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Show 5>f of the ramshackle house -- and in my mind we would be eating, talking, laughing, playing pinochle, quilting the pieces of the life we shared. I made plans without consulting Brian, thinking he would not mind, or if he did mind, he'd be less resistent on the day of the celebration. Although he had always been somewhat abashed around my father, I ward knew that he felt warmly toAhim, for he had shown more affection and respect for him than -=r-rz any other man. He had told me as much before he went to Vietnam. But when Brian returned from that atomosphere of rigid disaffection, where even his brusque and non-commital affiliations with Canada, Henry, and Hoagie were discouraged, things were changed. Brian said that a show of affection in the jungle meant one of two things: either you were soft and therefore incapable of surviving the war, or you were soft and vulnerable to homosexual activity. The night of his homecoming, during that first tense moment when Brian met Danny and his wife where they waited inside the airport terminal, showing sudden interest in him as though wishing to assess the effects of war, or the way some people show up for parties but never for yard-work or moving, Danny had grinned, holding out his hand. "I'll spare you my kisses. But Dad won't." My father's affectionate ways had never seemed peculiar to me - just as it had not seemed odd that I kissed my mothers and sisters. But Danny had warned me not to kiss his wife. "She doesn't like it. Women don't kiss women in their family." 1 had accepted it without consideration, feeling some remote twinge at the thought of people who had forgoteen the joy |