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I tried to move back home after Dad said the first stage in saying sorry was to tell everyone I was welcome again and put my room back as it was. He'd started boxing all my stuff up and packing down my bed and furniture that same weekend he'd sent me packing, but thankfully never finished it before going out on the road. I accepted the truce and went home for two nights. On the third, I made it through dinner before sitting in my room alone for half an hour and knowing I couldn't stay here.

'It's not you, Dad,' I said, with Mum there as well once my bag was re-packed. 'I love our family. And...I still love you.' He looked relieved to hear me say it. 'But I want to move out. I want to live with Colton. And it's not just for myself. He's trying to be different too, because I kinda told him things had to change. So I can't just leave him alone. I'm his support. And when I left to come back here I could tell he was pretending it didn't bother him. He's a popular guy on the face of it, but the truth is before me, he was always lonely. Desperately. I need to go keep him company. So it's time I left home. This is the right thing to do.'

'We understand,' my mother said. Then she looked at him. 'Don't we?'

'Oh for God's sake Joanne, you don't have to talk for me just because I'm dosed to the gills on codeine. Todd wants to leave home, it's up to him. Why's there even gotta be a reason?' He looked at me. 'Good luck then. And at least I know you're happy.'

Easier than I thought it would be. I made the concession that every Wednesday evening when Colton had his counselling, I'd go round and eat dinner with everyone.

Today was Thursday morning, and I had something to show Colton. Something that my father had asked if I'd do with him last night.

It was after breakfast. Colton and I had both been swimming and then changed back into our PJs and a bathrobe each. He'd made the waffles we'd had that morning he'd made breakfast for my family, with bacon and maple syrup. He'd been swimming so much lately after learning how to do proper strokes that food just didn't seem to touch him. He was nearly down to the 25 minute 5k run as well, and looked slightly more toned than before. He finally caved and told me he really didn't want to quit smoking, he enjoyed it too much. Besides, change all at once wasn't such a good thing. He'd been to his counselling sessions and taken the extra medication to level him out a bit. Still no thought to his future, but that was okay right now.

He also hadn't had a blank day in six weeks.

'Dad's been going to his sessions too,' I said, loading up the laptop.

Dad had been to Dr Comfrey without me in the end. Without any of us. He just booked an appointment and got Rocco to drive him there and told him 'Don't ask questions. And don't tell anyone I was here.' Then he'd been to a therapy session a few days later, and afterwards told Mum about it. And everything he'd told me. And that he was taking antidepressants now.

Then he'd told the family about Deke and his past. Realising that he only had one photograph, and that I still had it, he'd simply said. 'He looked like Todd. Almost exactly like him.'

Apparently that had made the wheels in Felix's head turn. To the point where the Wednesday evening afterwards, he got me to sit at the family computer with him, shut the door, and showed me everything he'd been doing to try to find more pictures of Deke. All the clues from Dad's story, he'd followed. San Francisco, the music scene, the government records, even the hospital records to try and find out where Deke had died, and graveyards where he might be buried. Felix had, of course, sneakily used Rocco's account and not his own, because Mum looked at his search history every night.

'So you already thought of logging into your own account to make sure she doesn't look at a blank history, right?'

'Duh. I'm an Aspie but I'm not stupid.' He grinned, then unexplainably zoned out for a moment. 'Todd. There's this boy in my class who sometimes makes me think I can let someone hug me. If it was him doing it. Am I going to be like you?'

'Well...I don't know, Felix. Maybe he's just fun and you like him and you want to be his friend. Or...do you want to hug him?'

'I don't know. Sometimes I think I do. Because he's cool. And he's funny. And I feel safe because he's my friend. So a hug would be safe. Maybe. I feel like I might not get all the panic on if it was him hugging me. And when I think about it I start feeling all embarrassed. Like, you know...' He tried not to look down at his lap but failed.

'Oh. Got it. I...kind of don't know what to tell you. But it's okay if you're feeling that way. Just be careful if you ever try hugging him I guess, because he might not want to. And it might be a little weird for him if he notices how you get.'

'Why do you think I'm afraid of it? How do I tell him?'

