“Yes! I’m coming
by tonight, I promise.”
“You need a shoulder to cry on? Mine is available.”
She couldn’t help but smile at his words. “I’m fine, believe it or not. We had a
great
time.” Emerald placed her notepad and favorite silver pen in her purse. “Nikki and Mya will be moving back to Maxim after this last tour of duty is over. I’m sorry we didn’t have time to swing by.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. That’s great news that they’re moving to Maxim. I wish I could’ve met her, but I know this visit was strictly about you and her. I’m proud of you, Emerald.”
“I’m proud of me, too.” She clicked off the nightstand lamp in her bedroom and made her way up the hall towards the kitchen. “So what about you, Michelle, and Joel? How’d everything go?”
“Pretty damn good,” he said. “They’re excited to meet you.”
“I look forward to it. Did you tell them about your roommate?” she teased.
“Yes, I did. Of course, Joel was pleased that he was right and Michelle was confused, still not completely buying it. She’s like me that way. You can show us somethin’ right to our damn face and we’ll deny it. I know that about myself now, and I don’t like it. I’m working on it though.”
“And you’re doing a damn good job. Speaking of which, how’s the book coming along?” She grimaced when she noticed a call cutting through. ‘
AUNT SUGAR
’ flashed on her cell phone screen. She hit ignore and continued with her conversation. “Are you finished?”
“Yes.”
“I was just kidding! Seriously? You’re pulling my leg.”
“Well, it’s not finished as in ready to go to print or anything but the first draft is complete. I want you to read some of this. I missed you…” Sloan’s voice poured over her, comforting like melting chocolate.
“I missed you, too. I can’t wait to see it. I have a lot to tell you but—” The phone beeped once again.
“Someone is tryna call you.”
“I know…” She twisted her lips.
“Go ahead and take the call. I’ll see ya tonight. I love you.”
“I love you, too. See you soon.” And then, the call ended. On a long sigh, she clicked over.
“Been tryin’ to get a hold of you all weekend! Here it is, Monday, and you are just now talking to me. I coulda been over here dead!”
…I doubt it. I saw no celebratory parades on T.V.
“Nikki was here, Sugar.”
“I know, you told me she was coming. I wanted to speak to her but you ain’t never put her on the damn phone. I tell ya one thing; I’m about sick and tired of you and her treatin’ me any ol’ kinda way. One day I’ll be dead and gone, just like my brother, and then what will you have to say for yourself?”
…I’ll say, ‘God sure is good.’
“You’re right, Sugar. I’m sorry.” Emerald rummaged through her purse, ensuring her car keys were inside, then paused. Her heart beat a bit faster when she realized her plans would have to change. “Look, I was going to wait to talk to you about this later on in the week, but I guess this is the time after all.” She glanced at the digital time on the microwave, pulled out the kitchen table chair, and plopped down onto it. A sad smile lined her face as she envisioned Nikki sitting on it…
“Time for what?” Sugar’s voice came crashing through her peace.
“There’s no other way to deal with this than by offering the truth. Nikki is—”
“Pregnant! She done let some no good son of uh gun knock ’er up. I knew it! I dreamt about fish a few weeks ago, you know…just like I told you. Who tha father? Some lowlife? What about her career? If I had to do it all over again, I would have just—”
“No, Sugar, Nikki’s not pregnant.”
“Oh… well, what is it then?”
“Nikki is gay, Sugar. My daughter is a lesbian.” Then came the moment of silence. Emerald could almost envision Sugar bowing her head in prayer, squelching a scream and trembling as if she’d seen a ghost. Perhaps Peter Jones had paid her a visit after all.
“She’s going to Hell.”
“Sugar, I’m not here for this. If you sit here on this phone and tell me my child is damned because of who she loves, I will hang up on you and you may never hear from me again.”
“But it ain’t me that said it, it’s God! The good book says—”
“The good book says, the good book says, the good book says!” Emerald’s throat instantly burned as she screamed at the top of her lungs. “The good book says a lot of things people like you don’t quote, because it’s not convenient! What about the good book saying that you, as a woman, shouldn’t be wearing slacks! I saw you sporting capris and jeans when I came to visit two summers ago.”
