Coyote Blues

by Karen F. Williams

  She felt like she was waiting for a date, and when the anticipation of Fiona’s arrival had her too nervous to sit still, she jumped up and checked herself in the decorative wall mirror by the windows. Her hair had grown in just a little, and those light-brown roots were already turning blond, which was surprising given the fact that she hadn’t spent a lot of time in the sun. Instead of taking out the kayak or going on a day hike like a normal person, her outdoor activities this past week had consisted of nighttime excursions. Solitary trips to the old homestead to, quite literally, stick her nose in Fiona’s business.

  And that cold, wet nose had done its share of snooping and sniffing, those nostrils capturing and analyzing the faintest scents left on anything Jim Barrett touched. She’d made three trips there so far, always without the pack. Although her property was a core territory, her coyotes’ larger territory expanded to at least five square miles, and Riley made a point of sneaking off when she knew they were way off in the other direction. Coyotes were a nervous and wary bunch, and she wanted to keep them that way, especially around the Barrett property. Letting them follow would only pique their curiosity, desensitize them to the dangers that lurked beyond the creek.

  Riley smoothed the collar of the olive-green shirt that matched her canvas shoes and was just brushing a few kitten hairs off her white pants when her phone rang. It was Miriam.

  “Mrs. Barrett is here. Should I send her in?”

  Hearing the name Mrs. Barrett made her clench her teeth. Fiona would still be Ms. Fiona Bell if their lives hadn’t gone so terribly wrong. “Send her in.”

  Riley opened the door to see Fiona coming down the hall, her hair pulled into a ponytail that swished back and forth as she walked. Her stride seemed more purposeful, and unless Riley was reading into things, she’d taken more interest in her appearance today. Riley noted her white shirt, dressy white flats, and the cropped pants that were the same green as Riley’s shirt.

  Given Fiona’s artistic eye, she noticed right away. “Look at us,” she said. “We’re a perfect match.”

  “I always thought so.”

  Fiona blushed, and her shy smile sent a rush through Riley. The Ativan was kicking in, and she felt confident that she could handle the next forty-five minutes without losing her shit.

  Fiona went to the couch, set her bag down, and stood there as if waiting to be invited to sit.

  Riley closed the office door and walked over to her. “Hi,” she said, her lips pressed together to contain the smile that wanted to take up her whole face.

  “Hi…” Fiona bashfully blinked those beautiful ocean-blue eyes that took Riley back to their private place in the woods, to the day those eyes had invited Riley to love her.

  “I need to apologize for ending so abruptly last week,” Riley said.

  “It’s okay. I understand.”

  “Yeah, but I…I’m sorry I didn’t give you that hug before you left.”

  “How do you know I was about to hug you?”

  “I just sensed that…”

  “We always were so good at that…sensing each other…which made it so confusing when that connection was broken.”

  “It was confusing for me, too. It always has been. But I want you to know, just for the record, that I’ve never gotten over you.”

  Fiona stepped closer, lowered her eyes, and placed an open palm over the space between Riley’s breast and shoulder. “I might think you were just saying that if you didn’t still have my stool…and that carving on your key ring.”

  “Come here,” Riley said, intending to pull her into a comforting hug. But as their faces drew near, the world fell away, and Riley kissed her instead. She hadn’t meant to. It was a thoughtless thing to do. But with Fiona’s mouth in such close proximity to her own, she couldn’t stop herself. Fiona didn’t stop her either. Their mouths opened, melting together in a deep and all-consuming kiss. Amidst hungry moans and jagged breaths, Fiona’s legs buckled, and Riley lowered her to the couch. Riley was just climbing on top of her when a knock sounded at the door, three soft raps. Tearing her mouth from Fiona’s, Riley swung her head around to see it open a few inches and Peggy peek in.

  “Oh! Excuse me,” was all she said, her eyes bulging so wide it seemed they might pop right out of her head. Then the door closed.

