“This is happening sofast. Don’t you want to take some more time to think about it? Don’t you want to be completely sure you’re right before you overturn your entire life? There might be consequences to this you haven’t even considered.”
This wasn’t the same thing as Sadie saying they shouldn’t rush into a permanent commitment. This was Brooke telling Anne that it would be better to spend days, weeks, maybe even months asking herself if she was right about wanting oxygen. “I don’t want to take ‘some more time.’ And I’ve thought about this. My God. You, you have no idea what I’ve been—howdare— ” Horribly, Anne’s voice broke on the last word. “I don’t owe you an explanation. I don’t have to spend one second justifying what I need.”
Brooke threw her hands into the air. “I’m not asking you to justify it! I’m just trying to wrap my head around how you could be so convinced about this when it seemed like you didn’t have a clue on Sunday. You don’t have to tell me every single detail,just—you’re my mom and you’re telling me you’re gay, and I’m trying to understand it. I just want to make sure you’re okay. Okay? I want you to be okay.”
The plaintive note in Brooke’s voice managed to slice through Anne’s resentment and frustration without dismantling it one bit. “Fine. After our lunch, I did some reflecting. And that reflection led to a major epiphany, I guess you could call it.”
“That’s it? That’s all I get?”
“I need you to trust me, Brooke. I’m a lesbian. I have alwaysbeena lesbian, whether or not you or I knew about it. If you can’t deal with this information like an adult, then that’s your problem to figure out, not mine, and you can go do it someplace else that isn’t this conversation.”
A long pause, and then Brooke asked, “Is this why you were always so sad?”
Anne had to fight not to inhale with shock at the question. Hadn’t she been so good at pretending all those years? Good enough that she could go weeks or months without letting herself touch the soft panic of her nameless desolation. Even James never knew back then how she’d really felt, hadn’t been able to care enough to notice. But the girls—
Oh God. What had her daughters seen?
Not trusting herself to speak yet, Anne sat down on the couch.
“When I was a kid,” Brooke continued, taking the chair opposite Anne, “I always thought it was me. Or Claire and me. I thought we weren’t right. We weren’t what you wanted, or we kept doing something wrong. And then I got older, and I figured that maybe it had something to do with Dad because you’d fight when you thought we couldn’t hear. Or you wouldn’t talk to each other at all. But after he came out, when the shock wore off—Mom, I know that was really hard for you, but I was honestly kind of relieved. Because I felt like it explained so much aboutour lives. I thought, oh,that’swhy everything was so awful. It was Dad. He was in pain for so long. Hiding from himself.”
“Everything was so awful?” Anne repeated, astonished. “Your entire childhood?”
“Not all of it. There were some good times. That trip to New York, when you took me on the carousel in Central Park, just the two of us. Claire and Dad were off somewhere. You told me that I should pick the prettiest horse because I was so pretty.”
A vague recollection of the trip struggled to the foreground of Anne’s memory, pieced together in blurry snapshots. A small hand in her own, tugging hard. Lifting up Brooke—or had it been Claire?—so she could peer into a tower viewer at the top of the Empire State Building. Stopping to buy the girls overpriced pizza at some tourist trap. Walking through an unfamiliar city she’d adored with immense and irrational feeling because it had millions of unconcerned strangers who weren’t expecting anything from Anne.
“I’m glad you have one nice memory,” she said, still a little flustered.
“I told you there were good times. It wasn’t all bad.”
“That’s a relief.”
“What I’m trying to say is that I think—maybe I was wrong. Dad wasn’t why you were so unhappy. I mean, he was part of it, but he wasn’t the only reason, was he? You were hiding from yourself, too. You were in pain, too. Oh my God.” Brooke gasped. “Mom. You were. You were in pain because you were hiding who you were. This is why. You’re just like Dad. You’ve been gay my w-whole life.God, Mom.”
Anne closed her eyes briefly, the hurt in Brooke’s voice clawing at her. “Please don’t cry.”
“You really didn’t know? You weren’t keeping this big secret from us?”
The answer was surprisingly complicated, but explaining the nuances didn’t seem possible. So Anne went with what was easier and still true. “I really didn’t know. The world was a very different place when I was young. I made the choices I made because I couldn’t let myself see there was an alternative.”
“You mean if you’d known, you might not have married Dad.”
“Brooke, there’s no point—”
“Or had us.”
She’d thought about it.
Anne would never admit this out loud to anyone, certainly not to her daughters and not even to Sadie, but the thought of a life without her children had crossed Anne’s mind. More than once.
During both pregnancies, when she’d hated the way her growing belly slowly became the domain of total strangers’ hands. When she’d been angry over how Claire’s incessant cries could make Anne’s milk leak and stain the front of her nightgown. Her frustration over having to choose between Brooke’s ballet recital and an invitation to the Academy Awards—and the guilt she’d finally felt when she’d chosen the latter, which had been about not feeling guilty. After the firstI hate youfrom a teenaged Claire, and the second, and the third, until finally she’d snapped back, “I can’t help but notice that you haven’t asked me how I feel aboutyou.” (Regretted it instantly as she’d watched Claire’s face blanch with pain.)
Anne loved her daughters. Loved them wholeheartedly, with a strength and ferocity she couldn’t have anticipated before they existed. She was immensely proud of them, even if she didn’t always understand or approve of their choices. She adored their many strengths and tried hard to accept their inevitable weaknesses. She knew for a fact that the world was a better and stronger place for their existence.
And in another life, she could have moved to New York after college.
Somewhere in Greenwich Village, maybe, where there were people like her, people who understood that this wasn’t a sickness you had but something that helped you breathe. Always Anne Harris, never Anne Lowell. She would’ve made a life around an entry-level job while she kept looking for better opportunities. Stretched her mouth into something men took for a smile, not seeing the corporate ladder rung between her teeth. At work, a package of carefully constructed lies she’d tell about her personal life, designed to fend off setups and come-ons. At home, maybe a wife in everything but recognition. Or the occasional lover to keep her nights warm. Years of long looks in small bars. She’d have known herself sooner, faster, and burned for longer.