Here it comes.
‘I don’t know where to start,’ he wavers, shaking his head as worry and concern spread across his face. ‘I’ve had this conversation so many times in my head, even practised it in the bathroom mirror.’
He’s not about to start talking about the lung cancer provider sitting in my pocket; I’ve no idea what’s going on. The frown he’s wearing and the intense way he’s talking scare me.
‘What is it?’ I ask, feeling for him as he struggles to voice whatever it is he wants to talk about.
‘I’ve reworded it so many times, wanting to make sure I say everything clearly,’ Dad says, finding it difficult to look me in the eye, even though I can tell he’s trying to. ‘The problem is I don’t want to upset you. But it’s me. It’s who I am, and although it’ll be a shock when I say it, please know that it doesn’t change anything between us. I’m your dad, and being a dad to you and Michelle is the most important thing in the world to me. It always has been.’
‘Dad?’ I say, reaching across and holding his hand. ‘It’s OK. Whatever it is, it’s fine.’
‘I need to get it out,’ he says, aggravated with his own hesitation.
‘OK,’ I nod, calmly encouraging him.
‘I need to come out,’ he explains, expelling a huge breath as he says it.
‘Yep,’ I agree, patiently waiting for more.
‘Yes,’ he says flatly.
‘Go on then,’ I prompt, wondering what on earth is eating him up so badly. I’ve never seen him like this before, so whatever it is clearly means a great deal to him.
‘Lizzy, this is me coming out,’ he says, his eyes meeting mine.
‘Pardon?’ I ask, my voice going up an octave. I’m not sure I’m hearing him correctly, or whether what he’s saying means what I think it does.
‘Out,’ he repeats. ‘I’m gay.’
I sit and stare at him, aware of his own eyes doing the same back at me, reading them for any emotion or sign of how I’m taking his news. News? Confession? Admission? The words that tell me my dad isn’t quite the person I thought he was. The words that imply he’s been living a lie my whole life.
‘Are you sure?’ I ask, my voice soft and low. ‘You were married to a woman for almost two decades.’
‘I was. Yes. Didn’t turn out how I wanted it to though …’
It might be said as an attempt at a joke, but neither of us laughs. I’m too confused to even raise a smile, finding his words sadder than perhaps they’re intended. My mind is like thick cement, or a computer that’s gone into meltdown, with everything and nothing going on all at once.
Knowing he has to give me some more information, or some guidance on how to react to what he’s saying, Dad takes a deep breath before opening his mouth – his words tumbling out with great feeling, worry and desperation. ‘You have to know that I adore, respect and was absolutely in love with your mum for a very long time. I still love her dearly,’ he pauses, looking up at me to hammer home his point. ‘Lizzy, I knew who I was from when I was six years old, but I feared others wouldn’t have accepted it. I was scared of what I felt, and was scared of being lonely, of being different and isolated. When I met your mum there was an instant attraction. I knew she’d make so much of me content, and I fell for her quickly. She was fun, and a huge carer. I felt safe with her in my life. Even though I was incredibly happy for the majority of our marriage, I knew something wasn’t quite right. I was continuously dishonest with myself. Trying to tell myself that the thoughts I was having were just me being silly, or even normal for a person to ponder. As if a mind wondering longingly towards someone other than your mother, a man, was a normal thing to happen in a marriage. You can’t control your thoughts, they simply flit freely, of course they do. I’d try to shut them away. I spent a long time doing that. I thought if I accepted the truth I’d be letting everyone down, letting myself down. I had to be crazy for even contemplating leaving what we had. We had a happy home. Things were great. But it got to the point where I couldn’t live the lie I was living any longer.’
‘So you divorced Mum?’ I ask for clarity.
‘That was the start of it,’ he says sadly, his fingers tapping on the wooden plank we’re sitting on. ‘It was a rather tepid attempt at learning who I actually was … I told your mum. I couldn’t go without giving her a proper explanation. I gathered it might help her to know that it wasn’t anything she’d done, that there was something inside me that was crying out to be listened to,’ he says, his hands on his heart.
