by Harper Bliss
When Tess’s hands meet behind my back, and I feel her warmth, and, perhaps, also her affection for me, the tension that had lodged itself inside my gut releases and, to my great dismay, I crack. I let go and cry on Tess’s shoulder. I cry for the loss of Aunt Milly. I cry for the child I was when my parents didn’t hate me yet. I cry for the life I took, and how it’s, slowly, sapping the life right out of me as well. I cry for the bruises that healed and the ones that didn’t.
“Hey.” Tess’s hand is on the back of my head now. “Let it all out, sweetie. Just let it all out.”
What would I have done if Tess wasn’t here to comfort me? If I hadn’t met her, if she didn’t know. If I hadn’t had anyone to share this with? The thought is so acute, it makes me draw in a deep breath and lift my head from her shoulder, find her eyes.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” As the words leave my lips, I realize how utterly weak that sounds. How unlike the woman I wanted to become after Tracy. Free of codependence. Of that gnawing feeling that without the other person, I might as well cease to exist. Free of the shackles that tethered me to Tracy for way too long, through the physical pain—although, when it came down to it, the emotional damage Tracy inflicted was a million times worse. Bruises heal, but self-confidence is much harder to restore.
“I’m here, so no need to think about that.” I detect a mist of tears in Tess’s eyes as well.
And then, perhaps because I want to forget, or because I don’t want to be this post-Tracy person anymore, or because I remember those distinct pangs of jealousy when Sherry was making moves on Tess, I tilt my head and press my lips to Tess’s.
She doesn’t kiss me back. Her lips remain stiff and don’t curve the way I want them to, don’t melt into mine the way I had anticipated.
Mortified, I pull back. “I, er, I thought you wanted this?”
“Oh, Laura.” Tess’s hands find mine and she squeezes my fingers tightly between hers. “I do. You know I do, but not now. You’re reeling with emotion. It’s not the right time.”
“I just… want to forget. Everything,” I stammer.
“I know.” She’s not afraid to look me straight in the eyes while I, my nerves frayed and my confidence shot to pieces, have trouble holding her gaze. “But I’m not someone you can use to just forget about things, Laura. If and when we do this, I want it to come from a real place. From the opposite of grief and pain.”
I understand. Of course, I understand. But it still feels like a rejection at the worst possible time. I give her a reluctant nod.
“Why don’t we sit down for a bit. Let’s talk. Would that be okay?”
I nod again.
“Gosh, I do wish I could pour you a nice strong glass of bourbon right now,” Tess says.
“If I had any in the house, I wouldn’t object.”
“Aunt Milly didn’t keep a secret stash?” There’s a hint of hope in her voice. I’m guessing Tess could do with a drink too.
“Oh, she did, but I threw it all out when I moved in.” It was the very first thing I did when I arrived. Like a ritual, I poured all the remaining booze down the drain, its smell making me sick to the stomach. As though I held alcohol solely responsible for what I did to Tracy and getting rid of it was like a cleansing of sorts, a way to get the house ready for my presence. For a chance to heal.
Tess smiles one of her warmest smiles. “Come on. We don’t need booze.” She puts an arm around me and coaxes me toward the sofa, where she sits next to me with the side of her thigh glued to mine. And I realize that it’s all I need, a little bit of Tess’s warmth, and a sign that what she just said to me wasn’t a rejection, but a display of having my best interests at heart.
“You’ve been through a lot, Laura. It’s okay to crumble a little, or a lot. As much as you like.” We don’t look at each other, just stare at the opposite wall, at a painting of a Texas landscape that I wanted to keep.
“I don’t know what I was expecting from that call.” It’s easier to talk with no one looking at me directly. “Maybe a small part of me wanted her to say… something. I wasn’t looking for an apology. Just, maybe a sign that she was glad to hear my voice, that I had established contact.”
