The interruption came at a good time. Despite what Danny had said about his misgivings, he could see that Michelle was brewing up to a righteous rant, but couldn’t say anything with the kids around. And besides, it was long since past time for Carrie and Blake to get started on dinner preparations; Michelle, grateful for the opportunity to not be in the presence of such blatant immorality, went out to help. For the next half hour, the conversation turned back to the old days, when all the kids were living at home, or at least most of them, gossip about people they had once known, and, in most cases, had long lost track of. They were good days to remember, and there was a fine sense of being together again.

Dinner was . . . expansive, for lack of a better word. It easily fed the twelve of them to bursting and left enough for a small army. The turkey and gravy, stuffing, and other "standards" were wonderful indeed, and Danny had missed that kind of thing badly. Blake’s contributions were exotic and incredible, and it was clear that he’d put a lot of work into them. Some of what he’d prepared was even identifiable. It was an incredible feast . . . and yes, Danny remembered his father’s words, they had killed the fatted calf. For the first time in thirteen years the family was together and complete.

The various courses of the dinner continued for an hour or more before it was time to do their best to store away the leftovers. Danny’s mother took the lead on that, but with several others helping out, while Danny and his father turned to the dishes – which weren’t a big deal. Due to the connection with Spearfish Lake Appliance, the Evachevski household had one of the more advanced dishwashers in the county, but even it wasn’t big enough to swallow the mess in one sitting.

The conversation was going great guns by the time Danny and his father made it back to the living room. The chairs were all occupied, but Danny found a place on the floor in front of the couch, leaning back between Brandy and Tara, while Chandler and Brianna were detailed to hand out Christmas presents. Since the real Christmas had been two weeks before, these were rather token for most people, things like hats and gloves, videos of the Saturday Night PBS show on Great Performances, and CDs, plus some toys, movie videos and computer game programs for the kids. It was a little different for Danny – he got useful stuff to face a winter in Spearfish Lake, like Carhartts, a parka, shoepac boots, a fur hat, long johns and other necessities of winter. By the time they were done he felt like he was equipped to drive a dog sled across Alaska, and Phil commented that he wasn’t far from it.

By now, it was late afternoon, and the sun was setting, and the conversation was flowing in the living room. Chandler and Brianna were starting to get bored with all the talk of people they mostly didn’t know, and asked if they could watch one of the videos they’d just gotten. It turned out there was a VCR and TV in Grandma and Grandpa’s room, and they quickly worked it out that they could go up there to see it if they kept the door closed to keep the noise down.

Danny had been dreading what had been coming; the door upstairs was barely closed before Michelle started in on him again for what he’d been doing the last few weeks, working up a pretty good rant about how immoral he must have been. As soon as he got a chance to say something, he commented, "Really, I don’t think what I was doing was all that immoral, considering that the situation exists already. I really wasn’t contributing to it."

"How could you not consider it immoral?" Michelle almost shrieked.

"I was in good company," he smiled. He’d seen it coming, of course; it wasn’t difficult, and had already primed himself with a line that wasn’t original with him, but that he had heard in the lounge at the Redlite Ranch: "I mean, stop for a second to consider this fellow named Jesus, a self-anointed rabbi who liked to hang out with extortionists and prostitutes. Am I any better than him? I don’t think so."

"But . . . but . . . " Michelle stammered.

"Dad, I think you better check under the house," Brandy laughed. "That one was so low that Danny may have killed a mole with it."

"The important point, Michelle," Danny said, shrugging off Brandy’s wisecrack, "is that it does indeed exist, and still would without places like the Redlite Ranch. At least there it’s kept under control, especially from a public health and safety standpoint. The girls all have medicals every three weeks, condoms and barriers are always used, and they are all taught how to recognize evidence of disease and will refuse anyone who’s suspect, no matter what the money. The result – and the brothels in Nevada are rather proud of this – is that there has not been one case of AIDS transmitted in one of them since the disease was recognized. Given the fact that prostitution will exist no matter what the morality or what we may wish, I think that’s a pretty good model."

"But, it’s immoral," she protested. "Even Jesus would have said that."

