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Maggie Tozier figured that she was a simple woman.
She enjoyed long jogs in brisk fall air, taking steaming bubble baths after a long day of work, and when her son brought home his new boyfriend for the first time, Maggie wanted to ensure that her home was in perfect condition.
This process wasn’t necessarily simple – when Richie had initially called her to ask if she and his father would be interested in meeting Richie’s new special someone, Maggie had essentially dropped the phone right there and started her deep cleaning routine.
That had been two weeks ago.
Her husband, Went, had told her repeatedly that she was overdoing it, but Maggie disagreed emphatically. It wasn't every day that Richie brought somebody home, after all. It especially wasn't every day that he brought home a boy – and his childhood best friend, no less.
It was extremely strange, though – at first, when Richie had said the words "Eddie" and “from Derry” in the same sentence, Maggie couldn't put a face to the name. She'd absently worried that she was perhaps getting early onset dementia or had hit her head and lost her memory, but when she had asked Went about it, he hadn't remembered the boy either.
With a start, she realized how little that she'd actually recalled about her son's childhood. She knew that he was always making those silly voices and playing at the arcade (she would sometimes lecture Richie that those games would make his brain rot, but she didn't think that she would have ever actually forbid him from playing) but the specifics were a blur. Somewhere though, fuzzy and indistinct in the back corner of her mind, she finally remembered that Richie actually had quite a number of friends.
Or perhaps, it wasn’t that she remembered his friends specifically, but she remembered the relief that she'd felt upon learning that Richie had managed to make any friends at all. Maggie had spent some sleepless nights when Richie was young worrying if he would ever fit in – or if he would have to eat lunch alone in a bathroom stall and spend Friday nights in his room. Richie had always been a lot to manage, she'd reasoned, and what if he had never found anybody who'd wanted to manage him?
Evidently he must have, Maggie thought, as she sifted through a dusty box of her son's old things that had been long forgotten in the attic. Among them was a photo, black and white and crinkled, of Richie and his friends. He was smiling, more genuinely than she had ever remembered seeing him. All of the kids were.
At least he'd seemed happy.
Maggie wanted to make sure that tonight was happy for him, too. Eddie wasn't the first person that Richie had brought home to meet them, but everybody who had come before him were women. Maggie had supposed that meant that they didn't count.
That was why everything had to be perfect. The boys were set to arrive in less than half an hour, and while the house was spotless, dinner wasn't anywhere near finished.
Even more infuriatingly, her husband didn’t seem to fully grasp the gravity of what may very well have been the most important meal that they had ever hosted.
When Maggie expressed her anxiety, Went flashed her a slightly sympathetic smile. "Sweetheart, everything is going to be fine. If anything's going to ruin the night, it'll be when we have to take you to the hospital with an ulcer."
Maggie wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a joke, but she was decidedly unamused. "Maybe you just don't understand what a big deal this is –"
"I understand what a big deal –"
"But you really don't," Maggie laughed humorlessly. "Went, it's like... it's like everything that we knew about our son – everything we'd assumed that he would grow up to do or to be – everything was just wrong."
"I mean, not everything," Went said with a smirk. "We knew that he wasn't going to get a job as a professional ventriloquist.”
Maggie inhaled a shaky breath. "It's not funny. How didn't we know? I mean, how did I not know?"
"Mags, I think you're being too hard on yourself," Went said. "It's not like Richie’s been holding a grudge against us for his entire life just because we didn't know he was gay. I mean, how the hell were we supposed to know something like that?"
Went was right: One thing that Maggie had remembered about Richie as a boy was the way that he would always talk about girls. It would usually happen when he was at home, behind closed doors and giggling with his friends. Crude expressions of things like That chick has awesome tits! or I’d totally bang our science teacher, she’s super hot had actually made Maggie somewhat worried that their son would turn out to be the kind of man who didn’t respect women.
It was an empty fear, evidently. She’d figured now that those things that Richie had been saying were more performative than anything that he had really been feeling. This was a relatively new concept to Maggie – a few days ago, she’d read some stories on the internet about men who had come out of the closet later in life, and many of them had said that they would often pretend that they were straight in casual interactions so that people wouldn’t notice that they were different.