'Well...you don't, really. You don't just go up to someone and say that. Just be friends, and act normal and don't tell him you're thinking this. Because if he's okay with it there'll come a time when you both know. Or maybe you won't, but that will be okay. Or maybe you'll notice he likes girls and you're better off waiting until you find another person who feels like that. Make sense?'

'Not exactly. But yeah, okay. And Dad. Would Dad...get all like he got with you if I told him about this?'

'I don't know how Dad would get,' I said. At least now I knew what I was talking about. 'But look. Dad's trying to get used to the idea that some people like other guys. It's not easy. But at least I told him once I knew it for sure. This thing with your friend...thinking about letting someone hug you might give you that feeling even if you're not gay. Sometimes a straight guy gets a boner at odd times when they wouldn't expect to. Wait until you're sure. I'm talking maybe a few years. By then maybe Dad will feel a bit different about one of his boys coming out. And that's only if you do turn out to be like me.'

'It's genetic, right? And it's Dad's side of the family, because Deke was.'

'Maybe. Nobody's really sure.'

'Dad already told me some of the nasty stuff he said about you was wrong. That he was just angry.' He smiled. 'You're cool, Todd.' He held up his palm for the hug substitute again, and I put mine close to it. 'Can I tell you something else?'

'Anything.'

'When Dad wasn't here, I went on Rocco's account and tried searching for all this. Without those dumb controls Mum puts on my account. My own search gave me nothing that made sense. On Roccos, I found some stuff that made me feel icky.'

I tried not to laugh, but I sniggered, and then thankfully Felix laughed too.

'Naughty, right?' He said. 'But you and Colton....you don't do all the icky kind of stuff, do you?'

'Felix,' I said. 'Let me give you one last piece of advice before we pretend we never talked about this: don't ask for details you don't really wanna hear about. That's why I don't need to know what you looked at either. What me and Colton like doing's our thing. Not anybody else's. But I know what you mean, there is_some messed up stuff out there that I'd never want to look at. Or do myself. But sooner or later you'll find something icky that you actually kinda like. That's just growing up. But tell Rocco to wipe his search history and do _not tell Mum he let you use his account.'

Felix mimed doing up his mouth with a zipper. 'I failed though. I can't find a picture of Deke anywhere.'

'You didn't fail,' I said. 'Camera phones and the internet weren't around when Deke was alive.'

'But there's still gotta be something.'

'Maybe there has,' I said, looking through a twitter feed on #SanFrancisco. 'But to get it we've gotta take this to the next level. And first, we've got to tell Dad. He won't mind that you were searching for this. Tell you what, let's tell him I was doing it first.'

'What's the next level?'

'All these people following this hashtag, they live in San Fran, or they did, or they've been there. Maybe some of them are Dad's age and they lived there when Deke would have been there. We've got to try and find someone who knew him. Maybe they'll have pics they can scan.'

'Find someone who knew him?' Dad looked dumbfounded when we told him what we'd been doing, then made the suggestion. I still had no idea what had gone through his head after that, but he looked at the pair of us and then just seemed to find some inner strength that got past all the reasons why he should do it. 'Alright. Sure. Why not?'

We sat in front of the computer with him in the main seat, and the longer he stared at Twitter and the other sites we'd called up, the more he realised he'd probably gone with the idea believing we'd never succeed. 'I don't know how all this works, boys. Where do I even start?'

'Open a Twitter account,' Felix said.

'Hold on,' I said. 'Better idea.' I looked at Dad. 'I'm not sure you're going to like this. But here it is. If you want to make up for years of trying to pretend Deke didn't exist, you've got to tell people about him. Why don't you do it on a website? Mine. I'll set you up to write a guest article. Maybe not right now, but will you think about it?'

'You've got a website?'

'Oh come on, you've really never looked?'

He was looking now. He at least knew how Google worked, and he'd typed my name into it. Moments later he was looking at my coming out post. He seemed so lost in reading what I wrote that he didn't even order Felix out of the room. The pair of them read it all.

'Takes balls, right?' Felix said.

'Who the hell taught you that phrase?' Dad said. 'No don't tell me, it was probably me. Go play your video games or something, me and Todd got stuff to talk about.' He shut the door. 'Alright. Help me write something about Deke. Let's see if there's a snowball's chance in hell there's somebody out there who'd remember him. Just tell me you've still got my one photo of his. And I want it back.'

