after their digestive system stops producing the proper enzymes to digest animal fat and protein? And what would Mama think? Only yesterday we had lunch at my parents’ house. She made stuffed grape leaves, b’zeit, my favorite. My normally carnivorous boyfriend loved the meatless dish. He was very proud of having picked the wild tender grape leaves. We had been on a bike ride and collected three pounds of them to his loud protests. Still, I made sure he got the credit for braving mosquitoes and harvesting the delectable bounty, the nice sour kind with minimal ribs and no lobes, forming ample pentagons to best hold the plumping rice and medley of onions, tomatoes, mint, and parsley. Mama layered them in neat rows on a bed of thick-cut potato slices to absorb flavors and thicken the broth. The leaves’ acidity shone through the dish, since she made sure to cook them with less than the usual amount of fresh-squeezed lemon juice, to better suit his American palate. The uniform small wraps swaddling their heavenly juicy concoction presented as if a new unit of food. They looked like a new vegetable with white insides dotted with red and green. More deliciously, they yielded like cream under pita bread that sopped up all the zestiness they surrendered. Mama enjoys when we eat heartily, and that we did. She smiled like usual and accepted his compliments for the great spread. I don’t think she dislikes him, but she definitely does not engage him like my dad does. He appreciates his playfulness and enjoys the garden talk they have together. Both my parents know we live in and own the same house a mile down the road from them. Yet, as they enter their late seventies, they are still the masters of the closet kabuki dance. They still pretend my thirteen-year relationship is a phase I’ll outgrow. To them, I’ve always been a foolish rebellious child, who someday will eventually mature. I had hoped the highly charged and public battle for gay marriage in Minnesota would provide an opening for discussion on the matter. But, if they’re not ready, then why upset their worldview? My brother thinks it would be cruel to upset the equilibrium of the small world they have made as they try to hold on to fleeting health and security. I used to spin hypotheses about the conditions necessary for Arabs in the Muslim world to accept gays. The biggest hurdle, aside from dogmatic religion, I theorized, was that we “deviants” represented a rejection of the very idea of family. Since family cohesion held the utmost importance, it followed that when gays were able to marry, the equilibrium would be restored. Gays would no longer be these lost individual salmon that stayed away from the breeding grounds. With marriage, family would be possible again. Different clans
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