Julia Watts - Wedding Bell Blues

by Julia Watts

  When all the testimony had been given, it was nearly four o’clock. Judge Sanders took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. With his glasses back in place, he said, “We’ve heard some very persuasive evidence from both sides today,” he began, “but it seems to me that there is one factor that has been overlooked —or intentionally ignored— by both Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Dobson, the claim that Mr. Benny Jack McGilly is Mimi Maycomb’s biological father. If Mr. McGilly is indeed the child’s father, it is only fitting that I give custody to Mr. McGilly, and, of course, his wife.”

  Judge Sanders sucked in his breath, then exhaled. “however, Mr. McGilly’s claim to paternity is unproven. If Mr. McGilly is not the child’s father, certain evidence — particularly the video evidence presented by Mr. Hamilton — persuades me that the Maycombs could provide Mimi Maycomb with a healthier, more morally sound home environment.”

  He took off his glasses to rub his eyes again. Lily wished his eyeballs would fall out into his hands. “Mr. Benny Jack McGilly,” the judge intoned, “I order you to submit to a DNA test to determine paternity. If you are Mimi’s father, in the interest of the rights of biological fathers, I will award custody to you and your wife, Lily McGilly. In the event that you have deceived this court and are not Mimi Maycomb’s father, custody will be awarded to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Maycomb.”

  The judge looked at Ben. “Mr. McGilly, I’ve already talked to the folks at the lab over at Faulkner County Hospital. I explained the rather urgent nature of this case, and they said if you come in at eight A.M. tomorrow and bring Mimi, they can rush the blood samples down to Atlanta and have the results by Monday morning. Is that agreeable to you, Mr. McGilly?”

  “Yes, sir.” Ben’s face was as white as a sheet of paper. Lily remembered what he had said when they were hatching this ill-fated scheme: “Nobody in Faulkner County is gonna make a McGilly submit to a DNA test.”

  “All right, then,” Judge Sanders said. “Court will reconvene Monday at ten A.M., at which time the test results will be revealed and custody will be determined.”

  Jeanie hugged Lily, and Ben clapped his son on the back. “Looks like y’all are about outta the woods!” Big Ben said, grinning.

  “I can’t believe Jake Sanders would make a McGilly take a DNA test!” Ben was clearly incensed.

  Lily, however, didn’t have enough fight in her to be incensed. The judge’s decision had made it official: She had lost everything.

  “Well, now,” Big Ben said to his son, “a judge is an elected official. If he came across like he was giving custody to a couple homos without there being any scientific reason for it, he’d get voted outta office before he knew what hit him. This way, he can make it seem like the DNA test made the decision, not him. I know you don’t wanna have to go through the rigmarole of getting tested, but after the results get back, you’ve got no worries.”

  “Right,” Ben muttered. “No worries.”

  CHAPTER 21

  It was awful, hearing Mimi wail as the lab technician pricked her to collect the blood sample. But it was even more awful knowing that this fleeting bit of pain was the least of Mimi’s problems.

  What kind of woman would Mimi grow up to be, being raised by the Maycombs? Would she rebel like her mother, by becoming a radical intellectual? Or would she rebel in a more reactionary and self-destructive way, by turning to drugs and promiscuous sex at an early age? Or, Lily worried, would she not rebel at all? Would she swallow every idea that the Maycombs spoon-fed her and grow up to be a self-righteous fundamentalist housewife who thanked the good Lord that Ida and Charles and Mike had saved her from being raised by a godless degenerate?

  Lily, Ben, and Mimi crossed the hot asphalt of the hospital parking lot. “Well, I guess that’s that,” Ben said.

  “That’s all you can say?” Lily yelled, not caring who heard her. Her eyes flooded with tears as she strapped Mimi into her car seat. “You drag me to this fucking hellhole because you have a surefire plan for me to keep my daughter, and when it falls through, all you can say is, ‘That’s that?”

  “I know...I’m sorry. I really did think it would work.” Ben started the car. “I was thinking...you and Mimi could always leave the country. I could have you back to Atlanta and on the first flight to wherever you want to go on Friday afternoon.”

  Lily didn’t bother to wipe the tears that were rolling down her cheeks. “I never quite pictured myself as a fugitive from justice. Of course, it’s not justice that I’d be running from.”