“But that’s—”
“The good book says you aren’t supposed to be eating pork, yet I distinctly recall a pork chop meal you proudly prepared last Sunday, with all the fixins… and what about that chitterling dinner a few weeks ago with some coleslaw on the side, or that skillet full of greasy bacon for Uncle Kirby?”
“Sleeping with the same sex is an abomination!”
“And so is cursing someone for a sin you’re not tempted by, all the while you sit up there on your holy throne looking down at everyone else, sinning away and acting like you get a pass because you’re straight!” Emerald’s chest felt as if a bunch of electric wires were attached to the damn thing, giving her energy and sucking her breath away all at the same time. “Cherry picking is what you do best! This is the attitude he had to face. This is why he lived his life like that, ’cause of
you
, his mama, his father, and everyone else in that little ass backwards town!”
Tears streamed down her face, born of anger, sorrow, and everything in between.
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“My daddy, that wonderful, good hearted, hard working man you’ve marked as a saint. James Marshall St. Claire the third was gay!”
“How
dare
you! You watch yo’ mouth! I oughta snatch your lying tongue clean out of it! Don’t you
ever
say—”
“Gay, gay, gay, gay, gay!!! Daddy was gay as the sky is blue and the grass is green and the Earth is round! Sugar, the secret is out, the charade is over, and I no longer give a shit!” Emerald snatched her purse up by the strap and hauled it clear across the room, causing it to topple over several artificial plants. “He didn’t have the heart to tell you, so he lived a lie to keep everybody else happy. He died miserable on account of everybody else! Worrying about what others would think and more importantly, how he’d be treated! He didn’t want anything to happen to me and my brother. He needed to make sure we had a roof over our heads so he kept quiet and I watched him suffer, die depressed and alone!”
Her heart broke into tiny pieces, all over again.
“Lies! You’re lyin’!”
“I’m not and you know it. Let me explain something to you. I spent this weekend enlightening my daughter as to who her grandfather was. And you know what? I had to feel the heartache all over again! The secrets I’d hidden, the ones he made me promise to take to my own grave. And I agreed to it. Not because I was ashamed of him, Sugar, but I felt sorry he was hurtin’ to the point it would’ve killed him if anyone else knew!
That’s
why I cried when she told me the truth—this when she was just a child herself.
That’s
why I cried even before her confession, ’cause deep down I already knew. I believe many parents know; we are just either in denial, or waiting…
“I wasn’t ashamed of my daughter. She thought I was, but she just didn’t understand…until
now
. Daddy made me promise to never tell nobody all those years ago, and so I didn’t, but I pray he forgives me because two nights ago, I broke my promise to him in an effort to give his granddaughter some comfort. His secrets were no longer serving a good purpose. It was time for them to be used in a more beneficial way.”
“You shut your damn mouth! My brother wasn’t no damn homosexual! Now, I don’t know what you think you know, but—”
“He was
my
father! My best friend! Why would I lie about this, Sugar? WHY?!!!”
“Because you’re hurtin’. Just ’cause Nikki is confused don’t give you the right to throw my James under the bus.”
“He was never under the bus, Sugar, ’cause he was too busy hiding in the damn closet!” Emerald shook in her seat. Sweat poured down her face and her anxiety mounted as if upon a horse. “Sugar,” she said, her voice quaking as she tried to grab her composure and squeeze it tight to her chest. “I need to talk to you, and I need you to please be quiet and listen to me. Can you please just give me ten minutes with no interruptions? If you can’t, tell me so and I’ll hang up right now.”
Sugar went silent, then said, “…Yes… I can be quiet,” she said faintly.
Emerald tapped her fingernail on the table, trying to steady her nerves. “First of all, I’m not in the business of hurting people. You know me better than that. I’m not perfect, never tried to say I was, but I am hardly a liar, nor would I have the audacity to lie about my own father, who is not here to defend himself. Now with that said, here is the truth—straight, no chaser. James, your brother, my father, was a good man. No one can dispute that as far as I’m concerned.
“The matter of who he was attracted to had little to do with his character. It didn’t change what a wonderful father, brother, and friend he was. This man had hundreds of people attend his funeral. People all over knew Daddy, and they respected him. He would never have told me what I’ve just shared with you, Aunt Sugar, but something happened that forced him to do just that.”
