“You ready?” Ty asks as he sits at the table across from me. We agreed to meet for lunch before I head over to Tricia’s to do the deed. To face the music.

“I guess as ready as I can be for this,” I tell him before taking a deep breath.

“I do have some news. I decided I’m going to be getting my CPA certification.”

“What? Really? That’s incredible news, Ty. I’m so proud of you.” I make sure to stress that, since he was so dumbfounded the last time I used that word with him.

“Thank you. That means a lot.”

“Ty, I’ve always been proud of you, even when I’ve had a hard time communicating that. I’m sorry I let you down. Not just with all this…but throughout your life.”

He nods, and I can see the sorrow written all over his face. “We were both in over our heads back then,” he says. “I don’t think either of us realized how much until after we met. And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently…had to do a lot of thinking, really. But I think I might have given up on you sooner than I should have. The kid who wanted to meet you didn’t realize his dad would wind up being this super-successful control-freak with every aspect of his life nailed down. You were so cool and tough as fucking nails. I was this fuck-up kid, making mistakes and without any real ambitions.”

“I never saw you like that.”

“But it didn’t change that I felt like you were…disappointed with the son you had. It was a lot of pressure to suddenly be in the shadow of a great man. Someone I thought of as a god back then. And at some point, I started holding back, never trying to be the best I could, because I was so afraid…what if my amazing dad didn’t like the best version of me?”

“Ty, I’ve never expected you to be anything other than yourself.”

“How can I look at your life, everything you’ve accomplished, and compare myself to that without feeling like you have to look at what I do and think that it’s just…nothing.”

“You’ve never been nothing to me, Ty. That’s not how I’ve ever seen you.”

His chin quivers. “I’m starting to realize that, and it’s time for me to grow up and face the fact that, even if that best version isn’t good enough for you, maybe it has to be enough for me.”

“I never realized you cared that much about what I thought, Ty. And really, after everything that’s happened, I can’t imagine why you’d give a damn what I think now.”

“Because we’re human beings, and we’re all messed up in the head, I guess,” he says with a laugh.

I see before me, my son, this incredible person who has allowed me back into his life despite that shit I pulled…being honest and open and fighting for the things he wants. He can’t know the pride it fills me with knowing that such an incredible human could be my own son.

And now I really get why Jesse and Ty are friends…how two such impressive, compassionate, strong individuals would have found one another.

Like me and my own friends.

“Well, I’m very proud of the man sitting across from me right now,” I say. “I’m very proud of you, Ty.”

His eyes water before he says, “No, I’m not doing this again. I’ve done this too much recently. Nope. Not today. I’d better go. And I think you have a date with Mom, which I want to hear all about when you’re done.”

“Ty…” I want to tell him so much more.

“We’re done with that conversation,” he says. “For now. We can reminisce on that shit another day.”

“Fair enough.” I remind myself that this isn’t the last time I’m ever going to see him, or my last chance to let him know how amazing he is. And for that, I’m so fucking grateful.

He drinks some of his unsweetened tea before setting his glass down. “So go get it done, and then we’ll try to get together for dinner soon. Not with Mom, but you, me, and Jesse. Cool?”

“Very cool,” I say, filled with appreciation for this second chance I have with my son…but fearing my discussion with Tricia.

* * *

I stand outside the door to Tricia’s house. I’m more reluctant to knock now than when I was standing outside Ty’s condo that day when I went to see him.

So many emotions are wrapped up in her. Not just the time we shared in our youth, but the pain of leaving her when I acknowledged who I really was—a gay man—combined with the pain of her not telling me about my son. As much as she fucked up back then, I know it’s my turn now.

Once again, I have to out what Jesse and I have been doing, and aside from Ty, Tricia is the last person in the world I want to confront about this, but it’s important. If we’re ever going to have any chance of moving forward, I have to deal with this.

I take a breath before I knock.

When the door opens, Tricia stands there, dressed in flats, jeans, and a white button-up. Her blonde hair is shorter than it was when she was younger, falling to her shoulders. There’s concern in her expression because surely she must know I wouldn’t be here with good news.

