"Hi Mum." I smiled.
"Hi Sophie." Mum's eyes were still fixated on Leah.
"This is Leah; Leah, this is my mum." I turned to smile at Leah.
"Hi, it's lovely to meet you." Leah said politely.
"And you, I've heard a lot about you." My mum smiled back.
Without knowing her, this smile would be mistaken for a polite, welcoming smile. I did know her, though, and I knew that she was already coming up with reasons to disapprove of Leah in her head. I sighed quietly, taking a seat on the sofa and gesturing for Leah to sit beside me. Leah's body was tense, and I could tell that she didn't know how to act in front of my mum. I placed my arm around her back and gently traced circles on her back, feeling her relax at my touch. Dad brought tea and biscuits, affectionately rubbing Leah's back as he greeted her.
After hearing stories about Mum's time in Dubai, Dad's latest favourite car, and waving Olivia off early with Rhys, we finally left in separate cars to travel to the theatre. Mum, Dad, my aunt Breda, and uncle Jonathan travelled together, which meant that Leah and I would travel together in a separate car that Dad owned. Mum had ignored Leah almost the entire time; it was really starting to wind me up. As I got into the driver's seat, I slammed the door closed behind me, struggling to hold back the anger that I could feel rising from my toes to my head. I felt Leah's hand stop me from starting the engine, pulling me towards her. She gently wrapped me in her arms, my head falling into her chest, her hands moving to my hair, fingers tracing through it.
"Tonight's about Liv, Soph. Remember?"
"She's making it about you, though. She's making it awkward and uncomfortable for you."
"Oh, Soph, you're so silly."
"How?" I gazed up at her, my anger subsiding at the sight of her eyes.
"You're here; I could never feel awkward or uncomfortable when I knew you were beside me."
"I hate it. Why can't she just be fine with it? It's not 50 years ago. It's not weird or dirty, to fall in love. Why does she think it is?" I ranted.
"Some people just don't understand love unless it's between a man and a woman. That's on them, not you or me. It doesn't matter what they think; it matters that we accept ourselves for who we are and surround ourselves with others that do too." Leah's words echoed around my head.
"You and me against the world?" I quoted her.
"Always, Soph." She smiled.
We eventually drove to the show, proudly cheering Olivia on, ignoring the tension that lay between the group. We headed back to Dad's, with Olivia demanding that she travel with Leah and me so she could give us a rundown of the play we had just watched. Leah sat in the back with Olivia, and I kept watching them in the interior mirror. I wondered if Leah hoped to have her own children someday. That's something we probably should've discussed properly.
We continued our false family bravado for another while; a few of the other parents and children joined, meaning Olivia was playing host to the youngsters in her bedroom. By 8 p.m., only my parents, Rhys, Tanya (Olivia's best friend's mum), Leah, and I were left. Tanya began talking about a news article that she had read in the Sunday World about loyalist paramilitaries that had gunned a man down for drug dealing. My mum immediately shot a glance in my direction; my face dropped as I realised what she was about to do.
"Remember when you defended that man, Sophie? What was his name, Colin? Colin Coyle. Did you know about this, Leah? A murderer he was." Mum said it as if she wasn't trying to break up our relationship.
"That was an accident, Mum. I didn't know he was guilty." I sighed.
"Och, c'mon. You spent hours with him; of course you would've known." She bit back.
"It is actually possible for someone to tell convincing lies. Like you did when you told all your friends you loved me unconditionally." I sniped.
"Grow up, Sophie. Leah, you seem very quiet; you didn't realise she defended murderers, I'm guessing?"
I could feel my blood begin to boil. How dare she do this? If Leah hadn't known, Mum would have known that this statement could end our relationship. She knew that Colin Coyle had impacted me in a way that could never be mended; she watched me fall apart in Dubai while it was unfolding in front of my eyes. I felt Leah mirror what I had done to comfort her earlier; her fingers traced gentle circles on my back as she spoke.
"I know. I know that he pulled the wool over her eyes and manipulated her. I know that he made her believe his lies, and I know that she tried to protect him because she's a good person. A great person. She's a better person than you, I, or anyone else deserves to have in their life. We do, though, have her, and I count my lucky stars every day for that fact." Leah spoke sternly back to my mum.
"Hm. It'll never last." She scoffed, a spiteful laugh in her voice, out of defensiveness.
"I'm not doing this." I shouted, leaping from the seat to locate my shoes, pulling Leah with me.
I began to put my shoes on, breathing heavily in an attempt to stop my tears from flowing. Leah held me steady as I lifted each foot from the ground to pull a shoe onto it. Her thumb grazed my knuckles; no words were needed to show her support. Just as we made it to the front door, Liv appeared behind us. I had almost forgotten that she was upstairs playing.
