NOVEL NEXT 52. Mothers & Daughters (Amy)
"Sorry folks," I sighed. "I hate to do this but I have to cut it short tonight. I just got a text, there's a family emergency I have to go deal with."
"Kreff I'm sorry we haven't had much of a chance to talk tonight," I added. "I was really hoping to clear the air between us."
The non-binary elven archer didn't respond, they were still giving me the cold shoulder. At least they hadn't quit the party, I was glad for that.
Leah asked, "Should we wait? I'm sure there's nothing you can't handle easily enough Amethyst."
That made me grimace. Since revealing myself to her and giving her a small miracle, our tank had started calling me by my full name all the time. And from the sound of it she assumed my divine nature meant I could use magic to solve any problem that came along.
"Would you like me to join you?" Raven added. "If this is an emergency I should be there to help."
I rolled my eyes, "It's a family emergency, not a goddess emergency. And thanks Leah but this is probably going to take a while. I'm sorry friends, I promise I'll make it up to you. How about next Friday, guaranteed?"
Leah quickly agreed to next Friday and Raven accepted whatever I wanted without hesitation. Kreff grumbled a quiet "Fine" and that was that.
I logged off and took off my headset then sighed as I got to my feet. I knew things were about to get really awkward for me and Jodie. Though from the sound of it, the evening had already got awkward for Tess.
There really wasn't any way to avoid it though. I knew it was going to be weird the moment my girlfriend said her mom was coming to visit. Amy Sullivan's life and memories were a lot closer in my mind than anything from the goddess. I wasn't Ms. Sullivan anymore, but I remembered almost everything about her. And that included Jodie.
Even just seeing her for a minute while I said hello earlier felt strange.
She was more than thirty years older than me but I remembered driving her mother to hospital the night she was born. I remembered changing her diapers when she was a baby, and helping her with homework when she was nine or ten. I remembered birthday parties and trips to the beach. And I remembered how she grew cold towards me when she got older, how she all but ignored me at her wedding. I also remembered how that almost broke her mother's heart.
After another sigh I mentally braced myself, then opened the office door and headed out to the living-room. Jodie and Tess were sitting on the sofa, there were a couple empty coffee cups on the table in front of them, and my girlfriend was in the middle of a flustered conversation.
"...told you, her name is Amy Price and I met her last July. We had coffee and hung out a bit, and got to know each other. We found we had a lot in common, we went hiking together, and basically hit it off. And we've been girlfriends ever since."
Jodie was about to respond when she realized I was standing there. She looked up at me and our eyes met again, and just like earlier I was sure she recognized me somehow. I didn't know how, since I didn't look anything like Ms. Sullivan, but somehow Jodie seemed to know it was me.
"Hello again," I said with an awkward smile. "Tess? What's going on? I saw your text, you wanted me to come and talk I guess?"
There was a moment of hesitation, then my girlfriend got to her feet. She picked up the two coffee cups and asked, "Amy could you give me a hand? I'm going to fix mom another drink."
"Sure," I nodded and the two of us headed over to the kitchen area together.
Tess pulled out the bottle of Irish cream and started making her mother a very strong drink, and while she was doing that she spoke to me in a quiet whisper.
"Mom knows about the goddess, granny told her the story before she died? Mom recognized your hair and eyes! And apparently granny thought maybe Amy Sullivan was really the goddess, she told mom that too. Now mom believes you're the goddess, and she thinks you're her second mother. I don't know what to do or what to tell her?"
I sighed and ran a hand through my hair as I digested that information. Before Ms. Sullivan forgot who she was, it did cross her mind that Mary might know or suspect the truth. But Mary never mentioned it and Ms. Sullivan never asked, so I had no idea. Likewise I didn't know that Mary told Jodie about summoning the goddess.
While I was thinking all that through I got out another mug. When Tess had her mom's Irish coffee ready I got coffee ready for me and my girlfriend, though ours didn't have any booze in them.
