by Riley Scott
“Mom,” she attempted to call out, but her voice cracked. She rounded the corner like a woman on a mission and found her mom in front of the stove, scooping gravy out of a pot with a ladle.
“Honey?” She turned around, a mixture of shock and joy on her face. The reminder was clear without having been spoken—Amelia didn’t come around enough. “I wasn’t expecting you, but take a seat and I’ll fix you a plate.”
Amelia let out a deep breath. “I’m not really hungry. I just came over to talk.”
“Nonsense.” Her mother was already pulling a plate out of the cabinet and slathering a biscuit with gravy. “Have a seat.” She motioned to the stools around the bar and Amelia heeded her order. “You came over during breakfast time, and I’m still not used to cooking for just your father and I, even after all these years. So there’s plenty.”
She plopped the plate down in front of Amelia. “I…” Amelia started to protest but stopped when her mom placed her hands on her hips.
“You look thin as a rail, honey, and I’m sure you haven’t already eaten. Have you?” Her no-nonsense tone hadn’t lost its edge, even without a kid in the home.
“I haven’t,” she admitted, taking the fork in her hand reluctantly. Her stomach churned, but the gravy did smell good. It smelled like home. Her mother busied herself around the kitchen, pouring Amelia a cup of coffee. She took a small bite and her stomach gurgled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten at all in over a day. Greedily she scooped another larger bite into her mouth, thankful for her mother’s home cooking.
“What brought you here today?” her mother asked, climbing up on the barstool beside Amelia. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled. It’s a pleasant surprise, but you look upset. What’s going on? Are you okay?”
As Amelia listened to her throw fastball questions, she was thankful for her mouthful of biscuits and gravy. She realized again exactly where she got her tendency to ramble.
She swallowed and took a sip of the coffee before turning to face her mother. “I need to talk to you and Dad. I have some things that I just need to talk to both of you about.”
It was the worst non-answer she had ever given in her life, but she was trying to buy herself some time. She shoved another bite of food into her mouth, licking the gravy from the fork. “This is really good.”
“Even as an adult, I have to remind you not to talk with food in your mouth?” Her mother raised an eyebrow and Amelia laughed.
Thankful to have the mood lightened for a minute, she continued to devour her breakfast. A last supper of sorts, she mused. Meanwhile, her mom had almost entirely forgotten she came over with a purpose and was rambling on about the Bible study she was leading, neighborhood gossip, and more.
“Glad you got some breakfast,” her dad’s voice boomed through the kitchen with a gleeful sound. “It’s good stuff, so eat up.”
“Are you both trying to fatten me up?” She laughed when her father walked closer, patting his belly.
“It’s worked well for me, and I’m just saying you could stand to have a few more pounds on your frame. You don’t look like you’ve been eating much.”
She gulped and set down her fork. Glancing down, she knew they were right. Eating was the least of her worries these days. She didn’t have time, didn’t feel like it, or couldn’t stand the thought of food when so much of her life was up in the air.
Whistling as he moved around the kitchen, her father poured himself a cup of coffee and set it in on the counter across from Amelia. He propped his elbows up on the opposite side of the bar and leveled his gaze. “You ready to talk about whatever’s got you down?”
Amelia opened her mouth, but words wouldn’t form. She nodded instead, taking a sip of her coffee and then clearing her throat. “I think so,” she finally managed.
She closed her eyes, ran her fingers through her hair, and took a deep breath.
“Did someone hurt you?” her mother interjected.
“Mom, please be patient.” She held up her hand and scooted her chair back from the bar a few inches. “I’m going to need some room to breathe. I’m also going to need the opportunity to pick my words.”
“We’re both patient.” Her mother jerked her head back as if she had been slapped. “Aren’t we, George? We’re patient people. What are you insinuating?”
“Mom, stop.” She glanced at her dad, silently pleading for help. He shrugged, so she turned her attention back to her mother. “What I have to say is hard for me. It’ll be hard for both of you too. Because of that, I need you to let me finish speaking before you interrupt.”
Her mother snatched her coffee cup off the counter and took a sip. Raising an eyebrow in Amelia’s direction, she nodded for her to proceed.
“Thank you.” Another deep breath served as another failure to gain composure. “Okay, here goes.”
She bit her lip and grabbed the edge of her barstool, hiding her shaking hands. “I love you both very much.” For just a second, she took in their faces and smiled. “I really love you and appreciate all you’ve done for me. That’s why it’s taken so long for us to have this conversation, to be honest. I wanted to protect you from things I wasn’t sure you could handle. I wanted to protect all three of us from losing what it is we have together.”
Her father stiffened across the table and then leaned in closer, reaching across to put a hand on her shoulder. “Honey, don’t talk like that. We can get through anything. Nothing will change who we are together—what we are.”
A single tear formed in the corner of her eye and she winced.
“Sorry I forgot the rules,” he said, casting his eyes downward. “I won’t interrupt again.”
