“Why now?” I hear myself say.
“Well, for one, I’m divorced.” Just as I wonder what that has to do with meeting me, he tacks on, “I’m facing up to being…well, I’m gay.”
“You are?”
He nods, folding his hands in front of him like a chastised schoolboy. “But this all really happened— Well, it was because of you.”
“Because of me?”
Luke comes to stand beside me, wrapping his arm around my back.
“When you got sent to the hospital,” my father chokes out. “By the car. I felt terrible about…our lack of contact. Kept me up at night, soul-searching. Thinking maybe—” He clears his throat, and I can see he’s as emotional as I am—right before he cuts that off and smooths his face back to a neutral look. “I thought if maybe I had talked to you. Prepared you. Maybe you would have had a life that was more…informed.”
I don’t mean to scoff so loudly. “I’ve been out for years and years. My life is informed.”
“Then you’re doing better than me. You inspired me. It made me want to meet you.”
“But you never did before.” My tone is flat, because I feel no anger right now. Just surprise, and disappointment, I think.
“Before…I’m so ashamed to say, I mostly just felt bad when I thought of you. Bad about myself. Bad about my lying, my deceptions. It made me feel weak. Furthermore, I didn’t see that you could benefit from any association with me. Your mother—I think she knew my secrets. She was a good woman. I knew she would give you the things you needed.”
“We were dirt poor,” I tell him. “Half the time. Mom was always stressed about it. Being poor was something that you could have fixed if she was so good, like you say now.”
He looks down. His shoulders heave as he sucks air in, blows it out. He lifts his head and meets my eyes. “I was a bad man. Selfish. Immoral. Mostly just selfish,” he says, speaking slowly. He sounds thoughtful. “Sometimes it’s easier to just forget something. Than face the music. Face your failures. Your mother, she would write me letters. About you. I asked, and she complied.”
I feel a jolt of shock, and Sky’s arm tightens around me.
“She kept it from you, because telling you would mean that you would…expect something. Which I knew I couldn’t give. So she gave me the gift of letting me know how you were doing. I saw you more than once. I think the last time was in a museum. Even then, I didn’t speak to you. I didn’t feel I had the right, by that point. I’m still not sure I do. But I left New York and I started driving. I think I knew by Harrisburg where I was going.” He smiles softly. “I could have—should, I guess, have—called.” He shakes his head and looks down at his shoes for a moment. “I knew you wouldn’t want to see me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Is it not?”
“I would have told him to tell you no,” Luke says bluntly. “Then he might have advocated for you. Because that’s the kind of man that Vance is. Your son is completely selfless. The most kind, generous person there ever was. You made a big mistake refusing to know him. Avoiding him like a coward.”
I’m surprised by the harshness in Luke’s voice, and by the shame on my father’s face.
“I’m aware I did.”
“What did you want to say?” My legs feel weird and sort of weak. I want to sit down, but I won’t because the rest of them are standing.
“Just what I said,” he says softly. “That I’m proud. That the two of you inspired an old man. I had a mistress for a long time. Got divorced, but still saw women. The whole time, I was…stepping out. Anyway, I’ve ended all that. I’m with my beau and only him now. We may one day…” He shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter to you. I wanted to introduce myself.”
He holds his hand out. “I’m Raymond. You have my eyes, your mother’s smile. You’re really…lovely,” he says quietly.
I can’t speak for the huge lump in my throat.
“You always were. And your work—simply stunning. I don’t know where that came from, but I have pieces all over my house.”
“You do?”
“Oh yes.”
He gets his phone out. “I have Time in Motion. Light on Windows. Summer When It’s Raining All day. And The Boundary of Desire.”
My stomach is so topsy-turvy, I feel like I might throw up.
“Let’s sit down,” Luke says.
He takes my arm, and we sit on the couch. He wraps his arm around me, and I’m grateful even as I feel like I’m nine years old.
I’m aware of Miller in the kitchen with a fussing Eden.
“He might need help,” I say to Luke.
“The instructions we left Arrow are still on the counter.”