Covet Thy Neighbor

happened?”
    “Do you know the parable of the Prodigal Son?”
    Oh, yes. I may have been beaten over the head with that one a time or twelve.
    I just nodded.
    “Dad read that passage to me. And I just felt guiltier and guiltier, like he was trying to tell me I needed to be like the son in the parable, and come beg forgiveness from the family. That if I did, they’d absolutely forgive me, and they’d all celebrate because that would mean the son who they thought was dead—spiritually, anyway—had come back.”
    Sounds familiar. I scowled, but didn’t say anything.
    Darren watched the river rolling past. “So then he closed the book. And he got really quiet. So of course I’m sitting there, bracing myself and preparing for the worst.” He combed his fingers through his hair. “He said exactly what I thought he would. That he’d thought since the day I came out that I should, and eventually would, repent and beg forgiveness just like the prodigal son. And to this day, I don’t know if I was about to do exactly that, or if I was going to fly off the handle and tell him where he could shove that parable, but he . . . I don’t know, I just saw something in my dad’s eyes that I’d never seen before, and so I didn’t say anything. I just waited.”
    “What did he say?”
    “He told me he’d been called to that part of the Scripture when he’d prayed after I came out, and he hadn’t realized until that night that he was the one in the role of the prodigal son.”
    I blinked. “What?”
    Darren swept his tongue across his lips but didn’t turn toward me. “He said he preached to his congregation every Sunday about being like Christ, but Christ had never said a word about homosexuality. Yeah, there’s some stuff in the Bible that can be interpreted as anti-homosexual, but nothing from Jesus. For that matter, He’d never advocated turning away a son.” Once again, he fell silent, closing his eyes for a moment. Maybe he was praying, maybe collecting himself. Maybe both. It was impossible to say.
    Then he sniffed sharply and wiped at his eyes before he looked at me. “He told me he’d realized that morning, while he was getting ready for his sermon, that he couldn’t stand up there in front of all those people and tell them how to be like Christ when he’d put out his own son.” Darren swallowed hard. “He told me he loved me. And he asked me if after what he’d done, he had any right to hope he would be welcome in my life again. Like the prodigal son was when he returned to his father.”
    “Wow,” I said.
    “Yeah.” Darren shook some tension out of his shoulders. “That was the day I realized what I wanted to do with my life. I’d wanted to be a missionary already, even while I was still struggling to reconcile my sexuality with my beliefs, but I just knew right then that this was my calling.”
    “And things with your family?” I asked. “They’ve been fine ever since?”
    Darren shrugged. “There were some bumps in the road. Chris and my sisters took a while to come around. Mom was a little weird when I actually started dating guys. Dad had his moments. It took them all a long time to accept that I wasn’t going to change, and even longer that I didn’t need to change, but we all got it together after a couple of years.”
    “Good to hear,” I said, watching the river instead of Darren.
    “I don’t, um—” He paused, clearing his throat. “I haven’t told many people about that.”
    I turned toward him again. “Oh. I, uh, hope I wasn’t stepping on a raw nerve.”
    “Not really. It’s just not something I talk about except with close friends.” He met my eyes. “Really close friends.”
    My breath caught. “Oh,” was all I could say.
    He held my gaze. I held his.
    My heart beat faster.
    Oh God, let’s not ruin today with one of those awkward “we need to stay friends” conversations.
    Then Darren abruptly broke eye contact and nodded toward the trail. “We should, um, keep moving. Only so much daylight left.”
    “Right. Yeah. Good idea.” I stood and put my water bottle into the pack. “Ready?”
    “Yeah.” His eyes met mine again. I thought for sure we were going to give in and have that awkward moment after all, but for the second time, he was the one to break eye contact.
    I pulled on the pack, and we started down the trail. It didn’t take long for us to get back into our bantering groove, and as near as I could tell, he’d forgotten about the