A New Kind of Denial

“Mae! Oh my goodness! What are you doing here, honey? I haven’t seen you for so long. What’s going on?” I asked, a smile playing at my lips from the surprise visit from my little cousin. She was always the one in the family that was on the run; the evasive one. We barely ever knew where she was, and she would almost never call before showing up some where. So I wasn’t necessarily surprised that she didn’t call ahead of time, but I was surprised that she came.

“Well I guess my decision to come up here was just kind of on a whim,” she shrugged, putting down her bags just inside of the front door. “But I just wanted to see you, cous’. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind! You’re welcome here anytime you feel like dropping by,” I smiled, leaning forward and giving Mae a really big hug.

“Should I put my stuff in the spare room?”

“Oh, no, sorry hon. You’re going to have to take the couch. We’ve got a family friend staying for the summer,” I said, cringing a bit out of reflex. “That is, unless Gavin will be willing to give up his room for a little while.”

“Gavin?” she asked, seeming to be very surprised.

“Yeah, Reese and Camron’s boy. They adopted him when he was two,”

“How old is her now?”

“Seventeen,” I answered, wondering why she wanted to know, but ignoring it either way. “He’s staying with us while his dads go on an extended anniversary vacation.”

“Oh, okay,”

“Yeah, so unless he’ll give up his room while you stay you’ll have to take up residence on the couch,”

“Oh, that’s fine Jason. I am the one that showed up with no notice expecting an empty room to stay in,” she laughed. “That’s what I get for living the way I live.”

“Jason!” I heard from behind me. I turned around to see Gavin walking towards me from the hallway. He stopped a bit short and did a double take as he saw Mae standing there next to me. “Oh, hello.”

I walked over to Gavin and put an arm around his shoulders. “Gav, this is my cousin Mae; Mae, this is Reese’s boy, Gavin.”

“Nice to meet you Mae,” he smiled, waving a nonchalant wave. She had a sort of reminiscent and sentimental look in her eyes, and I thought maybe it was because she was remembering Reese and their relationship, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Same to you, Gavin,” she smiled sweetly.

“So what did you need, Gav?” I asked, removing my arm and standing back a bit.

“Tanya’s not going to get a test done. So I don’t know when we’re going to know who is actually is,” he sighed, turning his attention back to the more serious subject. “It’s just way too expensive and her mom won’t pay for it. So she’s going to have to have the hospital do it or do the math to see who it even could be, I guess.”

I was surprised as to how vague he was being about the whole situation, but then I remember that Mae was still standing there. Gavin probably didn’t want her to know all of what was going on, and I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want my first impression on somebody to be that I might have a kid with my ex but she doesn’t know for sure who’s it is. That would not be very pleasant, and I know that Mae wouldn’t judge him on solely that, but he didn’t. For all he know, she was already judging him for having lip piercing. She wouldn’t, but he doesn’t know that because he still had barely any idea who she even was.

“So basically, you’re not going to find anything out for a while, are you?” I asked, summarizing his slightly confusing attempt at being vague over the matter.

“No, probably not.” He shook his head.

“When will you tell your dads?”

“Not until I’m sure I’m the fa-uh, one. I don’t want to worry them about something that might not be important to any of us. Especially not with what they’re going through. I don’t want Cam to worry himself and have a broken leg and sore body. That’d be too much for him, most likely.”

“You’re probably right about that. So if you think that’s the best way to go, then go ahead. I can’t make you tell them or anything,” I shrugged, not exactly approving or disapproving his decision. “Hey, would you mind to go find that husband of mine and tell him Mae’s here? He’d probably like to know, seeing as how we haven’t seen for so long.”

“Yeah, sure. I think he’s messing around in your guys’ closet. I could hear him banging against the back of mine earlier, because they butt up to each other,”

“Thanks hon,”

“No problem Jason,” he nodded, walking back down the hall. I turned back to Mae and saw that she had tears in her eyes.

“Oh God Mae, what’s wrong?” I asked, rushing over to give her a huge hug. She wrapped her arms around my small frame and held on for dear life, crying harder than before. “What’s happened, sweetie?”

“N-nothing,” she sobbed, confusing me. “He’s just so b-big.”

“What do you mean?”

“The last time I saw him he was so tiny. I never thought I’d see him get so big. He’s so grown up, too. And so polite. Oh, Reese raised him well. Oh God, that’s so weird. What are the freaking chances of that? That he ended up with Gavin…its just so weird. It must have been fate. That’s all it could be, right?”

“Mae, Mae, for God’s sake, Maebell, listen to me!”

“”Yes? Sorry,”

“It’s all right dear, but I just needed to say this,”

“Yeah?”

“What in the name of all things holy are you blathering on about? How have you ever seen Gavin when he was tiny? And what are the chances of what? What’s fate?”

“I was only twenty when I found out; there was no way I would have been able to do it by myself, but I couldn’t have done that to him,” she mumbled into my shoulder, being just about, if not more, vague than Gavin was being earlier.

“You’re still not making any sense at all Mae,”

”It’s just that this is a hard thing for me to talk about. Only a few people know about it and I don’t like to bring it up even to those who do know,”

“Well can I be one of those people?”

“Can we go sit down then?” she asked, pulling her arms back and wiping some of her tears away.

“Of course,”

So we just left her bags by the door and retreated to the couch in the living room. As we passed the hall, I dimly wondered where Ianto and Gavin were, but didn’t put any deeper thought to it. I sat down and tucked my legs under my body, a habit I’d acquired while in college from my roommate, and Mae sat opposite of me, folding her legs pretzel-like. It all reminded me of when we were young and would sneak off from the adults at family partied and talk. My brother would come with us sometimes, once he grew out of playing with the younger kids as we already had. The three of us were the closest in age to each other, with mae roughly two years younger than me and my brother over three years younger than me. All the other cousins were over six years older than me or over four years younger than Tony. So the two or three of us would escape to either outside if it was nice enough or somewhere else in the house, whichever house we happened to be in.
But those days are long gone, and whatever Mae and I were going to talk about was almost certainly nothing we would have ever talked about as kids.

“Are you ready to explain this all to me yet?” I asked, leaning towards her and placing a hand on her knee, hoping to come across as comforting.

“As long as you don’t act like a therapist while I’m telling you,”

“Don’t worry about that, hon. It’s hard for me to do that to family and friend. I promise I won’t put in any input unless you as for some,”

“Thank you so much, Jason,” she sighed before closing her eyes and taking a deep, calming breath. “Okay, here goes.”