Straightened

by Alana Terry

  “Hey.” He didn’t quite meet her gaze, but he looked up long enough for Kennedy to read the discomfort in his eyes. “Glad to hear you haven’t gotten kidnapped lately.” His slight smile vanished so quickly she wondered if she’d imagined it.

  She didn’t reply. A few months ago, a remark like that might have started her whole respiratory system hyperventilating from panic, but she was different now. Older. More mature. Her parents couldn’t find an English-speaking therapist in Yanji, so her dad ordered her at least two dozen self-help books about anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, forcing her to sit down with him twice a week to summarize what she’d read.

  Maybe it had helped, but she doubted it. Being away from people who wanted her dead or injured — that’s what really helped. And having a sorrow settled in the core of her heart that outweighed any pain her panic would have caused. What’s a little anxiety disorder when your best friend ...

  No. She wouldn’t dwell on him right now. If her self-directed summer therapy had taught her anything, it was how to take control of her own thoughts. It was a Biblical model as well, her dad was always eager to inform her. Take every thought captive. So far, she had gotten quite adept at cutting off painful memories before they had the chance to resurface and take over her emotions. Like starving a virus. If you don’t feed it, it can’t grow.

  Wayne hadn’t stopped gazing at her. “So, how are your classes going? You’re a senior now, right?” He talked as if he had a perpetual microphone taped to his cheek. If he hadn’t gone into politics, his face and dramatic inflections could have cast him perfectly as a news anchor or soap opera star.

  “I’m a sophomore,” she told him, certain he must have known. When she and his daughter Jodie were kidnapped last fall, the media had a field day broadcasting the abduction of two local teens. It served as better clickbait than homeschooled thirteen-year-old and college freshman.

  Kennedy tried to remember the last time she saw Jodie. Maybe once at St. Margaret’s Church. It was so hard to know what to say to her when they got together. Sometimes she wondered if Jodie had PTSD, too, if her parents had to drive her in their Lexus to a shrink to practice cognitive behavioral therapy or mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques after everything she’d gone through.

  Carl made his way back to the dining room table, and Kennedy was about to slip down the hall to the guest room when Sandy bustled in. “How about cookies, everyone? Woong and I made a fresh batch this morning.”

  With a flurry of her floral skirt and long braid, Sandy pulled some of this and that out from the cupboards until she had spread four plates and napkins around the table and set a platter of baked goods, a bowl of fruit, and pitcher of lemonade on the Lazy Susan in the middle of the table.

  “Help yourself.” She spun some brownies toward Noah first. “Take as many as you want.”

  Carl was staring at her in bewilderment, and Kennedy couldn’t blame him. Didn’t Sandy know? Hadn’t she heard?

  As if by some enchantment cast by Sandy’s complete oblivion, Noah and his father both filled their plates in awkward silence. Sandy poured the drinks and passed the cups around, then slipped a brownie and two cookies onto a plate for Kennedy. “Don’t you want to sit down, sweetie?”

  Kennedy was about to excuse herself to take the nap she’d been pining for since Seattle, but Noah slipped his head up. His eyes met hers. Imploring eyes.

  Fearful eyes.

  Kennedy sat down. “Sure. I suppose a snack would be fine.”

  “Oh, dear.” Sandy slapped her forehead. “I’m so sorry, honey. You probably haven’t had a decent meal since China. Your mother would be so disappointed in me. What was I thinking? What time is it over there right now? Supper? You poor thing. Must be starving. Those airlines used to serve full meals. You remember that, don’t you, babe?” she asked her husband, who still sat wide-eyed in front of an empty plate. “Here, darling.” She patted Kennedy’s head several times as if she were a kitten. “Let me see what I can heat up for you. Wayne, Noah, have you two had lunch yet? Woong’s in time-out, so I have a free minute to ...”

  “Actually, we’d better go.” Wayne slid his chair back noisily. He wore the same smile, which made a single vein pop out of his tanned neck. “Noah, what do you tell Mrs. Lindgren for the cookies?”

  The younger Abernathy slouched over his plate. “I’m not quite finished yet.”

