Wedding Bell Blues - [59]

and playing with her. When Stephen Hamilton rose to cross-examine Jeanie, Lily’s stomach knotted infear for her mother-in-law.

She needn’t have worried. When talking to Buzz, Jeanie’s demeanor had been warm and maternal,soft as the petals of a magnolia. But when she faced Hamilton, her entire presence changed until shecould’ve been Joan Crawford playing a tough-as-nails businesswoman.

“Mrs. McGilly,” Hamilton smiled. “I just have to ask you... when you saw the videotape, the onewith Miss Maycomb and your son and daughter-in-law and the man holding Mimi who was shouting,

‘We’ve come for your children ...’ “ He paused. “How did you feel when you saw that videotape, Mrs.

McGilly?”

Jeanie smiled a little. “Well, I didn’t laugh out loud the way my husband did, but I did think it waskinda funny. I mean ... you just had to know Dez. He didn’t mean nothing by what he was saying; he wasjust joking, like always. Benny Jack used to bring him down here to visit sometimes. We all just lovedDez. I cried my eyes out when I heard about the accident.”

Hamilton leaned toward her, going for maximum drama. “Did it ever occur to you that your sonand Dr. Reed, or Dez, might have been ... more than just friends?”

Jeanie rolled her eyes dismissively. “Sure, it occurred to me. I ain’t blind nor stupid. But the thingis, Mr. Hamilton, after your children grow up, you still love ’em, but you leave ’em alone. Once they’regrown, you’ve done your job. They’re adults, and they’re gonna do what they wanna do.”

“But what if that behavior is harmful?”

“Benny Jack and Dez wasn’t hurting anybody that I could see.”

“And what about Mrs. McGilly?”

Jeanie blinked. “What about her?”

“Is she hurting anybody?”

“If you’re saying she’s hurting Mimi by being ... or having been gay, she most certainly is not.

She’s devoted to that child. She and Benny Jack both are. I’ve been proud of my son, seeing him take onresponsibilities like he has.”

“Mrs. McGilly’s history of homosexuality doesn’t concern you?”

“She and Benny Jack seem to have a happy marriage. And even if Lily is a lesbian, I don’t seehow it’s any of my bizness.”

“Well,” Hamilton said, sounding worried, “Mimi is a female child. Aren’t you concerned with thedangers of sexual molestation?”

“Why, Mr. Hamilton, I’ve got half a mind to wash your mouth out with soap! I raised three boys.

Do you think I messed with them just ’cause I like men?”

“Well, no, of course not —”

Jeanie stood up. “Mr. Hamilton, do you have any more questions for me? ’Cause I don’t want towaste another minute of my life talking to somebody as nasty-minded as you.”

For the first time today, Hamilton looked flustered. “Oh, no further questions.”

Big Ben McGilly also held his own on the stand. When Hamilton asked him his personal feelingsabout homosexuality, he paused a moment, then said, “It takes all kindsa people to make a world, Mr.

Hamilton. When I was in the army, I worked with black men, white men, Jewish men, straight men, andgay men ... and I never had a bit of trouble with a one of ’em. Seemed to me that’s how it oughta be, alldifferent kindsa people working together for one cause.”

“But what about homosexuals who choose to raise children?”

Big Ben shrugged. “Hell, at least they choose it ... not like most people who lets their baserinstincts get the best of them, and then just start spitting out young’uns by accident. I know your kindalways wants to see kids brought up in a home where the mother and daddy’s married to each other ... andwhere they believe in God and the Bible.” Big Ben looked off in the distance for a moment. “Well, I grewup in a home like that ... for a while, anyway. My mother and daddy was married and went to churchevery Sunday. Trouble was, every Friday night Daddy went out and got drunk as a skunk, then comehome and beat the hell outta Mama and me. She finally got a bellyful of his meanness and run him offwith a shotgun.”

Lily thought of the shotgun in the back window of Granny McGilly’s pickup. She had had afeeling the old woman wouldn’t hesitate to use it, with cause.

“After Mama run Daddy off,” Big Ben continued, “we was even poorer than we’d been before.

But every day of my life was happier than when Daddy had been in the house. So what I’m saying, Mr.

Hamilton, is I started out in a family that looked the way you think families is supposed to look. But I wasa whole lot happier when I ended up in one of them single-mother families your kind is always railingabout.”

“I don’t see how that relates to my question, Mr. McGilly.”

“All I’m saying is that your way ain’t always the best way, Mr. Hamilton. Just ’cause somethin’

looks good from the outside, that don’t mean there ain’t somethin’ bad wrong on the inside. And youmight not like the way homosexuals are on the outside, but that don’t mean some of them ain’t goodpeople on the inside.”

“This is, of course, just your opinion, Mr. McGilly?”

“Of course it’s just my opinion! And everything you’ve said today is just your opinion. Everybodyhere’s got an opinion — that’s what we need a judge for!”