THE REVELATION

Jackie, Mary, Carol

Jackie sat in the darkness of her basement at 2:30 in the morning searching for what she was terrified to find. At 2:45 a.m. she found it and threw up all over her desk. There he was, her husband of 17 years, on male internet dating sites looking for love. It’s not like there wasn’t any love at home. In fact, friends and family and casual acquaintances often called them a beautiful – no, gorgeous, loving – family. But there he was: FLJockman1965. The father of her children. She threw up again.

Mary, a physical therapist by trade, was on a camping trip with her husband and two kids in 2003.  Her eldest, a 10-year-old son, was looking for his baseball glove in the tent.  Dad had told him it was in the bag next to his backpack.  As he rummaged through the tent, the boy found a small cooler that looked like his lunch box tucked inside Dad’s duffle bag.  He would tell his mother a week later about the bottles of medicine he saw inside.  Mary found out that her husband Jeff was gay by tracing the medication her son accidentally found to a medical clinic that supported HIV-infected patients.

Carol became suspicious that her husband was having an affair after 20 years of marriage when magazines for racy men’s clothing and male activities started showing up in her mailbox.  She grew more and more discomforted as the magazines multiplied.  Eventually she noticed that the magazines never referenced females.  She asked her husband if there was any reason to be concerned.   He told her she was crazy and that he never ordered the magazines.  Their love life slowly dwindled until Carol became withdrawn and desperate.  Her husband Greg would eventually tell her that he was gay – but only after she had spent years trying to “fix” their love life.

Jackie

Many hours before Jackie got sick to her stomach at the sight of her husband on her computer, Jackie’s father, the most honorable, respected person in her life, called her on the phone to take her to lunch.  Her dad never took her to lunch.  Jackie was sure that either he had prostate cancer again or her mom was heading back for radiation for another lump in her breast.  So convinced was she of impending doom that she called her siblings to inquire if they knew what was going on.  Both her sisters and brother were unnaturally quiet.

She arrived at the restaurant with a knot in the pit of her stomach.  She couldn’t connect her gut feeling to what was wrong. The hairs on the back of her neck weren’t standing up, but she did feel as though something was not quite right. It was October in Minnesota, a time of year when the leaves are gold and beautiful, but the wind is brutal.  The lovely trees provided welcoming access to the typical side-of-the-highway restaurant, but the cold air that rushed in through the front door stung like an angry hornet.  The Midwest fall chilled her bones. The humidity of fresh-cooked pasta and the scent of garlic and onions permeated the air, calming the nerves. 

As her father wandered into the joint, Jackie’s concern lightened a bit.  Her dad wore a light golfing jacket and the same silly hat that she had seen him wear for 15 years.  Although he didn’t skip into the restaurant, he didn’t drag himself in either.  From his gait and the warm hug he gave her, Jackie concluded that it must be her mom they were there to discuss.  Her dad wore a concerned look that reflected “I have something difficult to tell you” but not something as serious as “I’m going to die.” 

As Barry Manilow droned on over the speakers, Dad and his daughter shared 20 minutes of benign conversation before they ventured towards the elephant in the room. 

“Who is sick – you or Mom?” Jackie asked.  When her dad said “neither,” she sighed with relief.  The gentle, thoughtful man took a bite of his lasagna.  “Too much garlic” was all he could say about this cuisine.  Typically she would try to up his ante with a comment like, “Mine is so laden with garlic that there will be no evil spirits visiting me tonight!” But today was different and she just couldn’t muster the courage to play their usual games.

Unable to handle the suspense any longer, Jackie asked, “Well then Dad, why are we meeting to eat pasta that could scare off a vampire on a Monday afternoon?” 

What he was about to say would start the wheels of Jackie’s life turning down a path she never chose to walk. 

Grateful for her introduction, he wasted no more time.  “I am finally willing to risk our loving relationship to tell you something,” her father muttered as he pushed aside his plate.  Every muscle in her petite body was strung as tight as a drum, waiting for the news of his impending death.  She was prepared for sickness; she was primed for bad news.  She was not at all prepared to hear that her husband was…GAY.

Her Dad led her into the information as gently as he could.  In between a bite of limp noodles and a sip of coffee, her father, who is know for his compassion and generosity, quietly expressed his belief that Roger had been cheating on her.  He told her the family news: her mother, brother and sisters had suspected for a long time that something was amiss in her marriage.  They saw Jackie acting as the dutiful wife and mother, and they watched Roger leave her alone while he enriched his life with “other” activities.  Jackie’s family had been watching and documenting her husband’s actions for about three years. During this time, they were sure that he was having relations outside of her marriage.  And they were almost sure he was not involved with another woman.

As her face grew ashen and her hands began to shake, her father reached across the table to put his loving hand on her shoulder.  Throughout her childhood, this gesture had made her feel cared for, warm and loved.  But today, at this moment, the feeling of his hand on her shoulder made Jackie wince in pain and bewilderment.  She was not at all prepared to hear what was just said. She was not at all prepared to understand the depth of the love coming to her in the form of truth and honesty from her family.  This lunch was becoming horrendously threatening. 

