Chapter Five #2
Unsurprisingly, Alex’s mother had flipped.
She didn’t raise her voice, but her tone was deadly.
It was clear that she blamed Sam for everything.
She accused her of corrupting her daughter despite Alex’s protests to the contrary.
She called her a sinner, and that was just one of the milder words she used.
When she was finished, she calmly told Sam to leave—that she was no longer welcome in her home and should never return.
Nadine obviously talked about it with Father Michael, because the lecture the following Sunday was filled with allusions to homosexuality and the dangers of being spiritually lost to the world.
The real blow was afterward, in the church hall, over stale lemon bars and watered-down coffee.
Nadine had taken court with some ladies from the prayer circle, and Sam could hear her voice float over the room.
“We all need to pray for young people in our community who have lost their way. Especially those who are leading others away from the Lord.” Nadine’s eyes met Sam’s over the crowd.
“Why, I heard some of the college crowd right here in Hicksville have turned to alternative lifestyles. Right, Samantha?”
There was a murmur across the hall as the implication of Nadine’s words sank in. Faces turned to stare at Sam, who could only drop her lemon bar and hightail it out of there.
The news didn’t so much as explode as it seeped, oozing through Hicksville from person to person.
By the following week, Sam couldn’t even go to the store without someone stopping her with “So…Sam, I heard…” Sam would cut them off with a wave of her hand and make a hasty retreat.
Eventually, she just stopped going out. When she came home from school to visit her mom, she stuck close to the house.
She needed to see her mom, but she couldn’t face the judgment and disappointment that she knew she would see in everyone else’s eyes.
It had pained her to believe that her small town was so homophobic.
Sam looked at her, still lost in memory. “What do you mean?”
Alex continued to peel at her label until finally she looked up to meet Sam’s eyes. “You were this town’s golden girl. And I treated you like trash. You left,” Alex explained. “And everyone knew it was because of me.”
“It was because of you,” Sam pointed out. “Well, your mother, really. But at least you finally acknowledge it.” Sam shook her head in frustration. “But what are you talking about? No one here cared about me being gone.”
“Everyone did!” Alex’s tone was sharp. “But you didn’t stick around long enough to see it.
” She shook her head sadly and became engrossed in her label again—a nervous habit she must have developed as an adult—years Sam hadn’t been able to live through with her.
Sam watched her peel it off in long strips.
After a moment, she glanced up and noticed Sam’s confused look.
“Sam, don’t you know what you meant to this town?
Everyone loved you so much that it was almost like a cliché emo teen movie.
” She ruefully shook her head. “All the boys wanted to date you. All the girls wanted to be like you. You were everything—captain of three sports, valedictorian, student council, and all the other clubs. You were amazing. And this town revered you, even after you left for college.”
Sam was dumbstruck. All of this felt like news to her. “Then why didn’t anyone reach out after?” Sam finally shot back. “When I needed them most, no one was there.”
“Because you disappeared!” Alex blurted. “You were gone so fast. And you never looked back. Even when you were home visiting your mom, you never left the house. You never connected with anyone. How could anyone have helped you then? They didn’t even know where you were!”
Sam sat for a minute, letting Alex’s words sink in.
She had a point. After the scene with Nadine Weaver and what she had perceived as the fallout, Sam went back to college and never looked back.
Yes, she visited her mother several times a year, but she avoided the rest of the town as much as possible.
She had spent years thinking that everyone had cast judgment on her for being gay.
If what Alex was saying was true, then no one in Hicksville had even cared.
Sam suddenly felt ashamed for how little credit she had given her town and everyone there.
All this time, she had been doing exactly what she accused them of in passing judgment.
She should have known better. Hicksville was small, but one thing it had going for it was an overwhelming sense of community, a community that Sam had been more than happy to participate in at the time.
Neighbors helping neighbors. Everyone looking out for everyone else.
Why had she thought that generosity wouldn’t extend to her?
