Page 31 of Everything We Thought Was True
Frank looked at him and laughed. It was a crime, and Henry knew it. Sodomy was against the law, and homosexuality was against the church. Both Frank and Henry could lose their jobs if someone found out about them. They could end up in jail.
Understanding his laugh, Henry threw up his hands. “Ugh! Well, it shouldn’t be. That’s what I’m saying. You shouldn’t be fired because of who you sleep with or love. What you do in your private time should be private, not something you can be put in jail for or cast out of so-called decent society for.”
Frank stayed silent. He agreed with Henry, but he still found it uncomfortable to talk about these things out loud. Henry seemed so much more at ease with it, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be talking about two men having sex with each other. Henry, a Protestant whose family wasn’t devout, didn’t wrestle with Catholic guilt over this being a sin. Frank was envious. He tried—he really did—but he still couldn’t shake the thought that this was wrong, even though it felt so right. When it was just him and Henry alone, it felt so natural. But when he was back in the world, he was riddled with guilt and often second-guessed their affair. He felt horrible about what he was doing to Teresa and the kids and was often shocked by the sheer betrayal of his actions. He wondered if he would ever fully accept who he was or if he would always be torn between wanting to be this version of himself and hating himself for it.
Henry put his arms around Frank from behind in a conciliatory gesture. He rested his head on Frank’s shoulder, and they both looked out at the horizon. Frank nuzzled Henry’s neck. He worried that Henry might get impatient and choose not to stick around. Henry loved him, but maybe Henry loved the idea of being openly gay more than sneaking around with Frank.
Frank didn’t want to lose Henry. He’d finally found someone he could be himself with after hiding for so many years. He watched the waves fly by as the boat crested and fell over them, wondering if he would ever catch up to Henry.
Chapter Seventeen
TERESA - JOHNSTON, NY
1979
Ronnie leaned against the kitchen counter, looking around and exhaling cigarette smoke, which Teresa tried not to breathe in. Teresa and Frank had moved to a new rental home a few weeks before, in the town of Johnston, and Ronnie was visiting for the first time. As the crow flew, Johnston was only about ten miles from New Rochelle, yet it felt worlds away, with pretty lawns, garages left wide open, and bicycles abandoned on the grass with no chance of being stolen.
“Gorgeous place. I love it,” Ronnie said.
One of Frank’s coworkers from the Cadillac dealership had moved his family to Johnston a year earlier and raved about the beautiful town and superior school system. Teresa and Frank had longed to expand beyond their cramped attic apartment. When Frank’s coworker put them in touch with a landlord with a duplex home they could afford to rent on Frank’s salary, they’d jumped at the chance.
Teresa nodded at Ronnie halfheartedly. To leave New Rochelle was both a relief and a disappointment. The relief lay in knowing it would separate Frank from his playmates. Teresa, though, was being torn from the people and places that provided her with a sense of comfort. She sighed and said a silent prayer that the move toJohnston would help change things back to normal. Help change Frank. But she had a feeling that what she was praying for amounted to a miracle. And she no longer believed in miracles.
Ronnie narrowed her eyes at Teresa. “Okay, enough with the house tour, sweetie. Spill the beans. What’s going on?”
Teresa went over to the kitchen table, motioning for Ronnie to sit down. “I feel...” She searched for a word or phrase that could adequately describe the mixed emotions churning inside her. She landed on the closest one she could think of. “Stuck.”
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot, Teresa. You should leave him. There's no way he'd get the kids. He's hardly home, and you've always been the hands-on parent. Besides, it's almost the 1980s. No judge is going to take kids from their mother unless she's completely unfit, which you, my dear, are not.”
Teresa stared out the kitchen window at their new backyard, wondering why her husband wanted so badly to lead a separate life. She felt like an afterthought. If he couldn't make their family the center of his life, then what she really needed was to be left in peace. It was this anguish of living with a ghost—the uncertainty, the fear of the unknown, the wondering—that was really driving her crazy.
But being left in peace meant being alone. A divorcée. For that, she needed money of her own, more money than anyone in her extended family could afford to give her even if she asked, which she wouldn’t. So her only choice for the moment was to stay.
“I can't afford to leave him,” Teresa said, but that wasn’t the entire truth. “I don'twantto leave him. I want him to quit being out so much and come home and be with his family.”
“You know that won’t happen if he’s doing what we think he is,” Ronnie replied, pouting her lips and tilting her head down.
Doing what we think he is.Ronnie’s comment made Teresa recall her exchange with Frank this past weekend. She’d been sitting at the kitchen table, having a cup of coffee, when Frank walkedin, dressed for the boat. It was Sunday morning, and he didn’t have to work at the boat club.
“Oh, I thought you were going to stay home today. The kids want to go to the mall for lunch, and then I told them we’d take them to the movies. It’ll be a great way to escape the heat.”
“Sorry. I promised Henry I would take him out on the boat to the sand dunes of Port Jefferson. He’s never been all the way out there. I've been promising to do that for a while now, and I knew you wouldn’t want to take such a long trip on the water.”
Henry again. Teresa sighed.
“Besides,” Frank said, “you know it's hard for me to stay away from the boat all weekend.”
Stay away from the boat—or Henry?
He grabbed his keys, kissed her on the cheek, and headed out the door. She could smell his cologne and, as he walked away, noticed a spring to his step.He’s happywhile I’m sitting here, miserable.
The old version of Frank was right there. Teresa could clearly see him. His flirtatious banter. His sexy smile. He’d been just like that with her in the early years. And she’d been watching him direct that same behavior to Henry for some time now. How obvious he was.Doesn’t he realize I can see right through him?
Thinking of Frank going out with Henry conjured up pictures in her mind of them doing things she didn’t even want to imagine. She tried to bury the images, but they kept rising like bile—images of Frank being a homosexual. It twisted her up in knots.
How odd that she knew there were lesbian women, and that didn't bother her that much. She had one standard for women and a different one for men. Or maybe it wasn't different for all men. Maybe her standard was just different for the one man who was hers.
Teresa acknowledged she’d been uncurious about others’ sexual preferences and habits. In fact, it amazed her to realize she’d just assumed most people—maybe all people—were interested in theopposite sex.How limiting and closed-minded.She wondered if sexual attraction was variable for some people and inflexible for others—if it was like a continuum. Maybe some people were one hundred percent heterosexual while others might be less, and most people didn’t know exactly where they fell on the continuum. Of course, because she was one hundred percent one way, she found it impossible to imagine there was a continuum at all, because she’d always believed everyone was exactly the same as her. She’d grown up thinking that. She’d been taught that. It was like an unwritten rule she took for granted. And now Teresa realized the rules had changed and what she’d believed to be the absolute truth all along might not be. She wanted to turn back time and unlearn everything she’d learned in the last few years.