  Wayne slipped his hand onto his son’s shoulder. “I said we need to leave.”

  Noah winced and then shot that same imploring gaze at Kennedy.

  Carl opened his mouth, but whatever he was about to say was cut off by Sandy, who was tying a rose-patterned apron over her skirt and blouse. “Noah is welcome to stay here for a spell, Wayne. We’ll feed him lunch, and I’ll call Vivian when he’s ready to come home. Actually, Woong and I need to do some back-to-school shopping this afternoon. I can just drop him off at your place.”

  Noah’s brooding eyes lit up for a moment. Hopeful?

  Wayne’s frown looked just as practiced as his smile. “Actually, Vivian has some work she needs him to do around the yard. I’ve got to take him home, and then I’m off to ...”

  “I think I’d like to stay.” Noah’s voice was soft, but from his father’s reaction, you would have thought he was standing on the Lindgrens’ Lazy Susan shouting profanities. Wayne’s eyes flashed. Kennedy spared a glance at Sandy. Did she see the open hostility, or was she too busy hunting around the kitchen for lunch?

  Carl cleared his throat. “Actually, sweetie pie, the Abernathys and I were kind of in the middle of something when you all came home. I think maybe the three of us should head to the den and finish our conversation a little more privately.”

  “That’s a great idea.” Sandy pulled down a bag of pretzels from the cupboard. “I’ll call you back out when lunch is ready.”

  Nobody answered as Wayne and his son rose from the table and followed Carl down the hall. Noah shuffled his feet, looking exactly like Claudio from Much Ado About Nothing as he’s being led to the scaffold to face his executioner.

  CHAPTER 3

  Sandy stared over her cup of lemonade and offered Kennedy an apologetic smile. “I guess I should have realized they were in a meeting. I just can’t seem to think clearly these days.”

  Kennedy wondered how much she was supposed to say about what she’d overheard. How did pastoral confidentiality work in a marriage? Would Carl tell her everything anyway? If Sandy hadn’t been so focused on keeping Woong from flopping out of her arms when they came in, she would have heard Wayne and Noah’s conversation herself.

  Kennedy took a sip of the overly sweet lemonade and winced.

  Sandy sighed. “I declare I left my brain in Seoul when we went to pick up Woong.”

  Kennedy stared at the uneaten brownie on her plate. She hadn’t seen this side of Sandy before, this tired side. This side that could hardly hold up a conversation.

  Sandy was shaking her head. “I don’t know sometimes. I just don’t know.”

  Kennedy offered what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “Things will get easier once he learns English better, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, he knows English tolerable by now. Just refuses to use it unless it’s to tell me he’s hungry or thirsty or my soup’s not flavored like what he’s used to back home. He still calls it home. And I don’t mean the orphanage in Seoul. That boy was saved from a life on the streets, and that’s what he misses most.” Another shake of the head that sent her French braid withering down her back. “I just don’t know what to do.”

  Kennedy wished she had something to say, but she didn’t. What did she know about any of this? What did she know about kids like Woong, kids who grew up on the streets in Korea and now were trying to adjust to family life in an American suburb? She had pitifully little experience with children, adopted or not. No siblings. No cousins her age. She’d never even babysat.

  The strange thing was how hard Sandy seemed to be taking their new s
ituation. It wasn’t as though the Lindgrens were new to parenting. Kennedy couldn’t keep track of how many adopted and foster kids Carl and Sandy had raised in addition to their three biological ones. It couldn’t have been easy, could it? Yet Sandy beamed whenever she spoke about any of her grown children. What made Woong so much harder?

  “Do you want me to talk to him?” Kennedy found herself asking. “It might be nice for him to have someone who speaks Korean.”

