by Laura Stone
Adam blinked at that. Elder May?
“They’ve told me that if that’s the case, they’ll let you off with a warning,” Gerald continued, “but you’ll have to stay supervised for the remainder of your mission. It’s a burden on your mother and me, but…”
His father’s voice faded. Stay? Stay and act as if nothing had happened? Continue toeing his father’s line, trying to teach people doctrines and ideas that he didn’t think he believed in anymore? As for his court, Adam knew that his father would be in the room. How could he tell that group of men what had really happened? But even worse was the thought of lying about it, lying about what Brandon meant to him. How Brandon had given Adam the freedom to let himself grow, to think for himself for the first time in his whole, pitiful, controlled and mapped-out life. Brandon hadn’t hypnotized him; Brandon had set him free. He owed Brandon everything.
“… absolutely shamed your family. Your mother knows nothing about this, so you keep your trap shut. She thinks you’re just sick, contracted some weird virus or something, and your comp knocked you around.” His father gave him an appraising look. “That’s not hard to believe. Jacob—” That was Adam’s next oldest brother, six years Adam’s senior and built like their father. “—used to put you in a headlock pretty easy.” His father sniffed. “You never fought back. Should have guessed back then.”
Adam balled his fists at his sides and stared at the gap in his father’s shirt where it struggled to stretch across his expanding belly.
“Get your things; you’ll be coming back to our place, regardless. I’ll be waiting in the car.”
When they arrived at the Mission President’s house, Adam was told to wait in the hallway while Gerald made phone calls in his office. He sat on an uncomfortable straight-backed chair and awaited his fate. A glossy LDS magazine on a console table caught his eye; a stack of letters sat in a messy pile next to it. Adam absentmindedly flipped through the stack and stopped at a thin postcard with a picture of the ocean on it, taken at Llevant Beach. He tried to turn it over to see who it was from; a bit of the stamp had curled over, and, as a result, the card was stuck to another letter, a bill from the looks of it.
He ripped the letter away and read the postcard’s back. His eyes watered. He read it several times. His father’s door opened and Adam quickly shoved the postcard into his pocket.
“Well. Let’s get this over with, then. They’re ready to talk to you.”
Adam smoothed his hair and checked his tie in the hall mirror. His father took an exaggerated step away from him as he approached the French doors. “Remember what I told you. You were weak, and he overpowered you, got it?”
Adam looked up at him. His father backed farther away; worry lines creased his forehead.
“No, sir, Elder Christensen did not overpower me,” Adam said, his chin up and his shoulders square.
“It’s all right, son, this is a court of love. Heavenly Father doesn’t want you to lie to us.”
“I know,” Adam said, smiling wryly. “That’s why I’m not lying.”
“Now, look—” Gerald, President Young choked back his temper with a cough. “Everyone here understands how you can come to idolize your companion. We were all missionaries, all of us were green at one point, right?” The men all nodded, their pale, aged faces showing varying degrees of pity and shock.
“We understand that he was someone all you fellas admired,” his father continued, “We have the confessions from the others, how he was everyone’s favorite, how he hoodwinked you all into thinking he was a good, worthy man. But something went wrong. We all know you’re supposed to be obedient to your leaders, but he was wrong. You don’t have to cover for him anymore. You can tell us how he used force and no one here will judge you.”
Adam scanned the group and knew that they most certainly would judge him. But he didn’t want to lie anymore, not to himself and not to the world. “He didn’t force me to love him.”
A few of the men’s jaws dropped open. President Young looked ready to explode. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
The corner of the postcard poked Adam’s hip through his thin dress slacks. “I do. I know exactly what I’m saying. I love him, a man. The best man I’ve ever known, really. And we love each other. I willingly let him make lo—”
“That’s enough. That is enough! I will not have that sort of language in my house. Get out of this room. You are making a mockery of this court. We’ll call you in when we’ve made our decision.” President Young pointed at the door.
Adam gladly walked out. He paced in the kitchen waiting for the deliberations to end. His father’s fake-leather covered organizer was lying on the counter. His throat tightening, he flipped to the day after he and Brandon had been caught. A note was scribbled in the margin, “Home. Ex’d. No contact with A.”
An address was written under that; Adam recognized it as Brandon’s home address. He’d been sent home? Had they taken him back? He flipped forward looking for any more notes, anything that would tell him how Brandon was doing, if he was okay, if he hated—
“Elder Young?”
One of the men from the council poked his head out of the office doors. “We’re ready for you, son.”
Adam’s mind was in a haze. He drifted back into the room, knowing that whatever judgment they passed didn’t matter, not really, not now when he’d finally let himself be completely open and honest with who he was and he could let that satisfaction, that peace, act as a buffer to their consternation and piety.
The man who’d called him back in cleared his throat and began speaking in a monotonous tone; Adam recognized it as the way all the leaders in the Church gave their Sunday talks and classroom lectures. It lulled him further into a detached state. It was all so… silly. So much anger and rage, so much time and energy wasted because two men loved each other. He couldn’t help but smile.