One of the stories was about a man who had known that he was gay for his entire life, yet still tried to marry a woman and have children with her. Only after the kids had grown up did he have the courage to leave his wife and embrace who he truly was. Maggie had read that story three times.
She didn’t want to think that Richie had to spend his entire life pretending.
She shook her head, realizing that her anxiety may have been getting the better of her. “Honey, you’re right, I just – “
In that moment the doorbell rang, interrupting her train of thought.
Maggie jumped as though she had just put her hand on a burning flame, and she rushed to the door. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered – they were far earlier than she had been expecting them.
Went got up and followed her. He put a reassuring arm around her shoulders before she’d opened door and said, “It’ll be fine.”
Maggie figured at that moment, they must have looked like the perfect picture: her wide and distressed smile balanced out by Went’s calming grin. That was what you’d needed in a relationship, Maggie thought: a steady force to hold you into place when you were feeling particularly crazy.
As she’d opened the door, she and Went had caught the last few seconds of what sounded like bickering.
“—but if you don’t then you’ll never know.”
“Yeah, and some fucking things are better left –“
“Mr. and Mrs. Tozier!” Eddie interrupted, his smile looking nearly as large and artificial as Maggie’s had.
“Boys,” Went said warmly, stepping aside so that their guests could cross the threshold. “We’re so glad that you could make it.”
“You’re early,” Maggie added, trying not to sound too tense.
“Sorry mom, Eddie didn’t—I mean, we didn’t,” Richie amended when Eddie gave him a small glare, “want to risk getting caught in traffic on the way down, so we decided to leave early.”
For a moment, Maggie was almost at a loss for words; she was shocked by how much that the two of them had sounded like a real couple.
When Richie had come out to them, Maggie tried to be as supportive as possible. She had made sure to reassure Richie that she still loved him, she’d watched a Netflix special about the struggles that gay youth faced during high school, and she even ordered a rainbow bumper sticker to put on her car.
It wasn’t until now, though, that the reality had actually sunken in: standing in front of her was her son and her son’s boyfriend.
She felt ashamed to admit that she wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that.
Maggie compensated by making a concerted effort to be as hospitable as possible.
“Well, dinner isn’t ready,” she said, her cheeks starting to hurt from smiling so aggressively. “But sit down. Eddie, could I get you anything to drink?”
“You’re not going to offer me anything, mom?” Richie said, and Maggie was almost certain that he was joking.
“Eddie’s our guest,” she asserted anyway. “What do you think, Eddie? We have soda, milk, water, juice – whatever you’d like.”
Eddie thought this over for a moment before saying, “Maybe I – “
“Or better yet,” Maggie said quickly, accidentally cutting him off. “Maybe you could help me with dinner! I still need to chop some vegetables to go along with the roast beef I’ve prepared.”
Eddie looked vaguely uneasy – or intimidated, maybe – and Richie spoke up. “We just got here and you’re already putting us to work?”
“I just thought that this could be a good chance to help me get to know Eddie better,” Maggie said, a bit too sweetly. “I remember the two of you playing as kids, but I’m sure so much has changed since then. What do you say, Eddie?”
Eddie nodded after a moment. “Of course, Mrs. Tozier. I’d love to help out.”
That was something distinct that Maggie had remembered about Eddie: he was polite. Almost too polite for his own good, she’d thought. As a child, he had never been able to turn Maggie down when she had offered him something to eat, and never once missed a single “please” or “thank you” whenever he had to ask her for something.
She had thought he was a sweet boy and recalled telling Richie that he should try to be a bit more like Eddie. The two of them had contrasted so greatly when they were around her; Eddie was quiet and mild-mannered, and Richie was the same as he always had been – with his loud voices and echoing laughs, he tended to be almost on the verge of rude. It wasn’t until the boys would leave the house, in the split second before the door would close all of the way, that Maggie would see Eddie would turn up his own volume and match Richie’s energy.
Maybe they were more alike than she’d realized.
Minutes later, Went had led Richie off into the garage to show him the car that he had been working on (despite Richie’s protests of When have I ever cared about cars? This isn’t some sort of last ditch effort at conversion therapy, is it?) and Maggie brought Eddie into the kitchen with her, handing him a knife, a few carrots, and a cutting board.