I had it in my wallet, ready to give him. I'd already made a camera-phone copy. 'What about people in your home town? _They'd_remember.'

My father scoffed. 'The people in that town were all like Mum and Dad. Or like me. The last thing I'd ever want's for them to...' he sat there, thinking about it. 'Fuck 'em. All of 'em. That's why they should find it.'

I was showing now Colton what my father and I had done together.

'My name is Oran Aldrington and this is my family. [Picture] I've been in the news lately because I was part of a truck crash where two of my co-workers lost their lives. I managed to save two people from inside a car that was leaking gasoline everywhere before it caught fire. There's a chance the city are going to make me as a decorated hero for it.

So here's what's not been on the news, and why I don't feel like I'm a hero at all.

My eighteen year old son came out to our family that he's gay recently, and I didn't take it well. In fact, I threw him out of our home and told him not to come back. Regardless of how I feel about gay people, and how I was raised to believe it was wrong, I'm ashamed of my behaviour towards Todd, and as part of my apology and making things right, I had to explain where the part of me that did what I did comes from.

It starts with how I had a brother I've never told anyone about who once came out to me too, back when I was seventeen. This is the only picture I have left of Deke, taken a year before he died of AIDS at age 21. Now here's a picture of Todd, taken just a few minutes ago. The more I look at my son, the more ashamed I feel that I've spent thirty years pretending Deke was never alive. Except maybe, I've only pretended to pretend. Because I remember everything.'

My father was a slow typer, so he'd dictated everything else that had gone on the site last night to me. I'd never appreciated how fast I could type until I tried keeping up with his constant stream of thought, because it had all poured out of him after that. Everything he'd told me and more. Stories of him and his brother as kids, as teenagers, of the last time he saw Deke before he left Alabama for good. Then the story of his death, his funeral, and all other details he could remember, until it was midnight and he'd drunk too much beer on top of his codeine pills. That's when he got to:

'If you knew my brother during his year in San Francisco then I'm hoping you'll get in touch with me. It's too late for me to have been a better brother to him, but not to acknowledge that he was here once and celebrate his life. There's a year of it missing I'd like to know about. My parents might have destroyed all trace of him they could find, but it's too bad for them, because I'm sure someone out there somewhere has some sort of record of him, hopefully a picture from his last year alive.

'I remember the cemetery where Deke's ashes are buried. I intend to come and visit and make sure he gets a new grave stone this year. I'm going to bring Todd with me and say hi to my brother and tell him that I came home from those two weeks on the road knowing that I had to make peace with my son, because no matter what I feel about both their life choices, I knew history couldn't repeat itself.

So I have to be better than my parents were. And everyone else who told them it was right to disown their own son when what he needed was a loving home and support. What we thought about his sexuality should never have mattered. We let it. We all helped destroy him.

'God bless you Deke. If you're up there, tell him he took you too soon, and one day I'm going to have a little word about it with him. I hope it's not too late to say I'm sorry. If God gave us your life for something then maybe it was so you could keep reminding me that it's not too late to do something better when you know you've done wrong.'

Colton was staggered. 'Your Dad came up with all this? Without you saying anything?'

'I might have made a few of his sentences better,' I said. 'And told him the world would see his apology as a bit more genuine if he didn't call his dead brother a candy-ass fudgepacker on one page. _And_persuaded him to take out the slightly drunken rant where he called his parents a pair of dumb old cotton-picking cunts. Apart from that, yeah, that's pretty well all him.'

Colton laughed, repeating the insult to himself. 'I like that one. So no pictures yet?'

'If I'm honest I doubt we'll ever get one,' I said.

'Wrong,' Colton said with a smile. 'You've just got a new comment ping up. Take a look.' He passed me back the laptop.

'Every so often I think of Deke and I type his name into a search, knowing I'll probably never find out where he came from or who his family were. He and I were together for a few months. I guess I'm lucky I'm still here, but I am. It messes with my head that he's gone and I stayed clean somehow. Know this might be a little difficult, but never expected to find this last night, so reaching out. Let me know if you want to get in touch. I have some photographs of him.' The account name was 'A wolf from San Francisco.'

