But Nick was not a confused gay boy in need of a steady hand. Beneath the awkward innocence that had drunkenly propelled him into Bill’s arms the night they met was a core of self-assurance. Nick, it seemed, had been undamaged by the revelation he was gay. Unlike most gay men, including, Bill knew, himself, Nick wasn’t constantly glancing over his shoulder—sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally—anxious about who or what might be gaining on him.

Once, on the bus home from the hospital where they had visited a friend who had tried to kill himself, Waldo had answered Bill’s “Why?” with a philosophical, “It’s hard to be hated, hon. Being a fag ain’t for sissies.” Bill had understood perfectly: the boy in the hospital, Waldo, and he himself were hated not for something they had done, for which amends might be possible, but for their unchangeable nature, for which no forgiveness was possible, a point first made for all of them by their families.

Not Nick. Nick was the little brother, teased but loved by his siblings and cherished by his parents, above all, by his father—also named Nicolas—whose death was so painful that after three years it was still hard for Nick to speak about him. It was his sister, Isabel, who had told Bill about him. Nick, Sr. was a Mexican immigrant who drove a forklift in a cannery, spoke English with a heavy accent, had married a Mexican-American woman and had a single driving passion: his children.

“Dad was more like a mother than Mom was,” Isabel told him at a Trejo family gathering, of which there were many. “After dinner he’d sit us down one by one and ask us about our day even when we were little kids and our days were like going to kindergarten and finger-painting and taking naps. He tucked us in at night and got us up for school, not because Mom wouldn’t have done it, but because he wanted to. When the other neighborhood dads were spending the weekend watching sports on TV and drinking beer, Dad was taking us to the park or the zoo, to the swimming pool, to Funland, to the drive-in. He tried not to play favorites but we all knew Nick was his hombrecito, his little man. Dad knew Nick was gay before Nick did.”

“He what?” Bill asked, astounded. “How?”