The Right Time

by Susan X Meagher

  “Goddamn it! How did we let this get away from us?”

  It took a long while for her to cry herself out, with Townsend tenderly stroking her head as the tears fell. Her body ached with the pain of loss, the heartbreak they’d put each other through.

  Finally, Hennessy spoke, sounding old, exhausted. “I don’t know how we screwed this up.” Her body shivered, then she added, “That’s not true. I do know. It was timing and circumstances and lack of maturity. I’ve grown up so much in the past year,” she said, her voice still wobbly.

  Pulling the dark head forward, Townsend repeatedly kissed the soft, smooth skin of Hennessy’s brow. “You’re right. That’s exactly it. But we can’t change time.”

  “I know…I think…I think I know that,” Hennessy said, looking thoroughly confused.

  “You need to get some sleep. You don’t look like you can put two sentences together.”

  “God, I’m tired. I’m not one of those people who can stay up all night and function. Especially when things are so emotional.”

  Townsend stood and helped her up, then Hennessy started to remove her jacket, getting it caught on a shoulder. Townsend helped her with it, then watched her kick off her shoes and fall, face first, onto the bed. Her head turned and she sucked in a breath, looking like she might cry again. “Will you lie down with me? You don’t have to if you don’t want to or you think it’s wrong…” A few more tears escaped. “It’d just feel so good to be close to you again.”

  “Whatever you need.” Townsend kicked off her shoes, then removed her jeans, cuddling up behind Hennessy in her shirt and panties. “Is this good?”

  Hennessy took her hand and tucked it around her waist. “Now I can sleep,” she said, and almost immediately her heavy breathing showed she meant it.

  Townsend woke slowly, slightly disoriented. She wasn’t sure what time it was, but the sun was no longer shining in through the window and her stomach was trying to get her attention. She moved a little, tightening her hold around the long, still lean, but now slightly sturdier body she’d longed for and lusted after for so long.

  With a soft, but fully awake voice, Hennessy asked, “How can I love both Kate and you? I thought love was something you could only feel for one person.”

  Townsend let her lips linger on the crown of Hennessy’s head for a moment. Her hair smelled of spring and Townsend had to force herself to pull away from the beguiling scent. “When you learned about Jenna, did you think I’d stopped loving you?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I did. I mean, I knew you loved me in a platonic way, but I thought you’d fallen out of love with me.”

  Squeezing her tightly, Townsend said, “Never. I will always love you, and I will always be in love with you. I won’t ever let you go. Not ever.”

  “That’s how I feel,” she said, her voice rough with emotion. “But I’m so confused. Does loving you take away from my feelings for Kate? What about you and Jenna? Is it fair to them that we feel this way?”

  She looked so fragile. So heartbreakingly vulnerable. Clearly needing reassurance, Townsend tried to soothe her. “They know how important we are to each other, right?”

  “Yeah, Kate does. I told her everything. But she probably thinks my feelings have faded.” She winced, her eyes closing briefly. “That I care for you but…”

  Townsend let herself consider her own situation, unable to get the image of Jenna’s trusting face out of her head. “Jenna probably thinks that, too. But loving someone doesn’t mean they own every bit of your heart. You can’t change the way you feel. You can only change the way you act.”

  Hennessy was quiet for a moment, then she moved away. Just a few inches, but her intent was clear. “Kate wouldn’t like my lying in bed with you. How about Jenna?”

  Townsend thought about the question for a moment, then told the whole truth. “I’m not sure what’s going on with Jenna right now. She left for Utah a couple of days ago…and she’s probably not coming back.”

  Hennessy sat up and stared. Scooting up the bed, she propped a couple of pillows behind her head. “What? Why…?”

