Chapter 15

Wes and I would both be in the wedding. We’d be together with our families mingling. I refused to ask Wes to lie for me in those circumstances. I’d hated doing it since Greg arrived last night. I already felt so much lighter with that weight lifted from my shoulders.

Not only Wes, but Greg, Marie, and the entire Shaw family. They would all know of my relationship to Wes. I couldn’t ask all of them to lie for me. Most of all, I was sick of lying myself.

Was it possible Dad had truly mellowed? I wanted to believe that. I wanted it desperately. But without exception, my own experiences with the man were contrary to what Greg had said.

My father had seemed convinced it was a personal choice. He was an intelligent man, so for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why he would imagine people would consciously choose to be something that made them, at best, the object of discrimination and bigotry, and in many places, a target of hate crimes, assault, arrest, and even murder.