She’s in the lobby, sitting in one of the sleek leather armchairs. I see her before she sees me, and a knot forms in my throat when I get a good look at her—she looks great. Her old color is back in her face, her cheeks are fuller, her eyes are bright in a way that feels much more permanent than it did before. She’s the mom I knew years ago.
“Hey, Mom,” I say.
She stands up when she sees me, and her face bursts into a huge smile.
All the emotions that have been brewing inside me finally come to a boil. I drop my suitcase handle and run into her arms. She holds me and rocks me and I cry into her shoulder. “I missed you,” I mumble.
“I missed you too, Lexi.” She strokes my hair like she used to do when I was a little kid and home sick from school.
Mr. Martin clears his throat. “Follow me, please,” he says and leads us into his office like he did that first day. “Mrs. Hamilton, I’m sure you’re wondering what Lexi has done to force us to ask her to leave our camp,” he says.
My mother nods.
“She was caught sneaking off with another female camper,” he says. He pauses, waiting for my mother’s reaction. But her face is unreadable. “She and this other young woman have had a blatant disregard for the rules and teachings of New Horizons,” he continues, “and I’m afraid we have no choice but to expel them both.”
My mom sits there for a minute, absorbing the information, and then says, “Thank you for letting me know.”
Mr. Martin looks surprised that that’s her only response. And honestly, so am I. What is she thinking?
Mom signs my release papers and shakes Mr. Martin’s hand, and before I know it, I’m walking out of the main cabin and driving back down the gravel mountain road.
We don’t speak until we’re on the highway.
“Your cell phone is in the glove compartment,” Mom says. “It’s fully charged. I thought you might want to call your friends to tell them you’re coming home.”
I have nine new voicemails and 138 emails. I’ll look at them later.
“Mom…” I begin. But I don’t know what to say. I search her face, looking for some kind of answer.
The corners of her mouth turn down. “I’m not going to tell you this is all okay.” She keeps her eyes on the road.
“I know,” I say quietly. That would have been too much to hope for.
“I worry about you. So, so much. This life isn’t what I would have chosen for you.”
No kidding.
“And I really wish we were going back home on different terms. But that’s only because I want what’s best for you.”
“But this is—”
“Let me finish,” she says, finally darting a glance over to me. “I really missed you, Lexi. More and more as the summer went on. And as much as I wanted you to get help, I was also incredibly mad at myself. You’re my daughter, and I sent you away.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m not so sure I should have done that.”
I stay silent. I never thought I’d hear my mother say any of this.
“I spoke with Pastor Joe quite a bit. We talked a lot about family and priorities and letting our faith guide us instead of our fear. He asked me if I love you, and I said of course. Then he asked me if I love you unconditionally, even if this part of you never changed.”
I hold my breath.
“And I admit I didn’t answer that question as quickly. I really thought about it, because I did know it was a very real possibility, not just a hypothetical. And I realized there was only one truthful answer—of course I love you unconditionally.”
I let the breath out and realize I was digging my fingernails into the flesh of my thigh. I move my hands away and stare at the ten tiny commas etched into my skin.
“So,” Mom says, her hands tightly gripping the steering wheel, “I may not agree with it, and I’ll never approve of it or stop praying for you, but I’m really going to try to learn to live with it. Because we need to be in each other’s lives. If there’s anything this summer apart from each other has proven, I think it’s that.”
I take a breath to try to steady my voice. “Okay,” I manage.
“Can I ask a favor though?” Mom asks, her voice a little bit lighter now.
“Sure…”
“I don’t want you to lie to me anymore. Please don’t do that, but…maybe just bring up things on a need-to-know basis? At first, anyway. While I get used to the idea.”
I smile. “Okay, Mom. I won’t make you march in the parade until next year. But I think we should stop on the way home and pick up a rainbow flag for the front porch.”
She shoots me a look. “That’s not funny, Lexi.” But she’s smiling. Sort of.
We drive past a farm—black and white cows dot the green hills like sprinkles on an ice cream cone. I can’t wait to get back to the beach.
“You know,” Mom says after a minute, “your father always suspected.”
My heart stops. “Suspected?”
She nods. “That you were…this way. We talked about it. Well, fought about it.”
My head is spinning. “What…what did he say?”
“He thought we should tell you it was okay, that we’d support you no matter what. I couldn’t do it though. I didn’t want to believe it was true.” She looks at me out of the corner of her eye. “I made him promise he wouldn’t say anything to you.”
I knew he didn’t know what he was talking about. That’s what Mom said on the phone when I told her I thought the de-gayifying was working. She’d been talking about Dad.
Dad knew. He knew the whole time. And he loved me anyway.
Sneaky, unstoppable tears rush to my eyes.
We drive on in silence for a while.
After a couple of hours have gone by and I’m sure Carolyn’s left New Horizons, I clear my throat and say, “Mom, I have to make a call.”
“Go ahead.”
“It’s about something pretty serious. I think you should pull over.”
She looks at me questioningly but pulls off at the next exit and parks the car at a gas station.
I dial.
“911, what’s your emergency?” says the voice on the other end of the line.
“It’s not exactly an emergency, but I need to report several counts of child abuse and sexual harassment,” I say. Mom gasps, and I give her a little headshake to let her know that I’m okay, that I’m not the one who was victimized.
The dispatcher puts me in touch with the local law enforcement and I tell the police officer everything I know. It’s a long, difficult conversation, but by the end, I’m pretty confident that Mr. Martin is going to get everything he deserves.
***
We’re almost home when my phone rings. The number flashing on the display is unfamiliar. My heartbeat speeds up.
“Hello?”
“Lexi?” It’s Carolyn. She found my note.
I glance at Mom. She’s diligently watching the road, but we’re about two feet apart from each other, and the radio’s off—of course she’s going to hear every word I say. I wish I didn’t have to have this conversation, my first one with Carolyn away from the confines of New Horizons, in front of her. But I also promised Carolyn I wasn’t going to hide from my mother anymore. So here goes. “Hey,” I say softly.
“Hey. I miss you already.” There’s a muffled sound in the background, and then she says, “My parents say hi.”
I laugh. “Hi back.”
There’s so much to talk about. What my mom said. How things went with Carolyn’s parents and Mr. Martin. What she’s told her parents about me. My call to the police. Matthew’s note in Gatsby. The good-byes we never got to say in person. What the hell I’m going to tell everyone at school. How she and I are going to make this long-distance thing work.
But there will be time for that later. Right now, all I want is to sit here on the phone, knowing that even though Carolyn and I are driving further and further apart at this moment, we’re closer than we’ve ever been. Right now I want to just be.
“So,” I say.
“So,” she says back, and there’s a smile in her voice that makes my heart explode with heat and fire.
It actually feels a lot like lightning…only way better.