The last two words I said to my brother David that Saturday

were "oh" and "no," and not in the same sentence—though

they should have been.

On an otherwise ordinary, cartoon-filled morning, my son Ben sat at the kitchen table spiraling a limp bacon slice around his finger. His last ditch effort to forestall doing his chores. I was having a domestic bonding experience with the vacuum cleaner. My last ditch effort to forestall the house being over- taken by microscopic bugs, dead skin, and petrified crumbs. I’d just summoned the courage to attempt a pre-emptive strike on the intruders under the sofa cushions when the phone rang.

I walked into the kitchen, gave Ben the "don’t you dare touch that phone with your greasy bacon hands" stare, and grabbed the handset.

It was David. "I wanted you to hear this from me," he said. An all-too familiar sensation—that breath-sucking, plum- meting roller-coaster feeling—I’m thinking he’s been fired, in a car wreck, diagnosed with cancer, six months to live, but,

no, it wasn’t as simple as that.

He told me he was leaving in a few days for a vacation. With a man. Leaving with a man. Crossing state lines from Louisiana to Mexico to share sun, sand, and sheets with a per- son of the same sex.

My universe shifted.

He came out of the closet, and I went into it. For perhaps only the second time in my life, I was mute. Not even sputter- ing, not even spewing senseless syllables. Speechless.

"Caryn, are you still there?"

No. I’m not still here. I’m miles away and I’m stomping my feet and holding my breath in front of the God Who Makes All Monsters Disappear.

I think I hear God. He’s telling me I’m the monster.

Wisps of sounds. They belonged to David. "Did you hear what I said? That I’m going away?"

I hung up. I didn’t ask "Why?" because he’d tell me the truth my heart already knew.

"What did Uncle David want?" Ben asked.

I spun around and made eye contact with my unsuspecting innocent. "Get that bacon off your finger right now, mister. Wash your hands, and go do whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing."

He shoved the bacon in his mouth, his face the solemn reflection of my emotional slap. From the den television, the Nickelodeon Gummy Bears filled the stillness with their ". . . bouncing here, there, and everrrrrywherre . . ." song.

"And turn that television off on the way back to your room."

"Okay, Mom," said Ben, his words a white flag of surrender as he left the room.

Now what? I decided to abandon the vacuuming. Really, was I supposed to fret about Multi-Grain Wheat Thin crumbs and popcorn seeds when my only sibling was leaving for

Mexico with a man?

The phone rang. Again.

"You hung up on me," David said.

"I don’t know what to say." I opened the refrigerator. The burp of stale air cooled my face as I stalked the shelves of meals past and future. I’d find solace in one of those containers. Maybe more than one. I’d solace myself until the voice on the phone went away.

David reminded me there were alternatives to hanging up. Alternatives? You want to talk alternatives? How about I’m

hung up on your alternative lifestyle?

Between the sour cream and a stalk of tired celery, I found an abandoned crusty cinnamon roll in a ball of crinkled foil. I unwrapped it and plowed my finger through the glop of shiny, pasty icing smeared inside and said, "But you and Lori just fin- ished wallpapering your bathroom. You remember her, right? Your fiancée?"

"Lori knows," he said.

I grabbed the two fudge brownies with cavities where Ben already had picked out the walnuts.

"Uh huh." I fought the urge to hang up again. "Is that all you’re going to say?"

No, that wasn’t all I could say. I was going to say I was ever so sorry for answering the phone. I wanted to say that I hate you. I wanted to say that of all that things you could have been, gay was not what I would’ve chosen. I wanted to say that I didn’t want to imagine you in bed with a man. I didn’t want to know that what we had in common was that we both slept with men. I wanted to say that if our mother hadn’t already died of cancer, she would’ve keeled over with this news.

"Lori and I are working this out," he said.

I fumbled for words like keys in the black hole of my purse. My brain rummaged for syllables and sounds, buried under a clever adage, a witty phrase. But all I could choke out was an "Oh."

"Don’t you even want to know who I’m going with?" He sounded small, like he was the one being left behind.

"No."

Then, with a level of intimacy I reserved for nighttime mar- keters of exterior siding, I told him good-bye.

I walked to where I’d left the vacuum handle propped against the den wall, flipped the switch, and pushed the vac- uum back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. I pictured the unwary bugs caught in the vortex. I knew just how they felt. I’d been in this wind tunnel before, when Harrison died and without my permission.

Sometimes husbands could be so maddening.

And, once again, Harrison, where are you when I need you? Who am I supposed to talk to about this? Not Ben. Not my father. Don’t give me that condescending "life isn’t fair" man- tra. You’re right. It’s not.

I yanked the cord out of the wall, pressed the button that zipped it into the belly of the beast and steered the machine toward Ben’s room.

My almost seven-year-old sat on the floor of his bedroom tying his navy Sketchers when he saw me at the door. "Hey, Mom. I washed my hands." He held them up, wiggled them in front of his face as proof. "See?"

"Where are your socks, Ben?"

Harrison again. Caryn, the world’s not going to stop spin- ning because the kid’s not wearing socks.

Ben doubled the knot, pulled the laces, and looked up at me. His sprinkle of freckles and his cleft chin, totally stolen from his dad, weakened me. How could there be anything wrong in the universe when his precious face slips into that soft spot in my heart?

"I couldn’t find two socks that matched. Besides," he stood and stomped his sneakers on the floor, "these are almost too small. My feet get all squinchy when I’m wearing socks." He pulled the elastic band on his basketball shorts up past his waist. We both knew the shorts would slide right back down in minutes. A battle he always lost. "So, can I go play Wii with Nick now?"

My only child wore shoes that crushed his toes. How did I miss that? "Why didn’t you tell me your shoes were too small?"

"No big deal, Mom. Anyway, remember you said we’d go shopping with Uncle David before school started." Ben grabbed his frayed purple L.S.U. cap off his desk lamp. "Can I go now?"

"Sure. Just be home for lunch." I hugged him, and when I felt his arms lock around my waist, I wondered how I still deserved him.

I must have latched on a bit too long because he started to squirm away. "Mom. You okay?" Ben stepped out of my arms, turned his baseball cap backward over his sand-colored hair, raised his arms, plopped his hands on the top of his cap, and waited.

"Of course," I said, tweaking his nose, hoping he heard the lie in my voice and didn’t see the truth in my eyes. "Plug that cord in for me on your way out, okay?"

"Got it. See ya." The front door slammed. It opened again. "Oops, sorry about that," he called out, and then the door closed solidly.

Well, Harrison. Door closing. That’s one lesson learned.

I moved Ben’s lamp to the back of his desk and straight- ened the framed picture that the lamp had slid into when he’d grabbed his hat. Bacchus, his first Mardi Gras parade captured in the photograph. I’d always called it the "man" picture. Ben’s crescent moon smile as Harrison hoisted him on his shoul- ders, my father and David flanking Harrison, both grinning at Ben and not the camera.

One man already gone. Now David. At least the David I thought I knew. Wasn’t that the David that just last week sat next to me in church? The church he’d invited me to for the first time a month ago? How could he have done that? He’s certifiably crazy if he thinks I’m going to church tomorrow. That’s not going to happen.

I mashed the vacuum cleaner switch on and returned to the sucking up of dirt. It seemed all too appropriate for my life.