After the Summer Rain

by Gerri Hill

  No wonder Melanie had stiffened when she’d hugged her. Another’s touch was probably so foreign to her now, it must have felt unnatural. But she’d given in, hadn’t she? Mel had clung tightly to her, if only for the few moments she allowed herself.

  Erin pushed out of the chair, pausing to look out into the darkness, wondering what Mel was doing. Was she inside the shed, perhaps standing in the goats’ stall, talking to them? Was she leaning against the hay bales, crying? Or was she walking out behind the shed, where Bandito roamed?

  Her eyes would be sad, she knew. A little clouded over. Teary. But she would push her loneliness and guilt away, tuck it back into the place where she hid it, wherever that place was. And tomorrow, over breakfast, her blue eyes would be bright again. She’d be smiling.

  Erin made a silent vow right then that she wouldn’t bring up Mel’s past again, wouldn’t encourage her to talk, to bring memories to the surface. No. She wanted Melanie to be happy and smiling, not sad and crying.

  No, not sad. That would be her mission, she decided. Making—and keeping—Melanie happy.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Are you sure? It’s quite a hike,” Melanie warned.

  “We’ve been working all morning. It’s gotten kind of cloudy and cool. Doesn’t a soak in the hot springs sound like fun?”

  Melanie looked at Erin’s face, wondering at her exuberance today. Last night, after she’d come in, Erin had already been in her room, although her bedroom door was open, not closed. Mel had paused, calling a quick “good night” to her as she’d moved into her own room. For some reason, she’d left her door open as well.

  Erin’s piddling about in the kitchen this morning had woken her, a good half hour earlier than usual. She’d stared at the ceiling, the smell of coffee and breakfast wafting about. She’d ruined Erin’s surprise, however, when she got up to help. She’d missed out on her very first breakfast served in bed.

  She met Erin’s gaze now, a smile on her lips. “What about lunch?” She knew it must be close to noon by now.

  “We can make a quick burrito or something.” Erin moved closer. “Come on. Please? Show me the hot springs.”

  Melanie, of course, could not turn down those pleading eyes even though they’d picked a huge basket of green beans that needed to be canned. As Erin had said, the sky had clouded over, it was rather cool—a prelude to the summer rains that would start any day now. “Okay. Let’s do the hot springs.” Then she grinned. “No clothes allowed, remember.”

  Erin laughed. “Of course I remember.” Then she wiggled her eyebrows. “Can’t wait!”

  * * *

  Melanie hadn’t lied about the hike being a bit difficult. The rocks turned to boulders as they climbed steadily up the creek past the area where they’d gotten in the water that day. On the opposite side, the mountain had crept closer, making this look more like a rocky canyon than a fertile creek valley. On the side they hiked on, in between the boulders, were large pine trees—ponderosa, Mel had called them. A large, blueish bird landed on a limb up ahead of them, its voice scolding.

  “Piñon jay,” Melanie said before she could ask. “We see Steller’s jays sometimes too—their blue is a little more brilliant with a black crest—but they usually stay up higher on the mountain. We can hike up sometime, if you like.”

  “Seven hundred acres…How much of it is up there?” she asked, motioning to the high mountain across from them.

  “Probably half of it, I’d guess. The property line is on the other side of the bluff, to the west of the cabin, so we get all of the creek, right up until it dumps into the Gila River.” Melanie turned to look at her. “I almost settled there by the river instead of back here.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Privacy,” she said with a smile. “It’s flatter there, less rocky. But it’s right by the road. Too easy for someone to pop over to visit. Back here? As you know, the road to my cabin is rather rough. It’s rare that anyone other than Stella comes around.”

  “Thus you get to garden topless,” Erin said with a grin. “I’ve yet to witness that, though.”

  “There’s not much to look at, is there?” Melanie asked, pointing at her chest. “My breasts are the same size they were when I was in middle school, I think.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say there’s nothing to look at, Mel,” she said with a wink. Yes, Mel had small breasts, but they weren’t nonexistent, like her own. Although since she’d gained weight, she wasn’t quite as embarrassed by them. Her glance landed on Mel’s breasts now as the tank top she wore was stretched tight as she climbed over a rock. When they’d gone swimming, she hadn’t wanted to stare—much—but Mel’s breasts were very firm, her nipples dark as they too had been touched by the sun.

  She followed Melanie up the rocks, using her hands to balance as they made their way across a boulder the size of a small car. She was out of breath when they stopped, and she bent over, resting her palms on her knees.

  “Damn. I’m out of shape.”

  “It’s easier going back down, but not by much.”

  She stood up straight. “So this is it?”

  The creek wasn’t as wide up here, twenty feet across, if that. The pool they were standing near was deeper than where they’d gotten in downstream. This looked deep enough to actually swim in.

  “It’s a nice pool here,” Melanie said. “In the winter, you can see the steam coming off the water. I usually come up a couple of times during the colder months to soak.”

  Without much fanfare, Mel stripped her shirt off, seemingly unconcerned with her nakedness as her shorts followed. Erin watched her unabashedly as Mel casually walked into the water.