She reached up to grab his hand on her shoulder, tightening her grip and nodding at him. His eyes widened when her cold, trembling hands touched his, but he said nothing. Tightlipped, he nodded at her. She bit her lip and glanced down. When she straightened her body, she smiled at each of them individually.
“I’m not going to belabor the point anymore. It’s too hard. So know I had a lot of lead-in, but I’m ditching it and going off the cuff.” She let out a sigh. “I’m gay.”
Her father opened his mouth but stood still, his brow furrowed. His shoulders dropped and his eyes went to the left, then the right. She glanced to her mother, whose eyebrow was raised. It looked to Amelia like it might stick that way permanently.
She brought her hands up to the counter, preparing to say something, anything, but clasped them together in front of her instead.
“Can we speak now?” her mother asked, shifting her weight in her chair and leaning forward in Amelia’s direction. Amelia nodded and her mouth went dry.
“Good.” She drug out the word, her voice far more high-pitched than normal. “I think I misunderstood you and guessing from your father’s reaction, he probably did too. Can you elaborate and maybe tell us what it is you were going to use as your lead-in, so this all makes a little more sense?”
They both wore the same confused expression. She nodded and reached for her coffee cup. Holding up her finger to signal she needed a second, she took a drink. Her nerves buzzed within her, so she set the cup back on the counter. Filling her already crazed body with caffeine wouldn’t be in her best interest. She gripped the side of the counter. “You didn’t misunderstand. What I said is true. There was going to be a more graceful lead-in, but I had to rip the Band-Aid off.”
Both her mother’s eyebrows had risen up so high they almost touched her hairline, and if looks could kill, Amelia was fairly certain she’d have been blasted off the earth that very second. Not able to look at her father, Amelia cast her eyes to the tile on the counter, focusing on the lines in the marble.
She cleared her throat. “I like women. I always have. It’s something I suppressed for a long time because it made things easier, not just for us as a family but just for me, too. It made my life easier to assume I’d just grow old by myself and be happily single forever. But that changed recently.”
“Who is she?” Her father’s voice croaked, cutting straight into her heart. It was a tone she’d only heard from him a few times in her life, mostly in moments of defeat.
Without moving her neck, she let her eyes drift up to see the tears in his eyes. “Who is she?” he asked again.
“I’ll answer that in a minute.” She looked down again. “Right now this has to be about me, because she is no longer in the picture. I don’t have someone to be the scapegoat or someone to blame for making me this way. I’ve always been this way. I just need to get that out and make that clear.” Forcing herself upright in her chair, she looked both of them in the eye. “I know this will be hard for both of you to deal with and you might need some time to think things through. I just want you both to know that it doesn’t change who I am, who I’ve always been. For years I’ve struggled with accepting it myself, and I’m finally happy. I am happy with who I am and I intend to live in that happiness, even in a town such as this.”
Her mother laughed, but the sound was devoid of humor. “It does change who you are.” Her voice remained flat, her gaze penetrating. “We will not stand for this. We will not accept this. And it changes everything.”
“It doesn’t. I’m the same me I was when you set a plate of biscuits and gravy in front of me this morning. I’m the same kid you raised and the same woman you’ve always been proud to call yours. I’m still me.”
She looked to her father, wishing he were better at hiding his inner turmoil. His face was red and scrunched, his teeth gritted together. “Dad, it’s still me.”
Swallowing hard, he looked away, opting to focus on the detailing in the woodwork of the cabinets rather than respond.
She exhaled slowly, pursing her lips. “Look, I don’t expect things to be easy at first. I will give you all some time to think about it. I just wanted you to know from me, not from someone else.”
“Who else knows?” Her father asked, still looking off in the distance.
“Currently you both and a couple of other people, but that’s probably going to change soon. It may become bigger news than I would personally care for it to become, but I wanted you to hear it from me.”
“Who?” Her father repeated his question, this time leaving no room for her to dodge it.
“If you’re asking who she was, it was Chloe Stanton.”
His head seemed to roll back over the top of his neck in an exaggerated turn in her direction. Wide-eyed and mouth agape, he stared, shaking his head.
She held up her hands in defense. “Please don’t give me that look, Dad. I know what you all said about her behind closed doors, but you know as well as I do that she was kind-hearted and full of life. She was a salt-of-the-earth type of person, and I know you think she was flawed. But the same qualities you fault her for are the ones that live in me. You liked her as a person with a ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ type of attitude, but you didn’t like her because she was gay. So am I, and I’ve been having a really hard time since she passed. We were together up until the day she was killed.”
“You do realize they are saying she was killed because she was gay, and now you’re just ready to jump on that train as well?” Her mother’s voice rose with every word, until she was shouting the question at Amelia.
“I don’t have a choice.”
“What do you mean?” Her mother stood, angrily slapping her palms against the counter and leveling her gaze. “You don’t have a choice whether you want to be gay or not, or you don’t have a choice about screaming it from the mountaintops?”
“Honestly, I don’t have a choice about either,” Amelia said, shaking her head. “I know you have always thought being gay was a choice, a temptation people give in to. But it’s not like that. I wish I had another way to explain it to you other than the fact that I’ve tried to fight it my entire life, and I’m incapable of fighting it. And no, I don’t have a choice over who knows what and when anymore, either.”