Little did Jackie know that this would also be one of the most loving moments of her life.

Jackie remembers trying to decide if she should ask questions about this revelation her family brought forth. Part of her didn't want to know any more.  She wanted to rewind time and start this meeting over again.  A sick parent she could deal with;  it would be a heck of a lot better than her husband being gay!  If she stood up now and walked away from the table, then perhaps this moment never existed. If she waited long enough, maybe her Dad would get up and say “April Fools Day!” 

But this was October 10, 2005.  Today was almost exactly 14 years since she wed the man of her dreams.  She wanted to go back to the place she was all those years before, when she married Roger in a gorgeous ceremony on the shores of Lake Grifland.  The yearning to return to that beautiful time overtook her senses.  

Jackie is a romantic through and through.  She judges movies on their “cry factor” and never forgets an anniversary or a birthday of those she loves.  She took refuge from the immediate conversation to dream of the vacations she took with Roger…to all the wonderful jewelry he had given her through the years and all the mushy cards he had written.  She looked at her wedding ring and sobbed.   While sitting across from her dad at the restaurant, a chunk of time was lost in a flood of loving memories of Roger.

When the memory bubble broke and she returned to her father, Jackie realized that she could not escape the vile words he had muttered.  Against every sensation in her body, she asked, “Okay Dad, where did all of this come from?”  Over the next half hour her father laid out the details of a highly complicated, well-executed investigation that had been taking place in the bowels of her family.

Mary

It was a bright, sunny day in Northern California when Mary and Jeff and their two sons left for a long-awaited camping trip.  Mary had been looking forward to this outing for months.  She longed for some quiet days off, a break from the chaotic existence she led on a day-to-day basis.  She wanted to get away from the reality of her life to connect with the man whom she loved and had grown slowly away from.  She longed for his touch and his attention.

She ached for a few days without grocery shopping and filling the dishwasher and folding laundry and making beds and cooking dinner and brushing teeth and balancing the checkbook and helping with homework and attending conferences and vacuuming carpets and singing goodnight songs and making beds and giving baths and mowing the lawn and lining up dentist appointments and keeping peace with the neighbors and attending Boy Scouts and sitting through swimming class and then dutifully getting ready for bed in a negligee that implied she wanted to please her husband.  Mary was the typical mother.  She performed her daily duties and still made her man believe she wanted to have sex.  In my opinion, she was a saint.

In reality, Mary had grown weary of the constant child care and family duties that had, over the last couple of years, become increasingly her responsibility.  Then she blamed herself for Jeff’s lack of enthusiasm in their sex life.  Typical mother.  Typical female.

Mary had planned the camping trip and packed the duffle bags and made all the arrangements for their journey.  Usually Jeff enjoyed helping her plan family activities, but Mary had recently taken over these tasks, too.  Jeff had been working extended hours during the week and had even begun going to the office on weekends.  Mary had planned this getaway to give Jeff some release from his increasingly hectic work schedule.  She was happy and content as she and Jeff and her two boys took off into the wilderness for a couple of days off.

Mary’s relaxation lasted two and a half hours (that’s how long it took to drive to the campground).  Typical.

Jeff unloaded the bags from the back of the van and the family put up the tents.  Then the luggage was unpacked and Martin was sent into the tent to find his baseball glove.  He found the glove, and also found a hidden stash of items left in a cooler in the bottom of Dad’s suitcase. 

When little Martin told his mother of the medicines in Daddy’s camping bag, she became suspicious.  Jeff hadn’t mentioned taking any medications.  A few months earlier Mary had found a prescription of Viagra in the shaving kit Jeff packed for work trips, but after he had told her the reason for the prescription (to better service her sexual needs), she didn’t give it a second thought.  Now she started to think about it!  Maybe Jeff had brought along the Viagra.  Bless him.

However, she thought, why would there be more than one bottle of pills?  There was no real reason to suspect that Jeff was under the influence of drugs.  Or was there?  Mary had spent the last 10 years proudly announcing to her church groups that neither she nor her husband ever took recreational drugs.  No Ridalin.  No sleeping pills.  No downers, no uppers, no marijuana, nothing.

Panic didn’t get the best of her during the camping trip, but it sure did sneak into her life upon returning home.  Jeff went to bed early that night, of course, because he was “tired.” He went to sleep and she went to work looking for drugs.  There were no new bottles in the medicine chest in their bedroom.  There were no bottles hidden under the bed.  There were no pills in his office or his sock drawer or his private drawer where he hid sex toys that Mary had never seen before.

When her son Martin told Mary about the drugs he found in the tent, Mary did what most caring moms would do.  She told her son not to worry.  The bottles probably were full of vitamins.

Mary called her doctor to request information about any new prescriptions.  No new prescriptions had been written since her son needed amoxicillin for his earache the year before.   She then called her pharmacy to see if medications were due to be picked up.  Nothing.  Shit.

