by Amy Gamet
"Never is a long time."
A sea gull flew overhead and Lisa watched him glide. "Maybe not ever. But it’s been a really long time."
"How long are you going to be in town?"
"I’m not sure yet. I took the rest of the week off from work, but that’s over. I should probably call my boss."
"Sounds like you love your job, waiting until the last minute to call in sick."
"I hate it. If they fired me, I’d do a happy dance all the way to unemployment."
"So, why are you still doing it?"
"Why are you tending bar? Because it pays the bills."
"I’m tending bar while I get my nursing degree. It’s a means to an end. You working some graphic design job you hate isn’t getting you anywhere you want to go."
Lisa closed her eyes. "It seems like I’m not doing anything right."
"You’re friends with me again. You got that one right."
"Fabulous."
"You just shouldn’t let your talent rot like a banana on the kitchen counter."
Lisa lowered her sunglasses. "A banana?"
Brandy smiled. "I took poetry last semester."
"You might want to stick to nursing. And I’m not letting it rot. I tried being an artist and I got trampled in the masses of people trying to do it better than me, and telling me I wasn’t good enough to be there. No, thank you. I have enough self-esteem issues without that particular career choice."
"So you gave up." Brandy was shaking her head. "Good for you. Spend your life doing something you hate so no one challenges you to become better. That’s awesome."
Lisa whipped off her sunglasses. "Hey, do you think we could tone down the, ‘Here’s what’s wrong with your life, Lisa,’ volume?"
Brandy took a deep breath. "You think I’m saying this to piss you off."
"Yes."
"To pick on you."
"Yes."
"Lisa, I’m saying these things because I love you."
Lisa bit her lip. How long had it been since someone had said that to her, since she’d truly felt love from another human being? She’d cut herself off from everyone who used to care, leaving herself surrounded with those who confirmed her worst suspicions—she was nothing special, no one to be overly concerned with.
She spoke past the knot of emotion in her throat. "I know. I love you, too."
"You’re talented, and you’re smart, and I want to see you happy."
Lisa frowned. "I want to be happy, too."
"Good. Let’s figure out how to make that happen, shall we?"
The image of Greg’s face appeared unbidden in Lisa’s mind.
His chest.
His arms and hands.
I think I already know what might make me happy.
* * *
Lisa pulled into the driveway of the house with a trunk full of groceries. After several days of take-out, she was ready for a home-cooked meal.
Melanie stood up on the porch, and Lisa cursed under her breath.
Oh, great.
"Hey," Melanie called as Lisa got out.
"Hi." Lisa walked to the porch steps. "What are you doing here?"
Melanie’s face was drawn, her lips tight. "I need to talk to you."
"Sounds ominous."
"I need to ask you something, and I want you to tell me the truth. Why did you come back when you did?"
"Mom asked me to come home."
"Did you know she was selling the house?"
Lisa crossed her arms. "What is this about?"
"She told me you don’t want her to sell. I had to talk her into keeping it on the market."
Lisa walked up two stairs, anger coming fast. "Why did you do that? She was going to take it down, and you talked her into keeping it for sale?"
Melanie put her hands in her back pockets. "Did you know she was settled into St. Anne’s, so you wouldn't have to take care of her?"
The dirty feeling was back, pulling at Lisa with filthy hands. "No," she snapped. "What are you implying? That I only came back to town to get my share of Mom’s stuff?"
"Is that the reason?"
Lisa’s jaw dropped. "I can’t believe you just asked me that."
"You’re gone for years, and the moment she goes into assisted living, you’re here asking for the house."
Lisa’s muscles were clenched, her elbows bent. "That house has been passed on for more than a hundred years. You and I were both told over and over again it was going to be ours someday. I can’t believe you’re not fighting for it just like I am, instead of making me out to be some kind of ambulance chaser."
"She asked if Rafael and I wanted the house, but we already have a house that we love."
Betrayal ripped Lisa’s heart open wide, gaping and raw. "She offered it to you?"
"Is that so hard to believe? I’m the one who’s been here. I’m the one who lives here." Melanie shrugged. "It’s her decision to make, and you should let her make it. You’re putting yourself on top of the priority list, and that isn’t what Mom needs right now."
Lisa spat out her words. "She needs you."
"Yes, she does."
Lisa nodded slowly, an inky desperation percolating through her body. "And you like it that way."
"What’s that supposed to mean?"
"Just what I said. You need to be needed, and me being here means your help isn’t quite so critical, is it?"
"Actually, it’s more important than ever, if you’re making things more difficult for Mom."
Realization came hard. "You want me to leave."
Melanie sighed.
"You do!" Lisa shook her head, disbelief like a veil she couldn’t get out of her face. "You want me to leave. I haven’t been in Moon Lake in years, and now you want me to go."
"Lisa, you make things so much harder than they need to be."
The patronizing tone scraped at Lisa. "We can't all be perfect people, Melanie. Some of us have feelings and emotions…"
"Feelings and emotions? I have plenty of feelings and emotions. I feel very angry with you for leaving in the first place, and I feel even angrier you had the audacity to come back and take advantage of Mom."
