by Julia Watts
Today, as we observe Charlotte’s passing, I urge you all to think: If Jesus took you today, where would you spend eternity?”
Lily heard Ida’s sobs. No doubt she was contemplating her sinful lesbian daughter frying extra-crispy in the fires of hell. Lily had no doubt that Charlotte’s sinfulness was the not-so-subtle subtext of the rev’s little sermon. What made it all the more irritating was his delivery. For some reason, Lily didn’t object to the loud-mouthed hellfire-and-brimstone preachers as much as preachers like Mr. Calvary Baptist here. While the ideas he expressed were the same old damnation-and-judgment mambo, he spoke in sweet, subdued tones with a simper on his face that Lily longed to slap off. The only thing worse than regular hellfire and brimstone, Lily decided, was candy-coated hellfire and brimstone.
Lily spaced out for a few comparatively pleasant minutes, but when her attention returned to the gray three-piece suit behind the podium, he said, “And now, we’re going to hear from somebody who holds our dearly departed in a very special place in his heart. I ask you: What can be more tender, more protective and sweet than a big brother’s love for his little sister? Michael Charles Maycomb, won’t you come up and say a few words?”
Mike? Lily nearly dropped the baby off her lap in shock. According to Charlotte, Mike had been intent on making Charlotte’s life as unpleasant as possible from the moment she was born. When Charlotte was an infant, her baby skin was covered with bruises from where Mike used to pinch her when nobody was looking. When she was a little girl, Mike took the axe from the toolshed and chopped her new red wagon into splinters. When, as a young adolescent, Charlotte began to develop at a rapid rate, Mike insisted on calling her “Jugs.” And this was only the stuff Charlotte had told Lily about. No matter what Mike did when they were growing up, Charlotte told Lily, her parents dismissed it with clichés like,
“Boys will be boys.”
Now Mike was president of the Cobb County chapter of the Lord’s Lieutenants, an all-male Christian paramilitary organization devoted to preserving traditional Christian values, particularly as they pertain to the submission of women. Prior to her death, Charlotte only saw Mike at unavoidable family occasions. Once, Charlotte had told Lily, Mike had cornered her and told her how being the liberal she was, she should appreciate the Lord’s Lieutenants because they happily accepted black, Latino, and Asian men into their ranks. Charlotte had replied, “How beautiful ... all races, creeds, and colors united in the spirit of misogyny.”
Charlotte told Lily afterward that she was sure this comment would have really pissed Mike off, if he had known what the word misogyny meant.
And so it was Mike whom the Maycombs had decided would memorialize Charlotte. It was fitting, in a perverse way. They never understood her while she was alive. Why should they understand her now that she was dead?
Mike stood at the lectern in his gray three-piece suit (What is it with the gray three-piece suits in this church? Lily wondered), his ash-blond hair combed over his bald spot. “Charlotte always did love reading literature and stuff like that,” he began, “so I’ve composed a poem in her honor.”
Dear god, no, Lily thought.
He cleared his throat and began. “It’s called, ‘My Sister’.” He began reading in the sing-song rhythm that the marginally literate feel is integral to poetry:
When I was a boy, God looked down and saw me at my play.
He said, “This boy needs a friend to help him on his way.” That’s why, I think, he saw fit to send you to me—
A little baby sister—as sweet as sweet could be.
I used to stand and watch you as in your crib you laid.
As time went by and you grew some, in the yard we played.
More time went by, and I admit, I was surprised to see
The educated lady that you turned out to be.
Now the Lord has taken you, and as we together pray,
There’s something I have never said that I want to say.
Although I’ve never said it, please know that it is true, When I say these three words, my sister: I...
Then a miracle occurred. Well, the closest thing to a miracle this church would see anyway. As Lily held the suddenly restless Mimi on her lap, she detected warmth and movement emanating from the child’s diaper. Hallelujah! Lily thought. The child hath pooped! Now I have a socially acceptable reason to bolt from this debacle of a memorial service.
Just then, Mimi emitted an eardrum-shattering wail. Given the nature of Mike’s poem, Lily wasn’t sure if Mimi was crying because of her soiled diaper or because she was a budding literary critic.
When Lily carried Mimi into the ladies’ room, she was dismayed to discover that it was not equipped with a changing table. Great, she thought, all this talk of family values in this church, and they don’t even give me a place to change a poopy diaper. She changed Mimi awkwardly on the counter, and then noticed that the large mirror above the counter protruded two or three inches from the wall. Instead of throwing the dirty diaper into the trash like a good girl, she slam-dunked it so it wedged between the mirror and the wall. By tomorrow morning’s service, that diaper would be stinking up the place pretty good, and they’d go nuts trying to figure out where the smell was coming from.
Lily reentered the sanctuary just in time to hear the rev suggest that they all join in singing “How Great Thou Art,” since it had been “one of Charlotte’s favorites.” To the best of Lily’s memory, Charlotte’s favorite song had been Patti Smith’s version of “Gloria.”
