For Better Or Worse Read Online Free

‘lesbian’, I’m sure Jules would also accept ‘dyke’,” I said helpfully before leaving the room. I could hear Gareth’s laughter as I climbed the stairs in the hall.

4
    I made my way up the long, extravagant staircase and down a lushly carpeted hall to our room.
    Julie was running a bath when I came in. “Baby?” I called as I pushed open the bathroom door with my toes.
    Julie looked distraught, but she wasn’t crying. “I’m sorry, Gail, this was a stupid idea. I thought maybe Mother had changed or maybe she was trying to change and, I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
    “Julie.” I handed over her glass of wine.
    “We’re leaving tomorrow. I’ll tell Mother in the morning and then we’ll go.”
    “Julie.”
    “Don’t ‘Julie’ me!” She snapped and swallowed back the remaining contents of the wine glass. I blinked at her. She lowered it again and held the empty glass out to me.
    “Would you rather I call you ‘Ralph’?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood a little. Julie burst into tears. I have an uncanny knack for saying exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time, and I have never learned. It’s remarkable really. At least this time she didn’t say ‘you don’t love me’ like she has in her more hormonal moments, or told me to sleep on the couch. It occurs to me now that perhaps Kathleen was right. Julie was a little moody, but in a good way.
    I sat beside her on the edge of the tub and put my arm around her shoulders. “You know, I’ve never met your mother before, Jules, but I think, in her own very _odd _ way, she _is _ trying.”
    Julie sniffled, but her shoulders stopped shaking so I could tell I had her attention. I babbled on, hoping to say something right for a change. “I mean, to talk about your cousin, and to seem…
    sort of happy that it’s… you know,” I sighed.
    “No longer taboo to have gays in the family?” Julie asked, with a hint of the sarcasm more often attributable to me in her voice.
    Good point. “Well, okay, that was sort of…”
    “Ignorant?”
    I almost laughed, but I didn’t think Julie would appreciate it, so I stayed the course. “Are you even _trying _ to give her the benefit of the doubt?”
    “No.”
    I could tell this line of conversation was going to get us nowhere. Julie didn’t want to forgive her mother yet. The tub was filling quickly and I leaned over to shut the taps off. When I stood and tugged off my boots, Julie stood as well. “Can I have the rest of your wine?” she asked, and I nodded.
    “Yeah.”
    We began to undress in that matter of fact, comfortable way that couples do, but I watched her all the same. I love to watch her. It doesn’t matter what she’s doing, she just does everything with a polished gracefulness that makes me look like a bull in a china shop. I admired the way she
    stepped out of her jeans with pointed toes as the denim slid to the floor, and the way her delicate fingers, always neatly manicured, unbuttoned her blouse. She smiled at me then, as we bared ourselves for each other, knowing that I was watching her and liking it, I think.
    The water in the tub was hot. I hissed as I dipped my toes into it, but managed to ease myself in slowly. Julie did the same, but had to tell me how hot it was five times in the process, all the while refusing every offer I made to cool it off a little.
    I pulled her back against me and we sat in silence for a while, Julie clearly lost in her own thoughts. I enjoyed just holding her, and scooping the warm water up over her shoulders with a washcloth to keep her warm.
    It isn’t easy being Julie McHugh, especially not in Vail. My Julie, the stable, well-educated, thoughtful schoolteacher and one-drink-wonder, is actually the fuck-up in her family.
    Her younger brother, Robert (and don’t you dare call him ‘Bobby’), recently earned a graduate degree in business from Stanford University and is working as an investment banker. He makes upwards of a hundred and twenty