SUMMER'S END

37

“You’re a… a lesbian?” Robyn’s mother sat with her hands covering her mouth, exactly the way Robyn had imagined it. “But… you were with Jasper for five years. I don’t understand. How can that be possible?” Her father put a hand on his wife’s knee. They sat in front of her in the sofa. Robyn had wisely waited to impart the news until after dinner, lest they choke on their food. She also needed the wine that came with it to loosen her tongue and fortify her courage.
“I mean, how do you know? Did you cheat on him with… with a woman?” Robyn’s mother blurted out the words. How Emily longed for Nicki’s presence. Her mother would never ramble like that in front of a stranger. “That’s enough, Penny.” Her father patted her mother’s leg again, a bit more forcefully this time as to not miss his point. “Let her talk.” He rested his eyes on Robyn’s, an unexpected understanding brimming in the light blue of them.
“I’ve always known on some level, I guess. I just never… had the chance to explore. I met someone… a woman, in Thailand. And—”
“Oh, dear god…” A gasp escaped her mother’s mouth. Robyn continued undeterred, spurred on by her father’s firm glance of reassurance. “Meeting her confirmed what I’ve known deep down all along. I’m sor—” Robyn stopped before apologising. It was simply not something for which she felt she needed to say sorry—a very much overused word in her family. “This woman lives in Thailand?” her father inquired with his soft baritone that helped him command a court room.
“Yes, but she’s here now. She’s visiting, I mean, she’s from here but she left…” It was Robyn’s turn to ramble now. “It’s a long story.”
“Did she… did this woman make you gay?” Her mother was about to reach the suppressed sobbing stage. Robyn could tell. She wouldn’t actually shed a tear, but every other inflection would be there.
“No, mum. No, of course not. I was—”
“I simply don’t understand. You and Jasper were so happy, so gorgeous together. Then you decide to leave him, for reasons no one understood. You go on some journey of self-discovery in Asia and return a lesbian? Something must have happened.”
“Look, I understand that you will need some time to let this sink in and that this comes from left field a bit. But nothing happened to me or was done to me. I was always like this, I just didn’t realise.”
“Robert, do you understand this?” Her mother turned to her father as if he held all the answers instead of Robyn.
“I can hardly say I was expecting it.” At least, her father addressed her directly. “You have been different since you’ve come back. More self-assured and goal-oriented. I just figured that trip had done you the world of good.”
“Oh, it certainly has.” Robyn’s mind drifted to the day they’d celebrated Nicki’s birthday on the beach. It was very difficult to hide the wide grin that wanted to burst all over her face. It was even harder to think back to those days of joy—those days of blissful affirmation of what she already knew—while sitting in front of her parents now, her mother on the brink of tears and her father trying to rationalise it so he could understand. It would be so much easier if
they could only see that it was simply a matter of love. Then again, that never mattered a great deal in the Kane family. Her father cleared his throat. “We respect your choices, Robyn. We always will.”
Her mother blew her nose discreetly.
“But we need some time to absorb this… news.”
Robyn took a deep breath. Her father was usually more eloquent, but she understood that this was a shock to their system. She’d come to dinner only to dash their well-practiced, long-rehearsed dreams
and expectations. It was only fair to give them some time to adjust. She could hardly expect her non-suspecting parents to invite her lesbian lover to a meal so quickly. Robyn was sure though, that if they were only to meet Nicki, it would make things so much easier for them.
“I get it.” She looked them both over. Her mother was doing a fairly good job of hiding the perplexed look on her face with her hand, while her father sported his well-worn nothing-can-stop-me lawyer mask. “I just wanted you to be the first to know.”
“We appreciate that, darling.” Her father gave her mother’s knee another squeeze, as if wanting to yank her out of her cocoon of sudden misery. “Don’t we, Penny?” Robyn witnessed her mother pull herself together. She straightened her back, tucked the handkerchief away in the sleeve of her checkered blazer, inhaled sharply, and rose to her feet. Robyn’s stomach knotted at the expectation—the only possible one—that her mother was about to storm out of the room. “Come here,” she said, instead, and opened her arms wide. “Come,” she insisted.
Robyn pushed herself out of the settee and took a step in the direction of her mother, whose outstretched arms left her nonplussed. Robyn’s mother bridged the remaining gap between them and slung her arms around Robyn’s shoulder. “You’re my only daughter. I love you and, frankly, I just want you to be happy.” Tears stung behind Robyn’s eyes.
“After Jasper, I feared for your happiness so much, sweetheart.” She hugged Robyn closer. “If this is how it is, then this is how it is.” Robyn did something she hadn’t done since she was ten years old. She broke out in sobs on her mother’s shoulder.