Harvey Guillén

So Stephen does what a lot of gay men did back then, and still today.

He builds a life that looks normal from the outside, hoping that if he plays the part well enough, long enough, maybe the feelings will go away.

Spoiler alert, they don't.

Instead, Stephen becomes an expert at being one person in public and another in the rare moments when nobody's watching.

And maybe that's why he's so good at becoming other people later.

He's been doing it his whole life.

In his spare time, he uses his access to law enforcement databases to search for his biological mother.

He's exploring his position to learn how to find people who don't want to be found, how to access information that's supposed to be private,

It takes years, but he finally finds her.

Just before they meet, he's nervous but hopeful.

Maybe she'll want to know him.

Maybe she'll explain why she gave him up.

Maybe meeting her will help him understand who he's supposed to be.

Stephen tells her who he is, that he's been looking for her his whole life, and then she rejects him completely.

doesn't want him in her life, doesn't want to know him, doesn't want a reminder of a mistake she made decades ago.

Stephen leaves that meeting feeling hollowed out.

If his birth mother doesn't want him, his adoptive family can't see who he really is, and he can't even be honest about who he loves, then who is Stephen exactly?

In the early 1980s, Stephen moves to Houston.

He gets an executive job with Cisco, a national food distributor.

They double his Virginia salary and he buys a house in one of Houston's upscale subdivisions.