“How long have you known that you’re gay?”
“I think my whole life.”
I grunted, shaking my head. “Yet you married Dad and had me. Why?”
“Because it’s a sin. Against God’s will. That’s what I thought at the time. That’s what you’re thinking. That’s what you’ve been brainwashed into thinking.”
“Let me rephrase.” I forced myself to look at her with her wet hair, baggy sweats, and fitted tee. “When did you stop caring? Stop caring that it’s a sin? Stopped caring about Dad? Stopped caring about our family?”
“Those are unfair questions.”
“Oh?” I canted my head. “What are fair questions?”
“Ask me when I decided to honor who I am? Ask me when I decided I could love myself and love you?”
After a few silent seconds, I rubbed my lips together and shrugged a shoulder. “Well? What are your answers to those questions?”
She hugged her arms to herself and stared at her bare feet. “I met Rose when you were ten. She literally walked in off the street to see if I had time to trim her bangs. I was booked solid that day. I didn’t have time to pee. But I couldn’t say no because I knew … with one look I knew … she was the piece of me that I’d hidden and suppressed my whole life.
“So I cut her bangs. And she came back the following week for a full cut. Then she scheduled a highlight. Then she just showed up one day with a plate of cookies. That led to lunch. Then meeting at the same coffee shop every morning for coffee. A movie here. A concert there. We became friends. She was married and so was I. And I remember the day I was going to say something to her, confront the elephant in the room. I’d worked it out in my head a million times. Maybe I didn’t know what it would mean for my family or her marriage, but I knew even if it didn’t change any of that, it would change me on a cellular level. I knew it would be the most honest moment of my life.”
I didn’t care. I told myself I didn’t care. She lied to Dad. She lied to me. It felt unforgivable, yet I found myself asking her, “What happened?”
Rory glanced up at me. “Well, she had something to say to me that day too. And from the pain in her expression, I thought it was the something I wanted to tell her. The ‘I love you, but I don’t think we can be together, but I just need to tell you.’ I knew … I just knew that’s what I saw in her eyes. But it wasn’t, not that day. No. She needed to tell me she had stage three colon cancer, and her husband was leaving her because he didn’t have the strength to watch her die. She needed someone to take her to treatments and doctor appointments.”
I don’t care. I don’t care.
“And you did?”
She nodded. “I did. Then I drove her here, to Colorado, right after they legalized marijuana. It helped her a lot.” Rory’s lips turned into a sad smile as she averted her gaze. “It helped me a lot. It made dealing with my reality a little less stressful, dealing with the possibility of losing Rose a little less painful. Then one day Rose decided to grow her own, in the very illegal state of Nebraska, but she didn’t have a great place to do it. So I suggested we use the back room of my salon. No one besides me ever went back there. For years all that had been back there were some old chairs, cracked sinks, and expired products. A few tables and grow lamps and we were growing our own marijuana. No more tiring trips to Colorado. No more paying for something we grew on our own for pennies.”
She chuckled, running a hand through her wet hair. “It was stupid. Most things people do in the name of love are stupid. I never thought about getting caught. I was too busy worrying about Rose. Besides … who would ever think to look in the back of my salon? I was a mom with a child and husband. We went to church every weekend, never cheated on our taxes. I hadn’t ever received as much as a parking ticket in my life.”
“Dad said it was a break-in.”
Rory nodded. “Yes, in the middle of the night, someone broke into my salon. The security alarms went off and whoever broke in didn’t stick around. But the cops came and that’s how my world shattered. I lost your dad. My freedom. Five years with you. And according to her doctors, it was unlikely Rose would make it to see me get out of prison. But she did. She made a full recovery.”