by C D Cain
Sam pushed the chair back under the ledge and took a step toward Gentry.
“At least until you finish your coffee anyway.”
Sam stopped and felt the blush invade her cheeks again.
“You have an adorable blush.”
“Yes, well, I never have had one before. So, I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I was always the one who caused the blush, not the other way around.”
“Interesting,” Gentry said as she took a sip of coffee.
Sam sat next to Gentry and tucked the blanket around her. She could feel the warmth from the stove on her feet as she stretched her legs out. The flames danced from within the window of the stove but the sounds of the crackle were deafened behind the glass. The bus was quiet but for the two women sharing their morning coffee.
“I pull out for Maine today. Last night you said you wanted to come with me.” Gentry took another sip. “I’m wondering this morning if that feeling has changed. If what happened between us…if what I did ruined that?”
“What you did? I believe there were two people involved in the doing.”
“True. But I initiated it. I wanted it.” She looked at Sam. “I wanted you. This morning, I woke up thinking I’d made a mistake. Your heart belongs to someone else. You’re hurting deeply from the loss of someone you love. Even though it was a sexual desire and need for me that I totally blame on pregnancy hormones, I realize it may have felt more of a betrayal to you. I would never want to cause you to have negative feelings of any kind, especially any that deal with me.” Gentry placed her hand over the bump in the blanket where she thought Sam’s hand rested. “I hope I didn’t ruin our friendship.”
Sam’s head was spinning with the words: friendship, sexual desire, betrayal. Yet one stood out more than any of those. “Pregnancy? Did you say pregnancy hormones?”
Gentry looked down at her stomach and sighed. “Yep. I’m pregnant.”
Sam sat straight up. “You’re pregnant?”
“Don’t worry. It’s not yours.” Gentry tried to get Sam to laugh. Anything would be better than the look Sam was giving her now. “Hey, if you haven’t had sex with a pregnant woman before, you can now check it off of your bucket list.”
“How? How are you pregnant?”
“Yeah so…being you’re the doc here, I would think you’d have a pretty good understanding of how all of that works.”
Sam shook her head and set her coffee cup on the counter for fear of spilling it. She rubbed her palms over her face and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Of course I know. I mean, you’re taking off by yourself to go work in Maine. Until you ran across me, you were planning this all alone. To be alone.”
“Yes. And now I’m following the signs. Don’t you think it’s a crazy sign that you’re an OB doc and I’m pregnant?”
“I guess.” Sam grabbed her coffee cup. “Hell, I don’t know. I just don’t know anymore.”
“What is your biggest hangup about this then?”
Sam’s brain was buzzing. To be completely honest, it had been since she woke up. She peered into her nearly full coffee cup and thought she needed to consume the rest for hopes the caffeine would kick in clarity to her thoughts. The coffee burned her throat with the speed and amount of her swallow. “Who’s the father? I mean, is he going to be coming around? Coming to Maine?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“Are you going to tell him? Let him be a part of the baby’s life.”
Gentry placed her finger over Sam’s lips to silence her. “I know who he is as in I know the moment I got pregnant. I do not know him. It was a one-time thing. He came to the motel as a stopover on a business trip. We hooked up. It was a moment. Obviously, I wasn’t as safe as I should’ve been. Before you start worrying, I’m usually not like that.” Gentry shook her head. “I know it sounds bad after last night, but I’m usually very safe. Nor am I a slut. I can count on one hand how many people I’ve been with in the last year. All of two. One who got me pregnant and one who is staring at me with the most God-awful look.”
“I’m sorry.” Sam felt bad for the way she was responding to Gentry’s news. Hell, she was an OB doctor for crying out loud. She had seen single women pregnant before. “I didn’t mean to insinuate I thought anything bad of you.”
Gentry forced a smile. “Good.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go to Maine and start the job I’ve worked for the last years of my life.”
“What are you going to do about the baby?”