  Riley jumped up, heart pounding. Quickly she straightened her clothes and went to open the door, but Peggy was gone.

  Great. This was just great. Riley was in trouble now. Big trouble. She turned back to Fiona, who was sitting up straight now, nervously catching her own breath. She hadn’t seen Peggy because Riley was blocking her view. “Who was that?”

  “Peggy.”

  “Who?”

  “Dr. Spencer.”

  “No! Oh, my God.” Fiona leaned forward and rested her head in her heads. “I’m so embarrassed.

  “It’s my fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m the one she saw kissing you.”

  “I was an active participant, in case you didn’t notice. Oh, God,” she said again. “I’m a married woman. As far as she knows, a straight married woman. She’s my daughter’s therapist, and I’m in here kissing you.”

  “She’s your new therapist, too.”

  Fiona lifted her head from her hands. “What?”

  “That’s something I need to discuss with you. Dr. Spencer thinks it would be best if she saw you and Edy both.”

  “Why?”

  “My seeing you is a conflict of interest.” Riley went back to the couch and sat beside Fiona. “She knows about us.”

  Fiona stared at her. “You told her about us…our history together?”

  “She’s always known. She’s been hearing your name ever since I was a freshman in college. Dr. Spencer was my professor…the one who more or less saved me from myself. She kind of became my surrogate mom after my parents abandoned me.” Riley chewed her lip and glanced over. “I had a hard time losing you, Fiona…then losing my home and parents and…you know, trying to figure out who I was.” What she was would have been more accurate. “Long story short, we opened this practice together ten years ago, and, well, she and her wife and her wife’s brother are the only family I really have.”

  “Dr. Spencer’s gay?”

  “Yeah.”

  Fiona nodded, seeming lost in thought for a moment. “When we can talk more, I’d like to hear about how your life has been.”

  “Eh.” Riley waved a hand. It would have been futile to explain her life without leaving out her lycanthropic affliction. A minor detail. “It’s all behind me.” Riley rested a hand on Fiona’s thigh. “But you’re here, right in front of me.” Riley drew in a deep breath. “Peggy thinks I’m too close to the situation to help…and I am, considering I can’t even sit this close to you without wanting to kiss you again.”

  They glanced at each other sideways, and when Riley felt her face leaning into Fiona’s again, she pulled back and awkwardly pointed with both hands to her chair a few feet away. “So, uh…I should probably sit over here and keep a safe distance from you, huh? Yeah,” she said, answering her own question, “that would probably be a good idea.” She went to her chair, started to sit, then nervously stood again. That kiss had left her dehydrated, thirsty for more, but iced tea would have to do. “Why don’t I just, um…” Riley pointed to the door. “Get us something to drink.” She shot Fiona a crooked smile and held up a finger. “I’ll be right back.”

  Riley quietly opened the office door, peeking out to make sure the coast was clear, and heard a kitten mewing. She looked down to see little Luna Maria peering up at her. Riley let the kitten wander in, then closed the door. When she slipped back in a minute later, holding two bottles in her hands, Fiona was walking around the room with the kitten in her arms.

  Fiona turned and looked at her. “I must have been in a total shock last week because I didn’t really notice your office. I love these walls. What’s the color called?”

  “Peacock blue. Everyone thought it would be too v
ibrant.”

  Fiona turned in a slow circle. “With all the dark oak in here? Not at all. It brings this beautiful wood to life.” Fiona looked up, stroking the kitten. “And this tin ceiling…I’m guessing it’s the original?”

  For a moment, the heaviness that seemed to weigh upon Fiona like a cloak of gloom disappeared, and the passionate artisan Riley remembered was back, delighting in the colors around her. Riley followed her gaze. “Yes. The original. The place was built around the turn of the last century.”

  Fiona nodded. “So was the farmhouse. But it hasn’t been maintained. There’s so much to do. The inside has been emptied and cleaned, and I’ve started painting, but the outside is a disaster. There’s so much to fix and…” Her voice trailed off, as if talking about the farmhouse only reminded her of the burdens and joyless life waiting for her outside of Riley’s office.

