Shame

“Well, what I find very interesting is…” he began, and she sank into her chair, exhaling quietly and turning her attention to the empty fields outside.

‘Here we go!’ she said crossing her legs.

‘…. that you let me pay for the motherfucking wedding in the first place!’ he bellowed.

She sank into her chair and continued to look onto the empty fields.

‘If you knew he wasn’t the one for you, you should have called the wedding off months ago…. but no!...you made a mockery of the word marriage and, of all things, did it in front of all two hundred guests!’

She swallowed hard as he stopped for a breath. She became nervous when he readjusted his position on the brown recliner to be able to see her better before continuing his ‘little’ speech.

‘My boss was at that wedding!’ he paused to let the words sink in, ‘what’s going to be in store for me when I see him on Monday knowing he now knows our families deepest shame?’

‘You’re ashamed of me?’ she asked like a mouse circling cheese on a trap.

‘Of course I’m ashamed!!’ he yelled so loudly that the house shook.

‘But Charlie is the one I want to be with!’ she said tentatively.

‘Then why was this the first-time hearing of this ‘Charlie’’ he shouted making bunny ears as he said her name.

She felt like it was her time to take the floor. She uncrossed her legs and stood up.

‘You were the one who wanted to see me married!’ she wagged her right index finger in the direction of her fuming father. ‘You were the one who wanted me to find a nice decent man and settle down and give you grandbabies…. right?’

‘Damned right!’

‘So when Sean approached me and asked me to marry him to keep the wolves off of each his parents backs, I agreed…. after all, there aren’t that many people in this town capable of understanding the life me and Sean have chosen. If we married each other, even though Sean had Marcus, and I had Charlie, maybe we could be perceived as being ‘normal’ in the eyes of our parents yet live our lives the way we really wanted to.’

‘But that isn’t the way God would see it. You’d be living in sin and with another woman no less!’

She rubbed her ear and sighed. ‘It didn’t happen though, did it?’ she bowed her head in shame.

‘No it did not!’ her father was beginning to calm down, his face turning less purple and moving to red. ‘Your brother did the right thing stopping that wedding!’ he looked into space.

‘Yea,’ she said when really, she was thinking, ‘I’m going to kill the bastard!’

‘Was he the only one who knew?’ her father asked more calmly.

‘Yea,’ I said and tears began to roll down my disappointed face.

‘Well I for one….’ Her father started as she waited for more ridicule and shame, ‘…...am glad he said something!’

She looked up astonished.

‘I’m not happy that you are gay…. hell who would be, being my only daughter and all!’

She blinked and a waterfall took over her eyes.

‘But!.......’ she looked up, ‘……I am happy you didn’t marry out of necessity. When I walk my baby girl down the aisle to whoever will meet her there, I want her to be so excited to see her betrothed that she starts to have the jitters in her stomach, holding my hand tighter with every step. I want to hand her to the love of her life, not because of some arrangement, but because she is genuinely happy!’

She wiped her tears on the sleeve of her hoody and went to hug her daddy. She sat on his lap and cried tears of joy into his shoulder. He stroked her hair.

‘You will pay me back every cent of what I landed out for that sham of a wedding though!’ he giggled and kissed the top of her head.

‘Thank you, daddy!’ she whispered and kissed him on the cheek, grateful that he was going to try to be accepting of Charlie and her lifestyle in general.

They stayed there for the guts of an hour. Both thankful for the other!

picture from pixabay