Or was she just embarrassed over what had gone down?
Alex turned and stared at Sam. After a moment of silence, she said, “Of course, things improved for me once I brought Scott home.”
Sam’s head swiveled to gape at Alex. It was finally out there in the open.
Scott. The man Alex had married less than two years after their busted secret of a relationship ended, while she was still in college, even.
Scott. To Sam, that name was just another unforgivable nail in the coffin of what they had together.
Sam shook her head and looked away. Alex was the one to bring it up.
Perhaps it was time to get everything out in the open.
“So,” she forced out. “Tell me about Scott.” She turned expectantly toward Alex.
Alex finally put her bottle down and looked at Sam, who was watching her steadily.
Her eyes searched Sam’s face for several long minutes before she nodded once and looked back down at her hands.
She took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.
“Scott was…” She paused for a moment, then began again.
“I thought Scott was my way to reconcile with my family, to atone for what I had done.” She shrugged slightly.
“Scott seemed to be the type of relationship my mother wanted.”
Sam felt a quick flash of anger at Alex’s candid admission, but with it also came hurt that she wasn’t what Nadine wanted. She forced that thought away. “What about what you wanted?”
“Don’t you see?” Alex shook her head slowly.
“What I wanted didn’t matter. It never mattered.
At least that’s what I thought.” She swiveled fully in her chair until she was facing Sam.
Her legs brushed against Sam’s as she moved, and Sam felt the warmth of Alex’s leg against her own.
She leaned into it slightly, letting herself feel a bit of comfort from the light touch.
It seemed to encourage Alex, who reached out and placed her hand on Sam’s forearm.
“Don’t you know? What I wanted was you.”
Sam pulled out of her grasp before she could continue. “Well, you could have fooled me.” She cut off the slight contact by spinning her stool away from Alex. She folded her hands in front of her on the bar. “That doesn’t explain anything, you know.”
Alex took the cue and swiveled herself away from Sam and back to the bar.
She picked up her beer, drained the remainder in one gulp, and then set it down again.
She caught the eye of the bartender and called him over for another round.
“You want another?” She gestured toward Sam’s nearly empty bottle.
“What I want is an explanation,” Sam ground out. “But yeah, I probably need more beer for that.”
Alex lifted two fingers to signal for two more beers.
She waited until the bartender cleared the empties and set the two fresh beers between them before letting her words drift out.
“I already told you, after you left, I was a wreck. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep.
I didn’t go back to school for the spring semester.
I had to get as far away from here as possible. And that was Maryland.
“I met Scott that fall at a church event on campus.” She glanced at Sam, who was trying to remain impassive, but her face must have given her away.
“I know, I know,” Alex conceded. “Don’t judge me.
All my life, church was all I had known.
In my mind, it was what I had to fall back on.
” Sam gestured for her to continue, trying to show that she wasn’t judging her.
Alex had grown up in a very religious family and even played the church organ.
Sam was lucky. She had played a sport in college, which came with its own built-in community when she arrived on campus.
Even though Sam wasn’t religious herself, it made sense that Alex would seek out something familiar when she arrived at college, and church was likely the thing that felt the most natural.
“He was a year older than me. He was a great guy and very easy to talk to. Most importantly, he made me laugh, which is something I hadn’t done since you left.
We spent almost every spare minute that semester together.
I found myself telling him all about you.
And he listened. He didn’t judge. He didn’t throw Bible verses at me and tell me that I was going to hell.
He seemed to understand. We were married six months later.
” She scoffed slightly, putting her bottle down on the counter in a gesture of finality.
Sam waited, but for some reason, Alex had clammed up.
She realized that might be all she was going to get out of her at that point and turned to look at her.
Alex sat staring at the bar, refusing to meet her eyes.
Sam pursed her lips. After a long moment, she nudged Alex with her knee.
She didn’t know what else to do, but she knew that she needed to see her face.
