Chapter_37_Men_Having

“That’s my mom,” Gordon says, gesturing to the urn that I thought was my father. “You know that your father and I are partners.”

This doesn’t compute. “Business partners?” I ask, even though I’m starting to guess what he means.

“Life partners,” Gordon says. “Husbands. We’ve been married for seventeen years.”

I’m silenced. Breathless.

“I thought you said you read his letters,” he says, perplexed.

“Apparently not all of them,” I manage. It feels like I’ve turned to a pile of dust. Put my remains in that urn and scatter my ashes at sea.

What did he just say?

It takes me a full minute to interrupt my internal processing and speak.

“My father’s gay?” I ask. A nervous laugh slips out of me.

“Your mom... didn’t tell you?” he asks with a glimmer of shock on his face.

Memories flood my mind. “I do remember hearing about you. She once said he had a best friend. That you two shared a house. I guess I never...” I take a confused breath. Sparks of anger bubble in my chest, thinking how my mom left out the most important part.

How she denied me the truth.

“It’s okay,” he says, flashing a supportive smile.

“Is he here?” is all I can think to ask.

Gordon tenses up, looks at the floor, then back up at me with concern. “We recently had some setbacks and decided it was best for him to live in a community where he could be monitored and looked after. He’s not far from here. It’s a twenty-four-hour care facility.”

I don’t know how to digest all of this news. I flip through a million questions in my mind.

“You know, this whole time—my whole life—for whatever reason, my mom told me he left when I was a kid and wanted nothing to do with us, and we believed it and never questioned it. Then his letters...”

I trail off, reaching into my pocket to pull out a letter. “He wrote to me and my brother and I had no idea. There were a bunch of them. We never knew.” I’m about to become emotional. Saying this all out loud makes me feel less like myself and more like a sad orphan in a Dickens novel. The foundation of my identity starts to crumble.

Gordon examines the letter. With someone else holding it, I can really see the passage of time in the dusty envelope, the way it’s torn, stored for years and recently transported across state lines.

“Do you—would you like to see him?” Gordon asks, knowing I need answers to fill the hole in my heart.

All I can do is think of how much I wish Biz were sitting in the empty seat next to me.

Silver Desert Retirement Community has a perfect ring to it. A nice place to retire in Nevada; even though the engraved wooden sign out front that reads “We’re Family” seems ironic for obvious reasons.

I decide it’s best that Gordon doesn’t join me at first. If Biz isn’t by my side, I want to stay committed to my solo endeavor.

Entering the inviting lobby of the retirement community, there’s a fragrant lavender smell I wasn’t expecting. It’s refreshing. A good omen, maybe.

It’s not often I have the chance to see something so authentic as this place. As a director, I’m always collecting images in my mind. Real life props, the design of a room, people’s faces. It’s cute to see two seniors sitting closely on a loveseat, laughing at a video on one of their phones. The joy in their eyes makes them look thirty years younger.

But then I bristle, imagining a time when millennials become geriatrics, all staring at their phones, still liking each other’s pictures forty years later. Or maybe by then, instead of “liking a pic” we have to “hug a hologram” or “whisper to an AI” or some other not yet invented term.

A silver-haired woman at the front desk gives me my father’s room number, and before I know it, I’m standing in front of a residential door: 402. It stares at me as if my entire life has been leading up to these three little numbers.

I feel my phone vibrate in my shorts. It’s Biz. There’s nowhere to take a private call in the hallway so I text him back.

WYATT

No biggie. About to see my father. What’s up?

BIZ

NM ur situation is a little more important than mine

WYATT

Why? What’s happening?

I see text bubbles appear and disappear a few times, like Biz can’t decide what to say. Then his text appears.

BIZ

don’t worry about it. call me after

Now I’m worried about whatever is happening with Biz.

WYATT

Are you sure? Do you want to meet me here and we can talk? I wish you were here with me actually.

BIZ

of course

I text Biz the address of the place and tell him to meet me in the courtyard. If things go horribly sideways, Biz can swoop in and save the day.

How long could a meeting with your long-lost father last? We’d have to make small talk before even thinking about dipping our toes into any kind of father-son relationship. I’m not expecting a redo of our entire missed lives together in a single hour.

The best I could hope for is an answer to why he left.

I knock on the door. Before it opens, I adjust the way I’m standing at least ten times: arms crossed, uncrossed, knees slightly bent, standing with perfect posture, two steps back away from the door, one-half step back in. It’s hard to know how to act and where to put your hands and how to stand and look and—

The door opens.

