I'm going to post the 3 pages, both as a document and just below.

Still undecided if I should post little bits regularly, or wait a week or 2 a post a few pages at once.

Let me know your thoughts.

******


The house was silent as the weasel looked back at the envelope sitting all alone on the dark wooden coffee table in his parents lounge room. Standing there in the open front doorway, tail hanging limp, the sound of ominous thunder off in the distance, slowly moving away with the storm earlier that day.

He looked at his watch, 16:37, his father wouldn’t be home for another hour and his mother another 30 minutes after that at least. His brother was also away on a school camp for a few days. This was the easiest way, he wasn’t always the most eloquent of people, but given time he could manage to find what he wanted to say when he put pen to paper.

Chris had known he was different from a very early age and came to terms with his sexuality in his first year of high school after some secret explorations with a close friend, a former friend. At almost 17, he felt he had to do the right thing and let his parents know and this way it would give them time to work things out and hopefully ask him to come home, if they want him to come home.

The air was still, heavy with moisture and stifling heat causing Chris to sweat even with his short fur, wearing just a loose t-shirt and shorts. Sighing softly to himself, he pulled the door closed, locked it and set off up the street, heading to the small shopping mall a 10 minute walk away where he’d planned to meet what he affectionately call his girlfriend, Stephanie. They had been friends as long as he could remember. His parents were friends with her parents and even being 2 years older than him, they were inseparable. Many times both families, both weasels, expected them to start dating, which they started to pretend after he’d come out to her on his 14th birthday.

Not many knew, but she was someone he could trust implicitly. They had shared secrets for years, fears, goals and dreams, which actors they thought were attractive, of which lately they’ve started naming the same names. So when Chris had told her of his plans to come out to his parents, it was together that they’d decided it be best if he left home for a while. Not running away, but to stay with her in her small but stylish apartment in the city.

Chris knew Steph didn’t earn much money while in first year university and working part-time, but her parents owned a number of apartments around town and they let her live in one at an enormous discounted price. He would still go to school and he also had a part-time job washing dishes at a local Indian restaurant. Another bonus was that his boss always thought he was too skinny and so would constantly feed him after his shift finished, which would save money on food.

Sitting in the cramped, too-stylish coffee shop, he waved at Steph as she walked past the front window. Grabbing his take-away coffee cup, he quickly got up and squeezed past the other patrons who were all to engrossed in their conversations about the pros and cons of the impact of politics on their precious organic fairtrade coffee to really take notice of him.
Carefully holding his coffee away from Steph, he embraced the petite form tightly with one arm. Steph returned the embrace, holding him tightly for a moment longer than normal. She pulled away and held him at arms length, looking him in the eye, grinning, but Chris could see the moisture of tears starting to form.

“Oh c’mon, don’t be like that,” Chris whispered looking around in to see who was watching in case she started to cause a scene, which she was known to do on occasion.

“I’m just proud Chrissy,” she said, using the name he hated, but she was the only one allowed to use it. “You’ve taken a massive step towards happiness and I’m sure that your parents will be okay with it, I mean they’ve always seemed to be accepting and tolerant of differences.”

“Yeah, but that’s because it was never their child.”

“They can’t use the whole ‘We’ll never have grandchildren’ thing, I’m sure your younger brother isn’t far off from having kids”.

Chris knew she was referring to Joel, who at only 13, was already a ladies-man and claims to have had a number of girlfriends.

“Well, let’s go, I may have left dinner on the cook-top,” Steph whispered conspiratorially as they turned to walk to the car park.







Amanda walked through the front door expecting to hear cursing, music or a combination of both coming from the basement as her husband tinkers with some carpentry project. What she did walk into though, was her husband sitting on the couch, head in his paws, an open letter lying on the floor.

At the noise of the front door closing, he looked up at his wife, his eyes red, tears staining his cheeks.

“What did we do wrong?” He managed to choke out.

“Geoff, what do you mean? What’s happened? What’s wrong?” Panic started to set in as she quickly walked over and knelt in front of him, gently placing a paw on his knee.

Reaching down, Geoff grabbed the letter and handed it to his wife.

Dear mom and dad,
You are the most important people in my life and I love you with all my heart. Because of this I can no longer go on living a lie.

Please forgive me, but I’m gay.

I’ve known for some years now and have tried to hide it, I didn’t want to be a disappointment. I have not run away, I am safe and will still be studying, but I need to give you time and distance. I hope that eventually, one day you’ll contact me.
I will never forget you.

Chris.

Covering her mouth with a paw, Amanda looked up at Geoff, tears welling in her eyes now as well. Geoff pulled his wife in tight, kneeling down with her and holding her close, both sobbing at the loss both now felt.

