The Lockdown

29

Sunday morning, Cam went to the store to replenish their dwindling supplies. Andy was at his easel trying to start on a new canvas when he looked out the window and saw a familiar red car pulling up the curb. He hobbled down the stairs, opened the passenger side door and slid in the vehicle.

"Hello," the man sitting in the driver's seat greeted him. "You're Andy, right?"

"Good morning, Mr. Reyes, what are you doing here?"

"I'm hoping to talk to my son. Did he ask you to send me away?"

"No, he is out shopping. He told me you were here last week and that he doesn't want to talk to you."

"I know, but I can't stay away..." They were both silent for a while. "Are you two together?"

"Yes."

"Would you mind me asking how your parents handled it... that you are... gay?"

"My mother only cares that we are happy, my dad died a few years ago but I think he would feel the same way."

"Good for them. I wish I handled this differently. When we found out, it was a complete shock. Never in my life did I imagine that he could be gay. I grew up in a very Catholic conservative rural environment where these things didn't exist, at least not on the surface. Of course, my mother now tells me that I was just blind and ignorant, that there are homosexuals everywhere, that Uncle Tio – not really my uncle, just a very close friend of my parents – doesn't truly have just a business partner for the past thirty years. My parents sent me to America to live with relatives when I was sixteen. I went to a Catholic high school where I met my wife. She hasn't always been this narrow-minded. Cam was born a year after we graduated and we just managed to get married four months before the birth. My wife fudges with our marriage date, so Cam doesn't even know this. She got this bad only in the last ten years or so. I think it's the church I used to belong to. The priest there keeps going on and on preaching about the evil of the liberal media, the corruption of Hollywood, the dangers facing our children. I always thought that he was going a bit far, but it didn't really concern me, I thought. I was wrong and not only because of Cam. I see now how harmful he has always been, how skewed his view of the world is and how his preaching divides people instead of loving them. I believe in a just and merciful God and I cannot accept a priest who says that God would banish my son to hell just because he loves another man." He looked at Andy hopefully.

"Mr. Reyes, I believe you but you have to give him time. Cam has been through a lot the past year and half and now he is finally getting better. I think he has been hurt deeply, but he is probably the nicest person I have ever met and I think he may eventually talk to you. I will tell him that you were here. Give me your number, but you have to let him come to you."

Cam's father took out a piece of paper and wrote down his number. He looked Andy in the eyes. "Do you love him?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. Please take care of him." Andy got out and watched him drive away.

He sat down on the steps of the building and waited for Cam to come back from the shop. When he arrived ten minutes later, he told the young man about his father and gave him the number. "You don't have to call him, but I believe him, he is sorry for everything and wants a relationship with you."

Cam took the piece of paper from him and stuffed it into his pocket. "I'll think about it."

The next day after lunch, Billy drove Cam to Minneapolis, to a large culinary department store to look at equipment they would need for the new kitchen. They arrived back early evening with arms full of brochures and a long list of possibilities Cam wanted to show Andy.