Eddie was doing a surprisingly good job. His cuts were precise and even, and he didn’t appear as though he was going to stab himself like she’d thought that Richie or even Went may have if she had handed them a knife.
Maggie had a fleeting thought – Gay men are supposed to be good at cooking, aren’t they? Is that because they don’t have a wife to do it for them? – but immediately chided herself for being both sexist and homophobic in one fell swoop. She thought that it may take a bit longer to fully unlearn the offensive things that she’d seen reinforced for her entire life. Ever since Richie had come out to them, she had been trying to fix that problem.
She looked over at Eddie again, who was fixated on the work that he was doing, and saw him for the first time as what he was – not as the polite little boy that Richie had invited over to hang out with as kids, but as the man that her son had fallen in love with.
Maggie thought that she needed to be trying just a bit harder.
“You’re doing a great job, Eddie. Thank you for helping me out,” Maggie smiled warmly, starting to chop a stalk of celery. “I really appreciate it.”
Eddie’s cheeks turned slightly pink, and only then did Maggie notice that he had a long, white scar lining his left cheek. She was curious about it, but had thought better of asking about where it had come from.
“Thank you, Mrs. Tozier,” he said. “I actually really enjoy cooking. I learned how to do it back when I was, um –” he cut himself off sharply and finished with, “before.”
“Before you and Richie started dating?” Maggie asked.
“Yeah,” Eddie said, looking slightly uncomfortable. “In my last relationship. My, uh – they didn’t like to cook very much, so I took most of it on. It’s very… relaxing.”
Maggie thought that Eddie looked just about anything but relaxed, but she didn’t want to push her luck by asking about any of Eddie’s ex-boyfriends when they were finally starting to talk.
“That’s really great that you were able to do that,” Maggie said. “The best kinds of relationships are the ones where the both of you complement each other.”
Eddie gave her a small smile, looking sardonic. “I guess that’s one of the reasons why we didn’t work out.”
Maggie hesitated, letting the silence between them hang in the air for a moment. There was a question on her mind that she had been wondering for the past two weeks, but she wasn’t entirely sure how to ask it.
She’d finally settled on, “Eddie, out of curiosity – and you don’t have to answer this if you don’t feel comfortable – but what was it that made you and Richie decide to… pursue a relationship all of these years later?”
Maggie was worried that the question may have made Eddie even more uneasy, but he’d actually looked to be slightly relieved. The tension in Eddie’s shoulders seemed to lessen a bit, and he no longer looked as though he was about to jump out of his skin.
“It’s kind of hard to explain,” Eddie said softly, his cheeks still flushed. “It’s a really long story, but a few months ago, a group of us who were friends as kids kind of – uh, got together. Like to hang out?”
As soon as the words had left Eddie’s mouth, long-buried memories arose in Maggie’s mind. A few names – Bill, Stanley, Beverly – came to her, and she’d thought of the photo that she’d found along with Richie’s old things. She couldn’t believe that Richie had somehow retained all of his old friends from middle school.
Eddie continued, “It had been such a long time, and none of us had really known if we were still going to get along, but once we had all gotten together it felt like no time had passed.” He shook his head slightly, smiling to himself. “It was especially like that for Richie and me, I think.”
Suddenly, Maggie thought that she may be the one who’d felt uncomfortable. There was something in Eddie’s expression that made her feel as though she was intruding in on a memory that wasn’t meant for her to hear. She hesitantly asked, “So did the two of you have feelings for each other ever since you were kids?”
It was another thing that Richie had felt as though he’d had to hide from her. Another secret, another lie, another performance to make her happy. Maggie had felt nauseated at the realization.
Eddie said, “I’m not sure. I think that – I mean, looking back, I know that I must have, at least.” He scratched at his cheek along the line of his scar. “I just don’t think that was able to understand what I had been feeling back then.”
Maggie nodded slowly. “But you two are happy together now, right?”
Eddie grinned back at her, looking like he may have been about to crack a joke. If it had been her son standing in front of him instead of Maggie, she had thought that Eddie may have said something silly in response.