“I’m going to go to Maine,” Gentry said frankly. “Beyond that, I don’t know yet.” She dipped her head down to look Sam in the eyes. “I hope you’re still considering coming with me.”
Gentry had given Sam breath in a suffocating world. It was hard to think of her going off to Maine on her own. Sure, she seemed quite capable of doing it but the fact was, Sam didn’t want her to. “Signs, huh?” she asked.
“I think they are.”
Sam tucked Gentry’s hair behind her ear. “Me too.”
Chapter 11
Sam fumbled with the packages in her hand, her keys, and the very loud ringing phone in her pocket. She felt embarrassed when the group of people standing on the sidewalk turned her way. She smiled before falling into the front seat of her car. Quickly, she answered her phone to avoid the call going to voicemail. She feared the medical board of Maine may be calling back with more questions.
“Hello.”
“Hi.” Violet pushed open the door leading out into the parking garage. She had waited all day to make this call. Even now, she didn’t want to. Over the last three weeks, she had heard a difference in Sam. She had started her healing. Because of that little bitch, she was about to cause her to have a setback.
“Hey, Vi. I was just thinking about you and Jaz.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jaz wasn’t any higher on her list than Rayne. She clinched her jaw at the thought of them both.
“Yes. Memorial Weekend is coming up and I was wondering if y’all were headed to the beach.”
“That’s why I’m calling.”
Sam organized the packages in the passenger seat to avoid broken eggs on her way home. Home. Referring to Gentry’s bus as home was freeing for lack of a better word. “I bet you’re excited to be getting away.”
“I was.”
Sam hadn’t mistaken her voice. “What’s wrong, Vi? Something’s up, I can tell.”
“What are you doing right now? Is it a good time to talk?”
“I’m sitting alone in my car. Shoot. I’m all yours.”
“I could kill her. I could kill Jaz for this.” The anger boiled to the surface and over as Violet began to let her words spill out. “It always comes back to her past. Always. No matter how hard I try or how happy we are, something always reminds her of those times. Some little pretend wounded duck comes into her bar and she thinks she has to mend its fucking wing because she knows what it feels like. I swear, Sam, it’ll never end. Constantly I have to be reminded of what Jaz went through when we met. Well, I tell you, it was no fucking bed of roses for me either. The back and forth. The not knowing from one day to the next. When in the hell will it end? Huh? When?”
“Vi, honey, slow down. Take in a breath. I don’t know where this is coming from but Jaz loves you. I’ve never seen two women more in love. Whatever this is, it’s just a bump. Okay? Only a bump.” Sam looked in her rearview mirror to make sure no one was waiting on her parking space. This phone call was going to take a minute. “Tell me what happened.”
“It’s that bitch, Sam. It’s that bitch Rayne.”
Sam turned up the volume on her phone. “Rayne? Did you just say Rayne?”
“Yes.” Violet leaned against her car.
“I don’t understand. Ho
w are you talking about Rayne and Jaz right now?”
“Because Jaz knows her. She met her and thinks she needs to be her friend.”
“Wait? How does she know her?”
Violet unlocked her car door and got in. “Hell if I know the details. All I know is one night on call, I came home to surprise Jazlyn for dinner and that bitch was sitting at my table, eating my Thai food, and listening to my jazz with my Jaz. I could’ve killed them both. Apparently, Rayne’s been coming to the club.”
“To the gay bar?”
“Yes.”
“What the fuck is she doing at the gay bar?” Sam felt as if a sledgehammer had been directed right into her gut. Her lunch earlier in the day began to sour in her stomach.
Vi’s tone lightened. “I don’t know, honey. I’m so sorry to bring her up after how well you’re doing. It’s killing me. Trust me. My life would have been fine to never hear or mention her name again.”
“So, why are you telling me all of this. I know there’s more.” Sam pushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Just say it, Vi.”
Violet hated hearing Sam’s tone sadden the way it had. “Jaz invited her to come to the beach house this weekend. She says Rayne needs a friend. Needs a place to get away. She’s been snowballed by her, just like you were, and believes she’s lost and hurting too.”
