I hope I can still be some help to you, so in regards to your request that I speak to your parents; I will certainly comply. I feel that it is only fair to warn you, though, that your mother and I have drifted apart a bit over the past few months. She's always been a very stubborn little sister to me, and sometimes, I must admit, when I try to persuade her in any way, she becomes a bit obstinate. I will, however, do my best to be a peacemaker, and hopefully I can help smooth things over.
I must admit, I am inclined to agree with your parents that you are very young, and perhaps should experience more of what life, and love, has to offer before you narrow yourself with labels. However, from what I've read in your descriptions of Clara, and the earnestness with which you expressed your feelings for her, I am inclined believe that, as far as she's concerned, you are far from confused. Perhaps, if you discuss with your parents just how much she does mean to you, they may- in time- come to accept your feelings.
I'm sorry to hear that you've hurt yourself. I hope your wrist mends quickly. Keep me informed of any developments.
Lots of Love
Elizabeth
After I read her e-mail, I felt grateful for her support, and far less apprehensive about facing my parents. I dried my hair, threw on some comfortable clothes, and bounded down the stairs to get some lunch.
The kitchen was empty when I got downstairs, but I heard voices from the living room. I opened the door, and was surprised to see my parents sitting side by side on the love-seat, speaking to Clara who was perched on the piano bench. My mother turned to me and smiled kindly, and I was relieved that she didn't seem angry from the night before.
"I'm glad you're finally up, Miranda. I thought you would sleep all day," Mother said. "Why don't you get something to eat, and I'll ask you to join us in a few moments."
I hesitated, not sure of what to say, or even if I should leave at all. Clara smiled reassuringly at me, though, so I just smiled in return and went back into the kitchen.
I poured myself some cereal, and tried to eat, but my appetite had gone. Why was Clara here, and why did my parents wish to speak to her alone? I couldn't stand the idea that my parents might be lecturing her about her 'choices.' I looked toward the door, and was almost overwhelmed with the temptation to eavesdrop on the conversation. I began to pace back and forth, trying to convince myself that listening would be wrong. Finally, I decided to listen, but the door was slightly ajar, and when I put my ear against it, it closed with a loud click.
"Miranda, it's very rude to eavesdrop," Mother called.
I stood and ran upstairs in order to remove myself from any further temptation, but I was still restless and could only pace to and fro, worried about what could be going on without me. A half hour passed, and I grew tired of pacing, so I brushed my hair and tried to make myself look more presentable. Another 15 minutes passed, and I had decided to go downstairs and demand an audience, when I heard my mother calling up the stairs.
"Miranda? We'd like to speak with you, now. Will you come down?"
My annoyance at this point was so great that I rushed down the stairs, forgetting any apprehension I might have had about the impending conversation. In the living room, Clara was still sitting on the piano bench, and my Mother was returning to her original place on the love-seat, but Daddy was nowhere to be seen. I gave Clara a quick smile and sat beside her on the bench, then faced my mother.
"Mother, why was I banished from my own living room all morning? And where is Daddy?"
For a moment, Mother looked uncomfortable as she surveyed Clara and me sitting side by side on the piano bench, but she didn't say anything about our closeness.
"Your father received a phone call from the office, and had to leave. We wanted to speak with Clara alone, so we could get to know her a little better, and better understand this situation from every perspective."
"You mean you wanted to interrogate Clara without my interference," I said accusingly.
"Why are you being so defensive, Miranda?" Mother retorted. "I thought you would be happy with the fairness we were showing the situation. We expect to be shown the same fairness in return."
"How, exactly, is meddling in my life without offering me the chance to defend myself, or defend Clara for that matter, fair?"
Mother seemed unable to frame a response, but was spared the trouble by the sound of our phone ringing. She excused herself, and went swiftly to the kitchen to answer in private.
I turned to Clara when Mother had gone. "I'm sorry for whatever my parents may have said."
"They weren't so bad," she replied. "I'm sorry for interfering."
"You aren't the one interfering," I said.
Mother returned then and said, "I'm sorry, but that was Mrs. Cooper. I completely forgot that I'd promised her I would help organize the fall festival at church. I'll talk to you further this evening, Miranda. I found a brace for your wrist that may work better than the bandage. It's on the kitchen counter." She turned to Clara. "I'm glad we were able to talk. Thank you for all of your patience." She shook Clara's hand and Clara, seeming quite embarrassed, blushed and nodded. Then Mother rushed out of the front door, leaving me bewildered by her strange behavior.
"You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd say she's avoiding having to talk to me," I said.
"To be honest, I think she is," Clara said. "My mom did the same thing after I came out. She didn't think I was old enough to know I was gay. She avoided the topic, as if it were the sort of thing that would go away if ignored. Eventually, she accepted it, but it took a lot of time."
"If it took a long time for your mother to accept you, I can only imagine how long it will take my parents to accept me. I think my mother believes this will go away if I pray about it," I said.
"I'm sorry," Clara said, putting her arms around me and holding me close to her. "I'm sure they're trying. I don't think they would have bothered interrogating me for an hour if they didn't care about you a lot."
