by Toni Draper
You didn’t deserve the other night. I didn’t take you home with the intention of doing what I did. I didn’t mean to take advantage of you or mislead you into thinking—”
“My God, Mena.” Isa reached out and placed her hand over Mena’s to silence the strings, “I know that, and you know that.”
“Still, I feel terrible. I really don’t know what else to say. I think it’s just that… I’m still healing from an old wound, and I have some feelings that I haven’t resolved. I need to deal with them before I’ll be ready to be with anyone else again, in any way.”
“Mena, really, stop beating yourself up. I know you’re not like that. Why do you think it is that I’m so attracted to you? You’re special, you’re…” She stopped herself mid-sentence and smiled. “Who knows? Maybe one of these days, you’ll wake up to what you’ve been missing and see what’s right before your eyes.” Isa squeezed her arm, smiled, then let go.
They sat and talked for a while, until the moon was high in the sky and they were surrounded by weary firefighters crawling into their tents for a little body rest and shut-eye, and they decided it was time for them to do the same.
Chapter 11
Aroused from a deep sleep by the stirring of her human, Jenny looked up as Sydney lowered her left leg before removing her glasses with one hand and stretching to place the book she’d been reading on the side table with the other.
“C’mon, girl, let’s go stretch our bones.”
Careful not to drop the bundle she’d picked up, Sydney lifted herself out of the leather chair’s comfortable and cooling embrace, forcing the dog from her lap. Outside, a steady drizzle of rain fell for the third straight day. The grass was a vivid green and the hedges, she took note, were badly in need of pruning and shaping. A soaked squirrel, its tail beat nearly as thin as a rat’s by the rhythmic fall of the pounding drops, scurried across the deck by the patio door, stopping long enough to unearth the buried treasure of a walnut. With his cheeks stretched to their limits by the spoils of his scavenger hunt, he scampered off contentedly.
Sydney pulled a patio chair toward her on the covered deck and sat near the light on the wall. With a trembling hand, she untied the ribbon with which she’d long ago bound the letters she now held, a lifeline to her past. Turning the top envelope around, she opened the flap and pulled out its contents. Mena had been relentless with her correspondence; she’d written every day, sometimes more. Most were from before they lived together. A few were after their breakup.
The first was a card that read:
You are the person I fall in love with more each day. You are everything I imagined, everything I dreamed of, and all that I need. You are my first thought when I wake up in the morning and my last before sleep comes each night. You are my fantasy and my reality, and forever the love of my life.
Below it, Mena had written:
Why, Syd? What happened? I don’t understand. I wish you’d just…please, talk to me.
Sydney hadn’t noticed before that the sturdy stock was crinkled, and some of the writing had been smudged. She looked down at the words that had reached out to her. She would forever be haunted by the pain she’d caused.
Can you imagine how I felt? How it hurt me when I found you that day? And to hear what you had to say? I had given up so much. I believed in you. I believed in us.
Mena had written and written, pouring the contents of her suffering soul onto her pages, hoping to make the Sydney she knew and loved come back to her, to no avail. Eventually, the unanswered letters and calls stopped.
Sydney carefully refolded the pages and slid them back into the envelopes from which they’d come, feeling her own eyes begin to tear up.
“Here’s what I’d like for you to do,” Liz said in her ongoing effort to get Sydney to consider views other than her own, to make her see and understand the give and take of relationships and the shades of grays that existed between the extremes of black and white. “Put yourself in Mena’s shoes. Try to imagine you’re a twelve-year-old whose father has just died in surgery. It’s the first loss you’ve known. Then, ten months later, you’re slammed again by a second death. Your mother, your comforter and protector, also succumbs to a debilitating illness. How do you feel? In an instant, your world has been unexpectedly turned upside down. To make matters worse, not only do you now have to uproot yourself physically, but in your preadolescent eyes, you’re a burden being forced upon a relative who you’re convinced doesn’t really want you in her home or life.”
