Laura Hall - Affliction: Growing Up with a Closeted Gay Dad

PRAISE FOR AFFLICTION: GROWING
UP WITH A CLOSETED GAY DAD

Affliction is a loving and tender portrait of a relationship and a family. Its also an important addition to the history of gay parents in America and of the particular challenges faced by gay men and women in the years before Stonewall.

ALYSIA ABBOTT, author of New York Times Book Review Editors Choice and Stonewall Book Award winner Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father

This moving memoir is about not just a daughter, not just a father, but a whole family, one thats impossible not to love. Halls writing is honest and insightful and her story a comfort and a gem.

VICTORIA LOUSTALOT, author of This is How You Say Goodbye and Living Like Audrey: Life Lessons from the Fairest Lady of All

This book shares a vital perspective that, until now, was missing from the LGBTQ communitys understanding of its own history. Hall finally adds the missing puzzle piece: the voice of the children of gay parents who have always stood in the shadows. We are given a rare and precious gift as she warmly invites the reader into the world of her closeted family and shares a perspective that is deeply loving and raw in its honesty.

ROBIN MARQUIS, who served as Program Director of COLAGE

Copyright 2021, Laura Hall

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

Print ISBN: 978-1-64742-124-3

E-ISBN: 978-1-64742-125-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021903411

For information, address:

She Writes Press

1569 Solano Ave #546

Berkeley, CA 94707

Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

Names and identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the privacy of certain individuals.

For my parents

ME THE YEAR MY FATHER CAME OUT TO ME, AGE TWENTY-FOUR

I knew I was different, he said. I was also aware of the fact I should conceal it, that it was an affliction.

It wasnt like any other Fathers Day, though it started out that way. A wrapped gift sat next to me in our yellow Volkswagen Bug. I dont remember what was inside, but it might have been a macram wall hanging I made or a collage of shells and twigs I glued onto a piece of driftwood. My father admired the crafts of that era, especially if they were created by one of his four children.

The year was 1975. Jody, my five-year-old daughter, slept soundly in the back seat of our car. The trip was a ninety-minute drive from Sonoma County to San Carlos, the small city on the San Francisco Peninsula where I grew up.

My mother greeted us at the front door of the family house before we even rang the bell. A fresh summer pie, either peach or apricot, would have been cooling on the kitchen island next to a stack of linen cocktail napkins and an open can of Sees Fancy Nuts. The dining room table was always set the night before with the fancy pink linen tablecloth and napkins, sterling silver flatware, blue Wedgwood china with white trim, and amethyst-colored crystal stemware. My father would have assembled the centerpiece that morning out of purple statice he had dried in the garage, and long shiny brown seed pods he collected from city sidewalks, a single lavender iris from the front yard, and maybe a fern frond or two.

Caroline, my older sister by eighteen months, home from college, was cloistered at the back of the house in the bedroom she still claimed as her own. Tim, our younger brother, would have been downstairs singing and strumming the music of the Beatles and Neil Young on his guitar. Susan, twenty-one, and the youngest of the four of us, might have been on the phone with her tall and tan surfer boyfriend.

Jody and her grandmother got down to business in the kitchen. I grabbed a handful of salted nuts from the counter. At the sound of yapping and the rustle of a dog leash, I peeked out from the kitchen doorway and saw my father and the family dog.

Laurie, would you like to come walk Daisy with me?

Mom waved me on, assuring me she had everything covered, certain to cherish the rare one-on-one time she could spend in the kitchen with her only grandchild. It had been a few months since wed been down to the Peninsula, and Mom was prepared. A sugar bowl and cinnamon shakers were within Jodys easy reach. She was well-versed in the art of placing the finishing touches on her grandmothers leftover pie dough that had already been cut into narrow strips for her. Mam, as she called her, would soon be sliding them into a very hot oven. Dont touch, shed warn Jody.

My father and I, and Daisy the yappy terrier, took off up the hills behind the family house. I remember the sky as being a light blue, but the summer haze lower on the horizon partially obscured our view of the San Francisco Bay. Dad and I bantered about not much at all, as I recall, perhaps the long hot summer that year, the dry vegetation surrounding us, and the unnatural-looking pinkish-orange color of the Leslie Salt evaporation ponds in the bay below us.

Behind the small talk, though, my mind churned. I hadnt planned it, but now seemed like as good a time as ever to ask the question that had pressed on me since I was little. I was desperate for the truth, though I already had my suspicions. Still, I hoped hearing it out loud would help me make sense of the mess Id made of my own life.

At twenty-four, Id already been through a teen pregnancy, two marriages, multiple extramarital affairs, and was now working on my second divorce. I hoped to finally point the finger at someone other than myself. Id spent at least two decades following the clues my father left behind. After weighing the evidence and knitting together a story that would hopefully explain away my own shortcomings, I readied myself for the final proof. When we reached the ridgeline and Dad unleashed Daisy, I made my move.

Have you ever been unfaithful to Mom?

Looking back now, I am shocked by my boldness. But as soon as the words left my mouth, I could feel my heart pounding against my snug, powder-blue poor-boy top. I regretted saying them. I already knew the answer.

Daisy by then had disappeared into the scrubby manzanitas, her scruffy brown head bobbing up and down like a free-range jackrabbit. I wished I could disappear with her, but it was too late. There was no retracting my question.

Dad alternated his gaze from my eyes to the view of Mount Diablo behind me. When his cheeks turned a reddish-purple and he drew in a large breath, letting it out slowly, I assumed he was stunned by my courage. Id stunned myself.