  “Glorious,” she said with a smile as she sunk down, submerging in the springs. When her head popped up again, she slicked the hair back from her face. She raised her eyebrows. “You coming in?”

  Erin nodded. She wished she could be as nonchalant about stripping as Mel had been. Then she reminded herself she wasn’t as sickly thin as she’d been a month ago. In fact, she was getting damn near close to normal.

  “Are you shy?”

  Erin smiled and pulled her shirt over her head. “Not really.”

  Neither was Melanie as she openly stared at her. Erin met her gaze questioningly.

  “I haven’t seen a woman naked in…well, in a very long time.”

  “Sorry you’re stuck with me then.”

  “Why sorry? You have a very nice body. Not so thin any longer.”

  “Sickly thin is what I was just thinking,” Erin admitted as she took her shorts off. She was aware of Melanie still watching her as she maneuvered over the rocks and into the water. “Oh, yeah…This is great. Well worth the hike.”

  “Not sickly, no. Nice.”

  Erin glanced at her, seeing a rather shy, sweet smile on Mel’s face. “Nice? Well, as you said, it’s been a rather long time since you’ve seen someone. Your judgment may be skewed.”

  “What is it? You don’t like to be considered nice-looking? Attractive?”

  Erin ducked under the water, hiding for a second from Mel’s gaze. Was she attractive? People used to say so, didn’t they? But that was before. Sarah had changed her, yes. Her hairstyle, her clothes, her demeanor. And then, of course, after Sarah, she’d totally gone to hell. Was she back yet?

  Her hair was short enough that it didn’t fall into her eyes, but she wiped at it anyway. Mel was still watching her, still expecting an answer.

  “I don’t feel attractive, no,” she admitted.

  “But you are.” Melanie moved a little closer, but not too close. “On the outside, anyway. You seem to have healed quite nicely.” Mel studied her for a long moment, then when she spoke, her voice was very quiet. “Does your heart still ache for her? Do you still feel lonely without her?”

  Did it? Did she?

  “I don’t know anymore. As I said, I don’t really think about her much.” She met Melanie’s gaze. “Not since I’ve been here, anyway. Back
home, she was always there. At the house, she was always there—because she wasn’t there. At work, when I pushed, when I got crazy with everyone, it was because I could still hear her in my ear, telling me to do better, telling me to work more. To make more money.” She splashed at the water. “That’s not fair, really. I did all of that willingly. It wasn’t all her. I liked the money too.”

  “You still defend her. Is that your way of defending your actions?”

  Erin tilted her head. “Are we having a therapy session?”

  Melanie waved her question away. “Of course not. I’ve simply sat through too many of them, I guess. I know what questions to ask.”

  Erin nodded. “Joyce blamed Sarah for all of this, blamed her for what I turned into. And yes, I defended her, even the last day when Joyce was bringing me out here. Maybe you’re right. If I blamed Sarah for everything, then how weak must I have been? And weak is something I would never use to describe myself.” She took a deep breath, taking an honest look inside herself. “But I was weak, I guess. I had no defense for her.”

  “You were in love…I guess there was no defense.”

  “She was flirty and fun and pretty—and I felt like an adolescent with a huge crush. We moved in together very quickly. Too quickly, Joyce would say,” she added with a smile.

  “I get the feeling your sister didn’t care for her much.”

  “Not at all, actually. I should have trusted her intuition, I guess, but I wouldn’t listen.” She shrugged. “The first two years were good, happy. The next two? By then, I was working a lot and we started to drift. I couldn’t see it then, but I can see it now. Obviously she drifted more than me.” She heard the bitterness in her voice and wished it wasn’t still there…not after all this time.

  “So you had no clue that she had a lover?”

  “None.”

  Melanie nodded. “When you’re not as emotionally invested as your partner, I think it’s easier to hide it. Or maybe you don’t have to hide it at all.”

  Erin met her gaze but didn’t comment. She was talking about Adam, she supposed, but Erin didn’t want to be the one to bring him up.

  “The fact that I had a lover didn’t change my actions with Adam at all. I wasn’t ever in love with him so it wasn’t like I had to all of a sudden pretend that I was.” She held her hand up. “And I can tell by the look on your face that you’re afraid I’ll go into that dark place again. I won’t. At least not today. I’m…I’m feeling okay about things today.”

  “I don’t like it when you go to your dark place,” she admitted. “It’s scary. You’re not yourself.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Sometimes…”

  “So maybe we shouldn’t talk about it.”

  Melanie nodded. “You’re probably right. I’ve gone all these years without saying it out loud to someone. Now, well, I guess it’s on my mind more.”

  Erin looked at her thoughtfully. “So you’re saying maybe that’s not necessarily a bad thing? That it’s on your mind, I mean.”

  Melanie smiled at her. “Seeing as how I’ve had to retreat to that dark place a couple of times now, I’m not sure it’s a good thing either.” She dipped lower in the water, almost up to her ears. “One thing that has sent me reeling is that my guilt isn’t quite as profound as it was—as it should be. And I didn’t realize that until last night. I hadn’t ever really examined it again…It was just always there, lurking, if you will. I always assumed it was the same, but it wasn’t.”

