by C D Cain
“Thank you.” I squeezed her hand. I liked the feeling of it within mine. Especially, as I continued to talk. “I’d never really considered life without her. It wasn’t factored into my plans. For as long as I can remember, I was going to go to medical school and go back home to live. She and I were going to set up my practice. I’d spend my days working and my weekends with her. I’d finally do what I wanted to do. Live under my own roof. Not have to answer to Charlie Grace. But now she’s gone and I feel utterly lost.”
“Charlie Grace?”
“My mother.”
“Ah, you call her by her first name?”
“It’s become a habit. One I have to watch when I’m around her. She’s another story altogether.”
“Sounds like it. And do you still want to go back home?”
I took in a deep breath to let her question filter in. I tucked my bangs behind my ear but they fell back over my eye. “I do. I truly do. It’s my home. The people there. The culture. It’s like a bond I still have with Memaw.” I took a sip of wine to let the hint of pineapple cool the heat I was sensing on my tongue. “But I know it’ll never be the same without her there.” I looked up at the overhanging light fixture in an attempt to control the looming tears before they fell.
“And the other?”
“Sam?” The pang in my heart returned with a vengeance. The night in Mo’s arms had surely intensified the feeling of loss and searching when I thought of Sam. It had solidified her loss to me. What do I say about the woman I considered to be the love of my life? How do I describe her to a woman who had been my first real experience at physical love? One had opened my heart to new experiences and one had opened my body to them. I searched her eyes and focused on the tiny brown circles mixed among the green of her pupil. The pupil that was now dilated as she studied my face.
She reached behind her neck to pull her long hair over her shoulder. “You know you can tell me anything. I’ve told you before and I mean it. I’m not one to judge. You won’t hurt me. I see what you feel for her in your eyes. If it’ll help you to speak them, then do. If not, then don’t. Nothing you say will change what I feel for you.” I watched her earring dangle against her neck.
Her eyes held the truth of her words. They held safety to say anything my heart wished. I closed mine briefly to find the words in the darkness. Without my sight clouding my senses, I caught the scent of her perfume. It gifted my nose, reminded me of the scent from the pillow we had shared and calmed my hesitation.
“You’re safe,” she whispered as she leaned over the table.
Safe.
“Her name is Samantha LeJeune but she went by Sam. I met her in medical school.”
Mo sat back in her chair and pulled her wine glass in front of her as if she was focusing completely on my words.
“I was instantly attracted to her. Although initially I couldn’t or wouldn’t acknowledge it for exactly what it was or meant. Everything about her excited me. Everything about her made me nervous. I tried to deny it because deep down I knew what accepting it would mean for my life.” I shook my head as I thought of the denial of the truth that rested right at my fingertips.
She took a slow, small sip of her wine. “Rayne, we all did. I did. Jaz did. We all did. What? It was supposed to be easy to identify something about yourself that you weren’t raised to know as a possibility? Give yourself a break.”
“But I should’ve known. I should’ve known before I lost her. I questioned it too much. I was stronger before Memaw passed but then I let these fears of God and religion overwhelm me. I think I know it wasn’t my fault she died. I tell myself it wasn’t.” I grew angry at the lump building in my throat.
“How on earth could anything you did cause your grandmother’s death? What burden are you carrying?” She slid my glass of wine in front of me.
I took her hint and brought it to my lips for a swallow…not a sip, a swallow. “The night she passed. The very night she passed, I had let myself feel free. I had let go of all of the fears and went to her. I stopped fighting my attraction to her. My love for her.”
“You two slept together?”
“No, not fully.”
“Not fully?”
“My pager went off.”
Mo chocked on the sip of wine she had just taken in. “What?”
“I guess you could say we were in the middle of it when my pager went off. I was on call that night and had an emergency car wreck patient come in. I couldn’t stay with her.”
“Did you two ever finish what you started?”
“No. We didn’t. I got the call about Memaw when I was operating on that patient. Everything went dark from there.” I swirled my wine glass and studied it again for a moment. “When I kissed Sam…when I touched her, I felt home. I don’t know. That probably sounds stupid, but I did.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid at all.”
“It felt right for the first time ever. For the first time in my life, intimacy felt right. Never with anyone else. Never with…” I looked down at the ring still on my finger.
Her eyes followed mine. “Rayne?”
I looked up at her.
“Don’t look at that ring. Keep telling me about the woman who felt something for the first time. I doubt you’re going to find the answers in that ring. I only care about you. I only care about knowing the woman you are. The woman I’ve kissed and touched. The woman I’ve connected with. She’s who I want to hear about right now.”
“I never felt right with him. I’ve heard about sin, sermon after sermon. The guilt of sin. I’ve only been with three people my whole life. You, Sam, and him. And the only time it ever felt right up until this weekend with you was that one night with Sam. But then I was wrong because that’s when she was taken away. The very night I was with Sam, Meems died.” I swallowed hard. “I couldn’t forgive myself for what I had done. For letting go. It all fell apart with Sam after that. Do you know I was literally skipping on my way to the OR that night? Skipping.” I shook my head. “I was so happy. Felt so alive and then the pager went off again. I didn’t know how to be or what to feel after that.”
