by Lori L. Lake
Dani grinned too, and seemed to draw strength from the shared family memory. “Anyway, as I said, it didn’t matter…until I moved back here. Mom, at some level you’ve probably known this for a long time, but I need to make it official, so to speak. I need to be honest with you because I have to be honest with her.”
Confused, Meredith shook her head. “Her? Who’s her, honey? What are you talking about? I thought you said you’d met the man you wanted to...”
Then the pieces of the puzzle slid tidily into place, and Meredith sucked in an anguished breath, staring at her daughter as dread settled in her stomach.
“It’s Adrienne, Mom. We’re in love, and we’re planning to spend the rest of our lives together. She’s the one I’ve been looking for all these years.” Softly, as if amused at the irony, Dani added, “And she was waiting for me right here in my own backyard. Talk about clueless!”
Meredith choked out, “But you’re not like...her! You’re not—”
“Yeah, Mom, I am. I always have been; I just never told you.”
Dani’s voice was unyielding, but Meredith felt like she desperately needed to reason with her daughter, to reach her logically and rationally, and all would be right again. Buying time as she mustered an offence, she blurted out, “Why?”
Sighing, Dani pushed herself away from the fridge and returned to her seat at the table. “Why what, Mom? Why am I a lesbian? Why didn’t I tell you as soon as I figured it out for myself? Why Adrienne? Why now?”
Disturbed by the shrillness of her own voice but unable to modulate it, Meredith cried out, “All of those! Why, Dani, why?”
The younger woman shook her head wearily. “Some things just don’t have answers, Mom. It took me a long time to come to grips with it myself, and then it just felt too private to share. As for Adrienne, I think we both knew there was a pretty powerful chemistry between us, but as long as I was only breezing through for visits, we never did anything about it. Once I moved back here, it was like we picked up where we’d left off. We became best of friends again, and then we became more. Now we’re talking about buying a house and moving in together, so it’s time to tell our families.”
Meredith stood so abruptly that her chair toppled over. The words that streamed out of her mouth shocked her, but she was helpless to stop them.
“No! I won’t have it! You’re not like Adrienne! She’s...she’s...seduced you! You always followed her around like a puppy dog, and now she’s using that to fool you into thinking you’re something you’re not. You have to get away from her influence, Danielle! You have to pull yourself out of her circle. She’s bewitched you, honey! Don’t let her do this to you! She’s depraved! You’re so much better...”
Dani stared at her mother, open-mouthed, face blank with shock at the attack on her lover. Then galvanized, she jumped to her feet, kicking her chair back as she planted her hands on the table. Eyes blazing, she roared at her mother, “Don’t you dare talk about her that way! Depraved! You’ve known her all her life. How can you say that? She’s the kindest, most loving woman I’ve ever known, and I thank God every day that she waited for me to come to my senses!”
“God! Don’t you dare invoke His name to dignify this perversion of all that’s right and good and normal!”
The two women screamed the searing words across the table, both furiously refusing to back down, and both knowing intimately how to wound the other.
“Who are you to define normal! You’ve never even left this podunk place to see there’s a whole world out there beyond your narrow vision! There are millions of people like Adrienne and me, and all the bigots and all the invocations in the world aren’t going to make us disappear! I don’t give a flying fuck if you approve of us or not! I’m not going to live my life in some rigid little box defined by a book of fairy stories written by a bunch of ancient misogynists!”
“Don’t you use that kind of language to me, young lady! This is still my home, and I will not have God’s word blasphemed by someone who has clearly lost her way! If you’re so blessed proud of who you are, then why have you run and hidden yourself for all these years? I think you’re ashamed! Ashamed and well aware that what you’re doing is wrong! Well, you’re right—it is wrong. And I don’t care who she is, no girlfriend of yours is ever going to be welcome under this roof!”