"Of course he would," he replied, feeling a rant building. "He would have considered it a sin, and are we all not sinners? Realistically, the morality is relative. Take the girl who wants to be a doctor. Compare the morality of what she’s doing, to the morality of a system that keeps her sealed out from student aid others can get. Which is worse? It’s all relative. Or, I’ll give you a better case. There are two girls who work at the Redlite, never at the same time. They both have young children, preschoolers, three of them between them. One of them had a husband leave her with no money, nothing but the kids. The other one, well, it was an accident, but her parents threw her out anyway. Both of them are high school graduates, but basically with no marketable skills that’ll get them anything better than working for minimum wage in fast food. They teamed up. One of them watches the kids while the other is working for a week or two, then they’re both together for a while, then the other one takes her turn. They’re trying to be good single mothers and from what I could see it was working. And really, they get to spend a lot of time with their kids, more than most young mothers do. I know you were working not long after both Brianna and Chandler were born, and had them with a sitter much of the time. Aren’t they actually doing better than that? What’s their alternative? Work in fast food at minimum wage, have to pay a sitter, and maybe not have enough left over to pay for food, let alone rent and the things that make a good life for their kids? The fact that they’re doing what they do appalls me, yes, but I admire their determination to try to do the right thing by their kids. You tell me which model is the more immoral."

"That’s a tough one," Jennifer shook her head. "But they’re probably accomplishing more for their kids by working in that place."

"That’s how I read it," Danny said.

"I don’t see it that way," Michelle frowned.

"You’d rather have them living out under a bridge with their kids somewhere, eating out of garbage cans?" he asked pointedly.

"Well, no, but . . . "

"It might not be that bad," he submitted. "But it probably would be close. Realistically, it’s the choice they’re faced with. Is what they’re doing moral? Or is it more moral to let a kid starve? That’s the way the world works sometimes. It isn’t simple, and it isn’t easy. Now, I’ll admit not all the girls have stories like that, not even most of them. Another example, similar but stickier. Another woman, one of the nicer people I met out there in fact, is married. She and her husband have two kids, about the age of yours. She works a three-week shift every quarter so she doesn’t have to have a full-time job. It gives her more time with her kids, she gets to be a PTA officer and take part in other activities because she has the free time to do it. She is skilled, she’s a college graduate with an advanced degree, and she does have the option to do something else, but it would be something that would give her less time with her kids. Her husband knows she does it, and that she’s done it off and on since before she met him, so at least she’s not lying to him like Marsha lied to me. I can’t stretch my imagination enough to put myself in his shoes, what he has to think. All I can say is that it seems to work for them, and when you get right down to it, it’s their decision, not yours or mine."

He was warming to his rant by now; he took a deep breath, and pushed on even though Michelle started to say something. "In fact, I sort of envy him in a way, not for the fact that his wife is a prostitute, but that at least she’s honest about it. She’s not catting around on him; he knows what she’s doing and appears to accept it. That’s a hell of a lot more than I had with Marsha. He’s at least married to a friendly but honest prostitute. I was married to a cast-iron bitch of a lesbian who lied to me with every breath she took. Considering everything, would I have traded places with him? You damn betcha."

"Lesbian?" Michelle gasped, the word exploding like a firecracker at her feet.

"Yeah, lesbian," Danny said heatedly. "Nobody told you about that? I left Marsha because I caught her in bed with another woman, after she’d refused me for more than two years. I just had been so damn blind that I couldn’t see the truth before my eyes, but once I realized it I understood that she’d been catting around on me for years, probably since before we were married. That took the cake, I headed for Nevada. Michelle, I will tell you this. While I’m not proud to have worked as a bartender at the Redlite for five weeks, it gave me an awful lot of perspective about how the world really works, and probably put my head back on to something resembling straight as fast or faster than about any other job I can think of. I do have some good stories from there, some fun stories, but at the bottom line I’m grateful for what the place taught me about myself. I’m definitely at more peace with myself than I was six weeks ago. Was I working with prostitutes and other sinners? Yes, I was. Did I have doubts about what I was doing? Yes, I did. Could I accept that and get on with things? Yes, I did. It’s like with Marsha. Was I happy with the way things were? Hell, no. Am I happy that she was a lesbian that cheated on me and lied to me for years? No, I am not. Can I accept it and move on with my life? Thanks to working there, I hope so."

"She never told you she was a lesbian?" Tara said in a small voice.

"Never," Danny said, not noticing the emotion behind his sister’s statement. "She never once admitted it, even after I caught her and watched her getting it on. Did I like it? No, in fact at that instant I was so pissed I’d have shot both of them if I’d had a gun. It took me my time at the Redlite to understand that it wasn’t her being a lesbian that pissed me off, it was her bad temper that she used to cover up all the lying and catting around that went on for years. She just used me, no better than that."

"Danny," Tara said quietly. "I’m sorry. I didn’t know."

