He settles back on his elbows, stretching his body between two rows of bleachers, and grimaces. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t feel like it was my place. Your mom was doing the best she knew how to keep you from following in her footsteps. In all honesty, it wasn’t healthy, but who was I to talk? I’ve been hiding my true self for decades.”

“So, you just let her? You fell off the face of the Earth and let her have free rein?”

“I did try, once. A few Christmases back. Your mom showed me the card from your great-grandmother, and I told her we should let you meet her before it got to be too late. I said if Betty passed away and you found out afterward that you could have known her, you would never forgive us.”

I grunt in approval. He sighs.

“Which worked out anyway, obviously. But not in the best way. At the time, however, your mom refused. She didn’t want you to know about her getting pregnant out of wedlock. She was afraid you might act out and repeat her choices.”

“And that was enough for you to keep quiet? Wow,” I sulk. “You guys don’t have a whole lot of faith in me, do you? No offense, but I know about birth control. Something she clearly did not.”

“Stop. That’s enough. I hope you’re only being flippant because you’re angry. Because that’s way oversimplifying what your mom went through at an age younger than you are now. And no, that wasn’t enough to keep me quiet. She also reminded me that coming clean about her past meant coming clean about mine, and I wasn’t ready. It was selfish of me, but there you are.”

“Because of me or because of you?” I ask.

“Hmm?” he asks mildly.

“You weren’t ready because of you or because of me?”

“Both,” he admits. “I’ve been living as a miserable straight man for thirty-six years. I don’t know how to be gay. Or happy. And it did cross my mind, every day, twice a day, that you might not approve of my sexuality, which happens to mean more to me than the grand total of the world’s opinion.” He pins me with his gaze, his dark brown eyes warm behind his glasses frames. “You might not be my biological daughter, Meg, but you are my girl. You have been since the first time you opened your eyes and saw straight into my soul.”

“You aren’t the first gay person I know, Dad.”

“But I’m the first gay dad you know. It’s different. What happens if I bring someone home to meet you one day? How would you feel about that?”