Beth Jenkins, raised in an Irish Catholic family outside Chicago, with her father a retired Chicago cop, would not acknowledge to her family that she was gay, fearing how they would react. She moved to New York, visiting her home occasionally. At Christmas just over three years before the story begins, and against her better judgment, she responds to the when-I-you-going-to-find-a-man question by coming out.<br><br>Any hopes of staying are shattered when her father says he will not sit at the same table with this creature. For three years she speaks to neither her parents. Then her sister calls. "Dad is dying. He's turned over a new leaf." She agrees to come, but only with her girlfriend, with whom she is living in Brooklyn.<br><br>This is the story of their journey to Beth's home and what happens when she gets there.

The Prodigal Daughter

But I insisted that I needed her moral support for the trip and that if they couldn’t accept her, they couldn’t accept me.


And it was decided. I called Marcie when we got home. I told her “I” was coming. They’d know about Mel when they saw Mel.


We left work early on Thursday with the blessings of our bosses and got a cab together to the dive known as Penn Station. It was easy to get our tickets at a kiosk and with sandwiches and snacks we got from a deli near the office and a bottle of wine from a liquor store we found our car and our little roomette about fifteen minutes before departure.


Chapter 3