Tell Me It's Real(111)

She said she remembered screaming for her husband, the tea mug falling to the floor and shattering. She would find out later from Vince’s friends that he’d gone out back to get his squirt gun he’d left by the pool the previous day. He wouldn’t be able to tell her exactly what happened, but from the size of the bump on his head, it seemed he’d slipped on the wet surface around the pool and hit his skull on the edge of the pool before falling in. She’d jumped into the pool and flipped him over. Andrew had followed her in, and they’d dragged him to the edge, then lifted him out of the water.

“He was blue,” she said. “He was blue, his little lips and little face. I was screaming and Andrew was yelling at me to go call for help, but I was just screaming. I couldn’t stop because it seemed that every single part of him was blue and he wasn’t breathing. I knew then, I knew he was dead and that I’d never see him again. So I just screamed.”

But eventually she had stopped and run inside, only after Andrew had started CPR, pressing on his chest so hard she was afraid he was going to break Vince’s ribs. She’d babbled into the phone and then dropped it back onto the counter. She couldn’t imagine, she said, staying on the phone and listening to the irritatingly calm operator. She thought she’d go insane if she had to, so she dropped the phone and ran out to her husband, who was slamming his fists onto Vince’s chest. She tried to stop him, she tried to hold his arm back, but he knocked her down and hit Vince again.

“Do you know what happened then, Paul?” she asked me.

I shook my head, though I had an idea.

“Vince took in this great, gasping breath. His back arched off the ground like he was seizing, but he was breathing. He vomited up so much water at that point that I thought he was going to drown all over again, but one thing I learned as a mother is that if your child is crying, your child can breathe, and he was crying. I never thought that sound could mean happiness, that it could fill me with joy, but it could. It did. He cried and I cried, but only because I knew how close it’d been. Only because I knew how much I could have lost.” She fell silent and watched the sunlit flowers.

“Why did you tell me this?” I asked her.

“Because,” she said. “Because I needed you to know that I love my son. Regardless of my actions or the actions of my husband, we love our son. We almost went insane that day when we thought we'd lost him. I don’t know that we would’ve survived had he died. No parent should ever have to outlive their child. So I need you to know that we love him in our hearts more than we could ever show.”

“It’s not good enough,” I said, flinching at my own words.

“Oh?” She looked up at me, but there was no recrimination in her eyes. “And how do you figure that?”

“Because I doubt you’ve ever said to him what you’re saying to me.”

And this time, she did react. I could see it in her eyes, could see it in the way her skeletal-like hands made skeletal-like fists. “You don’t have any idea how hard it is, do you? Being a parent? Especially when you’re in the public eye, such as Andrew and I are. Politics tend to govern your lives when it’s your job.”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter. That’s not an excuse. As a matter of fact, that should have prevented both of you from ever acting as you did. If you’re responsible enough to become a parent, then you should be responsible enough to accept your kid no matter how they turn out. It doesn’t matter if they’re disabled or gay or not as smart as others or green or black or blue or whatever the hell they turn out to be. You have them, you love them. Always. Being a parent isn’t about getting to pick and choose what you want your kid to be. Being a parent means protecting your kid from anything that could ever harm him. Being a parent means you shelter, but you also make them stronger so one day they can stand on their own. How old was Vince when he came out to you? To his dad?”

“Sixteen,” she whispered.

“And what was your reaction?”

“Anger. Indifference. We didn’t understand. We didn’t….”

“That’s right. You didn’t.”

She looked up at me, tears in her eyes, but not yet falling. “He came in here yesterday and told us about you. You know what I noticed, Paul? You know what I saw in him the most?”

“No.”

“Happiness. It was such a bright thing, such a fierce thing. He was so proud that he was able to find someone like you, that you belonged to him. I’ve never seen him so sure about anything in his life.”