KarMel Scholarship 2007

“Memories of Johanna”

By Rachel Jenson

Desciption of Submission: Fictional short story; intended to humanize the issue of gay marriage by telling the story of Christine Dreyer who loses her partner of many years and isn't allowed to visit her in her in her last moments alive.

I could barely breathe. Slowly putting the phone down, still in shock, I stood there for a moment, adjusting to the instant vertigo. An hour, she’d said. An hour. One. I didn’t have much time to waste. Suddenly reanimated by this thought, I snatched my car keys and sprinted out to the car. It was two a.m. in the city of Bergsten, but I was still dressed in my clothes from work. Johanna told me she’d meet me at the restaurant and then we’d have dinner together. This was perfectly normal – she coached volleyball after school was out, so I’d get us a table and wait for her for a half hour or so, during which she’d arrive from practice. Then we’d eat dinner and go home. It was our Friday night ritual. We hadn’t broken it since we met twenty years ago. When she hadn’t shown up an hour after she said she would, I started to worry. Then I started to worry for real when she didn’t answer her cell phone. I invented all sorts of reasons why she hadn’t come yet or called, or even answered her phone, but at ten-thirty I gave up and came home three hours after I’d arrived. I called the police and described the situation, but they said they hadn’t had any calls and hung up. An hour later, I received a slightly apologetic call from the police department, who told me that she was at Bergsten Hospital and in critical condition. Like I said, I knew something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones. When I arrived, I walked up to the desk as fast as I could without running.

“I’m looking for Johanna Roberts,” I said breathlessly.

“She’s in intensive care,” the woman behind the desk replied in a canned sympathetic voice.

“Can I see her please?” I asked, verging on panic.

“Only immediate family and/or currently married spouses are allowed into the room. What is your name?”

I swallowed hard and answered, “I’m Christine Dryer.”

“And your relation to her is…?” She scrutinized me, as if she already knew. “I’m her partner,” I answered.

Her eyebrows lifted. “I’ll have to check with the Head of the Department. In the mean time, wait in the hallway.” I nodded and sat in the waiting chair.

Ten minutes later, she came back. “I’m sorry Ma’am, but her mother asked that it be only family.”

“I am family! I have to see her!” I nearly shouted, panic in my voice. I had to see her. “The doctor who called said she had an hour to live!” I pleaded.

“I’m truly sorry,” the secretary said, this time actually sounding sorry, and patted me on the shoulder before returning to her desk.

The shock gripped me, and I froze for a moment, trying to decide what to do. Then I looked at my watch. It had almost been an hour since the call. My heart beat frantically and I sprinted upstairs to the intensive care unit. It took about five minutes to find her room. When I arrived, I rapped my knuckles against the door to get their attention. No one opened up. I continued to beat on the door. Finally, I tested the doorknob. It opened out at the same time that I pulled it, and I nearly fell down. The doctor was leaving, and I heard the heart monitor’s long tone. Her family filed out without even sparing me a glance.

She was dead.

And I hadn’t gotten to say goodbye.

I rushed to her side, tears freely falling on her white hospital robe and bandages stained with blood. Her blood. I barely recognized her. Holding her hand, I just cried. I wanted to choke out an “I love you,” but I couldn’t make it sound – not that she could hear me now, anyway.

A few minutes later, the nurses helped me up, and I leaned over and kissed her cooling lips one last time. I’m not sure how long I sat in the waiting room, but it was over two hours before I felt like I could control myself enough to drive home.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” the doctor said. He had just gotten done with another patient, and the nurses sent him to talk to me. I just looked up at him with red eyes and my streaked, salty face.

“She wasn’t my friend,” I managed bitterly. “She was my lover and spouse for over twenty years.”

Thomas

I was surprised when Johanna didn’t show up for work that morning. Johanna was my co-worker and friend since I’d moved to the area five years ago. She was one of those cheerful types that was smiling all the time, even at six o’clock in the morning. Just seeing her was like coffee in the veins, and I counted on her arrival to get me enthused for yet another day of sometimes grueling, sometimes gut-wrenching, and even sometimes heartbreaking work. You see, she and I taught at Bergsten Alternative High – a place for students with severe behavioral and social issues. Every morning, she and I would meet in the break room for cup of coffee, joke around with each other, and talk shop talk about classes and such. As I said, while I am very motivated to do my work because I believe in youth, it is a very tough job. At least my days started out right. She and I had been friends for several years and knew each other very well. She was the first one to talk to me when I took the job. The other teachers already had their social circles, and I knew it would take a while to chip into them. I’m somewhat of a quiet guy; I’m not one to just walk up to random new people and start talking. Johanna – Ms. Roberts to her students – was. She wasn’t, I noticed, part of any of the obvious circles. She kind of drifted between people, but never really settled on one group or another. When I arrived, she walked right up to me and introduced herself. She had a firm handshake and a great smile. Her short, trendy brown hair and soft brown eyes made her seem spunky and fun, and I took an instant liking to her. We were friends, but we rarely talked about our lives outside of work.

