I pondered picking up Johann’s bacon and throwing it at my father’s head. “Really. My husband wouldn’t have been hurt if I’d listened to you.”
“He might have been, but he wouldn’t be your husband. You would not be sitting here, begging me like a child for a drug you could have beendeveloping.” My father stared at me with steely blue eyes. “Isn’t it funny how all this comes around, Sebastian? How you are here, now, pleading for what you turned your back upon? How your immoral behavior has brought you to this pass?”
I have never actually seen red before those words fell out of my father’s face. I’d expected anger when I came here. An argument was always going to happen. What I had not planned on was a murderous rage and visions of shoving my father’s head through a plate glass window. Or breaking a china coffee service over his skull.
“Let’s talk about immoral behavior,” I said, my voice more even and quiet than I expected. Rage had become the eye of the hurricane, calm surrounded by a tempest of fury. “Is my loving, committed, monogamous relationship with a man somehowmore immoralthan denying a man life-saving treatment because you don’t approve of his sexuality?”
“What you are doing is unnatural, and-”
“I. Am not. Finished,” I interrupted. “I am not evencloseto finished. Is denying a man life-saving treatment because you are more concerned aboutyour moneythan ahuman lifesomehow more moral than my love for another man? How isyour bank accountmore important thanhuman life? I didn’t ask for numbers on how many people have died because you are more concerned with your patent than wounded soldiers’ lives, but I’m going to tell you, that is a non-zero amount. And you are really going to sit here and tell me my husband is dying because I am immoral. If I’m immoral, it’s because immorality is genetic, and I amyourgoddamned son.”
Blood had crept into my father’s complexion as I dressed him down. Apparently, I had also inherited his temper, since he matched my anger with his own. “You will not speak to me that way.”
“It’s about time someone did.”
“You come here, asking for my help, and then you insult me. Is this the man I raised?” he snarled. “You would not understand this, Sebastian, but I am running a business. Intellectual property must beprotected. If they had been more careful, they would still have the samples I gave them,for free, to save your- To save this person’s life. They were not, and now, people suffer for it. We save lives every day, so you do not get to tell me I do not value human life.”
I snorted. “You’re not in this to save lives, Dad. You’re in this to make money.This isn’t altruism, it’sgreed, and you don’t get to pretend otherwise. Especially not while you preach about morality as you try, over and over again, to force your own ideals down my throat. Guess what? I am attracted to men. I havealwaysbeen attracted to men. I am bisexual, and as it happens, I married someone my own gender. I love him with all my heart. You want to murder him for that.”
“This is not murder, Sebastian. Stop being dramatic.”
“Then what is it? What name would you put on ‘I am denying life-saving treatment to someone because I don’t like what they do with their penis’? BecauseIcall that murder.” I folded my arms across my chest.
It is possible that no one in the history of ever had said the wordpenisat my father’s breakfast table. He wanted to call lightning down on my head and smite me, by the look of it, and barring that, he would try for laser eyebeams to burn me where I sat. “You are not my son any longer,” he said through gritted teeth. “And I will not give the fruits of my company’s labor to a vulgar stranger who forces his way into my house.”
“Yes, he is,” my mother said, sipping her tea with a tremendous serenity. “And yes. You will.”
Everyone’s heads swiveled to stare at her. “Linde, I will not-” my father began.
A swift, horizontal swipe of my mother’s hand cut him off. “Enough, Werner. This has reached a bridge I will not cross. You will give him the medicine he asks for. Unless you would like to test the strength of your prenuptial agreement?”
Holy shit.
Years ago, when my father issued his ultimatum for me to deny my sexuality, apologize, and fall in line, my mother sat silent and demurred to his will. Shealwaysdeferred to him, and never once spoke out against his directives. I have never heard her contradict him, let alone threaten him with a divorce.
She never said the wordsabusive husband. No one in my family would ever think to anger my father with even the implication. And maybe the absolute refusal to look toward that accusation was the answer to a question none of us dared to ask.
Even though she’d been the one who sent messages to come home, to apologize and mend fences, or to say now and then that she missed seeing me, I did not expect her to defy him until the universe ended in heat death. I’d come in prepared to threaten a public scandal. Leak information that Van Horn had refused treatment to a soldier, complete with interviews and thrown tantrums. I had not prepared to appeal to my silent mother.
She set her teacup down with exaggerated care. “Sebastian, you are my son. I carried you. I loved you. And I had so many dreams for you. I envisioned seeing you there in the Van Horn laboratory, doing the family’s work and pioneering medicines that would change so many lives. I saw you in a tuxedo, tears in your eyes as your bride walked to you down the aisle. I looked forward to the days you worked with your brother, side by side, and I could think, ‘There. Those are my boys. Look what they have done together. Look what we have done as a family.’”
Silk rippled as she shook her head. “But those weremydreams, not yours. They have never beenyourdreams, have they?”
I wetted my lips. “No. I’m sorry.”
“So am I. But I’m not sorry foryou. I’m sorry forme. For the woman who somehow thought that if she hoped hard enough, if she averted her eyes and believed that a firm hand would turn you to the ‘right’ path, you would come around to give her what she wanted.” A glance at my father indicated whom that firm hand belonged to. “I was not the mother I should have been. I should never have tried to force you into the mold of my expectations. I should have watched you grow and delighted in your success wherever you bloomed.”
Waves of emotions crashed through me. Too many to sort out, let alone put names to. Abject shock? Surprise? Pain, pride, anger, validation, relief, affection? These, and so many more, tumbling around and leaving my eyes moist in their wake. Words refused to form in the maelstrom of feelings.
“I don’t know how I feel about your marriage. I need to- I need to sit with it a while. That is on me.” A soft smile lit her face. “But I can see that you love him. For that, and for all I havenotdone, I will do this. Save him. Take the medicine, and heal him, Sebastian. Then tell me you will introduce me to him, and share with me the story of what I have missed while you were gone.”
My father’s fist slammed on the table. “No. I will not stand for this, Linde. You have no authority to give him stock from the lab.”
“I will when my lawyer and yours sit down, and I take a controlling interest in Van Horn Biologics in the divorce,” my mother said, still placid, and picked up her tea again. “If you think I am bluffing, Werner, you should probably think again.”
Johann had remained silent throughout this exchange, seemingly engrossed in his phone. We hadn’t paid much attention to his typing at the screen, or the still-blank, neutral expression on his face. As my father started to say again that he wouldn’t give over the Trigeneris, Johann rose, set his napkin on the table, and started out of the room.
“Johann!” my father barked. “Where are you going?”