Alex took her time meeting her eyes, but when she did, her eyes seemed to search Sam’s face for some reaction.
Sam didn’t give her one. She didn’t know yet how she felt about everything she had heard.
And it was clear that there was more to the story.
After several long seconds with no response, Sam turned back to the bar and picked up her beer.
She drained it in a few long gulps and pushed it over to the bartender.
She fumbled in her wallet for cash and threw a few bills down on the bar.
As she moved to get up, Alex reached out to stop her with a hand on her arm. “Wait, where are you going?”
Sam looked down at the hand on her arm and then up at the ceiling.
She closed her eyes momentarily and tried to gather her thoughts.
When she looked back at Alex, she had to bite back the wave of emotion that swept through her.
“It’s a lot, Alex.” Her voice came out slightly hoarse.
“I don’t know what you expect me to do with all this.
I need some time.” She looked pointedly down at the hand that was still on her arm.
Alex glanced down, then looked back at Sam. Sam kept her eyes turned down.
“Okay,” Alex whispered, and her hand slipped away. She hunched her shoulders forward and leaned closer to the bar.
Sam stood there and studied her for a minute.
She hated to see Alex looking so defeated.
A million thoughts raced through her head, and she knew that she should leave before she let herself go any deeper.
But this was Alex. She looked to the ceiling and counted slowly to ten.
Finally, she signaled the bartender for two more, pulled out her stool, and plopped back down on it.
Alex looked over at her in surprise. “What are you…?”
Sam shrugged and reached out to grab the fresh beer that the bartender had just set down in front of them. She gestured to Alex to do the same. “Talking about the past is a lot,” she said. “So, tell me about the present. Who was that little girl from the volleyball game?”
Alex’s eyes lit up, and Sam knew she had said the right thing.
“That’s Sophie, my little girl.” Alex pulled out her phone, found a picture, and slid it across the bar.
Sam picked it up and smiled. A picture of Sophie and Alex beamed back up at her. Sophie appeared to be a mini version of Alex, all blond curls and bright blue eyes. Sam could see a hint of mischief on the little girl’s face. She smiled and handed the phone back.
“She’s eight going on eighteen, it seems. Or eighty, some days.” Alex said, tucking the phone away. “She reminds me a lot of you, actually.”
“I’d love to meet her someday,” Sam said without thinking, but after hearing herself say the words, she realized how true they were. She had never wanted children, but Alex had always talked about being a mom. She knew Alex would be great at it and wanted to see her in action.
“Really?” Alex brightened.
“Um, yeah.” Sam shrugged. “Why not?”
“Well, my mother did say to invite you to Sunday dinner.”
“Sunday dinner?” Sam’s confusion was back.
First, Alex’s mother made her a pie. Now she was inviting her to Sunday dinner.
As a teenager, she had attended many Sunday dinners at the Weaver household.
Nadine Weaver was a fantastic cook, and Sunday dinner was her showcase.
Her Sunday dinners rivaled Thanksgiving dinners in most households.
Everyone would eat until they were stuffed.
After dinner, there was usually football, baseball, or whatever sport was in season on television.
In the winter, they often played board games.
Being an only child, in many ways, it was as close to family as Sam got.
But that was before. Nadine had made it clear that Sam would never be welcome there again. Sam found it hard to believe that Nadine Weaver would willingly let her back in. “Your mom is inviting me to Sunday dinner?”
Alex seemed to know what she was thinking.
“Things are different now,” she said softly.
“I promise.” Alex turned to face her, leaning back in her seat.
She looked more relaxed now, almost confident.
With the talk of Sophie, the tension between them seemed to have thawed slightly.
Sam liked this version of Alex. She wanted more of it.
Alex’s voice broke her out of her thoughts. “At least think about it.”
“I don’t know if that’s the best idea.”
Alex folded her arms over her chest and waited.
“Sunday dinner.” Sam shook her head. “No promises, but I’ll think about it.”