He Who Remains Classified got wind of the incident up in New Haven via the local Georgetown gossip. Purring bureaucrats in tuxedos jumped at the rare opportunity to rib him about the tipsy dame collapsing at the sight of his photograph. Fortunately, nobody in his circles figured out what the lady’s collapse at the Yale reception really meant.
He Who Remains Classified knew what it meant, and he knew that Anthony knew. Thank God the kid inherited his father’s common sense and wasn’t forcing the issue. At least not yet.
Long naps, planned and unplanned, dominated his post-recovery days in the office. One morning, forcing himself to stay awake, He Who Remains Classified stepped groggily over to the window to study his favorite birds. His jaw twitched. His chest froze, like an aftershock from his cardiac event. He saw a very strange bird: his homosexual son, standing in the park, staring directly up at him.
He Who Remains Classified recoiled and slid back away from the window, before realizing that the kid could not possibly see him, due to the recent installation of mirrored, bullet-proof, thermal panes.
He shivered through more aftershocks from a poisonous thought, unconscionable even by his standards, that his return to the political arena would be easier if his homosexual son was no longer alive.
His birdwatcher binoculars hung nearby on the wall. He peeked down again at Anthony. Oh, for chrissakes. Were those tears? Was his son crying?
It became a habit. Anthony stood in the park, gazing up at the vast State Department building with too many questions in his eyes, while an invisible He Who Remains Classified gazed down on his own flesh and blood with too many questions in his weak, pacemaker-regulated heart. It was as if each man was waiting for the other to make the first move.