1994

Arianna looked as awkward as Sean did. The two had been friends for a long time, but never romantic, so when both had been pressured by their respective moms to invite the other to prom, it had been intensely uncomfortable. They’d nearly stopped speaking in the week leading up to the day of the event.

“Smile!” Kate said cheerily, clicking the button on the disposable camera. Sean and Arianna gave a half-hearted show of teeth as it flashed. The pinning of the corsage had the same level of enthusiasm from all involved.

Kate and Louis followed the two to the front door as they headed to Louis’s sedan. Louis could only watch with a blank expression, while Kate looked like she was near tears with joy and excitement.

“Our boy,” She said, her breath hitching.

Beneath his stoic expression, Louis was fuming. He was sure that Sean would part ways with Arianna for the evening to spend time alone with Isaac, but that wasn’t what irritated him.

This whole thing was a sham. Kate and Arianna’s mother had been matchmaking the two since they were six years old, much to the continued embarrassment of both kids. It seemed like nothing would shake his wife’s belief that their son would one day see Arianna as his true love. She’d never said that Arianna would “make Sean abandon his sinful ways,” not in those exact words, but the meaning was there. He knew it. Kate knew it. The two childhood friends - and they wanted to stay just friends - knew it.

In the same way, the two mothers hadn’t technically forced the kids to go to prom together. As best Louis could tell, neither of them wanted to go at all, but Kate had been insistent on getting Sean fitted for a tux, and had made a corsage and mum for the two of her own volition, “just in case.” Sean eventually caved, having taken the Sunday School lessons of respecting his parents to heart.

Maybe Arianna had even set up a rendezvous with Isaac for Sean. He wasn’t completely convinced it would be the worst thing. She really was a good kid, and he was glad Sean had her in his life. He needed a friend to help him the way his parents couldn’t.

Louis and Kate were losing him. Sean never lashed out, never openly disobeyed their rules, but he grew increasingly glum. The boy was gaining weight, showed little interest in leaving the home, and seemed to have no plans for the future.

“Aren’t they so cute together?” Kate said as the car left the subdivision.

Louis couldn’t finish his thoughts in time to speak.

“What’s wrong, Lou?” Kate asked, genuine concern in her eyes. Louis felt the turmoil in his gut, causing him physical pain that made him wince.

He loved her. He wanted to do right by her. Like her, he’d been taught since childhood that Sean’s choice to be gay - and their pastors had insisted it was a choice - was a thing they had to show him was wrong. They wouldn’t beat it out of their son like Kate’s parents might have done - and like Louis’s father would have done - but in their minds, the situation wasn’t ideal.

The situation wasn’t ideal.

Where do you stand, he constantly asked himself. He knew he couldn’t keep dithering. Even discounting the fact that he wasn’t obeying the command of God or his pastors, the cognitive dissonance (a term he’d recently learned) was tearing him apart. He was watching his son spiral downward into depression, and he feared the worst. Already, Sean had come home with bruises and torn clothing, or having been robbed of one thing or another.

“He’ll be fine,” Kate said, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek, “This will be a good night for him. You’ll see.”

Sometimes, he wished he could live in his wife’s mind, though when he was at his most lucid, he had to remind himself he wasn’t sure what she felt, not completely. She’d participated in and even come up with several ideas that had been meant to gently nudge Sean out of sin, and hadn’t shown any discouragement when all of them quietly failed.

Did she see their son’s pain? Did the sight of that misery weigh as heavily on her mind as it did his? Did she believe that Sean’s dark existence would suddenly transform into joy when he “found the way?”

He couldn’t know. They both buried their feelings in their own ways, each sure they were failing as parents, but-

“Oh,” Kate’s expression soured, “You don’t think Isaac will be there, do you?”

Damn, he said to himself. He’d hoped she wouldn’t bring it up.

“I don’t know,” Louis said.

“Lou-” Kate said, with an edge to the word.

There it was: the look that said she’d understood exactly what he was thinking.

He couldn't completely keep the angry glare out of his expression. She could only shake her head and walk back inside without a word.

It was a quiet thing, the unraveling of their marriage. Louis had sworn he’d never be like his father: verbally abusive to his wife and kids, screaming at them for every sin, misstep, or tiny thing he didn’t like. Louis had succeeded in that regard, but was beginning to understand the heart of the matter, the flaw in his father that the man had let grow out of control. There were many ways to fail, all stemming from the unchecked corruption of love.