“Laura, honestly, from what you’ve told me about your family, you’re better off without them. And I know placing that call was very hard for you to do, and you should be glad you did it and it’s over, so you don’t need to feel guilty about not notifying them. But you have done absolutely nothing wrong.”
“That’s what Tracy used to say.” It comes out as a strangled whisper. “Until she started accusing me of doing everything wrong.” I’m digging deep now, saying things I’ve only ever thought, never said out loud. “Sometimes I wonder whether I fell for her because I craved the sort of love she was asking for. Complete and total surrender. Devotion, really. The kind of love my parents gave to the church, but not to me. Not after I came out. And when Tracy”—I need to catch my breath—“punished me for not abiding by one of her crazy, made-up on-the-fly rules, deep down, I believed I deserved it.”
Tess’s hand shuffles up my thigh. She clamps her fingers in a tight grip around mine. She doesn’t speak immediately. Maybe she doesn’t have anything to say. Maybe she’s waiting for me to continue. When I don’t, she says with a shaky voice, “Laura, you’ve just been so unlucky. Nobody deserves to be treated like that by their parents, nor their partner. You do know you’re not to blame for any of this?”
Tears prick in my eyes. I hold on to Tess’s hand for dear life. “I know I’m not responsible for how my parents see me… like an abomination—my father’s exact term for it, by the way. I was born to them, but I didn’t choose them as my family. I did choose Tracy, though. I married her. I took her last name. For more than a year, I was Laura Hunt. And I let her…” A choke in my voice so big, the words can’t get past anymore.
Tess turns to me now and lifts my hand in the process, cradles it in both her own. “You were the victim of abuse. You did absolutely nothing wrong.”
With my free hand, I wipe away the tears that have gathered on my cheeks. “I stayed, though. After she first… came for me, I didn’t walk away. I didn’t have the strength, or the self-respect, or wherewithal to leave her. And God knows how long I would have stayed if I hadn’t—if she hadn’t died.”
“Relationships are much more complex than just up-and-leaving when one party hurts the other.” Tess shakes her head. “You are not to blame.”
“I know. I know that now.” Most of the time I do know. “But today, after hearing my mother’s voice, and the complete lack of any display of affection in it, it just got to me, I guess. As much as I don’t want it to, and I don’t want them to have any effect over me, it still gets to me. Even though I know that there’s nothing I could have done to change things.”
“Can I make a suggestion?” Tess tilts her head a little. “Come to dinner at my house tonight. Spend some time with the Douglas clan. Have a real family dinner for once. You’re not alone, Laura.” She gives my hand a squeeze. “Only if you’re up to it, of course.”
I nod, hesitantly at first, but then with more gusto. Because I don’t feel like spending the evening in Aunt Milly’s house, which feels somehow more empty and big now that she’s gone. I also refuse to feel sorry for myself for one minute longer.
“Great.” Tess draws her lips into a warm smile.
“I’m sorry about before, about kissing you. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s okay.” My hand is still trapped in hers.
“No. I wasn’t taking your feelings into account. I was unfair.”
“Laura, listen to me. Put yourself first. There’s nothing wrong with that. But if it makes you feel any better, apology accepted.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
TESS
A few days later, after I minded the kids for a while so Megan could attend a Zumba class while Scott was at a staff meeting, I tell my sister about the kiss.
“She kis
sed you?” Megan asks. “The woman you’ve had a massive crush on for the past two months kissed you, and you didn’t kiss her back?” She shakes her head in disbelief. “What is wrong with you, Tessie?”
“It couldn’t have been a worse time.” When I close my eyes, I can still feel Laura’s lips on mine. “Her aunt had just died. She’d just been on the phone with her heartless mother. It wouldn’t have been for the right reasons.”
“You know, Tessie, sometimes I think celibacy is a conscious choice for you. First the cowgirl, now this.”
“Let me assure you that it’s not.” That hug Laura gave me a few days ago still lingers, still makes me want everything I can’t have. “But I want it to be right. Is that so crazy?”
