Four Chapters

Chapter One: In which we meet our hero

The memory (my first) is of dark red currents streaming down to puddles on the doorstep and a monster with a wide-open maw and black teeth and no eyes (but not really)

Is this where I live?

The blood monster has Daddy's voice and the memory has soft brown edges like when the TV screen fades

The bad guys got away. We don't wanna hurt you, Mister is all they said

(or all that he remembered)

Mommy screamed and screamed and screamed

He was only jogging/call the doctor/this is a safe neighborhood

When they shaved his mustache to get the stitches in he turned into a stranger wearing a mask with angry jagged stitching and puffy purple cheeks

And it made me cry for longer than it should have

Chapter Two: In which our hero thrives

My daddy’s different

(Your daddy’s different!)

He lives in white shirts with collars and yellowed edges and carries a soft case of shiny black leather that feels like when I first felt a cow’s hide

He rides elevators and smells like smoke and spices

(Your daddy’s different!)

Dana’s daddy is big and loud and laughs from his belly

He wears faded flannel shirts with grease stains that look like pudding and drinks beer from pull-tab cans and he smells of wood chips and dirt and teaches us about the Big Dipper and Pete Rose

But my daddy doesn’t know about Pete Rose or anything like that

(Your daddy’s different!)

On Saturday afternoons we watch old movies with Hollywood monsters and pink flamingos and made up men in blond bouffants

I think different is okay.

Chapter Three: In which our hero is conflicted

When they fight the house turns grey

Only jet blue thunderbolts cut through our hands as we huddle in behind oak doors

In pretty rooms with fine Damask wallpaper and cold China dolls with glassy eyes we pretend we don’t see the truth

Little by little by little by little some color seeps back in until pastels become vibrant for a while

We keep on pretending

even though we don’t realize what we’re doing.

I got a silk blouse for Christmas with sheer black sleeves and green rainbow stripes

Daddy picked it out himself!

I wore it to the seventh grade Valentine's dance

and the heat from hormonal gym sweat made its fabric stick to my skin until angry red bumps covered my belly

then after the dance

all matted hair and drugstore eyeshadow smeared pink and blue under our eyes like ghoulish bruises

we piled into Amanda’s mom’s Caravan

the one with the plush purple seats still cold from the February evening

Amanda’s mom smoked long cigarettes and looked at me through the amber dome light haze.

I saw your dad smoking today. What other secrets is he keeping from your mom?

Orange flames full of questions flared inside my head with each drag she took.

Chapter Four: In which our hero wins the day

Things were never black and white (things rarely are)

Daddy stayed inside the lines until the very end when secrets came spilling over in salty, sludgy sea waves

and his world exploded into rainbow tapestries and far away adventures

I don’t say he’s living his truth because the truth is messy and I’m a secondary character in it

and I can’t say I understand because it’s not my story.

What was it like? They ask with bated breath. What was it like to grow up with a gay dad?

It’s a cotton candy question that I cannot answer. I didn’t grow up with a gay dad.

I grew up with an actor playing a character

because he had no other choice

because his insides were shrouded in indigo hues and his soul clawed at a violet abyss

And now that the mask is off and the veil has lifted

I can finally know my dad.