Liz paused, giving Sydney the chance to let what she’d said sink in, before going on.
“Now, fast forward some eighteen years. You’re an adult, involved in a romantic relationship. Let’s work first with the Tulum incident. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t that trip with an old friend of yours planned for a time when you and Mena were supposed to be spending more than a week together for the first time?”
Sydney was exasperated when she responded mid-sigh. “Yes, but keep in mind, my trip with Madeline was not merely a visit. We share a history and passion for going on digs and archaeological quests to exotic, faraway places. I’d always wanted to go to that Mayan City in Mexico’s southernmost Yucatán peninsula and was overjoyed at the prospect. Madeline had been the one to make all the arrangements. Her call simply came sooner than expected, and Mena found out about the pending trip by overhearing the conversation. Her interrogation of me began as soon as I’d hung up the phone.”
Liz smiled woefully before responding. “Keeping her life experience in mind, is it so far of a stretch for you to see how just maybe, in her mind, her feelings were justified? I’m not saying that she didn’t overreact, I’m merely trying to get you to see that there is often more than one way to look at every incident.” Liz stood and walked over to the bookcase behind her desk. “I have a book I’d like for you to take a look at.” She pulled one down from the shelf and handed it to her.
“Not another one. I don’t have time for it.”
Liz raised her eyebrows, her way of reminding Sydney she was seeing her voluntarily and had asked for help in understanding what had happened to end the love she’d had with Mena, for insight into the demise of their relationship.
Sydney looked at the book in her hands, When Opposites Attract: Right Brain/Left Brain Relationships and How to Make Them Work by Rebecca Cutter. She opened the cover and glanced at the inside flap.
“If you take the time to read it,” Liz looked at her “you may be surprised to find how well the author is at describing everyday occurrences and differences that plague many couples who suffer from challenges of communication and understanding. I know when I read the first few pages, I couldn’t believe how well she’d managed to describe my partner and me, our differences. It was like she’d been there with us and witnessed one of our many messes.” Liz smiled. “The question becomes, how much are you willing to compromise? And will your efforts be worth it in the end? But it has to be a two-way street, otherwise you’ll reach a dead end.”
As they walked together to the door toward the end of their session, Liz asked, “How does the teacher feel about homework? Doing it, not giving and grading it. There are some exercises throughout the pages,” she inclined her head toward the book, “that I think might prove useful for our purposes. I’d like for you to take a look and try doing a few. It’ll be a great place for us to start next week.” She patted her on the back. “Until then.”
After a nice dinner and a warm, relaxing bath, Sydney picked up the book and called it an early night by taking it with her to bed. Only a few pages in, indeed, she was amazed at how well Cutter had pictured her and Mena, from Mena’s way of literally scattering her thoughts about the room, her archaic need for a paper and pen as opposed to a computer to express them, and Sydney’s own reaction of being bothered by a way that was not hers, a way she could never accept or comprehend.
She got so caugh
t up in the similarities that, before she knew it, she’d read more than half the book. Although she could have read more, she knew if she did, she’d suffer the consequences in the morning when the alarm went off.
Reluctantly, she closed the book and placed it on the table by her bed.
Mena preferred to fill out her incident reports by day’s end, while events were still fresh and clear in her mind, even though she carried a pocket-size spiral in her backpack where she jotted down notes and recorded times. As she filled in the blanks with detailed information, something about the most recent fires kept nagging at her mind. She checked the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website for data on lightning strikes. As she suspected, there had been relatively few recorded recently, none that would account for the fires they were currently fighting. She then Googled “Wildfire Origins and Causes” and pored over statistics and investigative techniques she found interesting, tucking them away in her mind.
While it was no secret the majority of wildfires were man-made, whether by accident or intentional, she knew she didn’t have anything to take to Peña aside from suspicion and a gut feeling, an internal gnawing.