After several months of evading personal questions, it finally occurred to me that the picture of her “sister” Christine – green-eyed, blond-haired Christine – was probably not her sister in the conventional sense. Every time I asked about her, Johanna would become very vague in description of their relationship, but her eyes smiled at the thought of her. I finally had the bright idea to bring my brother, Charlie’s picture of him and his partner Roger to my office. Putting it on my desk, I waited for her to notice. She instantly saw it – she was always so observant, a quality that made her an excellent teacher – and asked about it. I told her all about my brother and his partner, how my wife and I felt very close to them, how we were friends as well as family. She smiled and finally invited my wife and me over for dinner.

“You sure? I don’t want to impose on you.” I wanted to make sure she was ready for me to know.

“Well, Mr. Beck, I owe you the favor, since I ate at your house last week,” she said jokingly in response. It was then that I met Christine and was introduced to her for real.

“This is my sister Christine. She is my sister – my lover – and we’ve lived together for fifteen years this October,” she’d said.

We laughed and finally had an honest conversation for once. My wife was extremely good at putting them both at ease, explaining that we understood discrimination. She’d grown up black on a farm in Alabama and had married a northern city man from Minnesota. We knew prejudice, and weren’t about to propagate it. We’d been deep friends ever since.

Now she wasn’t at work, and I wondered where she was. I figured she must be sick, a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence, as she ran five miles every morning, ate vegetarian, slept for exactly seven and a half hours every night and was a nutcase about germs. I walked back to my room from the break room and started working, as first hour was my prep period before class second hour. I’d gotten a lucky schedule this year. It was during this time that I received a call from the principal. He wouldn’t tell me anything, just that I needed to talk to him immediately. I quickly walked down to the office. My feeling of uneasiness tripled. It wasn’t like Dean to call me in this early in the morning, or ever, for that matter. It occurred to me to worry she’d been outed – and fired.

“Thomas, I’d like to talk to you about Ms. Roberts. I just received a call from her sister, Christine. She told me that last night – Johanna isn’t – oh, there’s no good way to say this, Tom. There was an accident… her car went off the overpass and… well, she’s gone. She passed away at Bergsten hospital last night at about three in the morning. I know you were friends with her and Christine and I wanted to let you know before you heard rumors,” Dean said with the utmost sympathy.

I let this sink in. Johanna, my dear friend, Johanna was dead.

“We’re holding an assembly this morning to let the students know,” he added. I nodded and tried not to cry.

“I have to talk to Christine,” I said finally.

“The assembly will be during second hour, so don’t worry about your prep period.” I nodded again.

When I was finally out of his office, I locked myself in my office and just cried. I knew it wasn’t manly or teacherly or anything, but I needed to do it. Aside from my wife, Johanna was the one person in my life who truly understood me. I finally dried my eyes and dialed Christine. If I was hurting, I couldn’t imagine how much pain she was in. The phone rang three times and clicked. She wasn’t home.

“Christine – I just heard about – ” I stalled. I knew how hard it would be to say ‘Johanna’ now, for both of us. “ – Johanna. I’m so sorry. When you get this, call me back. Maybe we can get together tonight – I don’t want you to be alone, not after last night…”

Ryan

I bit my tongue until it bled. Christine had just called me this morning to tell me the news. Quite frankly, I was still in shock. I hadn’t spoken to them much in the last four years, and it was only recently that I’d tried to reconnect with them. Now Johanna was dead, and I only had myself to blame for not getting to say goodbye.

I didn’t have an easy childhood, living with them. Johanna and I actually got along better than my mother, Christine and I did, but I suppose that it’s normal for teens not to get along with their parents. In the end, I turned against both of them. I guess I’m only partly to blame for my reaction, but I still had control over my actions. I didn’t have to bring my classmates’ hate into our home and spew it at them. Society wasn’t a fan of differences, chosen or not, and I’d learned that the hard way. As a young child, I hadn’t noticed anything different about my family, only that I had two women for caretakers, instead of a man and a woman. It hadn’t mattered to me then, and it wouldn’t have ever mattered to me if it hadn’t mattered to them. But it did.

In first grade, I was over at my best friend, Tara’s house with her older brother babysitting us both. Jason was in seventh grade and knew a lot more about the world that either of us did. We were playing house with her middle sister, Laura, who was only a year older than us. I offered to be the child and they could be the parents, and she told me that, no, I needed to be the dad and she would be the child. I was confused and asked her why I couldn’t be the child.

“There has to be a mommy and a daddy, Ryan,” Laura replied condescendingly.

