A Parent's Worst Nightmare
It was Christmas Eve, Anna Mae Bollinger's favorite day of the year. The shopping and decorating were done, and she could relax in front of the fire with a cup of eggnog, listen to Christmas carols on the stereo and watch the miniature lights twinkling on the tree. Her son would soon be home for the holidays, and for a few days, the three Bollingers would live together as a family once again.
"What time is Douglas's plane due to arrive?" her husband, Curtis, asked for the third time that day.
"At 4:30," Anna Mae replied as she placed another log on the crackling fire. "Which means, with traffic, he'll probably be here by 6:15."
"I don't know why he couldn't have flown in yesterday," Curtis grumbled.
"I told you. He had a student who was in a car accident and missed several classes. Douglas is trying to help him catch up. You know what a dedicated teacher he is."
Douglas was an only child who, after earning his master's degree at the University of Massachusetts, left New England and moved to California where he was offered a position as a professor of modern art. Both parents were proud of their son's accomplishments, yet they missed him terribly.
"I hope he likes the boxed set of CDs I bought him," Anna Mae said.
"Don't ask me. I don't know anything about classical music."
"Me either. I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, not Beethoven and Mozart."
Anna Mae turned on the television to watch Miracle on 34th Street with Edmund Gwenn, Maureen O'Hara, John Payne and Natalie Wood, a movie she had seen dozens of times but one she never grew tired of watching. Before the New York Supreme Court could declare Macy's Kris Kringle to be the one and only Santa Claus, however, the clock on the mantel chimed six; and Anna Mae heard a car pull into the driveway.
"He's here," she announced merrily, nudging her husband, who had been dozing in his new recliner.
Anna Mae reached the front door just as Douglas was climbing up the stairs with a stack of brightly wrapped Christmas presents in his arms.
"I hope you don't mind that I brought a friend home with me," he said sheepishly.
"Don't be silly," his mother laughed. "Your friends have always been welcome in this house."
Curtis stepped forward to take some of the packages. As father and son went inside to place the gifts under the tree, Anna Mae was left at the door with a shy, handsome young man.
"Come in," she said in a warm, welcoming voice. "Let me take your coat."
"Thank you, Mrs. Bollinger."
"No need to be so formal. Just call me Anna Mae."
They walked into the living room where Douglas formally introduced his friend to his parents.
"I hope you brought your appetites with you," Curtis laughed. "Your mother has planned quite a feast for tomorrow."
"Speaking of food," Anna Mae said, "can I get either of you something to drink: eggnog, spiced cider, hot chocolate, a glass of wine?"
"What? No chai tea latte?" Douglas asked and laughed when his parents looked at him questioningly. "Actually, a cup of Maxwell House will be just fine."
Anna Mae brought out a tray of hot drinks, and the four of them sat in front of the fire.
"Brandon," Anna Mae addressed her guest, "are you the student Douglas has been tutoring?"
Although the question was put to the houseguest, her son was the one to answer.
"Brandon's not a student. He's one of the most talented painters in the San Francisco area."
"Really?" his mother asked politely.
Douglas waited a few moments and then added apprehensively, "I wanted to wait for the right moment to tell you this, but I'm not sure when that moment would be. So, I might as well tell you right now. Brandon and I have been living together for six months now."
"That's very sensible," Anna Mae responded. "I always said you pay far too much rent on that place of yours. Having a roommate to share expenses is an excellent idea."
Brandon and Douglas looked at each other uneasily. This was going to be harder than they had imagined.
"I don't think you quite understand, Mom. We're not roommates. I guess it's just easier to come out and say it. I'm gay, and Brandon is my partner."
A silence descended upon the room that was broken only by the crackling and snapping of the logs burning in the fireplace. Neither parent knew what to say or how to react. Although they personally had nothing against homosexuality, they had never in their wildest dreams imaged their own son was gay. Eventually, Anna Mae broke the awkward silence in the only way she knew how.
She stood up, forced a smile and asked, "More coffee anyone?"