'What you waiting for then?' Colton said.

'Everything!' I said, as blown away by this as Colton had been by my Dad's writing. 'Okay. It's really not up to me. Dad wrote all this. I've gotta tell him.' I sent him a text and sat there for twenty minutes waiting for a reply.

Nothing.

'I need my Bioshock addiction back,' I said, deciding to distract myself.

It was another two hours before Chantelle answered the door, cursing me and Colton for ignoring it, and there was Dad.

'He wants you two,' Chantelle said, turning off the TV in the middle of our game. 'Both of you.' She'd already invited him in.'

'Hi,' he said, looking at our splatterfest in the city of Rapture on the screen. 'Nice wholesome activities as usual then. Good use of both your brains. How about I take you two boys for some lunch? I hear your ban from Argle's Bar just got lifted.'

'Please tell me you didn't drive here,' I said. His leg was set and out of plaster, and his hip still stiff but the crack more or less mended. He was still on a crutch though, and taking the pain medication.

'Don't gimme that sass, boy. I was driving cars before you were an itch in my pants. I'll decide when I'm fit to drive. But for your information, no. I walked here. So seeing as your lazy ass don't drive, maybe your fo... I'm sorry, maybe Colton could drive.'

He'd walked? It was only three miles, but he shouldn't have been doing one. 'You idiot. Sit down, I'll get you some water.'

'I don't want water. I want lunch at Argle's with you and fox-boy here. I can't exactly make a decision about whether I can talk to Deke's ex boyfriend when I haven't even gone out in public with my gay son and his boyfriend, can I?'

Colton smirked. 'I'll get my keys.'

* * *

Appearing relaxed against all odds, my father sat and ate steak with us and admitted he was nursing a bit of a hangover from last night, drinking only 7UP and shifting in his seat constantly because his hip was stiff. He'd be back on the road within a month, he said. Maybe he should have some company.

'Me?' I said. 'I don't know, Dad. There's not a great deal to do inside a truck cab when you're not the one driving. There's only so many books I could read, and I get antsey when I'm bored.'

'So enjoy the scenery and talk to your old man about stuff,' Colton said. 'Eat at truckstop diners, fatten yourself up a little, drink beer in the evening with truckers, get to know "Daddy's people."'

'Maybe I'll just take him then,' Dad said. 'He knows a good offer when he hears it.'

'Yeah Dad, take Colton. Good idea. I'll give you a week before I get the phone call. Either you've dumped him on the roadside in the middle of East Jesus Nowhere or he's stolen the truck and you're too embarrassed to call the cops.'

'Crazier things have happened on the road,' my father said. 'I was in New York once, and this kid plain old got in my truck while I was in the restroom and got my gun out from under the driver's seat. I spent ten minutes talking him outta blowin' his brains out. This kid, he was a fox, couldn't've been more then eleven or twelve.'

'Nice try Mr A,' Colton said. 'Looks like you really got into this whole reading websites thing. And that guy was a bear. You should so do that roadtrip with Todd though. You could blog it up. On the road with a queer raccoon. He stuffs butt, didn'tcha know?'

Dad actually laughed. 'So,' he said, serious all over again just seconds later. 'You're a fox with brain damage. What else you got going for you?'

'He doesn't have brain damage, Dad. He gets amnesia. There's a difference.'

'Good, that means he can answer for himself then. So, what you got, boy? Coz if you gonna be with one of mine, you'd better treat him right. So how you going to make sure you pull your weight in this family? Because let me tell you something, life aint all lie ins and swimming pools and fat breakfasts, and drinking liquor and playing your dumbass video games.'

'Damn,' Colton said. 'He's got our number right there.'

'You don't got a clue about your future, fox, do you?'

'You mean it's not enough just to know I've got one?'

'Jeez, you're just like this one.' He looked at me. 'And you. Have I really heard this right? You're thinking of jacking in college in playing ball in New York before you've even started. Are you outta your mind?'

'I didn't say I was jacking it in,' I said. 'Who told you that? Felix? All I said was that it's not my only option.'

'Really?' Colton said. 'That's not what I heard.'