‘And it helped Mum?’ I ask, already knowing the answer having witnessed her crumble.
‘It made everything far worse to begin with,’ Dad says thoughtfully. ‘She felt duped. As though I’d conned her. I understood, of course I did. I’d ripped the rug from under her. I didn’t know who I was, but I knew I’d never be who I could become, or even be truly happy if I didn’t accept myself for everything that I am.’ Tears spring to his eyes as he looks up at me, his face twisted in torment. He doesn’t appear to have found comfort in coming to terms with his sexuality. Rather, he’s caged himself in and isolated his life further by only lightening the load by half and somehow tripling it in the process.
‘You’ve continued to live with the lie, Dad,’ I tell him, squeezing hold of his hand while pulling him in closer. ‘Why not tell us at the time and do everything at once so that we all knew what we were dealing with?’
‘It wouldn’t have changed anything and I needed time,’ he shrugs, his head shaking at the thought. ‘That would’ve been too much. I could never have left if I had to break your hearts too.’
‘But our hearts were already broken, Dad,’ I say honestly. ‘We would’ve understood and would’ve benefitted from the truth.’
‘You say that, but you don’t know how you’d have dealt with it back then,’ Dad frowns, brushing off the idea. ‘You were teenagers, caught up in your own dramas of boys and exams. I needed to process it on my own.’
‘I guess it doesn’t matter now anyway,’ I say, realizing that nothing can come from this thread of conversation. Dad decided not to tell me until now. Instead he’s been trying to work things out on his own. It’s admirable really, although strange to think there’s a whole side of Dad’s life that I know nothing about – even if Mum does.
‘No wonder you all get on!’ I think out loud, my thoughts turning to the way Ted is so welcoming of my dad and never seems threatened by the presence of my mum’s ex-husband. I don’t know many men or women who’d be so trusting and forgiving. I’ve pondered over how lucky I am in the past to have divorced parents who are still so close, and was always short with Ian if he questioned it at all. I know it’s not normal to have divorcees live in each other’s pockets, but the truth is I didn’t want to start poking around into the reasons behind their bond. They’d fixed their friendship after a turbulent few years and had got to the point where it worked. It meant we could all be together, and that’s all I needed to know.
‘It wasn’t plain sailing. It took time …’ Dad says, his teeth pulling on his bottom lip and turning it red as he looks out at the view in front of us. ‘Your mum, once the shock had decreased and once she stopped loathing me – she came to me one night and really listened. It meant so much to me. Despite the big secret I’d been keeping, she knew everything else there was to know about me. There was no one better to hear about the part of me that made me complete, for she’d already seen all the other pieces and knew how I slotted together and functioned. It was so hard. She had no clue.’
‘You’re pretty good at playing it straight, Dad.’
He dips his head and gives a chuckle into his lap. A tear drops on to his grey Adidas jogging bottoms. He wipes it away and looks up at me. ‘That’s exactly how I’d describe it – playing at being something I’m not. I didn’t know how to juggle these different sides of me and turn them into one whole human. Liz, I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time,’ he says, his head turning to face me. ‘I haven’t li
ked you not knowing, but there’s never been a right time.’
‘I imagine there are no guidelines for coming out to your offspring,’ I offer.
‘No … although recently I’ve read some great blogs and articles about it.’
‘You’ve been Googling it? Dad!’ I gasp.
‘I wanted to take care over how I told you.’
‘But you know us better than some sodding writer you might’ve found online!’ I tell him, hurt that he didn’t see that.
‘I was procrastinating,’ he says, holding his hands up to calm me down. ‘Looking for the perfect way was my excuse to prolong the inevitable.’
‘What about Michelle? Does she know?’
‘Well, yes,’ he says, his lips pursing as his throat makes a grunting sound. ‘There was an incident.’
‘Oh God, she didn’t catch you with a man, did she?’ I gasp, my mind starting to picture what she might’ve seen, my eyes squinting shut to stop it.
