to tell me. . . and it had to be in person. So she invited me to lunch the next day. Of course, I was dying toknow what it was she had to tell me. I thought to myself, maybe she’s finally found a man who’s agreedto marry her.” She shook her head sadly. “But of course, that wasn’t it.”
Ida looked down and cleared her throat. “I went to her apartment for lunch. I remember she’dmade a tuna salad that had too much celery seed in it. Charlotte never was much of a cook —”
“Mrs. Maycomb,” Judge Sanders interrupted, “in the interest of our getting to have some lunchtoday, could you please stick to the topic at hand?”
“I’m sorry, your honor. It’s just that it’s so difficult ...” She began to sniffle. Hamilton pulled asmall packet of Kleenex from his jacket pocket. She took one and dabbed at her eyes. Lily wondered howmany times they’d rehearsed that little exchange. “Continue when you’re ready, Mrs. Maycomb,”Hamilton said soothingly.
Ida took a deep breath and continued. “We sat down to lunch. Charlotte was just playing with herfood, not really eating, and she said there was something she’d been meaning to tell me for a long time,but she had just kept putting it off. Now, she said, she couldn’t put it off any longer. ’ Mama,’ she said tome, ‘I’m. . . I’m a. . . lesbian.’ “ Ida said the word lesbian as though she was sounding it out from adictionary’s pronunciation key. She wiped away another tear.
“And why,” Hamilton asked, “was it that your daughter felt that after all this time she had to tellyou about her homosexuality?”
Ida looked at him with wet eyes. “She said she had fallen in love ... that was how she put it, justlike it was a normal thing to do. She said she’d been seeing this woman, and they had decided to settledown and make a life together.”
“And who was this woman?”
Ida nodded toward Lily. “That’s her, right over there.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Maycomb. I know this is difficult for you. I just have one more question. A littleover three years after the conversation you just discussed, Charlotte told you she was pregnant—that shehad been artificially inseminated and that she and Lily were going to raise a child together. What wasyour reaction when she told you this?”
“Well, naturally, it just broke my heart,” Ida said. “When you’ve got two adults who are sinningtogether, there’s not much you can do about it. You can pray for ’em, and you can try to bring ’em to theLord, but they’re adults, so they’re gonna do what they wanna do. But to bring a child into that sinful