Families are Forever....They Say

We all showed up at the baptism ready for anything to happen. We dressed up. We shaved. We made sure to comb our hair, to smoke our cigarettes early enough so that the smell of smoke wouldn't trail us into the church-house. We arrived on time. I, accompanied by my gay brother and his partner, quickly found our seats in the chapel and hushed our mouths. At the front of the room sat my niece in her little white dress--her blond hair in angelic wisps behind her ears. She smiled much brighter than the other eight-year-old children getting baptised last Saturday. Halloween. My niece stood when it was her turn to be introduced. My sister, her mother, beamed with pride. She was at my right, several people down. Her husband sat next to her, then my two younger siblings, then my parents. A smiling, proud, happy family.

My sister's husband sleeps on the floor in the living room. He, almost four months ago, confessed to my sister that he had been unfaithful, with a number of different women, all prostitutes. In the interum of said confession, my sister has waxed and stewed, prayed and fasted--what to do, what to say, how to reliquish this horror and protect her children. She welcomed him back into the home. Phew. With his arrival came a list of things he had to accomplish. Of the many chores, the first was that the dog had to go. He piled the mutt into the car and sped him away. Check. The list went on and on.

Still, sitting in that chapel, the visage of my family seemed so fragile. I watched as my younger brother baptised my niece, her father standing by with a vexed look on his face. Another uncle confirmed her into the Mormon church, and her father still remained stymied and stoic. It wasn't until the small luncheon afterwards, that I finally had had enough. When two of my brothers exchanged brief, but angry words, I got up, said goodbye to those around me and left the church.

It has been almost five days and today, still lurching a bit from a latent anxiety, I called my sister to check in. Of course she had her feelings hurt by my quick exit. She said as much, and I apologized. Yet, it feels unfinished in a malignant way. Their will be more words, I am sure.

I wonder how this chain reaction, this bombshell of a surprise (my brother-in-laws adultery) will continue to make itself known, and for how long it will spread its poison into my family. As if my family didn't have enough shit to deal with--the gayness, the in-fighting, the malaise and distrust we all seem to harbor. To climb up from this feels preposterous. To imagine what it might take to retrace my steps into normalcy while dealing with my family guarantees work, and fucking hard work at that. There is no sure way to quantify the damage sustained, no device to measure the friction or velocity of fury. And if the old adage about families and forever holds true, I need some Neosporin and some Band-Aids ASAP. This wound gonna bleed for awhile.