When My Dad Came Out

I Dealt With It Badly. So Did He.

“Are you gay?” my 12-year-old self asked, as if asking about the weather.

We had stopped in the deli section of a supermarket near my father’s home in metro Detroit to pick out some meat for a party. Dad must have said something, done something, that pricked my subconscious.

My father gave me a look of pure astonishment. “We’ll talk about it later,” he finally said.

The year was 2004, the month November, that dreary time when Michigan can’t decide whether to clothe itself with leaves or snow. We were both about to …