‘No. No. Not at all,’ Dad says, looking embarrassed at what he rightly imagines I’m thinking, which makes me feel for him even more. ‘There was an app, a dating one for … men like me. I was persuaded by a friend to put myself on it. One of Michelle’s friends used the app and saw me on there. He didn’t for one second think it was actually her dad. So he told Michelle someone was using a picture of me on a fake profile. She set up a fake profile of her own and arranged a date with the person so she could address the situation,’ he tells me, his fingers rubbing along his forehead.
‘Of course she did,’ I say, feeling myself cringe for my poor dad.
‘Needless to say it was quite a surprise when I walked in,’ he says, glancing across at me.
‘How did she take it?’ I ask, thinking of my loud, brash, self-absorbed sister and how she overreacts to most things in life. ‘She inadvertently set a trap to drag our dad out of the closet. It can’t have been pretty.’
Dad thinks for a minute, one side of his lips creeping upwards. ‘She laughed.’
‘Laughed?’ I repeat, confused. ‘Surely you’re not talking about our Michelle!’
‘She did,’ he says, beaming at the memory. I can’t imagine what it must be like to carry around such a weight and then to have a large portion of that worry taken away. That’s clearly what Michelle gave him with her reaction that day. She gave Dad her blessing to be himself. ‘It was the shock,’ Dad offers, continuing to give his account.
‘I can understand that,’ I nod.
‘She’s been great about it.’
‘Dad, what made you think my reaction would be any different to hers?’ I ask, because although I’m happy that Michelle has helped Dad in the same way that Mum and Ted have, I’m sad he didn’t come to me and let me be a part of this with him. ‘Why didn’t you trust me with your secret?’ I ask.
‘Lizzy, please forgive me for saying this,’ he says, a frown reappearing. ‘It wasn’t about you at that time. I needed to find out who I was before I could start thinking about helping someone I love so deeply absorb my truth. Michelle found out when I wasn’t quite ready for you two to know – but now. Now, I need you to see me for who I am.’
With those words my dad’s handsome face caves. He tries to compose himself, to pull himself back together, but the emotional weight is written all over his face. It’s etched in his wrinkles, in the tears in his eyes and the way his lower lip nervously wobbles.
‘Dad! I’ve always seen you for exactly who you are,’ I exclaim, my words coming out with a squeak. ‘You’re my dad. You’ve been my hero for as long as I can remember. A preference for men over women would never change the love I have for you.’
I reach to put my arm around his shoulders just as he does the same to me. We share an awkward hug while still perching on the wooden fence, both cold and clammy from the start of our jog.
‘Hold on,’ I say, breaking away from him. ‘Is this why you’ve been running with me? So you can find the right moment to tell me?’
‘One of your mum’s ideas,’ he says, looking embarrassed.
I chuckle as I pull him closer.
‘Dad?’
‘Yes?’
‘I have a packet of cigarettes in my pocket … would you like one?’
Sitting there, feeling my insides burn as I inhale, the two of us giggling like teenagers, I look at my dad and am hit by our similarities. Not just the physical attributes, but also the fact he was forced to look at himself and assess whether he too was who he was meant to be.
His answer was no, and he’s spent the last fourteen years learning to be happy with who he is.
What an inspirational man to call my dad.
24
Dad’s revelation spurs me on. I know I have to stop looking back to the girl I once was and allow myself to discover the woman I am now. I also have to move away from comparing everything to my life with Ian and wondering whether each like or dislike was led by him. I have to move on from ‘us’ and find myself, focusing on ‘I’ instead. There’s no more we, only me.
With New Year’s around the corner I fight off the urge to write yet another list of things I need to change about myself. Instead, I grab my Spice Girls poster from the cupboard along with a pencil case filled with felt tip pens. I turn the poster over so that I can no longer see Baby, Scary, Ginger, Sporty and Posh, and start playing with my pens.
Half an hour later I’ve created a brand new poster. In turquoise and pink capital letters filled with patterns and doodling, I’ve written:
DO, DON’T DOUBT.
