When I was 18, I told my mother I was gay and she replied, “Well, I guess I’ve got my own bomb to drop. Daddy isn’t your father.”

This was not how I imagined this conversation going.

I’d spent so many hours rehearsing my script, doing everything short of practicing in front of the mirror, that I was certain I’d accounted for every possible variable and outcome. Clearly not. I sat silently on the bus bench next to her and let the information sink in. And, if I’m completely honest, the news came more as a balm than a bomb because my first response was relief.

It’s not that I didn’t love my father. I loved him very much. We just never had an awful lot in common and I’d always struggled with our lack of closeness. We didn’t speak the same language and I had grown weary of trying to learn his native tongue. I felt as if I never quite measured up to the son he imagined for himself and he was never the source of fatherly strength I needed him to be. So, years later, when he got a family do-over, it was oh so easy for me to take a step back into the shadows and no longer feel guilt for falling short.

Every gift he ever gave me was intended for the boy that I was not. Fishing poles and tackle boxes. Model airplane kits and remote-controlled race cars. HO train sets and air powered BB guns. All things any normal boy would be delighted to receive. Any boy except me. I was the weirdo who wanted macramé supplies and the boxed set of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books.

He died at 46 of pancreatic cancer so I ran out of chances to get my own do-over with him and it remains one of my greatest regrets.

Say what you will about my mother, she gave me one of the best gifts a parent can bestow upon a child and that is a love of reading. One of my earliest memories, before I’d even started kindergarten, was sitting in her lap, a rare occurrence in and of itself, so that she could teach me to decipher the mysteries of the I See Sam books. I reveled in the vivid world they unlocked for me. Any trip in the car was now an opportunity to show off my new skill by sounding out every street and business sign I encountered. This might have gone on indefinitely had Mommy Dearest not put a swift end to my enthusiasm from the front seat with “Jesus Christ, Charles! Knock it off!”.

Only from my current vantage point in the driver’s seat of my adult life can I see that the entire endeavor might have been more about buying her back a bit of autonomy when “Go play outside!” was not an option.  

As we sat in Santa Monica so many years later, waiting for the number 4 Big Blue Bus to take us to our respective homes, I had decided to take the leap into the deep end of the pool and ask her about a movie that had been on tv earlier that week. With only a handful of channels to choose from back then, I was confident that she would know which one I was talking about when I asked, “Did you see that Aidan Quinn movie on Monday night?”. Not a tact I’d take in the endless landscape of viewing options available today.

I would have watched the film I was referring to, An Early Frost, regardless of the cast, based simply on the premise; a young attorney must reveal to his parents not only that he is gay but also that he has AIDS. This was the very first major television film to deal with the AIDS crisis and there were few subjects on network TV so pertinent to my life. My secret life.

I also had a huge crush on Aidan Quinn ever since seeing him in Desperately Seeking Susan earlier that same year and would’ve happily watched him read the phone book. So, it felt strangely apropos that he would also queue up my coming out story. Thank you, Aidan… wherever you are.

Since I have always lacked the rootedness that would have given me a more traditional and easily recalled chronology, I rely on movies and music to serve as the mile markers in my life that anchor me to a certain time or place. With the help of Wikipedia, I was able to see that An Early Frost aired on November 11^th, 1985 on NBC so I was only a few months shy of my 19^th birthday. Thank you, Wikipedia… wherever you are.

Looking for some oblique entre to this much anticipated conversation, I asked my mother if she’d seen the film and what she thought about it, and she replied, “Yeah, I enjoyed it. Gena Rowlands looked good. And I liked that the son wasn’t all loose in the loafers like some.”

Like some. Was I like some?

I honestly thought she must already suspect. How could she not? A mother always knows, right? I’d had a major scare a few years prior when I came home from school one day to find her in her usual spot, curled up in bed and reading a book before leaving for her shift at the bar later that evening. Only the book she was reading was my book. My hidden, stolen, dogeared paperback copy of The Boy who Picked the Bullets Up.

This seminal novel by Charles Nelson recounts the experiences of handsome gay marine and ex-baseball player, Kurt Strom, through his letters home from Vietnam to various family members and friends. In addition to being a well written and realistic account of the tragedies of war, it was also packed full of gay sex scenes, hence my thievery.

Her furrowed brow was not a source of immediate concern since she basically invented resting bitch face, but I still did not say a word. I just went about my business and patiently waited for whatever came next. If my homelife had taught me anything it was how to roll with the punches. When she returned the book to me the following day and asked if I had anything else since she was out of things to read, I knew I’d dodged a bullet.

But my mom seemed genuinely surprised, though it was unclear whether that was from what I shared or at my mild reaction to her casual revelation about my paternity. Apparently, this conversation wasn’t working out the way she’d imagined either. In truth, I was still wrestling with my own admission and hadn’t changed gears yet. The specter of the mystery man that was my actual father and my long list of follow-up questions were yet to come.