The evening passed slowly. The four adults spoke too much and laughed too loudly, taking refuge behind forced holiday cheer. As midnight neared, Douglas suggested they all go to bed.
Later that night, Anna Mae lay next to her husband, crying silently, unable to sleep. Curtis could not sleep either.
"Maybe I should have spent more time with Douglas when he was younger," he said.
"You spent plenty of time with him. I remember you used to read to him every night before he went to bed."
"Yeah, but perhaps I should have signed him up for Little League or the Boy Scouts."
"He didn't want to join," Anna Mae reminded him. "He was never interested in sports or ...."
She could not continue for several moments.
"Is it our fault? Did we fail him in some way?" she asked, bursting into tears.
"I don't know," Curtis replied, trying to comfort her. "I've been asking myself the same questions."
"I was looking forward to this day for months," she continued. "Christmas Eve has always been my favorite day of the year. Now it has turned into my worst nightmare."
* * *
Snow fell during the night, and Anna Mae woke Christmas morning to a winter wonderland covered in a velvet blanket of whiteness. Although she had longed for a white Christmas, there was no joy in her heart that morning as she went downstairs to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. She poured herself a large cup of coffee and stared out at the cold, gray New England sky, remembering with a bittersweet smile past Christmas mornings. She saw with her mind's eye young Douglas running down the stairs in his Dr. Denton pajamas, heading toward the tree and the mountain of gifts beneath it. She remembered the bicycles, roller skates, board games, jigsaw puzzles, crayons and coloring books she had given him over the years. At the time, she did not think it odd that her son had never asked Santa for a toy car or truck, a football or a superhero action figure.
Anna Mae closed her eyes and tried to blot out the events of the previous evening.
"Why?" she cried. "Why did this have to happen to us?"
A few minutes later, Curtis walked into the kitchen.
"You're up early," his wife noted with surprise.
"I couldn't sleep," he replied, pouring himself a cup of coffee.
The Bollingers sat across the table from one another in silence, each of them wondering what had gone wrong and who was to blame.
"What are we going to tell the rest of the family?" Anna Mae asked. "And our friends?"
"I don't see why we have to tell them anything. This is a private matter between Douglas and—him. It's no one else's business."
"Are we going to ask our son to 'stay in the closet,' as the expression goes?"
"Why not? I don't think it's something that should be paraded out in front of everyone. He's got his job to consider, after all. I doubt universities like their teachers to advertise such things—even in California."
"I guess it's not really our decision to make, though. Is it? I mean if Douglas and his friend want to take an ad out in The Boston Globe announcing their relationship, what say do we have in the matter?"
"We're his parents, for heaven's sake! He could at least take our feelings into consideration. If the guys at work ever find out ...."
Curtis shook his head.
"He did a good job of keeping his preference a secret until now," Anna Mae said. "I imagine he could continue."
"Maybe it's not quite as bad as we imagine. He might just be confused," her husband said hopefully.
"I don't imagine something like that is ...."
Anna Mae quickly stopped talking when she heard Douglas's footsteps on the stairs.
"I'll make pancakes if anyone is hungry," she called out.
"Nah, I want bacon and eggs," Douglas said. "And toast with butter. But first a cup of coffee."
He sat down at the table, clearly expecting his mother to wait on him.
Anna Mae stared at her son. Normally one to take pains with his appearance, he was wearing boxer shorts, a ripped T-shirt and a pair of dingy socks. His hair was mussed and his face unshaven.
"Are you feeling okay?" she asked with maternal concern.
"No, I've got a hangover. Gimme a couple aspirins with that cup of coffee, will ya?"
Anna Mae and Curtis were as shocked with their son's Christmas morning behavior as they had been by his Christmas Eve revelation.
"Will your friend be coming down to breakfast soon?" Anna Mae asked as she shook two aspirins into her hand and gave them to her son.
"What friend?"
"Brandon, of course."
Douglas jumped up from the table, upsetting his chair.
