Page 43 of Wrap Around
It does present the perfect opportunity to give Lily her gift, though. She unwraps the large outdoor space heater with an excited shriek of her own. We didn't want to do anything too extravagant or over the top. It would be way too easy to go overboard for our first Christmas. So we agreed that we'd only get each other gifts that were useful to the whole household. We're both going to be thankful not to freeze our southern butts off in this cold, and Addy will get more outside time because of it.
Gideon, who otherwise hasn't so much as looked at me, helps me set it up. We both stand back and watch while Lily orders an extravagant coffee drink through the playhouse window, to which Addy yells, "No!" and then giggles riotously. I hand Gideon a cupof coffee, and he accepts it with a murmured thanks, but still doesn't make eye contact or try to talk with me.
I keep catching myself watching him. Waiting for him to crack again, to show any sign of how he's really feeling. I just wish we could sit down and actually talk. Open and honest, without all the tension and secrets between us. After we apologized to each other yesterday, I'd hoped we might talk some more. But when I had the opportunity last night, he shut me down again.
I probably shouldn't have followed him downstairs. After I heard him sneak out of his room, I'd clenched my fists and tried to keep myself in bed where I belonged. But I'd had too much wine, and I was agitated listening to him pacing in his room. I'd wanted to go to him, to comfort him. To touch him. But I knew better than to trust myself to go into his room. And I should have known better than to go downstairs. I just couldn't stop my feet from moving.
Lily knocks me out of my thoughts, nudging a square, flat box into my lap. It's wrapped so perfectly, I'd almost assume she had them professionally wrapped. Except that when I look closer, the wrapping paper makes me snort.
"Are those…ball sacks?
Lily is laughing so hard she's not making a sound, but her shoulders are shaking and there are tears streaming down her face. The shiny, light blue paper is in fact decorated with crudely drawn testicles in various flesh tones, wearing little red Santa hats. There are little lines of text that read, "Jingle Balls."
Even Gideon is losing his shit, laughing loud enough that Adaline pokes her head out of her little playhouse kitchen window to see what the ruckus is about. When she sees Lily crying with laughter, her little face scrunches up with confusion and she asks, "Mommy sad?"
After reassuring her that everyone is happy, I open a set of grilling tools and accessories, confused. Lily sends me to the garage, where there's a shiny gas grill with a big red bow on it. It's a great grill that even has a flat top attachment, so I decide to cook breakfast on it. Gideon has to help me carry it up the garage steps and through the house. While I'm getting started on the opposite side of the porch from Addy, Lily hands Gideon our gift. It's wrapped in shiny black paper with Santas on it, only the Santa's are turned around and bent over, in the process of pulling down their pants, displaying rosy round buttcheeks and lacy black panties.
My wife is the freaking best. Without even realizing it, she's been able to break through the worst of the tension this morning. I'm sure she thinks it's because of the holiday, having no real idea about what's going on between me and her brother.
Celebrating holidays is pretty new for us, given that we didn't celebrate growing up. The church we were raised in believed that holidays not specifically commanded in the Bible were worldly distractions at best, and dangerous heresies at worst. Celebrating mainstream holidays was seen as compromising the purity of our faith, idol worship disguised as tradition, pagan abominations that the modern world has adopted under Satan's influence.
When I first left home and experienced life outside of our small town, we had so many conversations about how different the world was outside of our upbringing. We decided, together, that we wanted to move away from many of the church's teachings, as well as put distance between us and our families. It's not that we don't still have love for our families and friends back home, or that we didn't have any good experiences growing up. But we have the opportunity to shape our own worlds now and change many of the things that we struggled with growing up. Mostly, we didn't want our child to grow up in an environment where she felt that she couldn't be free to be herself, to grow into a strong person capable of making her own decisions and following her dreams.Lily grew up being forced into gender roles she never felt comfortable with, unable to speak her mind or have life goals outside of the church and being a wife and mother. And I grew up under the thumb of a cruel father, being taught that homosexuals were immoral, depraved people who had unnatural and dangerous urges to corrupt children.