A small voice within struggled to be heard, warning Meredith she was going too far—saying things that would be difficult if not impossible to take back, but she didn’t care. A profound sense of betrayal drove her tongue, and it was only when Dani swept her cup off the table in one furious motion, sending it shattering across the floor, that shock aborted her rage and her fury began to ebb. But before she could utter any conciliatory words, her daughter spun away and strode to the back door. With icy precision, she threw one last gibe over her shoulder.
“If my lover is not welcome here, then it’ll be a cold day in hell before I ever set foot in this house again!”
With that Dani stormed out, slamming the screen door with such force that Meredith momentarily thought it would come off its hinges.
Lover.
Her daughter had called another woman her lover. Numbly, Meredith listened to the roar of Dani’s bike racing down the alley, then she righted her chair and sank into it.
Lover.
The little mop-haired girl from next door who had bounded into her kitchen countless times looking for her best friend and Meredith’s homemade cookies was now her daughter’s lover.
Her mind simply couldn’t wrap itself around that knowledge, so she forced herself to say it.
“Dani is...Dani is a lesbian. Dani and Adrienne are lovers. They are in love...with each other.”
Saying it out loud didn’t make it any easier to believe or accept, so she tried it several more times.
The words hung in the air, like balloons that had lost most of their helium, and still her heart refused to allow the truth in.
She had no idea how long she sat there, numb and exhausted by the emotional confrontation, but eventually her gaze drifted to the shards of porcelain littering the kitchen floor. She forced herself to rise and tear off paper towels to mop up the spilled tea. As she pulled the broom and dust pan out of the closet, her mind turned to the time her sons had broken six of the cups at once when an errant football smashed into her china cabinet.
Meredith had been furious at the boys for shattering the irreplaceable antiques, and had grounded the lot of them for two weeks. She grieved the losses and carefully stowed the last two cups on the uppermost shelf of her kitchen cabinets. The cups were only brought out to share tea with Iris, and later, when she was grown, with Dani.
Now, as she delicately picked up the bigger fragments, and swept the tiny slivers into the pan, she felt a far greater loss, even as she righteously struggled to cling to the remnants of her wrath. Finally abandoning the dustpan, she dropped the broom and remaining crouched, wrapped her arms around her knees as she rocked back and forth, fighting for control of her careening emotions and determined not to break down.
MEREDITH WONDERED IF she would ever feel normal again as she mechanically wrung out the dishrag and draped it over the edge of the sink. She was glad Gary and the boys were occupied all day building Brad’s deck because it was taking everything she had to hold herself together, and she couldn’t face the inevitable questions once her husband saw how distraught she was.
Lost in her depression, Meredith barely noticed the light tapping on the screen door, but groaned inwardly when the door creaked open.
Without turning around, she said, “I don’t know why you even bother to knock, Iris.”
A familiar voice sounded softly behind her. “I wasn’t going to take the chance you’d tell me to keep out.”
“You know?”
“Mmm hmm. Addy called me a few minutes ago. Dani’s over at her place crying her eyes out, so I figured you wouldn’t be in much better shape.” A chair scraped, and Meredith heard her old friend sit d
own at the table. “Got any of that tea left?”
Automatically putting the still warm kettle on to boil again, Meredith refused to turn around, only asking bitterly, “Did you know?”
Iris sighed deeply. “I knew.”
That stung. “How long?”
Her best friend couldn’t help a rueful laugh. “Oh Merry, I’ve seen the way Addy looks at Dani since they were kids. I expect I’ve known longer than they have. However, if you mean how long have I known they’re a couple, then I guess it’s been about four months.”
Meredith flinched. A couple. Was that really how her best friend saw their daughters? Well, it was easier for Iris. She’d had years to adjust to the idea of her daughter as a...
Grimacing, Meredith pulled a couple of mugs out of the cupboard and wordlessly set them on the table. Iris raised one eyebrow at the unusual selection, then her eyes fell on the dustpan, which still sat abandoned on the floor.
“Aw, shit, Mer. I’m sorry. One of your grandmother’s cups, eh? How’d it happen?”