I laughed and pulled away. "I'm so sorry about that. My parents can be pushy, Mother especially, though Daddy is often her willing lackey."
We laughed together as I went to the kitchen to change my wrist bandages, Clara following close behind.
"I originally came over to see if you were okay," she said. "You weren't answering your phone. Of course, I thought that you needed time to speak with your parents, but Summer was in a panic, because you’d stopped answering your text messages."
"It's partially Summer's fault I wasn't answering my messages. Mother took my phone because I was texting Summer while I was talking to her."
I found the wrist brace my mother had left out for me. It was an adjustable slip-on brace, which fit very well and was less bulky than the bandages had been. I wiggled my fingers in satisfaction.
"This feels much better than the bandage. I think I can manage driving, now. Do you mind walking with me to school, so I can fetch my car?"
"Of course I don't," she said pleasantly.
I took my purse from the kitchen table, where I'd left it the night before, and we went outside. The weather was cool, though the sun shone brightly, and the breeze was very slight. The light had that particular, golden quality which only occurs on an early fall day. Clara watched the sky and trees as we walked, with a look of contentment on her face as she became lost in her own thoughts. I didn’t wish to disturb the peaceful moment, but I also had many questions on my mind. Finally, I spoke.
"What happened last night, after I left?" I asked.
Clara closed her eyes and groaned. "Everything went wrong. First, David realized that my mom was on her way, and fled like the coward he is. Then, Giselle accused me of driving him away and started to cry. When Mom arrived, Giselle tried to convince her that she was the true victim, and that all the horrible, embarrassing things I do drove her into David's arms, because 'he's the only one who understands me.'" she said in a perfect impression of her sister's whine.
"Mom didn't believe a word of her performance
, as brilliant as it was. She didn't even get mad at me for receiving detention. She did get very angry with Giselle. They had a fight, and now Giselle is grounded for two months. Giselle won't stop complaining about how unfair it is, and how I should be the one being punished."
"Life can be such a travesty," I quipped.
Clara smiled appreciatively and continued.
"Summer came over not long afterward, demanding to know what had happened. The rumor mill had already started, and she was under the impression that we'd both been expelled from school for making out by the pond. I set her straight, but I'm fairly certain that the rumors will have become a lot worse when we return to school."
"I don't care," I said. "I'm sure people will be able to tell we haven't been expelled when we show up, and work out that the rumors are untrue by themselves. Even so, I don't care what people say, even if they're repeating lies told by David."
"You think he started the rumors?"
"I think he's up to something. He is the one who told Mrs. Lewis we were at the pond, and he seemed very confident, despite the obvious fact that we're together now, that he was going to get you back. Plus, Amber was upset with him, for some reason. She said that he was trying to get her to help with something she thought was wrong."
"I wish I could figure out some way to be rid of him," Clara said glumly.
"I don't think we can, unless we accept Summer's offer to murder him. In any case, I'm sure once we discover what he's plotting, we'll be able to stop him. Giselle's already grounded for two months, so perhaps his patience will be shorter than her punishment."
"I hope so," Clara said emphatically.
We approached the school, and my little red car sat alone in the vacant parking lot. Despite the cooler weather, the inside of the car was sweltering hot from sitting all morning in the sun. I rolled down the windows, and let the air conditioner cool it for a bit before Clara and I got in to drive back.
"Could I trouble you for a ride back home? It took me a long time to walk to your house."
"No trouble," I said, and pulled out of the parking lot. "By the way, what did Mother and Daddy say to you while I was banished?"
"They didn't say much at all, except to ask me questions about myself. I told them about myself, my family, my artwork, and told them how my mom reacted to my coming out. I thought they'd mostly be interested in that, but they seemed uncomfortable with the topic."
"Why do I feel like my parents have an ulterior motive?" I asked. "They seem to want to talk one moment, and become avoidant the next. My mother tends to hide things from me, for my 'own good.' "
"I wouldn't worry about it, too much. They just need time to accept this, that's all."
Clara's words were very reasonable, but I couldn't get rid of the suspicion that my parents’ strange behavior aroused. I sincerely hoped that my parents would talk to Aunt Elizabeth soon, and that she would be able to help them accept me for who I was.
#
Then next morning, after the late church service was over, my parents took me to the pastor's study, so I could talk to him about my sexual orientation. The talk was not as uncomfortable as I thought it would be. Pastor Brown could see that I had few moral conflicts with my sexuality, and he seemed reluctant to force his point of view on me. He merely said that if my conscience told me to follow a certain lifestyle, then that was between me and my creator. He pointed out one or two bible verses which spoke against homosexuality, but said that many people interpreted such passages in different ways. I was grateful that he so understood, and wondered how my parents would react when I told them of his counsel.
When I left the office, I walked through the sanctuary so I could meet my parents in the front parking lot, but Amber was there, waiting for me. She was standing in a patch of multicolored light cast by the butterfly shaped stained-glass window, her eyes lifted as though in solemn prayer. When she saw me, though, her face lost all of its serenity, and she motioned to me, scowling.
