Page 29 of Artifacts

“You called up Leah’s friend Brianna yet? Since she saw you having lunch with a guy?”

The one-two punch left Darrell winded. Which was he supposed to react to?Neither.

“You remember Leo, from the base? His wife Jean’s got family in town and they were showing them around. They saw you at the art museum yesterday.”

That Darrell, Chief’s son, had been voluntarily partaking of art and culture wasn’t exactly the problem, or the reason for the strange note in his father’s voice. What was coming next was. Darrell knew it by the frigid ball of fear in his gut.

“With a guy? Was he the same one you were with in the week? You haven’t mentioned getting a new partner, so I doubt he’s some new cop you were partnered up with. So what’s going on, Darrell?”

Darrell didn’t need a decoder ring to hear that as,“What’s wrong with you, Darrell? Your brothers are settled down with women, but you…”There’d be no“Where did I go wrong?”from his father. Chief wouldn’t countenance thathecould be at fault. Not that there was any fault or wrongness, because there was nothing wrong with being gay or bi or trans, or anywhere on the rainbow.

Darrell didn’t like the way his heart thudded, or the thickening in his throat that prevented him from speaking and saying anything his father didn’t want to hear. He also didn’t want to have this talk—thetalk—here, like this. And not just because his father was around heavy tools that could double as weapons. Hell, for Chief, anything could double as a weapon, should he need one.

“Going on?” he hedged. “What do you mean? What are you saying?”

“You’ve never brought a girl home. Well, not since school.” His father had an excellent memory and strove for accuracy. “I accept that the military way of life is not for everyone, sure. Good as it would’ve been to have three for three boys of mine serving their country.”

“To Protect and to Serve.” Darrell reminded him of the police force’s motto. Would this have been easier over a drink? He’d fucking well get one after. He waited a few seconds for his father to ask outright if he were gay. No, that would be worse, because of the ugly, reductive, shaming synonyms Chief would use for it.

“Is it that you felt unsuitable for serving in the military?” his father asked.

“What, like other people were once felt to be ‘unsuitable’?” How long could they dance around this? “You know that the US military was able to adjust, to become more inclusive, first accepting one marginalized group, and…another not that long ago. Or do you wish certain acts, one in particular, weren’t repealed?”

His father shocked him by saying, “I don’t know.”

“I do.” Darrell took a couple of steps away. “I know you couldn’t accept it. Wouldn’t. So maybe the Williams version of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, as applied to so many areas, should just stand.” With understanding of just what those areas were. So, business as usual then, with hopefully fewer attempts to fix him up with girls. As bleak and shitty as that was, Darrell could handle it. Had been handling it.

“Accept a son of mine being a faggot?” His father sounded as though someone had said the Navy was the best branch of the armed services, and the others also-rans. “Is that what you’re saying to me?”

Darrell sighed and tucked in the flap on the bag of gravel he’d been using, making sure it was neatly put away. The irony of that displacement activity wasn’t lost on him. “I’m not saying anything.” Neither of them was ready for this, so Darrell switched tracks. Deflected. “I wish I could talk with Mom,” he said, half under his breath. “If she were still here.”

“Well, she’s not.” Chief kicked at the planks of wood propped against the wall. “She left, like the quitter she is.” He was usually careful not to cram adjectives onto the label he wrapped around the neck of his absent wife and his children’s runaway mother, although they hung in the air.

The usual pause that accompanied any mention of his mother filled the space all around them. “Do you ever think stuff could have been handled differently?” That was more than they had ever said on the subject and Darrell was using it as a warm-up. “That you could have handled Mom’s problems differently? Any kind of addiction is a disease.”

“Thehell?” Chief stood tall. “You think choosing to get blitzed on vodka is like havingcancer? So you’re saying a woman who doesn’t have to go out to work, who lives in a decent house in a good part of the city, who has a husband who doesn’t cheat on her, doesn’t knock her around and doesn’t gamble, issick?”

“I’m saying maybe you could have tried to find out why she needed to drink.” He expected his father to take a swing at him over that but pressed on when he didn’t. “You just listed a lot of negatives as things she didn’t have. That might be a good place to start.”

“Don’t talk out of your ass, boy,” Chief snapped. “Woulda, coulda, shoulda sounds cute—”

“Sung by pansy-asses in a pop song, yeah.” At least his father was unlikely to make him chant it in a singsong voice and snap his fingers to accompany it now that he was out of his teens.

“And real men live in reality.” Chief delivered the second line in the axiom, as he always had.

Darrell recognized there was no point to this. “Maybe it’s best we don’t have this talk.”

“Or best none of us do anything that could occasion this talk,” his father slammed back.

And he’d thought his vision of the rest of his life in relation to his family was bleak. Him avoiding any mention of whatever man he was seeing, or in a relationship with—yeah, right—while his brothers married and had kids who fought for Grandpa Jack’s approval. His brothers and father managing not to make any reference to him being stag at each and every family event.Bleak and lonely.

“I have to go. The patio’s looking good. And maybe you should set up a small swing set, where one used to be. Travis and Ashley are sure to be having kids soon.”

Because they were in a relationship. Ashley could come to all the family parties and lunches, weave her way into the fabric of the Williams family’s life, as could Leah, Ryan’s other half. But any guy he dated would be in the shadows, left out of the Brick’s Tavern get-togethers, never invited to any celebrations on the base. And who would put up with that? No one in the long-term. So it wasn’t fair to even start anything with anyone.

With Aldric.He had to pull back, keep things casual. The next time he spoke to Aldric, he’d make him understand.

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