Silence.
Lynn eventually asked, “Not sure if I really want to know the answer to this, but have you dated at all? I mean aside from what we all saw on national television!”
Sherry rolled her eyes and said, “I’ve been out on a few dates here and there, but they all think I’m easy so my nights usually end early.” She then quickly added, “Gee…wonder where someone would get the idea I’m easy?”
Lynn smiled thinking her mother had missed her calling and should have been a mind reader.
Lynn change direction a bit and said, “Heard “America’s Watching” had some problems. I mean the show.”
Sherry laughed a bit, but it was far from jolly.
“Turns out the producers wife, Zack Blevins wife, was cheating on him with a network executive and took him to the cleaners in a divorce. The network dropped him and from what I hear his career sank like the Titanic. He’s still in the business, but I heard he was an associate producer of a morning show somewhere in the mid-west.”
Lynn nodded, “I saw the show was canceled a couple of years later.”
“Yeah. The fans of the show weren’t about to accept what happened between a married woman and a couple of single guys. Most were actually appalled. Not being able to turn away from something like that and condoning it turned out to be two totally different things.” She then added, “Before this all happened I would have been appalled too. That’s not too hypocritical is it?”
“Oh no, not at all…mother.”
It was killing Sherry that her daughter hadn’t called her mom since before she left the house that fateful morning although she understood why. Yet at this point she welcomed any kind of a relationship with Lynn, so the prim and proper mother title it would have to be.
“You know, I never saw myself bad person while all of this was going on, but I guess it’s pretty hard to make that argument now, huh? And don’t bother answering, it’s a rhetorical question.”
Lynn wouldn’t have had an answer anyway.
Silence again filled the room.
Finally Lynn said, “Look mother, I don’t hate you, at least I don’t think I do, but I do hate the things you did. I mean…I would have never in a million years thought you were capable of such treachery. Then we find out that there have been others.”
Lynn gathered her thoughts for a moment before adding, “And how many more were there? You claimed on the show there were two others before then, but how many were there really?”
Sherry answered immediately, “There were only the two sweetheart, I swear, but my swearing to it probably doesn’t mean a whole lot any more, does it?”
“Honestly…no. But for some crazy reason I do believe you.”
Sherry then asked in a concerned tone that her daughter wouldn’t have believed existed in her mother just an hour ago, “How is he really dear?”
Lynn took a deep breath and said, “Dad is seeing someone.”
“Is she anything like me?”
Lynn expression changed into one of surprise and contempt and said, “Jesus H. Christ, I hope not!”
Sherry felt like crawling into a hole and staying there. But she tried to recover after she realized what she asked, “Oh my God, I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant does she look anything like me?”