In Sickness

Jensen Young

In Sickness

Laney’s parents hated her because she was gay. She’d been kicked out at eighteen and forced to couch surf before landing a second shift gig at a sheet metal factory, where she’d met her chronic girlfriend, Sarah. Sarah was her supervisor until the demotion, and then they were A-okay to date. That was the sort of life her parents had wanted for her.

Laney’s mother was a zealot and her father was a spiteful, bigoted man who’d been raised in the Baptist tradition of near universal hatred. At sixteen, he’d taken her bedroom door away after walking in on her kissing the neighbors’ daughter. He’d quit a good-paying job because a suspiciously flamboyant coworker was promoted over him. He hated Laney, he hated Anderson Cooper, and he even hated Freddie Mercury, and only listened to Queen in absolute privacy. So it was hard to swallow the fact that he was leading her sister down the aisle to her soon-to-be wife.

Laney’s hands tightened around the bouquet of pink roses and peonies and tried to subtly cough away the rough wad of phlegm in her throat. Her feet hurt from the heels and her sides itched from the taffeta. In front of her, for ten rows of pews, stood her sister’s guests, all respectful, some crying. The room had a dim glow of love and rosy stained glass as her sister walked down the aisle.

Sarah was standing placidly in the front row, head turned to watch Karen approach the altar, not paying Laney any attention.

Her father was serene, his touch of gray handsomely framing his face, Karen’s arm clasped in his. The embrace between them was warm, calm. Karen had not been thrown out of the house at eighteen.

Laney realized she was biting her lip and released it. There was the tiniest hint of copper, and she hoped the blood would be indistinguishable from her lipstick.

She had not been an easy child and she knew that. She’d taken up smoking at fourteen because the freshmen who smoked were much cooler than her friends. She’d stolen money from her mother’s wallet to buy bagged margarita slushies. She’d been arrested and driven home by the cops twice for shoplifting things she could have afforded anyway.

Meanwhile Karen was making the honor roll and joining more clubs than she had time for. She was invited on a school trip to play violin at Carnegie Hall, and she ran a 10K for charity, and she dated respectable boys who kept their hands to themselves and greeted her mother with flowers.

Laney dug her nails into the soft part of her hand.

Karen’s life had been easier from the start. Their parents had enrolled Laney in Montessori kindergarten when she was five in the hopes of having Karen grandfathered in. Being a loud and assertive kid, Laney had gotten pretty comfortable, and enjoyed her pick of toys come play hour. Specifically the colorful, rolling Alphabet Dog.

Unfortunately, Karen managed to impress the principal by scoring as high as a first grader at just three years old, and was welcomed into the class halfway through the year.

She came into the room wide-eyed and timid, and clung to Laney compulsively. She was too scared to try and claim a toy for herself when play hour came, so she got down next to Laney and tried to play Alphabet Dog with her.

What ensued was a very one-sided tug of war and the confiscation of Alphabet Dog.

The toy was moved to the Teacher Only corner of the room, demarcated by red masking tape, and sat on the prohibited Supplies Shelf. After this, Karen slumped at her table, resigned to coloring, but Laney burned hot under the injustice.

She waited until the teacher was distracted by Play-Doh in a boy’s mouth, then crossed the tape line and grabbed the toy and dashed off to her cubby to stick it in her backpack. Karen spent all of the afternoon in disbelief when Laney plopped down on the rug of their shared room and began rolling Alphabet Dog along the floor. She’d gotten a spanking that night.

Laney’s face flushed. The sweat in her scalp was beginning to mingle with the hairspray. Alphabet Dog had resurfaced weeks ago and Karen had mentioned off-handedly that it would look so cute in a nursery. Laney imagined a little Karen running around, winning science fairs and learning Morse Code.

Laney had been bullied for the rest of her school career; Karen managed to find a friend in every room. Laney had an outie and a consequent fear of bikinis, and her sister had the perfect beach body. Laney was the problem child and Karen always kissed their parents goodnight. Only one of their graduations had ended in a photo session.

Their parents had rushed to Karen’s bedside after her breakdown, and ignored Laney’s flu weeks earlier.