Lisa stepped onto the same step her sister stood on, face-to-face. "Get out of here. Leave me alone. Our lives don't have to touch, you and me."
"That's probably true, because I know you're not going to help take care of Mom, or help her sell the house, or go through all of her things like she asked me to do. Because that would be too much like work for you, and you'd bail long before we got halfway through it all."
She was so hurt by Melanie’s words, by the truth in them, that their mother didn’t ask Lisa to do the same things, didn’t trust her to do them or didn’t think she would.
Lisa was back here. She’d come home. She would do anything to help her mother, if she only knew she was needed. "That’s not true," she said incredulously. "I can help."
Melanie laughed. "And I can fly!" She flapped imaginary wings. "Look at me, I'm flying, and my sister is helping take care of our family!"
It was too much.
Lisa didn't think, her hand reaching out to slap Melanie.
Melanie gasped, clutching at her face. "How dare you?"
"I’ve had enough of your high-and-mighty, holier-than-thou attitude. So you’re the good one. I got that a long time ago, thank you very much. But you can take all of this garbage and shove it where the sun don’t shine." If she wasn’t going to be forgiven, she was going to draw a line in the sand.
She wasn’t going to take any more abuse.
Melanie’s jaw hung open. "You are so far out of line…"
"What are you going to do? Be mean to me? Ignore me for years on end? Not invite me to your wedding? Already done. So bite me."
Melanie shook her head. "You can’t just waltz back in here and act as if all is forgiven. You deserted us, abandoned Mom when she needed you the most, and I’m the one who’s been here. I’m the one who took care of her, who buried Dad, for goodness sak
e. And where the hell were you?"
"I wasn’t wanted here, and you know it," screamed Lisa. The weight she’d been carrying for years slipped off of her shoulders as the words left her mouth.
"Oh, what a bunch of baloney! You are a grown woman. So why don’t you start acting like one? No one could have kept me away from Dad’s funeral even if they’d tried, but because we weren’t rolling out the red carpet and sending you a personalized invitation, you figured your attendance was optional. Well, it wasn’t. She needed you there, Lisa. She was hurting, at the most difficult moment in her life and you were nowhere to be found. And who picked up the pieces? Who picked out the casket and held her hand and made sure she ate something besides scotch for months afterward?"
The image of her mother in such a state could have brought Lisa to her knees, but she couldn’t let her sister see her pain. "Saint Melanie, of course. She’s the only one who ever does anything around here."
"That’s right."
"Get off my porch," said Lisa.
"This is not your porch, anymore than…"
Lisa held up her hand as if to strike her again, and Melanie cowered. They could have been twelve years old, fighting over the computer or a video game.
"Get off my porch!"
Melanie scurried down the steps. "Go back to New York, Lisa. Go back before Mom starts to think you might actually stick around."
Lisa opened her mouth, then thought better of the urge and closed it. Her chin started to quiver. She yelled after her sister, "And for the record, I did come to the funeral."
"You’re lying!"
"White flowers on a silver casket. You wore the ugliest gray dress I’ve ever seen."
Lisa turned and went inside, slamming the door behind her. She wandered into the darkened living room, her face instantly crumpling into a distraught mess.
She cried out loud like a child, then kicked the ottoman. "Stupid girl!" she yelled, crying some more. "Nobody wants you here. Nobody loves you." She cursed, kicking the ottoman again as she sobbed. "You think they'll take you back? Well, you're wrong. They don't care if you're sorry. They don't care if you're so lonely you wish you were dead!"
The tears came faster now, and she rested her head against the cool painted brick of the fireplace. This house was her only comfort, the thing that still loved her without caveats.
It’s not the house you love so much.
It was never the house.
She sobbed harder.
Hadn’t she known? Somewhere deep down inside, hadn’t she realized? It wasn’t the house she wanted so desperately.
It was her family.
Melanie hated her. That much was clear. Lisa ran her fingers along the brick, thick layers of paint covering the rough surface, smoothing it out a little more each time.
It was like her past, every layer an apology, the harsh texture that was her truth taking a damn eternity to become smooth again.
She was suddenly exhausted.
A touch on her back and she screamed, spinning around to find Greg standing before her in the dimly lit room. He opened his arms and she fell into them, continuing to cry, harder even now that someone had come to her rescue.
"Shh…" he hushed her, his fingers stroking up and down her back.
"She doesn’t want me here," she choked out between sobs. "I finally made it back home and she doesn’t want me here."
"Who doesn't want you here?"
"Melanie. She wants me to go."
"And you don't want to?"
Lisa shook her head fiercely from side-to-side, surprising herself with the intensity of the truth. "I don't have anywhere to go. And this is my home, where I always wanted to be."
"What about your apartment in the city?"
"It's still there. But it's nowhere. It's always been nowhere, and I have a dead plant I can't take care of, and neighbors who don't know my name, and I don't want to go back there anymore."
"What about your mother?"
"I don't know. She wants to like me, I think, but she doesn't know how."
