“When Nick was about four, he found a doll my folks had given me that I never played with because I didn’t have any use for dolls. Nick loved her. He named her Maria and carried her around with him everywhere. He dressed her and combed her hair and slept with her. My brothers teased him about Maria all the time. One day, Tom grabbed it and took it away from him and Nick went crying to my dad. Daddy got really mad, not at Nick for playing with dolls like you would think, but at Tom for making Nick cry. He made Tom give the doll back and apologize. I remember Nicky sitting on Dad’s lap combing Maria’s hair and Dad with a funny look on his face like a light had just gone on in his head. That’s when I think Dad knew.”

“Nick was only four, how could he know?”

Isabel raised an eyebrow. “Nick wasn’t rough and loud like the rest of us kids. He’s always been sensitive and gentle. Dad was thoughtful, he knew who we were and he wanted us to be ourselves, not like Mom, who wanted us to be like everyone else in the neighborhood. Like when I said I wanted to go to college? Mom said it was a waste because I’d end up getting married anyway but Dad said, no, I was the smartest and I was going to get an education. When it looked like Tom was going to get drafted, and he was so scared of going to Vietnam, Mom said it was no big deal because her brother had been in Korea. Dad told her he would send Tommy to Mexico to live with his relatives before he would let the government take his son. Good thing for Tommy he got a medical deferment. Nick never told Dad he was gay because Dad died before Nick told anyone, but Dad knew and he didn’t care. He loved his little man.”

Oscillating between joy and fear – the joy of loving Nick, the fear of losing him – exhausted Bill emotionally and physically, but he concealed his feelings from Nick. He was, after all, the grownup in their relationship and Bill feared Nick would think less of him if Bill revealed his insecurities. Instead, he took them to Waldo who had talked him back from the edge of an emotional trauma so many times before.

“Uh-huh,” Waldo said, his mouth full of noodles. They were eating at a shabby diner near Civic Center called the Gold Mountain Café that Waldo favored. The old couple who ran it didn’t bother giving Waldo a menu but brought him a Coke and a plate of greasy beef lo mien, the same meal he always ate. Bill kept to the sandwiches on the American side of the menu.

“I mean,” Bill continued. “What if something happened between us?”