THE MOMENT Nick asked me to move in with him, I knew that if he’d have me, I’d happily spend the rest of my life with my beautiful British man. In the months that followed, I didn’t rush headlong into a proposal. I carefully planned my next move. I bided my time.
Which arrived a year later, sitting in Nick’s parents’ living room in England.
Nick straddled the doorway to the hall and said, ‘Are you two sure you don’t want to come with us? Dad? Dale?’
Nick needed to buy some treats for his cousin Becca, who was also a Brit living in the US. She particularly missed the chocolate from home. Never one to refuse a trip to the store, Nick’s mom Cath announced she’d go along too.
As expected, his dad Phillip grunted a resolute, ‘No.’ He hated shopping even more than me.
Stretching my arms behind my head, I summoned up a pained expression. ‘Not really. I was thinking now might be a good time for Phil to play me another one of those rugby matches on the TV. Is that okay?’
Phillip picked up the remote control and pointed it at the television from his recliner chair. ‘Fine with me.’
When he and Cath had visited with us at Christmas, Phillip had promised to explain the rules of rugby football. Since then, he’d recorded all the Six Nations tournament matches and had earmarked the England–France match to introduce me to his favourite ballgame.
In a matter of minutes, Nick and Cath would be out of the house, and I would be alone with Phillip. Months of waiting and planning had depended on this. See, I wasn’t about to propose to Nick. Not yet. Not here. There was something else I needed to do first:
Ask Phillip for his son’s hand.
Maybe that’s old-fashioned, and wildly off-base for a same-sex marriage. But I had my reasons, and I hoped my decision wouldn’t be met with laughter, derision, or worse, scorn.
Nick smiled warmly. ‘Have fun, and mind you don’t get too hot under the collar watching all those burly men grappling in the mud. You’ll embarrass my dad.’
I looked to Phillip, who good humouredly rolled his eyes.
Man, there was so much affection in that tiny gesture. So much love and acceptance. It was a blessed wonder to me, estranged from my own father for being bisexual, and for having the temerity to choose to have a relationship with a man instead of a woman.
Loud enough for his voice to carry, Phillip said to Nick with a wink, ‘Isn’t your mother ready yet? Tell her it’s Sainsbury’s not Ladies’ Day at Ascot.’
Cath’s footsteps sounded on the stairs. A few seconds later she appeared in a smart brown woollen coat I was informed she’d sewn herself, along with the scent of fresh, floral perfume. She stood in front of Nick as she tied a floaty orange scarf around her neck. ‘What are you saying about me?’
‘Nothing, my love. You look gorgeous by the way, and not a day over twent… thirty-one.’
She pursed her lips and shook her head, as if resigned to playing her part in an old and often-repeated routine. Still, Nick sniggered. ‘If anyone asks, Dad, I’ll tell them she’s my sister. See if I can get someone to take her off your hands.’
That earned Nick a flick of his mother’s hand straight to the stomach, which he took with a loud squawk of protest. Then the show was over and they were off, out of the house and into the April sunshine, chattering and laughing. A couple of birds of paradise.
God, how I loved Nick Harris.
I’d also come to love his family. I took a few deep breaths, and a few more, as Phillip worked his way through his ‘My Shows’ menu on his television screen. My heart pounded. My tongue felt like a sixteen-ounce slab of uncooked steak.
All this, and I hadn’t done anything yet. Didn’t need to do anything. If I chickened out no one would be any the wiser. I hadn’t told a soul I planned to ask Phillip for his son’s hand. Perhaps because deep down I knew it was a dumbass idea. One that meant so damned much to me, I hadn’t wanted to risk being talked off the ledge.
‘Um. Phil.’ I sat straighter and rubbed my hands up and down the thighs of my jeans. Took the leap. ‘I was wondering if I could talk to you about something before we watch the game?’
‘Sure,’ he said absently. He was distracted, fast forwarding through the pre-match analysis to the action.
I’d rehearsed this. A thousand times. Yet sitting there in the Harris’s cosy living room, where family pictures in gold and silver frames adorned every available surface, those words flew right out of my head.
‘Uh.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Nick said you’re retiring in the summer.’ Which wasn’t what I’d meant to say at all.
‘That’s right.’
Cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck and under my arms. ‘Phil… Phillip. I, uh.’
‘What’s on your mind, son?’ He pushed the button on the side of his electric recliner chair, sending his socked feet downward until they landed softly on the carpet. ‘You two okay for money?’
‘Yes. Oh my gosh. Yes.’ I made a move to stand, got halfway then sat down again. Fucking fuck. I was messing this up so bad. ‘Phillip. Sir. I want to propose to Nick. Ask him to marry me. When we get back to the States. But I wanted to ask for your blessing first.’
Silence.
