Little did Ethan know that his parents' objection to his sexuality was less because of God - Jane believe that God was a construct formed by man to explain their pathalogical inability to accept the random nature of the universe or to take responsibility for their actions when the consquences are not what they expected or wanted - and more because of the fact that she didn't understand how he could be like that when she'd had such a hand in his genetics. She felt like she should have seen it, that it wasn't something she should have missed. It felt like an oversight on her part.
Of course, she couldn't tell him that, because that was a line that they were never getting into - as long as she could help it, that was.
"Your father has a temper," Jane said calmly, "you know that as well as I do and the fact that you were arguing with us instead of engaging in a mature conversation set him off. We appreciated the calm conversation you tried to initiate but when you lost your temper with us and made it into such a melodrama there's no reasoning with you."
He might not have noticed the shaking of the piece on the wall, but Jane did and she kept half an eye on it, pretty sure that it was Ethan that was doing that. She felt a surge of pride: he wasn't a failure, the genome had taken to him, thank God.
"Your- your friends are a little much for your father and I to handle." She pursed her lips, "We don't ignore you, we never have, but when you're being dramatic there's no point trying to talk to you. We were giving you space, hoping that you'd come to us when you were ready and calm and you didn't, so all we could assume from that was that you weren't ready to talk to us." Her eyes narrowed a little, "And if I had come to your graduation? You would have made some comment that would have made you out to be the victim and I would have had to play the villain all over again." Like right now. Ethan could be just as unreasonable as Jane, but neither of them ever wanted to accept sole responsibility, or even half responsibility. Not verbally anyway. Internally she didn't know. She missed the bright eyed little boy her son used to be, the one that used to run to her and ask for her opinion on what he was wearing, or for help putting an outfit together. "When I make the effort to come, you always treat it with such suspicion, it's tiresome."
She sighed again, looking hurt for all of two seconds before she covered it up, falling back to her scientific background, letting the cool, calm logic wash over her emotions. "Feelings and reality are two different things, Ethan," she pointed out. "If you'd taken the time to step back you'd know that as your parents we always want to be involved in your life, but I'm don't know what else to do when it feels like my child hates me." It was said more softly, for Ethan's ears only (she didn't realise that one person in the room could hear every single word). There was a tone there, she knew she was almost throwing Ethan's words back at him. It was childish, immature, but their arguments often were.