She put her paperwork away and closed her laptop before unrolling her sleeping bag, on which she merely stretched out. She tried to get some sleep, but she was wound tight by all her thoughts.
Sydney sighed and closed the cover of her laptop. For whatever reason, the words she sought were taunting and teasing her, remaining just out of reach. She’d had a great idea just before she sat down, but as soon as she opened her computer to begin crafting her manuscript’s next chapter, the threads that had woven together so beautifully in her mind had tangled, unwoven, then each gone their separate ways, the sentences and thoughts falling irretrievably apart.
“It’s no use, girl. It’s simply not happening today.” Jenny looked up at her as if she understood and could feel her human’s pain. If Sydney were to admit it, she hadn’t been able to produce anything worth submitting for publication since The Keeper of Dreams, an adaptation of one of her earlier novels Mena had helped her rework after it had been requested for a young adult’s literature anthology. She didn’t even know if it had made the editor’s cut, but since it had been solicited, she assumed it was circulating out there in classrooms somewhere.
“El dueño del sueño.” She mused at the memory of the piece’s title. It centered around an old Yuman’s storytelling to keep the history of certain customs of his indigenous peoples alive in their memories. She could see why the editor had wanted it. High school and cultural studies students all over the southwest were being introduced to the original as part of the burgeoning US Latinx literature canon.
She smiled at the memory of how easily their writing had come together, as if it were meant to be. Maybe she just needed to abandon her current pages and start anew. Alas, she lacked inspiration. She had never experienced writer’s block. She’d always had characters in her imagination, demanding their stories be put on paper. But those voices had grown silent. What had happened to her? Why was she having so much trouble focusing, concentrating, and writing these days?
Mena had become her muse, her inspiration. Without her, both she and her writing were lost. Their collaboration on her last novel had won it both humanitarian and literary awards. Why hadn’t she listened to Madeline when she suggested they attempt to at least salvage a writing partnership? Oh, she knew why. At the time, she wasn’t willing to admit she needed Mena, even in that way. As a matter of fact, she’d gone so far as to remove her cowriter’s name from the dedication page after their breakup. Where before it had read: “For Jimena Mendoza, who believes in the meaning of dreams,” now, on a much more impersonal page, readers saw her revised claim that it had been written “For all oppressed peoples everywhere.” It sounded good, to those who didn’t know.
Thinking back to her initial dedication, Sydney remembered how animated and excited Mena would get when she’d had what she referred to as a speaking dream. She thought of one recurring pattern in particular. Had she not been told of the dreams before they came true, she wasn’t sure she would have believed it or put any stock in the visions. But three times, Mena had dreamed of a gambling win, of all things, and three times she had hit a jackpot containing those very numbers. Not to the dollar amount, but within the thousand-dollar range that appeared on her dream slot machine. After that, of course, Mena had prayed for such dreams. However, no amount of presleep thoughts or subliminal recordings could make them appear at will. Sydney had to chuckle to herself. Despite the belief she, herself, had in dreams, foretelling fortunes of that kind was never anything that had crossed her mind.
Maybe what she needed was a getaway. From her thoughts and memories, from the ghosts of the past that remained to haunt her in this place. But where would she go?
Chapter 12
Present day
Sydney took a few moments to compose both herself and her thoughts before sharing her untold stories, the secrets she’d guarded, with Mena.
“Allyson was my first love. I know I told you about her. Well, I’ve at least mentioned her name.”
Mena nodded.
“But I didn’t tell you the whole story of what happened between us.” Sydney took a deep breath and steeled her resolve. “We met when we were teenagers. I’d been asked by the nuns at our Catholic boarding school to spend time with her, to be a friend. Although she was a few years younger than I was, she was older than the rest of the girls. And, for whatever reason, she hadn’t seemed to fit in. She couldn’t find her place, and she wanted to go home. Of course, the sisters didn’t want to lose her tuition dollars. In time, I found myself drawn to her. She was enveloped by an aura of sadness that I seemed to connect with. After all, I possessed my own. We spent time together, and it soon became apparent to me that I wanted more than a friendship with her.”