  Riley smiled. “Iced tea?” She handed Fiona a glass bottle.

  “Thanks,” she said, sitting down and letting Luna walk around the couch. “This is the kitten Edy’s been pleading with me to adopt. It’s her favorite one.”

  “Mine, too. Miriam’s trying to talk me into taking her home.” Riley would have offered Fiona the kitten, but she didn’t like the idea of placing an animal in a home with Jim. Not with his temper.

  “I’d love one, too. But not with Jim around.” She shook her head and sighed. “He gets jealous if I give the turtles too much attention. It’s unbelievable. And he’s not a kind man, as you’ve probably figured out by now.” Fiona unscrewed the bottle cap and took a sip. “A few years ago he brought home a dog someone gave him. Edy and I spent a lot of time with it when Jim was out of town. But when he was home—and he’s home for days at a time—that poor thing was tied to a doghouse. All it did was run in circles until it dug a ring around the doghouse as deep as a moat. After two months I couldn’t stand watching it anymore. I cut the rope and frayed it, so that it looked like the dog had chewed it and gave it to a teacher at Edy’s school. It got a good home.” Fiona met Riley’s eyes, then looked away. “I wish I could chew through my own rope and run away.”

  “Maybe we can help you do that. You and Edy will both work with Peggy while—”

  “I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer, Riley. And I’m certainly not minimizing Dr. Spencer’s skills. I get the feeling that she’s great at what she does…you, too…but my situation isn’t changeable.” The white kitten climbed back into her lap and purred as Fiona stroked her.

  “I tried leaving Jim when Edy was two. He stalked me for three months. One night he grabbed hold of me, pushed me into his car, and held a gun to my head. Actually, he alternated between holding it to my temple and his own while he calmly spoke. ‘You can come home with me, or we can both die right here.’ That’s what he said. And I believed him.”

  Riley did, too. She squeezed her forehead with her fingers and rubbed her face, thinking she should have swallowed that other half of Ativan.

  “The courts and all you well-intentioned mental-health professionals often fail to understand that an order of protection is only good if the person you’re trying to keep away obeys it. When someone decides they are not going to let you go, no one and nothing can stop them, Riley. I’d be safe only if Jim were in jail. And you can’t arrest a man until after he commits the crime, right?”

  “And where were your parents in all this?”

  “My parents?” Fiona waved a hand in disgust. “My mother wouldn’t even let me and Edy stay with her. You know what she said? That Jim was a good man who loved me, and that I needed to go home, work on my marriage, and learn to obey my husband. Mind you, I think I had a black eye during that conversation with her.”

  Riley looked at her incredulously. “Seriously? It’s hard to believe that a true Christian would feel that way about her own daughter being abused.” Riley cleared her throat, trying to stay as calm as Fiona appeared to be. In fact, it was just that, Fiona’s calm and casual tone, that bothered her so much. Fiona had no fight left in her. She’d reached a point of anhedonia, of emotional flatlining. “So you had no support or protection from your parents…”

  “Honestly, I think that if I were straight, they would have intervened. But my mother knew that if I divorced Jim, I’d never be with a man again. Bottom line, she’d rather see me unhappy with a man than happy with a woman. I find it kind of ironic that the woman who was so distraught over the idea of me being a lesbian and going to hell when I die, actually helped turn my life into a living hell.” Fiona snorted a bitter laugh, although she seemed to have become impervious to the bitterness, sorrow, and anything else she’d once felt. “I just hope Jesus is happy with the way things turned out…if this is what he really wanted for me.”

  Riley took a long drink and sat back. “Tell me how it happened…how you got to this point.” Fiona seemed lost in thought, petting the kitten who had curled itself into a little moon on her lap. “Fiona…?”

  She looked up and sighed. “You want the painstakingly long version or the condensed one?”