  She tried to picture herself raising Mimi in some unspecified foreign country. Before her move to Versailles, she had never lived anywhere but Atlanta. “Where would we go?”

  “Amsterdam’s a great city. Nearly everyone there speaks English.”

  “God, five months ago, I was thinking my life was getting too routine and that maybe I should sign up for a yoga class or something. Now I’m getting ready to hop the next plane to Amsterdam. There’s something to be said for being in a rut.”

  Jack had taken the afternoon off so she could spend it with Lily and Mimi. Now Mimi was wallowing around in the front yard with Lily the piglet and a couple of ill-bred hound pups while Lily the piglet’s namesake and Jack sat on the porch. “Ben told me he’d help get Mimi and me out of the country, if that’s what I want.” Lily’s voice sounded as cold and dead as she felt.

  “Is that what you want?” Jack sat on the porch swing next to Lily, her arm around her shoulders.

  “No, not really. Fleeing the country doesn’t appeal to me, but ...” Lily watched Mimi giggling beneath a pile of pigs and pups. “God, just look at her, Jack. I can’t let those people raise her.”

  “You know,” Jack said, stroking Lily’s hair, “Daddy left me some money when he died ... not a whole lot, but it’d be enough for you to live on awhile till you get your bearings ... wherever it is you end up.”

  “I can’t take your money.”

  “Sure you can. If my money can help you, take all you want. Money’s never meant much to me anyhow.”

  Lily was overwhelmed by Jack’s kindness. “You’ve already helped me. You’ve helped me keep a modicum of sanity in an insane situation. I don’t think I would’ve stayed here if I hadn’t met you.”

  Jack watched Mimi play in the yard for a minute, then turned to Lily. “I’ll sure miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you too.” Lily burrowed her face in the collar of Jack’s hay-smelling coveralls and let Jack hold her while she cried.

  The test results would be revealed in court on Monday morning, and so the days before passed like the last days of a death-row inmate’s life—miserable, nerve-wracking, and yet over too soon.

  When Monday morning came, Lily, with red, bleary eyes and a dry mouth, assumed her position at the table with Buzz Dobson and Ben. Jeanie and Big Ben sat behind them, supposedly for moral support, but their presence only made Lily more anxious. So much of the McGillys’ support, Lily thought, had come from their desire to protect Mimi, since Mimi was a McGilly, even if her last name did not reflect that fact. What would they do when they found out that Mimi had no McGilly blood whatsoever?

  Hamilton and the Maycombs sat at their table, looking crisp and confident. If Lily had held Granny McGilly’s shotgun in her hands, she would have blown them all away.

  When Judge Sanders took his place at the bench, he said, “We have with us today, Doctor... Doctor ...” The judge looked at the brown-skinned young man seated in the courtroom. Doctor or not, he couldn’t have been much over thirty. “You’re gonna have to help me again with that name, buddy.”

  The young doctor smiled patiently. “Anuj Mahatjan,” he said.

  “Yeah, that’s it. The doctor here has the results of Benny Jack McGilly’s DNA tests in a sealed envelope.” Judge Sanders savored the phrase “sealed envelope.” Clearly, this revelation was high drama compared to the humdrum cases that were usually heard in the Faulkner County Courthouse. “Doctor, you may take the stand, if you like, and open the envelope th
ere.”

  Dr. Mahatjan carried a manila envelope to the stand. Lily had never looked upon an inanimate object with the amount of fear she felt for that envelope. Dr. Mahatjan opened the envelope with painstaking slowness. He removed some papers from it and looked them over for a few excruciating moments before he spoke. “The test indicates that Mr. Benny Jack McGilly and Mimi Maycomb do share the same genetic material. Mr. McGilly is Mimi Maycomb’s father.”

  “I’ll be goddamned!” Mike Maycomb blasphemed, at the same time Lily had been thinking the exact same thing.

  “Thank you, Doctor,” Judge Sanders said. “I’ll retire to my chambers to do the paperwork. Custody of Mimi Maycomb will be awarded jointly to Mr. and Mrs. Benny Jack McGilly.”

  Lily was being hugged by Jeanie and Big Ben before she could even process the information she had been given. “Congratulations, honey!” Jeanie squealed. “I told you everything was gonna be fine.”