A day full of anticipation and anger went by.  Mary sifted through numerous fits of anxiety.  She started to think about the other details in their lives that he had been omitting.  Where the hell was he working all these late hours?  She kept trying to call him at the office but his phone would go straight to voicemail.  And when he worked on weekends, his cell phone would also go to voicemail.  There was a feeling in Mary’s gut that the trail of the medicines in Jeff’s luggage would lead to many answered questions.

After her husband had gone to sleep the next evening, Mary searched his car.  She found a small cooler jammed under his seat that contained three bottles of medicine.  She swiftly wrote down the names and the dosages of the drugs and returned the container to its original location.  The next morning, after the kids had gone off to school, Mary called a local free medical clinic to inquire about Retrovir.  She was told by the answer line attendant that Retrovir is a nucleoside analog reverse transcriptase inhibitor.  Panicked, she asked the agent to put that in plain English.  “Retrovir,” she was told, “is Zidovudine, also known as AZT.  It is used to treat HIV infection.”

Mary’s last memory of that afternoon was dropping the phone and passing out on the kitchen floor.

Carol

In the summer, Carol and Greg usually spent their Sunday afternoons sitting on the porch looking over the cornfields.  In winter they sat near the fireplace reading a book or completing the New York Times crossword puzzle.  They loved just being together, each working on his or her projects, drinking lemonade and talking about the previous week’s activities.  They had spent most Sundays in this fashion for the last 30 years.

Carol and Greg had a good life.  Although they had no children of their own, Greg’s many brothers and sisters had provided them with numerous nieces and nephews who frequently frolicked on the farm.  Both Carol and Greg were active in their rural farming town in western Nebraska.  They worked hard, attended church on Sunday mornings and volunteered often at the community center.

Carol met Greg in high school.  She was a shy, sweet gal whose dad owned the town hardware store.  She longed for a life outside of Nebraska but she was happy to put those dreams on hold when she met her future husband.  Greg was the oldest son of a hard working, hard drinking, God-fearing farmer whose land had been tilled by the last three generations of his family.  Greg would follow in the footsteps of the first-born sons in all the generations before him.  He would stay on the prairie and raise a family and live off the land. 

Carol fell in love with Greg in their senior year of high school.  He was a kind, gentle soul who treated her like a princess and promised her a good life.  They were married in the town chapel five months after graduation.

As the years progressed, Greg’s anger about not conceiving children with Carol lessened and the couple fell into a groove of enjoying a quiet life on the farm.  When Greg was 58-years-old his father passed away. Carol thought her husband would be miserable.  In fact, the passing of his father left Greg with a sense of freedom she had never witnessed before.  Suddenly Greg wanted to take trips with her to places like Southern Florida and San Francisco.  He ordered internet service for their home and inquired about putting a satellite TV dish on the roof.  Greg had never mentioned wanting satellite TV before.  His father said the devil enters a home through the television, so neither Greg nor his brothers and sisters had ever had televisions.  At least they never admitted it.

As the months passed, Greg spent more and more time alone in his study on the internet instead of rocking with Carol on the porch.  A few years passed before she realized that she was always alone in their home.  Greg’s desire to help make dinner or share their crossword puzzle had been replaced by his desire to read his magazines alone in his study.

Slowly, signs of her husband’s changing sexual orientation started showing up.  Catalogues of men’s racy undergarments were delivered to their mailbox.  Subscriptions to magazines like Men’s Fitness and The Advocate showed up on her credit card statement.

They went from having a “normal” sex life to never having sex.  When Carol grew despondent over the loss of intimacy with her husband, she went to her church to ask for guidance.  She was told by her minister to pay more attention to her husband.  She was to fix him better meals, freshen up her appearance and make more of an effort to please him in bed.

Carol gave it everything she had for the following six months.  She cooked all of Greg’s favorite meals.  She bought new clothes and wore pretty lipsticks and mascara.  She kept a clean, bright home.  She wore negligees to bed and begged to please her man.  What she received in return was rejection, solitude and a badly bruised ego.  The harder she tried to take care of Greg’s needs, the more he pushed her away and moved into isolation.

When she could no longer take the rejection, she approached her husband and asked him what was happening.  Together they cried as Greg revealed that he loved Carol but that he had recently “become” a gay man.  He talked about how his life changed after the death of his father and about how he began dreaming of having sex with men.  He told her of how he had left her for the day in San Francisco when she was shopping to have sex with men in the gay community.  He wanted to see if he was “really gay” or if he was just confused.  He told her of how much he wanted to hate the sex with men in San Francisco, but how “right” it felt.  He had sex with five different men over the span of their six day vacation.  He also had sex with her.       Carol did not grasp the gravity of Greg’s statement, or the physical danger he had put her in during that trip.  It would take her years of therapy to understand how selfish Greg’s actions were.  How could he have had sex with other men, then come home to her and have sex with her?  How could this man, whom she had loved for 30 years, so blatantly disregard her health and happiness?  How could he have been so disgusting?

“Please don’t tell anyone about this,” he begged.

With those few words he opened the door to the proverbial “closet” and locked Carol in with him.  For the next hour Greg cried to Carol about how he wanted to stay married to her, but he wanted to have sex with men sometimes.  Could they just try to work something out?