Why?
After another deep breath, I continued, having to wipe at my eyes so that I could see the scratchy letters that were trying to swim away from me.
“I’m sorry because I’m gay myself, and that fear of what lay inside me, of the lies I was telling daily, that was what caused me to fight.”
I had to stand up. Oliver grabbed the letter, which had fallen from my hand.
“Bloody hell.”
“Did he… did your dad say he was gay?”
“Bloody fuckin’ hell.”
I felt nauseous. I walked a small circle around my backyard. He must have been feeling so much self-inflicted pain. And he inflicted so much pain on me. On my mother. On our entire family. And he waited until now to tell me? My fists balled up. My breaths were short, ragged.
“Beck, sit, come and talk.”
I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to sit. I didn’t want to keep reading. What I wanted was to travel back in time and smack my father over the head for being such an idiot. If he had just come out sooner, if he had just stopped the lies, if he had just—
No. There was no use going down that path. He had made his choices, and we all had to live with them.
I sat back down, my breaths still coming in quick, oxygen slamming into my lungs. Oliver’s hand rested on mine. He held it, squeezed. I looked into his eyes and found a well of strength. I drank it in. My father’s story may have been written and closed, but mine was still in the making, and this was only a tiny piece.
“All right, here.” I handed him the letter. “You read the rest.”
“What? No, Beck, I think—”
“I want you to read it.”
Oliver didn’t protest. He nodded and turned his gaze down to the last lines of the note. “Please forgive me,” he said, voice steady even though the words were enough to shake me down to my core. “Forgive the pain I’ve caused. I wish you could meet the man I met, the one I fell in love with. Arnold Tillman. Ten years we’ve been together. He died last week. Doctors say pneumonia, but I think it was a broken heart from my diagnosis.” Oliver’s voice cracked, no longer steady. I reached for the letter, but he continued after clearing his throat. “I’m giving this letter to his sister, Luna. I’d give it to your mother, but we all know she loses everything. I hope you read this, son, and I hope you know that I love you and will forever love you, Becks.” Oliver’s voice cracked like a pane of glass breaking. He wiped at his cheek before reading the final line. “Love you with all my heart. Your Dad.”
And then Oliver started to break down. I instantly went over to him and held him, letting him cry into my shoulder, silent tears of my own sliding down my cheek and wetting the top of Oliver’s head.
Tonight was one of those nights that would never be forgotten. One of those nights that suddenly defines an entire lifetime.
Oliver sniffled and sat up, rubbing his red eyes. He was smiling, or trying to smile at least. That was something I admired about Oliver. No matter how heavy the burden was that he carried, he always tried to manage a smile, through whatever crap he was dealing with. I rubbed away some of the tears from his cheeks, from the corners of his glistening eyes. His strength gave me strength when I needed it the most.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what happened to me,” he said, looking down, almost as if he were ashamed.
I tilted his head back up, locking eyes. “Oliver, I wouldn’t have gotten through that letter if it wasn’t for you. Thank you.”
He smiled, this time a little stronger than the last. “I just wish… I wish it wasn’t through a letter, and I know that sounds so unfair, but I just wish… that you two had more time together. To talk things through. If only a wish could change things.” Oliver shook his head. “It’s so dumb. Like a kid wishing on a star or something.”
“That’s what I love so much about you, Oliver. You’re able to stay hopeful even when there’s no hope to be found. It helps during times like these. Trust me.”
I looked out to my backyard, half of it partly illuminated by the streetlight on the other side of the flimsy fence. My heart was feeling an odd mixture of pain and relief, neither one stronger than the other.
“I never knew…” My voice felt distant, like it was coming from a stranger speaking through a static-filled phone line. “Should I have known? I never thought he was gay. And why couldn’t he just tell me? Once he found his love? Fucking hell. Why?”
Frustration was rising in me like lava through a volcano.
“I think he was ashamed. I think he was ashamed and he was trying to get the strength to push that shame away. And I don’t think he ever realized how little time he had left to gather that strength. No one ever does.”
“He could have called me.”
“So that you hang up the phone? I don’t think he wanted to risk that. It sounded like he was really sick.”
“Hell, we have Skype nowadays. He could have done anything,anythingto reach me. Before he, before—fuck!”