As soon as the service was over, Ida made a bee-line for Lily. “There’s my little precious!” she squealed at Mimi. “There’s Grandma’s little angel!”
“Gamma!” Mimi sprang into Ida’s arms, and Ida carried her away without even acknowledging Lily’s presence.
Lily watched as Ida showed Mimi off to her church friends. As she watched the bald men and shampooed-and-set women coo over her daughter, Lily was reminded of that scene in Rosemary’s Baby where Rosemary discovers all the wrinkled old Satanists keeping watch over her baby’s black bassinet.
Five minutes, she thought. They can fuss over Mimi for exactly five minutes, but then we’ve got to get out of here before I turn into a pumpkin or a pillar of salt or something.
She watched the seconds tick by on her Timex, gnawed her already nubby fingernails, and thought how much Charlotte would have hated this whole thing. As she approached Ida and one of her church-lady friends, she heard the friend say, “Cremated? Really? Well, of course, I would just never feel right about being cremated, but Charlotte always was” —she stiffened when she saw Lily — “different.”
“Mama!” Mimi called when she saw Lily. Lily was sure it wasn’t her imagination that both Ida and her sour-faced friend cringed.
“I guess we’d better be taking off,” Lily said.
“Ooh, can’t this precious angel stay with her grandma just a few teeny-weeny minutes?”
Great, make me the bad guy, Lily thought. “Well, it is getting to be her dinnertime ...”
“Oh, all right,” Ida sighed, careful to hand over Mimi without making any physical contact with Lily —wouldn’t want to catch those lesbian cooties. “But I think the boys had something they wanted to talk to you about before you left.” She looked around in that desperate, dithering way she had, calling,
“Charles! Mike! Lily’s leaving!”
Charles and Mike appeared at her side. Charles nodded at Lily and said, “We’ll walk you to your car.”
Walking to the car with a large, gray-suited man on either side of her, Lily felt like she was in one of those scenes in a movie in which the mobsters politely escort their victim to a car with the destination of a deserted warehouse where no one can hear the screams.
When they reached her car, Charles said, “We didn’t want to say anything at the reading of the will
— didn’t want to make a scene. We know how upset you were— how upset we all were.” His tone was gentle, calm. “But we just wanted to
let you know today, Mike here’s been talking to some attorneys who are in the Lord’s Lieutenants with him—”
“Attorneys?” Lily’s stomach tied itself into a Gordian knot.
“Yes,” Mike said. “You see, we just don’t feel that a young lady on her own ... a young lady such as yourself, with no blood ties to Mimi whatsoever ... what kind of parent could you possibly be?”
“I’ve been a damned good one for the past thirteen months.” She ran her hand through her hair, which loosened her bun and made her dreadlocks fall loose on her shoulders. “Look, I don’t have to justify myself to you. You read Charlotte’s will the same as I did. If you loved Charlotte at all, you’d respect her wishes.”
Charles’s tone was irritatingly even. “We loved Charlotte very much. It’s just that we don’t feel she was capable of understanding what is best for her child. She was blinded by her ... her ...”
“Her sickness,” Mike finished helpfully.
Lily set Mimi in her car seat and spun around to face her enemies. “Her sickness, huh? Let me tell you, this, this, is the sick shit right here! Charlotte knew more about loving and raising a child than you fucking bigots ever did!”
“See, this is just the kind of thing we’re talking about,” Mike said calmly. “You should never use such foul language in front of a child.” He pressed a card into Lily’s fist. “If you decide you’d like to talk sensibly about this, you can speak to our attorney.”
As Charlotte and Mike walked away, Lily looked at the card in her hand: STEPHEN J.
HAMILTON, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW. Hamilton was one of the most powerful right-wingers in the state.
And all Lily had on her side were the wishes of her dead lesbian lover.
She got in the car and pounded her head against the steering wheel. That was productive, she thought. Now what the hell am I going to do?
CHAPTER 3
Lily sat on the couch with her head on Ben’s shoulder, a glass of wine in one hand and a Kleenex in the other. When she’d put Mimi to bed an hour ago, she had stood by her crib watching her sleep. Mimi was perfect in sleep — her fringe of eyelashes resting on her round cheeks, her little rosebud lips slightly parted. Lily had trembled with the fear of losing her.
Charlotte’s absence left an aching void in Lily’s life, but even the second Lily heard about the accident, she knew she would go on. She would have to, for Mimi. Without Mimi, though, Lily couldn’t even imagine a reason for waking up in the morning, for keeping up a pretense of living.
Lily could tell that Ben wasn’t used to women crying on his shoulder. He patted her in the distracted way a person who isn’t particularly fond of dogs might pat an affection-starved beagle.
“Fucking breeders,” he muttered.
“Hey,” Lily sniffed, “you promised Charlotte and me you wouldn’t use that word anymore after we decided to have the baby.”
