Leslie! Welcome home!” I said in my most chipper voice. “How was your trip?”
“Hey,” she whispered and sniffed. I handed her another tissue. “It sucked.”
“Well, it is a long drive,” I said.
“Why don’t you get your poor sister a glass of water,” Momma said. “She’s been through a terrible ordeal.”
I bit my tongue. Then I took a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water from the tap. In the thirty seconds I’d been in the room, our old family paradigm was resurrected and reinstated. Our mother was the evil queen bee, Leslie was her princess, and I was Cinderella. How stupid, I thought. How stupid.
“Don’t we have anything bottled?” Leslie said.
“No. I’m afraid we’re living on love around here. No frills,” I said. “Just happy faces.”
“Now, Holly, don’t you come in here and start trouble,” Momma said.
“I never should have come home!” Leslie wailed. “Oh, God! What have I done?”
With that, Leslie took her dramatis personae exit like Joan Crawford in some angry-wronged-woman role of hers and slammed the door to her bedroom so hard, it almost jumped off the hinges.
“Well, I hope you’re happy,” Momma said.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“This is no time for sarcasm, Holly.”
“Did she tell you the whole story?”
My mother sighed so hard then that the National Weather Service issued small craft warnings.
“I imagine certain things were left out. What she did tell me is mortifying enough. Don’t you think so?”
“I guess so. I mean, if that’s what Charlie wants to do, he should go on and do it. It’s still a free country the last time I checked.”
“And I’d like to know why you didn’t tell me why she called last night. You knew it was important.”
“I probably should’ve left you a detailed note, but you know what you always say about bad news traveling fast. Besides, I thought a story of that magnitude should come from Leslie.”
“Well, I suppose you’re right, but I would’ve liked to have had time to prepare myself for the knife she twisted into my heart.” Momma had the strangest expression on her face. “In all my days, I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t disagree with her. “It’s a whopper, all right.”
She was staring at the table as though it was taking notes.
“Holly?”
“Yes?”
“Can I ask you a peculiar question?”
“Ask me anything.”
“If Charlie wants to be a woman now, but he says he still loves Leslie, does that make him a lesbian? In his head, I mean.”
I spun around on my heel and literally gasped.
“Close your jaw,” she said. “You’ll swallow a bug.”
I closed my mouth for a brief moment.
“Good grief! Momma? I don’t think he thinks he’s a woman. How should I know? I just don’t think so. I think he just likes to dress up. But I don’t know much about that stuff. I mean, I keep bees, I work at Publix icing cakes, and I volunteer at the library. We hardly ever discuss cross-dressing and gender identity. But I’m not judging here. Maybe he’s just having a midlife crisis.”
“No, I think this is a real thing he’s been hiding for a long time. You do know he wants to stay married to Leslie, don’t you?”
What? Stay married? No way! I tried to remain calm.
“No, she didn’t tell me that, but I can see why it might be problematic.”
“But he wants her to call him Charlene when he’s dressed up. Dear God! What next?”
Holy crap, I thought.
“I’d call a lawyer. But that’s up to Leslie,” I said.
“Thank God they don’t have children.”
“Well, it would be more complicated; that’s for sure. Although, I’d love a niece or a nephew.”
Momma harrumphed loudly and stared at me with squinted eyes.
“Who put the bee in your bonnet?” she said.
“No one. I’m fine.”
She harrumphed again. She knew I wasn’t telling her something.
“What’s for dinner?” she said.
“I took more pork chops out of the freezer this morning.”
“With apples?”
“Of course.” Was she accidentally telling me she liked something I cooked?
“You know, even though it was trouble that brought Leslie home, it’s nice to have my girls under one roof.”
“If you say so,” I said.
“I’m going to go lie down,” she said in the weariest voice I’d ever heard. “This is too much for me. Too much.”
She wasn’t wrong. It was too much. Good Lord, how would we ever sort this one out? Somehow, all the nosy Nellies on this island were going to find out about Charlie and talk about Leslie behind her back. Eventually, Leslie would hear about