My revelation that my mom was dabbling in sexual relations with women all started when my mom was telling me about her psycho friend who was stalking her.  We were in the backseat of the car and my husband was driving, with my grandmother in the front passenger seat.  My mother started telling me how her church friend, Gladys, was stalking her.  Calling her all the time, bothering her, showing up unannounced and barging in, following her.  As the description went on, I started getting the feeling this was more like a jilted psycho lover than a platonic psycho friend.  Me, being me, I blurted out: 

“Mom, Gladys is in love with you!”

My mom shifted in her seat and looked very uncomfortable.  Me, being me, went on:

“Were you, like, dating her or something?”  I looked at her face and did not need an answer.

“Oh my God mom!  Oh my God!” I screamed.

My mom squirmed in her seat, clearly uneasy with the direction of the conversation.  She, no doubt, had forgotten about my ability to read into things.  Of course, my sister being bisexual (first she was a lesbian in college, then she got married to a man and had two kids, then she divorced him and is back to being with a woman) definitely has something to do with this possibility even being on the table.  Despite this, it is truly shocking to me.  I had never, in my wildest dreams, imagined that my mother had this running through her veins.  She had been married to my father for twenty-five years and then serially dated a bunch of male duds for about another twenty years.  I have always felt bad for her that she never found Mr. Right.  Her knight in shining armor.  I always felt there was still hope for her to find him.  And then this happened. 

I was deeply disturbed by this revelation, and also a bit miffed at her utter silence over the whole thing after I’d figured it out.  I mean, bring it up in conversation and then suddenly banish it from discussable topics??  Jesus.  I had only one route to take: I told my sister over drinks.  She laughed and seemed to be supportive of the idea.  Of course, said sister is bisexual so it perhaps doesn’t freak her out as much. 

For me, I feel like the only straight woman left in my family.  What am I saying – I am the only straight woman left in my family.  And now I have to deal with my husband accusing me of harboring secret lesbian plans for the future, after he has become too fat to find another wife. 

I wondered how this could happen.  I surmised that my mom had become so desperate for companionship that she capitulated and had turned to women as a last resort.  I started searching match.com for her and finding her potential guys and mailing them to her.  She did not respond.  Over time, I had bigger fish to fry and let the whole Gladys thing go. 

Now my mom has another “friend,” who is absolutely fantastic.  She lives in another city but they travel a lot together and go to each other’s homes to help each other with household chores that you would ordinarily do with your spouse if you were married.  Yard work.  Cleaning gutters.  Putting up holiday decorations.  Cooking meals.  Shopping.  Bike rides.  It’s all very cute actually.

My mom has never come out with the fact that she and Cynthia are lovers.  But I can tell and it is obvious from the few times I have seen them together.  I tried talking with her about it, I even proclaimed, “Mom, I don’t care if you’re a couple, it’s no big deal!” but she won’t budge.  She also does not invite Cynthia to family gatherings, even though we want her to.  I get the feeling she wants Cynthia all to herself. 

Which is kind of sad, because it is like she is compartmentalizing her life: family vs. personal.  I mean, gosh – my sister’s female partner comes to all the gatherings (my 80 year-old father refers to her as “he”), not to mention their cadre of transvestite and sex-changed friends who have all been rejected by their families.  (Did I mention that my family is really accepting?) 

Anyway, for now she does not feel comfortable sharing that side of her life with her family.  And I have to accept that I just do not have that close relationship with my mother that you always see in the movies.  The mother daughter relationships, like in “Because I Told You So,” where the mother and daughters are all warm and fuzzy with each other and sing and bake and gossip together.  Damn those movies, anyway!  They totally screw your head.  They make guys think that there is no effort to having great sex (for both participants), and they make women think there are perfect relationships where everyone is happy and shares and feels good about each other.  Such fiction.