A Silent Pact

A gay boy and his deaf uncle connect through the unspoken experience of being outsiders in a family

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

It was a warm evening and we were eating outside on my grandparents’ rarely used patio. We gathered at Nanny and Papa’s, my maternal grandparents’ home for Thanksgiving, the High Holidays, and Passover — but this was spring or summer, a break from our usual routine. Perhaps it was Memorial Day in the early ’70s, or just a Sunday when Papa…