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“It can’t be true,” Jr repeated, looking over the letter again and again. “I was there when he was born.”
“Well, evidently, you weren’t there when he was conceived,” May said. “And you know what else? I want a divorce.”
“May, don’t say something you’ll regret,” Jr said passively.
“All these years, I thought you were leading me and that I needed you for something. That I had to be here because nobody else would want me. But you know, after reading those results, I realized that all these years I’ve been letting a fool lead me around. And only a fool lets another fool lead.”
May threw her napkin on the table. She got up from her seat and nodded to me.
“I’m thinking about myself now,” she said. “And I’m not going to be a fool anymore.”
“May, don’t leave,” my mother said, but this was only to May’s back as she walked away from the table without looking back.
Jr just sat there with a vacant carelessness in his eyes.
“See what you did?” my mother cried to him as she got up from her seat, too. “You see?”
“I didn’t do anything, Mama,” he said flatly. “I was just being my father’s son.” He looked at her. “Maybe you should try looking at him for a change, because he made us how we are ... all of us.” He looked at me and through the corner of my eyes I saw my mother walk slowly from the table.
“You didn’t have to do this,” I said to Jr. “Not like this.” I started crying and looked around the table to see that we were alone. Everything had changed. Justin had started it by saying he wasn’t who we thought he was ... and now I wasn’t sure who any of us were ... not really.
In the house, I found my mother sitting in her tea chair in the living room. It was where she always sat when she wanted to think and be alone, to plan, to pray.
“Your brother,” she said as I sat in the chair beside her, “he took his bag. I should’ve stopped him... . Should’ve said something. He can’t drive like that.”
“He’ll be fine, Mama,” I said, still parsing out what he’d told us. And it was strange because I wasn’t really that surprised. Yes, I wondered what had led him to make such a big decision, but in a way, I was happy for him. He looked happy. He looked good. But it would be a long time before any of us truly accepted him. “Justin knows how to take care of himself.”
“He was always a good boy. Never asked for anything. And the one time he does, I let your father just throw him out.” She was holding a napkin in her hand, but she’d stopped crying. Instead of sadness, I saw anger in her eyes now.
“Was what Jr said about Daddy true?” I asked carefully. She didn’t look at me. “Oh, God. How could he? How could he lie to us like that? All that stuff about what we can and can’t do in this house ... in our lives ... and he was lying all along.”
“He wasn’t lying.”
“What?”
“I knew. What do you think, I’m blind?” My mother looked at me quizzically. “I always knew about him and Iris Newsome. Always. And when Jack was born ... just months before I was due with Jr, I just knew.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you leave him, Mama?”
“Leave? You don’t just leave. Your father and I had plans,” she said with her voice demanding and grim. “I knew what we could be together. What we could build. And that he loved me. He always loved me more than he loved any of them. Just like Jr, your father’s just the
kind of man who needs an audience. If he doesn’t have a crowd of people following him, he feels empty. One person isn’t enough. That’s just his way. I can’t leave him for that.”
“But what about the divorce?”
“Divorce?”
“Yeah, when I saw you talking to Deacon Gresham when we had lunch,” I said. “He’s a divorce attorney.. . . I thought maybe you were thinking of leaving Daddy.”
My mother looked off in a way that churned the bile in my stomach again.
“No, Mama,” I said. “I know that’s not it. Don’t tell me that’s it. Not that ...”
“Timothy came to me when I had no one to go to.”
“No, Mama,” I cried. “But you can’t. Not with everything you’ve said to me about marriage and love and accepting who I was and where I’m at ...”
“Marriage is hard, Journey,” she said. “It’s very hard. And you have to work at it to stay. To keep it together. Nothing is perfect. You need to learn that.”