DO AND DISCOVER.
DO AND FEEL THE LOVE.
DO IT FOR YOU.
I get some Blu Tack and stick it on my wall, although this time I place it closer to my bed so that it’s one of the first things I’ll see each morning when I wake up, a little piece of inspiration to keep me going forwards. The only direction to go in life is forwards; staying put and pressing pause is simply not an option. The sooner I get that into my head, the better. It’s so easy to fall backwards and wallow, but I’m not going to achieve anything that way. I need to strive forwards so that I can see life with clarity. Although my talk with Dad has made me realize that even those you think have life figured out actually don’t. So maybe not knowing exactly who I am meant to be right now is fine, although it’s my duty to myself to nurture and encourage the ‘me I’m meant to be’ to come out and not hide away. That starts by cancelling my self-pitying plans of staying in bed on New Year’s Eve and actually putting myself out there so I can mingle with people in the way I used to love doing.
I’ve just got to hope people haven’t already made plans I can’t slot into. I felt so exhilarated after my session with Jodie Craig and the choir, but over Christmas I have felt myself slowly sink back into a darker place. Dad’s honest chat has given me an extra boost to continue moving forwards and finding a life I enjoy.
First up, I message Connie.
Fuck it! My bed can wait. Let’s go out on NYE! Bring Matt too. It’ll be nice to get to know him better so that he doesn’t think I’m a complete loser for the rest of time! I’m thinking London if we can find somewhere? Might ask Natalia … or is that too weird seeing as I want a job from her? I mean, we have already bonded over shots so it shouldn’t hinder my chances … right? Xx
It doesn’t take too long for her to reply.
London, hey? Sounds ace. Let me have a think about where. Ask her. She’ll say no if she thinks there’s a problem with blurring the employer/employee relationship. But everyone goes out with their bosses these days. I regularly get drunk with Trevor and tell him all the things he’s doing wrong with the company. He doesn’t mind as I have him dancing along to Abba by the end of most nights out. So yeah … invite her. We’re all humans after all! X
Part of the reason I asked Connie about Natalia is because I didn’t want her feeling I’m bringing someone in to replace her, or that she’s become my latest obsession. I haven’t had to make new friends in years, and I’m feeling rusty and awk
ward as a result. I am also genuinely concerned that me asking her out is pushy, but something in my head is telling me to do it anyway. So my head and Connie propel me into messaging Natalia.
Me again! Hope you’re having a nice break. Connie, her boyfriend and me were thinking about heading into London for NYE. Fancy it? We’ve no idea where yet. Xx
Short, simple, and to the point.
Break? I feel a nervous wreck. Like there’s so much I should be doing but can’t because everywhere is closed for Christmas. I should’ve booked to go away really. Next year you’ll have to remind me. ;-) Listen, most of my mates have decided to do romantic New Year’s and keep it quiet, so me and my mate Alastair have booked into this club. It could be horrendous, but it might be fun. I know the owner so will sort a few extra tickets. Xx
I message Connie before accepting.
Natalia has sorted a club but invited us along. Xx
We’re there!! Xx
I’m exceptionally happy about spending time in a club with mates, old and new, as it ticks one of the things I wanted to do off of my list in the quest for self-discovery. I wanted a big night out, and here it is. I used to have so much fun clubbing, it’s bizarre to realize I haven’t set foot in one in about seven years. Not since we returned from uni, and even in Sheffield we’d decided that clubs weren’t really ‘our’ thing. In hindsight, I think I’d have gone with it a bit longer if I’d had the chance and if Ian had been into them too, but I was too busy playing at being grown-ups.
The main concern now is what to wear. I’ve no idea what is classed as acceptable in a London club on New Year’s Eve, but decide a trip into the loft is in order.
It doesn’t take me long to locate what I’m looking for – a suitcase of clothes I’d left at Mum’s when I returned after my first year. I almost put my back out carrying it down from the hatch, but soon enough it’s resting on my floor and I’m unzipping it.
Some Kind of Wonderful Page 18
