Excerpt from an unfinished novel

Exploring the familial relations of a queer protagonist, this passage casts some reflections on the structure of a family split into several ‘factions’.

The drive from one familial home to another always served as a kind of intermission between the two, no matter with which parent ze was travelling. Today, it was time to be alone with zir father. Ze had always secretly felt that, as an original member of the family, ze had more claim over zir parents than Ben or his mother or any of the almost superfluous extras. That was a cruel thought; ze loved Ben as much as Caoimhe, but ze saw zir family as composing of different factions, with some being older and, in zir mind, more superior to others. This was a feeling ze wished ze could suppress, knowing it was unfair and a vestige of zir youth, but had never been able to do so. So the father and child drove south in the dark night; the headlights of cars coming towards them like so many shooting stars arcing out of sight, and ze felt tiny and insignificant, unable to control zir own thoughts, unable to look behind zir own life and see the struggles and triumphs of others.

They spent most of the car journey in silence; which, after the overwhelming pretence at his house, was more than welcome. Zir father knew ze needed to be quiet sometimes, and he himself was a reserved man. This was a potential factor in the development of their family, ze thought, zir mind musing along the same old tracks. When they had moved into a house with Ben’s already-pregnant mother, even though they’d been dating for a few months, she hadn’t really known the kids that well (who were nine and six years old, respectively), and it had been his responsibility to ensure everyone meshed well together. This hadn’t really been an issue, ze thought, looking back at old photographs everyone looked happy, smiling together. Children don’t hold grudges. And when Ben had been born everything remained fine, because babies need a lot of attention and no one had really minded that he got all of his parents’ because he brought so much joy. Ze could remember fighting with zir father as a young child (but the eldest child, which ze had always thought made zir youth less, well, youthful), and Ben had been a baby in his arms, which would have placed zir around ten years old. Ben was eleven now, and had never had the kind of argument ze had had with him on almost a regular basis. He seemed so young, younger than ze had been at age ten. Looking back, ze often felt that it was during zir teenage years, particularly around the age of sixteen, that everything had started to fall apart. Ze had been a grumpy, rebellious, difficult teenager, arguing often with zir parents, slamming doors, storming out of the house, running away on multiple occasions. This had taken its toll on everyone, but had been easier for zir parents to deal with because, well, they were zir parents. Ben’s mother, on the other hand, had been less forgiving after ze matured, and from then on their relationship had been strained. Caoimhe had followed zir lead and fostered a dislike of their father’s wife too, compounded by her difficult teenage phase and also by the influence of their mother, who held her own grudges.

The end of childhood had signified the end of simplicity, ze thought.