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“Language, Patrick, please,” his mother sighed.
“I think I loved him, Mom.” His voice cracked, and his eyes began to sting. “I wasn’t sure. I mean, I’ve never been in love before. How can you tell for sure? How did you know, with Dad?”
“You know what,” his mother blurted, jumping up from the couch. “I bought a key lime pie yesterday and forgot all about it!”
“I don’t want dessert, Mom—”
“You boys sit right here, I’ll be back in a jiff.” She vanished back into the kitchen, and Patrick was left alone with his father. The two of them sat in silence, and would have continued to, but Patrick’s sinuses suddenly stung, and a single sob erupted from him with such violence he feared for the commemorative Niagara Falls plates on the wall. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, ineptly trying to stem the coming tears.
“Sorry,” he said, sniffing. “This is embarrassing.”
“What are you doing, son?” his dad asked, looking at him now. “Crying over some fag?”
“Jesus, Dad. You can’t say that.”
His dad shook his head and shrugged. “You know what I mean,” he said. “You’re gay, but you’re still a man about it. Just look at you. This other guy, though. All that…wearing girls’ clothes…I don’t like it. It’s weird. If you wanna be a woman, just be a woman. They can do that now, right? No need to put on a big song and dance and make us all watch.”
“That’s not…He isn’t…” Patrick felt the sting of tears again, but he refused to let them come this time.
“I’m not homophobic or nothing,” his dad continued, as if that were in any way his call to make. “I just don’t understand why everything has to be such a big deal these days. You do you, just don’t do it in my face.”
Any threat of tears was now gone. Patrick felt suddenly still and cool. Water you could drown in.
“I never rubbed anything in your face,” he said curtly.
“I know you didn’t,” his father replied. “That’s what I was just talking about.”
“Maybe I should have a bit more.” Patrick’s jaw clicked. “I knew you loved me, but that you didn’t have any idea how to talk about me being gay, so I kept my love life completely private. The guys I dated, the experiences I had.” His dad grimaced, but Patrick forged on. “The time I was sixteen and I met a guy off the internet, but when I got in his car, he was ten years older than he said he was, and so I jumped out when we stopped at a red light and ran all the way home. I was really freaked out, and I wanted to tell someone what had happened. I wanted to tell you or Mom, but that felt impossible.”
“There’s a lot of pervs out there,” his dad said, taking a swig of beer, avoiding his eye. “That’s for sure.”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Dad.” Patrick clasped his hands together. “Then, when I was eighteen, I was best friends with Mickey Callahan, remember him? We used to make out after football practice. I thought I loved him. I was so sure he loved me back. And then he took Sarah Costello to prom, and my heart was fucking broken, and again, I didn’t say a word. Because no matter how much pain I was in, my top priority was not making you uncomfortable.” He let out a short, flat laugh. “That’s wild, right? You’re my dad. You were always the toughest guy I knew, but I thought you couldn’t handle a simple conversation.
“I wonder why I felt that way,” he continued. “I mean, I could’ve come to you, right?”
His dad said nothing.
My parents are nice people, Patrick told anyone when they asked. What a detestable word that was, “nice.” A free coffee in exchange for a fully stamped loyalty card was nice. A stranger giving you their seat on the bus was nice. Couldn’t he expect more from the people who were supposed to love him? Wasn’t that allowed?
“Because you knew I was gay,” Patrick said to his father. “I came out to you when I was a teenager, and that’s not the kind of thing you forget about your son. Right?”
His dad’s mouth tightened. Never a good sign. The kind of storm warning Patrick had spent his childhood attuned to.
“But,” he said, “it felt like the moment I told you, it was like it never happened. We never talked about it. If I brought it up, Mom would smile and nod and ask zero questions, and you would grit your teeth like you did when I was six and I’d tell you all about my imaginary friend.”
“What did you want us to say?” his dad asked. “You told us you were gay, we were fine with it, end of story. It’s not like we kicked you out or anything.”
“No, you didn’t. Thanks so much for that, by the way.” Patrick shook his head. “Jesus. Will was right. The bar really is in hell.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Patrick didn’t know how to say it in a way that would make his father understand. How coming out wasn’t something you just did once. That every time he met someone new, every time he took a new job, he had to decide: Am I safe here? Queer people came out every day, or they didn’t, and either way it sucked, but that was just a part of life.
“I guess I just never thought I’d have to keep on coming out to my parents,” he said, “or that it would be too much for them to be remotely interested in what’s going on in my life.”
“Now that’s not fair,” his dad snapped. “You’re making out like your mother and I are monsters. We fed you, we clothed you, we encouraged you with your acting even though there was a next-to-zero chance you were ever going to make a living from it.”
“You told me at eighteen that if I failed out of college, I shouldn’t bother coming home at all.”
