His mouth, the mouth that had lied so many lies, thinned. “Right. That would have worked out great.”
“You can’t wear women’s clothes in Plum Orchard? Only Atlanta allows that?”
He fisted his hand, clenched it, unclenched it. She knew that gesture. He was fighting the urge to yell. “I can’t live in Plum Orchard anymore, and you know why, Emmaline.”
“Because your girlfriend’s in Atlanta and she doesn’t like us hillbillies?”
“Leave her out of this. You know why. Because I’m a laughingstock there. What would that be like for the boys?”
“Don’t you mean what it is like for the boys?” Clifton loved them. She knew that. But while he’d gone off to try to understand what was happening to him, when he’d left on this journey to find acceptance with who he really was, he’d left everything up to her.
All the mess was hers to clean up. All the tears and nightmares were hers to soothe. And it wasn’t fair. He didn’t get to have everything he wanted when he’d made the mess.
His eyes grew softer, almost like the old Clifton. “I didn’t do this to hurt them. I never wanted to hurt them.”
“But it did, Clifton!” she whisper-yelled, leaning into the table. “If you’d spent less time sneakin’ off to find yourself, and more time thinking about what could happen to them if someone found out, none of this would have happened. No good comes from secrecy and lies. Yet, it isn’t you who’s paying the price. It’s the boys, and me. Me who has to stand by and watch them suffer because of what you did. It was selfish and cruel to think you could get away with it without any repercussions—especially comin’ from the small town we come from. Do you have any idea the things the children at school say to them about you? How they’re constantly teased?”
His spine went straight. “I won’t apologize for my lifestyle.”
“Don’t you wave that PC stick at me! Don’t you even consider accusing me of asking that of you. You don’t get to be a self-righteous jerk in the name of your lifestyle. You’re missing the whole point here. I’m not askin’ you to apologize for bein’ who you really are, Clifton. But could you have at least given us the chance to accept this side of you before you decided for us? Before you lied and cheated on not just me, but them? In the process of finding out you liked to wear women’s clothes, you were selfish. This is what happens when you think only of yourself. You get divorced and sacrifices have to be made. We’ve all made sacrifices lately. Why shouldn’t you?”
He looked down at his hands. “Clifton called me the other night.”
Em reached for a napkin to cool her flushed face. “Good. He should call his daddy.”
“No, you don’t understand. He called me and told me he wanted to come and live with me. He was crying, and there was nothing I could do about it.”
Em felt like she’d been slugged in the gut. Clifton was calling his father, reaching out when he was hurting and it wasn’t to her? “There was somethin’ you could have done about it. You could have gotten in your car and come to see him. But you won’t do that because you’re a coward. As yellow as they come. Doesn’t all this living honestly mean you face all the people you lied to when you left Plum Orchard? If you’ve made peace with who you are, who cares what everyone else thinks? It’s not like they’re waitin’ to burn you at the stake, Clifton. So folks in town will stare at you. Is being comfortable worth not answering Clifton’s call?”
But he ignored the part where he was at fault. “Clifton Junior is miserable. He hates school. He wants to come live with me.” There was almost a quiet resignation to his voice.
She didn’t know this man anymore. This man dressed like he’d shopped with his twenty-year-old girlfriend. This man with gel in his hair, and the residual stain of red polish still on his pinky finger.
Em couldn’t believe she was hearing this. “You’ll take those boys over my dead body, Clifton. I have primary custody, and that’s how it’ll stay. There’s no way they’re better off with you than they are with me.”
Clifton paused for a moment before he said, “Do you think a judge will say that when he finds out you work for a phone-sex company?”
Fear rippled up and down her spine, her tongue grew thick just like it used to when they were married. “I’m the general manager, Clifton, and I make good money. Money the boys need because their father conveniently forgets they need to eat! I don’t talk to the clients unless there’s an office problem, and you know it.”