He couldn’t hold back at that. “It’s not being gay that caused those things, it’s ignorance.”

“That’s what the devil wants you to believe, Gavin. That’s how he works. He twists things around, makes you believe in what’s wrong.”

“No, Mom. It’s not.” Gavin stepped inside the house. “Let’s go sit down.” He closed the door and helped his mother into the kitchen and to the table. It was old; everything in the house was. His parents had never cared much about material things.

Gavin pulled out a chair for her, and once she took a seat, he grabbed one for himself. “The man I’m seeing…his father had a stroke a couple weeks ago.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to hear this, Gavin. Don’t you get it? Your lifestyle is wrong.”

“You might believe that, but it doesn’t change who I am. You might not want to hear it, but that doesn’t make it less true. Mason could have lost his father. I don’t want to lose you and Dad. You’re my parents, shouldn’t that be all that matters? This is who I am. It’s not changing. If we’re going to have any kind of relationship, who I love can’t matter.”

The tears were already coming, and damned if they didn’t hurt. He was thirty years old and it still pained him to make his mother cry. “It’s not right. It’s not love. You’re being selfish. Your…” she shook her head. “That man, you said his father isn’t doing well. Doesn’t that wake you up? Your own daddy is the same, and it’s more important to you to be with some man, living in sin, than to give him the comfort of believing his son will be with him again some day.”

“So I’m supposed to lie about who I am?”

“You’re supposed to put your family first! Live your life however you want, but care enough about us not to flaunt it here. I don’t want to hear about it. Your dad, he gets upset and agitated so easily. Give him some peace, Gavin. Love your family enough to do that. Is it really that hard?”

Her words struck something deep inside of him. She was asking him to pretend. Asking him to do something that he never wanted to do again, but then, did he want to cause problems for his father? He knew enough about dementia to know how easily agitated they could become. Was it wrong of his mom to love his dad enough to want him to live peacefully? Was it really selfish of him not to agree to just…keep his mouth closed? To pretend to be the son his parents want when he’s around his father?

“It’s not going to change anything. I’ll still be gay. You’ll still have your beliefs about my life, even if they’re not spoken aloud.”

“Maybe—”

“It’s who I am. It will never change. I don’t want it to.”

“You’ll go to Hell, Gavin.”

He didn’t believe that but he knew she did. “Then I guess that’s my fate.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Another week passed in the blink of an eye. It was Sunday when Mason opened the door to his parent’s house.

“God damn it!” His father’s words were loud, but slurred. It would take a while for him to learn to speak clearly again—if ever. Mason’s head throbbed. He wanted nothing but to go upstairs and crash, but his dad didn’t shout like that often—though he had more recently.

“I’m trying, here. I don’t know what you want me to do!” his mom countered, and that pain in his head got worse. It traveled down to his chest. They were falling apart.

“Everything okay?” Isaac said from behind him. Christ, he’d forgotten the man was with him.

“Yeah, it’s fine. I’ll be right back.” He avoided the stairs and went toward the room on this level that his parents moved into.

“Where’s Mason?” his dad asked, prompting Mason to stop outside the room.

“He’s at work with Isaac.”

There was a pause, and then he heard the struggle in his father’s voice to get the words right when he spoke. “He doesn’t want it. I’ll never be able to work again. He doesn’t want Alexander’s.”

It was as though someone shoved a knife right below his ribcage. With each of his dad’s words, the knife twisted in deeper.

“No…he doesn’t. And as hard as that is, I want him to be happy. We’ll be okay, sweetheart. You’ll get better. Alexander’s will always be ours. We’re not going to lose it. Eventually it will go to Mason. He might have changed his mind by then. I just think…I think he’s lost right now. He doesn’t know who he is, or where he came from. Maybe—”