Easter Confession

"Are you sure you want to tell your dad we're living together on Easter Sunday?" Scott chewed on the end of cigarette anxiously.

I changed lanes and drove away from the city. "Yes, he can't make a big scene in front of a large family gathering," I reassured him. Funny how he was gunning for me to tell my family all along, and when I finally decided to bite the bullet, he's wavering. Besides, I accidentally told my sister-in-law the previous day and I know my brother and her would sell me out to my father in a New York minute. It wasn't a choice anymore; it was a race to beat my brother to my father's house. I punched the gas from the outside lane.

***

I decided to test the waters with my step-mother first. Scott had just admitted to setting my vacuum cleaner on fire because he didn't know that with the Femme Fatale's Arctic fur, the bag needs to be emptied after each use. There's no way a guy would ever use a vacuum cleaner in an apartment that wasn't his, dog-hair problem or not. "Scott moved in last month," I spoke quietly.

My step-mother paused as if to add, Oh really? and then calmly and simply said, "I know."

Ahem.

"You were acting the same way your sister was acting when she did it."

"I told her that she shouldn't tell her dad today. It's a holiday," confessed Scott.

"No, today's the best day." My step-mother turned around and gestured to the twenty-odd family members huddled around the outdoor fireplace, "Too many people for him to get really angry."

As soon as I told my step-mother, it was official: everyone in my family knew about Scott and I living together with the exception of my father. I watched him cross the yard and refresh someone's drink. He grabbed a piece of ham off the platter and ate it. He had no idea and everyone else knew. I felt horrible for excluding him and he didn't deserve it; I'm not out to portray my father as the fool.

So when we were alone in the kitchen together a few minutes later, I opened my mouth.

"Scott moved in."

"Where?"

"To my apartment," I answered as flatly as he asked.

"Is his name on the lease?"

"Yes."

"I'm not happy about this. Not happy at all," he said, still unemotional.

"I know."

"I know this is what the young kids are doing these days, but I don't agree with it. I didn't agree with it when your sister did it."

"I remember."

"I'm a parent, it's my job to be judgmental."

"..."

"Why did he move in."

And this is where I should have gushed about how happy he makes me, and how we were together all the time, so much so that we really were wasting money on two rents. How serious our relationship is and that it hurts me when my father calls to talk about vacation plans and purposely excludes Scott from the conversation. But I was afraid because I angered my father, "To save money. The city is so expensive."

"Well if you wanted to save money, you should have gotten a female roommate."

I shrugged. After a couple of minutes of silence, I slid off the barstool and backed out of the kitchen. I backed out of the house.

"How did it go?" my step-sister asked.

"Not good. He's mad," I said quietly. Scott's eyebrows jumped to his hairline in both surprise and fear.

"Just give him time. He'll cool down," consoled my step-mother.

It took him a year and a wedding for him to calm down over my step-sister's live-in boyfriend. We left shortly thereafter, and to be honest, I'm still a little afraid of what may happen.

***

What I don't understand is that my mother—who thinks that appearances are everything: do everything perfectly, or else what would the neighbors think—is okay with Scott living with me more than my absentee, laid-back, beer-drinking father. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't my mother scream and cry that her friend, my elementary school principal, could find out that I'm living in sin? Shouldn't my father go with the flow?

Scott and my mother think that he's being protective of his daughter, that he doesn't want to see me taken advantage of and hurt. But my father has never shown the slightest interest one way or another towards someone I've brought home. He just didn't care. And when I did show up broken hearted, he'd leave my step-mother to it and never ask. So why does he all of a sudden care? We've become closer in the past few years, but still this is a surprise for me. Why, at the approach of my 27th birthday, does he all of a sudden have an opinion on how to live my life?