But to her, Eddie had only said, “Yes, Mrs. Tozier. We’re really happy.”
Maggie wasn’t entirely sure how to respond. She knew that she should say something – at least a passive-sounding Good or I’m so happy for you both. She couldn’t help thinking, though, how many more years of happiness that the two of them could have shared together if she had been able to realize somehow all of the things that her son had been thinking and feeling as a boy.
If Maggie had known that Richie was gay when he was a teenager, would he and Eddie be married by now? Would he, at the very least, not have had to spend his entire adult life up to this point in hiding?
A dark thought had occurred to her in that moment: all of the pain that Richie had to suffer may have been entirely her fault.
They finished chopping the vegetables in silence. Maggie thought that she would have felt bad for not making small talk, but Eddie seemed to be relieved that he wasn’t being interrogated anymore.
She put the vegetables in the oven along with her roast soon after that, and she and Eddie rejoined Richie and Went in the living room. They’d finished with their mechanical work and were lounging lazily on the couches opposite of each other.
“You guys will never believe all of the shi – stuff I learned about carbonators,” Richie announced as they entered into the room.
“Carburetors,” Went corrected with a smirk. “Can you believe that this one has been taking his car to some sort of fancy mechanic in LA to get his oil changed? He may as well have just said that I’ve failed him as a father.”
“I don’t take the car there anymore,” Richie said, and pointed to Eddie. “He’s my mechanic now.”
“Eddie, you know about cars?” Maggie asked. She wasn’t so sure why she was surprised; it shouldn’t have been beyond the realm of her imagination that a man would know how to cook and how to fix a car. She reminded herself that the two things didn’t have to be mutually exclusive.
“It’s just a bit of an interest of mine,” Eddie muttered with a smile, looking somewhat embarrassed. “I don’t know that much about them, though.”
“He’s just being humble,” Richie said with a smirk. “Seriously, sometimes we’ll be out for dinner or something and he’ll point out a car and be like That one is a Hyundai Odyssey, year 1985 in the elusive off-white chrome color. There are only 16 of them in the entire country.”
Maggie was impressed—Richie’s impression of Eddie sounded spot on. She wondered how long that he had been working on it.
“I do not sound like that,” Eddie laughed. “Also, that is so not a type of car.”
“But you would know!” Richie grinned.
It was sweet, Maggie thought, watching Richie and Eddie. Things had seemed so natural between the two of them.
“I wish I’d known that you were such a pro, Eddie,” Went said teasingly. “You probably would have been able to help me much more than Richie was able to.”
They chatted for a little while longer like this, and Maggie was relieved by how comfortable it felt. Maggie remembered how, when Eddie was a boy, he would stay at their house for dinner all the time. The thought was almost nostalgic, but they were doing it all over again now – only thirty years later.
Soon enough, the smell of the roast had started seeping in from the kitchen, and more than ever, Maggie felt weighed down by guilt. How many family dinners could they all have had together if she had been just a bit more supportive of Richie over the years?
As she looked across the room at her son, she almost couldn’t bear it.
“Richie, honey,” she asked softly, knowing that she desperately needed to speak with him. “Do you think you could give me a hand checking on the roast?”
Richie’s eyebrows furrowed. “Give you a hand… checking on the roast? What makes you think I’d be able to help with that?”
“You helped me cook when you were little,” Maggie insisted.
Richie got up, following her into the kitchen. “I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell that to too many people. It doesn’t vibe very well with the Detached Loser branding that I’ve been cultivating all of these years.”
Maggie thought that if this were one of Richie’s standup routines, the audience would erupt into laughter at that punchline.
But Maggie wasn’t laughing.
As they entered the kitchen, Maggie started with, “I’m really glad that you brought Eddie to meet us. Your father and I both are.”
“I mean, you’ve met him before,” Richie said slowly. He looked slightly taken aback, as though he wasn’t expecting this line of conversation.
“I know, but – well it’s been a long time. And when the two of you were kids, things were…” Maggie paused for a moment before deciding on, “different between the two of you.”
Richie looked at her strangely. “I guess so.”
“Unless it wasn’t,” Maggie amended. “Unless – you had feelings for him back then too?”
