Norm stated that he had moved in with Tracy. "You kids got married then!" Mom exclaimed, moving closer as if to embrace her son. A quiet, no frills wedding would have been characteristic of Norm. "No…," he replied. A silence followed his statement, as if each person was attempting to understand the conversation which was unfolding and see beyond the misconceptions that had obscured the truth.
"You mean you're just going to live with each other?" Mom asked. "Didn't our marriage and family mean anything to you?" She was aghast, tearful, frustrated.
Norm appeared awestruck by the magnanimous fervor he had evoked. He had not thought that marriage could have meant so much to my parents. "You have made a beautiful home!" Norm exclaimed, "But it just can't be for me."
Questions flurried about the room like a mid-summer blizzard; upset parents, I learned, excelled in the art of interrogation. Mom's voice had transformed into a slightly nasal, high-pitched whine which characterized both disapproval and sickness of heart, while Dad's speech quickened into abrupt, angry darts which leapt through the air and stung their recipient. To each question, Norm bowed his head a bit lower. "If she loves you, she'd marry you."
"It just can't be for me." It was all he could say. He loved Tracy, and wanted to spend his life with her; love of the heart should require no legal document to assure its sincerity. He could not understand the importance of marriage.
Norm's was an idealistic view of human love. Society, however, having judged man's ineptitude in the areas of honesty and integrity, found that unceremonious love was not, generally speaking, taken as seriously as love proclaimed before an audience in the form of predetermined vows. In certain circles, religion amplified the significance of marriage, entrenching the ceremony itself into the hearts and minds of society…and to my parents; moreover, it was tradition. To them, love alone was not enough to justify a man and a woman living together as one unit; Norm's proposition was a revolt against their values.
An ultimatum surfaced after all of the questions had spilled from my parent's minds: Norm would no longer be welcome in the home unless he married. Tears welled up in Norm's eyes and he began to sob; Mom and Norm held each other in a long, emotional embrace. So much depended on the future; a hug was all that they had. Until then, I had been eyeing the gerbil cage feverishly as the discussion raged behind me. Norm had under-estimated mom and dad and their inflexible scale of values, but even I could not swallow such a voluminous consequence of co-habitation. How could marriage be so important that one would no longer consider his son a person because he desired to live unwed with his beloved? Did not love matter more than all else?
Apparently it did not. I could listen to no more if I had to assume that I was going to lose my brother. I choked upon a mountainous wave of hysteria, and with tears blinding my vision, went wailing out of the kitchen into the sheltering darkness of my own room. I felt like a fool, flying from the argument in such an undignified manner. "Now look what you've done," said Dad, seeing my agitated state of mind. It was not Norm's fault, however; I knew, and Norm knew; my distress was related only to the thought of losing Norm forever; it was like a planned death. I could not handle such a loss.
"I'll drive you to Tracy's apartment…you can get your things and come back here," Dad offered. It was a final plea, an attempt to make amends before the damage was done.
Norm shook his head. "I'm sorry…I can't." Not after all that had been said. He was trembling; like an injured animal, he wanted only to run and hide from further hurt. Mom knew he couldn't return that night, but as the door closed and her son disappeared into the dark abyss, she prayed that he would change his mind.