“How are you doing, honey?” my mom asked. “How’s it going living with Maddie again?”
I cut several more slices of cheese and lined them up on the plate next to the neatly laid out crackers. “So far so good. I’ve been spending a lot of time with Jodi lately, helping her with all the medical stuff. I’m not home much.”
“My prayer group has been praying for her since you told me about her cancer.”
That word still felt like a knife to my heart. “I appreciate it, Mom.” I brought the plate of cheese and crackers and added it to the other plates on the dining room table.
We had hoped the rain would let up long enough to use the grill on the back deck for the hamburgers. Roger, Jen’s husband, usually did the grilling when we had a family get-together, but it was his birthday we were celebrating, so I didn’t want to put that burden on him.
“Jodi is so lucky to have you helping her.” My mother took the plastic cover off the top of the container and placed a four and a two candle on the top of the cake.
I toyed with the idea of telling her my feelings for Jodi but decided against it. If it didn’t go well I didn’t want any tension to ruin the day for Roger and Jen. She knew Jodi was gay, Maddie had mentioned it casually once, not thinking it was a big deal. It wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t want it to be a big deal. But my mom had been surprised that I would have a friend “like that.”
“Like what?” I had asked her.
“You know. A homosexual.”
“Mom, she’s a regular person. And one of the best people I know.”
Up until the time I got married to Al, Jodi had been in my life a lot. My mom had several opportunities to spend time with her and had grown to like her and care about her. If it made any difference that Jodi was gay, she never mentioned it again.
“I’m here.” Maddie came in carrying a bag of potato chips. “Where do you want these?” she asked my mother.
“There’s a bowl on the dining room table just waiting for them.”
“Hi, Mom.” She gave me a kiss on the cheek as she passed. “How’s Jodi doing?” I appreciated the fact that she cared. “I thought she might come today.”
“I asked her. She wasn’t up for it.” I filled her in on the plans for treatment.
I wished Jodi was there with us. I knew she wasn’t up for celebrating and didn’t want to bring the party down. Down was the word to describe Jodi lately. She was so depressed and sure she was going to die. I had inquired about an antidepressant, but it wasn’t advised with the medicine in the clinical trial she was starting in a couple of days.
I had spent the morning in church, as I had the past several mornings, praying for her. For her peace, for her health, and selfishly, for her to let me in.
I had offered again to have her move in with me. She used Maddie as an excuse not to. Granted, my house was small, but we would have managed. Maddie was looking for her own apartment anyway. “It will make it easier for you to convince Jodi,” she’d said. “Besides, this place is yours. You should have it back.”
I was grateful for her support, in both the situation with Jodi and the situation with Al. He took to calling on a regular basis to try to get me to change my mind. He vacillated from being sickly sweet, to begging, to getting angry when I wouldn’t change my mind. I stopped answering his calls.
The paperwork was in the hands of my lawyer. She knew what was going on with Jodi, and I asked her to take care of everything with minimal involvement from me. I wasn’t asking Al for anything other than what I came into the marriage with. Demanding alimony would have been futile. I discovered shortly after I found out about his affair that the money he had lavished on me and the wedding—as well as his fucking mistress—was his mother’s and subsequently his inheritance. And there wasn’t much left.
“How’s my favorite sister-in-law?” Roger asked when he and Jen arrived a little while later.
“I’m going to tell your brother’s wife you said that,” Jen piped in.
“Feel free,” he answered her. “I’ll just deny it.” He gave her a love pat on the butt.
“Was that a free feel?” she teased him.
I envied their relationship. It was the stuff they wrote about in romance novels. That’s what I wanted with Jodi—if she would just give it a chance. But I wasn’t going to push. She had other things on her mind than my romantic notions. But that didn’t stop me from having them.