parents - Stories

Having crashed and burned after early success as a composer, Alex has managed to rebuild his career and his life. Carpenter Neil is between girlfriends, and his knowledge of music is limited. Yet despite their differences the two come together, and each spurs the other on to explore life further and to take risks. Add in a pair of mothers who are friends and Neil’s fragile younger brother—as well as a manipulative rich uncle and some lively friends—and you have a dynamic mix.

Scenes and moments between the main story "Jewel in the Dirt" and its sequel "Too Much Too Few".

The chapters are not chronologically, but will have a timeline explanation.

Julian Aldrich has never had reason to doubt the world built for him. At twenty-one, heir to a gilded American dynasty, he sees his life as most people see a painting: beautiful, composed, complete. His father Victor is the architect of that world. His mother Catherine is its atmosphere. And Mark, his best friend, is the person Julian loves most.

During a family trip, the careful geometry of these relationships begins to warp. What Julian slowly uncovers will collapse every structure he has built his identity upon: family, loyalty, desire, and the dangerous assumption that the people we love are who we believe them to be.

Life is filled with surprises. We are constantly reminded that we are at the mercy of the universe; from the people we meet, to the events that shape us, to the places we find ourselves in. If we are among the lucky ones we will find our place in the world, and someone to share it with, and life will be sweet. But even then, everything is subject to change, and we either roll with the flow, or find ourselves fighting against the tide, because you just never know what might come at you from out of the blue.

Here I will put one shots, scenes from different POVs, moments in between moments and the like for the series.

Alex wakes one night to find his son’s bed empty.

This is how this series of events starts, showcasing events in the lives of this small family.

James reunites with his ex, Evan, now a determined law student, and they slowly rebuild their relationship with new boundaries. While James is sent out of town to rescue a failing engineering project, his homophobic family crises erupt: his father’s cancer and death, and his brother Sam’s years of manipulation and financial abuse. Supported by Evan, James protects his mother, pursues justice, and begins to imagine a shared, hard-won future where love, not fear, defines the rest of his life, one cautious step at a time, finally choosing himself.

Returning home, an artist and his fiancé are drawn into his father's dangerous orbit. Before it ends, the three will collide in ways that leave no one leaves unchanged. (This story predates "Jake's Story" and involves some of the same characters.)

Jake is a rebellious teenager, perhaps as a response to his father - the captain of the local police force - who has very strict ideas about how Jake should live his life. A mysterious smile is exactly what Jake needed to show his dad that his life is his own.

Today, with modern treatment and prevention, we often forget about AIDS and the toll it took upon the gay community. At the end of a long trip, Robert's final stopover is Minneapolis. There, he encounters a friend of a friend who had fallen to AIDS twenty-five years earlier. This is a sad story, and was difficult to write, and I've kept it on the back burner for over a year. Dedicated to a close friend who passed thirty-two years ago on his favorite holiday, Halloween.

This story completes a trilogy, following "A Class Reunion" and "Love, In the Ashes of Time."