She wiped away a tear from my cheek with her thumb. “And now? How do you feel now?”
“Apprehensive?”
“Apprehensive about what?”
“I guess a part of me is waiting for the pager to go off again. But I really don’t have anything else to lose.”
“I don’t know what things you were taught as a child. What religious threats you heard. So, I don’t know exactly what you are basing these beliefs on. What I can tell you is how I believe. I listen to what is being spoken. You can read verses in the Bible. You can listen to people spout their beliefs about what those verses mean. Or…” She dipped her head until I looked up into her eyes. “Or you can listen to the whispers in your ears. You can listen to the spiritual voices telling you the direction of your path. Whether you want to believe that voice is God’s, an angel’s, Buddha’s, or just the universe itself, it’s up to you. The most important thing is to listen. Being spiritual and following a higher power is everyone’s right to find on their own. It’s their own relationship between them and their whispers. It’s not just some inflated man yelling from a podium.”
The pineapple and apricot sweetened my tongue as the wine trickled down my throat. I watched the woman behind the expression. I watched the softening of her eyebrows as she returned my gaze. A woman who I once thought kept her feelings either ultimately controlled or didn’t feel at all sat across from me with an expression which told me the falseness of all of my previous beliefs. She had become a woman who held the ability to ease both my body and my mind’s struggle.
“Can I ask how you feel after being with me?”
“You mean beyond incredible?”
“Who’s the lady charmer now?” She shook her finger at me. “Yes, beyond that.
How do you feel as far as the right and wrong of what we shared?”
I hesitated for a moment to consider my thoughts. A part of me believed maybe the guilt wasn’t there with Sam because I already loved her when we shared our intimacy together. Maybe it was the love which kept the guilt at bay?
“Hmmmm, maybe I shouldn’t have asked. You’re hesitating awfully long. We can forget I asked.”
“No, wait. I’m thinking. I want to give you an honest answer.” There wasn’t any guilt in the way she was thinking. But I wasn’t in love with her. I was in love with the moment in time she gave me and for right now, that was enough. I extended my arm across the table to grasp her hand. “It feels incredible because it feels all kinds of right.”
“God, I missed you so much.” Grant reached across the gear shift to grab my hand. “And then I hardly got to see you when I got back. Who would’ve thought plastic surgery would be so demanding?”
I didn’t acknowledge the condescending statement to my specialty. It was fair as he had not commented on the flinch of my hand with his touch. He also didn’t speak of the tightened thigh muscles which lay beneath our joined hands.
Technically, I could have seen him more over the last couple of weeks since his return from New York. The extra hours he spoke of were volunteered hours. Some could say even begged volunteer hours as I had taken nearly all call others would trade with me. I wasn’t ready to answer Grant’s questions nor be alone with him in the same room. As I sat staring out his car window, I realized it was more that I didn’t want to be alone with him in the same room. After the weekend with Mo, I knew in my heart there were things with Grant that I could never do again. Those things seemed to find their way to possibility when we were alone. There was safety in riding with him home for Thanksgiving because we had no time for a detour or stopover. Both of us had difficulty getting off earlier than the Wednesday before the holiday.
“Rayne, you would’ve loved New York. I didn’t spend a lot of time outside of the hospital. But, man, when we did get out, it was freaking amazing. There was so much to do.”
Man?
“There was always something open. We could leave the OR at four in the morning and go anywhere we wanted. If we wanted a drink…yep, there was somewhere to go. If we wanted breakfast or dinner, there was a place for that too. It was crazy.”
“Yeah. Sounds great.” My tone was flat as I hardly had any interest in the conversation much less the desire to participate.
He, however, was full of excitement. He stared out through the windshield and I wondered if he even saw the road in front of him. His eyes looked out into the two-lane highway as if he saw only the lights of New York. Its worn white-and-yellow lines were hardly visible under the overcast sky. It wasn’t necessarily a cloud-filled sky but rather one with a uniform grayish color.
“It was. The hospitals. Did they ever have their shit together? They had one whole wing for vascular patients. The whole OR team was specialized. Not once did I have to explain to a scrub what I needed.”
“Sounds great.”
“It was. You would really love it there. I was thinking maybe we could run up there before Christmas. Take a weekend trip, you know? Maybe do a little shopping. Take a look around.”
Christmas already. I was barely hopeful to get through Thanksgiving much less let my thoughts venture on to the next holiday. “I don’t know. We’ll see. Maybe after the first of the year.”
He reached behind the steering wheel to turn on the windshield wipers. They screeched across the mist-covered glass and thudded back into their place above the hood. “Okay, but soon after the first. Like maybe the first week in January?”
“Maybe. We have plenty of time to plan a weekend trip.”
He turned the temperature knob to add a touch of heat to the circulating air. “Yeah, but they need to know my timeframe shortly after the first of the year.”