“Well, this is unexpected, Eric,” she says, sighing as though she’s tired. “Come on in.”

She sounds resigned, accepting of whatever it is I’m about to dump on her, as though she’s been beaten down by life one too many times and is just tired of it.

As soon as I enter the kitchen, she opens the refrigerator. “You want a glass of chardonnay?”

“Not particularly.”

“Too bad. I have a feeling I’m gonna need one, and I’m not drinking alone for this.”

She fetches a bottle from the fridge, then heads to the cabinet and retrieves two glasses.

“I feel like,” she says as she pours our drinks, “I should be pretending I’m oblivious right now. That I think you stopped by to say hi, or you have some incredible news you’d like to share with me, but I’m tired of pretending. What about you, Eric?”

She approaches with the two glasses, handing me one.

I start to pull it to my lips when she says, “No, wait. Let’s at least toast before you tell me whatever it is. I said I don’t want to pretend, but it’s not a race to the truth, is it?”

She smiles, but it’s bittersweet.

“What do you want to toast to?” I ask, playing along.

I see in her expression the sadness, the worry, and that resigned sense that whatever it is I’m about to share, she’d rather get it over with.

“To our son,” she says. “Because as fucked up as all this is, he’s the one thing I can look at every day that reminds me there is some good in this world.”

She clinks her glass against mine.

I can’t help but feel as though somehow she psychically picked up on what I have to share with her. I know that can’t be the case. After all, what she’s saying is likely true, but it’s still bizarre the way she said it, considering what I’m about to tell her.

She relaxes in the chair adjacent to me at the kitchen table, taking a sip of her drink before setting it on the table and saying, “Okay, now I think I’m ready.”

“I’m not sure you are,” I warn her.

I don’t delay. I get right to the point, telling her about what I’ve been doing with Jesse—the most incredible man I’ve ever met in my life, the man I got in over my head with, the man I can’t envision my life without.

I confess my sin. My crime against our son.

A crime I feel so guilty for, yet that brought me more joy than I believed I was capable of feeling ever again.

A crime I am really not sure I could truly live without having committed.

She’s quiet through the reveal, her expression stoic, as though she’s waiting for me to say this is all some disturbing joke or that she has been fooled for some candid-camera show. Not that those are nearly as popular as they have been in the past.

“You motherfucker,” she finally says. Her face twists up as tears fill her eyes, reminding me of a similar confession a long time ago…when I came out to her. “You fucking bastard. You fucking, selfish bastard.”

I deserve it. So fucking much.

“Do you know how many years I spent feeling guilty for not telling you about Ty? How much time I spent thinking what I was doing was so shitty?”

“It certainly wasn’t right, what you did,” I remind her.

“Oh, are you gonna tell me what’s right? You, the guy who’s screwing around with your son’s best friend?”

“No, I’m not saying what I did was right, or that I deserve Ty’s forgiveness. Ty knows about all this.”

She freezes, as though she can’t believe that part. She takes a moment to process it before saying, “I knew you liked guys, but I didn’t realize you liked them so young…as young as your son.” Clearly, she says it to hurt me. “Does it make you feel young and sexy again screwing around with a kid?”

“It’s more than that, Tricia.”

She assesses my expression before her face twists up. “As if Ty hasn’t been fucked up enough. Between not knowing his dad and then having his dad come into his life and be anything but what he needed.”

“Tricia, I understand why you’re angry. You think I didn’t know how this script was gonna play out when I came over here?”

“Script?” she asks. “Is it a script to you? Some movie of the week where our lives are some senseless drama? I hurt, Eric, so fucking much. I’m in pain right now, and it’s not just because of this fucked-up thing you did, but because of every mistake I’ve made in my life. The hurt, the drama, the mistakes, and the judgment I’ve had for those mistakes.”

I know she’s referring to my reaction to hearing about my son so late, but even though I’m in the wrong now, I refuse to let her off the hook for that.