  Riley glanced at the clock. “Give me the short version.” Riley could fill in the details another time. Right now, she wanted to know more about Jim Barrett. “And tell me the truth,” she added. “I get the feeling that you and Edy both won’t be completely honest with Dr. Spencer. And I understand why. But I want the truth from you. I promise not to share anything without your permission.”

  Fiona nodded. “Well…let’s see. After we were caught in the woods that day, I was forced into therapy with someone through the church who insisted that homosexuality was a choice and that through constant prayer and denial of my ‘sinful’ nature, I would be forgiven and healed. And to reinforce that message, my parents sent me to conversion camp the following summer. None of it worked, of course. During college I was with a woman.”

  “Oh…then you were with a woman after me.”

  “Two.” Fiona shot those empty blue eyes at her. “It’s not like you were ever coming back, Riley. And then after college I met another woman. I didn’t love her the way I ever loved you, but it was serious enough that we moved in together. She was older. It was right after college, and I was living at home, making furniture and doing pretty well selling pieces on consignment. Of course, I had to inform my parents that I was still attracted to women. They disowned me, as did yours. And that was okay. I mean, it sucked, but I dealt with the rejection.”

  “I know the feeling,” Riley said.

  Fiona nodded. “That relationship ended after almost two years. We didn’t have all that much in common, and she started seeing her ex again. I don’t know what happened, Riley…I started missing my family, I guess…struggled to integrate my sexuality and religion…and wondered if I could try harder to change in order to win back my parents. I went back home. Jim was already in the picture when I got there.”

  Fiona sipped her tea, then cradled Luna with one arm while she set the bottle on the floor and blew out a breath of air. “He’d apparently had a tough life, a few run-ins with the law…then discovered my father’s church when he moved into the area and found Jesus. My parents treated him like a son. He’d worked as a trucker and wanted to earn money to buy his own rig, so my father put him to work as a handyman, doing work around the church and helping with renovations in the cabins. From the moment he laid eyes on me he was obsessed. Believe me when I say that I never, ever had a romantic interest in him…but we became friends. He was a really nice guy at first.”

  “Narcissists always are.” Yet what you see isn’t what you get, she wanted to say, but Fiona had already found this out, so Riley let her keep talking.

  “My mother constantly played matchmaker, like it was her one opportunity to save my soul, take control, and force him on me…as if he wasn’t forcing himself. What can I say, Riley? I finally gave in, thinking that if I made a conscious effort to choose my sexuality it might actually work, and I’d make everyone happy. So I slept with him. Once. And it didn’t work. But it got me pregnant.�
�

  “Edy…”

  Fiona nodded. “I knew I did not want to be with a man, and I did not want to be with Jim. I didn’t even tell him I was pregnant. I planned to either have an abortion or just disappear again and have the baby without anyone knowing, although I was in no position to afford raising a child on my own.”

  Riley rubbed her chin as she listened, trying to suppress this new anger she harbored for both Fiona’s parents and her own. Here Fiona had assumed Riley was in California, when in truth she’d always been only a few miles away. “I would have raised her with you,” she said.

  “What?” Fiona looked like she might cry.

  “Edy. We could have raised her together.” Ten years ago, Riley had been doing well. Her and Peggy’s new practice had taken off. They’d already bought the building in Great Barrington, and Riley was looking to buy a house with the monetary gift her father had given her after she finished graduate school. The money had been a final payment, more of a good-riddance check than a graduation present, but it didn’t matter. She’d had plenty of money in the bank, enough to make a good life for the three of them. Of course, they would have needed to address the werewolf issue. Riley couldn’t imagine how that conversation would have gone. I’m okay with you being pregnant, as long as you’re okay with me being a shape-shifter.

  So maybe being a family wouldn’t have worked. But Riley would have supported her from a comfortable distance. After giving up the cabin in Northampton to buy the house, she could have let Fiona and the baby have it. Riley would have covered the rent and all expenses while Fiona stayed at home with Edy and made her furniture to sell.