Her posture went rigid, but she quickly deflated. “That doesn’t make it easier, Jay. It just doesn’t. I get it. I’ve taken psych classes, I work with tons of gay male nurses. But you’re thirty-six. It’s hard to get, you just… never cared.”
“I can’t go back through our entire divorce and all those things I didn’t even know were wrong. I don’t see, now, how it makes a difference. We’ve been apart emotionally and sexually for almost five years. I understood when you said you needed more. We’d both given as much as we could to each other. But who’s to say, if you hadn’t gotten pregnant, or we’d actually gone separate ways during college, I wouldn’t have found out sooner. But we can’t play the what if game anymore. The time for that was over when the ink dried a year and a half ago, longer if you count when you moved out three years ago.”
Her startled gaze met Jay’s. “You really did get all in touch with your inner self, huh?”
“Yeah,” Jay grumbled. “I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about him. But I like him a lot more than I liked the old me. Ignorant me is hard to think back on when I’m so happy.”
Bethany sighed. “I said cruel things last night.”
“You did,” Jay replied evenly.
“I was surprised.”
“I can respect that. Doesn’t mean I have to forgive some of it any time soon.”
Bethany smirked. “A gay good ole boy. How does that work?”
“I don’t think, no matter how simple I felt at times, I was ever just your average redneck, Beths.”
“You’re right. You always were kinder than the guys we grew up with. It’s one thing I liked so much about you.” She tapped her fingers on her coffee cup. “I feel like the shitty ex-wife who flew through in hysterics, making things bad, but Jay, this is a tough road to hoe. And I won’t lie, even I’m gonna take some adjusting.”
“I happen to know a good counselor.”
She snorted. “Idiot.”
“Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for Millie to go, Clint if he wants.”
She nodded. “Millie probably. She’s confused, but she’s just a little girl. She doesn’t have any point of reference. A lot like you, I suppose.”
“You’d be surprised what meeting one openly gay person did to my poor little brain.”
She frowned. “Maybe if you had long ago.”
“I don’t know,” Jay said. “I feel like I’m old enough now, I know life is do or die. Any younger and I might have been more likely to keep shoving it back. Maybe it was just the right person at the right time.”
She held up her hand. “I’m really not ready to talk about that. I’m sorry Jay, I’m just not.” She looked a bit baffled. “But when did Clint grow up? He just came in and made so much sense. Then I felt like the biggest heel that my own kids can at least roll with the punches and I’m shrieking like a soap opera villain.”
“You were surprised,” Jay reiterated charitably. He held his breath after he asked if she really intended to take the kids.
“Will you at least discuss with me before you introduce them to Landon as anything… more? And I mean if either of them is so uncomfortable they prefer living with me, I’ll not fight you, I’ll just say ‘okay.’”
Jay nodded slowly. “I can live with that.”
She started crying, but Jay didn’t reach for her. It wasn’t his place, and she didn’t seem to want him to anyway. After she wept for a while, she announced she’d go shower, then she and the kids were going to spend the day together.
“Jay? I need to not talk to you for a while, okay? Unless it’s about the kids.” She seemed on the edge of losing it, again, and Jay couldn’t tell whether it would be anger or tears, or a nasty storm of the two. He quietly watched her go.
Clint sauntered into the kitchen, fully primped and dressed, while Jay poured himself another coffee. “You’re dressed and ready awful early,” Jay observed.
Clint grunted and made his way for his own coffee cup. “I promised mom and Millie we could go to Council House over in French Camp for breakfast. On me.”
Jay scoffed. “On me, then”