"You must never see your homosexual friends again."

What! My mind needed time to grasp what Dr. Mince had just said.

"The reason you have homosexual sex is because you've never had a father around the house. You've spent all your life trying to find some man to take the place of your father. You didn't care what filth they'd make you do, as long as they temporarily gave you the attention that your father never did."

We'd been having our usual therapy session. Talking all about my past. How I felt after my dad left me alone with only my mother. There was never a man around the house. Correction, never a man who hung around my mother long enough.

Unless you counted Father Nilsson.

He was our parish priest and would come around every Friday for my mothers clam chowder and to see how my mother and I were making out.

"Sheree," he'd say, just before sticking another spoonful of chowder in his mouth. "You sure do make the best chowder around. Everyone else likes to make New England style. Me, I'm like you. It ain't chowder unless it's Manhattan."

He said the same thing every Friday. Just like clockwork.

After dinner, mom would have Father Nilsson bless the house and then the two of them would leave. Father Nilsson would go back to the church. My mother would also go do "The Lords work."

I'd sit, with all the lights out and watch whatever scary movie was on.

"It", "Them", whatever. It didn't matter, just as long as there were monsters whose whole purpose was to destroy human beings.

About halfway through the second feature, the front door would unlock and the smell of vodka filled the air.

Two sets of footsteps would walk by the family room and go down the hall to my mother's room.

Sometimes, after the movies were over, I'd turn off the TV and head to my room-- hearing my mother's laughter.

Before breakfast, I'd hear her boyfriend leave. Back to his real wife.

As my mother would cook my eggs, nursing a cup of coffee, she'd be so nice to me. So nice that I knew she was sad-- in love with a man who would never treat her like she wanted. So she loved me. She cherished me instead.

"That's the reason you became a homosexual," said Dr. Mince. "Once you dump your past lifestyle and your so called friends, you'll be healed."