I wasn’t expecting someone this short. Well, he isn’t exactly short but his eyeline is lower than I’d expected.

I tilt my head down to see my father sitting in a motorized wheelchair. This man that seemed larger-than-life in my memory is now so small.

This time, I need confirmation right away. “Richard Wallace?”

Beneath his pair of giant, black-rimmed glasses, like an old-timey Hollywood power mogul might wear, his eyes are sharp and he has a playful smile. “Wyatt Wallace?”

We stare silently at each other for a few seconds, trying to connect all of the lost years between us and everything that brought us back together.

We take our conversation to the beautifully designed courtyard. It’s a lush area with flower beds and brand-new paved walkways. Patio tables with yellow umbrellas surrounded by stately palm trees offer protection for its citizens.

Richard—I’m not ready to say Dad—speaks first. “I was wondering what you’d look like,” he says, taking in my face, reconfiguring his brain to understand that I’m not a kid anymore. “I’ve tried googling you over the years but could never find much.”

“Yeah, I don’t have much of an online footprint. My social media is just pictures of our dog. Oh, and I take a pic of my director’s chair once in a while.”

“Before you tell me about your dog and your job, you say there’s a we? Are you married? Your mom never replied to me through the years. I don’t know anything about you boys.”

“Not married.” I guess now’s the time to come out to him. “Partnered. Boyfriend.”

“I’m so happy you found someone,” he says without missing a beat.

“Yeah,” I say, staring at the thorny base of a nearby palm tree. “You too. Gordon seems so great.”

At the same time, we smile, realizing it’s kind of a gift that father and son are both gay. A fact that’s still blowing my mind. But at least we’re one step closer toward bonding that might not have otherwise existed.

“He’s the best. Been by my side for almost twenty years,” Richard says.

“Wow. Amazing,” I say, astonished at how little I know about him.

“What’s your guy’s name?”

“His name is Biz. His real name is Massimo? He’s Italian? And was nicknamed Biz as a kid?” I have no idea why I’m suddenly saying everything like a question. Nervous energy can take strange directions. “And we have a baby on the way.”

“No kidding!” Richard grins with tears in his eyes. “When?”

“Due in a few weeks. That’s why we’re here. We drove from New York and the baby will be born in California.”

“And then back to New York?”

“That’s the plan.”

Richard bites his quivering lower lip to keep from crying tears of pride for his son having a baby. He takes a deep breath and looks up at the deep blue sky for strength.

“I suppose you want to know... everything,” he says, diving into the past.

“That would be helpful,” I say sharply. Of course I want to know everything, to question him, to poke and prod and fight and debate and argue until I know every last detail of how, why, what, where, when.

Richard sighs with a weight he’s been carrying. “Right around the time your brother was born, I was diagnosed with MS. Been living with it for decades now but... it was mild at first. I was able to keep it under control with the right meds. After I left Boston, I met Gordon. We’ve had a great life. Lately, it hasn’t been much fun though. My needs started taking up our days. It took a toll on both of us. This place was the closest to home where I felt comfortable, and he visits me every day.” He flashes a smile. “Getting old isn’t for cowards.”

I blink. Part of me feels bad. He’s had it rough. But I wonder if I somehow missed the part where he abandoned us and why Mom never spoke of him.

But I think I know why.

Realizing my hands are clasped too tightly to the seat of the bench, I release them. I need to just free-fall and not plan exactly what I’m about to say.

“So... when you left, was I—”

“It wasn’t you or your brother’s fault, just so we have that clear,” Richard says, putting a gentle hand on my knee, making sure I know this emphatically.

“No. Yeah, I know. I maybe thought that when I was younger but...”

“It wasn’t just one thing. It was a perfect storm.” Richard lets the floodgates open. He explains to me what happened as much as he reminds himself. “Me being gay and marrying your mom was obviously the main thing.”

“Which me and Alex had no idea about.”

“It was a different time, that era. Back then, if you wanted to fall in love, get married and have kids, you’d marry a woman. We didn’t have surrogates. Adopting wasn’t in the picture. Neither was saying you had a boyfriend. None of it was the norm the way it is now. And so...”

“You blew it.” For a second, I was going to just nod and take it all in. But I decide not to forgive him that easily.

“I don’t know if that’s fair to say,” Richard says. His posture stiffens.