They loved each other. They were good people who loved each other, and God is love.
“A disciplinary court is a court of love. One of the most loving things the Church can do for a person is to relieve them of the burdens of their covenants through excommunication and disfellowship. It is not done to punish but to help them. We, as your leaders, are anxious to reach you and encourage you to the righteous path of repentance. The Church has been very clear about the Law of Chastity, and that so-called gays and lesbians are violating that sacred law if they act on their sinful inclinations. They, and those acts, are subject to the discipline of the Church. This council has, through thoughtful prayer, been led by Heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost. You are to be disfellowshipped. You are still a member. You may not keep your temple recommend. You may not use any facet of your priesthood. You may not partake in the Sacrament, nor may you offer public prayers. We encourage you to continue paying a full tithe so as to not compound one sin with another…”
Adam’s gaze drifted out the window. His father’s house had a limited view of the ocean. If he focused, he could hear Brandon’s laugh the day they’d walked down to the beach that morning when all of this began and he remembered how they’d watched a dog feint and play with a couple of seagulls in the wet sand, how they’d confessed who they were to one another, how they’d trusted each other.
Brandon had bought him ice cream and held him until Adam calmed down, terrified by his own nature.
“…reinstated as a full and righteous member of the Church so long as you never engage in any form of communication with Mr. Christensen so long as he remains immersed in sin.”
The man sighed and straightened a stack of papers on his desk. “Gentlemen? Would someone care to offer a prayer? If—”
Adam interrupted, “I’m sorry, you said I can’t ever talk to Brandon again? My eternal salvation depends on this?”
The man looked affronted at the meeting not running smoothly. “Yes, that’s correct. You are never to interact wit
h that young man again. Those are the conditions that Heavenly Father has outlined.”
“Then I refuse to accept them.”
Silence fell over the room.
“What did you say?” Gerald hoarsely whispered.
“I refuse,” Adam said, turning to him. “You can’t tell me that I can’t ever speak to someone. That’s not anywhere in the scriptures. That’s not a part of repentance. Christ didn’t teach his followers to hold a grudge, what the heck? And I love him. I’m going to see him as soon as I get home.”
“Not while you live under my roof you won’t!”
Adam smiled then, the first genuine smile he’d been able to produce since this whole nightmare began. “That won’t be a problem, Dad.”
The man who delivered his verdict stood then, his hands flat against the table, his face red, filled with anger. “Then you reject this priesthood council’s decision! And by doing so, reject Christ! Excommunication is the only way to solve this matter.”
The other men in the room murmured agreement.
“Fine,” Adam said, putting his hands in his pockets; his index finger traced over the edge of the postcard. “I’ll wait outside. Tell me when I’m leaving.”
“You can say goodbye to your dorm, to your car and your family, then, because I’m not—”
He turned his back on his father, who was now visibly shaking with pent-up rage, and closed the door behind him.
* * *
Nine hours later he was sitting on a plane. His suit and tie were jammed into his carry-on bag along with all of his G’s. He was happy to find that he was comfortable in only jeans and a T-shirt, though it was odd not wearing the familiar G’s after so many months, after so many years of being taught that they were a spiritual and physical barrier from evil.
When they’d arrived at the airport, Adam’s father had shoved his passport hastily into Adam’s hand; he must have been under the impression that gay was “catching.”
“Your brother Seth will be waiting to pick you up. You’re going straight back to the house where he and Claudia are house sitting. You are not to leave the house without your brother accompanying you. You are not…”
Adam tuned him out. He had no intention of meeting Seth at the airport. His father got him to security and turned away without another word. As soon as Adam was on his own, he found a working pay phone. The person at the other end, in a voice Adam had longed to hear for months, happily agreed to accept the charges so Adam could relay his flight information.
“Have a safe flight, dear. We can’t wait to hug the stuffing out of you.”
Adam smiled at the soft, maternal voice and hung up. It was going to be expensive to speak any longer, and he’d already cost those he loved enough. All that was left was the flight back.
Now, his heart light and his face aching from the joy he couldn’t contain, with the sense of freedom soaking into every particle of his being the farther the plane carried him, he pulled out the postcard that had been re-directed to his father’s house from his old apartment in Barcelona.
Adam:
2 Sam 1:26, Jer 31:3
Call me when you leave. I’ll be there when you land.
Come home to me.
All My Love, B
He held the postcard in his hand and smiled as he looked out the window at the ocean miles below.
Epilogue
“There are, by most estimates, 5,000 kids experiencing homelessness in Utah at any given time. Roughly 42 percent of them identify as LGBT, and most come from Mormon households. This means, of the 450,000 people in Utah between the ages of 15 and 24, a projected 22,000 to 35,000 of them will experience homelessness at some point.” Chadwick Moore, ‘The Ghost Children of Mormon County,’ Advocate, April 26, 2016
“Each child should feel important. Parents need to show they are interested in what their children do and express love and concern for their children. […] The family is the most important unit in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Gospel Principles, Chapter 36, pages 209-210, 211
“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” 1 John 4:7
“Oh my gosh, Mom,” Brandon said, pulling on the back of his mother’s rolling office chair. “Get off the Internet.”