Sydney looked at Mena to gauge her level of interest before continuing. “It was so long ago. I no longer remember all the details, but I do know that during one of the hours of angsty tenderness we shared, my heart went out to her. Finding no words that could offer the comfort needed, I consoled her with a kiss. A kiss that she returned.” Sydney looked down at her lap and smiled at the apparent warmth of the memory.
“After that, I was simply over the moon. I went home and couldn’t sleep that night. All I could think about was that feeling, the feeling of her lips on mine. The feeling of, for the first time, falling in love. It was fairly innocent, after all, we were but young girls.” Sydney paused for a moment. “But I was so happy, so overwhelmed, so emotional, so in love. I couldn’t believe or understand why she seemed to avoid me the next day until after the last of the other girls had gone off to their dormitories. It was only then that she appeared. And with a friend, not alone. Of course, I knew something was up. She looked so sad and serious. She’d obviously had her own sleepless night and restless day, although, I suspected, for different reasons than my own.” Sydney laughed in a way that belied how hurt she’d been then, and how much she still was today.
“She…they…moved to take a seat at one of the dining room tables and, I followed along, rightfully assuming she had something she wanted to say. Given the mood, I feared the worst. Believe me, it was coming. Without a word, Allyson extended a trembling hand my way in which she held a folded piece of paper. I shook as I opened it and read a condemnation of eleven letters, the first of each of the words she could not bring herself to speak aloud or even spell out in their entirety. Somehow, I immediately knew and was able to decipher the barely cryptic code. Since that day, it’s been seared into the depths of my heart and soul.”
Sydney reached for a scrap of paper and pulled a pen from her purse. On the paper, she wrote, P.D.K.M.T.W.A.I.I.N.P, and handed it to Mena. “Would you have known what she was trying to say?” Sydney struggled to control her emotions before answering her own question. “Please don’t kiss me that way anymore
, it is not possible. What was I to think? How was I to feel? As you might imagine, my heart was not only broken, it was completely pulverized. My entire being was crushed. All the happiness I’d allowed myself to feel the day before was no more. It had been replaced by a depth of sadness I didn’t realize was possible.” Sydney sighed heavily.
“It took all of the strength I had in me to get up from that table and walk away.” She appeared to be transported in time, reliving those emotions, that moment, that loss.
“While Ally would revisit me in my thoughts and memories for years after that, I never saw her again. I came up with some excuse for why I couldn’t go back to that school, and I transferred to another. I threw myself into my studies, and although I wrote her a library of letters, I buried them deep in my hope chest, where they remained unsent until I burned them all. My schoolgirl studies eventually gave way to college and post-graduate research. It gave me all the excuse I needed to bury myself in libraries and books. These days, computers make it even easier to isolate oneself from others.” She looked at Mena with a rather rueful smile.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?” Mena asked.
Sydney looked at her. Her lower lip trembled slightly before she spoke. “I don’t know. I wanted to. I just couldn’t.”
“Had I known, it might have helped me to better understand you, what was happening between us.” Jimena shrugged.
“There’s more, Mena. Something much bigger I should have shared.”
“About your uncle? You told me about that, about him. I already know.”
Sydney shook her head. “It wasn’t just my studies that I turned to after Allyson. Maybe my change of direction was influenced by my many years at a Catholic school, but I immersed myself in religion and had committed myself to be a Bride of Christ. I thought maybe I was being punished for what I was. That I was wrong to feel that way, to want that kind of love.” Sydney looked at Mena, imploring her to understand. “I didn’t tell you because I was afraid of what you might think of me. I wasn’t sure you’d want to be with me, knowing I’d spent years in a convent, living a contemplative life, praying, searching for answers, and trying to force myself to be a way I was not. In the end, I had no choice but to be true to myself. After six years, I left the order before taking my final vows.”
