Lies With Man. Michael Nava
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and exclaimed, “That’s ridiculous!”
“Wyatt, don’t be rude to our guest.”
Wyatt grunted and went back to his drawing. A few minutes later, he got up with his picture and went to Daniel. He held out the drawing and said, “I’m sorry I was rude. You can have my picture.”
Daniel studied the drawing of the lumpy, spiky-backed green blob with Wyatt’s name in the corner. “Thank you, Wyatt. That’s very nice.”
“And now,” Gwen said, “it’s time for you to go to bed.”
While Gwen put Wyatt to bed, Daniel walked around the living room. On the mantel over the fireplace there were framed photographs of Gwen’s family— people Daniel had never met— and Gwen in a graduation robe and mortarboard. A banner on the wall behind her indicated the photograph had been taken at the nursing school of San Francisco State. There were a half-dozen photographs of Wyatt from infancy on, some with Gwen or other family members, some of Wyatt alone. But no men other than those he took to be her father or brothers. No boyfriend. No husband.
She came into the room and said, “I usually have a glass of wine after I get him into bed. You want one?”
He shook his head.
“You mind if I do?”
“Not at all.”
She disappeared into the kitchen and emerged holding a large wine glass half-filled with dark liquid. Drinking was not proscribed by his church— even his future father-in-law enjoyed his occasional tumbler of Scotch on the rocks— and many of his congregants drank, a few to excess. Daniel chose to set an example of sobriety for the younger people he worked with. Now, looking at her wine, he thought if ever there was a time for alcohol, this was it.
“You know,” he said. “I think I will have a glass.”
“Here,” she said. “Take mine. You probably need it more than I do.”
She sat beside him on the plush couch and handed him the wine.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Wyatt?” Daniel asked, turning the glass in his hand.
She took a deep breath. “I didn’t know until I went home that I couldn’t go through with an abortion. After Wyatt was born, I had enough on my plate without tracking you down and adding that complication. I thought that maybe later I could find you, but by the time I came back to the city that place in the Haight was closed down and I didn’t know where else to look for you.”
“What changed your mind about the abortion?”
She took the glass from him for a sip, then handed it back. “Wyatt may not have been planned, but he was conceived in love. And you were— are— a good person. I’m sure you’re a wonderful father to your other children.”
“I’m not married,” he said.
“Oh,” she exclaimed. “Sorry. I’m surprised.”
“I will have to, eventually,” he said. “We’re not Catholics. Unmarried pastors don’t inspire a lot of confidence.”
“Getting married is like a job requirement?”
“I want a family,” he said and, after a moment, continued. “You aren’t married, either. Why?”
“I didn’t want a man who wasn’t Wyatt’s father to raise him.”
“Will you write to me sometimes and let me know how he is?”
“He can write to you himself.”
“You’ll tell him who I am, then?”
“When he’s a little older. Is that all right?”
“Yes, but, when the time comes, I’d like to be here.”
“Of course. You are his father.”
He gazed at her and thought she didn’t want to marry a man who wasn’t Wyatt’s father and here he was, Wyatt’s father, also unmarried. Shouldn’t they at least consider . . . ? For Wyatt’s sake? He looked at the glass in his hand as he imagined breaking the news to Pastor Taggert, the man who called him “son,” and who had grown up a white man in the Jim Crow South with all the prejudices that implied.
She broke into his thoughts, observing, “We lead very different lives, Daniel. I’m happy with mine. I hope you’re happy with yours.”
“I am,” he said.
“Good,” she said, answering his unspoken question once and for all.
••••
A few days later a letter arrived at the church addressed to him with the word Personal written on the envelope. When he opened it and unfolded the paper, there were four lines in green crayon:
Dear Daniel, today we went to the Golden Gate Park and had a fun time. I liked you. I hope you come back to see me again.
Love, Wyatt
A year later, Daniel married Taggert’s daughter and when Taggert died, took his place as head of Ekklesia.
••••
Daniel stroked Wyatt’s forehead and said, “I’ve kept everything he ever sent me. Every drawing, every photo, every letter. Even the one where he told me about his— that he was gay.”
Gwen said, “It took you weeks to answer him.”
He frowned at her. “What did you expect? It was the last thing in the world I wanted to hear.”
“He thought you hated him.”
“I know,” Daniel said. “He told me. I told him I could never hate him.”
••••
“I could never hate you, Wyatt.” He had stared ahead as he spoke, at the turbid water on a cold, foggy August afternoon at Ocean Beach. Wyatt sat beside him on a blanket spread across the sand, his tension as palpable as an electric current, a cigarette burning between his long, slender fingers. “But I do wish you wouldn’t smoke.”
Wyatt made a noise, half-laugh, half-groan, and crushed the cigarette into the gray sand.
“Come on, Dad, at least it’s not pot.” Then he looked at his father. “I thought you’d be mad because, you know, your religion.”
Daniel chose his words carefully. “I accept your decision, but that doesn’t mean I approve.”
Wyatt’s eyes flared. “I didn’t decide anything. It’s who I am.”
“And I’m who I am,” Daniel replied. “If you want me to respect who you are, you have to respect who I am.”
“That mean we never talk about it again?” Wyatt said sullenly.
“There’s nothing we can’t talk about, even the hard stuff, but that doesn’t mean we won’t disagree. That’s what adults do.”
Wyatt stared out at the ocean, thoughtfully. “Okay, Dad,” he said, at last. “I guess I can live with that.”
••••
“We think there are different kinds of love,” Daniel had once preached to his congregation, “and some are greater than others, but that’s not true for Christians. For Christians, there is only one kind of love because there is only one God and John tells us God is love. Now, it’s true that we have different obligations to the different people we love and some of those obligations are greater than others, but the love, that’s the same. Don’t forget that because once you go down the road of, oh I don’t love this person as much as that person, it’s not that much of a jump to start treating people you say you love differently, some better and some worse. When that happens, you’ve stopped loving.”
••••