Anne felt nauseous. “I said that?”
“Yeah. Yeah, you did. And then you said—I remember it like it was yesterday—you said, ‘Why would a woman ever choose to look like that?’ But the way you said it, it was like there couldn’t possibly be a good answer. That fucked me up, you know. For a really, really long time.”
Nancy had pulled the wrong kind of attention, or she’d pulled attention that Anne didn’t like because it felt wrong toher. Unnerving. She hadn’t meant to stare or be rude, but she’d never seen a woman dressed in a suit exactly like a man. Not a feminine getup, but a three-piece, slim-fit navy suit with narrow lapels that might’ve been just as at home on James. ExceptJames didn’t have obvious breasts that lifted the front of his jacket, or hips and an ass that couldn’t be fully hidden from view, even under all that tailored cloth. Or eyes like Nancy’s, sharp and knowing as they’d caught Anne’s stare and held her, trembling, on a strange, hot hook without a name.
Slowly, Claire said, “I was thinking about Nancy after lunch on Sunday. I was thinking about Nancy a lot, actually. And me. And you. And what you said about her. To be specific, I was thinking about why you, my mother—a woman who’d just told me she couldn’t live without her best friend—would say something so cruel. And then I thought, well, maybe you weren’t trying to be mean. Maybe you saw something that scared you. Or”—she paused—“or maybe you saw something you liked. I don’t know; it might’ve been both.”
Anne wasn’t sure what distressed her more: the way her daughter had exposed her in just a few words, or her overpowering shame. “Claire, I—I shouldn’t have said that about Nancy, and I especially shouldn’t have said it to you. I’m so sorry. The person I was back then, she was, shewascruel, she was—angry and, and mean and hurting and—”
“Gay?” Claire asked quietly.
The breath rushed from Anne’s lungs in a single stunned gasp, and then an unplanned sob jerked out of her throat, and then another, until she was crying in earnest.
She couldn’t bring herself to look directly at Claire. Claire hated it when people cried. She’d never had any tolerance for human frailty. Anne knew exactly where she’d gotten it from.
“I need—” Anne flailed her hand over the desk, tears blurring her vision. By some miracle, she managed to find a box of tissues and yanked one out, hard. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m really, I’mfine, I’ll be—”
Claire’s chair scraped against the wooden floor.
For a good ten seconds, Anne was convinced her daughter would walk right out of the room and leave Anne alone until she calmed back down. That might be the least embarrassing option out of a series of incredibly mortifying possibilities.
Just as she took a deep breath, she felt Claire’s hand cup her shoulder.
“Mom.” The name was gentled down into softness, nearly unrecognizable. “Hey. Mom. It’s okay. I got you.”
And then she bent down and put her arms around Anne.
Anne was too shocked to move. Claire had spent her childhood struggling away from physical affection until Anne, angry and embarrassed, had stopped trying at all. They never hugged, except on those rare occasions when dire circumstances or Christmas morning made Claire impulsively affectionate.
This didn’t feel anything like an impulse. Claire held Anne so firmly, so intentionally, as if the two of them needed the exact same thing.
With a gasp, Anne twisted toward her, wrapped her arms around Claire’s waist and squeezed hard.
Neither of them moved for a long while.
Eventually, once Anne’s tears subsided, Claire spoke up. “You know I said ‘gay’ and not ‘gray,’ right? We’re not operating under some hilariously awkward misunderstanding where you burst into tears because you think I’ve finally realized you’ve been dyeing your hair for the last fifteen years?”
“I don’tdyemy hair. Imaintainthe color nature gave me. And, yes.” She lifted her head, looking up at Claire. “I heard what you said.”
“So—?”
She pulled away and found the tissue again, wiping quickly at her wet cheeks. At least she’d had the foresight to wear just a light coating of mascara today. “It’s true. I’m a lesbian.”
“Ah,” Claire said. Then, still staring at Anne, she added, “all right. That is—God, that is definitely a thing you just said.” She took a deep breath and blinked a couple of times, then seemed to steady herself. “Well. Okay.”
“Okay?” Anne was startled. “Really, Claire? You mean that?”
Claire’s tiny smile seemed bigger, somehow, than it actually was. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. Dad’s a massive homosexual, I’m enormously bi, apparently you’re a huge lesbian, and, in totally unrelated news, this year, I would personally like to renew the Lowell family holiday card tradition.”
“You don’t—? Your sister, she thought this was too fast.” It hurt still, even though Anne and Brooke had talked it out. “She thought I should take more time. You don’t agree with her?”
“Mom.” Instead of reclaiming the seat behind her desk, Claire took the other client chair next to Anne. “Bee thinks going from platinum-blonde highlights to light-blonde highlights is a drastic change. Why do you care about her opinion?”
“For the same reason,” Anne said quietly, “that I care about your opinion. Because she’s my daughter. Because you’re my daughter. And at the end of the day, while I won’t let anyone else dictate how I live my life, I’d prefer not to go through this process without the full support of my children.”
“That makes sense.” Claire tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You really want to know what I think?”
“I’m not asking for my health.”