The warmth in her friend’s voice—the sympathy Meredith had relied on for more years than she could remember, was almost more than she could bear, and she stood rigidly, hands wrapped tightly around the top rung of a chair.
“Dani. She broke it.”
Wisely, Iris did not rise to offer one of her usual hug. Meredith felt so brittle she was sure if her friend touched her, she would shatter just like the cup.
“She must have been really upset. She knows what those cups mean to you.”
Stiffly, Meredith pulled out the chair and sat down. Fixing Iris with a gaze that was both angry and accusatory, she snapped, “You have a gift for understating the obvious.”
Her friend didn’t even flinch. “Merry, we have to talk about this. I know you’re in shock. I know you’re hurting and confused.”
“How could you possibly know those things? You were the one who was ready to throw your daughter a party when she announced she was gay! How could you possibly relate to how I feel? Did you feel like you’d been kicked in the stomach by a Clydesdale? Did you see all your dreams go up in smoke in one instant?”
Iris sighed, but didn’t back off. “No mother wants to see her child have to endure being different in a world that persecutes those who are different. I knew Addy was going to have a hard go of it, and my heart ached for her on that account. There’s no way I was going to make her life any tougher by not being as supportive as I could, but don’t you think there have been times when I’ve thought how much easier it would’ve been if she’d fallen for Brad or Bill? Of course I have! But she didn’t have a choice, Merry, and neither does Dani. We do. We have the choice of accepting our children as they are, or turning away, hurting them and ourselves. Don’t turn away, hon. I know how much you love your kids. Don’t think you can cut one of them off without feeling like you’re cutting your own heart out.”
Meredith felt the pain overwhelm her again, and she struggled to suppress the tears, furious at how out of control she felt. She was undone when Iris reached in her pocket and pulled out a tissue, pushing it across the table with an affectionate smile.
“’S okay. Go ahead and let it out. I can guarantee you it won’t be the last time our kids make us cry.”
The sight of those loving eyes regarding her with endless patience and understanding finally loosened the rigid check she had been maintaining on her emotions. She had no idea how long she cried, but was aware that at some point Iris snagged a box of tissues and handed them to her one by one. When the torrent finally eased, she couldn’t help a watery smile at the mound of spent tissues piled in front of her.
“Yeah, yeah, we’ll put our egg money in Kleenex next month,” Iris teased lightly, her eyes watching Meredith closely. “Feeling a bit better?”
Meredith sighed deeply. She couldn’t deny that while the bout of tears had left her drained, she no longer felt as brittle. An exhausted peace had settled over her.
Several more tissues mopped up the remains of the crying jag, while Iris poured them both some strong tea.
Raising their mugs, they tapped them together in a deep, unspoken understanding. Over the years they had met in one kitchen or the other to deal with the endless quandaries their children presented them. They had negotiated the mazes of childhood and youth together, stronger for their differences, but united when it came to loving their children and wanting the best for them.
After several long, bracing swallows, Meredith opened her heart to her best friend. “You know I love Adrienne like one of my own, don’t you, Iris?”
Her friend smiled and nodded. “You might as well have. Dunno how you could tell her from the rest of your brood half the time anyway.”
Meredith laughed at that. It was true. Adrienne had merged seamlessly with her children, and there was always room for one more whether they were heading for the lake, barbequing in the backyard, or making pull taffy on a wintry Saturday afternoon.
“She and Billy were usually the messiest two,” Meredith said in fond remembrance. Then recalling herself to the topic, she went on, “So you know it’s not that I’m objecting to Adrienne herself, right?”
“Uh huh. You’d have flown off the wall at any woman Dani fell in love with.”
Iris’ words were delivered wryly, but with a bracing undercurrent of honesty, and Meredith flushed with shame. She had behaved so badly, and even if Dani were eventually able to forgive her, she didn’t know if she’d ever forgive herself. She wondered how much Adrienne told her mother about what had happened that morning.
