Julia Watts - Wedding Bell Blues

by Julia Watts

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And then we had Mimi, and I discovered this whole other capacity for love I didn’t even know I had. And then, getting to know you...I mean, it’s not that I love Charlotte less, but with you...I guess sometimes meeting someone can cause you to grow a new heart, too.” Lily laughed. “God, I never would’ve said something like that if I was sober.”

  “Do you mean it, though?”

  Lily thought for a moment. She had spoken just then without thinking, but she had meant what she said ... just as people usually did when they spoke without considering their words beforehand. “Yes.”

  “Then I’m glad you’re not sober.” Jack and Lily’s lips met in another long, slow kiss. When they parted, there were tears in Lily’s eyes.

  “I’m scared, Jack.”

  “I know. Whatever happens, though, I’ll take care of you.”

  Lily drifted off for a few minutes, letting herself feel almost safe in Jack’s arms. When she heard the footsteps in the hall, at first she thought it was Mordecai. But then she heard the voices: “Lil-ee! Ben! You’ve gotta be home — the door was unlocked!”

  Oh, shit. Sheila and Tracee — as always, just walking right on in whenever they felt like it.

  Lily and Jack sprang out of bed and scrambled for their clothes, sure that the boys across the hall were doing the same thing. But it was no good. The bedroom door, which they hadn’t closed all the way, swung open. Sheila’s scream at the sight of Jack and Lily rang out at the same moment as Tracee’s did when she opened the door on the boys across the hall.

  “Have you never heard of knocking?” Lily yelled, pulling on her shirt.

  “I always thought family didn’t have to knock,” Sheila said. “Of course, I thought family had nothing to hide from each other.”

  “Look,” Ben barked, standing in the hallway wearing only his jeans, “what my wife and I choose to do in the privacy of our own home—”

  “You and your ‘wife’—if you can call her that—wasn’t doing a thing together,” Tracee interrupted. “I knew there was somethin’ funny about y’all’s marriage the second I laid eyes on y’all together. I said to myself, somethin’ —”

  “Ain’t right,” Sheila finished. “Oh, I wonder what Big Daddy and Mama McGilly will have to say when they realize they bought a new car and a new house for a couple of —”

  “Queers!” Tracee finished for her. For two straight girls, they finished each other’s sentences like an old married couple.

  “Now wait just a damn minute,” Jack said, towering over the two big-haired women. “I don’t see why there’s any reason to go off and tell Benny Jack’s parents. Lily’s a good mother, and if you go off blabbering like that, she could lose her daughter.”

  “Last thing a lezzie needs is a little girl,” Sheila spat. “She’s probably already been messing with her.”

  “Now, that’s ridiculous—” Ken began.

  “No,” Tracee interrupted. “This is ridiculous. Come on, Sheila, we’re taking a drive over to the big house.”

  And they were gone.

  Jack punched the wall with the fist she had balled up while talking to Sheila and Tracee. “What do we do now?”

  “Nothing to do but wait for the hammer to fall,” Lily said, her voice dull and numb.

  “If I know Mother and Daddy, they’ll be over here within the hour. It would probably be a good idea if the two of you went home,” Ben said.

  “God, I feel so guilty,” Ken wailed. “If I hadn’t brought the champagne—”

  “This still could’ve happened,” Lily finished for him. “It’s not your fault.”

  Jack kissed Lily’s cheek. “Call me the second you know something.”

  Lily sighed. “I will.”

  Their lovers scurried off, and Lily and Ben sat on the couch, holding hands in despair. They hadn’t even been to the courthouse yet, but they were already awaiting their sentence.

  CHAPTER 19

  “Well, this ain’t an easy thing to talk about.” Big Ben McGilly stared into his coffee mug.

  Lily couldn’t believe she’d had the presence of mind to brew coffee. She and Ben had sat on the couch in miserable silence for twenty minutes when she had jumped up, saying, “Well, if you’re sure your parents are coming over, I might as well make some coffee.”

  She had thought it was insane as she was doing it, measuring out coffee just as she was about to lose her daughter and possibly her life. (After all, it wasn’t inconceivable that Big Ben would arrive toting a double-barreled shotgun.) But now she saw the sense of her coffee preparation. The cups gave them all something to hold in their fidgety hands, something to stare into instead of each other’s eyes.