"Not your problem," he shrugged, his anger and rant suddenly collapsing. "Look, everybody, I’m sorry I got a little carried away just now. It’s easy to sit back in a living room far away and render judgments. Sometimes it’s not so easy when you’re the one on the spot. Good or not, moral or not, I have to admit that at this point I think I did what was probably the right thing for me at the time, but when the time came to leave I’d learned what I needed to, and it was time to go. Now, I can tell a couple of funny stories, or we can drop the topic entirely and maybe take them up some time in the future when it’s not quite so sensitive. And, by that, I mean Marsha as much as I mean the Redlite Ranch. Your choice."

"Son," Danny’s father said. "Maybe we better go change the dishes in the dishwasher and let things cool off a bit."

"Works for me," Danny nodded.

Out in the kitchen, he popped open the dishwasher and began to stack clean dishes on the shelf. "Well?" he said to his father.

"Well, what?"

"Didn’t you want to get me out here for a lecture?" he replied, not really caring whether or not he did.

"Hell, no," his father snorted. "Hell, you had every right to be pissed with Marsha, and you had every right to be pissed with Michelle for needling you, and I think you set her down pretty damn good. But you need a minute’s time out, and she needs it even more."

"Yeah, true," he sighed. "Look, Dad, I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean, and I didn’t say anything that I haven’t thought about a hell of a lot."

"I can see it troubled you," his father smiled. "And, that’s good. And, you’re not about to lie about it, which is probably also good, but does make things a little raw at times. I will admit to wanting to hear some of those stories sometime, but yeah, maybe tonight’s not the night."

It took a few minutes to get the dishes put away and the dishwasher running on another load. His father was right, he had been wound up and he’d dumped a bit of it onto the family, but perhaps they’d needed to understand, too. Still, he was wound up, and decided to just chill out for a couple minutes, get away from the noise and warmth for a moment.

The back porch wasn’t totally heated, but nowhere as bad as outside, certainly above freezing as the last hint of sunset was a thin edge on the horizon. Yeah, he needed the breather. He was looking out the window, a number of thoughts still going through his mind, when he heard a sob in the darkness to one side. He turned, and there was nothing there . . . oh, yes, there was, a white face, body dressed in black. "Tara?" he said quietly.

"Danny?" she said quietly. "Did you come for me?"

"No," he said softly, wondering what was going on. "Is there a problem?"

"Danny, how can you ever forgive me?" she cried, tears rolling now. "I thought you knew."

"About what?" he frowned, realizing Tara was having trouble admitting what she was trying to say.

"About Marsha," she replied. "That . . . that she was a lesbian."

"Not until I caught her in bed with Sheena," he admitted. "At that moment a lot of things turned pretty clear."

"Danny, I’m really sorry," she said, the tears rolling now. "I should have told you, but I thought you knew. And I was scared, too. Oh, Danny, I never thought it would work out like it did, I could have at least warned you before it was too late."

"Warned me about what? That she was a lesbian, even before we were married?"

"Long before you were married," she said, turning to him, and taking him in her arms and resting her head on his chest. "Oh, Danny, please forgive me."

A couple big pieces dropped into place. "Tara," he said as gently as possible. "How did you know?"

"How do you think, Danny?" she asked. "She and I started doing it out at the Club years before you started going with each other. We, uh, we . . . the last time we did it was the night before you got married. Danny, I thought you knew, and were just being cool."

"Blind and dumb, but I don’t think cool," he said. "I don’t think we’d have gotten married if I’d known about it."

"Danny, she, uh, she told me you knew and were being cool about it, so I guess she lied to me, too. I don’t know, uh, if her folks knew what was happening, but I guess they were putting the pressure on her to get married, so uh . . . "

"It would be harder to be a lesbian?" he finished for her.

"Danny, I don’t want to defend what she did," she said. "It was awful of her to lie to you like that. But she said she was going to really try to keep it straight."

"Maybe she did for a while," he told his sister quietly. "I don’t know the details. But no, I never knew anything about that until just a couple months ago."

"She lied to you and she lied to me," Tara said, tears wetting Danny’s shoulder down. "And she fucked it up for both of us. I mean, it looked like it was working with you two from what I could see, so that’s kinda why I took the risk with Roger, maybe we could make it work, and Danny, it never worked. Danny, at least it curved back and bit me in the ass, too. I feel bad enough as it is that I didn’t tell you. Danny, you’ve got to hate me for being a lesbian, too."

Danny tightened down on his hug. She hadn’t actually used the word about herself until now, but she’d chipped away at the edges long enough that it didn’t surprise him.

