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“But this feels like an ambush, doing it at work, where he’s not free to say what’s on his mind. He’s bound to want to yell at me.” Christy firmed her chin, lifting it with a determined glint in her eye. “He has the right to yell. He should be free to say what he wants.”
“Okay, Joan of Arc.” Sharon tried to keep her own expression neutral. Her girl was never one to pass up the opportunity to be dramatic. “Look, I agree the boy is going to have some pretty strong feelings about you, and I agree he should be able to express them. But do you think I’m going to sit by and let anyone tear into you, regardless of the reason? Well, you haven’t been paying much attention to the woman you fell in love with.” Christy’s expression softened when she tore her gaze from the house to meet Sharon’s. “People aren’t allowed to be rude, or cruel, or mean. He can say all he wants about how he feels, but you know I’m not about to let some kid—even your kid—hurl insults at you. I think making this first step here where he works is gonna be best. That way, we can get a good handle on the situation. See if he’s going to try to freak out on you. If he can keep his cool at work, then we can reasonably trust he’ll be able to stay calm away from work too.”
“Okay, good point.” Christy turned her blue eyes back toward the big house and took a couple deep breaths like she was preparing to go underwater. “This is just a quick test run. He can see me. I can see him. We’ll pick a day to meet and then be gone. Then we’ll both have time to process before we actually have to talk.” The words sounded rational, but when Christy lifted her hands from their white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, Sharon saw they weren’t just shaking; they were quaking. Her girl was terrified.
Sharon leaned across the distance separating them, took Christy’s face between her palms, and held her until blue eyes met brown. “You got this, baby girl.” She kissed soft pink lips and tasted the bubble gum Christy loved. “You’re his mother, and you’re back. It may take time, but God, sweetie, if he gives you even half a chance, he’s going to love you so much. I promise. How could he not? You’re amazing.”
“How do you do that?” Christy was looking at her with an expression of wonder on her pretty face.
“Do what?” Sharon asked.
“Make everything bad melt away.” She was gazing at her with such open adoration in her expression that Sharon felt humbled.
“I love you. Love is supposed to cancel out the bad. Or at least make it bearable.” It was Christy’s turn to touch. Sharon felt her lover’s cool, slender fingers slide up her neck and gently play with her retro chandelier earrings.
“I wouldn’t have the courage to come back here without you. Do you know that? Have I told you how much you mean to me? I wish we had met years ago. God, I wish we had met as teens. Nothing in my life made sense until you came along. My whole world was upside down until you loved me. If I had knownthiswas what love was supposed to feel like, I would have waited for you.” Those lips that looked as fresh and pink as the bubble gum they tasted of brushed against Sharon’s and made her gasp a little at the perfection of it. “Nothing compares to what you make me feel.” She kissed her again, deeper. “Nothing even comes close.” Then they were kissing in earnest, tongues and lips meshing as they clung to each other as close as the confines of the car would allow.
A loud and forceful knock on Christy’s window broke them apart with a jolt, and Sharon felt herself flush with mortification to be caught necking like a couple of reckless teens at a drive-in. Not Christy though. No, Christy had color high in her cheeks, but Sharon knew that was there from her kisses, and when she turned to face the towering figure standing on the other side of her door, the warm, knowing smile she was giving Sharon that promised more when they got home didn’t fade away.
“Do you need directions back to the highway, miss?” Though there was nothing amiss in his solemn tone, Sharon felt her back stiffen.
“No, thank you.” Christy’s answer was light and airy in contrast. “We’re not lost. I was hoping to speak with Logan for a minute. Can you let him know someone’s here?” The young man—obviously Amish from his attire—just stood there, arms down at his sides, and refused to answer for so long that she and Christy exchanged questioning looks. The guy wasn’t even bending down to look in the car like a normal person would. He just stood there ramrod-straight and silent as a robot. “Umm… we won’t keep him long, I swear. I just want to talk to him for one second.”
Silence.
“Hey!” Christy may have the patience of Job, but Sharon had little tolerance for rudeness. She leaned over Christy to peer up at the guy. “You obviously speak English. These are simple questions we’re asking here. What’s the problem?”
“There is no problem,” he said, looking taken aback at her show of aggression. “Logan is not here. I was weighing my decision on how much to tell you about where he is. That is all.”
“Oh. Okay then. Thank you.” Still feeling put off but now silly on top of it, she sent him a twitch of her lips she hoped he would interpret as a smile. Then she sat back in her seat with a shrug for Christy.
“I’m sorry we missed him. Is it his day off? Do you know where he is or when he’s due back?”
“Well, that’s the thing. It’s not his off day, no. But I couldn’t tell you when he’s due back or exactly where he is. See, Miss Andie’s water broke a while back, and I expect Logan’s still at the hospital with her and his father, but I couldn’t be sure. It’s been a couple hours.”
Sharon and Christy exchanged wide-eyed glances of concern.
“Is she due? She didn’t look that far along when we saw her.”
“No, miss,” the boy said without a change in his stoic expression. “The baby’s not supposed to be here for another couple months.”
Christy clasped her hand over Sharon’s, and the two held tight. Worry for all parties involved settled over them both like a cloud, fogging everything with a cold and clammy haze.
“Thank you for telling us,” Christy said in a soft voice, as if speaking at a normal volume would be disrespectful somehow. “If Logan comes back, would you tell him that Christy, his mom, came by?”
“Yes, miss, I’ll pass that along.” Then he turned and walked away without another word.
“He was weird,” Sharon said, staring after his dark-clad form as he rounded the corner of the house and disappeared.
“He’s just Amish,” Christy said and started the car. “He’s just different than what you’re used to is all. They’re pretty much all like that.”
“Like what?” she wanted to know. “Rude and stiff jerks?”
“No, not rude. But yeah, maybe you could call it stiff. They just don’t have what I guess you could call social skills. They pretty much are a black-and-white, clear cut, no-frills kind of people. It can seem rude, I guess. But after you get used to them, you get used to their ways too and see it’s nothing personal. They just don’t view social niceties as important.”
“If you say so.” Sharon let the subject drop as Christy started the car and headed back up the long dirt drive. She knew she was ultrasensitive to people’s reactions though. Christy didn’t understand. For Christy, who was white, young, and beautiful, life had been kind to her for the most part. Sure, her dad had been an abusive jerk and she’d been a teen mom, but people opened doors for her. They parted ways and let her go first, and she’d never been looked through and ignored by any bartender or waitstaff.
Sharon, on the other hand, had a very different past under her belt. Black, female, and gay on top of it, Sharon had felt marginalized and cut off and even invisible her entire life. She’d had the one thing Christy hadn’t though—two supportive and amazing parents who came with a whole truckload of extended family just as caring and loving as her folks. And thank God for them too, Sharon mused, because without them, who knew how she would have turned out in this crazy, angry world where in some circles she had three whopping strikes against her.
