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.”
