It was 1993.

Sean gazed at the cloud formations through the jet window as Gabe napped beside him. They were headed to Los Angeles, so that Gabe could meet Sean's family.

Sean hated himself for deciding on this trip. He had come out of the closet to his family for a handful of reasons, and the reasons had sounded logical at the time, but now he had to face these people in the flesh and so he had worries.

Just as some iridescence in the clouds flashed by the jet's window, Gabe woke up. He sensed Sean's anxiety.

"Everything's going to be okay, Honey," he murmured to Sean.

"I'm not worried," Sean said, embarrassed.

Gabe smiled softly, took his lover's hand, then slept some more.

Sean loved Gabe. It scared him how much he needed Gabe, some times. His shrink had even tried to get Sean to reclaim some independence, because he thought it would be good for both of them.

Gabe, on the other hand, never had a problem with being his own person, and Sean knew it. He could function with people, or without them, be a team player or a loner. His knack for being independent sometimes made Sean envious.

Sean looked at his younger lover. Despite the wear of being occasionally ill, and the chronic hints of fatigue, Gabe still looked youthful and fairly sturdy.

But this trip could wear Gabe out, or set the stage for more illness.

When Gabe was in the midst of a health crisis, like the flu or that staph infection, Sean was able to cast off his own anxieties and pitch in like an expert caregiver. He'd nurse Gabe through rough times as well as anyone could. But when Gabe was well, that's when the older lover's anxieties returned, about Gabe's health and about Sean's own worthiness. Sometimes, even when Gabe was feeling strong, Sean would imagine how things might be without his lover, and then Sean would grow depressed.

These feelings were volatile, and dominated much of his life, so he felt it was ridiculous to keep shutting his family out of them. That was one of the reasons why he came out to his family. Besides, he knew that one day he might need his family's emotional and even financial help, should his lover's health take a plunge.

Just by sitting next to his lover, however, Sean felt reassured. He closed his own eyes and napped.

The jet inched over the miles, below, and dove through the clouds and through the blue vacuum. Its roar was dynamic, but muffled, violent, but stifled.

There had been bad news on the AIDS front recently, as both Sean and Gabe knew. Reports were in from the experiment called the Concorde Study. A Burroughs Wellcome press release stated, "The study reports no difference in benefits in terms of disease progression or mortality between immediate and deferred zidovudine treatment." Zidovudine was AZT. In other words, study subjects who were started on the drug while they were asymptomatic didn't do better than those who began their regimens after full-blown AIDS set in.

The political and medical landscape, in general, was hard to decipher, those days.

Researchers like Fauci were more open to activists than ever before. Same with Congress. (Gabe credited the elite corps with that progress.)

And the White House, through Clinton's victory, at last had been wrested from the Republicans and awarded to the Democrats.

Of course, the political victories sometimes seemed dubious.

At first, for example, big segments of the gay and AIDS communities had been ecstatic about President Clinton's victory. Sean and Gabe even knew gay liaisons who were invited to the inaugural events in Washington. However, following on the heels of that event were major setbacks. Clinton's compromise on the gays-in-the-military issue left many gays suspicious. Also, Bronsky and his kind had begun to rock the boat impatiently with the question, "Where's the dynamic AIDS czar Clinton has been promising?" Finally, he named one, but the choice came almost a half a year into his term, and struck the activists as lackluster, at best. In other words, this president seemed to be addicted to compromises, delay tactics and subterfuge.

And in the same month that Clinton was elected, Colorado residents had voted to outlaw any bill that would protect gay and lesbian rights within their state. The era seemed schizoid for gay people, with victories that were as weighty as the setbacks, and vice versa. (Of course, the spring of 1993 also saw the national march in Washington, D.C., in which hundreds of thousands of gays and lesbians showed up to demonstrate, do guerrilla theatre and party. Sean didn't go to the event, though. For the sake of Gabe's health, the two of them sat that one out.)

Sean's first younger brother picked up Gabe and Sean, once they deplaned. At the ranch house, Sean's Mom greeted them, politely. Sean thought she seemed disappointed in him for being gay, so he felt wary of her. After lunch, Gabe confessed to Sean that he was feeling tired. Then, Gabe threw up in the bathroom. Sean actually saw his Mom become tender and spontaneous toward Gabe, at that point. She made sure Gabe didn't need any extra help, like a doctor, or anything. She got him extra towels, and fixed up the bed for him. She was being a "Mom".