“Why’s that?” Her father’s words were clipped, his face pained but stern.
Amelia cupped her hands around her forehead. Her head throbbed from the rollercoaster of emotions she was riding. “I was with her the day she was killed. I was there that evening, but not that night. I don’t know the full details of what happened that night, and I guess we may all be trying to solve that mystery forever. But I do know, as of last night, that my fingerprints were found on a number of items around her house. Of course I know why they were. I was there…” Their pinched expressions told her they were ready for this conversation to end, but she had to press through to the end. “I was there often.” Her mother shivered and turned away in disgust. Amelia cleared her throat and continued. “I cooked her dinner that night, placing my fingerprints on the murder weapon, apparently.”
Her father’s face whitened. “They don’t think…”
“No. They don’t. At least not right now. But it is a breakthrough in their case. They know they’re not looking for another suspect. I don’t know how to explain it other than that I have to go back in for questioning at some point. They know now those were my prints. It’s complicated. But I don’t think I’m in trouble.”
“Then why would they make it public? That seems truly unnecessary.” Her father was pacing around the kitchen while he talked, wringing his hands together and devising a plan. She had seen that face a million times and knew he was working to solve her problem. “They don’t have to make that public until there’s a reason to do so. The only reason they’d need to say anything is if they thought you killed her, which you don’t think they do.”
“Dad, it’s not that easy.”
“It can be.” He turned on a heel and pointed in her direction. “I’ll make some calls. I’ll talk to Wes. He can make sure this doesn’t get into the wrong hands.”
She held up both hands in his direction. “Stop, please. It’s not a simple fix. I got a call from Mandy at the Telegram today. She’s already caught the scent of the trail. Apparently she’s been going to the detectives daily, asking for updates. She left me a voice mail telling me as much, and she already knows I was called in for questioning last night. They gave her the Cliff Notes version, and she wants the full story from me.”
“No. You’re not doing it.” Her mother’s voice was shrill. “You’re not running our family name through that. We have no reason to be named in a story about a murdered gay woman. That’s not who we are.”
Amelia rose from her seat. She wanted to hug them or offer them some comfort, but both were stiff as boards. “I wanted to give you a heads up. I’m going to do what I have to do, and I’m going to be who I am. I just wanted you to know ahead of time, rather than reading it in a newspaper, if that’s how this all shakes out. But I’ve got to get going. I’m going to go open up the bakery and get back to my day. I’m sorry if I’ve upset the balance of both of your days, but I love you both.”
Neither moved from their spots, stubbornly glued to the floor. Her father’s face looked as though it might explode, and she knew he had to be holding back a slew of things he wanted to say. “Call me when you’re ready to talk,” she added as she scurried out of the kitchen.
Only when she was in her car, halfway to the bakery, could she let out the breath she had been holding. When she did, she had to pull over to the side of the road to deal with the sob that worked its way up from her core and ripped out of her mouth, bringing with it an onslaught of tears.
Their faces, their words, their stubbornness all flashed back in her mind like a bad movie. They wouldn’t yield. She had always known as much, but she still could have never been prepared for their refusal to accept the truth.
She allowed herself time to wallow in the pain of such rejection and cry it out before flipping down the overhead mirror of her car and looking at her reflection. She wiped away the streaks of mascara and used a tissue from the console to fix her makeup. Rolling her neck from side to side, she heard the creaking of her bones and felt the pain in her shoulders. Tensio
n truly was hell on the body.
Fumbling in her purse, she pulled out her cell phone. With trembling hands, she hit the button and listened to the voice mail once more before locking her phone and putting it back in its place. She had time to decide what she wanted to do. She could opt not to comment.
Her mind went wild, wondering whether they’d construct a more heinous story without her input. Shivers went through her. She shook her arms, willing herself to get it together. She would figure it out, but first she was going to set her mind at ease making pastries and muffins and brewing some coffee for folks who would come see her—even if the news story kept them away from the shop tomorrow.
She still had today, and she would appreciate that for all it was worth.
Arriving at the bakery, her first step was to prep the ovens. Glancing at the clock, she forcefully ran her fingers through her hair. It was already six-thirty. She was going to have to move in double-time. Although she preferred to hand mix the dough, she set the automatic mixer and filled the coffeepot. She had no time for personal touches today. It was going to be a “take it or leave it” type of day.
Once she finally had everything on to mix and make, she let out a long sigh and looked around the kitchen. Everything was a mess. Dough was strewn about the counters in globs, coffee grounds littered the area underneath the large pot, and her apron was splotched with any number of things.
Ripping it off over her head, she scurried across the room and flipped the sign on the door to “Open,” before hitting play on her Pandora station. Soft jazz filled the room and she shook her head. Flipping through stations, she finally settled on Sara Bareilles radio. An unrecognizable pop song came through the speakers. She decided it was better than the angry rock she wanted. At least it would make her customers feel more at ease.