Sam moved the earpiece of the phone to her forehead. She couldn’t hear any more for the moment. She looked over at the bags in her seat and thought of Gentry. “Vi, I need to go. I’m sorry. I can’t hear all of this right now.” She didn’t move the phone back but could still make out Vi’s words.
“Honey, please, I’m sorry. Please.”
“I know, Vi. I love you but I’ve got to go.”
As Sam ended the call, she heard Violet scream one final “Fuck.”
Sam watched Gentry as she sat in a chair out by the water. She was putting the groceries away before joining her. That and trying to calm down before joining her. She had thought of nothing but Rayne on her drive back. How was she ever going to fully escape her now? She is thousands of miles away yet somehow Rayne is still filtering into her life. She slapped her hand down on the butcher block counter surface. She just wanted to forget she ever existed. As if it wasn’t hard enough on her end to do that, Rayne had become a part of the lives of her two best friends. She quickly downed two swallows of tequila straight from the bottle. Gentry sat still in her chair out by the water. An empty chair rest next to her. Sam downed another swallow and walked out of the bus.
“Is this seat taken?” Sam sat down hard in the chair.
“Sorry, I’m waiting for the new doc in town to come watch the sunset with me. You’ll have to take a number.” Gentry didn’t take her eyes from the water. Her words were playful but the tone behind them was not. “Did you get good news?”
It took Sam a moment to recollect what Gentry was referring to—to remember why she had stopped by the grocery to grab celebratory food and sparkling grape cider. “I did. They gave me temporary privileges to start work whenever I wanted. The permanent ones take a couple of months because I have to wait for the board to meet to grant me full privileges. But, it’s a step.”
“That it is.”
“The tide is in tonight.”
“Mmmmm hmmmm.” Gentry smiled out at the water. “It should make for a gorgeous sunset. I was afraid you were going to miss it.”
“Sorry. I stopped at the grocery.”
“Get anything good?”
Sam half-smiled. “I did.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What else happened? Something did.”
Sam slumped deeper into her chair. “Ever get a phone call that literally knocks the wind out of you?”
For the first time, Gentry turned to look at Sam. Her eyes were different than Sam had seen before. They seemed void. Void of an emotion. Not sad, not happy, and definitely not the eyes of Gentry she was used to seeing. “I know something about that.” She looked back out into the water. “I know it too well. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” Sam hesitated with the uncomfortable feeling Gentry’s look had given her. She touched Gentry’s arm but withdrew when she felt her tighten it. “Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?”
Gentry didn’t take her eyes from the water. “Not really. I just want to sit here and watch the sunset.”
The color of the sun over the tops of the pine trees reflected off of the water onto Gentry’s face. She felt the glow of its colors upon her cheeks and tip of her nose. This sunset marked an end to her past. This is the day she took her final breath. Never again would she have to see her or hear her voice. Orange, purple, and red spread from the sun like wings. Addie’s spirit was somewhere up there, stretching her arms wide to embrace her. She heard Addie’s voice of comfort in the wind that stirred. She gave a side glance to Sam who sat motionless in the chair. Not everyone could find solace in a sunset the way Gentry had come to do. Addie had taught her to do that. There was nowhere in the world and nothing in the world that could happen to her where the sun would not set to bring another day. Sometimes it wiped the day’s surface clear with the most glorious sky of colors. Gentry’s hopes of those tonight had been fulfilled. She rolled her head to Sam and noted the lines of worry and sorry had been lifted from her face. She smiled. Addie would be proud she had found such a kindred spirit to befriend. As she often did, she quietly whispered to Addie, “You’d like her.”
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Gentry said.
“Gorgeous. I don’t want it to end.”
“The wonderful thing is that no matter what tomorrow holds at the end of the day, there will be another sunset.”
Sam smiled and brushed her bangs from her eyes.