“Oh leave him alone,” Jason said. “He doesn’t know any better – he lives with a couple of dykes, so how could he?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“What’s a dyke?” Tara asked. Jason sighed.

“A dyke is what he’s got for parents. Instead of having a mommy and a daddy, he has two moms. It’s not normal. Everyone should have a mom and dad, but Ryan here got the short end of the stick. That’s what happens when people play politics with family,” he finished. We were still confused; all I knew was that I was somehow different, and it wasn’t a good thing.

After that I was made acutely aware of just how different I was. All through school I was teased for my mothers’ sexuality and by the time I was in seventh grade, I could hardly stand them any more. I threw a fit and asked how they could put me through such hell, how they could be so selfish as to force a kid to go through this. We moved to Bergsten shortly after. Supposedly the city was more open and accepting of gays – and their children. I didn’t trust it.

At Bergsten, I was so afraid of having a similar situation as my previous one that I refused to have kids over. I just said that my parents weren’t the sort that I could have friends meet, and that was the end of it. I would go over to people’s houses, or I’d have them over when no one else or only Christine was home, and before they came I’d run through the house and hide anything that would expose our secret. Christine sacrificed this openness for my sake and didn’t talk about it to my friends. I knew it killed her to not be herself around them, but I was selfish enough to make her do it anyway.

The last straw was when I got asked out by Takiyah, one of the most conservative, religious people I’d ever met. I knew she’d drop me like a rock if she knew about my parents, but I still loved her anyway. She was beautiful and proper, and liked to do things the old-fashioned way. In my little world of constant upheaval and change, I liked the more stable, traditional approach. Naturally, she eventually found out and, as predicted, dumped me like a sack of rotten potatoes. I was so mad at them that I didn’t speak to them for a week. It was only after a night-long conversation with Johanna that I realized that if she was a jerk enough to turn me away for something I had no control over, she wasn’t worth the time of day.

I still drifted apart from them after that incident and when I graduated from high school, I didn’t look back. They didn’t really have the funds to send me to college, and I offered to pay for it anyway. While that stuck me with the bill, it allowed me to declare my independence sooner and receive more financial aid in addition to my freedom. I focused on school and, not too long afterwards, school and a career. I had girlfriends off and on in college and almost married one before I got into a fight with her over our living situation. Throughout all my troubles, I worried that I was going to get fed up with women and turn gay like mom and Johanna. Every time I fell for another girl I was intensely relieved. I didn’t really give either of them much thought until my roommate and best friend in college came out to me. He explained many things to me; it wasn’t that my folks hadn’t, I just hadn’t really listened to them and they hadn’t put it in a way that I could understand like Matt did. It was then that I called them for the first time in years. We’d arranged to have dinner. It was fairly awkward, but I brought Matt with me to help mediate. I explained that he’d gotten a few things set right in my head and that I really did need my parents after all.

Christine and Johanna were delighted to see me again, but I think it was sad for them to know that they were unable to raise their only son to be tolerant; the fact that I had to hear it from Matt to believe it saddened them. After that first reunion, I meant to talk to Johanna and explain that I didn’t believe them because I thought they were just being defensive. I meant to explain that it was my peers and this screwed up society that caused me to push them away the way I did. It wasn’t their fault, and I knew that and wanted them to as well. I even set up another dinner date for that exact purpose.

It wasn’t meant to be. I’d set the day for that coming Friday, but on Tuesday I received a call from Christine saying that Johanna was dead. She’d gotten into a car wreck on the way home from work that evening and had died in the hospital shortly after.

I meant to tell her, I really did. I meant to make everything right. I meant to be their son again and to smooth over the fights we’d had and the years we’d lost. I knew now that I would never be able to reconcile with Johanna, and all the things I’d been preparing myself to say for all these years, all the words I rehearsed in my head over and over again, I would never be able to say. I would never see Johanna smile again, or hear her peculiar little laugh. I would never hold her warm hand and say ‘I’m sorry.’

Christine was alive still and alone. The most important thing I could do now, I realized, was just to go and be with her. She’d need everyone she loved now for support. I got in the car and put the keys in the ignition. I got partway down the road before I had to pull over again. Even for someone as masculine as I prided myself on being, I could hardly see the road, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

Maya

Things aren’t always what they seem. Sometimes you think you know people, sometimes you think you know them so well that there’s nothing they could tell you that you didn’t already know. And sometimes you think you know someone just because you respect them and they are a part of your life in some way. The truth is that you never really know people, not even those closest to you, because as people we tend to like to keep things ‘my life’ and ‘your life.’ I thought I knew Ms. Roberts. I really did. She was my Sunday school teacher for three years. I knew her as the children’s choir director. I knew she was a good, strong Christian who had helped out my parents for years. I also knew she was living with Ms. Dryer. I knew they were partners. I knew they were lesbians. I knew that, but I didn’t understand, that is, until today.

