“So, what – are you going to have him on Mondays and she has him Wednesdays?” My mother demanded to know what kind of arrangement I was getting myself into.
“No, not exactly,” I said.
“So, what are you suggesting, Gysela? I’m not understanding you exactly.” Her tone was lawyer-like and accusatory, so unlike the usually accepting, loving mother I had always known. “You’ve done some crazy things in the past,” she said. “…things I didn’t agree with, but I could at least accept. But this – this, what I think you’re telling me – you’ve gone too far.”
Since I moved out of my parents’ house, my mom has been my number-one homegirl.
“Don’t worry, mom. You don’t have to tell anybody. But at least know that I’m happy – happier than I’ve ever been in my life. I’ve surrendered society’s notions of love, family and relationships. What do you think I’ve been doing all these years while traveling? You think the rest of the world lives like we do? You think they all have tight, little black and white nuclear families? It’s not always man, woman, child, dog – sometimes there are three adults – or four or five – people who love each other and want to make each other’s lives happier and more fulfilling. It’s not that radical, if you think about it—”
She cut me off with her silence. The static on the line was thick with complete disgust. I braced myself for the imminent disowning, the permanent banishment from my family. I think I was subconsciously enjoying the idea of being the source of such scandal and melodrama. My own novela. Finally.
“Gysela, I don’t know what to say,” she finally sighed into the phone.
“Don’t say anything, mom. Just be happy for me. I left one man who didn’t appreciate me and now I have two people who think I’m amazing and want to welcome me into their home.”
Silence. My mother was understandably stunned. I started to continue telling her more, but then she said abruptly, “Don’t say another word. Don’t tell me anything else.”
And that was that. I didn’t say another word, in fact, the next day I called her to reassure her that I was delusional the night before and I didn’t know where my head was and NOT TO WORRY. A breath of relief told me she accepted my words, even if she knew I was full of crap. I didn’t blame her. It was too intense, off the Richter scale for her, even though I always told her everything in gruesome, gory detail. I told her when I was 13 that I liked getting “felt up” because it “felt good.” I cried in her arms when a boy I liked at school didn’t like me back. I told her I shat myself when I didn’t know virginal period blood was brown.
My mother knew what she was doing. She cut me off. She shut down the open flow of conversation so that I would have to work out my mess without being allowed to cry to her. Enough. She’d coddled me enough. She knew it was time for me to grow up.