Encroaching sympathy warred with the thought that Blake should have considered the cost before he dropped his pants.
I remembered a time when I was young. I tried to steal a blouse from Casual Corner, but the store manager caught me before I could leave the shop. She scared me to death, telling me that she could call the police and have me arrested. She went on and on about how this one stupid mistake could ruin my life.
In the end, she didn’t call the police or my parents. Instead, she made me promise never to steal again.
She let me go. She gave me a second chance rather than ruining my life.
I learned from that mistake, and I’d like to think I grew into a better person because of her understanding.
Maybe Blake had learned his lesson. Maybe we just needed to talk about it, get counseling. It wouldn’t be easy, of course, but perhaps if we could surmount this, it was a chance for our relationship to grow.
I reached out to touch him, to take the phone from him so I could tell Ben we’d call him back later. But before my hand fell on Blake’s shoulder, he said, “Ben, I’m calling with bad news. Your mother and I are divorcing because I’m gay.”
After Blake left, the late-morning sun streamed in through the kitchen window. It made my head hurt.
I slipped into the darkness of the living room, and lay down on the cool leather couch, flinging my free arm over my eyes.
Divorce.
He’d already made up his mind.
Ben took the news hard. I’d never heard such language from him. Called his father a bastard. Said he hated him and never wanted to see him again.
First, I was glad because I wanted Blake to hurt as badly as I hurt. Then I felt guilty because Ben was hurting. My baby. It was hard enough for me to learn the truth, but imagine finding out the person you’d looked up to your entire life had lied to you.
I’d never been homophobic and had raised my son to be tolerant of all people…. This was the ultimate test. The logical side of me knew it was ridiculous to hate an entire sub-population based on the actions of one man. Oh…but this was so personal. It hurt too bad to form any conclusions.
While I sat at the café table in the kitchen, trying to talk Ben down from the ledge, Blake disappeared upstairs.
He came back down after I’d hung up, and all he said was, “Will you water the orchids, please?”
He had about twenty-five plants in a small greenhouse in the backyard. I knew they were valuable, but I couldn’t believe he was thinking about them in the wake of what had just happened.
Selfish bastard.
“No. I won’t.” I loved flowers, but he fussed over those stupid plants like an old maid. I didn’t care if they died.
“Fine. I’ll come by and get them this week. When would be a good time?”
“Should I get an AIDS test?”
He squinted at my non sequitur. “Would it make you feel better?”
Anger sliced through me. “You are such a jackass. I don’t want an AIDS test to make myself feel better. You had sex with a stranger—with a man. And my life could be in danger because of it.”
AIDS was only one in a jumble of questions logjammed in my mind, tangled up with the likes of how many sexual partners he’d had over the past eighteen years? Did he practice safe sex. Or did he think too little of me to do so? Even though we only had sex maybe once a year over the span of our marriage it only took one time—kind of like getting pregnant.
Only AIDS killed.
Turning onto my side on the couch in the dark living room, I drew my knees up in a fetal position and listened to the sounds of the house that used to be our home—the tick of the grandfather clock, the phantom creaks and pops as the house settled; the refrigerator and air-conditioning that cycled on and off; and the full magnitude of how alone I was pressed down on me and unleashed the tears.
They came in torrents, in great heaving sobs that choked and nearly drowned me.
All the while, one single thought burned in my mind: How long would Blake have lived a double life had he not been involuntarily outted?
CHAPTER 2
The next day, I did what any self-respecting woman caught in the middle of an undeserved scandal would do—I called in sick to my marketing job at Heartfield Retirement Communities, then cut all the blooms off Blake’s orchids.
Good harvest. About twenty stems with at least three flowers each. I gathered them into a bundle, tied them with a ribbon and made an exotic bouquet.
Flowers for me.
Originally, I intended to sit in the middle of the greenhouse and pluck off all the petals: He loves me…He loves me not, because he’s gay and loves men…He loves men…He loves men not because he promised to love, honor and cherish me for all the days of my life….
That was just too maudlin.
The blooms were so beautiful, I arranged them in a crystal vase so I could enjoy them as I gorged on slightly stale beignet—that’s French for doughnut.
I never realized orchids were such exquisite little works of art. They were always Blake’s babies. I fingered a lush maroon petal that draped down past another cream petal shaped like a pouch the size of a chicken egg.
In the greenhouse, he’d labeled this one Showy Lady’s Slipper Orchid. The name conjured images of cross-dressing, but I blinked the thought away and ate another doughnut.
I lifted the curious little pouch-petal with my finger. I’d never looked at an orchid up close like this, certainly not a stem cut free from the potted plants Blake sequestered in the greenhouse for optimum growing conditions (rather than optimum enjoyment).
I plucked Lady’s Slipper from the vase, held it up and slowly twirled the stem in my fingers, getting a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree look at the flower.
Blake was going to be so pissed when he found his naked plants. He’d studied orchids like he was going for a master’s degree, and coddled them, coaxing the temperamental things to blossom. All to end up in a vase on the kitchen table.
Oops. My bad.
Since we were getting a divorce it only seemed fair we shared them fifty-fifty. Florida was a community-property state. After eighteen years of contributing my fair share to our egalitarian marriage, I wanted my half.
He’d get the plant. I’d get the flower.
Fifty-fifty.
I’d downed seven of the twelve doughnuts by ten-thirty and was so disgusted with myself I decided I had to get out of the house before I died an unnatural death.
Death by beignet. Or murder by irate, flower-worshipping, estranged husband.
The thought made me shudder, or perhaps the thought of venturing out into the world?
I pushed the doughnut box out of my reach. It wasn’t as if the paparazzi were camped on my doorstep. The sensible side of me knew the story of Blake’s arrest had faded from the minds of most people in central Florida.
Old news.
But in my world of neighbors, colleagues and husband-and-wife acquaintances the story lived on. Suddenly my world seemed like the whole world; as if everyone knew.
I couldn’t go to work.
I couldn’t even walk out onto my driveway.
Good thing the car was in the garage.
After a few moments’ contemplation, I decided to seek refuge with an old friend.