“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