  Townsend got out of bed and put her jeans back on, then went to her bag and took out her brush. While brushing the tangles from her hair, she said, “I know she loves me. She treats me so well and is so concerned and caring. When we’re alone, I’m…well, I’m loved. But her parents called right before the term ended and said it was time for her to start her mission.” Shuddering, she thought of the look on Jenna’s face as she revealed the news. She’d been miserable. Disconsolate. Her stomach clenched as she let the image of that forlorn face play over in her mind. Closing her eyes tightly, she tried to banish the picture. “She canceled her plans to go to summer school and went home.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”

  “So she didn’t leave because she doesn’t love you,” Hennessy said, clearly trying to put a good spin on it. “She’s just placating them for a while.”

  “I think that’s true. But when she’s at home, they’re going to work on her.”

  “Work on her? Do they suspect?”

  “Us?” She waved a hand. “Oh, no. Hell, no. No, no, and a truckload of extra no. They’re going to try to get her into the right mindset, hoping she’ll meet someone while she’s away.” She waited a second to deliver the dramatic punchline. “So she can marry.”

  “Marry?”

  “Yep. Marry.”

  Hennessy’s mouth dropped open and she gaped in surprise. “Jesus! Who wants their kid to get married this young?”

  “Mormons,” Townsend said with resignation. “They don’t believe in having sex before marriage, so they marry young.”

  “Damn. Can she…will she try to resist?”

  Townsend looked at her for a second. “Try to resist falling in love with a guy on her mission? That won’t be hard. But once she returns, they want her to transfer to BYU, since it’s full of Mormons. That’s her last chance to nab the cream of the crop, and that’s when the pressure will really build.”

  “Oh, Christ.” Hennessy rubbed her eyes, clearly still sleep-deprived. “What will she do?”

  Townsend sat down on a chair and put her shoes back on, then stretched her legs out and rested her feet on the edge of the bed. The room was so small she didn’t even have to stretch to reach. “What will Jenna do—that is the question, isn’t it?”

  “Do you think you know?”

  “Yeah, I know. I wasn’t sure at first, but over the months it’s become clear to me even though it doesn’t seem clear to her.” She sighed. “Her religion and her family are going to get her back.”

  Hennessy’s eyes popped open wide. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure? No. But I’d be surprised if she could stand up to them. She’s still struggling…hard. But if she chose me, she’d lose her family. I don’t think I’m enough to balance that out.”

  Hennessy looked like she was about to cry. That was the mark of someone who loved you. Even when you were talking about losing the woman you left her for, she could empathize. “Are you sure her family would abandon her?”

  “I’m not sure they’d do that. But their faith is such a big part of their lives things would never be right again. They truly believe they’ll all be in heaven without her. That’s a tough thing for a parent to swallow.”

  “Shit. Just…shit.”

  “Yeah, I fall in love with someone who isn’t completely fucked up, only to find out she loves Jesus more than me. I should have seen this coming when she kept talking about going on her mission. She was always clear she was going to go.”

  It was chilly in the room, and Hennessy unmoored the bedspread and draped it over her legs. Townsend knew her well enough to recognize she wanted to ask a question, but was crafting it to make it perfect. She was so transparent sometimes you could almost see her thoughts.

  After smoothing the bedspread out carefully, Hennessy finally looked up and met Townsend’s eyes. “How does she reconcile your relationship with her fai
th? Does she realize she’s being a little inconsistent?”

  “I’m not sure what she does with this in her head, to tell you the truth. She’s got pretty strong powers of denial.” She gave Hennessy a pointed look. “You can convince yourself of anything once you buy that God gave a guy in upstate New York some golden plates with a new bible written on them.”

  “I don’t know much about Mormonism,” Hennessy admitted. She blinked. “Wait. Are they the ones who wear magic underwear?”

  Townsend started to answer, but cut herself short. It was disloyal to Jenna to make fun of the things that meant so much to her. “Their beliefs seem pretty kooky to me, but in reality, they’re no crazier than regular Christians. A two hundred year old religion’s always going to sound strange compared to one people have been tweaking for two thousand years.”

  “All true,” Hennessy agreed, smiling that beguiling smile.