I snapped my head toward him. “They? Timeframe?”
“Yeah. New York-Presbyterian Hospital.” He looked at me as if I was somehow to know what he was talking about. As if I had forgotten something he had already discussed with me. “They offered me a residency position at their Vascular Institute.”
“I was wondering when you were going to tell me about that.”
He looked away from the road toward me. “What do you mean?”
“Tyler told me you and Paxton were going for a year residency there. That this little stint up there was just a stepping stone to see who they wanted. You didn’t tell me anything about it.”
He turned away from me shamefully. “I know,” he said as he sighed. “Truth is, I didn’t think it would be a thing to discuss. They’ve been considering people from all over the world to join them. I didn’t think I had a snowballs chance. Hell, I was surprised I made it as far as I did. But that’s not even the best news.” He was smiling when he glanced back over into the passenger seat. “I could finish out there with the likelihood of a staff position once I’m done. Can you imagine, Rayne?”
Could I imagine? What was he telling me? “No, actually I can’t. What do you mean a staff position?”
“Meaning they want me to stay on after I’m done. I would be part of countless studies and have who knows how many opportunities to publish.”
“But what about home?” I turned down the heat I found stifling. “What about your family? I thought you wanted to move back home to open a practice.”
“Well, yeah.” His knuckles whitened as he gripped the steering wheel tighter. “I mean, I did. But you and I both know I’m going to get few if any real good cases there. And I sure as hell won’t get to be a part of any major studies or grant opportunities. Rayne, this is my chance to be more. This is my shot.”
“Real good cases. Is that what the people we grew up with mean to you? They’re cases? What happened to wanting to come back home and make a difference in the lives of the people we grew up with? What happened to the man who dreamed of that?”
“He grew up.”
“Ah. I see. He grew up, huh?” I turned to look out the window. The scenery I recognized but the man in the car next to me, I no longer did. Truthfully, if he could see all of my thoughts of the future like the ones he was sharing with me, he wouldn’t recognize me either.
“You know what I mean.”
“I do know what you mean.” He was right. We had grown up. We had grown from the kids that once left Brennin.
“And just think of the opportunities you’ll have.”
The muscles along the back of my neck twitched as I wrenched my head to look at him. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“You’ll be able to do any type of plastics you want. Burns. Reconstructions. Cosmetics.” He counted them off as if he had practiced this conversation multiple times. “Think of the clientele base you’ll have if you go for cosmetic surgery.”
“What makes you think I’ll be going there and when did I ever insinuate at any point in time that I wanted a cosmetic-based practice?”
“Well, if I am,” he said as he turned to look at me, “then aren’t you?” He sounded surprised.
“No. I absolutely am not.”
The wind felt stronger against the car as I watched the speedometer needle move clockwise. “No. Just no? You wouldn’t even consider coming with me? I thought we wanted to live our dreams together.”
“That was when our dreams were on the same path. Why would you even think I would all of a sudden want to move to New York?”
“Maybe because we’re engaged. Maybe because we’re going to be husband and wife soon. I sort of thought couples did that sort of thing for one another.”
“Soon? And couples did what? Changed the game plan to fit their wants and then just expected the other to follow.”
“Don’t you do that?”
“Don’t I do what?”
“Mak
e changes I’m supposed to follow? Like your friends, for instance. First there was Sam. You meet her and bam I’m like an annoyance to you. Like it’s a chore for you to spend time with me. And now you’ve made more. These I haven’t even met yet but I could hardly get you on the phone when I was away. I knew it was because of you being with them. So, tell me again about changing the dynamics of the relationship and expecting the other to follow. Because that’s a conversation I’ve been waiting to have.”
“Grant, I don’t want to fight. Can we just change the subject?”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought you’d say.” His knuckles turned white again as he gripped the steering wheel tighter. “We have both made changes. I have accepted and gone along with yours and now I’m asking you to do the same for me.”
I felt myself growing angry at him, yet I knew the fact he was right in what he was saying was the real reason for my anger. I wasn’t ready for this particular conversation so I held my tongue from saying anything and sincerely hoped he would change the subject.
In the distance, I noticed a fast-approaching small oak tree. Its branches were covered with brilliant yellowish-green leaves. They were a stark contrast against the dark green needles of pine branches around it. The tree glowed with life as it held on to the last of its remaining color before the cold temperatures stole it in the night. It seemed to stand in defiance of the overpowering pines and gray skies. Its light would not be dampened. It would not be shadowed.
After we passed the tree, I focused on Grant. I watched the stiffness in his jaw as he twitched his muscles. He was angry too. He was upset with my response as if I would have gladly changed my future dreams because somehow it was expected of a dutiful wife. He had accepted my changes without even commenting on the fact he noticed them. Now he expected the same from me. It was painfully obvious we had both made choices with the end result of us seeing a future that did not find us as husband and wife.
“Listen to the whispers.” I heard Mo’s voice in my head.
