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about the times Jamie had seen Luke and his giddy feeling was even more evident, making it easier not to think about all he hadn’t shared with her.
    After a half hour, she glanced at the clock. Mike would be home soon, so she was forced to bring up the mechanics of dealing with what Jamie told her. “How do you plan to handle this at home? With the family?”
    “Bri’s gotta know before anybody at school finds out. I’ll tell him. You tell Dad.”
    Which they both knew would be the hardest part of all this.
    Mike’s love for his son was deep. But how on God’s earth was he ever going to reconcile Jamie’s homosexuality with the Catholic religion? He was so single-minded about the church. The thought of how his attitude would influence this huge benchmark in their lives terrified Maggie. She squeezed Jamie’s arm and left her hand there, more for herself than him. “Dad will want to talk to you about all this.”
    “I know.”
    “What about the rest of the family?”
    Since he was a baby, Jamie always got this certain expression on his face when he was troubled. Maggie could read it like a neon sign. “No.”
    “No?”
    “I don’t want to announce to anyone I’m gay, Mom.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “That I’m a son, a brother, a friend and an actor, not just a gay man.”
    “I understand that.”
    “And you didn’t feel the need to announce to anybody that Brian’s straight, did you?”
    How wise he was for sixteen. Of course, he’d had time to think this out. And she was still reeling about the effect his disclosure would have on Mike. On all their lives.
    “All right. I can abide by that wish, until it’s time for people to know.”
    Like Brian’s graduation party, a few months away, if Jamie decided to bring Luke as his date. There were several possibly homophobic people in their lives. Now, however, she had two big secrets to keep from her family.
    A half-grin from her son. “We’ll tell people on a need-to-know basis.” Standing, he reached out a hand to her. She took it and prayed he didn’t feel hers trembling. When she got to her feet, she hugged him. He held on longer than usual. “I love you, Mom.”
    “I love you, too.”
    “Come on, Bucky,” he said to the dog, and they both disappeared down the hallway. She heard his feet pound on the steps, the bathroom door close, and Buck bark at being left outside.
    Dazed, Maggie picked up Mike’s shirt and stared down at it unseeingly. Her heart thudded in her chest as the ramifications of Jamie being gay flooded her. She picked up the stain spray to apply more to the cuff, but dropped the can to the floor. Gripping the shirt to her chest, she swallowed hard.
    “Stop it, Maggie,” she said aloud. This wasn’t a tragedy. If Jamie had a terminal illness, or hit somebody while driving and killed them, or was into drugs, that would be a tragedy. His sexual orientation was a simple fact of life.
    Forcing herself to move, she put the white clothes in the washer, but random images bombarded her: Brian teasing Jamie about not having a girlfriend…Jamie’s dislike of proms…discussions about having kids, and Jamie saying he wanted some. She thought about Brigadoon. Her son was a boy who’d never experienced longing for the opposite sex, but he always played the romantic, heterosexual lead in the plays he loved so much. What had that been like for him?
    Her heart ached for her child—what he’d gone through alone, and what he would still go through, even in this day and age. In bigger cities, gay kids were more accepted, but Sherwood was different. And she knew the shattering statistics on gay teen suicide—three times higher than others in the age group.
    After she closed the machine’s lid, she went to leave the laundry room, but instead, slid to the floor and wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to squelch her negative thoughts—like the wish to go back to how her life was an hour ago. Like the wish that…no, she wouldn’t