“Do I play a part in this script?” she adds. “Background noise in your life? That thing you feel burned by because of what I did? I’m just the horrible bitch who never let you know you had a son. I don’t have feelings. I wasn’t crying every day after you left because I was a stupid, naive girl who believed you loved me, who you were so good to.”

While her accusatory response has left me feeling the need to defend myself, I’ve held back, reminding myself I deserve her judgment. But in a moment, her rage shifts to something else. “You listened, you wanted me, I thought you desired me. And then I find out that was all a lie, that you never loved me, that you couldn’t love me. You might have been able to walk away all those years ago, but I couldn’t.”

“I tried to contact you.”

“No, Eric, you don’t understand. I couldn’t be around you because I couldn’t walk away from how I felt. I never would have gotten over you. I was a kid and I was in love. In love, Eric. And I do know what that means, especially with all the assholes I’ve met over the years. So there I was, a young woman in love, and when I found out I had a child on the way, the thought of raising him with you…having to live my life pining right next to the man I was in love with, watching him care for our child…do you know what that would have done to me, Eric? You can’t, and you can’t know how depressed I was leading up to giving birth…or after. Not a day went by where I didn’t think I needed to track you down and tell you. Everything in me told me it was the wrong decision…every day I was haunted by that mistake, and the longer I carried it, the worse it became…till eventually Ty was constantly reminding me of what I was depriving him of, what I was depriving both of you of. But I don’t like this part you’ve cast me in. Because while I’m this two-dimensional monster, you get to make a mistake that feels pretty damn cruel to me and then judge me all these years for what I did?”

“Yes, I am,” I say, “because in the same way that I think Ty has every right to feel hurt and betrayed by what I did, I have the same right with this. It wasn’t fair what you did…the choice you never gave me. I can hear your excuses all day, but it can’t take my pain away, just as I can’t take away your pain about what I’ve done to our son, so don’t ask that of me. No amount of ‘I’m sorry’ can take away Ty’s pain in this, and I’ve been lucky that our son is a good, compassionate person who sees beyond all this.”

“Well, what about his father?” Tricia asks. “Where has my compassion been?”

Her words aren’t lost on me, and even though intellectually I’d already had this conversation in my mind before we reached this point, it really hits home in the moment. “I haven’t been cruel to you about this or brought it up incessantly to cause you any grief,” I say.

“You’ve never needed to, Eric. You think I can’t see it in your eyes? I may have missed some pretty important things about you when we were younger, but I still know you.” She shakes her head. “God, the world’s so fucked up. It isn’t easy, is it? It seems we can’t get through it without hurting ourselves, and hurting each other.” She takes a breath and a sip of her wine. “Oh, Eric, when we were in school, sneaking off into the woods to laugh and tell stories, sharing so much, could you have ever imagined this is what our lives would become?”

“I sure didn’t.”

She sighs as though releasing so much pent-up emotion, much of which we’ve unearthed in this conversation. “Jesse...do you love him?” she asks.

“I do.”

Tears flow freely from her eyes. She doesn’t try to wipe them away. “It seems almost unfair that you get to find happiness all these years later, and here I am trapped in this goddamn house, trying with this guy who’s a waste of my fucking time and I know it, but still trying anyway.”

“There are good people. I couldn’t have said that before, but I do believe it now.”

I’m referring to Jesse…this dream of a man…a man I wouldn’t have believed existed until I was lucky enough to meet him.

“I’m sorry for hurting you, and I’m sorry for hurting our son,” I add.

She nods. “I know that, Eric, and I never reveled in bringing pain into your life.”

“I know, Trish. Oh, what are we gonna do?”

“In fairness,” she says, “family dinners were already awkward for us.”

I chuckle, and she smirks as though she’s pleased at how she was able to lighten the mood.

“And here I am back to hating you,” she says, “because you flashed that smile, and I’m in love all over again.”

She reaches over and takes my hand. “You did a shit thing. We all do shit things sometimes, and they have consequences. I could kick your ass for hurting our kid…but…I’m glad you have a reason to smile, Eric.”

I appreciate her honesty and, once again, the ease of letting the truth just be out there. So many truths I’ve had to face, and so many truths I’m only facing because of Jesse.