For part of the afternoon, however, Sean sat in the back porch, feeling alien to his surroundings, and emotionally removed from the family.

"I'm afraid of these people," he reflected. He wondered if, by coming out to them, (and introducing them to Gabe), he hadn't just made himself vulnerable to them in some undefined way.

A few days later, when Gabe was feeling better, the two young men took a car ride to visit some of Gabe's friends from college. They were living in Los Angeles, now. The waves of Venice Beach were slipping over the sand under a yellow haze. It was a sunny day. The air made Gabe shiver as he and Sean tackled the outer stairs that led to their hosts' home.

They didn't need to knock. They were completely visible through the sliding glass doors that were flanked by potted ferns.

The first host opened the door and embraced Gabe, and the other host - the first one's lover -- came up from behind with some fresh gourmet coffee.

Roller boogiers danced below and tourists mingled among the poets, merchants and street percussionists.

One of Gabe's two friends was walking with a cane, because of KS on his leg and foot. The other was well, except that his blood count wasn't very good. As the four young men sat on the front porch, they talked mostly about drug treatments and about how various friends of theirs were doing.

"I'm just beginning a drug trial for my KS," said the one. "There's a liposomal drug against KS that I qualified for. It's experimental, but -"

Sean knew the name, before the host finished. "You're on that one?" Sean said.

The coalition's treatment committee, which Sean was now part of, actually had spearheaded some of the activist research surrounding the drug. (Sean was secretly proud of the fact that the treatment committee was making progress, again, on the research front, despite the predictions of its toughest critics.)

One of the friends said to Gabe, "So how's the elite corps doing these days?"

"They're great. I'm learning more from them about drugs than I ever imagined," answered Gabe, giving Sean a pinch on the arm.

All four of them sat quietly, for a moment.

They talked about the Concorde Study and how depressing the news seemed.

One of Gabe's friends said, "The important thing is to not jump to conclusions."

"Right," said his lover.

As they talked, Sean reflected privately that being with these three men felt right to him. He barely knew his two hosts, but the four of them had more camaraderie than he felt with his own family.

They talked a while about the splits among the activist groups. The movement in California had been fractionalized, too, just like in New York. Throughout the country, the AIDS movement had broken up into parts that made it a shadow of what it once was.

***

When Sean and Gabe returned to his parents' home, it was past nine.

His Mom was at a guild meeting for a local arts group.

"When I told you and Mom I was gay, how did it affect you?" Sean asked his Dad, quietly, while the two of them sat alone in the kitchen.

His dad had just poured himself a glass of beer.

"What do you mean, how did it affect me?" his Dad said, quietly.

Sean's Dad had narrow shoulders and a large paunch. His forearms were hairy and big and he had a brow that was broad like Sean's, only it was deeply grooved. The man usually wore a frown, especially when he was home or at his office.

"How do you feel about my being gay?" Sean asked.

"To tell you the truth," his dad said slowly, "I had thought from time to time you were homosexual. There were times I was wishing you weren't, but... Well... I wasn't dismayed. I spent a while wondering, are you happy with your decision to live openly, that way. And I assumed your happiness was your business. I more or less decided it's your life."

Sean paused and got a beer for himself.

"How did Mom react? She has a few gay male friends, but I got the feeling she was angry."

"Ask her."

"I will. But I'm asking you, right now. How did Mom take it?"

His Dad looked at him for a while, then said, "Maybe in her own way, she's already told you. You're here, aren't you? She's respectful of Gabe. Makes both of you feel at home the best way she can. She's already told you how she's taking it."

He sipped some beer.

Sometimes his Dad reminded Sean of one of his old basketball coaches. That coach, however much he may have loved having young athletes to train, never coddled them, and he didn't like talking too intimately with them, either.

"When I was young," Sean's Dad finally said, "I certainly heard about some quee-some gay soldiers - caught, or gossiped about, or what have you... We didn't approve. But - I've seen men under countless conditions. I wasn't born yesterday. I don't approve of everything my children do, but I'm still committed to them. What else is there to be?" His Dad finished his beer, and opened up another.

Sean nodded. Then he turned in.