I like writing things in my journal. They’re not necessarily events or anything, just random descriptions of things I see, random objects, people, a far off glance or smile, a bird, anything really I see that calls up emotions in me. People call me shy or quiet, or what have you, but I’m really not the shy girl, but the listening girl. I listen, and I watch. You can learn so much about the world around you when you watch it pass before your eyes and listen to what and how people say things. Therein lay the things they don’t say, but scream internally. It was by observation only that I saw how Ms. Roberts and Ms. Dryer spoke to each other, acted together, smiled when they were near each other and inevitably I inferred what they truly were to each other. I finally worked up the nerve to ask Ms. Roberts, my mentor and friend, if she was married. She smiled and answered yes. I asked her who her husband was, and she thought for a moment, then tried to say a few things and ended up saying nothing.

“Its okay, I’m not going to tell anyone, but are you married to Ms. Dryer?” I asked.

“How did you know that, Maya?” she asked me kindly, but with an undercurrent of worry.

“I watched you. I watched how you two acted around each other, how you smiled, and I knew neither of you had husbands. I also noticed that your mailing addresses were the same and I – I just put it all together,” I answered her honestly.

“Are we that obvious?” Ms. Roberts had smiled, but I knew she was worried.

“Things are not always what they seem,” I reassured her. “I’m only fourteen, but I see things most people miss.”

“How very true,” she’d mused, leaning back with a thoughtful little smile on her face.

“You can tell me anything, Ms. Roberts. I can handle a lot and I never tell secrets.” I added, realizing that there was a lot more to both of us than either of us would ever let past our lips. I guess it it’s just that natural human inclination to pull away again, preventing her from telling me more. She must have talked to Ms. Dryer after that, because I noticed that they adopted separate PO boxes to thwart any more keen young eyes. On the other hand, they both treated me a little differently and actually invited me over to the house. I talked to them openly and it turned out that Ms. Robert’s ‘nephew’ Ryan was really her adopted son. I learned that they had had to move out when they were eighteen because neither set of their parents were accepting of them. I also learned that later Ms. Dryer’s parents had called her back and reunited with her, spurring Ms. Robert’s hopes that hers would too. They haven’t to this day. We’d eaten chocolate chip cookies together and talked about faith. We talked about how the Bible could be used to condemn any idea and at the same time lift up any idea – the interpretation was all. We were very close after that; despite the gap in age, they were my friends.

Things were definitely not all they seemed though. Again, as I have said so many times already, you never really know people. I knew they were different, but I didn’t understand it. I watched it, I heard it, but it never hit home until the visitation today. I was terribly sad to lose my good friend, but watching how Ms. Dryer and Ms. Robert’s mother stood inches and yet worlds away showed me something, not just the death, had happened. When I was at my house again, I dug through the paper to find her obituary again. It was impersonal as they all were, listing things about her life that didn’t really have anything to do with her real life and yet – I knew there was something more. When I had looked at the body, it was well taken care of and she honestly looked like she was just asleep in that coffin, but again, I received that unpleasant chill that there was something more to this story than just the tragic death of a friend. It was when I saw the police talking to a sobbing Ms. Dryer after the visitation that I knew for sure that it wasn’t just a feeling. When they were done, I caught them on their way out.

“Why were you talking to Ms. Dryer?” I asked them bluntly.

They looked at each other. “Who are you?”

“I’m her good friend. Please tell me. Why are you here? Did something happen to Ms. Roberts besides the car wreck.?” I pressed.

“We aren’t allowed to release information at this point in time,” they answered and left before I could continue to ask. I finally sighed and asked Ms. Dryer. She was standing there, no tears anymore, but fully in shock and didn’t look so stable. Ryan and Mr. Beck were holding each of her arms to make sure she didn’t fall over.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Well, everyone thought she’d slipped and gone off the overpass, but now the police think differently,” Mr. Beck explained.

“What do you mean?” I demanded.

“Maya, they think her car was pushed off. They think someone ran her off the bridge.”

Things never are what they seem.

Jerusha

Haunted. That’s how I felt. Haunted. I knew it was probably my grieving mother’s heart aching that was causing my extra sensitivity, but I just couldn’t seem to get that woman’s eyes out of my mind. Christine Dryer was a striking woman. She had some of the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen, and powdery white-blond hair cut in a short, fashionable style. She, like my daughter, often dressed in suits and pants instead of skirts, but was nevertheless feminine. I’d never really gotten along with her; in fact, I often blamed her for my daughter’s descent into homosexuality. But, sitting at home in my pink fuzzies on the couch in front of the TV, I can’t help but think about her face in church last morning. We held a visitation for my Johanna yesterday, my beautiful, wonderful daughter Johanna. She was gone because someone thought that she should die. My daughter, killed, because someone thought she was so wrong, so vile, so perverted that she no longer deserved to live. Can anyone begin to swallow that? As a mother, your own flesh and blood lying cold in a coffin because of what she chose to be? I’m still in shock.

