The Truth As We Know It

Celia had just finished prepping meals for the week when she first heard the sound. She was stacking entrees in the fridge for the coming week. A mountain of dishes slid into the sink. She was wearing her apron, the one she always wore, over her standard T-shirt and jeans. She’d pulled her hair into a ponytail leaving a pouf of bangs on her forehead, the same style she’d worn since childhood. She was surveying the work yet to be done when she heard the noise from the living room.

The house should have been silent, save her pan rattling in the kitchen and her murder mystery podcast. One show had ended before the next automatically began as she looked around the kitchen. In that momentary void, she distinctly heard a noise. She paused the podcast and walked in the sound’s direction but struggled to see into the living room. A storm had been gathering all morning. Clouds half-enshrouded the sun, throwing long and strange shadows across the unlit room.

“Hello?” she called into the space. She heard a sniffle and caught a movement just out of the corner of her eye. “Theo?” she said, and then she saw her son, pushing his way into the corner of the living room by the large picture window as if he hoped to disappear into the wallpaper or sink into the carpet.

Celia loved him for all of his eccentricities, but she couldn’t protect him from his peers’ rejection. At eleven years old—almost twelve now—he was pudgy. Shorter than even the smallest girls in his class, he emanated an irresistible feminine beauty. His hair was midnight black and his skin was the olive tone of Celia’s family. His chocolate eyes were surrounded by thick, long eyelashes. He lived in his own world, too. He danced as he walked to music no one else could hear. When he concentrated hard, he spoke aloud to people who were not there, and he carried his journal with him everywhere he went. At school, they called him a variety of names, all of which questioned his sexuality, made fun of his size, and were intended to humiliate him. None of that, however, explained why he was now shrinking into the corner of the living room.

“What’s wrong, hon?” Celia lowered herself to her knees to look him in the eye. His thin T-shirt was filthy. Tears and snot streaked