“It’s different with queers,” Ben said. “You and Charlotte made an informed decision to become parents. Breeders litter the earth with their progeny without even giving it a thought. But even that’s not enough for them; they have to take our kids, too.”
Dez and Charlotte used to make fun of Ben’s dismal views of the plight of gays. Dez always said Ben sounded like one of the tragic homos in those 50s pulp novels with titles like Children of Twilight.
Today, though, Lily wondered if Ben’s bleak view might be valid. She sniveled some more on his Tommy Hilfiger T-shirted shoulder, even though the way he was patting her was starting to get on her nerves.
“Okay, enough of this,” Ben said abruptly. “My shoulder is falling asleep.”
Lily sat up. “Sorry, man. Didn’t mean to test the bounds of your sensitivity.”
“I’m just trying to be practical. Crying gets us nowhere. We’ve got to decide what we’re going to do.”
“Do? There’s nothing to do. I mean, I’ll hire a gay positive lawyer, and we’ll go to court and everything. But we’re doomed. Don’t you know how every single custody case involving a lesbian mom has turned out? Judges would rather see kids raised by a child-molesting serial killer than a dyke. And I’m not even Mimi’s biological mother!”
Ben rose from the couch and started pacing. “Well, it certainly is a complex problem.” He paced back and forth across the living room floor. “Hmm. Let me ask you this. You’re not bound to Atlanta for any reason, are you? I mean ... you could do your work somewhere else, right?”
Lily was the author and illustrator of several books for children. As long as she had her drawing board, she, could work anywhere. Of course, the past couple of weeks, she hadn’t felt much like working.
“Sure... I guess I could go somewhere else.” She tried to picture herself and Mimi and Ben on a cross-country trek, hiding from the Maycombs. “But Ben, I don’t think we can run away from this, and if you’ll forgive me for saying so, you don’t exactly strike me as the Thelma and Louise type.”
“You’re right on that count. All I could think about the whole time I was watching that movie was how long it had been since those girls had taken a shower.” He paced some more in silence, then asked,
“What kind of relationship do you have with your family?”
“Not much of one. Mom and Dad are divorced. Dad and I exchange Christmas and birthday cards, and that’s about it. Mom and I have lunch every couple of months or so. She tells me that I’m a grown woman and should get a decent hairstyle and take that ridiculous thing out of my nose.”
“And if you mention your private life?”
“She sticks her fingers in her ears and sings ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’ When she has no choice but to acknowledge Mimi, she refers to her as ‘your friend’s daughter.’ ”
“Well, obviously we’re not gonna get much help on that front.”
Lily poured another glass of wine. “Ben, nobody’s gonna help us except other queers, and nobody’s gonna listen to them anyway ’cause ... well, they’re a bunch of queers.” She slammed her wineglass so hard on the coffee table that the base broke, nicking her index finger. “Goddamn it!” She stuck her finger in her mouth and sucked.
“Are you okay?”
“No, I am most certainly not okay. My daughter is going to be raised by Republicans.”
Ben sat down next to her. “Lily, I need to ask you a question.”
“So ask.” The cut on her finger was almost a relief — a small dose of physical pain to distract her from the pain that mattered.
“Okay, I’m very serious here. Would you do anything to keep Mimi?”
She didn’t have to pause to think. “Yes. She’s all I have left. If anything had a chance of working, I’d try it.
“Even if it meant putting yourself in a hellish situation?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, buddy, I’m in a hellish situation right now. Stop being so damned mysterious. What are you thinking?”
Ben sighed. “Okay. My family — they drive me nuts, but they have the two things that might get us out of this situation.”
“An AK-47 and what else?”
“Better than that. They have the two things in this country that can get you out of just about any situation: money and power.”
Lily had always known that Ben was on the payroll for some family business he rarely did any work for. The way Dez had told it, Ben’s parents kept him paid off so he wouldn’t come back to his small north Georgia hometown and flaunt his homosexuality. “But from what I’ve heard from you and Dez, your family hasn’t exactly joined up with P-FLAG. Would they be willing to use their money and power to help us?”
“Under the right circumstances.”
Lily smelled compromise — an odor she hated. But she had said she would do anything to keep Mimi, and she meant it. She took a deep breath. “And what circumstances would those be?”
“Okay,” Ben began. “Suppose — just suppose for a second — that I’m actually Mimi’s biological father.”
“But we both know Dez is.”
; “For a writer, you’re not being very imaginative. Let’s say that unbeknownst to you and Dez, Charlotte and I were having an affair.”
For the first time in two full weeks, Lily laughed out loud.
“I know. It’s ridiculous. But remember: We’re cooking up a story for the breeders. They want us to be straight so badly, they’ll believe any bullshit story we come up with.”
Lily cleared her throat to stifle a giggle. “So you and Charlotte were having an affair.” She tried to imagine Charlotte and Ben locked in a passionate clench. “She was the top, obviously.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I was the top. I’m the man, aren’t I?” His voice squeaked as he defended his masculinity.