I never supported her. I’m opposed to homosexuality; I don’t think that it’s God’s intent for humanity to live with one of the same sex the way most people do with one of the opposite and yet… and yet my daughter chose this life. Even now, lying back and thinking back, I remember how shocked I was, and yet I knew. I just knew. She was different, that was for sure. Flash – a picture of Johanna at three, shaking her head at me as she refused to put on a dress. Flash – Johanna at her seventh birthday party, surrounded by boys only because they were her only friends. Flash – Johanna coming home at thirteen, angry because they wouldn’t let her play on the football team. Flash – Johanna bringing home Steve in college, how she treated him, how she quietly told me they were dating. Flash – Johanna calling me from New York, telling me she was moving in with a roommate near Bergsten, halfway across the country. Flash – Johanna bringing Christine home for Thanksgiving that first year. I wiped away a tear. I don’t recall exactly what she told me about how she and Christine met, but it didn’t really matter. I didn’t care how they met, just that they did, and now they were doing things together I never cared to contemplate.

Flash – Johanna calling me, excited, saying she’d received her teaching certificate. I wondered where she was going to teach that would be open to having her as she was. Flash – Johanna calling me again, this time even more excited, saying she was a mother. I remember praying that she’d finally found a husband, but reality told of her and Christine raising Ryan together. Years passed. I remember filling out family reunion invitations for all my children and their spouses, except for Christine. I remember Johanna coldly informing me that she would not attend without Christine. I never wavered, and neither did she. The result was that I didn’t get to see her for nearly three years, even though I had moved much closer to them. I remember inviting her to come home over Christmas vacation or summer or something, but having her turn me down if Christine wasn’t invited as well. After awhile she just didn’t call any more, and neither did I. I loved Johanna, make no mistake. I just didn’t love her decision to parody a real marriage with Christine. Know also that I never hated Christine. I blamed her at first, but I never hated her. I actually really liked her as a person and I could see why someone would want to be with her, just not my daughter.

And then – and then I got the call from the Bergsten Hospital, saying they’d identified a car crash victim as my daughter, Johanna Roberts, and called me to inform me that she was in critical condition with little time left. Flash – I winced when I first saw her, skin burnt and bleeding, her body a mass of bandages. This wasn’t my daughter, not the Johanna I raised. She was so changed by the many injuries that I barely recognized her. If it hadn’t been for her brown eyes that were so like her father’s I never would have believed it was her. She wasn’t conscious by the time I got there, but I could feel a weak pulse in her wrist, which was one of a few places that wasn’t covered. I ached just looking at her. I just couldn’t believe that I was saying goodbye to the precious baby I’d brought into the world forty six years ago. Flash – that moment, that heartbreaking moment when I was cradling her and my husband Richard was holding us both, the nurse came in, wanting to know if Christine could come in too. It was so tender, so personal, so private, like a delicate flower – I just couldn’t bring myself to shatter it with a last confrontation of my daughter’s sexuality. In that moment, Johanna was mine again, not gay, straight or anything else. She was just my daughter, and I didn’t want to think about her as a grown woman with a lesbian partner and a teaching career. The last thing I wanted to have to do in my daughter’s last moments was confront the one true rift between us – Christine Dryer. So I said no.

I wasn’t thinking about Christine then. I didn’t stop to consider that she was losing Johanna too. I didn’t stop to think about it until this morning in the funeral home, when we stood next to each other, shaking the hands of half the town paying their final respects to Johanna Roberts, daughter, teacher, lover, mother and friend. Flash – Christine’s eyes as we closed the casket on Johanna forever and stepped back to let the workers carry her out to the hearse to take her to the church until the funeral. I realized then what I had done, and wept.

Christine

They told me the first night was the worst night. To be honest, I don’t remember much about that first night except how cold it was. I hadn’t been alone in bed for twenty three years except for the possible oddball conference or weekend or such, but even then we liked to travel together. I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that she was never coming home, that the house would always be this quiet, that our bed – our bed – would always be this cold… I curled into an even tighter ball. I’d told my boss I was sick, which was mostly true. I didn’t have leave for death in the family because technically speaking Johanna hadn’t been related to me or married to me. Bullshit. She and I were married – just not in the eyes of the law. I was heartbroken, mentally sick, felt like I was going to shatter in a thousand pieces and hoped it would actually happen. I was sick, just not with the flu. I buried my head in her favorite sweater. It still smelled like her, which was torture. I could almost see her laughing face. I knew I shouldn’t wad myself up on our couch, clutching at the few remaining bits of Johanna, but I couldn’t help myself. Her funeral was in two hours and I was completely unprepared. Her mother and I had worked things out with the funeral director so that we were in communication without having to actually talk to each other. Still, we had stood next to each other the morning before last, shaking the hands of all her family and friends. I’d received a lot of hugs, but Thomas was the best for support. He had to be at work at the moment, but he was getting off in an hour to help with the funeral.

