Just out., June 15, 2001, Page 46, Image 46

june 15.2001 • MX45
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Coming home
L ong W ay H ome
by Melissa Hart Romero. Windstorm Creative
Limited, 2001; $12.95 softcover.
ne day in 1979 when Melissa Hart Romero
was 9 years old, her mother suddenly
packed up her three children and fled an
abusive husband and their comfortable
Southern California suburb. With little money
and almost no explanation, her mom drove to a
coastal town 90 minutes away and moved them
all in with her lesbian lover.
Just as Romero and her younger sister and
brother began to get comfortable with their
new, somewhat funkier surroundings, their
father showed up with police cars and a court
order, forcing their mother to relinquish cus­
tody. “I remember that terrible day when my
father drove us away from our mother and back
to his house, flanked by two police cars, with
the obscure explanation that my mother was
‘sick,’ and I remember almost every conversa­
tion at his dinner table for the next nine years,
as my stepmother tried to indoctrinate us with
her homophobic views.”
In her first published novel, Long Way
Home, Romero recounts the first year of her
mother’s coming out and the subsequent place­
ment of her and her siblings with their father.
The short semiautobiography is narrated by
Ronnie, the eldest of the three kids. Romero
ages her fictionalized counterpart a few years
and, through Ronnie, explores her fears, biases
and utter confusion during the intersection of
several difficult childhood issues: a lesbian
ing with a knowledgeable, loving par­
ent who is also gay. Making the situa­
tion more shocking was the father’s
Oregon author shares acute emotional distance and clear dis­
the painful story comfort with Romero’s 5-year-old
affected by Down syndrome.
of losing her mom brother,
Reading the book, one can’t help but
to
a
homophobic
wonder why, in the 1970s and in a coun­
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family court system ty Romero describes as “very homopho­
bic,” her mother came out so quickly and
by L isa B radshaw
honestly to a difficult spouse and the
court system. “In her mind, there was no
doubt that the child psychologist, the
court mediator and the judge would see
that my father was both physically and
emotionally abusive. She was certain
they would award her full custody. Even
now, I wish 1 were capable of that kind of
faith in our justice system.”
Losing her children absolutely shat­
tered Romero’s mother, who had
devoted her life to them. The mother
in the book confides to a neighbor: “I
don’t know what to do.... My job and
my new friends only make me feel
worse. I’ve even thought about adopt­
ing some kids. I miss being a mother so much.”
mother, an unexpected divorce and the heart­
Before sending her manuscript to the publish­
breaking separation from a parent she adores.
er, Romero wanted her mother’s blessing. “Nei­
Although Romero’s mother went to court
ther my mom nor her partner could get past the
three times during the next several years, she
second chapter,” she reveals, “which ends with a
never was awarded custody of her kids. Her
scene in which the police show up and take the
first relationship was short-lived, but she soon
children away from their mother.”
fell in love with another woman, and the chil­
Long Way Home was written for young
dren visited them alternate weekends and
adults, but Romero asserts, “It has a lot to
some holidays.
teach any age group about the...importance
“I regard the nine years that I only saw
of respecting all people.” This includes
my mom every other weekend as tragic,”
respecting your
Romero states.
children enough
“Every other
to be honest
Sunday night
“I
with them.
when she
Because
dropped us off
queer relation­
at our father’s
ships are not
house, we
within Ronnie’s
would sob and
frame of refer­
cling to her....
ence, she doesn’t
I have memo­
ries of those
—Melissa Hart Romero have any sense
of her mother’s
Sunday nights
identity, regard­
even after 20
less of the many
years.”
clues. Even while her town is gossiping and
Particularly distressing to readers of Long
her schoolmates are taunting her about her
Way Home is the effect this kind of change has
“lesbo” mom, she does not attach any truth
on these children and, hence, others like them.
to it. It’s more than halfway through the
Romero’s mother was a stay-at-home, full-tim,e
book before the revelation hits:
parent, and their father was a virtual stranger
who elicited fear from his kids more than any­
"Honey, in almost every custody battle,
thing else.
the mother gets custody of the children, ” she
The authorities basically communicated to
said quietly.
the entire family and their community that liv­
"So why didn’t you get custody of us?” I
ing with an abusive parent is preferable to liv­
remember that terrible day
when my father drove us away
from our mother and back to his
house, flanked by two police cars,
with the obscure explanation
that my mother was ‘sick.’ ”
r
demanded.
Mother fell silent, staring down at the
open art book in her hands....
Finally, she looked at me. Her gaze was
steady and strong, reminding me of the way
she had looked that day in court before the
elevator door had closed between us.
“I didn’t get custody of you because I’m
a lesbian," she said.
Mother’s quiet words seemed to silence
the fairy orchestra of frogs and cicadas
under her open bedroom window. For a
moment, the whole world seemed to hold its
breath, and then the long howl of a coyote
tore across the night.
"You’re a.. .a lesbian?" I repeated finally.
Ronnie is full of resentment that she wasn’t
in on her mother’s “secret” sooner, which
makes coming out ultimately more difficult for
both of them. In simple language, Romero has
a knack for relating her characters’ frustrations
with their own lack of control.
In the five years preceding her recent move
to Eugene, the author lived next door to her
mother, a time she calls “incredibly healing.”
She continues to suffer from separation anxiety.
“It’s very hard to leave her now after I’ve been
to California to visit,” she comments.
Romero has written two other young adult
novels, both as yet unpublished—one about a
teen-age Ronnie living with her mother. “It felt
good to fictionalize this—almost as if I were
rewriting my own past.”
Romero’s past has motivated her to become
involved in gay rights through writing. Also a
teacher, she has introduced queer literature to
her classes (“it almost got me fired a few
times,” she notes), and she and her husband
are members of the Eugene chapter of Parents,
Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
“Things have changed significantly in the
last two decades," Romero observes. “Gays and
lesbians have all sorts of options now regarding
child rearing.”
Still, her optimism is cautious. “Lesbians are
still losing their children. My mother (recently
learned of] a little girl whose dad wanted to
take her away from her lesbian mom. It makes
me very, very sad to think that there are still
kids out there who are being taken away from
good, loving parents and subjected to another
parent’s vicious homophobia.” JF1
M elissa H art R omero will read from Long
Way Home 7 p.m. July 19 at In Other Words,
3734 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.
L1SA B radshaw is a Portland freelance writer
who thinks it would be totally cool if her mom
were a lesbian.
Still TlunfjryQ
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