"Brandon? What do you know about him?" he shouted.
"Only what you told us last night, dear," Anna Mae stammered.
"What did I say?"
Douglas was clearly upset.
"You told us that he was your friend, that's all."
"Friend, yeah," he laughed—a very un-Douglas-like laugh. "A friend until the little fruit tried to hit on me."
Anna Mae and Curtis exchanged puzzled looks.
"You mean you and he aren't lovers?" Curtis asked hopefully.
"Shut your face, old man," Douglas screamed as he lunged across the table toward his father. "One more crack like that and you won't see the New Year."
"Douglas, what's wrong with you?" Anna Mae cried. "Why are you behaving like this?"
"Get off my back! I'm tired of you two always nagging me. 'Why don't you get a job, Douggie?' 'Why don't you find a nice girl and settle down, Douggie?' 'Why don't you look for a place of your own, Douggie?'"
"What are you talking about? You've got a job. You're a professor of modern art in San Francisco."
"Yeah, right!" Douglas laughed. "Me a professor! That's pretty good considering I never finished high school. Or are you forgetting that little stint I did in juvie for possession with the intent to distribute?"
Anna Mae and Curtis stared helplessly at their son. Had he gone mad or had they?
"I'm gonna get dressed," he said, finishing his coffee. "When I come back down, I want my bacon and eggs on the table. I've gotta pick up Janice in an hour. We're goin' to give my kid his presents."
"Your kid?"
"Yeah, your grandson—remember him? The son of that crackhead from Copperwell I went out with a few years ago."
He laughed bitterly and shook his head.
"I don't know about you two. Going senile, I think. Just get my breakfast and quit askin' so many stupid questions."
"Should I call an ambulance?" Anna Mae asked Curtis after her son went upstairs.
"They only come for medical emergencies."
"Then maybe we should phone the police."
"And tell them what?"
"Something is wrong with him," Anna Mae insisted as she got up to fry Douglas's eggs. "All this talk about not graduating from school and having an illegitimate child. He's obviously not in his right mind."
"Let's wait until Brandon comes downstairs. Maybe he can shed some light on the subject." Curtis sighed, hesitant to face the truth. "Perhaps there's a reason for his behavior. I mean we only get to see our son for a week each year at Christmas. Maybe he's disturbed, and this is the first time we're seeing it."
Just as Anna Mae was putting the eggs and bacon on a plate, Douglas came back downstairs. His hair was slicked back, and he wore tight jeans and a button-down shirt left partially open at the top to expose the hair on his chest.
Does he always dress like that in California? she wondered.
Douglas sat at the table and, without so much as a thank you, gobbled down his breakfast, chewing noisily and letting the bacon grease drip down his chin before finally reaching for the dish towel on which he wiped his mouth. Anna Mae was about to admonish him but wisely held her tongue. She was not sure how this Mr. Hyde version of Douglas would react.
"I'm leavin'," he announced as he pulled on a leather jacket and headed out the door, jangling a set of car keys. "Just keep my dinner in the oven until I get home."
The door slammed shut, and shortly thereafter the flabbergasted parents heard the roar of an engine and the sound of screeching tires as their son sped down the street.
Anna Mae and Curtis waited for half an hour and then, unable to stand the torment any longer, went upstairs to wake Brandon. The worried mother knocked on the guest room door. There was no answer, so she knocked again.
"Brandon, could we speak to you for a minute?"
When she still received no reply, Anna Mae inched the door open slightly. The guest room was empty, and the bed apparently had not been slept in. She looked at her husband.
"Maybe he spent the night in Doug's room," he suggested.
But there was no one there either. Brandon's luggage was gone, too.
"I guess that explains it," Curtis said. "He and Douglas must have had an argument, and Brandon left sometime during the night. That's why our son is acting so strange this morning."
At first, Anna Mae was eager to accept this convenient explanation for her son's outlandish behavior, but then she reexamined the facts.
