home for another day before going back for his big game, the twins were both up, which was miraculous, and Anne had come downstairs only moments after them, and they all sat there now staring at Ward, as he told them that, in his eyes, Lionel would no longer exist from that day forth, that he was a homosexual and having an affair with John Wells. The girls sat and stared at him in open horror and Vanessa began to cry, but Greg looked as though he might throw up. He jumped to his feet, shouting at his Dad as Faye gripped her chair.
“That's a lie!” He said it more in defense of his old friend than his brother, who was, in some ways, a stranger to him. “That's not true.” His father looked as though he might hit him and pointed at his chair.
“Sit down and shut up. It is true. I walked in on them yesterday.” Anne's face turned to ash, and Faye felt as though her entire family, her whole life, were being destroyed. And she hated Ward for it, for what he was doing to all of them, and most of all their firstborn. “Lionel is no longer welcome in this house. As far as I'm concerned, he doesn't exist. Is that clear? You are all forbidden to see him again and if I find out you have, you're welcome to leave too. I will not support him, or see him, or speak to him ever again. Does everyone understand?” They all nodded woodenly, and all eyes were damp, and a moment later he was gone. He got in his car, and drove to Bob and Mary Wells, as Faye sat at the breakfast table staring at them all, and they stared back at her. Greg was fighting back tears, and he kept thinking of what his friends would say when they found out. It was the worst thing he could think of, and he wanted to die. Most of all he wanted to kill John Wells, the phony little shit … he should have known when he wouldn't take the scholarship to Georgia Tech … fucking fruit … he clenched his fists and looked at them all helplessly as Vanessa searched Faye's eyes.
“Is that how you feel, Mom?” Vanessa asked. There was no point asking if it was true, no matter how unbelievable it was. Their father had said he had walked in on them, and none of them could imagine anything worse. It sounded mysterious and frightening and terrible, and they all imagined obscene acts going on before his eyes, instead of two boys in front of a fire, with one's head in the other's lap. But it had all been very clear, and there was no argument now.
Faye looked at them all and then Vanessa again. She spoke in a measured, quiet voice, and she thought she had never known such pain. He had destroyed everything she had built for almost twenty years. What would happen to these children now? What would they think of Lionel? Themselves? Their father for banishing their oldest brother from their lives, their mother for letting him do it? … She had to speak up. To hell with Ward. “No. That is not how I feel. I love Lionel, just as I always have, and if that is how he feels, and what he is, and he is a decent upstanding man, no matter what his sexual preferences are,” it was time to be honest with them, “I will always stand by him. And I want you all to know that right now. Whatever you do, wherever you go, whatever mistakes you make, and whatever you become, whether it be good or bad, or something I approve of or not, I will always be your mother and your friend. You can always come to me. I will always have a place in my heart and my life and my home for you.” She went then and kissed each of them as they cried, all four of them, for the brother they had just lost at their father's hands, for the disappointment they felt, the shock of the secret revealed. It was all a little beyond their ken, but their mother's message was clear.
“Do you think Daddy will change his mind?” Val's voice was subdued, and no one had noticed Anne slip away a moment before.
“I don't know. I'll talk to him. And I suppose in time, he'll come