"Where are you going, Auntie Sophie?" Olivia's little sad face almost broke me.
"We have to go, mate. I'll see you soon, though." I kneeled down to rub her face with my thumb.
"What about my celebration cake?" She whimpered, rubbing at her eyes.
"We're cutting it now, please stay for a bit." My mum spoke in the background.
"We can't." I looked to Leah, who just nodded in the direction of the kitchen with her head.
"Please, Auntie Sophie?"
"Okay, mate. We'll stay until you cut it." I smiled.
"Could you two give me a hand? Liv, go get everyone ready in the living room; ask Dad to turn the lights out." Mum asked sheepishly.
I didn't say anything, I watched as Leah nodded and smiled at my mum. How can she be so calm about this? We followed her into the kitchen, Leah being the only one tall enough to reach the cake from the top shelf. Silence filled the room as Mum unpacked the cake, slowly placing the candles into it, almost as if she were creating time.
"Look, Leah, I'm sorry. About before—I shouldn't—well, I shouldn't have made it uncomfortable for you." My mum spoke.
"Don't worry; it's forgotten." Leah smiled.
"It's forgotten? No, it isn't. You don't get to do this anymore, Mum. You don't get to not accept me for who I am or who I fall in love with. If you had been here, you would've known that Leah already knew what had happened; it was all over the press. As usual, it was up to someone else that you wouldn't accept to get me through it. Just like it always has been." I fumed.
Leah glanced at me, then immediately back at my mum to judge her reaction. Mum didn't speak; she fixed her eyes firmly on the ground.
"I really love your daughter, Jacqueline." Leah spoke.
"I worry. I worry about what other people might say to her and the looks she may get. It's different in this country; we're still behind the times; people stare and say things about her. About her choices, you know, women." My mum's eyes stayed on the floor.
"I can understand that. My mum worried about that with me too, and she still does. If she conforms to what they think is normal, though, you'll have to worry about her in an entirely different way."
How is Leah getting through to her right now?
"She'd be even more unhappy then." Mum began to have some kind of realisation.
"Yeah. That's what my mum said anyway." Leah smiled.
"I do love you unconditionally, Sophie. Sometimes I think I love you too much. I think that's the problem."
I kind of understood what she was saying, Mum was right. Ireland was still quite backward; it was nothing like the carefree London that I had become used to. Hannah and I would often have to let go of one another because people were making remarks. We couldn't even legally marry here until a few years ago, and political parties are still trying to overturn that decision.
"I can't be someone else, Mum. I have to be me." I sighed.
"I don't want you to be anyone else; deep down, I'm proud. I'm proud that you stood up to me and went with how you felt. I just worry that you'll find it difficult, children. Things like that." She sighed.
I really need to see if Leah wants children.
"That's not something you, or I, need to worry about right now. There are lots of ways that same-sex couples can have children. The ones that want to, anyway." I looked at Leah to gauge her reaction. Does she know that I don't want that?
"Promise me you'll look after her, Leah? She's more fragile than she cares to admit."
"That's something I already know too." Leah smiled.
"I couldn't accept Hannah, Sophie. It all felt too fake." Mum rubbed my shoulder gently.
"And Leah?" I questioned.
"Leah just spoke back to me in front of the entire family to defend you. How could any mother deny their child the right to be loved like that?" Mum smiled at me, her first proper smile of the day.
"Sorry about that." Leah giggled from the corner, making the three of us laugh.
"I'll let you off this once, but remember I'm soon to be your mother-in-law!" Mum joked back.
"What changed your mind?" I had to ask.
"Rhys. He told me about the press; he told me that Leah came here to find you when you left upset. Thank you, Leah." Mum smiled at her again.
Despite this interaction, I still couldn't forget what Mum had put me through during my years of coming out. Maybe, just maybe, I could learn to forgive it. Perhaps, with Leah showing her how I could have the same love from another woman as she wanted me to have from a man, Mum would begin to open her mind to the idea that love knows no genders. Maybe that hope was naive, but it didn't really matter to me. I had Leah.
Mum lit the candles on the cake, with Leah holding the door open to let her carry the cake into the living room. As I passed Leah, I placed a gentle kiss on her cheek, whispering thank you into her ear as she smiled at me and placed her hand on my back before she followed us into the living room. Leah would never know what this interaction had done for my mind. A piece that I never thought would fit again suddenly seemed to be tightening into place.
I really do need to find out if she hopes to have kids, though.