  Big Ben chucked his stunned son on the shoulder. “I knew it, boy! I knew it!” Big Ben whooped. “A McGilly man don’t have to do nothin’ but look at a woman to get her pregnant.”

  “Apparently not,” Ben mumbled.

  “Come on,” Jeanie said, taking Lily by the hand, “let’s be good sports.”

  Jeanie led Lily to the table where the Maycombs were arguing bitterly with Stephen Hamilton. “Frankly,” Lily heard Ida say to her husband, “I’d be a whole lot more sure of this if they’d let a white man do the DNA tests.”

  “Excuse us,” Jeanie said. Charles, Ida, and Maycomb turned to face her, looking shocked. “I just wanted to let y’all know that you can visit Mimi whenever you want to.” Jeanie’s smile was sweet and welcoming. “But if I ever hear you say one hateful word about my son or my daughter-in-law, you’ll never see hide nor hair of your granddaughter again.” Her smile was just as bright when she led Lily away from Charlotte’s slack jawed family.

  Soon Lily and Ben were in the car, on their way to pick up Mimi — Mimi who was theirs officially, who could not be taken away from them. Lily’s happiness was overshadowed by only one minor factor: She was completely baffled. “So,” she said to Ben, “how did you rig it?”

  Ben looked as if someone had just shaved forty points off his IQ. “Rig ... what?”

  “Rig the DNA test! Mimi has the DNA of two dead people. So how did you fake it?”

  “I honestly don’t know what happened. I mean, Dez was the sperm donor for you and Charlotte, right? The ‘designated wanker,’ he used to call himself.” Ben laughed. “I remember once he said to me — you know how Dez talked — he said, ‘Benjamin, my dear boy, when I was sixteen, I never thought I’d get tired of wanking off, but dear god, this sperm donor thing is putting welts on my weenie. Now I know why Portnoy complained.’”

  Ben laughed, and Lily joined him. It felt so good to laugh now ... now that she knew that Charlotte and Dez’s biological child would be raised in a way that would have made them happy.

  Ben interrupted his own laughter with a sudden, “Hmm.”

  “Hmm, what?” Lily said.

  “I was just thinking about how exhausted Dez got with the whole sperm donor thing ... God, that seems like so long ago, doesn’t it, when you and Charlotte were trying to get pregnant?”

  “It was a while ago, I guess...almost three years.”

  “Yeah. You know, I hate to admit it, but after y’all pulled Dez’s name out of the hat, I didn’t pay too much attention to all the baby-making attempts. That was back when I was so in love with Chris, even though our personalities totally clashed. I was so obsessed with him, though ... oh...my...god!” Ben lost control of the car, swerved, then finally regained control, and pulled over to the side of the road.

  “What?” Lily gasped. “Are you trying to get us killed now that this thing’s finally over?”

  “No. It’s just ... oh my god.”

  “Talk, boy. Talk.”

  “I just thought of something. There was this one week when Charlotte was just sure she was ovulating, and you were getting two sperm donations a day from Dez, one in the morning and one at night. The poor guy was just whipped — he said it was apparently no myth about women being sexually demanding. Anyway, I remember one night I had been out with Chris, and we had had a big fight at the restaurant. I was so mad I stopped at Blake’s on the way home and had a couple of drinks, just to calm down. And of course, you know my alcohol tolerance. I was bombed by the time I got home.

  “I found Dez upstairs in bed, glumly examining this empty artichoke jar he was supposed to ejaculate into. He had all these boy mags spread around him on the bed, but his face just looked desolate. ‘Benjamin, my boy,’ he said to me. ‘I just can’t do it. I’ve come inside this jar so many times, I feel like I ought to marry it.’ Like I said, I was drunk, and he was exhausted, so I just grabbed the jar from him and said, ‘Oh, hell, let me do it.’”

  “So the jar of semen Dez brought over that night was —”

  “Mine. I don’t believe it, though. I just did it that one time, and Dez did it dozens and dozens —”

  “It just takes one sperm, honey.” Lily laughed and threw her arms around Ben, who, for the first time, hugged her back with equal force.

