The List of Things That Will Not Change

While making invitations for Jesse and Daniel’s (Bea’s dad’s) wedding, Sheila came to help, and Sonia joined in over Skype. When Sonia asked about Jesse and Sheila’s brother, Mission, Jesse sadly reported that he wouldn’t be attending because he didn’t approve of Jesse marrying a man. Sonia seemed uncomfortable at the thought of being at the wedding without her uncle, and she left the Skype call almost immediately afterward. At bedtime, Bea wondered if families could divorce each other, and her dad explained that families do sometimes abandon one another. Sonia wonders, if it was so easy for Mission to abandon Jesse, might Sonia do the same to her?

When Bea woke up that night from itching hands, she ran them under hot water and then wrote out an invitation to Uncle Mission. She mailed it the following day, without telling anyone.

One day, Miriam was late for her appointment with Bea because her previous patient was upset. Bea watched the woman leave the office in tears and asked Miriam about it. Bea admitted she doesn’t like crying or seeing others cry, and that when she knows her mom has been crying in secret, she feels angry at her. Miriam wondered if perhaps Bea’s anger was actually fear upon seeing her mother so vulnerable. Meanwhile, Sonia became more and more distant, no longer answering Bea’s emails or logging onto Skype.

In the same time period, Bea writes another letter to Sonia, telling her that the invitations are done and will be mailed soon, and describing the triple-layer cake that was planned for the wedding. Bea suggested that Sonia should turn her Skype back on and email soon.

Presently, Bea is unsure how this particular story relates to the overall story but feels the need to tell it anyway.

One night at her mom’s apartment, a bat flew in the window, and Bea’s mom woke her up in a state of anxiety. The custodian took care of the bat, but Bea’s mom remained worried that it bit one of them and insisted on rabies shots. Bea’s mom also refused to open any windows for a year afterward.

One night leading up to the wedding, Bea and her mom came home to a box of pasta from Bea’s dad. Bea worried about many people that night, including Uncle Mission, Sonia, and Angelica, whose condition was reportedly worsening. While in her worried state, Bea overheard her mom calling her dad to tell him not to send food over anymore.

When Angelica and her parents had to travel for medical testing, Bea’s dad had to go there to take care of Uncle Frank and Aunt Ess’s other two children. As a result, he would be missing the colonial breakfast. Bea’s mom was going to be out of town working that day and also couldn’t attend. Hearing this, Bea threw up, and didn’t even want to talk to her dad before he left.

Bea had to get a total of five rabies shots, and was nervous each time, even though she knew it wasn’t too painful. She pinched her arm in preparation, which bruised it, but she didn’t tell the doctor about it. Instead, she asked the doctor if her face looked droopy on one side, and the doctor assured Bea that Angelica would almost definitely be fine. Bea noticed the lack of certainty in the answers she got about Angelica.

That night, Bea’s mom had a friend over to teach her how to cook chicken, and Bea invited Lizette for dinner. Everyone had received their invitation to the wedding, but Lizette sounded the most excited about it. Bea felt like the apartment was particularly empty later that night and received no replies from Sonia over email. The wedding was five weeks away.

Bea went over to Angus’s house after school the next day and enjoyed brushing his cat because it made her feel calm. She loved being around Angus, who understood her and didn’t judge her for making mistakes. Angus’s mother, on the other hand, never forgave Bea for pushing Angus off the chair at the party in third grade, and questioned Bea about how her therapy was going. Bea asked Angus about his older sister who is in college, and Angus made the suggestion that he and his sister are real siblings while Bea and Sonia are not. Bea almost got upset at him for it, but she refrained.

Later that night, Bea was under the care of Sheila while her mother went out. Bea asked Sheila about Mission and how she knew for sure he wouldn’t come to the wedding, and Sheila explained that Mission had been against Jesse being gay since he first came out 15 years before. At the time, their parents insisted that Jesse “forget” about being gay and get married to a woman, and so that’s what he did. Jesse had to choose between being himself and appeasing his family. Sheila warned Bea that some people will try to force this choice, and for Bea to keep an eye out for those types of people. Before bed, Bea wondered if she had a true self at all, and observed in herself a discrepancy between who she was and who she wanted to be.

A few weeks before the wedding, Bea and Jesse went to create the gift registry together. Bea helped Jesse carry oyster shells to Brooklyn to dump into the sea (in the hopes of bringing the oysters back), and then they went to a wedding store together. Bea and Jesse had a great time using their laser pointers to point at all sorts of outrageously priced gifts but then deleted most of them off the list. Afterward, Bea thought about Sonia and how she might know Jesse better than his own daughter does. She sees an unfairness in that and feels bad for Sonia.

As the RSVPs came in for the wedding, Bea awaited one from Mission, but it didn’t come. Spending the night with Sheila again, she asked more about Mission and Jesse’s story. Sheila told Bea that Jesse came out again 10 years later, and when he did, Mission stopped talking to him completely. Bea asked if it was possible for Mission to be different now, and Sheila admitted she hoped so, but wasn’t sure. Sheila cried thinking about her brother and Bea comforted her.

Bea’s most precious tape recording is one in which her dad sings You Are My Sunshine as a little boy in between the chapters of a story. It reminds her that there is still a child somewhere inside each adult. Thinking about it in the time leading up to the wedding, Bea realized that Jesse is her dad’s sunshine now, because of how precious and challenging it had been to arrive at their love.

When Bea told Sheila about this one day before the wedding, Sheila had the idea to make the wedding theme sunshine. Later that night, Bea finally had the chance to talk to Sonia, who apologized and explained she needed time to adjust to the fact that she now had two homes. She didn’t expect to miss New York or her new family as much as she did, and it all came as a shock. Bea decided to tell Sonia about the two moons she saw when she was little, and Sonia liked the idea of “girls who can see two moons” (153), calling it a superpower.