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“Well, yeh,” Hayden said, “since you ask. Also, I’m drinking lemonade in order to be supportive. Very little liquid courage in lemonade.”
“You aren’t supposed to talk about people, Grandad,” Casey said. “And being gay, or LBTG … LBG …”
“LGBTQ Plus,” Isaiah said. “It’s normal.”
“Well, not quite normal, darling,” Tania said. “But that’s all right, because we all love Uncle Hayden, don’t we? Anyway!” She clapped her hands. “Who wants dessert? I think I saw some yummy cookies in there.”
“Yes, it is, Nana,” Isaiah said. “For example, there are two male penguins in New York City who are mates. Once they even tried to hatch a rock like it was an egg.”
“Which would be,” Craig said, “unproductive, reproductively speaking. Unsustainable. And occurring as an exception. Abnormal by definition.”
Finn’s older son Harry, who was probably twelve or so, was frowning and pushing up his specs like a professor about to impart important knowledge. “Heaps of bonobos have bisexual behavior, though. There was a study that said seventy-five percent, which makes it not the exception.”
“Which would be more significant if we were bonobos,” Craig said. Arguing with a twelve-year-old. Not his best look.
“Bonobos are the most related to humans of any animal, though,” Harry said, absolutely unfazed. “We share 98.7 percent of our DNA with them, so it’s very significant. Also, there are male giraffes who do homosexual behavior sometimes. And female—a kind of antelope. An African antelope. And sheep right here in New Zealand, because some rams would rather mate with other rams than with ewes, even when there are ewes around. There are heaps of other examples, too, but those are the main ones I remember. If you like, I can look all of them up and email you the results.” Veering dangerously close to disrespecting your elders, but Finn wasn’t objecting.
“Harry,” his sister Sophie said. “How do you even know all that?”
“Because he knows things,” Isaiah said. “Especially about animals. Knowing things is good. It makes you more logical.”
“The main thing,” Harry said, “is that it’s true. It’s data. It’s evidence, and besides—what happens in science is what’s supposed to happen, not what you thought would happen. That’s the whole idea of science. You can’t pretend not to notice things just because they aren’t what you wanted to find.”
Zora said quietly to Luke, “A bit more than you were expecting tonight?” With a smile that said she got it.
“Yeh,” he said, starting to smile himself. “But good.”
Hayden put his arm around Luke’s waist like a declaration and said, “Yes. Good. Sorry, Dad, but I came out a long time ago, and it’s time for me to finally be out. I’m tired of hiding, especially from you, and I can’t do it anymore. Zora loving Rhys isn’t shameful. Look at her. Look at them, and the kids and all. How can you think there’s anything wrong with them being together, just because she was married to Dylan first? Dylan is dead. Sorry, Isaiah,” he added.
“That’s OK,” the boy said. “I know he’s dead.”
“And there’s nothing shameful about my life, either,” Hayden went on. “I may not have won a Nobel prize or whatever you imagined for your son, and I may have girl qualities—thanks for the misogyny, but I’d call them lawyer qualities—but I haven’t done so badly, have I? Here I am, supporting myself, got my flat and my car and my job and all, and I haven’t developed a drugs problem or been ignominiously sacked for my embezzlement issue yet. I haven’t loved the person you’d have wanted me to, and neither has Zora. Does that make us defective?”
“You don’t want me to answer that,” Craig said.
“Well, yes,” Hayden said. “I find I do want that. I think it’s time.”
CHAPTER 8
Cavuto Nero, Sixteen Dollars
By the time he walked out with Luke fifteen minutes later, Hayden’s legs were practically shaking.
Not that much else had happened. His dad had said again, “Not the time or place.” Victoria had jumped in with a question for his mum about clothes for the wedding, and nobody else had said anything about it.
Other than Rhys and Zora, who’d got up to see Luke and Hayden out. Zora had given Hayden a cuddle and said, “I know what kind of brother I have, and it’s exactly the kind I want. I’m lucky to have him, too.”
Hayden had choked up a bit at that, but Rhys was shaking his hand, then Luke’s, and saying, “Well, for once it wasn’t me putting their backs up. Cheers for that,” and giving his pirate’s grin again. “Also, I hope you’re going out someplace brilliant. I’d say glass of wine, but …”
“Yeh.” Luke was looking so stolid, it was as if he were carved from wood. “Sober’s still better.”
“Speak for yourself,” Hayden said, and tried to laugh.
“You can go on and have a glass of wine,” Luke said when Hayden had parked in the Wynward Quarter garage again and Luke had parked beside him. “Or two. Won’t bother me. Like I said—not an alcoholic, just making a choice. At least I hope so. Giving up hasn’t been too hard, though, so I don’t think I can be.”
“Is anything too hard for you, though?” Hayden asked, trying to shake off the jitters. “Doesn’t seem like it to me.”
“Heaps of things feel too hard,” Luke said, starting to walk with that absolutely upright posture Hayden had almost never seen on anybody else. Like he didn’t have to slouch along, to be cool. Like he was sufficient unto himself. “They don’t turn out to be too hard, though, long as I keep moving.”
