Southern Lights: A Novel

The atmosphere at dinner that night was lively and jolly, thanks to Henry. He told funny jokes, did hysterical imitations, and teased everyone, including his mother. Travis was far more reserved, although a nice person too. Scarlette loved her soon-to-be brother-in-law, and he teased her mercilessly too, about the size of the wedding. Scarlette said her younger brothers did the same. Henry was twenty-four and he looked young, but there was also something more sophisticated about him. Savannah wondered if living in another city had shown him more of the world. Travis still lived in the family cocoon in Charleston. And even their father had done so all his life. Only Henry had really left home, although he had chosen another southern city. But New Orleans was bigger and more sophisticated than Charleston, and he seemed to spend a lot of time in London and New York. He knew all of Savannah’s favorite haunts in New York.

With Henry in charge of most of the conversation, everyone was in a good mood, even his mother. She asked him at the end of dinner how that lovely girl was that he went out with the previous summer, and he gave her a strange look.

“She’s fine, Mama. She just got engaged.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, gushing sympathy for him, and he laughed.

“I’m not.” Henry talked a lot about someone called Jeff who was his roommate. Apparently he was from North Carolina, and they had taken several trips recently. Luisa didn’t ask about him.

By the time they finished dinner, everyone’s sides hurt from laughing, and after they went back into the living room, Henry played cards with the girls. They were still playing when his parents said goodnight and went upstairs. Travis and Scarlette had left by then, since there was a breakfast shower for Scarlette the next day. She said she would have asked Savannah, but she’d be bored to tears. And Travis had told her she’d better not invite Savannah or his mother would be livid, so she hadn’t, but felt terrible about it. But she did what Travis said.

Luisa would have liked to keep Henry away from Savannah too, but there had been no obvious way to exclude her from the evening, and she knew Henry would have objected and accused her of being rude. He never hesitated to challenge his mother, and tell her when he didn’t like her behavior. He wasn’t afraid of her. And Daisy had already told him on the phone that their mother had been awful to her, so he had gone out of his way to be nice to Savannah at dinner. And when he said he had come home just to see her, it was true.

Daisy fell asleep during their card game, and Henry gently carried her upstairs to her bed, while Savannah went to her room. Henry knocked on her door to see if she was decent. She was in her nightgown, brushing her teeth, when he came in. He strolled right into her bathroom to chat with her, like a real brother.

“I like having another sister, one I can really talk to,” he said, smiling at her in the bathroom mirror. “You’ve been gone for way too long.”

They sat down in her room and talked some more then. He said he wanted to move to New York or London in a few years, once he figured out if he wanted to work in a gallery, a museum, or a school. But working in the art field was his dream.

“You don’t want to come back here?” She looked surprised. People in the South seemed to stay close to home and cling to their roots, judging from what she had seen so far.

“Too small for me,” he said simply. “This is a very small provincial city. And being gay is too complicated for me here.” She looked at him in surprise.

“You are?” She hadn’t figured that out, and his mother had asked about a girl he had gone out with the year before.

“I am. Jeff is my partner. I told my parents I was gay when I was eighteen. Dad wasn’t thrilled, but he’s okay about it. My mother acts like she forgot and doesn’t know, no matter how often I remind her. Like the girl she asked me about going out with. She knows I don’t go out with women. I figured out I was gay about a year after your mom left, when I was fifteen. By sixteen I knew for sure. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but for some people it is—my mother, for one. She’s going to ask me about the women I go out with till I’m a hundred years old. She’s probably hoping I’ll get ‘cured.’ My being gay just wasn’t in her plan. I think she’s relieved I don’t live in Charleston. It would be too embarrassing for her, and too hard for me. She still lies to her friends.”

“How weird,” Savannah said, looking puzzled. “What difference does it make to her?”

“It’s not ‘normal,’ as she puts it, or ‘right.’ But it is for me.”

“That’s just who you are,” Savannah said, smiling at him. “It shouldn’t be a big deal. Does Daisy know?” she asked, curious about it.