  Sandy sighed. “Some folks in the adoption business frown on that. They say the best way for language learning is to quit the old one cold turkey, and if the kid spends too much time with a native speaker, it might hurt the bonding process with the adoptive family. But I’ve never been sure I buy into that entirely. I mean, imagine being that little. You’ve seen how skinny he is. My grandson Tyson’s only six and weighs more than him. So picture being that small, going through half of what Woong did growing up on the streets, and then imagine how you’d feel if on top of all the other changes you couldn’t talk to nobody? I sometimes think it’s more than his little soul can handle. Maybe that’s why he’s acting up so much.” She sighed and took Kennedy’s hand. “I’m sorry to unload on you like this. That’s not how I intended for your first day back in the States to start off. Tell me all about your summer. Have you heard how your friend’s doing, the one from ...”

  “I can’t accept that, Pastor. I just can’t.”

  The door to Carl’s study burst open, and Wayne’s voice flooded down the hall.

  “Now, listen here,” Carl was saying, “I know your son. He’s a good kid who loves you. And you’re a good dad who loves him. We’ve got to find a way to ...”

  “It’s unnatural.” Wayne shook his head. “And it’s sinful. You said so yourself, right from the pulpit. The Bible calls it an abomination. There’s no way to get around it. An abomination is an abomination.”

  Carl planted himself in the hall so Wayne couldn’t pass. With his arms crossed and his feet spread out, Kennedy got a hint of what he might have looked like as a linebacker playing for the Saints before he went into full-time ministry. “I think we’re talking about two different things here. The Bible’s referring to very clear-cut cases of living outside of God’s standards of purity. But your son just told you he ...”

  Wayne let out a harsh noise from the back of his throat. “He just what? Fantasizes about men? And you’re telling me that’s not a sin, that just because he hasn’t gone to bed with ...”

  Sandy made a noisy show of stacking and rearranging the dishes on the table. Both men turned.

  “Maybe we should talk about this again in the den,” Carl suggested.

  “I need to get out of here.” It was Noah now, standing behind the two men but refusing to raise his eyes to either.

  “Listen here, son.” Carl put his hand on Noah’s back, but he squirmed away.

  “I’m done. I’m not doing this anymore. Now that you know that this is the way I am ...”

  “But that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” his father interrupted. “This isn’t who you are. You’re confused. Something happened to you.” There was pleading in his tone.

  Kennedy kept her eyes down, certain she wasn’t supposed to be listening in on this conversation. But where could she go?

  “Someone did this to you.” Wayne spoke with conviction. Compassion. There was a slight tremor in his voice. Was he about to cry? “Who was it? Who did this to you?” He reached toward his son, but Noah slapped his hand away.

  “Who did this to me?” His whole body trembled along with his voice. His words were laden with emotion, as if Kennedy could wring them out and smell his tears and sweat and fear and pain. “Ask God. The same one who calls people like me an abomination.”

  Wayne sighed. “I didn’t mean ...”

  “Yes, you did.” Noah shouldered his way past Carl and his dad. “I’m taking the T. I’ll see you later.”

  “Where are you going?” Wayne demanded.

  Noah didn’t turn around or offer any answer. The door slammed shut behind him, its dull thud reverberating through the silence of the house.

  Wayne deflated. Kennedy wondered if he would go after his son. Carl and he stood planted in their places for several seconds until the microwave timer beeped. Sandy got up absently. “That’s for Woong. I’m going to tell him he can be out of time-out.” She sighed heavily. “Have a seat, everyone. I think we’ll just do something easy like grilled cheese for lunch.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “I’d like to apologize for my son’s outburst.” Wayne wiped his mouth with one of Sandy’s floral-patterned cloth napkins.

  Kennedy blinked her heavy eyelids. Somewhere in the back of her brain, her mind was shouting at her that she didn’t belong. Not here. Not now.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Sandy filled his glass with more lemonade. “This is a big deal, what God’s doing in your family. It’s not going to be easy. Carl and I just want you to know that if you and Vivian ever need ...”

  “I don’t know what went wrong.” Wayne shook his head. “I mean, we did Boy Scouts every week until he was in tenth grade. He did sports. I coached his Little League team three summers in a row.” He looked across the table at Carl, his eyes imploring. “Where did I go wrong?”