  “No, it ain’t an easy thing to sit in your living room and talk about,” Big Ben continued. “But I reckon ya know why we’re here.” He looked over at Jeanie, who looked into her coffee cup.

  “Yes, sir,” Lily answered, when it became clear that her husband wasn’t going to say anything.

  Big Ben nodded gravely. “Sheila and Tracee was over at the house a little while ago. Now why they’d be rude enough to swing a body’s bedroom doors open is a mystery to me, but they told me what they seen. In no uncertain terms, you might say.”

  Lily looked at Ben, whose face was gray. Good god, Lily thought. He’s not just upset over Mimi; he’s upset because his parents are going to cut him off without a cent. Benny Jack McGilly is stunned into muteness at the thought of having to get a job. “Yes, sir,” Lily said to her father-in-law, figuring that since the course of events was inevitable, she might as well speed things along.

  “Now I can’t say me and Jeanie was surprised by what Sheila and Tracee said they saw,” Big Ben continued. “I reckon what surprised us was that y’all didn’t have the presence of mind to lock the front door before ya got nekkid.”

  For the first time since his parents arrived, Ben looked up. “What?”

  Jeanie set her cup down on the coffee table. “Why, Benny Jack, honey, we’ve knowed you was a homosexual since you was ten years old. And when you brought Lily home, we just kinda figgered she was one, too.”

  With a shaking hand, Lily set down her cup. “You...knew?”

  Big Ben smiled. “Honey, just ’cause we live in a little-bitty town in Georgia don’t mean we’re stupid. Benny Jack never cared nothin’ ’bout girls, and you know what they say: A tiger don’t change his stripes.”

  “So you were going to help me keep Mimi even though you knew I was a lesbian?”

  Jeanie shrugged. “Don’t see why not. You’re a good mama.”

  “And besides,” Big Ben said, “I took a real dislike to them Maycombs. Never could stand people who meddle around in their grown children’s affairs. After your younguns is out of your house, what they do is their bizness.”

  Ben was mute again, but Lily could tell it was a different kind of muteness from before — a muteness that came from the realization that in all his years, he had never given his parents enough credit for being decent, intelligent human beings.

  “Well, I’m very touched by your support,” Lily said, “but no matter how supportive you are, it won’t do us a bit of good if Sheila and Tracee go blabbing about us all over town.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about Sheila and Tracee,” Big Ben said. “I took care of them.”

  Lily thought of all those stuffed hunting trophies that littered the McGilly house. “You didn’t ... shoot them, did you?”

  Big Ben let out a big belly laugh and slapped his thigh. “Naw, honey, I didn’t shoot ’em. ’Course, I’d like the sight of my bank book a little better if I had shot ’em. I bought ’em off ... it was the easiest thing in the world. You give ’em a little money to buy somethin’ shiny with, and they’ll shut right up. They’re no better than magpies, those women. I went to the safe in the house and peeled ’em each off five thousand-dollar bills — pocket change was all it was. I told ’em if they breathed a word of what they seen at your house, that
’d be the last of my money they’d ever see.”

  Ben shook his head in wonder, and Lily rose to kiss Big Ben and Jeanie. “You’re the best father- and mother-in-law a lesbian in a sham marriage ever had.”

  The doorbell rang before Lily had a chance to sit down. She opened the door to see Granny McGilly, holding the sleeping Mimi in her arms.

  “I took her to the playground over in Callahan and ran her some,” Granny said. “Once the car started moving, she went out like a light.”

  Lily took Mimi from Granny McGilly and held her close. The little girl smelled of sunshine and sleep, and Lily inhaled deeply.

  The courtroom of the Faulkner County Courthouse did not have the polished wood sheen of courtrooms on TV shows. The once-white walls were dingy, and Lily, Ben, and Buzz Dobson were seated at a cheap folding table. Ida, Charles, and Mike Maycomb, with their Italian-suited attorney, sat at a folding table opposite of them. With its dinginess and cheap furniture, the room looked like an approximation of a courtroom for a high school production of Inherit the Wind.

