It wasn’t wrong to be a lesbian. Of course not. This was the twenty-first century. Being a lesbian was perfectly fine, if you happened to be one.
Anne just wasn’t anything like those women.
She replenished her glass.
“What I think Mom is saying,” Brooke interjected, “is that she has really intense feelings for Sadie, and she wants to be around Sadie all the time, and she can’t stop thinking about Sadie, and she’d do gross things just to make Sadie happy, and she’s realized that she can’t live without Sadie, and that talking about it even a little makes her cry in an extremely public place, but all that doesn’t mean she’sinlove with Sadie. Right?”
At least one of Anne’s daughters was able to frame this reasonably. “Yes. Thank you, Brooke.”
“Okay,” Brooke continued, “but see, Mom, the thing is? To me, all of that sounds exactly like being in love.”
Under her breath, Claire sang, “Mom and Sadie, sitting in a tree. D-E-N-Y-I-N-G.”
“Nothelpful, Claire,” Brooke snapped.
Anne pressed her lips together before remembering she had on a fresh coat of Dior Addict. “Never mind all that. I just—I don’t know what Sadie meant by saying she can’t live withoutme. And I need to figure that out. So either help me or you both can just go home.”
“All right, fine,” Brooke said. “I haven’t had nearly enough wine to get Kaisley’s screams out of my ears, so going home isn’t happening for at least another glass. Whatexactlydid Sadie tell you? There’s a big difference between ‘I don’t want to live without you’ and ‘I can’t live without you.’”
“No, it wasn’t just ‘I don’t want to live without you.’ She told me ‘I can’t live without you.’ Word for word. I can’t forget it.”
Brooke and Claire exchanged another look, the kind that always made Anne feel shut out, and then Claire tented her fingers on the table. “Okay. Was it ‘I can’t live without you’ like ‘I’m too used to borrowing your measuring cups whenever I make tzimmes cake for Torah study’ or ‘I can’t live without you’ like ‘I would rather cover my house inLive, Laugh, Lovesigns than be somewhere where I couldn’t gaze at your impossibly symmetrical face at least once a day?’”
Miserably, Anne said, “I don’t know. But Sadie really does hate inspirational slogans.”
“And youlooovethat about her,” Claire crooned. “YouloooveSadie.”
With effort, Anne resisted the temptation to cover her face. “Claire, you’re thirty-three and a designer for a luxury brand. Act like it.”
“Iamacting like it. Childish teasing is a perfectly respectable fashion accessory.”
“Have you tried just asking Sadie what she meant?” Brooke inquired. “I know healthy communication isn’t how this family handles things, but there’s a first time for everything.”
“Oh, sure.” Anne threw up her hands. “So I’m supposed to just walk up to her and say, what? ‘Sadie, I never would’ve thought of combining a black velvet choker with a purple bouclé vintage Chanel jacket, but somehow you make it work beautifully. Bythe way, when you told me you couldn’t live without me, what exactly did you mean by that? Because I’ve just realized that I can’t live without you either, and I need you to tell me what that means soIknow what it means, and then maybe I can stop feeling so fucking terrified and start living my life again like a normal person whose best friend just happens to have a bigger wig collection than a spy with alopecia.’ How about I do that?”
“Great,” Claire said. “Yeah, everything you just said sounds incredibly chill and totally not like you’re in love with Sadie at all. You know, maybe in a couple years, I’ll write a sequel toHeather Has Two Mommiesand call itClaire Has Four Parents, and They’re All Gay, All of Them.”
“You don’t have to be in love to have strong feelings about someone!” Anne cast around for an example. “What about those New England women in the 1800s? The ones who lived with each other because their friendships were more important than men?”
“Right. Boston marriages. By the way, Mom, most of those New England women were clamming each other’s chowder behind closed doors.”
“Okay, time out,” Brooke interrupted, glaring daggers at Claire. “Mom, I really think you should just do whatever makes you happy. No matter what, we’ll support you, just like we support Dad. Right, Claire? We’re going to be supportive?”
Claire sighed. “Obviously. Look, Mom. I sort of…you know…” She gestured vaguely in Anne’s direction. “…that whole love thing. About you.”
“Thank you,” Anne said dryly. “I sort of ‘that whole love thing’ about you, too.”
“What I’m trying to say is—look, Brooke and I, we really can’t tell you what Sadie meant or what you mean. Or what either of you want, or who you are. Maybe you’re gay—stop, Mom; let me finish.Or, maybe you’re bi, or asexual, or you’re straightand Sadie’s your platonic life partner, I don’t know. The point is, figuring that out isn’t up to us. So you should probably spend some time on your own thinking about what you want. Emotionally. And physically. Please don’t make me be any more specific than that. Not—” She made a large circle with her hand that included the table, herself, and Brooke. “Not here. Think about it far away, at home, by yourself, where you’ve got some privacy. Okay?”
“All right. Fine.” Anne would gladly take the conversational exit route being offered.
The rest of lunch was surprisingly agreeable, given the intensity of the first half hour. They ordered their food and a second bottle of wine, once the waiter got brave enough to come back, and Anne even managed to refrain from any additional comments on Claire’s dubious life choices. But even though the discussion turned to Brooke’s plans to rejoin the workforce once Kaisley was old enough for preschool and Claire’s prediction for that fall’s pattern trend—houndstooth, apparently—Anne found herself drifting into unprompted memories.
Three years ago, just after a mild midnight earthquake, a panicked Sadie had banged on the front door, needing reassurance and company. She’d joined Anne in bed before Anne could find the words to protest and had fallen asleep within minutes. Anne hadn’t.
In the small hours before dawn, she’d been pulled back into semiconsciousness with the warm length of Sadie pressed up against her back. She’d kept her eyes closed, stayed still, and felt something unnamed and heated and restless crawling through her body. Told herself that it was perfectly normal to feel strange this close to someone; that moving away would be a kind of confession.
She’d fallen asleep again before she’d asked herself what she’d be confessing.