husband—albeit a loving, caring, almost polished-to-perfection gay husband—was just not her cup of ginger ale tea. He had quickly learned that his father was no more welcome in this house than he had been at the house of Alan’s relatives on the maternal side, but that bore little significance in the face of the fact that there had been nowhere else le1 to go. Still, even the temporary relief of finding a place to stay—even if the place was full of sneers and side comments about his father—had to pass. The signs of the times—the suspicious economy and the perennial tension in the government—were tightening their grip on the family’s throat and bleeding wallets dry. Like a silent assailant on the prowl, the demand that one family member be sacrificed and sent to work in the Great Overseas was a constant murmur, slithering through the paperthin walls of the house and caressing the recesses of its residents’ minds. Unfortunately, being a gay, single father, with a low-paying, blue-collar job, fulfilled all the requirements of this silent, insistent whisper and as he gathered the dirty dishes from the table, Alan pictured his father’s plane ticket, passport, and necessary papers piled neatly atop the small desk he kept in his room. What he could not imagine however, was his own father, who had not come out of his room since the Archbishop made his announcement and the Ladies of the Parish, with their quiet nods and equally silent lips, gave off all sorts of signs foretelling of their obeisance two days ago. There was the Flores de Mayo, it was true, but Alan’s father would have gone by then, serving a people whose culture he neither knew nor loved. Mourning the loss of one last chance to don his stunning blue gown before he rode a plane and became one of the faceless thousands of men and women abroad, Alan’s father remained in his room, doing goodness knew what. Or rather, he stayed in his room doing whatever it was that
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