Page 73 of From LA to London, With Love

The photos Sophie had emailed Sam Reynolds, presumably her “friend who’s a journalist,” weren’t photos of me sprawled naked on the bed, smeared with chocolate. They were almost certainly photos of Robert that Mom had sent her or Sophie had taken when she was in Chicago.

And even though I’d left Sophie, without an explanation, she had still spoken to Robert to try to reunite us.

My stomach flipped as a vague recollection of Sophie offering to look into Robert’s whereabouts over Thanksgiving appeared unsummoned in my mind. I’d agreed and, not thinking she’d get anywhere, promptly forgotten about it. Until now. I’d clearly underestimated her.

I wanted to call her immediately to try to fix things, to apologize for being an idiot, but I’d deleted her number and all her messages from my phone in an act of self-preservation so I didn’t drunk text her.

I was tempted to race out of the restaurant and jump on the next available flight, but right now I was sitting across from my father, the father I’d yearned to have answers from for thirty years. I took a deep breath.

One major, life-altering moment at a time, Chris. Hear him out, and then try to fix things with Sophie.

“So, what happened? One day, you were a loving father, the next day, you vanished without a word, leaving Mom and I to pick up the pieces. And if you wanted to be reunited, why am I only hearing from you now?” My voice cracked. I needed to pull myself together.

“All very valid questions. Let’s order first. I have a lot to tell you, and I feel like once I get started, it will be hard to stop. Probably best we get our order in now, before I get too carried away.”

I nodded and Robert gestured for the waiter to come over and take our orders.

Robert waited for the waiter to walk out of earshot before speaking.

“I want to start by saying that I love you and have always loved you, and that I’m so sorry for what I did.” He paused, looking at me, his eyes glistening.

I swallowed, shaky and on the verge of tears myself.

“As I’m sure you know, your mother and I were quite devout Catholics. We were both raised in traditional Catholic families and got married when we were eighteen, before we had a chance to explore the world and work out who we really were. I loved your mother, I did, but I always felt that something wasn’t quite right.”

Robert took a sip of water.

“Then, a year before I left, I met a man at work, John. We became close, and I started to…I started to have feelings for him. Despite doing everything I could, nothing worked to suppress my attraction to him. I was disgusted at myself—I’d been taught that being gay was a sin—and fell into a terrible depression. Coming out as gay just didn’t seem like an option. It would have brought so much shame to you and Julie, especially in that town where all our friends were in the church. And it was still in the middle of the AIDS crisis, so homophobia, even in non-religious circles, was rife. But it also didn’t feel right to stay in a relationship with your Mom once I’d discovered the truth. So I decided the best thing was to leave, and I moved to New York. I took the bare minimum I needed to survive. I tried to write a note, but I just didn’t know what to say. Looking back, I was severely depressed and wasn’t thinking straight. If I had been, I would have realized how cruel that was to you and your mom.”

I was finding this difficult to take in. Robert—Dad—was gay? That was not what I was expecting. I knew homophobia in the eighties was bad, but leaving Mom and I with no warning or explanation was pretty drastic. And I also knew mental health issues could cloud people’s judgment, cause people to behave irrationally, but still…

I stared at him in silence, trying to process it all, while he continued. “The next twelve months were very dark for me. I questioned my faith and eventually lost it completely. I ended up in Boston, got a job at an accounting firm, and met Aidan, who is still one of my best friends today. It was at that point that things turned around. Aidan introduced me to other gay men who were living happy lives, who were openly gay and still had jobs and relationships. I started seeing a therapist and began to accept who I was.”

Robert gave a sad smile.

“Once I was a bit better, I wrote a long letter to your mom, explaining what had happened, asking her if I could visit you both. When she didn’t respond, I assumed she didn’t want to have anything to do with me. But I couldn’t leave it at that. I tried calling, but your number was disconnected. So, I decided to visit. I knocked on the door. I could see someone was home, but no one answered. I left another note in the mailbox but never heard back. Sophie told me you’d moved by then, but I just assumed your mother had received the letters and ignored them. Because that’s what I’d thought her reaction would be. I didn’t think she’d want to see me again, especially given her religious views and the way I’d abandoned you both, which I felt a huge amount of guilt about. It never crossed my mind that she hadn’t actually received my letters, that she’d sold the house and moved. When I left, our whole life was that community. It wasn’t something I could imagine her leaving. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have given up so easily. I tried to look for you again when you were a teenager. I figured by then you’d be old enough to make your own mind up about me, but I didn’t find any trace of you. Sophie told me you and your mom both took your stepfather’s last name, which explains why.”

“And you didn’t recognize me? I don’t exactly have a low profile these days,” I said.

Robert’s brow furrowed. “You don’t have a…low profile? Sorry, how would I have recognized you?” Unless he was a much better actor than me, he appeared to genuinely have no idea who I was.

“I’m an actor, a pretty well-known one. Chris Trent? Muscle Man?”

“Oh wow! That does sound familiar, but I’m afraid I don’t really keep up to date with pop culture. And to be honest, even if I did, I'm not sure I’d have been able to work out that this tall, handsome man before me was the same person as the cute little boy I left so many years ago.” He shook his head and smiled. “But that’s amazing, Chris. I’m so proud of you.”

I attempted a smile, which felt more like a grimace. The corners of my mouth wavered. Get it together, Chris.

Robert reached out and touched my hand. “I’m so sorry, Chris. I know I made a lot of mistakes, and I completely understand if you don’t want to have a relationship with me, but I would love to be part of your life if you’re open to that. I never stopped thinking about you and wondering how you were doing. I never stopped loving you.” His voice broke, and tears rolled down his face.

I reached over and gave him an awkward pat on the shoulder. A wealth of emotions welled up inside of me. Anger that he hadn’t tried harder to find me, relief that he hadn’t left because of something I’d done and that he had loved me, sympathy for the struggles he had gone through.

And they were just the emotions I had about my father. There was also relief that Sophie hadn’t betrayed my trust, concern that I’d caused her pain, and panic that I might have lost her forever through my stupidity. Listening to Robert talk, it dawned on me that I’d basically done to Sophie and Elliot what he’d done to me. Left them, with no explanation. I gave myself a mental shake. Before I spiraled down a rabbit hole of worry about that, I had to work out what to do about my father.

I looked at him, blinking the tears away. “Look, I would be interested in trying to have some sort of relationship with you, but I can’t make any promises. You leaving caused me and Mom so much pain, I think we’ll need to take things slowly and work out what that relationship will look like.”

“I understand,” Dad said, with a tentative smile. “I’m so glad to see that, despite my actions, you’ve become such a success. And have such wonderful friends. Sophie is an absolute delight.”

We spent the rest of lunch talking. It felt bizarre, like I was talking to a complete stranger who, at the same time, was very familiar. Conversation was a little awkward, but I sensed that with a few more meetings, we’d relax and get on well. He told me about his partner, Simon, his French Bulldog, Walter, and how he now ran his own accounting firm and visited LA often for work. I gave him a short overview of my life following his departure but didn’t tell him about Sophie and Elliot. Since I’d royally screwed that up, there didn’t seem like much point until I’d tried to fix things.