“No, I guess not, but this is life. And more often than not, it’s messy and doesn’t go according to plan. Things just happen.” Megan eyes me with that look she gets when she’s playing devil’s advocate. When we were younger, we broke out into the occasional sibling fight, but it’s rare that we argue. Perhaps this type of back and forth is our way of doing so.
“The cowgirl was attractive in a very… primal way. She had this air about her, this supreme confidence that was magnetic, and if it hadn’t been for Laura, I’d probably be in her trailer right now. I don’t know. But that’s the thing. Ever since Laura arrived, I just…” My eloquence escapes me for a second.
“You’ve pinned all your hopes and dreams on her.” Another one of my sister’s habits: finishing my sentences with words I would never say.
“No, I haven’t.” It’s more defiance than anything else that makes me tell this lie—to my sister and to myself.
“Why are you lying?” Megan isn’t one to let me get away with this.
I raise my arms in exasperation. “I don’t know, Megs. I like her. When I spend time with her, I can sense… the possibilities.”
“Yes, but she’s obviously stringing you along. Why?” Megan had better be careful. She’s about to cross a line we seldom cross.
“She’s doing no such thing.” I wish I could tell my sister, explain it to her properly, but I gave Laura my word. “She’s had a really tough life, okay? A life you and I can’t even begin to imagine. She’s been hurt over and over again. She’s still healing.”
“So you feel sorry for her?”
“No. I mean, yes, I do. Of course, I do. But feeling sorry for Laura isn’t going to help her. We’re friends. For now. And yes, I hope that will change at some point, but that’s not up to me. Is that okay with you, Megan?” I hardly ever call my sister by her full name. Doing so must alert her to the fact that she’s seriously annoying me.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“What’s the worst that can happen?”
“So many things could happen. But you don’t see them as a possibility because your eyes are glazed over with lust for a woman who doesn’t want to be with you.” Megan’s face has gone all serious. “She could lean on you for a few more months, get tired of Nelson, and just leave. There’s nothing tying her to the place now that her aunt is gone.”
“Nu-uh. No way.”
“Look, Tessie, what I’m trying to say is that—and you should take this as a compliment—any woman would be lucky to have you bestow your attentions upon her. You’re a ray of light. It’s your nature. Of course someone who has been hurt, like you say Laura has been, is going to try to cling to that. Just, you know, make sure you get something out of it as well.”
“Dear Megs, I sort of love you for saying that, but you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Megan holds up her hands. “Perhaps, but I don’t want my sister to get hurt. That’s all.”
“I appreciate your concern, but I’m a big girl. And Laura’s not out to hurt me. She’s a good person… with issues.”
“One last question, and then I’ll leave you be,” Megan says. “She seems like a nice enough woman, and she’s got it going on in the looks department, but what’s so special about her anyway?”
“Really?” For the first time in a very long time, Megan has offended me greatly. “You’re really asking me that?”
“Too much?” Regret crosses Megan’s face. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, I’ll answer.” I wouldn’t give Megan the satisfaction of not coming up with a great response to her inappropriate question. “We definitely have a vibe. She makes me laugh, and makes me feel good about myself, and makes me want to do nice things for her, and be there for her. And when she kissed me, it was the hardest thing ever to not just kiss her back, but I respect her too much to have just reciprocated. And yes, I’m smitten. I will gladly admit to that. Because why the hell wouldn’t I be? Laura is a beautiful, sensitive, sweet, very talented woman.”
“Okay. Okay.” Megan breaks out into a grin. “I get it. You’ve made your case. You have my blessing to pine for her a little while longer. But if she hurts you, she’ll have me to deal with.”
“Not that I need your blessing for anything just because we shared a womb, but thanks for looking out for me.”
“That’s what family is for.”
“And babysitting,” I add.
