Chapter16
John helped his mom and Charlie clean up after dinner. After he cleared the table, Charlie said he was going out to the garage for half an hour to finish a job he’d started earlier. He gave Sarah a kiss on the cheek before he went out through the mudroom door.
“You two are cute,” John said. “It’s nice to see you so happy.”
“It still feels like a dream.”
“Good for you. You deserve it, Mom.”
“Yes, I do.”
John laughed at the emphatic way she said that. No one had ever deserved happily ever after more than she did.
“What about you?” she asked in the casual tone mothers everywhere used when they were looking for information from reluctant offspring.
“What about me?”
“Are you going to see Niall again? He seems like such a nice young man. I was so glad you brought him to dinner the other night.”
Unsure of what she was really asking, John continued to wipe the countertop. “He is nice.”
“Johnny.”
He stopped what he was doing and turned to her, shocked to find her watching him with a knowing look on her face. “What?”
“Do you like him?”
“Yes, of course. We’re friends from the Beachcomber. I met up with him when I was out running and…”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to explain anything to me. It’s just that I think he’s great, and it seems like maybe you do, too.”
“We’re friends.”
“Are you ever going to tell me the truth?”
John felt like he’d been hit by a hot arrow to the chest. “About what?”
She tipped her head and raised her brows. “About everything. Do you think I don’t know what you’re trying so hard to hide from me? Or that I won’t understand or won’t support you the same way I always have?”
John was so shocked, he had no idea how to respond.
She came closer to him, put her hands on his shoulders and looked up at him. “We’re no longer living in Mark Lawry’s house.”
“Thank God for that,” John said with a nervous laugh.
“That means we’re all free to be who and what we are, including you.”
He heard what she said, understood the deeper meaning behind the words, but couldn’t bring himself to reply. It had become second nature to him to hide from the truth, which meant he had no idea how to broach the subject, even with the opening his mother had given him.
“If you want to talk about it, I’m here. I love you unconditionally, now and forever.”
She would never know what those words meant to him.
He stood frozen in place as she went back to wiping down the stovetop. The words he wanted to say burned on the tip of his tongue. Just say it. Tell her what she seems to already know. He wanted to so badly, but all he could hear was Mark Lawry’s voice in the back of his head saying none of them had better be gay, that he’d rather be dead than have a gay child.
His father’s hateful words were burned on John’s soul in permanent ink. They’d forced him to live a lie for most of his life, until he finally took a chance on what he wanted and had it blow up in his face in spectacular fashion. He hadn’t even told his mother why he’d quit the department. It might be better, for him, for everyone who loved him, to keep the truth buried, and he might’ve done that if his mother hadn’t told him he wasn’t fooling her.
“I, uh… Mom.”