She took a deep breath before continuing.
“One night, I was supposed to be staying over at a friend’s house…”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for this…” Sugar interrupted, her voice low, her tone weak. A small part of Emerald felt sorry for the woman, as well as love and anger. “Go ahead… just ’cause you say it don’t make it true, but imma listen anyway.”
Emerald rolled her eyes and bit back a retort. “Here’s what happened. I came back home because I’d forgotten some magazines she and I were going to look at and she only lived a couple of blocks away, so I went back home to get them. That was our thing, skating, that dance club I used to go, the movie theater, and looking at all the fashions… stuff I really couldn’t afford but would find a way to get something similar once Daddy got paid. So anyway, I double-backed to the house. As soon as I walked inside, it was like a whole ’nother place. Instead of the lights being on and Daddy sitting there in his chair reading, on the phone or watching television, the lights were all out. I had been gone for about thirty minutes or so; forty, max. I flipped on the light in the living room and saw two empty wine glasses on the coffee table. I found that strange since Daddy rarely had company over. You know he kept to himself.”
“Yes, he just worked and came home, accordin’ to him.”
“Right. So then I got to thinking it was funny, seeing those glasses like that. I figured he was seeing some woman and hadn’t told me yet. I’d been encouraging him to get back into dating, but he’d always blow me off and tell me he didn’t have time for all of that. So I crept up the steps, not wanting to interrupt. I was prepared to tease him about it the next day, and it was hard to not laugh as I had all sorts of thoughts in my head about my straight-laced daddy having some sort of romantic interlude. I went in my room and got the magazines, tiptoeing all the way. As I was going back down the steps, careful to not make them creek, his bedroom door suddenly swung open and a man I’d never seen before came out. A naked man.”
“Oh Lord Jesus… Lord Jesus!”
“Sugar, the hardest part is over, so please calm down.”
“What’d he look like, Emerald? What did this other man look like?”
“Huh? What does it matter what he looked like?”
“Please! Just tell me.”
“Sugar, you didn’t know him. It’s not like a description would help you identify him in a lineup!” Emerald’s nerves were now completely shot; she contemplated hanging up, but she’d come too far to abandon ship.
“Tell me what he looked like!”
On a sigh, Emerald humored the woman. “It was so long ago… He was medium height, like 5’9 or so, I believe. Slender… dark brown… I remember he had real high cheekbones… He was nice looking.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“You know what…”
“Sugar, Jesus! This was over twenty years ago. I have no recollection what was going on below the waist. All I can say is a naked man was standin’ in my hallway, coming out of my father’s bedroom—and what does all of that matter anyway?”
“I want to know if my brother was throwin’ or catchin’!”
Emerald sat there for what felt like the longest, silently asking God why He’d put Sugar in her life…
“And how would me recalling his private parts let you know that, Sugar?!”
“ ’Cause if it was big, then I know my brother wouldn’t let that man run up in him like some brute that—”
“All right! That’s enough! Can I finish, please?”
A pause. “Yes.” She heard the woman sniff, as if she were fighting back tears.
“Thank you! So as I was saying, our eyes locked, me and this stranger’s. He quickly went back inside my father’s bedroom. I heard muffled talking. He then came back out with a towel wrapped around his waist, gave me a polite smile and headed to the restroom, closing and locking the door behind him. In my mind, I still didn’t understand what was going on. Wait, let me rephrase that. I
did
know what was going on, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it. Too much was happening, too soon. I think I was in a state of shock.
“Daddy came out a few seconds later. It’s like he knew I hadn’t left. I was frozen. Guess he’d waited to see if he’d hear my footsteps, the front door close or whatever, but obviously, he didn’t. The bedroom door opened once again and there he stood with his robe and house shoes on. I wondered more what was going on in his head, than focus on the confusion that swam in my own. Sugar, he said nothing to me for at least a minute or two. He could barely look at me and when he finally did, well, he looked… ashamed. Embarrassed.”
“So help you God… so help you God!” Sugar blurted.
Emerald ignored her aunt’s outburst. “I broke the silence. I told him I was leaving for the night. He nodded and told me he’d talk to me in the morning.”