  Carl hadn’t touched his grilled cheese sandwich. “You know, brother, five years ago I’d probably be asking those same questions right there with you. I’d be asking you if there was any abuse in the past, any members of the family or babysitters or someone who might have introduced him to that lifestyle. But you know, I don’t think it’s as simple as that anymore. I was at the Christian bookstore the other day. Had a book there, something like Raising Kids Straight. The whole thing was about giving parents a formula where if they did this, that, and the other thing, they could rest assured that their girls would grow up to be attracted to men and their boys attracted to women. But you know what? Some people struggle differently than others.” He took his wife’s hand. “It’s quite possible your son would have dealt with these feelings no matter how you brought him up.”

  Wayne clenched his jaw shut. Kennedy saw his forearm bulge as he held onto his dainty lemonade glass. “That’s not helping any, Pastor. The Bible says that if you raise children up the way they should go that when they’re old they won’t depart from it. Proverbs 22:6. Had that one memorized since the day Noah was born. Made God a promise I was going to do right by my boy. And I did. I know I’ve been busy. Work stuff. Travels. But you know me. I’ve been there for my son. Elections and campaigns and extra sessions and shutdowns, and I’ve still been there for my son. Talked to him every day of his life, even if I wasn’t there to tuck him in bed. Boy Scouts, Little League, I went to as many of his games as I could if I was in town. I’ve done everything I could for that kid.”

  “We know that,” Carl said.

  “Then how could he do this to us?” Wayne’s voice broke, and Kennedy’s soul screamed with questions of her own.

  “More,” Woong demanded from the other end of the table, and Sandy absently set another sandwich on his plate.

  Carl rested his forearms on the table. “I’m not sure your son chose to be gay. You heard him in there just a few minutes ago telling us how often he’s begged God to change him.”

  “So why didn’t he?” Wayne nearly sobbed.

  Kennedy could hardly lift her eyes, not only from the jetlag but the confidential nature of this entire conversation. She shouldn’t be here. She should excuse herself to another room, but at this point would that make Wayne feel even more awkward?

  As Kennedy did her best to act inconspicuous, she tried to figure out what she believed. Was Carl right? Would Noah have ended up like this no matter how he was raised? Was being gay a choice you made, like becoming a vegetarian? Or was it something different? Something more intrinsic?

  Wayne hung his head in his hands. “I just wish ...”

  “What’s gay?” Woong asked the question loudly and clearly, with
out any hint of an accent.

  Sandy stood up and reached across the table for the fruit salad. “All right, pumpkin. You’ve had enough grains and dairy. I think it’s time for you to get another helping of ...”

  “Does it mean sick?” he asked.

  “Being gay,” Carl explained, and Kennedy watched him adroitly avoid Sandy’s well-aimed glare, “is when a person of one gender finds him or herself romantically and physically attracted to a member of the same gender. It’s a complicated psychological and biological issue with all kinds of theological implications that has become very divisive in contemporary Christian circles. The more conservative scholars tend to agree that ...”

  “What’s he saying?” Woong asked Kennedy.

  “Here, son.” Sandy plopped a heaping spoonful of strawberries and bananas on his plate. “I want you to eat up plenty of fruit so you’ll get lots of good, healthy vitamins.”

  Nobody mentioned Wayne or his son for the rest of the meal. Kennedy excused herself to the guest room as soon as lunch was over. Sandy was taking Woong out for an afternoon of clothes shopping, and Kennedy didn’t exactly want to be a third wheel like Juliet’s nurse while Carl and Wayne worked through whatever personal matters they were going to discuss.

  Kennedy wondered about Noah’s past. She’d lived a fairly sheltered life in Yanji, where homosexuality was never discussed on any public level. Gay pride and gay rights were unheard of. Even her parents never discussed the subject with her, unless it was her dad complaining about the pervasive gay agenda he saw in the media or American public policy. She had pieced together most of her understanding of the homosexual lifestyle from lunchroom gossip at her high school or an occasional sitcom her dad played in the background. She’d heard it rumored that her aunt’s ex-husband’s son was living some flamboyant lifestyle in a penthouse in Greenwich Village, but she hadn’t seen him in a decade and couldn’t even remember his name.