Page 4 of Everything We Thought Was True
“Hi, Dad.”
“Where’ve you been?” I could hear the annoyance in his voice. I hadn’t been calling him as much for the last few weeks because I’d been so busy with work. He always hated when I went radio silent. I immediately felt guilty, like a little girl who’d skipped school and gotten caught.
“Working. Big case going on that I’m heading up for the division. Trial is going to be later this summer.”
“You’ll do great. You always do. We still on for Sunday on the boat?”
The boat, his pride and joy. When I was a kid, it seemed like Dad had loved that boat more than he loved our family. He’d certainly spent a lot of time on it—and not always alone. My mom resented his boat as if it were his mistress. And alongside Mom, I’d resented it too. But that was years ago. Nowadays, when we weren’t stuck working on the weekends, Kevin and I enjoyed hitting the water for some sunshine and ocean breeze.
“Yup, we’re on,” I said.
“Listen,” he said. A slight note of hesitation in Dad’s voice made me press the phone closer to my ear. “You know how happy Oliver and I have been, right? Well, we’ve been thinking of doing something about it. Something more permanent.”
“Um...”What does he mean by ‘more permanent’?“You two live together. That’s pretty permanent.” My voice was quiet. “And... you’re committed to each other...” I stopped talking. This was feeling awkward, like I was my dad’s therapist or something.
“Yes, we’re committed. But we want to make it official.”
Official. What the heck does that mean? Have they been having an unofficial relationship until now?
“We want to get married!” He said it like it was the punch line of a great joke.
“Married?” I asked with a jolt.
My legs felt wobbly. I stumbled back and sat on a kitchen stool. Everything went still—my father’s voice, the electric buzzing on the phone line, and my breath. Even the air in the room seemed like it had skidded to a stop. All I heard was the gurgling of the gravy boiling.
“Yes, Oliver and I want to getmarried,” he said.
My heartbeat thumped inside my chest in a staccato pattern like horses’ hooves galloping around a track. Dad and his partner had been together for several years now and got along great. He was the happiest I’d seen him in a long time. He could finally be free to live the life he’d always wanted. The rest of us were still picking up the pieces of our life that had been strewn around years ago, like the shards of that plate bouncing off the walls of our dining room.
My dad’s words snapped me back into the conversation. “And now we can, and it will be recognized in the whole damn country.”
I could hear the smile in his voice. He’d posted on Facebook about the recent Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage, placing a photo of him and Oliver against the rainbow pride flag, but I didn’t think he considered it for himself. After all, he was nearing his seventieth birthday.
“That’s...” I stopped, not sure what I wanted to say. That it was great news? That I was happy for them?
I couldn’t bring myself to speak. I didn’t trust what would come out. There was something bubbling under the surface. My jumbled thoughts matched the tomatoes boiling in the pot, one idea popping up and bursting, followed by another. I was thirteen again, sitting in that dining room with my family frozen around the table, spaghetti trailing down the wall. It seemed like my father was taking something from me all these years later. But what? My parents had been divorced for so many years. We’d all moved on. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling my father was betraying my mom, cheating on her again. How absurd. I knew that was ridiculous. But I couldn’t persuade my heart otherwise.
“Tell me what you have in mind,” I said, shifting gears to focus on details. Getting lost in the minutiae and steering away from the emotions—that was a skill I’d mastered in my legal training and reverted to when it served me.
As my father talked about his ideas for the wedding, my mother came to mind.Was he this excited about his wedding to her? Did he know, even before he said, “I do,” that he would break her heart and his kids’ too?
“Lena, this is important to me. I want to do this. I’m ready.”
He’s ready? Well, that’s nice.It had only taken sixty-seven years and a lot of pain and suffering of everyone around him for him to be ready. He’d left a lot of broken hearts in his wake.But that’s old news. Why am I thinking about this now?
“Why not do something simple?” I asked. “Maybe go to City Hall and just get married there? Or do it in Palm Springs or Las Vegas over one of your weekend trips?”
Surely, he didn’t plan to have a big wedding and invite a ton of people. He had a handful of close friends in the LA area, many of whom were also gay. I figured he’d ask them to attend. As for me, besides Kevin, I’d told no one my dad was gay, not even my work colleagues, who’d spent their careers fighting for social justice issues. I kept my personal and professional lives very separate. I preferred it that way.
“Hmm, I’ll ask Oliver. But I think he wants a real wedding. And I want to give it to him. It’s something to celebrate. We’ll do it here in LA and keep it small. Just some family and close friends. I’m hoping Anthony will come out with Donna and the kids. And I want Henry there too.”
Henry. Of course he’d want Henry there. I could never really understand their relationship. They’d cheated on their wives with each other, betraying their children and their families. They’d broken their marriage vows, eventually broken up their tryst, and then broken apart their families. Yet they’d stayed the closest of friends all these years. Now my dad wanted Henry at his wedding. To his current lover.
I swear you can’t makethis shit up.
“Lena, if you could research places for the ceremony and reception, that would be a big help. I know you’re good at that. Someplace by the water.”
I couldn’t believe this. “Dad, I don’t know. I have a case at work that’s going to demand a ton of time over the next few months. Besides, wouldn’t you and Oliver like to do the planning for yourselves? I mean, it’s going to be your big day after all.”