  The entrance of Judge Sanders failed to fill Lily with hope. Despite the fact that he was supposedly the official property of the McGilly family, the judge’s dour expression did not inspire confidence. Stooped and scowling, he looked as ancient and stodgy as some of the living fossils on the U.S. Supreme Court.

  Judge Sanders croaked at the Maycombs’ attorney to make his opening remarks. Stephen J. Hamilton stood before the judge, wearing a suit that probably cost more than the sum total of all the clothing Lily had bought in her life. His artfully woven hair, his bronze skin — everything about him said big-shot, big-city lawyer. Lily hoped that Judge Sanders wasn’t impressed by flashy appearances.

  “Your honor,” Hamilton began, “I am here to speak today about the value of a child. Those of us in this courtroom who are parents know the joy of holding a new baby for the first time, and any good parent will tell you that a child is more precious than diamonds, more valuable than gold.” Lily watched the gold and diamond ring glint on his right hand. “The value of a happy child, a loved child, a child raised by strict but loving parents in a morally sound home, is immeasurable. These children are worth more than their weight in diamonds and gold. These children are our country’s most valuable resource, for in their tiny hands, is our future.

  “But,” Hamilton said, letting his tone grow somber. “What about the other children? Children raised in morally unfit homes? Children without a real mother and father to love them, to discipline them, to teach them right from wrong? What about these children’s future? And how will these children affect our future? Will they grow up to be criminals, drug users, moral degenerates—all because of the lack of a suitable family environment?

  “Today we are here to determine the future of one child. The child in question, Mimi Maycomb, is not yet two years old, still innocent, still reasonably untouched despite the circumstances into which she was born.

  “Children don’t ask to be born, after all. But some children are lucky. They are born to a mother and father who are married in the eyes of God and the state, a mother and father who have the spiritual, moral, and financial capability to properly care for them.” He stopped to sip from a paper cup of water, then looked up with sorrowful eyes. “Other children are not so lucky. They are born into impoverished, single-parent homes. They are born to irresponsible parents who neglect or abuse them. Or they are born into homes that are so morally degenerate that they will never learn how to follow the correct moral and spiritual paths. This last breed of children suffers from the worst type of poverty of all—moral poverty. Mimi Maycomb is one of these morally impoverished children.”

  In her seat, Lily gripped the edge of the table as though it were the safety bar on a rapidly plummeting roller coaster. She looked at Buzz Dobson sitting there in his stained and rumpled seersucker suit, with a placid, bovine expression. It was all she could do to stop herself from biting her nails.

  “Let me share with the court,” Hamilton continued, “the story of Mimi Maycomb’s birth.” He smiled, revealing a mouthful of perfectly white, capped teeth. “The story’s a little more complicated than the story of most births, so bear with me. Charles and Ida Maycomb, the fine folks sitting over there at the petitioner’s table, are the parents of the now-deceased Charlotte Maycomb. I have no idea why this happened, because I know Charles and Ida to be good parents.. . still, no matter how good a shepherd is, one of his sheep will stray. Charlotte Maycomb strayed from her parents’ guidance and entered into a homosexual relationship with the respondent, Lily McGilly, nee Fox.”

  Judge Sanders’ scowl might have been the same one he had been wearing, but Lily felt it was now directed at her. Just as she was about to resort to nail biting, she felt the comforting hand of Jeanie McGilly on her shoulder. Once again, she was overcome by the depth of the McGillys’ supportiveness. Big Ben had taken his first day off in the history of the Confederate Sock Mill to be with them at the hearing.

  “Miss Maycomb and Miss Fox,” Hamilton continued, “decided to do that which no two women can do naturally: They decided to have a child.” Hamilton paused, Lily assumed, to let this scandalous bit of information sink in. “With the use of a sperm donation, they conceived the baby through completely artificial means. And so this was the home into which Mimi Maycomb was born, a home in which homosex-yoo-ality” — he stretched the word out, making it sound extra nasty—“was the norm. A home in which both parents wore the pants in the family, and both parents were women. A home in which books and films depicting homosexual acts could be found. A home where the only regular guests were other homosexuals. A home where no definition of normality could be found.”