He was reminded of a chapter from The Screwtape Letters. The demon Screwtape, advising his nephew Wormwood on the subtle corruption of the relationship of a man and his mother, tells him to plant resentment in the relations between the two humans, but to discourage discussion about the core of the matter. With delight, Screwtape tells Wormwood that the two would eventually speak to each other with words that were outwardly pleasant but meant to offend. Both parties would still come away disgusted that their words had been taken as offensive by the others, as though they really were sincere with the facade, though the harm had been the intent all along.

He understood how that happened now. It could happen without words, as it had between him and his wife. His “love” for her had become nothing more than protecting her from his worst impulses. He had been patting himself on the back for giving her what he perceived to be basic human decency, and had given her nothing further.

A sigh escaped him as the screen door squeaked shut. He decided he'd call a lawyer the next day. 

******

"Do you know how many times it was drilled into my head that I was wrong?"

Louis understands the deeper meaning of the question. His son had not been merely accused of wrongdoings. The message Sean had received for decades of his life was that he was wrong. 

Him. Sean. The person.

The conundrum of faith and humanity rises in Louis’s soul again. He feels it in his gut, burning like acid. It catches in its throat, the words and ideas clawing to keep the other from escaping.

He’s frozen. Silence and speech could both ruin them here.

“Tell me,” Louis says. He wants to know. He wants Sean to see how desperately he wants to know, and he’s afraid the words have said the wrong thing.

“I can’t-” Sean says, clenching his teeth, “I don’t know. I’m still-” He pauses again, “Every day, I come across something from that old life that hurts me, that lingers. Every time I think about God, about church, about the things they told us and-”

It was time to hear it, Louis says to himself. He prays for the ability to put aside his thoughts, his reactions, everything that fifty years of doctrine had made him into. This would be a sin, but not a mistake. He’d pray for forgiveness later for putting God second.

“-and you and mom just let it happen. Pushed me into it. God, I hate doing this,” Sean says.

“Don’t-” Louis begins, regretting his reaction immediately but unable to stop, “Please, it’s OK. You can-”

“No. It’s not OK. I’ve tried-” Sean clenches his fists as he pauses, “Tried so hard to leave this behind. But I can’t. It’s part of me, and-”

Louis remains completely still as his son turns away, making a show of looking for the waiter. It feels like being in the middle of a minefield, one that he allowed to be laid in the first place.

“-and every time something comes up I’m not prepared for, I have to remind myself that I’m not actually being punished for something I can’t control.”

As his son speaks, the verses condemning his son’s love for Jaylin flash through his mind: the apostle Paul’s promise that people like Sean would not inherit the kingdom of heaven, and the Old Testament commands to enact far worse and far more immediate action.

Louis knows the feeling his son speaks of. He’s never considered it to be a burden. It was the right thing to do, he had been taught, to substitute God’s word for thoughts that were deemed impure. “Raising up a child in the way they ought to go” usually meant to teach them this automatic, thorough rejection of what the world tells you. It has been drilled so deep into his psyche that it is now inseparable from his innate conscience.

“You saw all of it. You chose God over me,” Sean says. He isn’t wrong, Louis says to himself. That was what the older man had been taught to do, and it was what he had done, what he had believed was right.

A million promises from the Bible and every spiritual leader he’s ever had flashes through his mind, and none of them offer any comfort. He can’t bring himself to call them lies - he’s been conditioned to walk by faith, not by sight after all.

“I did,” Louis says, his mind swirling with doctrine, emotion and conflict that have all been circulating together too long to be separated.

1999

“It’ll be alright, dad,” Sean said, patting his father on the shoulder as he and Jaylin opened their doors.

He didn’t want his son to go to the Pride parade. Sure, it was in the city an hour away from their town, but this was the South. There were no guarantees of safety. Taking him there, safely escorting him and Jaylin through the protestors shouting profanities and hurling beer bottles was as close as he could come to supporting him.

Sean and Jaylin left without a word, breaking into a jog and disappearing into the crowd.

He drove with the radio off for about ten minutes, sitting in silence until his Nokia rang. He let it ring four times, questioning whether he even wanted to answer before he relented.

“Hey,” He said.

“I signed the papers,” Kate said.

Almost a full minute of silence passed before either of them spoke. It had been a long, quiet end.

He’d given up, Kate had said in so many counseling sessions. With tears in her eyes, she had told him that he abandoned his duty as the spiritual leader of the household, and that she couldn’t stay yoked to him if he couldn’t maintain his conviction.

“I’m sorry,” Louis said, more to the empty car than to Kate, as he watched the cheering crowd Sean and Jaylin had disappeared into. He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for. Breaking Kate’s heart, not holding to the faith, being too stupid and timid to decide what he believed - she had a lot to choose from.

“I’ll meet you at the courthouse,” Kate said flatly.

“OK,” Louis said.

