How can it be that I laid in bed for two hours? I am indolent, under a spell. I am in one of those special moods, some kind of melancholy brought on by a dream that you can’t shake. It’s usually gone by dinner, though, right? Talking to people, having meals, seeing ordinary things that lock into our perception of what the world really is. You have no thought that your dog is going to turn into your favorite kind of waffle, whereas you would be entirely, deliciously accepting of that is it happened in a dream. You would take a bite of your dog’s waffle-divoted rump and ask for more.

I have always had that feeling, fairly or not, melodramatically or not, that I’ve been on the outside. I think this is true of everyone to a certain extent. But maybe especially true when you experience that family reshuffle, which makes you feel like you’re the extra one there, unwanted, but tolerated. It is also true when you experience the geographic reshuffle and are surrounded by strange accents and food and a social structure that has been in place since preschool that you don’t even have an inkling of. You stay in one place for a while, get grounded, become a known element, your moves, voice, reactions are predictable, and then you experience the worst reshuffle of all: the internal one. Your brain cracks open and turns on you. You are gay, gay, gay, and almost worse than that in this place, godless. You think maybe those people who told you there was something wrong with you were right, because here it is come to pass. You get stuck and smeared on the factory sorting bar because you cannot find a boy to cling through to pass through with on your way to the next zone on the factory floor, the church group.

So I have dreams where I find myself in rooms full of people who are nothing like me, or out of my past, or completely hostile to me, or all of those things. I think this is mundane and normal; an anxiety dream. I don’t know the house but the room is full of people posed, in the kitchen, leaning against the bookshelves, perched on the sofa arms, waiting for and dreading my arrival. Franny’s grandmother has died and they have all gathered in her absence.

The Italians who taught me to shout, impassioned, to fling my arms, to slap one hand on the table for emphasis and then listen in the silence as the crystal in the cabinet tinkles, to tip chairs. There they were, sitting quietly, calmly, not yet needing to mobilize their force against an enemy. They chatter politely and comfortably with a group of people from my future: Franny’s family.

They are mixed in with the Italians, blonde and lithe, looking like they just stepped off of a sailboat or are well-rested from a vacation. They are like giraffes, like cranes, mixed in with the Italians who are leaden and doughy, and loud even while speaking in their hushed reverent tones. The stage whisper was probably invented by Italians.

They turn as I enter, the older members welcoming and willing to absolve me of our past, unwilling to hold onto petty grudges. The younger members of either party glower at me, glance towards me and their eyes dart away. I am unwelcome here. I don’t really belong anywhere.

I confront them, I speak to both of them as a group, as if they both are completely familiar with my histories with each of them, separated by ten years or so. I am scared but I can’t hover in this house on the fringes.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I say, and then I realize that there is strength behind my words and my voice. “I didn’t take anything from you.” I turned to the Italians. “I didn’t burn the house down and I was never going to.” Being turned on, being falsely accused of that intention stung like it was new. I turned to the WASPs. “I could have taken half the house, but I did not. Franny is still here. You still have her.”

The scene broke like it was a stage direction then: mill about and murmur. I was still not welcome, but I had said what was on my mind. I gave up and made to leave and my grandmother pushed something into my hands, a jar half filled with her sauce. The other older side of the family said something nice and thanked me for coming. I walked off up the street alone.