As I’d feared, Phillip looked at me as if I’d grown horns, wings and fangs. As if I’d just asked him if I could lay out his son on an altar and gouge out his heart, lungs and liver with my bare hands. And eat them raw.
‘Listen,’ I said, as if I didn’t already have his full, rapt attention. ‘I know Nick’s a grown man, and strictly speaking we, I, don’t need your permission. But I wanted to assure you personally that I’ll do right by him. And the other thing, well, he misses you guys, and I know you miss him, and I thought this might help you feel like you’re an important part of our lives. Because you are.’
Phillip was, in my experience, a man of few quietly spoken words. He never seemed to care whether anyone heard his dry remarks or his playful jibes. He seemed content with his own amusement, watching the whirlwind that was Cath and Nick from the comfort of his easy chair. But how I wished he could find a kind word for me. Something. Anything but that stunned expression.
I honestly had no clue what was going through his mind. Whether he thought me asking for his son’s hand was the most stupid outdated nonsense he’d ever heard and now he was concerned that his son might accept a proposal from someone who thought of his boy as some sort of chattel. Or if he’d hoped our relationship wouldn’t last, and his son would return to England at the end of his contract with Lamplin and eventually find some nice British man to wed.
My head spun. That shitty voice inside it talked and cursed a blue streak:
Dale Hepburn, you are a complete fuck up. You will never, ever be able to live this down, and you have now ruined any chance of having a relationship with your father-in-law-to-be. What the fuck is Nick going to think when he finds out?
Phillip took off his glasses and dropped his head, so that he was staring into his lap. He pinched the bridge of his nose and made this awful soft, stuttering gasping noise. Then he rubbed his thumb and forefinger over his eyes, and I realised that sound was a sob. The man was crying.
Now it was my turn to be lost for words. To be frozen to the spot.
‘Does he know?’ Phillip said, still staring into his lap.
‘Does he know I’m going to propose? Or does he know I was going to ask for your blessing?’
Phillip nodded. The skin on the crown of his head, visible through thinning grey hair, had gone a worrying shade of scarlet. As for me, the fear he’d chase me out of his house was replaced by the sickening dread I’d given the man a stroke.
‘Neither. I wanted to talk to you first.’ I inched forward. ‘I know it’s hard, having him live so far away. But I’ll take good care of him. We’ll visit whenever we can, and you’re always welcome to stay with us. We’ll always have a room for you.’
Phillip put his glasses back on, placed a hand on each arm of the chair and stood. Braced himself with a firm nod.
‘Of course you have my blessing.’ He shook himself off with an embarrassed laugh and held out his hand. ‘Welcome to the family, Dale.’
‘Assuming he says yes.’
‘He will.’
We shared a hug—a very quick one—and slapped each other on the back. It was weird and awkward. Stupid and perfect.
Phillip returned to his chair and let out a long sigh. Smiled with glassy eyes as he looked off into the distance. Into the past. ‘Cath and I knew Nick was gay when he was twelve years old. Maybe younger. I didn’t want to admit it at first. Not because I didn’t want a gay son. Because I was scared for him.’ His voice caught and he turned away. Rubbed his eyes again. ‘I was scared he wouldn’t be safe.’
The love this man had for his son.
He went on, ‘But the world has changed so much. When I was a boy, gay men had to find each other in secret. They could be prosecuted. You know?’
I knew.
‘Those days,’ he said, ‘no one dreamt that two men would be able to marry. To love each other openly and in peace. You can’t imagine what it means to me, that my son will get to have what Cath and I have. What his sister Naomi and her husband have. You both deserve it as much as anyone.’
Phillip was no stranger to prejudice. Nick had told me how back in the early seventies Phillip’s parents hadn’t wanted him to marry a brown-skinned immigrant girl. How the rift that appeared between him and his family was never mended. We had that in common. Perhaps what I sensed had passed between us was mutual respect and understanding.
Phillip beckoned me through double doors into the dining room. From a large glass-fronted cabinet he removed two tumblers and a bottle of dark amber liquor. The label on the bottle said The Glenlivet XXV. It looked expensive. Phillip poured us each a thumb and handed me my glass.
‘Naomi bought me this for my sixtieth. I don’t get many occasions to drink it, which is a good thing since whisky does tend to make me aggressive.’
I didn’t mean to laugh. It was just that I couldn’t imagine Phillip raising his voice let alone his hand to anyone or anything. Luckily, Phillip laughed too, and clinked his glass against mine. ‘I’m not going to tell Cath,’ he said. ‘She’ll tell Josie and then it’ll be all over the south coast before your plane takes off tomorrow. Also, Nick’ll want to be the first to tell his mum.’
‘Sure. I get it.’ I really did.
What incredible elation I felt, to be welcomed into the private fold. To be accepted exactly as I was, no apologies, no compromises. To be party to the inside jokes. To be trusted.
Finally, my time had come and now all I had to do was propose to Nick.