“Come on now, Mrs. McGilly,” Buzz cajoled. “We’ve not even made our argument yet. The testimony of the McGillys holds a lot of water in this town.”
Lily refused to be comforted. “Yeah, well, it’s kinda hard to compete with a man in drag shrieking,
‘We’ve come for your children!’ Did you see Judge Sanders’ face when he saw that? He turned positively gray.”
“Well, all we can do is get out there on the field and give it all we’ve got,” Buzz said.
Great, Lily thought. Super-slick Stephen Hamilton has proven our entire marriage to be a fraud, and now our lawyer thinks he’s back on the high school football team. Well, what do you expect from someone who graduated from a law school in a building that sits smack-dab between a Krystal and a Church’s Fried Chicken?
Back at the hearing, Jeanie McGilly testified that Lily was as good a mother as she had ever seen
—that she not only saw to Mimi’s basic physical needs, but also spent a great deal of time reading to her and playing with her. When Stephen Hamilton rose to cross-examine Jeanie, Lily’s stomach knotted in fear for her mother-in-law.
She needn’t have worried. When talking to Buzz, Jeanie’s demeanor had been warm and maternal, soft as the petals of a magnolia. But when she faced Hamilton, her entire presence changed until she could’ve been Joan Crawford playing a tough-as-nails businesswoman.
“Mrs. McGilly,” Hamilton smiled. “I just have to ask you... when you saw the videotape, the one with Miss Maycomb and your son and daughter-in-law and the man holding Mimi who was shouting,
‘We’ve come for your children ...’ “ He paused. “How did you feel when you saw that videotape, Mrs.
McGilly?”
Jeanie smiled a little. “Well, I didn’t laugh out loud the way my husband did, but I did think it was kinda funny. I mean ... you just had to know Dez. He didn’t mean nothing by what he was saying; he was just joking, like always. Benny Jack used to bring him down here to visit sometimes. We all just loved Dez. I cried my eyes out when I heard about the accident.”
Hamilton leaned toward her, going for maximum drama. “Did it ever occur to you that your son and Dr. Reed, or Dez, might have been ... more than just friends?”
Jeanie rolled her eyes dismissively. “Sure, it occurred to me. I ain’t blind nor stupid. But the thing is, Mr. Hamilton, after your children grow up, you still love ’em, but you leave ’em alone. Once they’re grown, you’ve done your job. They’re adults, and they’re gonna do what they wanna do.”
“But what if that behavior is harmful?”
“Benny Jack and Dez wasn’t hurting anybody that I could see.”
“And what about Mrs. McGilly?”
Jeanie blinked. “What about her?”
“Is she hurting anybody?”
“If you’re saying she’s hurting Mimi by being ... or having been gay, she most certainly is not.
She’s devoted to that child. She and Benny Jack both are. I’ve been proud of my son, seeing him
