He wasn’t talking about anything important. I wasn’t quite close enough to hear what he was saying, but his tone was cheerful and soft and I knew he was joking around with her. That had always made me smile, too.

While Kallie can be silly and joke around when she’s in the mood, she’s generally more serious. Not that she doesn’t have a sense of humor; I don’t think you’d be able to spend your childhood or any other significant portion of your life around Alice and not develop one really quickly. But she’s never had that natural playfulness about her that Alice does. Charlie inherited that from her. Even when he’s being serious, he’s still playful just underneath the surface. It’s a quality I’ve always loved about both of them, and one that I have to admit I sometimes envy.

As I inched closer, I started to pick up pieces of what Charlie was saying. He was going on about his days at the studio, and how he’s completely positive that his station manager is a closeted homosexual. Charlie’s always thought that people in the closet are hilarious, mainly because he can’t see the point in staying in there. He’s always been very direct with people, and I don’t think he would ever consider hiding the fact that was gay, if he were. He’d never understood when I’d told him that I’d been for years before he was born. He just could never wrap his mind around that, which I think is a very good thing and a testament to Alice’s parenting.

Kallie was in the closet when she first discovered that she was gay. In fact, it was Charlie who outed her to us, one night in her senior year of high school. She was absolutely mortified, but I really don’t think it was because she was ashamed of being gay. She’s just a lot more private than Alice and Charlie naturally are.

I shook my head to try to focus on the task in front of me, namely making it to Alice’s room. Even with the exhaustion, I didn’t think it should be as hard as it was, but I tried to push my worry away since it wouldn’t do me any good. I figured I could always mention it to the nurse or to Dr. Hernandez when he came in to check on Alice the next morning.