  Townsend focused on Jenna, just to stop herself from wanting to climb right back into that damned bed with Hennessy. Two fucking years, and she was still indescribably tempting. “Here’s how I think she’s finessed this.” She took in a breath. “I think she decided she’d be a very, very good Mormon and follow every rule but one. Maybe doing everything else right would make up for the fact that she’s committing a grievous sin.”

  “Huh.” Hennessy nodded. “I guess that’s not the worst rationalization I’ve ever heard.”

  “No, I guess not. But I’ve…” She closed her eyes, thinking of her struggle. “I’ve tried really hard to learn how to face facts. I couldn’t trick myself that way—any more. But Jenna doesn’t have a bunch of people urging her to wake up and fight for her autonomy. Everyone but me wants her to stay in the fold.”

  “She’ll break your heart if she doesn’t come back, won’t she?” Hennessy asked softly.

  “I love her, Hennessy. She’s so easy to love.” She could feel a slow smile settle onto her face, the way it often did when she thought of Jenna. “We shared an apartment this year. It’s pretty small, and we only had room for a full-sized bed. So we’ve been sleeping practically on top of one another. You get close to a woman when you do that.”

  “I’d suppose so,” Hennessy agreed, a sad but encouraging smile giving Townsend permission to continue.

  “She sleeps on the outside, and most mornings I wind up with the wall in my face. But she lifts my hair out of the way and wakes me by placing tiny, soft kisses all over my neck.” Tears sprang to her eyes and the knot that was now becoming chronic settled in her belly. “How can you not love a woman who does that?”

  “I don’t know,” Hennessy said, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “But I’m awfully sorry you’re feeling so bad.”

  “I know,” Townsend said, easily able to see the concern in her eyes. “Want to use my phone to call your grandparents?” She got up and handed it to her. “I’m going to go put a cold washcloth on my eyes. I feel like I’ve been in a sandstorm.” She walked towards the bathroom, ruffling Hennessy’s mussed hair as she went.

  Townsend came back into the room as Hennessy was hanging up. She swallowed, gathering her courage. “Ready to hear my story?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Hennessy lay back down and covered herself with the bedspread. “I’m not really sure where to start. How much do you want to know?”

  Townsend stopped by the minibar and grabbed a diet soda, then dropped onto the upholstered chair, her brow lined with thought. “Everything. I want to know how you met, how you got to be close, and how it is between you. Well, I don’t want to know, but I need to know. I really do.”

  This was the last thing she wanted to do. Hennessy had been trying to get up the nerve to write for a month and hadn’t been able to manage it. Doing this in person was so much harder. But she owed Townsend the truth. The whole, unvarnished truth. “If you change your mind, stop me. I’d do anything in the world not to hurt you.”

  “That’s one thing that’s never, ever been in doubt.”

  “Okay, here goes.” She was so tired she ached, but she made herself a little more comfortable by propping pillows all around her body. Then she settled down and told the story. “We met on the first day we were in Paris. The people who ran the program were very methodical, and they organized us alphabetically. Her last name is Brill, and she sat right behind me.”

  “Is she out to her parents?”

  “Oh, god, yes. They’ve known ever since she began to question her sexual orientation. They’re one of those families where a twelve-year-old can tell her mom she thinks she likes girls more than boys.”

  “I don’t know any of those kinds of families, but I’d like to,”

  “It’s nice. Really nice. Kate gets a tremendous amount of support from them. She had the least traumatic coming out in history.”

  “Where’s she from, anyway?”

  “Chicago. Her dad’s a pediatrician, and her mom teaches French at the University of Chicago. They’re cool people. Her mom was born in Cannes and has the most adorable accent you’ve ever heard. When I met them during Christmas, they just could not have been nicer.”

  With a frown settling on her face, Townsend asked, “Were you together during Christmas?”

  “Not by a long shot.” Hennessy smiled and said, “I could do this chronologically, but you keep asking questions.”

  “My bad. Go ahead. You’ve just met.”

  “Yeah, we’ve just met.” Hennessy stopped to think for a moment, then said, “We hit it off immediately. She’s naïve like I am, but she’s serious and studious and very goal-oriented like me.”