Before we headed back to where Jodie was waiting, I whispered "I guess we tell her? I don't know what else to do, I'm sure you don't want to lie to your mom. This is going to be awkward as heck."
She sighed as well but nodded in agreement. Then we returned to the living-room area with the coffees. Tess gave her mom the Irish one then sat down on the sofa again with her, while I sat across from them both on the love-seat.
Jodie had a sip of her drink as she continued staring at me. Her face was pale and she looked uneasy. Not scared as such, but wary and confused.
I had a sip of my coffee then asked her, "Jodie, Tess was telling me you have some questions about me? What was it you wanted to know?"
She hesitated, then had a bigger gulp of her drink. I could imagine she was trying to figure out how to ask what was on her mind. After all, there really wasn't any way to ask someone if they're secretly a goddess without coming across at least a little bit odd. Ditto asking someone less than half your age if they used to be your second mother.
After a few more seconds her cheeks coloured slightly as she asked, "This is going to sound strange but... Did you know you my mother?"
I took a deep breath then nodded, "Yes I did. In fact I knew both your mothers quite well."
Jodie frowned, she still wasn't prepared to admit Ms. Sullivan was a second parent to her. She ended up ignoring that and asked, "How did you know mom? When did you meet her?"
After another sip of coffee I braced myself, then started talking in a soft voice.
"It was the night of the full moon, Thursday June twenty-fifth, nineteen sixty-four. Mary performed a ritual she'd learned from her granny several years earlier. She summoned me, asked me to help her. She wanted a new life, far from County Wexford, far from the man who hurt her and the judgemental looks of the people who refused to help her. I was moved by her plea, and the fact that she didn't wish for revenge or retribution against any of those who wronged her. So I agreed to help."
My girlfriend's mother stared at me with wide eyes and a slack jaw. Even though she suspected, hearing me confirm it was still a shock. She gulped, "You're really her? You're the goddess my mother told me about?"
"I was," I replied quietly. "That was fifty-eight years ago though."
Jodie frowned, "What about my Aunt Amy? Why do you remind me of her?"
I sighed again, but I answered that question in the same soft voice.
"The goddess Amethyst decided to help your mother directly, in person. So she disguised herself as a mortal woman named Amy Sullivan. She expected to spend a month or two on Earth, while she accompanied Mary to a new country. She planned to get Mary settled into a new home here in Canada, before returning to the heavens. She didn't anticipate herself and Mary falling in love. So Amethyst stayed on as Amy Sullivan, and after a few years she forgot who she really was, forgot where she really came from. She spent her life as a human living with the woman she loved. And ultimately she took ill and died as a human, without ever remembering her divine nature."
"So you're really..." Jodie gulped. She still looked upset, confused, and maybe a bit scared.
"I'm not her," I shook my head. "I was, but that was another life. Amy Sullivan died in September nineteen ninety-nine. I was born two months later. I'm Amy Price, I'm a different person now. I'm your daughter's girlfriend, but I have access to all Amy Sullivan's memories. And some of Amethyst's too."
I added, "I remember how much your mom and Amy loved each other, and how much they both loved you too Jodie. They raised you together, Amy worked to support you and Mary. The only reason the three of you weren't a proper family is the laws at the time wouldn't allow it."
When I finished, both Jodie and Tess stayed quiet at first. Both of them looked lost in thought, and as I watched I found my own thoughts starting to wander as well.
Jodie was about the same height Tess used to be, before my girlfriend asked me to make her taller. And looking at them side by side it was easy to tell they were mother and daughter. Jodie's hair was red, though with age it wasn't as vibrant as her daughter's. She had the same blue eyes too. And I could see a lot of Mary's looks in both of them as well. Mary had been an inch or two shorter than Jodie, but like all Cleary women she had bright red hair and sharp blue eyes.
It left me with some strange feelings of my own, seeing Amy Sullivan's lover in the faces of the mother and daughter across from me.
