories of his bigotry were rooted in the family dinners of my childhood. Gathered around the square, oak table, there was no escaping whatever was on his mind. I could not quote verbatim his tirades. I was grateful for that small mercy, but I remembered his tone with a bone-deep weariness. His comments were often derived from stories he'd read in the paper or something that had been said on the evening news. Sometimes, they'd be sparked by a television show with characters of varying backgrounds. I could still see the contortions on his face as he casually dropped the n-word during The Cosby Show. Or the way he would flippantly refer to Jack from Will and Grace as a homo.
Ugly slurs were common language in our home. He would rant about black bastards he'd never met or the kike who ran the local dry cleaners. At first, I didn't realize there was anything wrong. I didn't know or understand what the words meant or why they were inappropriate. They were just words. But when Wade Chung blackened my eye for calling him a chink on the playground, I knew there was something wrong. The word was inappropriate, as was my father.
My mother pulled me aside shortly after and attempted to explain to me my father's choice of words. She never used the words racist or bigot. She had made his behaviour sound less like a character flaw and more like a medical condition.
"He's tempered," she had said. "He can't always control his mind or his mouth. It's an illness, and we must be patient with him." She assured me that the condition was not hereditary but could spread from one person to another, like the flu. I realized later that she was speaking metaphorically.
My mother had always rushed to defend and to define him for us. Part of me was resentful that she didn't have the instinct to explain us to him in turn. I could recite in detail the letter she had sent me, after that last phone conversation with my father. It had been written on crisp, white stationery, embossed with her initials. She had written in blue ink.
My Son,
I'm sorry to be doing this by letter. Your Father has forbidden me to call you or see you in person. After you spoke, he disappeared to the garden where Lauren says she heard him sobbing, alone. In the twenty years of our marriage, I have never known him to cry. I will never speak to him about this, but it hurts me to know the pain he feels.
I was not surprised by your admission. A mother knows her children. I have suspected your secret for quite some time and have harboured it as a secret of my own. I have always known this day would come but had hoped your Father would not live to see it. I knew that if he learned you were gay, he would react poorly. He is a proud man who stands beside his beliefs, whether right or wrong. And although I wish he would open his heart and mind to you, I also can't help but admire him for his conviction.
It pains me to tell you that we cannot support your lifestyle. Your Father has made it clear to me that we will not be speaking to you as long as you choose to live that way. Your choice to leave home the way you did and live so far away from us was difficult for us to accept. I believe he was starting to, but now, I'm not so sure. Your Father still loves you, but you may have gone too far. He has bent as much as he will bend. He has bent so much, and you refuse to bend at all.