In spite of her somewhat joking promises to make sure to take care of me and nurse me back to full health, there wasn’t much Kate could do. Our tour carried on right up to Thanksgiving, arriving back in Tulsa earlier that week. There was just too much to do to get ready for the holiday, which was as massive of a celebration in the Hanson family as Christmas, if not even more so. Taking care of husbands who insisted they weren’t sick wasn’t as high up on Kate’s to do list as I knew she wished it could be.
I knew that bothered her, but it left me with time to myself and no one really monitoring what I did or didn’t do. Kate had already started her Christmas shopping, which was a process I was largely left out of, and so I spent my days at home with Shepherd, finally having the time to really get to know my son. And if I broke out some of Kate’s exercise videos while Shep was napping and she was at the mall, who was there to judge me?
Thanksgiving day itself came all too soon, and I didn’t feel prepared at all. I had dropped another three pounds, bringing me down to one thirty three, since coming home from the tour. I had a feeling the extreme dehydration had something to do with that loss, and so I wasn’t sitting back and enjoying it. I knew I had to keep working to keep the weight off, and a Hanson family Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t going to help with that at all.
Luckily, the weather that day was mild enough for the men of the family to indulge in our traditional football game while the women slaved away in the kitchen. It wasn’t the most evolved of traditions, really, and since getting married and learning how to cook, Taylor usually begged off from the game early on and joined the women anyway. That was just as well, since he was inevitably the weakest player—out of an entire field of weak players—on whichever team got stuck with him any given year. The sport was good for me, too, because I knew I needed something to offset all the calories I would be forced to eat. Even though she encouraged me to work out with her, even taking me to one of her Zumba classes, Kate also hounded me to make sure I was eating whatever healthy fad food she had cooked. She would definitely keep a close watch on me when the turkey and stuffing was passed around.
When the game finally broke up, all of us sucking so much we couldn’t even attempt to declare a winner, I headed into the pool house to take a shower and change into the khakis and button-down shirt Kate had picked out for me. The hot water was a shock to my system compared to the cool sweat that had collected on my body during the game, and I wished I could just stay in there all night. I knew I couldn’t though; it was nearly time for dinner and I didn’t want to draw any extra attention to myself by being late.
With that thought in mind, I hurried to finish showering, toweled off my hair and pulled it back into a ponytail. My shirt was a little wrinkled and didn’t want to stay tucked into the khakis that were nearly falling down my hips, but at least I had a belt to keep the pants up. With all the food that filled our house, I doubted I would be the only guy there with an untucked shirt before the night was over. I didn’t look great, but under the circumstances, it was the best I could manage.
I walked out of the bathroom and jumped a bit when I realized that I wasn’t alone. Avery was sitting on the couch, staring off into the distance.
“Hiding from the family?” I asked.
“Something like that,” she replied, giving me a hint of a smirk. Her eyes moved up and down my body and she sighed. “What about you?”
“Just getting ready to start the festivities, I guess. Wanna head back to the main house with me?”
“I think maybe we should talk first,” she said.
There was something serious in her tone, and I didn’t like that. What could we have to talk about? Avery was always good about being tuned in to my moods, but even she couldn’t tell all of my secrets, could she?
“Okay,” I replied, sitting down on the couch next to her. I didn’t want to talk, but I could tell by her tone of voice and the way she looked at me that I wasn’t going to have a choice. Maybe I didn’t want to talk, but it seemed that she did.
She continued staring off into the distance for a moment, and I started to wonder if she was going to speak at all. Maybe she expected me to start, but I had no idea what this conversation was supposed to be about. Finally, Avery looked back at me. “I’m worried about you, Zac.”
“Worried?” I echoed, furrowing my eyebrows. Why was she worried? Sure, I could think of a few reasons, but none that she could know.
“You’re so skinny lately,” she said. “You’re wasting away.”
“Please,” I replied, grabbing my stomach and pinching. It was harder than it used to be, but sitting down, I still had a small roll to help prove my point that I wasn’t all that thin.
“I can practically count your ribs from here,” Avery said, her eyes narrowing. “I’m not surprised that you don’t see it, but the rest of us do. You’re losing way too much weight, and you’ve lost it way too quickly.”
“So what are you saying?” I asked, even though it was obvious.
“I’m saying I really don’t think this is healthy,” Avery replied. “I think… I don’t know what you’re doing or how you’re doing it, so I’m not going to say—I’m not going to diagnose you here. I’m not a doctor, a psychiatrist, whatever. I just know that this doesn’t look good, Zac. It scares me. And if it scares me, and I don’t even get to spend that much time with you, then I can only imagine what everyone else sees and what they think.”