As I approached, I could see that Amber's eyes and nose were red, as though she'd been crying. She was wringing her hands as she looked at me, her eyes wide with desperation.
"Miranda, I-" she hesitated, then lowered her eyes and stared at the ground.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
"Am I okay?" she asked incredulously, with a mirthless laugh. "I'm fine. I'm a horrible person who deserves to go to hell, but otherwise I'm peachy. I'm not the one you should worry about.”
"I don't understand."
"David got me to help him. I'm sorry, Miranda. I wish I hadn't. I wish I knew right from wrong. I wish I weren't so easily manipulated."
"What did you do?" I asked coldly, despite the small amount of compassion her obvious distress evoked.
Amber faltered and took a step away from me, backing into the shadows behind the circle of colored light she'd been standing in. "David loves Clara, you know. He's been trying to scare you away from her, but you're too brave for your own good. He's started to spread rumors about you- rumors that go way beyond what you and Clara were caught doing behind the school. He's told everyone about your brother's suicide, and that insanity runs in your family."
I took a step toward her to show that I wasn't afraid. The light from the window hit my eyes, blinding me for a moment, but I spoke steadily. "I'm not ashamed of Mark, and I don't care who knows about his death. He wasn't insane. He simply needed help, and we failed to get it for him. I don't care about vicious gossip. I know the truth."
"You don't understand," Amber said, almost pleading. "This goes beyond the stupid rumors. He wants to get rid of you, and he's doing a lot of other things to make sure that, one way or another, you won't be a threat to him anymore."
"If spreading rumors is the worst he can think to do, I don't think I have much to fear," I said.
"At first, that's all he thought it would take," she admitted. "He tried to scare you away from Clara with slander. He got me to tell you all sorts of awful things about her, and I did, that day I was at your house, but you wouldn't listen."
"Of course I wouldn't," I said with contempt.
"So then he thought we'd scare Clara away from you. He started to date Giselle, thinking he could scare Clara that way. Giselle told him how guilty Clara felt about her feelings for you, and that Summer had given her a tarot card reading that frightened her so much that she became ill. Yesterday, he told me that he’d had Giselle steal the cards so he could use them to threaten you."
"It's a good thing that Clara is so clever that she knew Giselle was behind it," I said, feeling a pang of guilt at my suspicions that Jason had been behind the whole thing.
"When that didn’t work, he decided that he needed to know more about you, so he could learn the best way to get rid of you," she continued. "He asked my mom and me all about your family."
"You're the one who told him about my brother, and helped spread rumors about our supposed family madness?"
Amber lowered her eyes in guilt. "Yes. I told you, he makes too much sense to me when I'm sober."
"Take responsibility for your own actions," I said. "Follow your own conscience. I won't feel sorry for you, just because you let yourself be bullied into doing things you know are wrong."
Amber sighed plaintively, and said, "I told you; I don't know right from wrong at all. David knows that, and uses it against me. You haven't even heard half of what I've done, but you need to know, while there’s still time. I-"
She never got the chance to finish her sentence, because the sanctuary doors opened then, and Amber's mother and my mother stepped through.
"What are you still doing here?" Amber's mother snapped. "We'll be late for brunch with the Andersens. Get in the car now."
Amber jumped like a startled rabbit and ran out the door and past her mother, not even looking back to tell me goodbye.
"I'm sorry about that," Mrs. Cooper said in a saccharine voice to me. "Sometimes she forgets her manners. She's a very careless girl."
"It's oka
y," I said quietly.
"Are you ready to go?" Mother asked me.
"Yes," I said.
"I'll see you at the fall festival," Mrs. Cooper called to Mother as we left the sanctuary.
"I'm sorry I was late," I told mother when we got to the car. "Amber seemed to have something important to tell me. I suppose it doesn't matter. She tends toward melodrama, so it was probably nothing."
Mother nodded distractedly. "How was your talk with Pastor Browne?" she asked.
"It was fine," I said. "He's a very nice man."
"He is," she said. "He's very knowledgeable, too. What did he say to you?"
"Mother, I'm surprised at you," I said in mock reproach. "Counseling sessions are supposed to be confidential."
"Miranda-"
"It's okay. He just asked me how I felt, explained the church's stance on homosexuality, and explained some of the arguments on both sides of the issue. It was no big deal."
Mother sighed, and I could tell that she wanted to argue that the matter was a big deal, but she stayed silent as we drove home. I almost wished that she would argue with me, because her silence frightened me more than any argument or scolding could.
#
The next day at school was surreal. I could tell that Amber had told the truth about the rumors David had spread, because I got fewer snide remarks about my relationship with Clara than I did fearful, sidelong glances. Many people seemed to speak to me more carefully than usual, as though if they said the wrong thing, I would have a mental breakdown.
"You could actually get this to work in your favor, if you wanted," Summer said that afternoon, after she, Chad, Clara and I were released from detention. Summer and Chad were regulars in detention; Summer for talking in class and Chad for tardiness. They didn't seem to mind, and were even cheerful as we walked to the nearly-empty parking lot.
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