We needed to get out.
It's been a journey already, and it's barely just begun. We're both still growing and unlearning much of what we were raised to believe. The hardest part is finding a balance between that and the truth. Because if so many of the things we were taught are untrue, which beliefs are real?
Does God really hate me if I'm different? Will He turn his back on me if I can't meet the expectations that were instilled in me? Or is he loving and accepting of our differences, the way many people seem to believe. Does he truly even exist?
We're questioning everything, which I think is healthy. Or, at least, Dr. Shelton seems to think it is. She also says it's okay to be wrong sometimes, that making mistakes is part of the learning process. As long as we aren't hurting anyone, what's the harm? We didn't fit in back home, for many different reasons. But we aren't bad people. I made mistakes, and did hurt someone in the process, but I'm not evil at my core. I didn't mean to hurt him. I meant well.
Most of the time, Lily displays her independence and opposition to our upbringing with determined joy. She celebrates her obstinance with grateful abandon. The first time she wore a pair of leggings, she jumped around like she'd won something. But there are other times that the indoctrination catches up to her, and she questions herself. She cried the first time she cut her hair. She fidgeted uncomfortably the first several times she wore pantsin public. And she almost had a panic attack the first time we saw a Disney movie in a theater.
Lily wasn't sure how her brother would feel about Christmas, but I pointed out that she almost had a panic attack before we went trick-or-treating. And not only did Gideon show up, he dressed up and participated. Maybe we haven't had the chance to talk to him as much as we'd like about how he feels about moving away from the church, but he's given us other signs that he's growing in much the same ways we are.
Case in point, the broad smile on his face when he opens his gift. He immediately pulls his new t-shirt over his head. It says, "Huncle: like a normal uncle, but way better looking." He laughs at the pair of funny compression sleeves for his knees that say "Fuck Around" on one and "Find Out" on another. The last thing we got him, which I picked out, is a 3D model kit for a marble run. His gaze flicks up to mine when he opens it, and I see the flicker of a nostalgic smile. Gideon always enjoyed building models when he was a kid and teenager, so we'd started there to find him something he might like. But this particular one brought back memories of trying to build elaborate Rube Goldberg setups in the church foyer when our dads were in planning meetings. We'd always get scolded for the mess and racket they'd make when the door to the church office opened and set off the chain of contraptions, but we'd spend all week thinking of ideas to set up the next one. Those are some of my fondest childhood memories, along with our summers swimming and playing around the lake.
Gideon smiles, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. I'll take it, though. If anything else, it's proof there's at least one memory that hasn't been tainted by time and secrets.
Gideon surprises Lily with a machine that cuts materials for custom craft designs, like the vinyl used to customize the shirt she gave him. He jokes that she can make him all the customized t-shirts she wants, and he'll model them for her. She's so excitedthat she sets it up right on the dinner table so she can start learning how to use it immediately.
Overall, I think our first Christmas is a win.
Just as Gideon is about to leave, Lily pulls him aside. I try not to listen, I really do. But Gideon's voice carries, and his sad tone freezes me in place.
"Thanks for inviting me over today."
"Of course we did. You're the only family we have now, and we love you. I love you more than you could ever know."
His voice drops so low I can barely hear his next words. "You might not love me as much if you knew everything about me.”
Does he think that because of what’s happening between us? Or because of the truth he’s kept hidden his entire life?
My stomach twists. His words punch something loose in my chest. I want to go to him, grab him by the shoulders and shake him. I want to tell him he couldn't be more wrong, that Lily will love him no matter what. That she's stronger and more forgiving than anyone on this planet. That we don't have to keep living like this.
But when I step into the foyer, he's ready to bolt. He looks anguished, like even Lily's soft words might break him open if she says the wrong thing. And if I step in now, I'm likely to make it worse.
He glances up and sees me. He holds my gaze for a fraction of a second that feels so much longer and heavier than that. When he turns and opens the door, Lily looks from me, to him, and back again. Her brow furrows, but she turns back to the door and grabs Gideon's arm before he can slip out.