  Hamilton took another sip of water, then continued, “When Charlotte Maycomb died in the spring of this year, she left a will that specified that custody of Mimi should be awarded to Lily Fox, her homosexual lover. My clients, Mr. and Mrs. Maycomb, are suing Lily McGilly, née Fox, for the custody of their granddaughter, Mimi Maycomb. They regret that their daughter strayed from their teachings and believe that by raising Mimi in a loving, Christian home, both they and Mimi can have a second chance.”

  He glanced at the table where Lily, Buzz, and Ben sat. “According to Georgia state law, the court may terminate custody if the child is deprived and if the deprivation the child suffers will likely result in physical, mental, moral, or emotional harm. Mimi Maycomb is not a physically deprived child. I have no doubt that, as Mr. Dobson will tell you, her basic physical needs are provided for. But what of her moral needs? What of the need to be raised in a morally fit home in which her guardians serve as good models for her future behavior? Just as a child deprived of food lacks proper physical nourishment, Mimi Maycomb lacks proper moral nourishment. She hungers for the court to do the right thing—to put her in a home where she herself can grow up to do the right thing and to be a decent, normal young lady.

  “You’ll hear a lot of things from the respondent today. Mr. Dobson is going to tell you that by marrying Mr. Benny Jack McGilly, Lily Fox showed a desire to raise Miss Maycomb’s child in a normal, two-parent heterosexual home. He may also tell you that Mimi Maycomb is the biological child of Charlotte Maycomb and Benny Jack McGilly— a claim for which no medical proof has been offered. Through the testimony of Charlotte’s family and through the use of a piece of videotaped evidence, I intend to show that whether they are married or not, Lily McGilly and her husband of convenience cannot provide a morally fit home for Charlotte Maycomb’s daughter. The only home they can provide is one that lacks moral fiber and will ultimately harm young Mimi.

  “If the value of a child is beyond that of gold and diamonds, we would be selling Mimi short by placing her in an environment that values sodomy over Sunday school. The future of a child is in your capable hands, Your Honor, and I pray that you make the right decision.”

  Lily’s mind reeled. What was this “videotaped evidence” Hamilton had mentioned? Was it one of those loony antigay d
ocumentaries produced by the Christian right? Or—Lily shuddered—hadn’t she and Charlotte videotaped themselves having sex once? But they had erased it after they’d watched it. Hadn’t they? Lily was so busy panicking she didn’t even hear the judge ask Buzz to make his opening remarks.

  When she looked up, she saw Buzz standing before the judge in a suit that looked as if it had been slept in last night and then used as a napkin this morning.

  “Your Honor,” Buzz began, “I wanna tell you a little about my client, Lily McGilly. Mrs. McGilly is an award-winning author and illustrator of several books for children. In her hometown of Atlanta, she did a great deal of volunteer work for organizations that helped women and children. She has volunteered to teach art classes for after-school programs for underprivileged youth and has helped prepare food in soup kitchens that feed hungry children and their parents. Mrs. McGilly’s love for children is so strong that when her friend Charlotte Maycomb made up her will, she knew that Mrs. McGilly would be the best person to care for her baby girl.

  “And when Lily Fox married my other client, Mr. Benny Jack McGilly, whom we believe to be Mimi Maycomb’s biological father, they entered into marriage in the spirit of creating a stable, loving family for Mimi to grow up in. Through the testimony of members of the McGilly family, I intend to show that Mr. and Mrs. Benny Jack McGilly have created a stable, loving family. Charlotte Maycomb’s wishes should be respected.”

  “Is that all?” Judge Sanders asked.

  “Yes, Your Honor, that’ll do it,” Buzz said, returning to his seat.

  Lily had serious doubts that Buzz’s opening remarks would “do it.” Not only were they brief compared to Hamilton’s, they lacked Hamilton’s sense of theater. Also, while Hamilton’s entire argument was built on the perceived evils of homosexuality, Buzz didn’t even touch on the gay issue.

  Lily looked at Ben, whose face was an unreadable mask. He might still be under the impression that the McGilly family name would get them out of this mess, but Lily thought differently. Things looked bad.