Epilogue

AMBROSE PLAYED his best season ever the following year. The commentators, the analysts, and even the coaches had written him off as someone who would return but not at full strength.

One thing to know about Ambrose—he doesn’t like the word no. He doesn’t like it when you say he can’t do something.

Ambrose was right about a lot of things. He was right about him being stronger mentally with my support. Daniel was my support. He showed me the ins and outs of the behind-the-scenes stuff. I joined the club as a member, and Dan and I got seats together so I could go to the games—undercover, as such. I also got to see what Ambrose meant about the women throwing themselves at him, even when I was standing right beside him. Not that they knew he was with me, but they didn’t care who saw or overheard their sexual invitations.

Ambrose used me as an excuse a lot of the time. “No, thank you. I’m here with my friend Shane. I can’t abandon him.”

Liam was also correct that it wouldn’t stay hidden. At first it all went really well. I quit my job, applied for a place at the University of Melbourne doing an arts degree in English, rented out my house, moved to Melbourne, and started my course in the new year.

In June, after Ambrose had been smashing on the field, the assistant coach dropped by one evening to speak with him. I think he suspected after that, but Ambrose assured me nothing was said. As long as Ambrose was playing well, no one wanted to tip the scales back the other way. So it wasn’t until after his season, during the win for marriage equality in Australia, that suddenly it came out.

Ambrose was asked point-blank by a reporter, and like we’d always said to our friends, we didn’t deny it, but luck was certainly on our side. The news hit during the off-season, during a time when the nation was celebrating LGBT, while we were in Perth away from the football crowd, and just after Ambrose had become involved in a youth charity that urged young minority kids to not give up their dreams. It heavily focused on indigenous kids, kids who’d immigrated from other countries, and kids who identified as LGBT.

Suddenly he had the support of the nation behind him—61.6 percent of them supported him with a tremendous yes vote—a newfound extended family from his father’s side, and a charity that loved him even more. Ambrose was in his element. He’d finally found all the pieces of himself and was happily putting them all together as we waited anxiously for the same-sex marriage bill to pass through the two houses of government.

Aaron proposed to Vinnie, even before the voting results were announced, so we were all anxiously watching for them. I wondered whether there was a proposal for Jamie coming too.

As for me? My mother said happiness glowed from me. Just before I moved to Melbourne, I got the courage to ask her about my father… and if he had anything to do with the house. It turned out Ambrose was right on the money. My mother thought about it for a day and then came back and confessed all.

My father was a married man, twenty years my mother’s senior, who was also my mother’s boss for forty years. He was still her boss. He’d been one of my bosses too when I worked for that company. To my utter dismay, Mum still referred to him as “Mr. Whittaker.” It’s startling when your mother doesn’t call your father by his given name. My conception came about when Mr. Whittaker’s wife was seriously ill with cancer and Mr. Whittaker needed some time for himself.

Romantic it was not. Did I think my mother was taken advantage of? Of course. But she had no regrets and said she knew what she was doing at the time. She denied she ever expected a wedding ring. But she did point out that it had guaranteed her a job for life. I acknowledged that women of my mother’s age were vulnerable because fewer employers would take a chance on a woman over fifty. Mum, it seemed, was a realist and a survivor. She had been promoted to her current position on her own merit, but she always had that ace up her sleeve.

When I needed a hand on the housing market, she calculated how much child support Mr. Whittaker hadn’t paid, and she facilitated the purchase of my house. She left it up to me whether I wanted to meet my father now that I knew who he was, but I’d seen no real need. Apparently I had a half sister, but I wasn’t interested. My family was Tracy and Ambrose.

And the boys.

They surrounded us with their love and support in the days after Ambrose came out. But after a year in Melbourne, my first tattoo, and Ambrose’s stellar season, we were stronger together, like we always said we would be.

Ambrose knew me, and I knew him, and sometimes that’s all that matters—not labels, not rings, not big announcements, not blood ties. Sometimes love is a thunderclap, a roaring of emotions, and a raging of hormones. Other times it’s the quiet of the turning of a page, the satisfaction of a job well done, and knowledge shared.

Ambrose loved me, and I loved him, and that’s definitely all that matters.