Embarrassed now, she couldn’t meet her friend’s eyes, until a sugar cube bounced off her shoulder. Startled, she looked up to see Iris grinning at her.
“I’ve known you, what, forty years?”
“Forty-one and a half,” Meredith mumbled.
“And in all that time, this is probably the first time you’ve gone whacko. Hell, you even sailed through ‘the pause’ without missing a step. I think you were way overdue for a psychotic episode, so don’t be so hard on yourself.”
Meredith couldn’t help a rueful snort. Psychotic episode? She guessed she deserved that.
“The point is, Mer, that this hit you out of the blue, and you reacted on instinct. I know you just want what’s best for Dani, and she knows that, too.”
“Does she? My God, after what I said to her. Oh, and I was so terrible about Adrienne, too. Dani will never forgive me for what I said about her—”
“Partner,” Iris filled in helpfully. “You’re gonna have to bone up on the lingo, old friend. Dani and Addy are partners, and from what I’ve seen, they’re in it for life, so you might as well get used to it.”
“Partners.” Meredith tried the word on thoughtfully. Then looking at Iris with troubled eyes she asked, “Doesn’t it ever bother you that you won’t have any grandchildren?”
“Who says I won’t?” Iris challenged with a grin. “Now that the girls are together, they might just decide to have kids, too.”
“Kids? But how on earth...”
Iris uttered a mock groan. “That does it. I’m taking you to the next meeting of PFLAG.”
“Your Wednesday night group?”
“Yeah, PFLAG. You’ll meet people who have been in your shoes and know all that you’re feeling right now. They’re good people to talk to, and they’ll help you understand that your child’s horizon is only different, not limited.”
Chiding herself for not having paid closer attention over the years when Iris had lauded her group, and unwilling to examine the reasons that she hadn’t, Meredith returned to what was uppermost on her mind. “What if Dani won’t ever speak to me again, Iris? What if I can’t mend our relationship after the terrible things I said?”
Her eyes filled again at the thought that she might have driven her daughter away for good, but Iris took her hand firmly and gave it a good shake.
“Now don’t you even be thinking that way, Merry. You and Dani have always been as close as
Addy and me, and a fight, even a knock down, drag out, lung-screeching battle, isn’t going to change that. Good Lord, if Will and I broke up every time we had a brouhaha, we’d never have made it to our 35th anniversary!”
Meredith couldn’t help smiling at the mention of her friend’s late husband. They had had a passionate, but oft times volatile relationship, and she had hosted both of them in her guest room on occasions when they were too furious with each other to spend the night in the same house.
Iris looked at her speculatively, then walked to the sink, returning with the last antique teacup, which had been drying on the rack. Setting it carefully between them, she sat down again.
“Look at it like this, Mer. As fragile as this cup is, it had to travel thousands of miles and survive untold trials before ending up on your table here, a century or so later. It’s beautiful, it’s vulnerable, but as delicate as it is, it’s been a survivor. It’s also irreplaceable, so you gotta cherish it—take care of it. I don’t doubt that Dani’s hurting right now. Hell, from what Addy told me, Dani’s as big a mess as you at the moment. But your relationship isn’t going to crumble. You’re gonna have to do some work, but you two will tough it through, because to do anything else is unthinkable.”
Meredith considered her friend’s reassuring words, then sadly pointed at the pieces of the other cup still lying in the dustpan. Softly she said, “Sometimes you break things beyond repair, Iris.”
Heaving a deep sigh, Iris rolled her eyes. “Okay, screw the metaphor. All I’m saying is that you love Dani, and she loves you. Her love for Addy isn’t going to change that one bit, so as soon as you can, you reach out for her and you hold her as tight as all get out, and you tell her that no matter what, you’ll always be her mother and you’ll always love her.”
Stunned by the heartfelt passion in her friend’s voice, Meredith could only nod. She prayed she’d be given the chance to make things right.