  “But you like to have fun, too,” Townsend reminded her.

  “Yeah, I do, and so does Kate. She works hard and plays hard, and that’s something I’d like to be able to do a little more of. She’s helped me loosen up a little bit, to not always think about my obligations first and foremost. She’s shown me that having fun is a reward for hard work, and that it’s something I deserve.”

  “I like her already,” Townsend said, showing a small smile.

  “You would. Everybody likes Kate. Anyway, she’s five years older than I am, and she’s starting her surgical residency at Mass General in August.”

  “What? When did she go to med school? Why was she in Paris?”

  Townsend might appear patient and mature but she still had trouble waiting for answers. That was oddly reassuring. She hadn’t changed too much. “She finished med school last year, then decided to go to Paris just for fun.”

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  “I think it was very good for her. She worked just as hard as I did, and she wasn’t even being graded. As I said, she’s very determined.”

  Townsend said, “I don’t think a lot of slackers want to be surgeons.”

  “A trauma surgeon, no less,” Hennessy said. “One of the most stressful kinds of surgery.”

  “That’s someone who…what? Fixes gunshot wounds?”

  “Sure. Any of that kind of thing. Auto accidents, falls. Any surgery that isn’t planned in advance. It’s going to take her a long time to get all of her training in,” she added, her stomach flipping at how hard that was going to be for both of them.

  “Now, go back. You’re just starting to be friends…”

  “Well, as I said, we hit it off. She told me almost immediately that she was a lesbian, and I told her that I was somewhere around there, too, but that I was pretty confused.”

  “And she helped clarify things for you?” Townsend asked this in a seemingly neutral tone, but Hennessy caught the innuendo.

  “It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t.”

  Townsend got up and took off her pants again, then climbed into bed next to Hennessy. “Would you mind if we’re close while we talk? I might not be so snotty.”

  Hennessy paused before she answered. Townsend quickly tossed her feet to the floor and started to get up again. “It’s not important. I can tell you’re uncomfortable.”

  “No, I�
�m not.” She pursed her lips and added, “But I know Kate would be.” She looked at Townsend for a few moments, then made up her mind. “I don’t want to change how I am with you just because she wouldn’t like it.”

  “But you have to take her feelings into account—”

  “We’re together, Townsend. That means I will always be faithful to Kate, but I have to be myself. It feels right to hold you, so c’mere if you still want to.”

  Townsend shrugged her shoulders and lay down again. Hennessy immediately wrapped her arm around her and cuddled her close. “Comfy?”

  “Yeah. When I’m close to you, I’m able to control my sharp tongue.”

  “It’s not so sharp,” Hennessy said.

  Townsend stuck it out at her, and she chuckled.

  “Okay, here’s the rest of the story.” She took a breath and ordered her thoughts. “Over time, Kate did help me come to terms with claiming a lesbian identity.

  “We spent a lot of time together over Christmas break. It was so nice to see her with her parents.” She sighed, thinking of that time. “That’s when I realized how important it was to me to be with someone who’s close to her family.” She swallowed at the hurt look Townsend gave her, but couldn’t take back what she’d said. “The Brills are a nice group to be around. Her younger brother came along, too, and even though he’s my age, single, and as cute as a bug, I realized I had to be a lesbian because the only Brill I was interested in was Kate.”

  “Uh-huh,” Townsend said quietly. “What did you do about that discovery?”

  “Nothing. Well, nothing at first.” Shifting slightly, Hennessy reached over and tilted Townsend’s head up so she could see her eyes. “Part of what attracted me to her is that Kate’s kind of…in charge.”

  “You mean controlling?”

  “No. It’s different from that. I want to act my age for a change, and I can do that with Kate. I don’t have to be the adult—like I do with my parents.” Townsend rested her head back on Hennessy’s shoulder and nodded. Neither woman mentioned the fact that Hennessy had been the adult in their relationship. Neither had to. “She takes care of me, and only my grandparents have ever done that. She doesn’t boss me around or anything; she just helps me figure things out. She guides me.”