"You don't make it easy for us, you know."
She wiped her tears on his t-shirt, the scent of his skin spicy and fine. "I know."
"Why do you do that, Lisa? Why do you push away the people who ought to love you the most?"
She lifted her face to his, meeting his eyes, and all her emotion was suddenly focused on him. This was the man she wanted as much as she denied her interest.
Who wanted her to stay away from him.
But I can’t.
Lifting herself onto her tiptoes, she kissed him. His lips were soft and warm and the stubble on his chin felt good against her skin. She lifted her arms around his neck, encouraging him to respond to her as she kissed him again.
His mouth opened in one swoop, catching her lips with his as he groaned out loud. Then they were tangled together, her hands in his hair, his arms pinning her against his hard body.
"Greg," she whispered, holding his face in her hands as she teased him with her tongue. She could feel he was holding back and she feared he would sever their connection as abruptly as he did last time, so she held on as tightly as she could, urging him to respond fully to her kisses.
But it was no use.
He lifted his head, holding her against his chest, trapping her there.
"I can't do this," he said.
He was going to push her away again, and she dug her nails into his skin to keep him there. "Yes, you can."
"I don't want to."
The floor beneath her disappeared. She was falling, ever faster. "What do you mean?"
"I don’t want to kiss you, and I don’t want to make love to you, and I don’t want to be with you. Not now, not ever."
She pulled back from him, shame filling her up like water in a glass. With one sentence, he made her a fool, an unwanted piece of something torn off the whole and thrown to the side.
"Why?" she asked. "Tell me why!"
He was breathing heavily, and his hand came up to rub his mouth. "You don’t get it."
"Explain it to me."
"I can’t."
"Say the words, Greg!"
He stared at her, the moment stretching out between them. "It was Afghanistan." He began to pace. "You asked me what happened between me and your sister. It was Afghanistan."
"Tell me about it."
He squeezed fistfuls of his hair. "I left her. I left everyone. Coming back here after my tour of duty was like stepping into a life I couldn’t remember. All these expectations, and I didn’t have the ability or the desire to meet a damn one of them. So I left."
"How long were you gone?"
"Two years."
Wow.
That was a very long time.
They had that in common, at least. She knew what it was to leave and come home, the space you expected to be held for you somehow shriveling in your absence, making your shoulders rub and squish.
She thought of Melanie, missing him that long, and she wondered how her sister managed without him. Was that when Rafael became part of her life? "But you came back. That’s the important thing."
She touched his arm and he shrugged her off, laughing without humor. "Yeah, I came back all right. That’s the important thing." He met her eyes. "I’ll see you around."
Chapter 7
Greg stormed into his dark house and threw his keys onto the counter.
What the hell had he been thinking?
Kissing Lisa Addario was a bad idea, maybe the worst idea he'd ever had, yet that was the second time in two days he’d done it.
He cursed and braced himself on the counter, hanging his head. His blood was still boiling, the mere thought of her breathing life back into the passion that had flared up between them.
He could have lost control so easily, could have let himself get carried away and taken her body with his own. She tasted so good. The feel of her lips and the crush of her breasts against him.
He’d had to stop it.
&n
bsp; But finding her there like that, thinking she was alone, crying in frustration. She didn’t seem like the Lisa he used to know. He could imagine what she was going through, see her life from her point of view for just a moment, and he wanted to comfort her, to hold her and tell her everything would be okay. She needed someone right then, and he’d foolishly wanted it to be him.
He hadn’t considered what holding her would do to him.
He straightened and opened a drawer, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, then threw them back inside and slammed it shut with a curse.
Closing his eyes, he raised his head and listened to his breathing coming fast, as if he’d just run his body hard. He needed to move, to force this energy into action. He opened the back door and took off into the night, running the half-mile to Moon Lake on a darkened dirt path he knew all too well.
He stripped down, clothes landing in a haphazard line in his urgency to enter the lake. He dove into the black water, unafraid of what he couldn’t see, his arms propelling his body through the water with skillful movements.
It’s not fair.
I want to be happy like everyone else.
But he knew he didn’t deserve it, couldn’t have a second chance after what he’d done.
Once he’d been in a living hell. Now there was only limbo, only this hell-on-earth, where he could never have real happiness, never experience it, never give it to another.
He lied when he said he didn’t want to be with Lisa. He already knew he wanted her body, but something about her soul had called out to him back there, and that was more than he knew what to do with.
She understood him where others were nonplussed, saw who he was today instead of wishing he was the way he used to be, and that made her the only person who was really sharing his reality with him.
No wonder he was drawn to her.
He pushed against the water swimming harder than he ever had, needing to push himself beyond his known limits. The first feeling of fatigue started in his shoulders, numbness settling over him like a drug.
He swung his arm beneath him and flipped onto his back, his chest rising and falling as he floated.
"What if I could have her?" he asked aloud, surprising himself.
It was a dangerous thought, that glimmer of hope. He let his eyes drift closed as he imagined her at his side, holding his hand, sharing a look and a laugh between them.
