The three of us are sitting in the dining room. My father is eating as if he hasn’t seen food in days. For a man who works around food all day long, he always comes home hungry. My mom is slowly cutting her chicken.
“Tomorrow after work, I need you to help me with my hair.” She’s looking right at me.
“Mom, I have homework.”
“You can do both. I need this curl relaxed. I want it settled by Sunday, when everyone comes over. I can’t reach the back myself.”
“This kind of stuff takes time.” I’m stabbing my potatoes in the sauce. This is one of the many times I wish I had a sibling, someone else who could take some of the focus off me.
“Don’t tell me how it works. You are helping me with my hair and that’s it. Your father works two jobs. Kills himself for you, and you can’t do one simple thing.”
I’m looking down at my food and say, barely above a whisper, “Mom, this isn’t a two-person job. I have stuff and you can go to the salon for—”
I can feel her eyes on me. She speaks in a clenched-mouth sort of way that makes me believe she’s talking about more than her hair. “You’re an awful person, even a worse son. You know money is tight. Did your father tell you they cut his hours at the restaurant?”
My dad is still eating. Head down. Way to get in there, Dad, and try to defuse the crazy.
With my fork I adjust the food on my plate and say under my breath, “Like that’s a new one.”
“What did you say to me?”
My father finally speaks. “Voula. Let’s just eat.” He turns to me. “Nice haircut.”
She grabs my left ear. I freeze. Her hand, still grasping my earlobe, moves down the side of the ear and lands on the bottom of the lobe. She squeezes her fingers and yanks down.
I keep my head down.
Don’t cry.
Breathe.
She speaks in short, calm, calculated breaths. “Why is he so disrespectful?” She’s looking at my dad.
“Voula. Please. Stop.”
“You should be outraged. He’s not a good person, your son.” With that last word she yanks on my ear and releases her grip. That energy slams my head face first into the edge of the table. Somehow I’m able to quickly move my head toward my chest just enough that my nose misses the table surface and my forehead takes all the force. I lift my head back up. Oh, too quick. Literally seeing stars. I blink several times and look over to see her calmly cutting her chicken. I try to focus my eyes toward my dad. He’s looking right at me. He’s paralyzed. I can tell he’s upset, but he doesn’t do anything. Why? Why don’t you say something, Dad? Maybe we’re all so used to this that we just fall into place—into our roles.
“Evan? You okay?”
My head is swimming. I can feel something warm dripping down my face.
“I’ll get some ice.” My dad starts to move his chair back.
“Sit down, Eli.” She’s still working on her dinner.
“Voula, this is too much.”
I pick up my napkin and put it on my forehead. Blood. I leave the table and go into the kitchen for ice and a paper towel. I bend over and look at my reflection in the toaster. I look closer. It’s not a lot of blood. It looks like a single cut but definitely the beginning of a bruise. Now pain sneaks in.
“We’re not done. Come back in here and sit back down.” Her mouth is full and I can hear her put her fork and knife down onto the plate. After any kind of violence my senses are hyperalert. Every little thing is magnified. I can practically hear her breathing from the other room.
As I enter the dining room I hear my dad. “Vee. No more.”
“Don’t tell me—”
“No!”
“You don’t see what I see. Just look at him. Really look.”
“I only see our son.”
I sit back down at the table. She turns her face toward mine. “I thought this year, this year at Bible camp, would be the time God got through to you. Even He’s given up.”
Looking down, I muster, “Mom, I don’t—”
Her face gets closer to mine. “You came back even more like a gay. The way you walk. Talk. Your clothes. The obsession with your hair.”
I close my eyes. Her voice starts to rise as she continues, “It’s Satan’s world. The gays marry, have children, men are women, women are men. You want this evil for your son? You should be helping me. We need to protect him.”
“Voula, it’s a different time.”
“I asked the pastor to help me. But I have to do everything myself. I work. I clean, cook, and I’m trying to save this. This”—she spits three times in my direction—“this deviant from himself and that lifestyle.”
“Vee. Honey.” He’s almost pleading now. “Please, let’s just have a peaceful dinner.”
“What? Are you a pousti too?” Her voice is harsh and accusatory. The word pousti is Greek slang for gay—and not in a kind, understanding sort of way.
“Voula!”
I hear him get up. I grab my paper towel filled with ice, place it on my head, and turn my back to the dining room. I can hear him walking toward the stairs and at the same time I sense her coming up behind me. I lunge to the side and she slams into the sliding glass door in the kitchen that leads out to the patio. The plate she was holding smashes into the door. Plate fragments everywhere. She turns to me, furious.
“You’re a pousti! An evil pousti!” She lunges at me with what’s left of the plate. I fall backward with her thrashing above me. She’s hitting any part of my body she can while I’m trying to knock the jagged remains of the plate out of her hand.
It grazes my arm and it fucking hurts. “Mom!”
Shit. Now I’m bleeding there, too.
My dad jumps in and tries to wrestle her off. I quickly half crawl, half walk to my room. Breathing heavily, I manage to shut the door. I can still hear her screaming. It’s directed at me and at my dad. It sounds like she’s trying to get away from him. He must be restraining her. She starts to sob.
A surge of anger rushes through me—at my mom for never changing, my dad for standing by, at myself for allowing it. Then I’m suddenly overwhelmed with guilt—I fought back this time. I feel hot with rage and nerves—am I capable of violence? What if I’m just like her?