“That goes without saying.” Megan winks at me and, again, I think of Laura, who, in a few days’ time, will be burying the one remaining family member she cared for.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LAURA
Rachel has come down from Chicago for Aunt Milly’s funeral. Apart from her, at the service at the cemetery, the only people I know better than as a mere acquaintance or a familiar face from around town, are Tess, her family, Mary from the café, Myriam and Isabella, and a few locals I’ve been doing some work for. Still, the turn-out for Aunt Milly’s send-off is numerous and, though it hardly still matters now, I think that would have pleased her.
When I made arrangements for the service, the minister asked if I wanted to say a few words, but I declined the offer. I’d rather say goodbye in silence. The way I did when Tracy died. Her funeral was one of the most harrowing times of my life. People who didn’t know what had happened saw me as the grieving widow, while her family and friends saw me as her killer. I counted myself in the second group.
Burying Aunt Milly today, makes me think about death again, and about how fragile life is. One wrong step, and it can be over and done with. When you’ve seen the life drain out of someone’s eyes right in front of you, and when you’ve caused that to happen, and have come face-to-face with how breakable the human body can be, it changes everything. At least Aunt Milly lived a full, long life. No matter what Tracy did to me, I took that away from her. I robbed her of a future. I robbed her parents of a child.
I should be listening to what the minister is saying, but I’ve become so averse to words spoken by clerical folks, I don’t really care what he has to say. It’s the same old stuff anyway. God this, Jesus that. What did God do with Tracy when she came knocking on heaven’s door? Did he let her in? Forgive her for her earthly sins and take her into his divine embrace? My father said this to me after I came out to him. If you repent, and don’t give in to your unnatural urges, God will embrace you. But it was not God’s embrace I was after. It was his.
I look to my left. Rachel has slotted her arm through mine, and she has a solemn expression on her face. I try to get her attention by looking at her a fraction too long. I need to let someone know how much this funeral is messing with my head. How much it’s bringing everything that’s not right in my life together in my mind. But Rachel keeps staring at the coffin, her face stoic and serene. I try Tess on my right. Sweet Tess, who, after my little breakdown, took me home to share a meal with her family, and showed me what family is really about.
I don’t know if she’d somehow prompted him, but Earl told the story of when Tess came out of the closet and his and his wife’s reaction to that.
“We always knew. We were basically just waiting for Tessie to tell us. We didn’t want to force that out of her.” That was it. No drama. No guilt.
No penance required to merit the embrace of God.
This makes me think of that short but awkward phone call with my mother again. And how glad I am that my father was too busy to attend his only sister’s funeral. Pastor Baker only has time to lead a service for people he’s not related to by blood.
How much longer is this going to take? I need to make it through this. Then through the funeral reception at the house which, now, is legally mine. I own a house in Nelson, Texas. I’ve never owned any property before. I take a deep breath and focus on the minister. Does he have children? What would he say to them if one of them came out as gay? Would he crush them in that most vulnerable time of their life? Or offer them God’s embrace through his?
In the distance, I see a car approach. A black town car of the sort you seldom see in Nelson. It looks like a vehicle a mobster would drive. It inches closer and stops where the road ends, parking behind the funeral home’s hearse. Classy, I think, though I am intrigued as to who would do such a thing. Who would drive up here in the middle of a service and park in the middle of the street?
When the car doors open, even before I catch a glimpse of who’s about to come out, I know. It’s them. It can only be them. A moment later my suspicion is confirmed. With their heads held high, as though they didn’t just arrive at a funeral in the most disrespectful manner—and half an hour late—Richard and Phyllis Baker approach.
“Who’s that?” Tess whispers in my ear. “Do you know them?”
“I wish I didn’t, but I do.” I take another deep breath. “They’re my parents.”
A buzz of whisperings passes through the crowd as the Bakers approach. They stop just outside the circle of people. Inadvertently, I find my father’s gaze. Does he even recognize me? He gives me a slow nod, his features unreadable. I guess he does. I give him a hard stare back, then look away.