“Why not? To leave us kids and Mom with nothing? She had to completely start over.” I swallow, nervous adrenaline kicking in. “Sorry, but it’s time to let out my bitterness and frustration and astonishment and hurt. I’m no longer a kid, sad and missing my dad. I’m an adult now, speaking to another adult. Why didn’t you just come out to Mom and hang around for the sake of your two kids?”

“Like I said, different era. Coming out and being openly gay wasn’t an option. I left because that wouldn’t have been fair to your mom. And I needed to be honest with myself and live an honest life.”

“But clearly that hurt Mom. And it definitely hurt me and Alex. You broke an entire family. Growing up, we took three separate paths. There was barely any communication of anything real. No cohesiveness. None of us recovered from you leaving. Not really,” I explain.

I can see he’s hurt, but he’s willing to accept the truth.

“I’m not saying Mom is innocent either,” I continue. “It’s wrong that she could never really tell me why you left. Or that you’d been trying to reach out.”

“I eventually told her I was gay,” he says. “When I finally admitted it to myself. It’s why I started writing you guys letters. But by then she had already cut me off completely. She didn’t stop talking to me because I was gay. She stopped talking to me because I hurt her.”

“I just can’t understand how you both kept up all the lies,” I say, my cheeks starting to burn. “You waited so long to tell her who you really are, and she could barely bring herself to tell me about your letters. I had to discover them.”

“We both screwed up. It didn’t start perfect and it ended worse,” he admits.

My head throbs thinking how I came out here in search of answers, only to learn more than I could’ve ever imagined.

I remember all the Father’s Days, the hockey games, the snow days when all the kids and their parents met at the park and went sledding, wishing I had my dad with me.

In an instant, I decide I don’t want this to hurt me anymore.

I think of the long road ahead that Biz and I are about to have with our baby. I can’t replace the memories I don’t have, but I can create new ones.

As much as I want to dwell on the fantasy of what could’ve been with my father, what should’ve been, there isn’t enough time. I have to accept that colossal mistakes were made and that all those years between us are gone. This is our new reality.

I realize this jigsaw puzzle in my mind is always going to have a few missing pieces.

Richard chooses his words carefully. “Look at you. You turned out so great.”

“That’s because I chose this path. I didn’t choose anger because I didn’t want your absence defining me. I could’ve held in only so much more resentment until it cracked me and turned me bitter or rebellious. Getting to this point in my life hasn’t been easy. I don’t know where I got the tools but something helped me along the way,” I say, realizing all of this for the first time.

“I’m sure your mom had something to do with it,” he adds softly.

I nod, knowing her force of nature helped my brother and I push through a lot.

We let a quiet breeze linger for a moment as the only sound between us.

“I gotta say, no matter what you think of me, it’s so damn good to see you, son,” he says. Hearing him say that word sends a shock through my central nervous system. It sounds so foreign coming from someone who’s not my mom.

I turn to look at this man. Really look at him. Underneath his black statement glasses, I’m struck by how much we look alike, like Dave meeting his future self at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I realize that I’m a perfect mix of my parents. I have my mom’s blue eyes and fair Irish skin with my dad’s full lips and the same prominent jawline. Strong genes run deep. I’m happy to see that he still has a full head of hair, a wild whip of gunmetal gray, like a news anchor on vacation. There are cracks around his eyes and deep lines around his mouth where he smiles often. Most noticeably, the heart on his sleeve yields to a lifetime of regret.

“So where do we go from here?” I ask.

“If you follow this path, it takes you to the north parking lot,” Richard says.

“I mean bigger picture.”

“That was a joke. Sorry. My dry sense of humor,” he explains.

“I was joking too. ’Cuz I knew you were joking. Guess we’re both dry.”

“Wow. You really played that real. Good one,” Richard says.

We smile at each other with an identical playfulness in our eyes. Both trying to move past the nostalgia of each other.

“I think it’s up to you,” Richard says. “I realize we could never make up for lost time, but I’d love to stay updated on your life. Check in, just to chat.” Richard doesn’t want to overstep. “If you want.”

I’d have to give our future relationship more thought. “That’s a good first step,” I say.

We look up at someone approaching. “My god, they’re getting younger and younger in this place.” We spot a figure struggling to walk toward us, backlit by the sun, almost in silhouette. The man is using a walker? Or a cane, maybe? Like he’s trying to learn to walk again.

When the man clears the hedges, I can’t believe who I’m looking at. I stand and see the man is on crutches with a big black medical boot on his foot. My heart sinks.

“Biz?”