I Was Taught to Hate My Lesbian Neighbors. They Took Me In Anyway.
The summer Dena Landon's parents’ marriage was falling apart, her best friend’s two moms saved her—even though her dad said they were going to Hell.
The news can be polarizing these days, which can sometimes make it feel, in the abstract, like we’re all against each other. But it’s pieces like this one that remind us how often people actually reach across the aisle, in practice. An uplifting story for anyone who needs one today.
I Was Taught to Hate My Lesbian Neighbors. They Took Me In Anyway.
“Hey Penny, is Carrie awake?” I ducked through the screen door, letting it bang shut behind me. The sun had barely crested the Seattle skyline and I was already at my best friends’ house. Her mom, Joy, grabbed a bowl from the cabinets and a box of cereal and set it on the kitchen table. “I’ll go check,” she said. I pulled up a stool and sat down, pouring out the sugary cereal and adding the milk that Penny, Carrie's other mom, fetched from the fridge.
It was the summer before my mother left my dad. My twelve-year-old self lived in books and fantasy worlds of unicorns and dragons, rather than the real world of dark bruises and a shattered living room lamp, swept up and never discussed. Unlikely friends, proximity brought Carrie and I together more than anything else. We were the only two girls our age in the neighborhood.
My strictly religious family attended church every Sunday morning, worship services on Sunday night, and Wednesday night youth group. I’m not sure if Carrie had ever been to church. Her two mothers, Penny and Joy, lived around the block from my parents’ brick Edwardian house in a small two-story bungalow that they were constantly improving. They played the Indigo Girls on their stereo, danced around their kitchen, and talked about summer solstice as casually as my mother discussed the church bake sale.
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