There is neither Rhymer family drama nor sci-fi silliness in today’s thread; there’s not even a situation from a story. There’s just a little ditty about Jack & Diane.
Despite the allusion to the song, Jack is not a kid. He’s a man in his forties who, twenty years back, married in haste and repented at leisure. Five years or so into the marriage, Jack and his wife divorced, and not long after that, she remarried and moved to the other side of the country; let’s say from Seattle to Alabama. After that, he saw her about twice a year for the first few years. After that not at all, for he too moved: in his case to England, where he remarried.
Diane is not Jack’s ex. She is, however, a kid–Jack’s kid, in fact, all of fifteen. She has issues. Tthe man her mother married was a fundamentalist Christian preacher, and her mother got very deep in the faith after her marriage. Diane hasn’t seen Jack since he moved to England when she was twelve, but they’ve never lost track of each other; there’s been correspondence, there’ve been phone calls, there’ve been presents on birthdays and Christmas. But Jack hasn’t been nearly as much as part of her life as her stepdad. This has always bothered him, but he’s told himself it was for the best.
Jack was wrong. You see, Diane’s a lesbian. This has not been pleasant in Podunkville, Alabama, where Stepdad’s the pastor of the largest church. She’s been told all her life that her deepest urgings are not just unnatural but sinful. At thirteen she asked her mother’s advice on how to deal with her sexuality; in response, her mother ratted her out to Stepdad, who proceeded to re-enact the most unpleasant scene from Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. After said attempted exorcism/beating she tried to suppress her sexuality, but it’s always been hard, and over the last year she’s gotten more and more depressed. Recently she kissed her best girlfriend, whose signals she had entirely misread. The girlfriend denounced her to the congregation, and Stepdad & Mom threw her out. Despairing, she attempted suicide.
This is where Jack comes back into the story. Summoned from England by the doctors (Stepdad & Mom refuse to see Diane unless she repents), he learns for the first time that his daughter likes girls. This distresses him. He’s not a fundamentalist, and he doesn’t believe in hell or demons, he’s always felt homosexuality was unnatural and wrong. He thinks that, if a homosexual cannot turn heterosexual, he or she should never express their sexuality. But Jack has also always regretted spending so little time with his daughter. He loves her; he’s worried about her; he wants her to be happy, healthy, whole,a and to outlive him by at least 40 years.
Which brings us at last to the thread question. After being released from the hospital, Diane asks her father if she can come live with him; having talked this over with his second wife already, he agrees instantly. Then she asks him if he thinks there is anything wrong with her because she prefers doughnuts to crullers.
How should Jack answer this question? Should he share his true opinions and damn the consequences, or should he lie? Why?