Southern Hearts (4 page)

“Mother never seemed bothered by Dad’s affairs. If anything, she seemed to welcome them. She’s probably a prude in the sack and was glad when Dad went elsewhere for it.”

“No woman is going to be okay with her husband cheating on her. It’s shameful, and it makes you feel like shit about yourself. Like you have to be perfect or something.”

“What happened?” I chose not to sit on the sofa beside her and instead sat down on the floor pillows, stretched my legs out in front of me, and took a sip of the wine.

“What else? I’m Mom. I live the same existence she does. I’m no different.” She brushed her bangs from her eyes and straightened her back. “My husband cheats on me just as Dad did with Mother. The only difference is I refuse to look the other way like she did.”

“How long?”

“How many, you mean? Seven at last count. He’s working from the first floor right on up to the penthouse on this one. And can you believe that bastard had the nerve to ask me if he could bring one of his little harlots down here for the weekend for Mom’s party? He just asked me, as if I knew he was fooling around and I should just accept it.” She drained her glass and poured herself another.

I shook my head is disbelief. “We are a screwed-up family. The potential divorcee and the lesbian, what a pair.” I was so caught by the moment, I didn’t even realize I had just outed myself.

“The what?” Tami asked suddenly.

I had blurted out my deep secret without preparation, and now I had to deal with the questions. I wasn’t ready, and now I was speechless. “I...”

She stared right into me, as if she could see everything I was thinking. “You’re a lesbian? How do you know...I mean why...I mean, not why.” She paused. “I’m not sure what I mean. I’m sure that wasn’t the supportive big sister response you wanted, was it? I’m just shocked, I guess. What about Gary?”

“I think I dated Gary more for everyone else than for me. I wanted to pass, I wanted to be straight. But eventually I just had to accept it. It hasn’t been easy.” I took another sip of wine.

“Wow, I almost don’t know what to say.”

“I guess that’s as good an answer as any.” I arched my eyebrows, nervously rolling my glass between my fingers.

“A lesbian? That tops me!” she cheered, raising her glass. “The divorcee and the lesbian, it sounds like a bad, really bad, low-budget movie,” she jested with a smile. “It could have been worse...you could have said you were getting married.”

I smiled.

“Are you...dating?”

“No.”

“What’s it like...being with a woman?” She was clearly veering toward intoxication. Normally she would have considered that far too crass a question to ask.

“I don’t know. When I’m finally with one, I will put you at the top of the list of people to notify.”

“You’ve never?”

“No, I haven’t quite made it that far across the threshold of the closet.”

“Well, I think my little sister needs to get busy.” She poured the last few drops from the wine bottle into her mouth. “To getting busy! Have you told Mom?” She set the empty bottle down on the coffee table.

“No, I thought I would wait until after the party. She’s always pretty stressed out until it’s over. I don’t want to add to that.” That wasn’t my real reason—it was more of an excuse—but I knew it would take me at least that long to gather enough courage to get the words out and to prepare myself for the consequences of her response, whatever it would be. “How do you think she’ll take it?”

“I don’t know. I wouldn’t expect her to be too understanding, Kari. I hope you’re ready for that. Mom only knows the Southern way of doing things, and I doubt that includes having a daughter who’s a lesbian.”

“Yeah.”

“She’ll think of Jetter, not exactly fond memories.” She leaned back and propped her feet along the armrest.

“Jetter?”

“You were too young at that time to remember, and it wasn’t something Mom and Dad ever really talked about after that day.” Her speech was slurred as she fell sideways, limp, so she lay on the sofa. “It was all quite embarrassing for them. I mean, it had all been kept under wraps—a family thing, Dad said.”

She closed her eyes. “But then after—well, it was hard for them to keep up airs.” Her words fell off as she drifted into sleep.

I had no clue who or what she was talking about. I searched my mind for the memory, then pulled the crocheted throw blanket from the back of the divan and rested it gently on Tami before lifting her head and putting the tasseled accent pillow under it.

“I love my little lesbian sister,” she said, hooking me around the neck as I reached over her.

I laughed. “I love you too, you drunk. Now go to sleep.”

I put my hands over my eyes, and as with the many other games of peek-a-boo I had played, I cheated. I squinted my eyes until they were narrow, lowering my eyelids until I had a viewable picture of what was in front of me, beyond my hands, through the little slots between my knuckles. But instead of eliciting childlike chuckles, what was in front of me that brisk December morning, just to the rear of my uncle Bow’s cherry-colored Mustang, frightened me, eerily propelling me backward into the fiberglass insulation of the unfinished walls around the garage’s frame. A rusty nail thrust through the polyester of my jacket, and blood seeped down my leggings and into my tennis shoes until my socks were soaked red.

I had blocked the memories until now, compressing them somewhere in a crevice between vague and misunderstood in the base of my mind, because they had been so disturbing. I was only five years old on that misty holiday morning.

My cousin Jetter—I hadn’t remembered him until now. He had come to live with us just after Thanksgiving that year, after he had been thrown into the street by an abusive and uncaring mother. I liked him, but now as I thought about that day, I was filled with animosity about the decision he had made. I had been a witness to the consequences of that decision, which had ultimately steered me into a guarded development.

He was only seventeen, a senior in high school, popular and a gifted athlete. I wondered how he could have done such a thing, why he had given up and taken such drastic action; what could have been so tragic that his only reaction to it had been a desperate one. Now that my sister had reminded me about Jetter, I knew exactly why he had done it.