My Father by Andrew Sarewitz

Description:

My Father is a universal narrative of a relationship between parent and child.

As a young gay man struggles to find common ground with his conservative father, he inadvertently discovers a friend in the man who raised him. Through two experiences shared decades apart, these two men of different generations and ideals forge a friendship by the simplest means. Opening their minds.

A short story from our Nibs literary line.

Excerpt:

At ten minutes before noon, a warning shot was fired to let the crews of the racers know to prepare. There were elegant sloops and yawls of various lengths—sleek and in full sail. I sat with my aging mother and father on the last day of their vacation staring out onto the waters of Key West, saturated in the quiet after-brunch calm. Sea gulls, terns, and pelicans diving. Warm winter sun. The white noise of human conversation and the slapping of the tide just beyond us. The boats were all moving and turning independent of each other, like unschooled fish.

We are conversationalists by nature, the three of us. Particularly my mother and me. And during our week of breakfasts and dinners we scored the world by our barometers, grading the righteous, unconscionable and political; laughing at the hilarious. And me—thankful and comfortable in my luck-of-the-draw, to be their son.

But at this moment, we were quiet. A few minutes before the regatta was to begin, another warning shot was freed. All of the untamed billowing masted angels tacked and jibed, transforming from chaotic buoyant vessels into a single nautical cloud as they turned and slowed to positions at the starting mark. They seemed to be stalled in time. There was no sound at all, like when you begin to wake from a dream. Then the starting gun shot its round and in one breath, the floating convergence broke through the neck of the harbor in unison. We watched hypnotized until they were out of sight, and we sat in silence in the calm after the storm. One indefinable act of manmade perfection. A few moments passed and the sights and sounds of the real world caught up to us. We looked at each other and wordlessly acknowledged that we had shared in the same trance.