“But, honey,” she said trying to scoot forward, but failing, “there are boys and girls just like you talking about how they’re doing now.”
“At least get off Reddit.” Brandon let go of her chair and laughed softly as she pulled herself forward to her desk.
“Like this young lady here. Fell in love on her mission while she was in France, came out to her family and… Oh.”
Sandra Christensen closed the lid to her laptop.
“Maybe not so much like me?” Brandon asked.
Sandra fell back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling. “I just can’t understand how many kids have been…” She sighed. “Well, yes, I can. I just can’t understand how so many parents can choose the Church over their babies.”
Brandon leaned down, kissed the top of his mom’s hair and rest his cheek. He could smell her perfume, the same scent she’d worn his entire life, and it made his heart ache with how lucky he felt. He’d been terrified on that long plane ride back to the United States, but at his long layover in Chicago, he decided to get up and walk around before the plane took off again. He found his mom and dad speaking fervently with the gate attendant.
“Sandra! Bob!” he called out, remembering his mother’s instructions never to call out “Mom” in a crowded room because fifteen women would look up.
“There he is!” his mother cried, and Brandon’s soul sank at the sight of tear tracks on her face. “Come here, come here,” she said, pulling him into her tiny but fierce embrace.
Then his dad was there wrapping his considerable arms around them both, kissing Brandon’s head and saying, “We got you. We got you, kid; it’s okay.”
Brandon hadn’t been able to hold back the choked sobs that had been threatening to pour out of him ever since he was shoved, shoeless and terrified, into the back of a car and told he would never see Adam again.
“I know you hate me. I know it.”
“What?” Sandra asked. She grabbed Brandon’s face in her hands, her thumbs smoothing away the tears he couldn’t help at the sight of his folks, and said, “Now you listen to me, Brandon Marshall Christensen. You are my son. And there is nothing you could do to make me hate you, do you hear me?”
He nodded, still unsure.
She pulled him back to her; her arms wrapped like a vise around his waist; her cheek pressed against his belly, tiny and warm and… and there.
The gate attendant cleared her throat. “Um, I see you found each other. Why don’t we just let the three of you get back on the plane before regular boarding?”
“Thank you,” Bob said, guiding them to the gangplank with a hand on their backs.
It was unreal. They even had seats on either side of him for the final leg to California. “What are you two doing here? I’ll be in Sacramento in a few hours. Wait, how could you afford this?” His family was not well-off. Plane trips had been few and far between in Brandon’s life.
“Sister Johnson?” Sandra prompted. “Up the street? Mark’s mother?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Stewardess. She put us on standby so we could get here.”
Brandon covered his face with his hands. “Oh, my gosh. Does everyone know?”
“Know what?” Sandra asked. “We called her and said there was a problem, you had to come home, and she took care of the rest. She sends her love, by the way.”
“Mom,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper as a stewardess walked past for her pre-boarding check. “Everyone is going to know, and they’re going to just hate me. They’re going
to deny you and Dad callings and—”
“Don’t you worry about that, Brandon,” Bob said, raising the arm rest dividing their seats to pat his son’s knee. “There is nothing more important than family. Haven’t we always been taught that ‘Family is Forever’?” His dad’s smile twisted sadly at the Church’s mantra. “Now, you listen to me here.” He twisted in his seat and took Brandon’s hand in his, a hand that always felt so strong, had always made Brandon feel safe and cared for, as if his dad could do anything, could fix anything. “Son,” and his voice broke. “Your mother and I have known you were… were gay for years.”
Brandon made a noise of protest, but Bob barreled on.
“We’ve known since middle school, and we’ve still loved you. Do you understand?” He ruffled Brandon’s hair and smiled softly. “Your brothers and sisters know, and they love you. We are a family, and we’re going to be a family forever. Isn’t that what we promised when your mother and I were sealed in the temple? What did I tell you about making promises?”
“That you better mean them,” Brandon replied.
“Exactly. You think I don’t mean what I say?”
“Honey,” his mother said, pulling on him so he could see her tanned, gently-lined face. She had more grey in her close-cropped hair than he remembered, more lines around her eyes, but they were the same kindly brown they’d always been, “We’re just so happy you’re coming home.” Her voice wobbled as she said, “We missed you.”
He put his face against his mom’s neck, and the familiar smell of her perfume opened the floodgates. His dad rubbed his back as he cried and cried.
Now, he was back in his overcrowded home, and his mom was gearing up for one of her rants. It was adorable. For a woman barely over five feet tall, she had the energy of at least six people.
“Mom,” Brandon said, spinning her chair around again. He and his brothers loved how portable she was. She shot him her best put-upon face.
“What?”
“Adam got a letter today. From someone in his family,” he said.
“Oh? Oh! Well. Is it good?”