Gay grandparents

At least, mine is.”

Gran and grandad have been married forever. The creamy head makes the drink slip so easily from the glass, that I am unprepared for the solid impact of the slightly heavy, dark liquid. Then bring her to ours for dinner tomorrow.”

This last line is so unexpected, it silences me.

“Now, drink up,” Grandad says.

You’re completely miserable. They had to learn by experience. I’ll always need to talk to Daisy.

We’re back at the house.

Still, senseless cruelty is one of the things I expect of children. His silence is a choice, not an absence of things to say.

“I was an optimist once,” he says with a tone of regret in his voice, “but I always knew it wouldn’t last.”

He keeps a perfectly straight face. The Grapes is not that sort of pub.

Grandad gives me a grin that seems to say, “Lost the sense to come in out of the rain, have you?”

I step inside.

Cold and wet and involuntarily mobile, sucked even more than existential angst.

Which, I realise, is why we were walking in the rain. Pretending to be happy when you’re with her but not doing it well enough to fool her. I have no hat and I won’t use the hood rolled into my coat collar because it makes me look like a spaz, so my hair is getting drenched and rainwater is starting to find its way down my neck.

And here was me, thinking I couldn’t get any more miserable.

Talk it through. So I’m…”

…hiding things from her.” Grandad says, disappointment in his voice. I feel like I’ve just levelled-up in a new video game: pleased but tense and worried about making a fool of myself.

I follow in grandad’s wake as he moves through the not-enough-room-to-fall-over crowd to get to the bar.

How long do you think she’s going to put up with you behaving like that?”

I know he’s right but that doesn’t stop me from bleating out, “I can’t tell her. According to you, she’s a strong person, so she’ll go where she pleases.

If you love her, you tell her the truth and decide together what it means.

Tell her tonight.

Eckerd College alum studies gay grandparents, returns to discuss findings