She pressed her heels together, trying to ground herself with the pressure. Her hands were sweating around the bouquet. ‘Attention whore’ was such a mean label, she reminded herself.

Once she’d been allowed visitors, Karen had asked to see her sister, so Laney begrudgingly woke up two hours early to visit her in the hospital. Karen was posted up in the bed, bile yellow with plastic-sheened skin. Laney was startled; she really hadn’t thought Karen would look that bad.

She motioned Laney over as if her sister would go to the bookcase or minifridge instead, and, since the door was open, whispered that she wanted help dyeing her hair cherry red, like Laney’s in middle school.

“I can’t have bleach,” she’d said, “so even just chalk would work.”

“It won’t stay if it’s just chalk. Just wait until you’re out and go see a hairdresser.”

“I need it done now.” Her stare was severe, weighted. “I need to see someone else in the mirror.”

“You’ll still be you. Just with red hair.”

“I know you have hair chalk.”

Laney had let out a short, mean laugh. So now her Pride accessories were shared property of the family? Great.

Sarah caught her eye from the front pew, grinning and nodding toward Karen. Laney weakly smiled back. Sarah was so dopey, and so emotional at these things. She’d probably be crying by the end of the night, her face pink and puffy with overwhelming feeling, like the day she threatened to skin the CFO alive if he didn’t “get the hell away” from her station on his tour.

Following Karen’s discharge, she’d insisted on meeting Sarah. She’d already known of her, but Laney refused every dinner invite she offered. Unfortunately, Karen emerged from her heroic stupor with a new strain of confidence, and finally demanded to meet her sister’s long-time partner.

Sarah’s reception at the Jackson house had been lukewarm. She was on her best behavior and wore a clean shirt for the occasion, but Laney’s parents and Karen gazed at the cut on her arm for the entire evening. It was bandaged, but the dressing did need to be changed, and as dinner progressed, a ruddy brown stain grew on it.

Her father had tried to sound conversational asking about it.

Sarah nodded and demonstrated her excitement by tapping on the IPA bottle held to her lips. She swallowed quickly and wiped her mouth. “I found this great old bow and arrow set at an antique store, and I thought, what the hell, I should try archery!”

“I got her new arrows off Amazon,” Laney had added quickly.

“They aren’t as good. They’re not the real McCoy. The antique ones are a little splintered down the shaft, and the fletching is sharp as all get out, but those babies fly.”

Her mother had finally offered to go get clean gauze from the medicine cabinet, and when Sarah graciously accepted, Laney winced, knowing that once the bandage came off, her parents would smell the infection. It had gotten pretty pungent.

Naturally, what followed was the confession that neither Laney nor Sarah had health insurance, or savings for an out-of-pocket visit.

Her father had grimly told them to visit an urgent care, and mail him the bill.

After dinner her parents had pulled her aside and asked if there was any hope of promotion at the sheet metal plant, and if she really saw a future with Sarah. They started talking about dead ends and their friends’ eligible son, and she’d huffed and stormed out to the driveway where Sarah was idling.

Laney lost Sarah’s attention back to her sister, whose smile radiated even under the veil.

The aisle culminated in the altar, and the two domains were divided by a red-carpet threshold. Bella’s matron of honor had crossed it first, then Laney as Karen’s maid of honor, then Bella, arm-in-arm with her grandfather.

Laney had gotten all dolled up, but her mother had been trying to get her camera situated as she walked down the aisle. As far as her parents knew, she’d teleported from the dressing area to the front of the church.

Her mother’s eyes lovingly trailed Karen, and it hurt.

Each year of Laney’s life could be described as “another stupid phase.” First, she was vegetarian. Then vegan. Then woke for attention. For a minute, she claimed to have split personalities. She gave up most of her phases once they were no longer convenient or brought her the family’s eyes and ears, but all throughout she was gay. She’d had “girlfriends” since third grade, and after every parent-teacher conference, her father would return fuming, shouting at her that she wasn’t “fuckin’ gay!” Her mother had stopped going because she didn’t want to hear any of it.

