When I met Ivor in Califano Park, I didn’t know how to begin a conversation with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cMatt\u2019s changed,\u201d was what I finally came up with.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, he\u2019s married. For most people that would be ordinary. But there was a time he couldn\u2019t connect with anyone. Now he doesn\u2019t seem so\u2026 eccentric.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe doesn\u2019t think he ever was.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all outside the mainstream in one way or another. What\u2019s different about Matt is that he never cared.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo how are you outside the mainstream?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMe? Well, my partner is a man.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah. When did that happen?\u201d<\/p>\n
He laughed. \u201cAlways. Never. It\u2019s not like there was some defining moment when I went into the boy\u2019s locker room and said, \u2018Aha!\u2019 I tried to do what everybody else was doing. Only, after I\u2019d been married for six years I realized I was sad all the time. I had the pieces \u2013 wife, career, house, kids \u2013 but they didn\u2019t make a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
Megan dropped her shovel. \u201cI want to swing now!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
I followed Ivor to the swings and in a moment, Chloe joined us. I lifted her onto the seat. \u201cWhat do you think of Matt\u2019s views on sexual orientation?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mean the theory that genes determine your sexual orientation, political party and favorite flavor of ice cream?\u201d<\/p>\n
I felt a gush of relief to hear Ivor making light of it. \u201cYou don\u2019t agree?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that I disagree. It’s just that I don’t want to give up the idea I have some control over my life. The more you focus on whatever made you the way you are, the more you\u2019re going to feel that you can\u2019t do anything about it.\u201d He caught Megan and held her until she kicked her feet in the swing, then launched her into space once again. \u201cAnd then you\u2019re screwed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo what Mom and Dad and Leif and Laura did, the group marriage\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was their thing. This is my thing. Go forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cForward where?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve already reached Goal Number One: A guy I can love.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d love to meet him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could be arranged.\u201d<\/p>\n
He turned. \u201cHey, Gabriel! Put that down!\u201d At the climbing structure, Gabriel had raised a small tree branch over the pirate\u2019s head. Dante, similarly armed, was chasing the pirate\u2019s companion.<\/p>\n
\u201cDante!\u201d I shouted. Both boys ignored me, but in a few minutes Ivor somehow had the four of them collaborating in a sea battle against imaginary foes. In that way, the afternoon passed more or less in harmony. And as we sat on a bench by the sandbox Ivor began to confide as casually as if we were still brother and sister. He told me about a bar in downtown Pleasant Valley that I never knew was our town gay bar, about the telephone services and newspaper ads. He made funny stories out of his efforts to keep the truth from Julia.<\/p>\n
But of course, eventually she found out. Ivor\u2019s smile dropped. \u201cShe acted as if I had betrayed her, as if I\u2019d secretly wanted to be with men all my life and tricked her into thinking I wanted to be with her. The truth is that in the beginning, I really loved her. And after that, what was I going to say? I didn\u2019t know myself where I was heading or what it meant. And anyway, I never put her at risk. I was always careful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Listening felt like looking at a photo negative of my own story: all the dark was light and vice versa.<\/p>\n
Ivor was trying to puzzle out my expression. \u201cYou don\u2019t believe me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou agree with her. You think I\u2019m a jerk.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, no. It\u2019s just\u2026.\u201d And then in turn I told him then the whole story of Charlie\u2019s affair.<\/p>\n
He put his arm around me, exactly as I remembered it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWow!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDaddy,\u201d Megan called to him, \u201ccatch me.\u201d She had climbed to the top of the slide. Ivor got up, and I followed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo how are things going over at Matt\u2019s?\u201d He nodded to Megan, waiting for her to drop.<\/p>\n
I told him about the broken lamp, the torn curtain, strawberries ground into the carpet, Chloe\u2019s accident in the bathroom.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I was thinking,\u201d Ivor said, \u201cIs that if you guys wanted to come back to our place to stay tonight, we have a lot more room than Matt and Penny do. Gabriel and Megan love having guests to show around.\u201d<\/p>\n
I suddenly realized I would like nothing better. Gratitude knotted my tongue. \u201cOh, we\u2019d be lovely\u2026 that love to!\u201d<\/p>\n
Ivor laughed. \u201cThen it’s a plan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cIt\u2019s not that I disagree. It’s just that I don’t want to give up the idea I have some control over my life. The more you focus on whatever made you the way you are, the more you\u2019re going to feel that you can\u2019t do anything about it.\u201d He caught Megan and held her until she kicked her feet in the swing, then launched her into space once again. \u201cAnd then you\u2019re screwed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[82,80,81,83,53,61,62,10,84],"class_list":["post-902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adrienne","tag-childrearing","tag-gay","tag-gay-marriage","tag-homosexual","tag-poly","tag-poly-fiction","tag-poly-novel","tag-polyamory","tag-straight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=902"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1041,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions\/1041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lairdharrison.com\/fallenlake\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}