When we get back to the dorms, The Great Gatsby is back. It’s lying on my bed with a note stuck to it that says: Mr. Martin said this was OK. Brianna. It’s a comforting sight—a piece of home that I so desperately need right now. I wonder if Mr. Martin knew I would need the book today, after the difficulty of my Father Wound session, and made sure Brianna got it back to me.
I open to the first page and read the opening line, even though I know it by heart:
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.
I slam the book shut.
Mr. Martin has officially managed to ruin everything that’s important to me.
But then I see Carolyn across the room, already changed into her nightgown and brushing her hair into the same loose, high ponytail I saw her go to bed in last night, and I know what to do. I go over to her area and give her a little wave in the reflection of the mirror. “Hey.”
She spins around. “Hey, Lexi.” There are tiny wisps of blond at her hairline, lighter and finer than the rest of her hair, and they give the opposite effect of a shadow, brightening her face instead of darkening it. I notice a tiny birthmark on her temple—it’s adorable. “How are you doing?” Her voice is low and concerned.
She, Matthew, and Daniel tried to get me to talk to them all during dinner and the walk back to the main cabin. But what was I supposed to say? After what Mr. Martin made me do and say, I didn’t want to talk about it. I still don’t.
“I’m good. How are you?” I say lightly, as if I don’t know what she’s really asking.
“I’m okay. But, Lexi, if you need someone to talk—”
I thrust the book out. “I got my book back,” I say, cutting her off. “I thought you might want to borrow it. It’s been approved by Mr. Martin. It’s not Jane Austen, but…”
“Oh! Um, yes! Thanks!” She takes the book and runs her thumb over the edge of the pages so that a little gust of wind escapes and ripples through her hair. My stomach does a flip-flop. “This is really nice of you.”
“No problem,” I mumble, repeating just friends just friends just friends in my head. “Okay, well, good night.” I duck my head and bail.
On my way back to my own area, Rachael stops me. “I just wanted to say that your Father Wound session today was really inspiring,” she says. “Isn’t Mr. Martin so amazing? I feel so lucky to get to learn from him.”
“Um. Yes,” I say. “Agreed.”
After everyone’s in bed, Deb, the counselor on dorm duty tonight, tells us we will have twenty extra minutes before lights out so we can write in our journals.
I spend my time drawing. It feels good to have a blank page in front of me again, waiting for whatever sketch or doodle is ready to break free from my pen. A string of ivy sprouts onto the page and grows wild, first just around the edges of the paper but then gradually invading the center, the vine branching off and grasping every which way, taking over the page like the stubborn weed that it is. When nearly the entire page has been overrun, I add in a figure, a tiny human no taller than a safety pin. She stares out helplessly from behind the ivy, her arms and legs caught in the vines.
I’m trying to place the expression on the girl’s face when Deb announces it’s time for our nightly Bible verse.
“‘For this reason I tell you, whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours,’” Jasmine reads aloud.
We close our Bibles, and a few seconds later, the room goes dark.
***
Day two of the Father Wound exercise. At least I get to relax today. I’ve done my part.
But then Matthew is called up first, and my stomach is instantly in knots again. Mr. Martin won’t go easy on him.
To Matthew’s credit, he doesn’t lose his cool like I did yesterday. He answers Mr. Martin’s questions about his family and life back in San Diego with amazing composure. There’s even a smile on his face as he does it.
“What are your parents like?” Mr. Martin asks.
Matthew shrugs. “My dad’s a typical guy, watches football like it’s his job, owns a pool cleaning business, drinks a lot of beer. My mom stays home with my youngest sister. She’s two.”
“Wonderful,” Mr. Martin says. But the more questions Matthew answers, the more Mr. Martin looks troubled. Matthew’s family is the picture of perfection. Parents in appropriate gender roles, no abuse to speak of, three children and a dog, church on Sundays, family trips to Legoland, homemade apple pie, avocado tree in the backyard.
There’s absolutely nothing for Mr. Martin to grab on to.
And Matthew knows it. That’s why he’s so smug.
Hope builds inside me as I watch the scene up on the stage. Stay strong, I think to Matthew. Don’t give him anything.
Mr. Martin asks so many questions I wouldn’t be surprised if someone was feeding them to him through an earpiece. When he exhausts one topic, he jumps right into the next without hesitation: school, friends, extended family, past summer camp experiences, his afterschool job at the dog groomer’s. Matthew’s carefully thought-out responses are the definition of generic. He doesn’t shy away from talking about Justin—which Mr. Martin clearly doesn’t appreciate—but he gives absolutely no hint of anything that would have caused him to like boys in the first place. I’m not always sure he’s telling the whole truth, but it doesn’t matter. His performance is masterful.
Just when I think time has got to be close to up and Matthew has actually beaten Mr. Martin at his own game, Mr. Martin asks Matthew what his favorite movie is.
“Grease,” Matthew answers without missing a beat.
That one tiny word is enough to completely transform Mr. Martin’s demeanor. He freezes for a brief second and then straightens up, confidence overtaking him, a knowing smile crossing his face.
Crap. What just happened?
“Grease. That’s a musical, isn’t it?” His voice is different now. Sly. Certain.
Matthew suddenly looks as worried as I feel. “Um, yeah?”
“What other musicals do you like, Matthew?”
“I don’t really see what that has to do with anything…”
“Just answer the question.”
Matthew grimaces. Mr. Martin is onto him; he knows there’s no point in lying now. “I don’t know…Cabaret, Evita, West Side Story…I like them all, I guess.”
Mr. Martin nods. “Have you ever been in one?”