"And I suppose that's when Douglas went down to Walmart and bought those cheap, flashy clothes he was wearing today. And what about that car he drove away in? I don't remember hearing all that racket when he and Brandon arrived last night."
"No," her husband agreed. "Something is really wrong here, something much worse than a lovers' quarrel. I saw the car Douglas rented. It was a Subaru Outback. What he drove away in this morning didn't sound like any Subaru I've ever heard."
"Then what is going on here?" Anna Mae asked. "Yesterday we were looking forward to a nice family holiday, and now we find ourselves in the middle of a nightmare."
"Well," Curtis said optimistically, "I suppose things could be worse."
In less than an hour, they were.
* * *
After Anna Mae washed the breakfast dishes and straightened the kitchen, she sat down with her husband in the living room.
"No one even opened the presents," she said sadly.
"Remember all the gifts Douglas brought with him?" Curtis asked. "What happened to them?"
"I don't know. I don't understand anything that's going on here."
The conversation was interrupted by a knock on the front door.
"I'll get it," Curtis volunteered.
A few minutes later he returned, pale and shaking, followed by two police officers.
"What's wrong?" Anna Mae asked, fearing Douglas had been injured in a car accident.
"We've come to ask your son a few questions," Officer Austin Bracken replied.
"He's not here right now."
"That's what your husband said. You don't mind if we look for ourselves, do you?"
"No, of course not."
After Bracken went upstairs, his partner reached into his pocket and pulled out a photograph.
"Have you ever seen this man?" the officer asked, showing the picture to Anna Mae.
"That looks like Brandon," she answered. "Although when I saw him he looked different. He was much better dressed, for one thing."
"Where and when did you see him, Mrs. Bollinger?"
"Right here, last night. My son brought him home from California. Douglas said that Brandon was an artist and that they were—sharing living expenses."
The officer raised his eyebrow.
"Brandon is no artist, ma'am. And I doubt he's ever been to California. He's a drag queen; he frequents the gay bar in Essex Green and sometimes the straight ones as well. Take a good look at this picture. Are you sure this man was in your house last night?"
Anna Mae stared at the photograph for several minutes.
"If it wasn't him, it must have been his twin. Why this interest in Brandon? Has he done something wrong?"
"We pulled his body out of the river this morning."
Anna Mae felt faint.
This can't be happening, she thought. Please let me wake up and realize this has all been just an awful dream, that Douglas is still a nice, heterosexual professor and that Brandon is only a figment of my overworked imagination.
"Why did you want to question our son?" Curtis asked.
"The victim was last seen in a bar near the college. Several witnesses claim he made a pass at your son and that Douglas was so upset he threatened to kill him."
"That's absurd!" Anna Mae declared. "Our son isn't the violent type."
"Come on, Mrs. Bollinger. Every cop in Essex County knows Douggie. He's got a record longer than my d—my arm."
"That's not true! Douglas is a college professor."
Bracken returned and shook his head, indicating to his partner that Douglas was not hiding upstairs.
"We'll just wait and talk to Douglas when he comes home."
"He left only a short time ago. He may not be home for hours yet," Curtis said.
"My partner and I will wait in our car then. We won't inconvenience you and your wife any further."
* * *
The hours dragged by. Anna Mae paced the floor for a good portion of the time. It was almost 10:00 p.m. when she and Curtis heard a car speeding up the street.
A beat-up Trans Am pulled into the driveway, and Douglas got out and walked across the yard toward the front door. The two policemen emerged from an unmarked car, which was parked across the street.
"Hold it there, Douggie," Bracken yelled. "We got a few questions we want to ask you."
Douglas froze.
"I don't know nothing."
"You know Brandon Gundersen, don't you?"
Douglas's eyes darted to the Trans Am and then to his parents' front door.
"You remember Brandon, Douggie—the guy who tried to pick you up in the bar last night?"
"I wasn't in no bar last night," Douglas insisted.
"We got witnesses who say otherwise. They told us you threatened to kill Brandon."
"I repeat: I wasn't in no bar. I was right here at home with my parents, celebratin' the holiday."