After the final conference tirade, Laney had retreated to her room and pulled her legs to her chest, her gaze canvassing the cul-de-sac. You could choose to hate someone, she decided. Outside, Karen played in the street with the boy she openly “loved”: a fellow ten-year-old.

Karen was close enough to the altar that the display of candles sparkled in their mother’s diamond necklace. Laney had grown up enamored with it, and always hoped it would be passed onto her one day; she was the oldest, after all. But oldest did not mean most responsible. It didn’t mean trustworthy.

Karen had decided to tell Laney last, after their Evangelical mother and Baptist father. It came months after being discharged and getting back on her feet, when she and Laney were going out for the evening. She waited until their orders arrived before sharing the good news: she had met someone! A woman. She tried to make it sound casual, but her throat was strained and her posture small, like Laney would hit her.

“Oh.” She was genuinely at a loss for words. She swallowed. “And Mom and Dad?”

“They know.”

“Oh.” She tried to look less stunned by turning away and blinking. “And they were okay with it?”

There was a smile in her voice. “They were perfect.”

The floor of the church wasn’t completely even, and Laney found it difficult to keep steady in heels, even standing still. There was a weakness just above her kneecaps, a high-pressure vacancy right behind her eyes. Worried about puking at the sight of her sister, she turned her eyes to the altar. Bella stood in a slim ivory gown, her pretty hair expensively piled on top of her head, her eyes twinkling, her hands clasped as her bride approached.

Bella worked in finance and owned acreage in the country and Laney’s parents had fallen head over heels for her. They’d even learned the word ‘bisexual,’ which, until then, they’d thought was medically impossible. That was what her father had told her in seventh grade.

When she met Bella for the first time, the business professional swept right up to her in a white pantsuit and shook her hand, complimenting her septum piercing and gauge earrings. “So many people think they look good with a septum piercing, but you—you actually pull it off.” She’d sounded sincere.

On Laney’s birthday, Sarah had been in traffic court, so Bella and Karen had taken her out. They’d given her an imitation ruby nose stud, nickel free.

A month later, Bella put a fat diamond ring on Karen’s finger just like Laney had feared. Karen wanted to involve her sister in the wedding planning process as much as possible, because hanging in the air was ‘you’re never ever going to get to do this yourself because your girlfriend is a loser.’

Laney had hoped the planning would at least be awkward and weird for both families so Karen could taste an inch of the mile she got, but everything flowed right along. Her father purchased a custom cake topper and a baby pink pocket square, despite his feelings about men who wore pink.

It was neatly folded in his breast pocket and being creeped upon by Karen’s poofy veil. Her father was very careful not to step on its train, or the wide skirt of the dress—he glanced down at his feet every few seconds.

A footprint on his daughter’s wedding dress—before they took pictures—would be a tragedy. No one wanted to remember a stain.

Heat settled on Laney, pressing her down, but her brain was cold.

The thing that finally tore it between Laney and her parents was her dabbling with the wrong crowd shortly after graduation. She’d only gone to a party, but it resulted in an immediate overdose, and when she came to a few days later, her parents gave her an ultimatum: live by their rules or get the hell out. ‘Their rules’ included no parties, no girlfriends, no gay-looking friends, and a strict eight PM curfew.

Of course, she left. With rules like that, they hadn’t really wanted her to stay.

When Karen had lost her grip and took too many benzos, they’d given her all their love. They’d listened. They’d changed. Karen had actually managed to change them. Laney had spent her entire life shouting and they hadn’t heard a word.

In the front row, her mother was crying and wiping her eyes with a tissue.

Her father and Karen reached the altar, stopping just before the threshold. He turned to her and lifted her veil. In her eyes shone gratitude, pure and uncoerced. He kissed her forehead and surreptitiously wiped his own eyes before taking his place in the front row.

Bella’s breath hitched like she was holding back tears.

Laney couldn’t listen to the ceremony. She had to tune it out with something. A bad thought, a mantra, a compulsive itch, a screw she couldn’t back out—something loud, something painful to shade and blur the room.

Her mind grasped for facts or something like them, and then she remembered: her parents hated her because she was gay.

         Karen crossed the red threshold, and everyone was very pleased.