Meanwhile Jodie was staring at me again, while Tess had a slight frown on her face as she stared at the coffee table. I had no idea what was on my girlfriend's mind, but I could imagine Jodie's thoughts were probably similar but opposite to my own. She was probably looking at me and seeing a young woman in her early twenties, her daughter's girlfriend, but also recognizing me as one of the women who raised her. She never called Ms. Sullivan 'mom', but Aunt Amy was undeniably a parent to Jodie for the first twelve or fifteen years of her life.
In the end it was Tess who spoke first. That faint frown coalesced into something a little harder as she turned to stare at her mom. And there was a bit of anger in her voice as she asked, "You know your mom was gay, you know she spent her whole life in love with another woman. Granny and Amy raised you together. So why the hell have you been so... So willfully oblivious to the fact that I'm gay? Why have you never acknowledged any of my girlfriends? Why have you been so intent on denying that part of my life, my identity? Do you even know how much it hurt when Christine walked out on me and you didn't even care?!"
Jodie closed her eyes and sighed. She had another deep gulp of her Irish coffee, and it looked like she was trying to control her emotions. She didn't seem angry though. If anything she looked like she felt guilty.
"I'm sorry Theresa," she finally replied as she opened her eyes. Now she was looking at the coffee table, rather than meet her daughter's gaze. "I never meant to hurt you. I guess I was hoping to protect you somehow. My mom and Miss Sullivan... They acted like they were ashamed of how they felt for each other. They tried to hide their relationship, but they didn't do a very good job of it. More like as long as nobody openly acknowledged it, everyone could pretend it wasn't happening. But they didn't hear what people said when they weren't around. They didn't hear what people said to me, how I was treated at school, what my friends said."
Jodie sighed, "I heard all those awful things people said about my mom and Aunt Amy, and all the awful things people said to me, the things they called me, the things they called my mom. I know it's better now but there's still people who feel that way. I suppose I was hoping to spare you what I went through, what your granny and Miss Sullivan went through. And I suppose I was also in denial. I didn't want to acknowledge that aspect about you, because I hoped it wasn't true. I hoped you would be a normal girl who'd grow up to have a normal marriage and a normal life..."
Tess clenched her jaw for a second or two but she forced herself to stay relatively calm when she responded, "Mom there's nothing abnormal about being gay. Being gay isn't wrong, it's just a different way to be. And I get that the world was a lot more backwards and repressed back then, and I definitely get that it's not perfect now. But the way to make things better isn't to keep acting like being queer is something to be ashamed of. It's to act like being queer is normal. Because it is."
We were all quiet again for a few moments, with Jodie looking guilty and Tess looking angry. Meanwhile my thoughts were on the past, on Amy Sullivan's life. In a way it almost felt like I was channelling her a bit.
"Jodie I'm sorry," I finally spoke up again. I had that funny lilt in my voice again but I tried to ignore it as I continued, "Your mother and I felt the same way, and we made similar mistakes while believing we were protecting or sheltering you. We didn't realize at the time that we were teaching you to treat relationships like ours as something to be ashamed of. That's something we both came to regret, because it's exactly the opposite of how the two of us felt. We weren't ashamed, we were happy and in love and proud of it."
I gestured towards the coffee table as I added, "If you haven't seen it already, I think you should have a look through that scrapbook? It was your mom's. I don't know when she put it together, but it documents most of her life. Especially her life with Amy Sullivan."
Both Jodie and Tess startled slightly, neither of them noticed when I teleported the scrapbook from the bookcase in the office onto the table right under their noses. That was one of my tricks though, my magic could either be visible with all the gold sparkles and special effects, or it could be subtle and unseen.
My girlfriend took a deep breath then she leaned forward and picked up the large book. She moved closer to her mother and said quietly, "Let's look at it together, ok mom?"
Jodie nodded, and the two of them started slowly turning the pages as they reviewed the pictures and mementos of Mary Cleary's life.