Ryan came home. I was glad for that, at least. It only took his other mom’s death to do it, but he was home now, for at least a week, maybe more. I was badly wrinkling my dress, but I didn’t care. Who did I have to impress? I was at my spouse’s funeral. No one in my life had ever caused me to want to dress up besides her. I guess I usually dressed up when I saw her mother, but that was just because I wanted to make a good impression. It hardly mattered now. I desperately wanted my own mother, but she and dad were in heaven with God right now – maybe they were talking to Johanna. I smiled at the thought. My parents, in contrast with Johanna’s, were actually fairly accepting of the idea. It took them several years, but when I made it clear that this was who I was and they met Johanna, they grew to love and accept us both for who we were. I’d like to say we were even friends. They had passed a few years ago in poor health, and it was just as well that they were out of pain – and yet, I missed them sorely, now that Johanna too was gone.

One hour. One hour before the funeral. One hour I’d had to get across town to see Johanna one last time. One hour in a life of hours. I wished I could disappear and never be seen again. The worst part, the part that made me want to shatter most was that my Johanna wasn’t just struck down by a random act of fate or by the will of God, but taken from me by the cold edge of hate. She wasn’t just a tragedy, a loss to me, but a black scar of prejudice on my heart, her blood dripping from my hands as I cradle her for the last time and demand to know where the justice in this life is. She isn’t just my beloved wife who is now with God, but a symbol of all the things I’ve been fighting against all my life and from now on, every time I talk about her it will reopen the scars of last night, the night before last, tonight, and every night from here on out. From now on my memory of her will be colored by bitterness at having her wrenched from my life.

I dismissively brushed away my tears and looked at the sheet of paper with all the words of what I’d wanted to say written in erratic scrawl. They didn’t make any more sense to me today than they did the night before, but it was what I had, and I didn’t want to ad lib at something this important.

“It’s time,” I heard a deep voice behind me say. “Are you ready?”

“I’m not ready yet, Ryan,” I said, trying not to let the sob sound in my voice. “I’ll never be ready.”

“Oh Mom,” Ryan tried to say evenly, but his voice broke anyway. He sat down next to me and put his arms around me like he liked to when he was a child. I patted his hair and tried to think about how soft his hair was instead of what I was really going to say. “I’m never going to be ready to bury her either, but it’s time whether we want it to be or not.”

I nodded and sat there for a few more minutes anyway. Finally, I stood slowly and took in the room. The sunlight trickled in through the leaves in the trees out back to shine in our bay window. It was time.

I let Ryan drive. I knew if I tried we’d probably go over the edge too, but I would only have myself to blame for that accident. My grief alone would be the end of me if I were to die at any point in the near future. I read somewhere that people actually can die of a broken heart because grief somehow releases chemicals that greatly improve your chance of a heart attack. I was a bit skeptical of the article when I first read it, even though it was in a science-oriented magazine, but now I wondered if maybe it were true. I almost choked out a bitter laugh at all the arbitrary things that come to mind, even in times of incredible loss and pain. Instead I just watched the trees drift in and out of view of the passenger window at an even float. I took a deep breath and sighed, hoping to calm my flitting thoughts and liven my dully thudding heart.

“Do you think she’s in heaven now, Ryan?” I asked distantly.

“Of course she is,” he murmured, far away in thought himself.

When we pulled into the parking lot, I slowly unsnapped my seatbelt and stepped out of the car. My pace was slow, but determined. I felt like I was losing her, inch by inch. Inch by inch, her fingers slipped from mine and she grew closer to the abyss called death. My eyes fluttered shut for a moment, as if by closing them I could block out the pain. I knew that once the funeral was over, after we buried her, she’d really be gone. There was no hope; there was no hanging on, just the absolute grind of seconds that added up to minutes, minutes that added up into days, days that melted into weeks. It would always be the same; it would never slow down or go back. I would never see her smile again or hear her laugh. I would never hear the front door click with the sound of her turning key and feel my heart skip a few happy beats.

I would be alone. It would be cold. It would be quiet. And it would not change.

She was in the church kitchen, Johanna’s mother was. She was bent over the counter, separating cookies onto different sheets and warming up the ovens to make more. I drew in their scent and exhaled sadly. Johanna must’ve gotten her baking skills from her mother; nothing had ever smelled so sweet and so bitter at the same time.

“I made sugar cookies, her favorites,” Jerusha said to me without looking up.