Matthew mutters something under his breath, but I can’t understand it.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Yes, I have been in musicals.”
“When did you do your first one?” Mr. Martin asks.
“When I was seven. I did a community theater production of The Music Man. I played Winthrop,” Matthew says.
“And since then?”
Matthew sighs. “I’ve been in a lot of shows, okay? At least two a year for the last ten years. So just say whatever you’re going to say so we can end this already.”
“Very well. The artistic world is a breeding ground for SSA, Matthew. Theater, Hollywood, the fine arts…anything goes for those people. I’m sure a lot of the people who have been in these shows with you actively engage in the homosexual lifestyle?”
Matthew doesn’t say anything.
“That’s what I thought. Being exposed to that environment from such a young age is your Father Wound, Matthew. You grew up observing them, being taught that that kind of behavior is okay.”
I think back to the first day when we all introduced ourselves to our groups. Matthew said he’s known he was gay since preschool. So that was before he was in his first musical. Mr. Martin doesn’t seem to remember this though, or if he does, he doesn’t care. He’s just so damn proud of himself right now.
They go on to do a ridiculous role-play where a seven-year-old Matthew tells Carolyn, who is playing his mother, that he doesn’t want to be in The Music Man and instead wants to try out for the football team.
When Matthew is safely back in his seat next to me, I whisper, “You okay?”
He places a hand on his chest, opens his eyes wide, and whispers back in a dramatic southern accent, “Why, I’m better than okay—I’m cured! Praise Jesus!”
I roll my eyes. Same old Matthew.
He grabs my hands. “Dear, sweet Lexi, will you marry me and have lots of sex and babies with me?”
I pull my hands away, laughing. “All right, all right, I get it.”
“But I like girls now, Lexi! And I like you most of all!”
He leans forward, like he’s going in for a big, sloppy kiss, and I bat him away in a fit of giggles.
It’s Mr. Martin’s resounding voice that brings us to our senses. “Matthew and Lexi, is there something you would like to share with the group?”
We both turn so we’re facing forward and sitting rail straight, all traces of humor gone. “Um, no. Sorry,” I say.
“Good. Now, I would appreciate it if you would give Olivia the same courtesy that everyone showed you both when you were up here.” His voice is soft, but his eyes are hard.
“Yes, Mr. Martin. Sorry, Olivia,” I say, my face flaming, and Olivia’s session resumes up on the stage.
The last camper to get called up for the day is Daniel. He’s the one member of my group who I don’t feel any real connection with yet—despite the fact that he was the one who played the role of my dying father—so in a weird way I’m actually sort of looking forward to his Father Wound session, if only to get to know him a little better.
Like the first day, he is very forthcoming with his story.
His father left him and his mother when Daniel was only a baby, and his mother never remarried. “She worries about me,” he says after Mr. Martin asks him to describe his relationship with his mother. “She likes me to stay inside.”
“Inside?” Mr. Martin asks.
“Yeah, like inside the house. Going outside with the other kids and playing sports and stuff like that is really dangerous.”
“Do you want to go play outside with the other kids, Daniel?” Mr. Martin asks gently.
“I did at first. But I stopped asking after a while. Mom needs me at home, where it’s safe.”
“How does that make you feel?”
He shrugs. “It’s okay. She just doesn’t want me to get hurt. I understand.”
It actually sounds to me like Daniel’s mother is less concerned about his well-being and more concerned about her own. Like she’s guilted him into being some sort of replacement companion for her or something.
“We hear versions of this story a lot here at New Horizons, Daniel,” Mr. Martin says. “Your experience is very common, and there’s actually a term for it. We call boys like you Kitchen Window Boys. Have you ever heard that term before?”
“No.”
“It refers to boys who sit in their mothers’ kitchen windows, watching all the other boys playing ball outside, wishing they could join them. But they can’t because of a sense of guilt or responsibility, or even embarrassment that they’re not physically developing into a man as quickly as the other boys.”
Daniel thinks about that and nods. “Yeah. That’s me.”
“I’m going to have you do two healing exercises, Daniel, if that’s okay with you?”
Hey, that’s not fair. Why does Daniel get to say whether it’s okay with him or not and none of the rest of us did?
He nods, though he looks a little unsure.
“The first exercise is a role-play.” Mr. Martin calls up me and Matthew. “Lexi is going to play your mother and Matthew is a neighborhood boy coming over to see if you want to go play outside.”
Mr. Martin hands me an apron, a pot, and a wooden spoon. I guess I’m supposed to be in a kitchen. I put the apron on and stir the inside of the empty pot, feeling utterly ridiculous. Daniel is sitting on the floor next to me, miming peeling potatoes. Matthew enters the scene and knocks on the wall since there’s no door.
“Hi, Daniel,” he says. “A bunch of us are gonna go play soccer down at the park and we wanted to see if you would come play with us.”
Daniel hesitates and then says, “Sure.”
I guess that’s my cue. I turn and say, “No, sweetie. Mommy needs you to stay here.” I try to ignore the pangs of guilt I feel as I say it, but I’m not very successful.
Daniel swallows and raises his head a notch. “No, Mom. I’m going to go play with my friends. I’ll be back in time for dinner.” He takes a few steps in the direction of the imaginary door and then turns back. “I love you, Mom,” he says quietly. And then he and Matthew leave the scene.
“Fantastic!” Mr. Martin commends, and dismisses me and Matthew. “Now, for part two, we need to address what your father did to you when he left. He left you without a male role model, which is one of the worst things a father can do to his son. You need to fight back, Daniel.”
And he drags out the punching bag.
It’s a very long, violent afternoon.