They both hung up the phone without saying goodbye. No anger, no last barbs. When one had been together with someone for 20 years, they knew when the other was done talking.

It had been an impossible choice for Louis. On one hand, he should have held fast to his wife and his God, like the word had commanded him to do. But then, every biological instinct he had screamed that his son, his flesh and blood, a life more important than his could ever be, was under assault from the church he had raised his son to serve since birth.

His wife and son had both needed him, and he had frozen. As it turned out, one could fail the people they loved by doing nothing. 

He was still frozen. Unable to be the godly leader his wife craved, and unable to shield his son from a "love" that said his very existence was sin, all he could do was help them both leave him for people and places that could give them what he couldn't.

******

Every prayer Louis had sent up for twelve years had been a desperate plea for exactly this moment. If only he could have the chance to speak to his son, he said to himself, he could make it right, would make it right. He’d show Sean he could change.

But here he was, still stuck. Still clueless, still paralyzed and mute. The fear that he’ll remain this way redoubles the paralysis, makes him feel even more trapped beneath the weight of years of indecision he had once told himself was wisdom and restraint.

“I didn’t…I didn’t know what to do,” Louis says.

“Neither did I,” Sean replies, his voice resolute. Louis’s shame compounds as he curses himself for passing on that uncertainty, for not being able to amend it, contextualize it.

“I still don’t,” Sean adds, pausing to visibly gather his words, “I’m still not convinced that this,” He gestures between the two of them, “Was a good idea. It doesn’t feel like it’s helping anything. Just bringing back things I’ve fought not to feel for so long.”

“I hope that-” Louis stops and closes his eyes, finding himself unable to complete the sentence.

What does he hope, he asks himself? That God releases him from the burden of feeling like he has to “save” his son? That he can show his son the love that he’s fighting so hard to make unconditional? That he can somehow make himself everything the boy needs - no, not a boy, a man, Louis corrects himself, and not just to rectify the damage of the past, but to somehow, finally make himself something good in the life of Sean and his husband?

No. He’s hoped for all of that for decades, and the hope was of no consequence.

The panic begins again. What can he do? What can he say? How can he join Sean in the life that brings him peace, rather than reflexively trying to drag him back to the one he struggled so mightily to leave behind?

Louis’s father had never asked him that. The abusive old man had never apologized or even shown that he had any regret or conflict in his heart for the chains he had saddled onto the people he was supposed to protect and to nurture. He forgave his father for that a long time ago, but he doesn’t want to have to wait for Sean’s forgiveness.

And suddenly, Louis knows what he can say.

“I know you can’t forgive me for what I did, for what I believed. It’s-” Louis takes a deep breath, “It’s OK. I asked you here for selfish reasons, but now that we’re actually here, I see that-” He pauses again as he loses his nerve, fighting for the resolve he felt five seconds ago, “I gave you a lot of-of things I wish I could take back.”

“Uncertainty. Self-loathing,” Sean cringes, “I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t say that.”

“No, no it’s OK, you’re-” Louis begins.

“No, it’s not OK. I don’t want to be the kind of person that needs other people to pay for what they did wrong to me. I don’t want to be that-” Sean takes a breath to keep his emotions in control, “That emotionally bankrupt, I guess. For lack of better terms.”

Pride surges through Louis, and though he knows it could be so easily misinterpreted, he can’t help but give a tearful smile. Hearing his son talk about himself with such assurance, seeing that he knows what he wants to be, how he wants to be, gives him a peace that the guilt and separation cannot spoil.

“I’m gonna go. Sorry, but this-” Sean pauses, then rises from the booth, “This isn’t helping.”

“I know you don’t want me to pay you back, but…can I try anyways?” Louis says, rising slowly himself.

“Guess I can’t stop you,” Sean sighs as the words escape him.

The two don’t hug or shake hands; they don’t even say goodbye. Louis just watches his son walk through the restaurant’s entrance, lower himself into his Camry, and pull out of the parking lot, headed towards the interstate.

******

Guess I can’t stop you.

It isn’t what Louis had hoped for. He grieves the loss of the relationship he never had with the adult version of his son, who had grown into a good, strong man without his guidance.

Despite the heaviness he knows he may never shed, Sean’s begrudging willingness to tolerate his presence is more than Louis has had in years. The door may not be open, but there is light coming through the gap at the bottom.

And that was enough for now. He had work of his own to do: making sure that, should the opportunity arise, Sean would see that Louis was a better man and father than the one he’d known as a child. He’d believe there was still a chance, still a place in his son’s life for him…and that he could earn that place, whatever the personal cost.

After all, he had hoped for this day to come, as well.