"Sure, you were, Douggie. You flew in from California where you're a college professor. Imagine that? A punk like you becoming a college professor!"
"Hey, Austin," Douglas said, tauntingly, "shouldn't you be out looking for lost dogs or stolen bicycles?"
"Very funny. Let's see if you're still laughing when you get sent to jail for life for murder."
The color drained from Douglas's face. Bracken reached into his back pocket and took out a pair of handcuffs.
"I know you've heard this before, so feel free to sing along. 'You have the right to remain silent ....'"
Bracken took Douglas's left arm and tried to place the cuffs on him. Suddenly, Douglas's right hand reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a gun. Austin's partner reacted quickly. He pulled out his own pistol and shot. When Douglas fell to the ground, Anna Mae screamed and fainted in her husband's arms.
* * *
As the ambulance pulled away, Bracken and his partner looked at the bereaved parents guiltily.
"We're sorry," the officer said. "We didn't want it to go down this way."
The miniature lights still twinkled merrily on the artificial blue spruce, the ornaments still played peek-a-boo between the strands of silver tinsel, the porcelain angel atop the tree still smiled benevolently down on the world and the presents were still wrapped in brightly colored paper despite the fact that Christmas Day was almost over.
Anna Mae looked at the pile of gifts she had lovingly bought for her son, a son who had been shot dead before his parents' horrified eyes. She opened the boxed set of classical music CDs and then fell to her knees.
"My baby!" she cried.
Several moments later Curtis joined her. Their tears fell in large droplets and left dark, wet spots on the red velvet tree skirt. Finally, just before midnight, Curtis stood up and held his hand out to his wife.
"Come on, dear. Let's try to get some sleep."
"I couldn't possibly sleep now."
"Come to bed anyway. You'll need your rest if you're to get through the next few days."
Anna Mae took her husband's outstretched hand and stood up. She turned off the tree lights, and as she took a step toward the stairs, the television came on.
"We'll be right back to our special Christmas Eve presentation of Miracle on 34th Street right after this word from our sponsors."
"Christmas Eve?" Anna Mae echoed.
The lights on the tree came back to life, and the blackened logs in the fireplace suddenly burst into crackling flames. The clock on the mantel started to chime: one, two, three, four, five, six.
"What's going on?" Anna Mae asked.
The Bollingers ran to the front door when they heard a car pull into the driveway. Douglas opened the rear door of a rented Subaru Outback and removed a stack of presents from the cargo area.
Anna Mae and Curtis hugged each other as they watched Douglas and Brandon walk up the stairs.
"Let me help you with those," Curtis said, beaming with love and pride at his handsome son.
"Mom, Dad," Douglas said. "I'd like to introduce you to my friend, Brandon."
Anna Mae threw her arms around the startled young artist.
"Oh, Brandon, I'm so happy to meet you. Let me take your coat and get you something hot to drink."
"That can wait, Mom," Douglas said nervously. "There's something I want to tell you first."
When his parents looked at him with love and joy in their eyes, Douglas felt guilty. He hated to break their hearts, especially on Christmas Eve.
"Brandon and I are living together."
"That's wonderful!" Anna Mae said, affectionately linking elbows with her son's partner.
"You don't understand," Douglas continued. "We're not just roommates."
"Oh, I understand," Anna Mae said, still smiling with joy. "You're gay."
"Y-yes," Douglas stammered with surprise. "That doesn't bother you?" he asked.
"Why, no!" Curtis clapped his son on the back and added, "If you're happy, then we're happy."
Douglas sighed with relief.
"And to think that for months I dreaded telling you the truth."
"Whatever for?"
"From what I've heard, learning your son is gay is a parent's worst nightmare."
Anna Mae glanced at Curtis and then looked back at her intelligent, caring, and compassionate son and felt truly blessed.
"Don't be ridiculous, Douglas. I can think of far worse things that could happen."
Speaking of someone's worst nightmare ...
Above image © actioncat.com