“You know, if you want, I could give you a haircut tonight. So you don’t look all scruffy when you go on your interview tomorrow.”
“You could? That would be awesome. But…wait. Do you know how to cut hair?”
“Who do you think cuts mine?”
“Get out of here. Is there anything you can’t or haven’t done?”
Gentry thought for a moment. “Yes. I’ve never delivered a baby.”
The sun had set. Night had come, and just like that, Sam had laughed.
Chapter 12
“You’re like a child. Hold still already.”
“Okay. Okay.” Sam sat on the dinette stool in the middle of the floor. She had become full of energy to tell Gentry about the meeting with the doctor who owned the clinic in Bar Harbor. It would be a perfect place for Sam to work in the interim of figuring out exactly where she wanted to go. “I haven’t been on an interview in forever. I’m a ball of nerves.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know, Gentry. I feel it, you know?”
“Feel what?” Gentry pulled a layer of hair in between her fingers and cut along its end.
“That I’ve lost my edge,” Sam said flatly. “I’m not the same person I used to be. Before, I had confidence that I was the person for the job because I could do anything they wanted of me.”
“And now?” Gentry rounded Sam’s back to cut along the side of her hair.
“Now, I’m different. I don’t know what I can handle much less convince someone I’m the best choice for the job.”
“Maybe you’ll be a different doctor because of all of this. Maybe you’re meant to be a doctor who has experienced pain and loss. The edge you may have needed was one that helped you connect with your patients on a personal level.”
Sam hadn’t thought of it like that. She hadn’t at all thought of it like that. “You may be onto something.” She tried to think of her patients, of her experiences with her patients. She tried to visualize just one she knew on a more personal level, but she couldn’t. They had been “the C-section in ro
om 1104 or the breech in 1315.” She heard Violet’s voice above the clicks of Gentry’s scissors. She sighed as she heard her say Rayne’s name. Rayne was that kind of doctor. Her whole career was set in place to go back home to practice with the people she knew. She wanted to care for the people she had known all of her life. Sam finally got it…a piece anyway. Finally, something made sense to her why Rayne had made some of her choices.
Gentry straddled Sam’s thigh. “Gotta get this top and then I’m all done.”
Sam’s thoughts ceased with the feel of Gentry’s breast pressed against her cheek. She felt the squeeze of her legs against her thigh as she stretched to make another cut.
“These layers have really grown out,” Gentry said as she stepped in between Sam’s legs. She reached further back to even a line of hair.
“Mmmmm hmmmm,” Sam murmured from in between Gentry’s breasts.
Gentry ran her fingers through Sam’s hair to look for strands she may have missed. “Your hair is so thick.” She felt the softness of Sam’s hair in between her fingers. “And soft.” Oblivious to what she was doing to Sam and possibly to herself, she continued to run her fingers through Sam’s hair. “So soft,” she mumbled. Sam’s head fell into her hands with each pass through her hair.
Gentry’s spine straightened when she felt Sam’s hands softly upon the back of her thighs. She brought her hands to the side of Sam’s face to raise her head. “You’re so beautiful,” Gentry said into her eyes.
Sam unbuttoned Gentry’s jeans. Slowly, without losing eye contact, she unzipped them. As she untucked her shirt, she pulled her down to straddle her legs. Gentry grabbed the hem of her shirt and pulled it free over her head. Sam kissed the skin between Gentry’s breasts. She looked back up at Gentry with eyes of permission as she brought her hand to the latch of her bra. There she stopped and waited for Gentry’s response.
Gentry rubbed her thumb along Sam’s bottom lip. With her other hand, she again felt the softness of Sam’s hair. Within her eyes, within the way she held Gentry in them, she felt the same. Soft. These were not the eyes of the woman who had taken the innocence of Gentry’s body from her. Gentry swallowed hard, the fear building in her throat. She closed her eyes and nodded yes to Sam’s request. Recognizing what she had been given, Sam gingerly unlatched Gentry’s bra and dropped it at their feet.