“What is this, twenty questions?” Richie asked defensively. “What does it matter to you if I had feelings for him as a kid?”
“It doesn’t,” Maggie said quickly. “It doesn’t, sweetie, I just – was curious, I guess.”
They stood there in a slightly awkward silence. It wasn’t until Maggie looked over at Richie again that she noticed that he seemed to be deep in thought.
“Honey, are you alright?” she asked.
Richie only glanced at her briefly before saying, “Actually, do you think that I can maybe… ask you something?”
Something in his voice sounded uncharacteristically vulnerable. Even when Richie had come out to them, he had done so in such a way that Maggie had thought was incredibly fitting for his personality. He had been sarcastic and defiant – it was almost like he had been challenging them to react poorly just so he would have the chance to use one of the one-liners that he’d inevitably thought up on the drive to see them. That was Richie as Maggie had known him.
The boy standing in front of her now – the man, she reminded herself – looked completely different. He appeared nervous in a way that Maggie hadn’t remembered seeing him since he was very young.
“Of course. Why don’t we sit down,” Maggie suggested lightly. She patted Richie’s shoulder comfortingly as she gestured to the kitchen table.
He shifted uncomfortably, but Maggie wasn’t sure if it was because of the physical contact or what he was about to tell her. After a moment, he said, “Listen, this is really fu—it’s really stupid.”
Maggie didn’t think that she was in the position to chide her middle-aged son for swearing, so she simply nodded. “You can tell me anything.”
As the words left her mouth, Maggie felt herself nearly cringe. How many times had she said that to Richie as he was growing up? How many times had she actually meant it? Had Richie ever actually believed her when she’d said it? Telling your mother anything was all fine and good when it had to do with getting a bad grade on a test or into a fender bender, but there were some things that she thought could likely never apply to that sentiment.
She wondered if Richie had been laughing to himself all of those years, thinking God, what if I told her? I bet I could make her regret ever offering such a ridiculous thing.
“It’s stupid,” Richie continued, voice sounding strangely weak. “I wouldn’t even be saying anything if Eddie hadn’t convinced me that I should. I know that it’s a dumb idea to like, you know, press this sort of thing.” He frowned, and fiddled with the hem of his shirt – a nervous habit that he’d had since he was a boy. “I mean, getting a lukewarm response from your parents after dropping the bomb on them that you’ve been gay for forty years has got to be the best you could hope for.”
Maggie said nothing, just stared back at him widely.
Richie inhaled. “It’s just that—this is weird, right? Like, it’s really weird for you guys that I’m bringing a guy home, isn’t it?”
“We love Eddie,” Maggie said immediately, because it was true. Ever since he was young, Eddie had been a delight to have around, and now he was even more so.
“That’s not what I was asking,” Richie said, uncomfortably quiet. “I mean it. Are you guys actually okay with this?”
Maggie wasn’t entirely sure how to respond. She hadn’t wanted to leave room for any doubt in Richie’s mind that she loved and supported him no matter what – she assumed that he’d had enough of that growing up.
But Richie was perceptive. He always had been as a kid – had always been able to tell whenever she and Went had gotten into an argument and how to make her feel better. Maggie figured that must have been the kind of thing that stuck around with you throughout your life.
She didn’t want to lie to Richie and tell him that absolutely everything was fine. She knew that he would be able to see right through her.
She instead opted to tell him about something of which she was completely certain.
“Richie,” she murmured. “Did I ever tell you about the day that you were born?”
Richie shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans self-consciously. “No, but I have a feeling that you’re about to.”
Maggie continued anyway. “When you were born – it was like I could have never imagined that something could change my life so drastically. Your father and I had wanted a baby for such a long time, but when I was finally pregnant with you, I wasn’t completely sure what to make of it.”
She gave Richie a genuine smile. “I don’t think that I’ve ever told you this, but I was actually hoping for a girl. In my mind, girls were something that I had already known – something that I could understand. I thought that maybe, if I’d had a baby girl, then I wouldn’t have to worry about making mistakes that would hurt her.”
Richie laughed quietly – at which part, Maggie wasn’t sure – but he said nothing.
