against the works of the flesh//frerard

chapter two

Frank goes downstairs for breakfast already wearing his school uniform, consisting of dark slacks, white button up shirt, navy blue necktie and also navy blue blazer.

At the kitchen table, he finds his parents and his grandfather. He's been living with them ever since Frank's grandmother passed away a couple of years ago. Everybody took her death very badly, as she had been the matriarch of this family ever since she'd married and had four sons and two daughters, including Frank's mother, Lyla.

For the past week, however, she has been in Lyla's morning prayers in a different way.

Frank came out to his family last Tuesday, after a prolonged mental battle with himself for over a year. He had gotten help in finding out the best way to tell his mother that he's gay, but it all came to naught. He still received the amount of hatred he had been expecting. His family is very devout, especially on his mother's side, so neither she nor her father took the news really well. In fact, Frank's grandfather said he'd throw Frank out if it was his house, and added that he had already banished him from the family for daring to break God's laws. Frank hadn't taken that lightly and started a fight with him, using the arguments he had worked on based on their priest, Father Way's advice.

His mother didn't react any better, though, just as Frank was expecting. She said she wouldn't throw him out because he's still a minor and still in high school. She said, "Don't think you'll be this lucky when you turn twenty one, though."

She turned her back on him immediately. Frank stood there, in the middle of the living room, feeling abandoned. He had been prepared for the hostility from his family, but not for a threat of that kind. Being told that he would have to leave his house and forget his family just because he's gay, is something that he really hadn't thought would be possible. But apparently his mother still had the ability to exceed his expectations.

His father stayed by his side, though. He had been the one saying that it didn't matter who Frank liked or not. He said, "You're my son and I don't care about your sexual orientation. You should do what you want. No one has the right to judge you."

Frank's father's family history has been mainly Catholic as well, but never as strictly as the family on his mother's side. While Frank Iero Sr. goes to Church but respects any views against Catholicism, Lyla Iero is very conservative and traditionalist, following her own family history.

"I'll try to talk to your mother," Frank's father concluded, with a pat on the teenager's shoulder. Frank thanked him and let his father hug him, in a comforting gesture. He seriously hoped his father would be able to talk his mother out of her current stance, because being told that he was an embarrassment for his family just for liking dick hurt him really bad.

In the end, almost a week later, nothing has changed. Frank looks at his father first every morning, in the hope of hearing good news, but so far his father has only shaken his head or looked elsewhere, indicating pretty clearly that he still hadn't been able to change Frank's mother's mind.

So they've been under this tension every time they're together. They have always eaten breakfast with the radio on, listening to the morning news and commenting on the new day's facts. Ever since last Tuesday, though, they've been listening to the local Catholic radio station. Frank reacted the first time with a groan and a roll of his eyes, but after his mother reprehended him that same morning he never reacted to it again. It's their new routine, now that Frank is assumedly gay and, according to his grandfather, needs to be converted back into purity.

Frank has learned to control his reactions to any comments his grandfather or his mother might make. For his own sake.

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