Sing You Home: A Novel Read online

  “Why aren’t you home yet?” Vanessa says.

  I should tell her about Angela’s visit; I should tell her about Wade Preston. But when you love someone, you protect her. I may stand to lose my credibility, my reputation, my career, but then again, it’s my battle. This is my ex-husband, my former marriage’s embryos. The only reason Vanessa is even involved is because she had the misfortune of falling for me.

  “I got tied up,” I say. “Tell me about the beehive lady.”

  But Vanessa is having none of it. “What’s the matter? You sound like you’re crying.”

  I close my eyes. “I’m getting a cold.”

  It is the first time, I realize, I’ve ever lied to her.

  It takes my mother and me two hours to swap all the furniture in my old bedroom and hers. She’s decided that she needs a new perspective, and what better way to start each day than to see something different when she opens her eyes?

  “Plus,” she says, “your window opens to the west. I’m tired of waking up with the sun in my eyes.”

  I glance around at the same bedding, the same bedroom set. “So basically you’re your own life coach?”

  “How can I expect my clients to follow my advice if I don’t follow it myself?”

  “And you really believe that relocating ten feet down the hall is going to revolutionize your life?”

  “Beliefs are the roads we take to reach our dreams. Believe you can do something—or believe you can’t—and you’ll be right every time.”

  I roll my eyes at her. I am pretty sure there was a self-help movement not too long ago that followed that mantra. I remember seeing a high school student on a newsmagazine who subscribed to the philosophy and then didn’t study for her SATs because, after all, she could visualize that perfect 2400. Needless to say, she wound up going to a community college and complaining on television about how it was really all a load of BS.

  I look around the room at my mother’s same old bedding, same furniture. “Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of starting over when you’re doing it with stuff you’ve had forever?”

  “Honestly, Zoe, you are such a downer sometimes.” My mother sighs. “I’m more than happy to give you a little life coaching, free of charge.”

  “I’ll take a rain check, thanks.”

  “Suit yourself.” She slides down, her back pressed to the wall, while I collapse across the mattress. When I look up, I see a freckling of glow-in-the-dark stars affixed to the ceiling.

  “I’d forgotten about those,” I say.

  After my father died, I became obsessed with ghosts. I desperately wanted my father to be one, in the hope that I might find him sitting on the edge of my bed when I woke up in the middle of the night, or feel him whisper a shiver across the nape of my neck. To this end, I borrowed books from the library on paranormal activity; I tried to conduct séances in my bedroom; I sneaked downstairs late at night and watched horror movies when I should have been sleeping. My teacher noticed, and told my mother I might need help. The psychiatrist I’d been seeing sporadically after my father’s death agreed it could be an issue to address.

  My mother didn’t. She figured if I wanted my father to be a spirit, I must have had a valid reason.

  One night at dinner she said, “I don’t think he’s a ghost. I think he’s a star, looking down on us.”

  “That’s dumb. A star’s just a ball of gas,” I scoffed.

  “And a ghost is . . . ?” my mother pointed out. “Ask any scientist—they’ll tell you that new stars are born every minute.”

  “People who die don’t become stars.”

  “Some Native Americans would disagree with you, there.”

  I considered this. “Where do stars go during the day?”

  “That’s the thing,” my mother said, “they’re still there. They’re watching us, even when we’re too busy to be watching them.”

  While I was at school the next day, my mother hot-glued little plastic stars on my ceiling. That night, we both lay down on the bed and covered ourselves with my blanket. I didn’t sneak out of bed to watch a scary movie. Instead, I fell asleep with my mother’s arms around me.

  Now, I look at her. “Do you think I would have turned out differently if Dad had been around when I was growing up?”

  “Well, sure,” my mother says, coming to sit beside me on the bed. “But I think he’d be pretty proud of the outcome all the same.”

  After Angela left, I’d stopped off at my house. I’d gotten on the Internet and downloaded the podcast of Joe Hoffman’s radio program, where I listened to him and Wade Preston rattle off statistics: children raised by homosexual parents were more likely to try a homosexual relationship themselves; children of homosexual parents were embarrassed to let their friends find out about their home lives; lesbian mothers feminized their sons and masculinized their daughters.

  “My lawsuit was on Joe Hoffman’s radio show,” I say.

  “I know,” my mother says. “I heard it.”

  “You listen to him?”

  “Religiously . . . pun intended. I tune in when I’m on the treadmill. I’ve found that, when I’m angry, I walk faster.” She laughs. “I save Rush for my abdominal crunches.”

  “But what if he has a point? What if we have a boy? I don’t know anything about raising one. I don’t know about dinosaurs or construction equipment or how to play catch . . .”

  “Honey, babies don’t come with instruction booklets. You’d learn the same way we all do—you’d read up on dinosaurs; you’d Google backhoes and skidders. And you don’t need a penis to go buy a baseball glove.” My mother shakes her head. “Don’t you dare let anyone tell you what you can and cannot be, Zoe.”

  “You have to admit, things would have been easier if Dad was here,” I say.

  “Yes. I actually agree with Wade Preston in one respect: every child should be raised by a married couple.” She smiles broadly. “That’s why same-sex marriage should be legal.”

  “When did you become such a gay activist?”

  “I’m not. I’m a Zoe activist. If you’d told me you were vegan, I can’t say I’d stop eating meat, but I’d fight for your right to not eat it. If you’d told me you were becoming a nun, I can’t promise you I’d convert, but I’d read the Bible so I could talk to you about it. But you’re gay, so instead I know that the American Psychological Association says children raised by gay parents describe themselves as straight in the same proportion as those raised in heterosexual households. I know there’s no scientific basis for saying gay people are any less capable than straight parents. As a matter of fact, there are certain bonuses that come with being raised by two mommies or two daddies: compassion, for one. Plus, girls play and dress in ways that break gender stereotypes, and boys tend to be more affectionate, more nurturing, and less promiscuous. And probably because they’ve dealt with questions all their lives, kids raised by gay parents are better at adjusting in general.”

  My jaw drops. “Where did you learn all that?”

  “On the Internet. Because when I’m not listening to Joe Hoffman, I’m researching what I’m going to say when I finally back Wade Preston into a corner.”

  No matter what Joe Hoffman and Wade Preston say, it’s not gender that makes a family; it’s love. You don’t need a mother and a father; you don’t necessarily even need two parents. You just need someone who’s got your back.

  I imagine my mother going after Wade Preston, and I smile. “I hope I’m around to watch that.”

  My mother squeezes my hand. She looks up at the stars on the ceiling. “Where else would you be?” she asks.

  I lean over Lucy from behind and place the guitar in her arms. “Cradle it like a baby,” I say, “with your left hand supporting the neck.”

  “Like this?” She turns in her seat, so that she is looking up at me.

  “Let’s hope when you babysit you don’t strangle the kids quite like that . . .”

  She lets up on her choke hold on the neck of t