I didn’t answer. I didn’t think Mrs. Roberts wanted to know that sugar cookies were both our favorites because we’d made them together in the kitchen of our first house after our honeymoon – naked. I wanted to laugh, but I knew I’d end up crying too.

“Christine?” she asked. I waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, I replied. “Yes?”

“Is it ever too late to ask forgiveness of someone?” Her voice sounded as fragile as glass.

I thought about her question. Was it too late for forgiveness? Could I ever forgive Ryan for not telling Johanna he loved her before she died? Could I forgive those who had killed Johanna? Could I forgive her for not letting me say goodbye?

She looked up at me expectantly. I had trouble meeting her eyes.

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully.

She looked back down and nodded.

Benediction

The funeral started right on time, punctual as Johanna herself. The organist played softly as people filed in past Christine and Johanna’s family. When everyone had seated themselves, the surviving family took their places at the front of the church. Her siblings strung themselves out in the front, each with their spouse and children next to them. In the center sat Jerusha and her husband Richard. Christine looked blearily at the front row for a seat and, realizing there was only one seat remaining, sat down next to Jerusha. The organ began to play a different tune now, and the preacher walked to the front of the church with the layleader to his left.

The service opened with a prayer and then the main speech by the preacher. He talked about Johanna’s life, her career, her connection with the church. He read stories of friends and family members, memoirs, anecdotes of her life. Then there were the hymns, and finally “Ave Marie” was played by a flute player friend of hers. While she was playing, those who wished to say a piece about her walked up to the front and sat down in a line. Christine followed Jerusha and realized that she was bringing up the rear. That was okay, she thought, since she was the one to know her best. One by one, each sibling said something of her. Fond memories of their childhood and college years were told. Some were intended for laughs, some for tears. Finally Ryan took the podium.

He stood there for a moment, apparently trying to gather his thoughts and project them as words. When he finally spoke, his voice slightly wavered, but nonetheless remained strong through the speech.

“Johanna was first and foremost my mother. But, I would like to also think that we were, at one point in our lives, friends as well. I don’t know how many of you knew that she was my mother and how many of you were still under the impression that I was her nephew that was living with her and Christine. The truth is, I had two mothers – Johanna and Christine – who lived together and taught me how to live with others as well.

“It wasn’t easy growing up with them, knowing I was different because I was their child. Growing up different is never easy, but I want to thank them for that. I don’t think I would be the man I am today if it I hadn’t grown up in their home. Unfortunately, my mother, Johanna, will never get to hear me say that.

“When I left for college, I left them behind. I was tired of the fight, the struggle just to make it through the day with prejudices that be and I just wanted a normal life. The only way I thought I could do that was by living away from them and living a lie. I left home without saying goodbye, without telling them that I loved them. And it stayed that way for about four years.

“Four years until last week, I hadn’t spoken to them since I left for college. Last week, a close friend of mine explained their side of life by explaining his own, and this knowledge drove me home. I knew that I had to reconnect with the mothers that had loved me and raised me. I ate with them and talked, but I still didn’t say that I loved them, and I didn’t apologize for leaving them.

“I meant to do it. I did. I had the date picked, we’d made dinner reservations, I’d rehearsed exactly what I was going to say. And then – and then two days before then, my mother Christine called me to let me know that Johanna had been taken from us. I will never forget that moment, because in that moment, I knew I’d never be able to tell her I loved her. I would never get to say goodbye.

“I will deeply miss Johanna, my mother and friend. I did not treat her the way I should have; I did not say many things I should have, but I loved her and will miss her. As to Christine, Mom, I love you and I’m sorry for leaving you without saying goodbye. I didn’t know then what I know now. I am thankful that I can tell you this, even though I will never have that same chance with Johanna. For the rest of you, I want to encourage you all to go home and tell your families you love them – even the family members you may have a quarrel with or haven’t been speaking to – because if you don’t now, you may never have that opportunity again. Thank you,” he finished, and sat down next to Christine, trying not to sob. His tears were well concealed in his eyes, but Christine squeezed his hand anyway.

Jerusha was next to take the podium.

“All of you know that the Roberts family and all our family extensions are deeply spiritual. We find ourselves in our faith and try to live our lives by that faith. We are, however, human, and we sometimes find ourselves having to learn lessons the hard way. I thought I knew everything about what God wanted for myself and my children, so when Johanna brought Christine home and told me that they were lovers, I thought that the devil had gotten a hold of my daughter. The result was that I tried to get her back. I did everything in my power to alienate Christine and dissolve the relationship. Johanna responded the way that anyone would by distancing herself from me and thus removing my ability to influence her life. She was an adult then, and I had no power to change the person she had become. This deeply saddened me. I believed that she was going to Hell because of the life she was living and I could not save her. I wondered if I had done something wrong, raised her wrong, I didn’t know. I only blamed myself and I blamed Christine for the distance between us and her sinful lifestyle. I didn’t stop to consider that I might be the one pushing her away, not her pulling away with Christine. God sharply reminded me of that on an otherwise regular Tuesday.