'Will you shut up?' I said. It was too late already though. I really hadn't thought about anything else. Until now. 'You know Dad, I was thinking, if you want me to take a road trip with you that much, maybe I should learn to drive a truck.'

My father pursed his lips, and then managed a smile. 'Okay smartass, listen to me. I'm proud of my job because where I came from, that was getting my ass out of bed and getting me something better. You already started at the same place I had to crawl to. Because that's what I wanted for my kids. You owe yourself more than just copying an old man like me. So, you wanna learn to drive a truck? I aint stopping you. But when you're me in thirty years time, you can't say I never told you there was something else out there. And that you had a brain, and you were a jock raccoon, of all the things to fuckin' be. And it all got you somewhere, and then you didn't even go there. You get what I'm saying?'

'Didn't you say your old man wasn't that great with words?' Colton said. 'Because damn.'

'Fox, you can keep that brown nose for someone else's ass,' my father said, deliberately looking at me.

Colton sniffed twice, and started sniggering. Dad rolled his eyes.

'But seriously you two, listen to me. This country's a disaster because people who've got brains sit there wasting them. It needs people like you. You're the future of this place. I've had a decent shot, I'm still doing what I can. And I've done pretty good. I dare you both to do better. That's what I wanted to tell you, right here. So you're having a fun summer. Then when the fun's over, what then?'

'Dad, this New York thing's not all it's cracked up to be.'

'But it's what you got for yourself,' he said, shrugging. 'And you worked your ass off to get it. What's the matter, you don't want to do this now because you're disappointed in yourself for not getting something better? I never got something better for me either. I wanted to design trucks, not spend my whole life driving the goddamn things. But hey. Maybe the man upstairs just shook his head at me and said no. Maybe I just plain old wasn't that smart and that was that. But I took what I could get. So you're not up for an NBA draft. So you're not Harvard material. How do you know that what you are aint gonna be better for you than being all that stuff you dream of?'

'Dad, look, I get all this, but...'

'But stop trying to have an answer. All I want you doing is thinking. Choose what you want, boy. You already made it crystal clear to me I can't stop you from doing that.' He looked at Colton. 'And you. You just think about all this to and you do the right thing by this one. I've heard about what you foxes are like. Don't you go turning him into no cuck. And I ever hear you got him voting democrat then this is the last tab I'm picking up for both of you.'

'Yeah Dad, sure.'

'You tell 'em Mr A,' Shiva said, obviously humouring him. I'd seen the democrat stickers on her beat up Oldsmobile in the car park many times. 'Would you like some more coffee?'

'I'm good, fill those two up. I gotta use the restroom. Don't y'all go worrying if I take a while. My metabolism on these goddamn pills is up and down like a whore's underpants.'

When he was out of eashot, I sighed.

'He's trying,' Colton said. 'Two months ago we'd never have been sitting here.'

'He's trying not to talk about Deke's boyfriend,' I said. 'Dad doesn't like wolves. He's never said why, he's never even said it, but we all just know. The first therapist they sent him to was one. He asked to see someone else after one session. He managed to be polite about it, say it wasn't a species thing, but that's about all Mum ever got him to change. The words and not the thoughts. I've been waiting for him to tell you that at least you're not one all morning.'

'Oh. Okay. So, we need to find ourselves a hot wolf and go polyamorous.'

'Would you be serious, just for one little minute?'

'Kinda can't help it when your old man's there going "Don't you go turning him into no cuck." He does give good career advice though.'

'Yeah. Which you're not going to take. Because you still don't have a plan.'

'Actually I do. Or at least I've got an idea.'

It surprised me. 'Since when? Gonna share?'

'Maybe.'

'Come on. Don't make pull "The only thing you ever share with me's your dick."'

'Don't make me pull "But that's all you ever said you wanted." '

'Whatever this plan is, Dad's not going to approve of it, is he?'

'Actually I think he might,' Colton said. 'It's like this. I once...' Something had caught his eye, and he turned round, stared for a moment, then turned back around. 'No fucking way! Okay, just slowly, without making it obvious, get up and look behind you. Then tell me if I'm dreaming.'

I already knew what he must have seen before I got up, looked around, and sure enough, sitting there at the bar with a cocktail and a chilli dog each, were Trick and Dolphin.