  As Lily walked up the path to Granny McGilly’s house, the old woman opened the screen door. Mimi stood in the doorway, wearing a sunshine-yellow gingham sundress, and her face lit up like sunshine as soon as she saw Lily. “Mama!” she squealed and ran barefoot down the path into Lily’s open arms.

  Big Ben and Jeanie had told Lily and Ben they could invite anybody they wanted to the big celebration barbecue, and they had taken the elder McGillys at their word. Ken was there, and he and Ben were pushing Mimi around the pool on the inflatable raft while she lounged like a tiny bikinied goddess. Jack was helping Ben’s brother Wayne tend the grill, while Honey was helping Jeanie set out the potato salad and baked beans.

  “There’s no telling when we’ll see our better halves again,” Jeanie laughed, in reference to the fact that Big Ben had just taken Mick into the house to show her his hunting trophies.

  At the redwood picnic table, Granny McGilly sat with Dale and Sue, drinking beer and laughing about times no one else at the party was old enough to remember.

  Sheila and Tracee gave the party’s queer guests a wide berth, but they kept their pink-glossed lips buttoned tight. Big Ben had made it clear that any rudeness on their parts would incur his wrath, and he didn’t have to explain that his wrath carried with it dire financial consequences.

  “You wanna come for a swim, Lily?” Ken hollered, as he and Ben were taking Mimi on another circuit of the pool.

  “Not with that brand-new tattoo on her back, she don’t,” Honey answered for her. “She’s gotta keep it dry twenty-four hours.”

  Earlier in the day, Lily had an appointment at Honey’s tattoo shop. On Lily’s left shoulder blade, Honey had engraved the image of a peacock. Its feathers swooped and flowed with the natural curve of her back. It was Lily’s first color tattoo, and it was stunning — rich with emerald greens and bright blues.

  The peacock, Lily knew, would remind her of her time in the Peacock Alley region of Georgia, a time that had made its mark on her. But Lily liked the image of the peacock for another reason, too— its pride. Now that she had won Mimi, Lily planned never to hide her true colors again.

  “Actually,” Jack said, joining Lily by the pool, “I was just about to ask you if you’d care to take a walk with me.”

  “Sure,” Lily said. “Just don’t forget and touch my shoulder. It’s sore as hell.”

  Jack smiled. “I promise not to touch ...” She leaned closer and whispered, “your shoulder, anyway.” Jack unlatched the gate, and they walked in the field beyond the McGilly mansion and pool. “So,” Jack said, “what now?”

  “I ... I thought we were going for a walk.”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  Lily shrugged. “Well, I guess I’ll take those animal sketches and work on
turning them into a book.”

  Jack’s grin had an uneasiness behind it. “That’s not really what I meant either.”

  Lily smiled. “Well ... Ben and I have been talking. He’s gonna put his condo on the market. He and Ken are gonna try to get a place halfway between here and Atlanta, so Ken can commute to work, but they’ll be close to the city, too. He and I are just gonna go our separate ways without making it official. We’ve seen all we want of courtrooms lately, believe me.”

  Lily knew she still hadn’t answered Jack’s question. “And me, well, I’m not planning on selling off Charlotte’s and my condo yet. I figure Mimi and I will go back to Atlanta, and I’ll work on the book. But there was something I wanted to ask you.”

  “Uh-huh?” Jack’s eyes glimmered with hope.

  “About Mordecai. I know Big Ben and Jeanie don’t want him back, and he doesn’t strike me as a condo kinda dog, so I was wondering —”

  “Sure, I’ll take him.” Jack’s voice was tinged with disappointment. “There’s always room for one more at the farm.”

  Lily stopped walking and took both of Jack’s hands in her own. “The thing is, you know how Mordecai is about me. He’s really gonna miss me.” She let go of Jack’s hands and draped her arms over Jack’s shoulders. “So I guess I’ll have to drive up to the farm and visit him really, really often.”

  Jack grinned. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.” Lily grinned back. “I’d say I’d need to visit him every other weekend at least. And sometimes Mimi could spend time with her mamaw and papaw while I spend some time alone with ... Mordecai. If that’s okay with you, of course.”

  “I think I could handle that.” Jack leaned down and met Lily for a kiss, resting her hands on the small of Lily’s back. When they parted, Jack said, “I do have a question, though.”