"I can’t hate you for what she did to me, Tara," he said. "Yes, for a week or two, I hated her for being a lesbian, but that’s something I learned at the Redlite Ranch, and I thought I said it pretty good inside. I realize now it wasn’t the being a lesbian, it was the not being honest with me about it. If she had been honest, and she had been reasonable, we probably could have made things work, but she didn’t want to be either."

"But I didn’t tell you, either."

"So?" he said. "I’m not married to you. You’re my sister; that’s different. Yes, I wish now you’d told me a long time ago. But you couldn’t admit it without revealing yourself, could you?"

"Well, no," she said. "I couldn’t have done it, not then."

"Is this still a big secret, or do the folks and everybody know?"

"Everybody in there knows, except Garth and Michelle and their kids," she told him. "We, uh, want to keep it from them, you can guess why."

"Yeah, pretty obvious, after the display she put on about me hanging around the Redlite."

"Danny, that’s sort of why I’m dressed like this. I don’t usually wear all black like this, and these heels are killing me. I like to look pretty butch, Sylvia likes it, too, but it’s a little hard to cover that up. Mom and Jennifer and I thought maybe looking Goth like this would, well, at least do some misdirection."

"It definitely looks odd," he said. "But I didn’t particularly pick ‘butch’ out of it. How long have they known?"

"Nobody knew until last spring," she admitted. "That’s part of why I mostly stayed away for so long. Then, after Brandy’s wedding, Brandy and Jennifer and I were talking, and it, uh, sort of slipped out. We all talked it over and decided it’d be best if I told Mom and Dad. Danny, I was so scared, but Brandy and Jennifer were with me, and I’m still amazed at how well Mom and Dad took it. We planned to tell you, but not until after Garth and Michelle left."

"No problem, I can be cool," he smiled.

"You really don’t mind that I’m a lesbian?" she asked cautiously.

"Six weeks ago, I would have minded a lot, but that was six weeks ago and I’ve had a chance to cool off," he replied. "Again, hanging around the Redlite Ranch gave me a serious attitude adjustment about alternative approaches to sexuality. There’s a wise old woman out there, Tara, one of the managers. She’s been a prostitute or in the business in other ways for over fifty years. We were talking about it one day, about how inadequate Marsha made me feel by what she did, and she told me, ‘Face it, Danny. You could be the greatest lover in the world, and if you can’t ring her bell it ain’t gonna ring for you.’ I’ve just come to accept that I couldn’t ring Marsha’s bell. If someone else can, well and good for her. If she’d been honest with me about it, it could have saved a lot of grief, but honesty wasn’t one of her strong points. You’re being very honest about this, Tara. What’s more, you were being very brave, knowing you were running the risk of me getting seriously pissed."

"God, Danny, I can’t believe you’re taking it this well, and I feel like such a shit. I mean, I sort of did to Roger what she did to you."

"Sneaking around with Sylvia?"

"Yeah," she quietly replied. "But I didn’t start until he started sneaking around on me. I really tried to keep it straight till that happened."

"There you go," he said. "Not the same situation. Besides, if I understand you right, Roger was living off your income, not working very hard, or at all."

"He kept trying to find a job, but nothing ever worked out."

"I’ve heard stories like that before," Danny said. "Some of the girls at the Redlite had stories like that. Do you know what word they use to describe the guys that leech off them? Pimps. Sounds like a good description of Roger."

"He wasn’t selling me for sex and living off it," she protested.

"He was living off your talent and not contributing anything, same thing," he said. "Point being, it’s not the same thing between you and Roger as it was Marsha and me. She was the one leeching off of me. I’m just damn glad to be rid of the leech."

"I still say I can’t believe you’re being this cool," she smiled. "It’s just good to know that you don’t resent me because of Marsha."

"Like I said, it’s not the same thing. Besides, you’re my sister – that makes it different."

"You are unbelievable," she said. "Look, we may not get the chance to talk about this again right away, but if you can get free for a weekend sometime, come on over and visit Sylvia and me. She’s pretty cool, and she’d probably get a kick out of some of your whorehouse stories."

"Might have to do that," he said. "Give me a few days to catch my breath and get used to Spearfish Lake a little, first, though."

"Good," she smiled. "Look, Danny, even though you’re acting pretty cool right now, I can see that the thing with Marsha is still eating at you. Don’t let it get you down. You’re OK, Danny, you really are. Hell, if you weren’t my brother, I’d almost be tempted to give men a try again."

"Tara," he laughed. "We may both be fairly accepting of alternative sexualities, but there are limits, and I think that one is beyond them."

"Too bad," she grinned, pulled her hug tight and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "But you’re still pretty cool."

"You are, too, sis," he laughed. "You are, too."

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