“I received a call at a late hour from Bergsten Hospital. You all know the story – Johanna’s car went off the overpass and flipped, managing to land right side up. This was the only thing that spared her instant death at the time of the crash. I raced to the hospital and held her until she was gone, and then left to be with my remaining family. That is the story you know. The story you don’t know is that Christine, who had been living with her for nearly twenty years, remained on the other side of that door while Johanna died in my arms. I did not want her with me or Johanna from the first time I met her, and that continued until the last moment.

“My daughter is dead. Nothing can or will change that. The only thing that can change is my attitude towards the living. While Johanna is with God now, my daughter-in-law, Christine Dryer, is sitting next to me, praying next to me, is living as a child of God, right next to me in the pew. I still don’t know how homosexuality fits in to God’s plan. I don’t know a lot of things. I do know, however, that we must love each other, despite our differences. If we can learn to love each other, then the tragedies will not produce more tragedies. Students will not kill teachers over their lifestyle. Families will not push each other away. And mothers will not alienate their daughters, biological and adopted. Thank you,” she said, stepping down from the podium. Christine watched her slowly find her seat next to her without making eye contact. Finally, after a moment, she stood, realizing that it was time for her to bring the memorials to a close.

She stepped up to the podium, hesitant, all of a sudden self-conscious and uneasy. She didn’t know what to say or what words would sound the best. Finally, she took a deep breath and released it, praying that God would help her find the perfect words – or at least passable ones.

“I, um,” Christine stopped. Her voice was low, even in the mike, and the people in the back were leaning forward to hear her. “I’m not sure how to follow two speeches as nice as those. I never was a public speaker, so please, ah, bear with me. You all know now that Johanna was my lover, my spouse, in word if not in deed. That at least isn’t shocking. Yes, Ryan was her son and mine. Yes, we lived together and loved each other. There isn’t a whole lot I can say about Johanna that you don’t already know or that hasn’t been said. Okay, maybe you didn’t know that we met in a gay and lesbian bookstore, fighting over the last copy of the How to be Gay and Christian Guide for Dummies,” Christine paused and there were a few smiles, a few low laughs.

“Maybe you didn’t know that I once locked my keys in the car when I was at a conference in San Francisco and she drove five and half hours at four in the morning during a storm to come get me. Maybe you didn’t know that she and I had a Friday night ritual of having dinner together at the local vegetarian restaurant. But that’s not the most important thing I have to say. I really think I have more to say about those of us who are still living. Because, that’s who this funeral is for anyway, right? The rest of us who are still stuck here without her.

“Ryan, I know you loved us, and I know Johanna did too. We were worried about you out there, all by yourself in a world like ours, but we knew that we had done the best to raise you tough. I know that growing up with us wasn’t easy, even though we tried to make it as easy as we possibly could. I’m glad to know that you recognize that we at least tried, and I know Johanna knows that too. You are welcome home any time.

“Thomas, you have been a wonderful friend, through the good and the bad, and Lord knows there's been plenty of both. Thank you for coming over on Wednesday just to be with me. I don’t think I would’ve survived then without you. Maya, thank you for giving me hope. Accepting, open-minded youth such as yourself are the people who are going make this world change its attitude towards people like myself and Johanna and Ryan.

“Mrs. Roberts, I will miss your daughter. I know you didn’t approve of me, or her choices, but I want to thank you for bringing such a wonderful person into the world nevertheless. I had twenty-three happy years with Johanna, and nothing anyone can say will ever be able to take that away. Good people such as her don’t come from a vacuum; you must have done something right as a mother, even if you did make some mistakes.

“Lastly, I would like to say that it is never too late for forgiveness. We are all human and we make terrible, terrible mistakes that hurt each other, leave scars that run so deep that they will never heal. But that doesn’t have to be the end of the story. If we love each other the way that Jesus would have wanted us to, we must forgive each other, even during the tragedies. Especially during the tragedies.

“I will find this very difficult to follow in the future when I have to face my spouse’s murderers in court. I may find this very difficult when I have to settle out the ownership and property rights with this family. I found this very difficult outside that hospital room door. But for those who are truly repentant, the only way any of us can live with what happened is to forgive them. It is never too late to ask, and it is never too late to forgive. Thank you,” Christine said, and sat down next to Jerusha, carefully avoiding her eyes.

The preacher thanked the speakers for their speeches and the audience for their attendance. He started one last hymn and blessed the coffin. The organist began to play a Pavane softly and the congregation filed out. When only Christine and Jerusha remained, they made eye contact for the first time since their speeches. No words were needed; they hugged silently, tears blending together in common grief. Neither knew what exactly this meant or what the future held, but for the moment, they were at peace.

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