“God, I feel so guilty,” Ken wailed. “If I hadn’t brought the champagne—”
“This still could’ve happened,” Lily finished for him. “It’s not your fault.”
Jack kissed Lily’s cheek. “Call me the second you know something.”
Lily sighed. “I will.”
Their lovers scurried off, and Lily and Ben sat on the couch, holding hands in despair. They hadn’teven been to the courthouse yet, but they were already awaiting their sentence.
CHAPTER 19
“Well, this ain’t an easy thing to talk about.” Big Ben McGilly stared into his coffee mug.
Lily couldn’t believe she’d had the presence of mind to brew coffee. She and Ben had sat on thecouch in miserable silence for twenty minutes when she had jumped up, saying, “Well, if you’re sure yourparents are coming over, I might as well make some coffee.”
She had thought it was insane as she was doing it, measuring out coffee just as she was about tolose her daughter and possibly her life. (After all, it wasn’t inconceivable that Big Ben would arrive totinga double-barreled shotgun.) But now she saw the sense of her coffee preparation. The cups gave them allsomething to hold in their fidgety hands, something to stare into instead of each other’s eyes.
“No, it ain’t an easy thing to sit in your living room and talk about,” Big Ben continued. “But Ireckon ya know why we’re here.” He looked over at Jeanie, who looked into her coffee cup.
“Yes, sir,” Lily answered, when it became clear that her husband wasn’t going to say anything.
Big Ben nodded gravely. “Sheila and Tracee was over at the house a little while ago. Now whythey’d be rude enough to swing a body’s bedroom doors open is a mystery to me, but they told me whatthey seen. In no uncertain terms, you might say.”
Lily looked at Ben, whose face was gray. Good god, Lily thought. He’s not just upset over Mimi;he’s upset because his parents are going to cut him off without a cent. Benny Jack McGilly is stunned intomuteness at the thought of having to get a job. “Yes, sir,” Lily said to her father-in-law, figuring that sincethe course of events was inevitable, she might as well speed things along.
“Now I can’t say me and Jeanie was surprised by what Sheila and Tracee said they saw,” Big Bencontinued. “I reckon what surprised us was that y’all didn’t have the presence of mind to lock the frontdoor before ya got nekkid.”
For the first time since his parents arrived, Ben looked up. “What?”
Jeanie set her cup down on the coffee table. “Why, Benny Jack, honey, we’ve knowed you was ahomosexual since you was ten years old. And when you brought Lily home, we just kinda figgered she