Chapter Nineteen
Every Fierro learned how to handle going to church past confirmation.
Initially they all fell for the well-laid trap of being told, now that they were adults in the eyes of God and fully initiated into the Church, they could decide when they attended. Sometimes a well-meaning elder cousin or sibling would warn them not to stop going altogether and would try to give tips, but nearly universally every one of them seized on the moment of freedom and started partying late on Saturday night and hanging out to watch TV in their bedrooms well past noon mass. The golden period never lasted more than the first month and a half, at which point one of the Fathers would pay a visit to the new adult’s mother and inform her of the lack of attendance. Depending on the mood of the parents, a harsh lecture or serving of guilt with more layers than Marco’s lasagna always followed.
Church didn’t have to happen every week, but it still had to happen. For his part, Vince went about every third weekend, which was slightly more than absolutely necessary but less than was ideal, and usually his mother would cluck her tongue and shake her head when the subject came up. He was never sure if the bigger problem was that he went when most of the family didn’t go or when she didn’t go.
This Sunday was a Fierro command performance, however, because at ten o’clock mass, Vince’s second cousin once removed would be baptized. The entire family was present. As Vince gravitated to his usual seat at these occasions next to Rachel in his family’s pew, he saw the prodigals returning with their standard reluctance to the fold: Adamo, Rina, Cessy, Patrick and Hank.
Vince couldn’t help watching Hank as he made his way into the pew on the other side of the aisle. Hank was ten years older than Vince, but he seemed more like twenty. His hair was thin on the top of his head, as thin as the rest of him. The women always worried over Hank with no one to cook for him. Vince had to admit, his cousin did look a little sickly. Was that because he was sick? Was it because he was that uneasy about being here?
“Quit staring,” Rachel hissed at him, and Vince averted his eyes.
Mass slid over him like a comfortable blanket, and he rose and knelt and murmured along at the appropriate moments in the haze he’d perfected in fourth grade. His thoughts kept returning to Hank, however. He’d come alone. Was he alone? Did he have someone he wished he could bring, or was he single?
He wondered if he should have invited Trey.
They’d seen each other a lot lately, as much as possible with Trey’s school and work schedule. He knew the people at Full Moon had figured out he and Trey were seeing each other. He was pretty sure he liked them knowing too.
They were dating. Seeing each other. Trey wasn’t pushing him to make it public, but it was getting close to time. By this point in any relationship with a girl, he would have at least taken her to dinner at one of the restaurants. He’d have invited him to this event today.
What did it say about him that he hadn’t considered it? Did this make him smart, or an ass?
The baptism was the same as any other, another baby in a white dress, another pair of beaming parents, another set of cousins standing at attention as sponsors. Vince had done it himself three times and didn’t have to be prompted for his responses during the ceremony anymore. He did, though, feel the usual pang of regret for never having gone up for the other set of responses, and today the idea of possibly getting serious with Trey, of thinking of bringing him to family events, of maybe, potentially, considering him family—well, playing parents at a baptism would be out, wouldn’t it.
Of course, they could adopt.
The gravity of this kind of thinking shook him hard enough to make him stumble over a refrain, and his head couldn’t hold much more than white noise for the rest of the ceremony. He walked with Rachel from the church to the restaurant in disquiet.
“Talk to him,” Rachel said eventually.
Vince blinked at her, confused. “Who?”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “The Pope. Hank. I can see your mind working from here. And I saw you staring at him. If you want to know what it’s like being gay in the Fierro family, take him outside for a smoke and talk to him.”
That wasn’t what he’d been thinking about, not exactly, but Vince nodded. She left him alone after that for the rest of the walk, and once they got to the restaurant, Aunt Eva pulled her aside to tell her about the handsome young man who’d come into her sister’s shop, and Vince ended up wandering near his father and Marco.
He didn’t talk to Hank, but he watched him. Watched him linger at the fringes, watched him take a seat alone. He saw the others steer clear of Hank as well, glancing at him, exchanging painful, awkward waves. It was almost as if he had a force field around him.
It upset Vince. It wasn’t right. Hank was family. Someone should sit with him.
He decided he would be the one to do it.
He’d finish this scotch, though, to bolster his courage.
Two scotches later, dinner was about to be served, and Vince was pretty sure he was ready to commandeer a seat next to his cousin. He maneuvered his way through a sea of children, around a group of teenagers and past a group of aunts who were whispering intently near the bar. They kept glancing at Hank, and since Vince wasn’t moving as swiftly as usual with a few drinks in him, he couldn’t help overhearing what his Aunt Fina was saying.
“—heard he was with a boy. An escort, someone he hired for sex. Except it was a sting, and he got arrested. Alberto had to bail him out of jail.”
Vince slowed way, way down, acting like he was looking across the room for someone, training his ears like sonar.
“Can you imagine? A grown man doing such a thing.” Fina clucked her tongue.
“That’s how they are. The gay lifestyle. That’s all it is.” Vince couldn’t see his cousin’s wife Olivia, but he could hear the pinched outrage in her voice. “He shouldn’t even be allowed in here.”
“He’s family,” someone else said.
“People like that aren’t family. Not the kind of family I want around.”
Vince cleared his throat and stumbled back the way he’d come. His mother came around the corner from the kitchen, smiling at him. “They’re about to serve, hon. Why don’t you take a seat by your father and I?”
“I just gotta hit the restrooms quick,” he told her, nodding in their direction.
“Sure.” She patted him on the shoulder with a wink. “Fair warning—I heard a rumor you’re seeing someone again. I won’t let you leave the table until I’ve heard all about her.”
Vince’s insides churned. “Really gotta go, Mom.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll be waiting.”
He didn’t go to the restroom. He went outside, where an April rain had started, and stood underneath the awning, hands shaking as he lit a cigarette from the secret stash he and some of the cousins kept behind the loose shutter for emergencies. He smoked four of them.
People like that aren’t family.
Tucking the cigarettes into his shirt pocket, Vince turned up his collar and headed out into the rain.