Page 59 of Everything We Thought Was True
Frank sighed. “Not really. I just don’t know what to do.”
“Honestly, Frank? You caused all of this. What did you expect? For God’s sake, you amaze me. You want everything to go your way.You change the kids’ entire lives, and you expect them to just jump on board with no issues?”
“I know, I know,” he said, burying his head in his hands as he cradled the phone against his neck.
“Give her time. She needs you to be there for her and to step up. Get involved in her hobbies. She spent her entire childhood watching you go to the boat with your friends or with Anthony. Now you have this apartment and new boyfriend and life, and you again expect her to fit into it, to accept it. It’s always about you. Try to meet her on her terms and in her places. For once.”
Frank was quiet. She was right.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “I appreciate your help. I really do. And I hear you.”
“I hope so, Frank. Otherwise, you may lose her.”
Frank vowed not to let that happen.
Chapter Thirty-Two
LENA - ORANGE, CA
August 2015
“Ugh, I give up,” I said, pushing aside the deposition binder I’d been staring at for the last ten minutes.
Kevin, who’d been engrossed in one of his geeky tech projects for Disney, peeked out from behind his laptop and gave me a sympathetic look. “Maybe take a break.”
“Maybe,” I said, not sure if that would solve the problem. “I’ll go get us more coffee. Be right back.”
We were having coffee and croissants on the back patio, both—unfortunately—working on a perfect summer morning. I was prepping for an upcoming deposition for a disability discrimination case. I typically enjoyed deposition prep, as this was the stage when the opponent was finally forced to show their cards. The discovery phase was frequently a jumble of documents meant to overwhelm and confuse more than shed light. In contrast, the deposition let me spot the chinks in the armor, determine where the hidden agenda was, and build strategy. It was the stage that helped solve the mystery of the case.
But I couldn’t focus. My mind kept wandering, inventorying all the items for the wedding on a constant loop. Plus, there was the COLAGE speech looming over me only days after the wedding. I planned to draft a keynote focused on legal issues having to do withthe LGBTQ community. I knew that content so well and could recite it in my sleep, yet the speech wasn’t sitting right with me.
I went into the kitchen, filled our coffee cups, and placed them on a tray. On the way back outside, I grabbed the notebook I’d been using for wedding planning, which was sitting in the breakfast nook. After plopping back down at the table, I handed Kevin his coffee and opened up the notebook. I reviewed the guest list, making note of some RSVPs that had recently come back by email. I stared at Henry’s name and thought back to how long he and my dad had been friends—and how their relationship had begun.
“Did I ever tell you that Henry was my father’s first lover?”
Kevin hastily chewed and swallowed the colossal piece of croissant he’d just shoved into his mouth. “Um, no, you didn’t tell me that. I knew they went way back and were both gay. I don’t think I ever realized they were a couple.”
“Yup, they were secret lovers. Had an affair behind their wives’ backs. This was before my dad came out. When I was a kid.”
“Wow. That must have sucked. But he didn’t stay with Henry, right? You told me he lived with some guy you despised when he first moved out. What was his name again?”
“Ricky,” I said. “Yeah, I wasn’t a fan.”
Wow, I hadn’t thought of Ricky in years, probably because I tried desperately to push him and that time out of my mind. It might have been an auspicious time for my dad, but it wasn’t for me.
When my parents split up, I had questions. Unfortunately, my dad didn’t have answers. He was like a sick-in-love teenager, behaving in the tremendously irritating way most people did when they had their first love. He had that puppy dog look on his face, laughed at pretty much everything Ricky said—even if it wasn't funny—was overly attentive to him, and was so darn happy in a way I hadn't seen him in a long time. Probably ever.
Iwished I could report that in those early years of my parents’ separation, I was kind and patient—or at least accepting and tolerant—of my father's new life and of Ricky. Instead, I fumed with jealousy and anger. Dad's new boyfriend became the distillation of all my hurt. The knowledge that Ricky was someone whose company Dad preferred over ours only made things worse. Feeling ill at ease and displaced, I often resisted seeing my dad on his scheduled weekends, citing teenage commitments—track practice and meets, theater rehearsals and shows, and hanging out with friends. I was punishing my dad and relishing it.
It didn’t help that Ricky felt so foreign to us, with his high-pitched soft voice and black eyeliner. Anthony and I didn’t see the appeal of this man who’d moved in with our dad within a year of my parents’ split, decorating their apartment with lush curtains, throw pillows, bed linens, and knickknacks that, to us, only exhibited his bad taste. Even my dad didn’t seem enamored by all the changes—I caught him rolling his eyes when Ricky put the frilly place mats on the table before we ate dinner. Maybe my dad hoped those hideous-looking place mats were just temporary. Well, I hoped Ricky was temporary.
While my dad was busy playing house with Ricky, my mom took care of us and tried to make sense of her new normal, a state she didn’t create and had no choice but to endure. Everything my mom expected—everything she’d been told to want—had exploded in her face in the most embarrassing manner possible. She’d been betrayed, cheated on, and made a fool of. She was alone and the subject of gossip. Her not-quite ex-husband would sometimes arrive at the door, tearfully apologizing and confessing his longing for his family while also claiming to be the happiest he’d ever been. She had one kid in the throes of adolescence and very much taking out the loss of what he considered to be his heroic father on her. And she had me, abundle of competing emotions, trying to make sense of it all and failing miserably.
Was I sad at the time? Sure. But mostly, I was angry. And then my anger made me feel guilty. If my father had cheated on my mother with another woman, I'd have had every right to scream bloody murder, take her side, and roar at my father. But because he was gay, I felt like I was supposed to be understanding and compassionate. As a teenager, I couldn’t muster those emotions lying below the surface. There were too many other emotions strangling them.
Dad and Ricky’s relationship eventually faded away, becoming another inadvertent casualty.Good riddance. A long line of boyfriends replaced him—until Oliver came along, fortunately putting an end to my father’s serial dating. The only other steady man in my father’s life had always been Henry. After his breakup with Ricky, my dad reached out to Henry for support, and they kept their promise to be lifelong friends.
Kevin leaned over and took a sip of my coffee, his cup apparently already empty. I slapped his hand playfully. “Hey, you stealer. Leave me the last sip.”
