Dad snorted. “You were always such a terrible liar.”
“That’s a good thing, though,” Mom said. “Rather him be bad at it than good.”
“He tried to tell me once that this singlet I found at the thrift store looked good on me,” Sandy said. “But he kept twitching like he’s doing now and it totally gave him away.”
“Did you buy it anyway?” Dad asked.
“No. Paul made the very good point that most likely someone else’s balls or vagina had been smooshed in that before I got my hands on it, and I couldn’t in good faith wear it without getting grossed out.”
“Oh, man,” Dad groaned. “Maybe I should be a homosexual. Smooshed vagina? No offense, Matty, but yuck.”
“I’ll support you with whatever you decide to do,” Mom told him, reaching over me to hold his hand. “I could always be your fruit fly if you do come out.”
“That would be interesting,” Dad said. “Do you think I could be a leather daddy?”
“You could pull it off,” she said. “I know you can.”
“Paul has chaps you could borrow,” Sandy said, a little bit of Helena poking through. “I would have no problem seeing that. You’d be pretty hot, Larry.”
“I probably shouldn’t add that I’d have Johnny Depp officiate your funeral,” Nana muttered, scribbling furiously. “Somehow, I don’t think that would be appreciated.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in the world who wishes he could be deaf,” I said to no one in particular. “And blind.”
“You don’t wish that,” Mom said. “What an awful thing to say.”
“You should probably take that back,” Dad said. “You don’t want to piss off God and wake up tomorrow blind and deaf.”
“Fine, I take it back,” I mumbled. I didn’t really want to be blind and deaf. “But if God is granting wishes, I wish you’d all go away.”
“I don’t think God is a genie,” Sandy said. “But if he is, I wish for those two-thousand-dollar boots I saw in the boutique downtown. In red.”
“I wish for world peace,” Nana said. “And then six billion dollars.”
“I wish for more wishes,” Dad said.
“I wish for my son to stop being so pigheaded,” Mom said.
We waited.
“And for Vin Diesel to come to my house and be my naked maid,” she finished with a blush.
“I could take him in a fight,” Dad said, flexing his arms. “I’ll be your naked maid when we get home. Do you need dusting, Mrs. Auster?”
“I am feeling pretty dusty,” Mom agreed, winking at him.
“I’m sitting right between you two! Gross!”
“Gee, thanks for pointing out the obvious,” Dad said, rolling his eyes.
“Finished!” Nana said. “Paul, when you do stupid things, it makes me sad. I couldn’t believe when Sandy called us and told us that you’d gone behind your partner’s back to see his mom! And then, to make it worse, you locked yourself in your room and started to cry. I wish that things could go back to the way they were before. Like the way they were yesterday. Yesterday was a good day. Do you remember? You came over to my house with Vince and we all had dinner and I showed him Slutty Snow White and Johnny Depp loved him and Vince tried to eat your face outside after he found the bike. I wasn’t supposed to see that, but it was kind of hard not to notice when you got slammed up against the side of my house. In conclusion, you should go after Vince, and never do meth because you’ll lose your teeth and get weird spots on your face. No one likes weird spots.” She looked up at me and smiled.
“That was lovely, Gigi,” Sandy said, leaning his head against her leg. “You are such an eloquent speaker.”
“Thank you, honey,” she said, preening. “It goes on for an additional sixteen pages, but I felt that was enough to make my point.”
“Paul, do you love him?” my mom asked suddenly.
I didn’t have time to think. “Yes… oh shit. I meant no. Of course not. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
They waited.
I sighed. “Yes,” I whispered. “I don’t know how or when or why, but yes.” I hung my head.
My dad reached up and rubbed my back. “Paul, did you know that me and your mom almost got divorced?”
I snapped my head back up. “What? What are you talking about? You guys met, everything was rosy, and a week later you were married. There was no divorce. There wasn’t even an almost.”
“No. Not completely. Oh, I knew I loved her right away, and I knew she loved me after she tried to kill me with her car, but I didn’t know if that was going to be enough.” He smiled over at my mom whose eyes were a bit watery. “It’s one thing to love a person, but it’s another to love them regardless of their faults. And I had a bunch of them.”