Later that evening they both sat at the dining room table, silently nursing hot coffees each, the letter open in front them. This one piece of paper having permanently changed their lives, both unsure if it were for better or worse.

“What do we do? Do we go look for him?” Amanda finally broke the silence.

“I don’t know, I honestly don’t know. I... I just,” he paused for a moment. “He said he’d give us time, I don’t know what he wants us to do.”

“Do we forgive him?”

“Forgive him!? For what? Amanda, he has done nothing wrong and you know this. I’ll admit I’ve never understood the whole ‘gay’ thing, but he’s our son. We still love him,” at which point Geoff choked back a sob threatening to break through.

“It’s wrong though, you know what the church says.”

“And you know damn well....”

“GEOFF”

“Sorry, you know very well what Father Michael has had to say on this matter. You know his brother is gay and you know that the good Father has accepted him so don’t you try to tell me the church’s position.”

They sat in silence, the rift opening up between them and their son. Geoff had always tried to be open-minded and tolerant in life, not wanting to turn out like his abusive father, but this was just a shock, something he had not expected. His son loved rock music and sports, he definitely wasn’t like the camp flamboyant characters he saw on TV. The thought of 2 men together, it was wrong, but he loved his children, they knew that. Didn’t they?

Pulling his cell phone out, he swiped across unlocking it, tapping the screen he flicked through the contacts on his phone until he saw his sons name pop up.

“What’re you doing?” Amanda asked in a very quiet voice.
“He needs to know we still love him.”

What was he going to write, what exactly did he want to say? He looked blankly at the screen for a minute, at a loss for words. Geoff knew what he had to say.

We still love you. Take your time, we’ll get through this. He hit send on the message then locked the phone.

Standing up, Geoff reached over and took his wife’s paw. “C’mon, let’s try and get some sleep.”

Amanda was numb, it was all a dream, this wasn’t really happening. She let herself be led to the bedroom, slowly slipping out of her corporate uniform and into the nightie her husband had surprised her with when she first became pregnant with Chris.

As they lay in bed, wrapped in each other’s arms, thoughts swirled through their heads. They were both completely unprepared for this.

“We’re good parents,” Geoff whispered. “We’ll work it out, bumble our way through, just like we’ve always done.”

Amanda lay awake for a long time after the slow, steady rhythm of her husband’s breathing told her that he was asleep. She had no-one to talk to, or at least she didn’t know who she could talk to. She had so many questions. Was Chris influenced? Had he been abused? Was he already having sex? Was he being safe? The worry tormented her thoughts, she loved her son, but what if he is lonely for the rest of his life, unwanted by the rest of the community. Eventually Amanda was overcome and she slipped into a restless, dreamless sleep.

***

Geoff woke up to a still dark sky, thoughts of yesterday still running through his head. He lay staring at the ceiling for what seemed an eternity. Rolling over and looking at the bedside clock, it showed 04:14.

“God-damn it,” he muttered quietly, but in the silent room it was near a shout to his ears. He slowly sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, careful not to wake the sleeping form, whom he had slept next to for the past 21 years. He couldn’t understand it, she was so beautiful, the female form was so incredible, how could his son not appreciate such beauty.

Then he remembered what Father Michael had said during a conversation when the congregation was leaving one Sunday morning.

“I’ll be honest, it took me a long time to come to terms with it all. It was certainly not what I had expected to hear when he had returned from his global jaunt. But with his help and the strength given by the Good Book, he was still my brother and I could not turn him away. I like vanilla ice-cream, he likes choc-chip. Extremely simplified I know, but it was that little thing that really got me through.”

Placing his paws carefully as he walked down the stairs, trying to minimise the creaking, Geoffery made his way down to the kitchen. He near blinded himself as he opened the fridge, picking at the smoked salmon he was going to use for dinner last night before.... Before the letter.

The paper still sat on the kitchen table, a pale A4 beacon of distress from his son. Picking it up, he walked through the kitchen, unlocking the back door and easing himself into the wooden rocking chair he had inherited from his grandmother.

Reading the letter over and over again, he could feel his heart breaking as he saw the words Please forgive me. There was nothing to forgive, it was not what he had ever hoped to hear but he would have liked to think that Chris would trust in their love enough to understand that they could never throw him out onto the streets. To discard him, like I’m sure has happened to countless other young men over the years, even in recent times.

Geoff wondered if Chris had gotten the message he had sent last night, wondering where he was staying, even though he had a fair idea. If he was staying where he thought, he wouldn't intrude; he would let Chris know when things had calmed down. Even though he still loved his son, he was still in a state of shock from news that would take some time to come to grips with.