“I wanted a girl,” she repeated. “All throughout my pregnancy I hoped that the doctors had somehow all gotten my ultrasounds wrong. There was a part of me that was almost dreading my due date. But then a funny thing happened,” Maggie said softly, and reached out to grab Richie’s hand. She made sure that he was looking at her as she said, “Richie, when you were born – when I saw you for the first time and I held you in my arms – I’ve never known love like that.”
“You don’t have to do this, Mom,” Richie mumbled, breaking eye contact and staring at the floor. “Forget I said anything, really. It’s not important.”
“But it is,” Maggie asserted. “You need to hear this. I know now that it was kind of foolish to hope so strongly for a girl. It doesn’t matter what kind of child you have; parents are going to make mistakes. We’re not perfect – far from it, actually. And we do things that hurt our children,” Maggie said. She was trying to keep her voice steady, but it was getting difficult.
“Mom, I’m fine,” Richie said quietly. “You didn’t, like, ruin me or anything. This is just how I am.”
In that moment, Maggie thought of every church service that she’d dragged Richie to – every time that she had asked him if there were any girls that he’d liked at school. She thought of each instance that she had seen Richie and Eddie playing together as children, sitting perhaps an inch too close. She’d done nothing then, not thinking anything of it – and if she had thought anything of it, she’d convinced herself that she was being ridiculous. She remembered the time that she was cleaning out Richie’s backpack and found a crumpled up piece of paper at the bottom of it that had the word “fag” written on it, and she felt a sickness settle in her stomach – not out of worry for her son, but out of shame.
She thought of how, despite everything, her son was still standing before her now. He had made a life for himself with the man that he loved, and he was trying his best not to be afraid anymore.
“Of course I didn’t ruin you, Richie,” Maggie said. “There’s nothing wrong with who you are.”
“Really – nothing at all? You’re not even upset that I didn’t become an accountant or an office drone or something like that?” Richie was joking, but his eyes looked red.
Maggie squeezed his hand. “I couldn’t possibly be any prouder of you.”
Richie let out a breath that sounded something like a laugh, and then covered his face with his hands. It looked exactly like he had used to when he was a boy. Maggie wasn’t sure if he was crying, but regardless she moved to sit even closer next to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
Maggie didn’t think that she would ever get used to how strange that it was that Richie was bigger than her now. He felt strong sitting next to her, strikingly adult, even as Maggie sat there comforting him.
Perhaps somehow, when Richie was on his own, Maggie had been able to convince herself that he still wasn’t fully grown up – that maybe, there was some part of him that was simply still at college for the semester and would be back home for Christmas break. Now, after seeing him with Eddie, the reality washed over her.
Richie had an incredibly successful career doing what he loved, a great group of friends, and a boyfriend who looked at him like he was the sun.
Maggie thought that she and Went had raised one hell of a boy.
A minute later, Richie inhaled a sharp breath and withdrew his hands, his eyes possibly looking slightly glossy. “Well, wasn’t that a Full House moment.”
“You loved that show,” Maggie said. “I always used to catch you watching it after you got home from school.”
“Okay, fine,” Richie smirked and let out an airy laugh. “But only because Uncle Jesse was hot.”
Maggie smiled at that and touched Richie’s cheek gently, looking into his eyes. “You know that I love you, right?”
It was something that Richie would have typically responded to with a joke, but this time he had only said, “I love you too, Mom.”
The timer on the stove beeped just a few moments later, and Maggie sent Richie back to the living room as she put the finishing touches on their dinner.
As they all gathered into the dining room to eat, Maggie felt overcome with a tender happiness as she looked at her family all sitting there together.
Parents, as she’d told Richie just a few minutes earlier, made mistakes all of the time. Sometimes, Maggie had thought that every move that she’d made as a mother had been wrong. It was nearly impossible to tell in the moment what actions would lead to your child being happy and grateful to have you as a parent, and which ones would make them feel miserable and resent you. She figured that the only thing that you could do was to take the highs and lows as they came – and most of all, love your children fiercely and more than anything in the world – and hope that when the time would come, they would turn out alright in the end.
As she looked over at her son, who was gazing at his boyfriend with more love in his eyes than she had ever seen from him before, Maggie figured that she must have done something right.