“Were they really Hare Krishnas in the eighties?”
I shrugged. “Supposedly, there are photos somewhere. I was just a kid, so who knows? My dad thought they were a couple of nuts. He didn’t like us hanging out with them too much. Part of me gets that, but they were good to us when he died. They took care of us and made room for us…no questions asked.”
“That’s cool. You’re lucky.”
“I didn’t always feel that way, but yes, I am.”
Silas set his empty bottle on the ledge of the pit and tugged the sleeves of his sweatshirt to ward off the evening chill. “So…you and Reg?”
I let out a wry chuckle. “What are you insinuating?”
“I think you know.”
“Hmm.” I rolled the bottle in my hands, gazed trained on the fire. “Yeah, we were…not boyfriends, but secretly something more than friends in high school.”
“Ah.Well, I hate to break it to you, but Rhona and Harry clocked it. Do you think they knew way back then?”
“Yep. My aunt caught us fooling around on the sofa in the basement. Teenage nightmare come true,” I huffed. “Poor Reg almost had a heart attack. He was sure she was going to tell his parents. She went out of her way to assure us that queer sex was a beautiful thing and even bought us condoms. He wouldn’t look at me for a whole week after that.”
“Oh, man.”
I waved dismissively. “I didn’t blame him. His dad was strict, and times were different. We both married women, had kids, and got divorced before coming out as queer.”
Silas’s mouth fell open. “Really? I thought you’d been out for a while.”
“No. Maybe five years. Sarah knew, and obviously Reg…but that’s it.”
“Oh. So…did she care?” He winced. “Sorry. Maybe that’s personal. I just—no one knows about me. No one. And I don’t plan on coming out till I retire…if I do at all. But sometimes I wish I could tell somebody. It feels more real now, maybe. I dunno. I’m babbling. Ignore me.”
I reached out and linked our fingers. “It’s okay. It’s not too personal. I don’t talk about it either. With Sarah, it felt like something I needed to be honest about going into our marriage.I didn’t want any secrets, so I made sure she knew I was bisexual.”
“Did she care?”
“No, not at all. She’s cool. She’s…” I squinted, unsure where I was going with this. “Let’s just say my bi-ness wasn’t the reason we failed as a couple.”
Silas was quiet for a long moment, then blurted, “Oh, fuck it. I’m nosy. What happened?”
I bristled instinctively. I didn’t talk about that chapter. Ever.
But Silas’s expression was almost manically earnest. I wanted to laugh, though the story wasn’t particularly funny. It was heartbreaking and a little humiliating. And yet, if anyone knew what that was like, it was Silas.
“She fell in love with someone else,” I said, gaze fixed on the embers.
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry.”
“Meh. She married him. Good guy, too. Frank sells life insurance or something equally boring, but more lucrative than logging. Or so she assumed.”
“She cheated on you.”
I froze as if I’d been slapped, then puffed out my cheeks and exhaled. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Fuck.”
“Sarah says that’s not true…that she met Frank later. But I felt her pulling away, shutting down, and slowly exiting our marriage. You’ve been through it too. The eye contact goes, the jokes never land anymore, the bed is cold. It was awful, and I didn’t know why. According to Sarah, we didn’t want the same things anymore. She wanted a bigger life than the one we had in Fallbrook, a bigger house, more time to travel, and she thought I worked too much. I could have argued that you don’t get the bigger life without working for it, but…I knew it was something else. Or someone else.”
“That really fucking sucks,” he growled.
“It did. But it’s like you told me a few months ago…you can’t make someone stay if they don’t want to. The irony is that she still lives in the house we bought together in the town where I was born.”