“No one else has said anything,” I replied, even though I knew it was a lie. Isaac was always making snide little comments, but I had come to accept that as proof that I was losing weight. It was annoying, yes, but I was obviously doing a good job if he thought I needed to eat more. I had come to see it as his twisted way of congratulating me on my weight loss.
“I doubt that,” Avery mumbled. “But even if they haven’t, they’re probably just too caught up in their own problems. Maybe it’s because I don’t see you every day that I can see the difference so clearly. To everyone else, it’s more gradual. But I see you here and I think back to the last time I saw you—and you were barely eating even then—and you’re so, so much skinnier. I don’t know how anyone else could miss it, but obviously they have.”
“People see what they want to see,” I replied.
“And you think that doesn’t apply to you, too?” Avery shot back. “I mean, look at you. You don’t see how scary skinny you are, how you’re disappearing in front of our eyes when you didn’t even need to lose weight to begin with, and you don’t see anyone else’s problems, either! You just see this imagined problem with yourself, and you don’t ask anyone else what they’re going through. You’re not the only one hurting here, Zac.”
“I know I’m not. I never said I was.” She was right, though. Of course she was right. And with my younger siblings, who I rarely saw now that they were growing up and starting their own lives, I knew I had lost touch even more. I knew it, but I was ashamed to hear someone put it into words.
“But you never ask anyone else how they’re doing, do you?” Avery asked. “We can all pretty clearly see how you’re doing, even if most of us are too scared to talk about it. But I bet you have no clue what’s going on in my life. We used to be so close, didn’t we? And now you have no clue.”
“Then tell me what I have no clue about,” I replied. “I’m listening. I really am.”
“Zac, I’m… I’m a lesbian.”
Her voice was so soft that I could have almost asked her to repeat herself, but I knew I had heard correctly. Statistically speaking, I supposed it wasn’t surprising. But statistics didn’t account for the fact that this was my little sister, my little Avie Baby, whose entire identity was different than what I had been lead to assume. And I had no clue. She was right. I really was clueless and stuck in my own world.
“Can you please say something?” Avery said, sounding like she was on the verge of tears.
“What should I say?” I asked. “Did you expect me to disapprove or something? Because that kind of hurts, if you did. But I just… I didn’t know. That’s all. So I’m surprised. I just hope you’re happy.”
“I’m getting there,” she replied. “And I’m sorry, I should have known you would be okay with it. I don’t give you enough credit sometimes.”
“Nobody ever does,” I replied, giving her a little smile.
Avery let out a soft laugh that sounded a little more like a sob. I reached up and wiped away the few stray tears that had started to fall down her cheeks.
“None of that,” I said. “This is Thanksgiving. We can’t go in there crying and depressed and shit. This is a happy day, a good day, right?”
“Right,” she replied. “It is a good day. I came out to one person and he didn’t hate me for it.”
I wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I could never hate you for anything, Avie Baby.”
“I could hate you for still calling me that,” she replied teasingly.
“But you know that’s what you’re always gonna be. You just need to get used to it.” Adopting a more serious look, I added, “And while I don’t hit women, any girl who breaks your heart is still going to have me to answer to.”
“I’m not sure how intimidating that really is,” she replied. “But thank you. For… everything.”
“You’re welcome. Thank you for… for trusting me, I guess. I feel kinda honored to be the first person you’ve told. And as far as everything else goes, I’m sorry that I’m worrying you. I don’t want to worry people.”
“If you eat a big dinner and a massive slice of pumpkin pie, I’ll forgive you and I won’t worry so much, at least for right now.”
For anyone else, that might have been a hard bargain. But this was Avery, who had just trusted me with something that could get her shunned by certain members of our family. I couldn’t discount that by ignoring her concerns about me, however unfounded I thought they were.
“Deal,” I said. “Just promise me we won’t lose touch again, and if you ever need to talk to anyone… about—about girlfriend problems or whatever—just let me know.”
“I will,” she replied, standing up and holding out her hand to me. “Now come on, let’s go inside while there’s still food left and before they send out the search parties.”
I laughed but took her hand and stood up. I didn’t know if I would be physically able to eat the way Avery wanted to see me eat, but for her, I was willing to try. The effort would be enough, I hoped, and I hoped that it kept everyone else off my back, too. If Avery had noticed, it was only a matter of time before everyone else started to question me, too.