  “Ah. So lack of guilt has you feeling guilty now. It’s been ten years, hasn’t it? Is that something you think you should carry with you forever?”

  “It’s been eleven years and yes, I thought I would—should—carry that with me. My punishment. My penance.” Melanie splashed water at her. “Isn’t that what you were doing? Your own self-punishment? Because you thought you had failed Sarah?”

  “Failed her?”

  “She found someone else. Someone you perceived to be better than you.”

  Erin smiled. “You’ve got this therapist act down pretty good.”

  “So it’s true? My guess is you never even met the woman.”

  “No, I didn’t. There was no need to. She was ‘wonderful and smart and pretty and witty’ and I, apparently, was no longer any of those things.”

  Melanie nodded. “Self-loathing is a scary thing, isn’t it? The most destructive thing we can do to ourselves, I think.”

  “Are you saying I hated myself so much that I wanted to die? Because that’s not true. I never once thought that.”

  “Subconsciously, perhaps? Erin, what do you think would have happened to you had you continued on the path you were taking?”

  Erin leaned her head back into the warm water, looking into the darkening sky as she thought back over the last year or so. Of course what she’d been doing was self-destructive. She knew that. But it wasn’t like she didn’t care about herself…didn’t care what happened to her. Was it? She lifted her head, looking at Melanie across the rippling water. Her eyes were more green than blue today. Yet they were bright, alert—and compassionate.

  “I was beyond exhausted. I think I was afraid to sleep…Afraid I wouldn’t wake up. So no, I didn’t want to die. I just didn’t know how to get my life back.”

  “I know. I didn’t want to die either…At least I don’t think so. I wanted to sleep. I didn’t want to be awake—awake with my guilt and the truth. And I was taking more and more pills to keep myself asleep longer and longer. You were drinking massive amounts of caffeine to keep you awake longer and longer. We were each heading toward the same end, I’m afraid.”

  “How were you able to snap out of it so easily? I mean, you said your mother showed up…”

  “I didn’t mean for it to sound like it was easy, Erin, because it wasn’t. I would come home from work each day, pop a few pills, and crawl into bed. That was my routine. I functioned at work much like a robot—or a zombie. I’m not sure what it was, but finding my mother there, against the door and thinking she was dead…something just clicked. Like I said, I saw myself there, not my mother. For a minute there, I thought I was having an out-of-body experience; it was so real to me.”

  “You think if Joyce—my father—hadn’t intervened…”

  “I don’t know. Maybe something would have clicked for you too. Does it matter so much now?”

  “No. I don’t feel like I’m that person anymore. I feel…in control again.”

  “Good.”

  “And you?”

  Melanie smiled. “Most days I’m in control, yes. But that person I was? No. She doesn’t have a hold on me any longer.”

  It went without saying that Melanie’s guilt still had a hold of her. Although it was a different kind of guilt, as of late. Erin wondered, if she wasn’t here, if Mel hadn’t opened up to her, would her guilt—the original guilt—still be lurking about? Probably. As Mel had said, since she’d never talked about it—examined it—she’d had no reason to suspect that the guilt had started to slip away…or at least change.

  Erin bobbed in the water, her hands resting on a rock in shallower water. Eleven wasted years. That must seem like a lifetime to Melanie. The eighteen months she’d wallowed in her own self-pity now seemed like it had lasted twice that.

  “Erin?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Thank you for…listening. Talking. Sharing. It’s been really nice having you around.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She kept her own thank-you to herself as Melanie held her arms out to her side, gliding under the water like a nymph. She surfaced farther away, the bubbling flow of the creek just under her breasts. Erin stared as water droplets raced down her skin—her breasts—clinging to her nipples before sliding away. She raised her gaze, finding Melanie watching her. Should she be ashamed for having stared?

  “We should head back soon. I hear thunder off to the west.”

  Erin pulled her gaze from Melanie, thinking… No, she had no right to stare. Melanie�
�s body, while slender and firm, looked soft and feminine. She was obviously comfortable in her nakedness, comfortable in her skin. Erin mentally shook herself, then looked past Melanie, down the slope of the canyon that the creek took. It widened as it went, a valley forming as it flowed past the cabin and Mel’s homestead. She looked back at her.

  “Have you ever thought about floating down the creek instead of hiking back down?”

  Melanie laughed. “You’re not looking forward to that hike, huh?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I actually have thought about floating down.” Melanie moved toward the bank. “Too many rocks. Too shallow in spots. I think it would be more trouble than hiking down.” Then she grinned. “Probably more fun, though.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  They didn’t make it back to the cabin before the rain hit. Oh, a good long sprint would have done it, but instead, Melanie led them into the shed and they ducked inside. The chickens and goats had already taken cover and she moved past the chicken coop to the goats’ stall, rubbing Nora on the nose. Rosie was sticking her face between the slats that separated their stall from the rest of the shed. She was apparently looking for Erin as her big eyes darted around.

  “That hit quick.”

  Melanie glanced at Erin, who was running her hands over her damp hair. “Yes. This early in the summer, it usually stops just as quickly too.” She moved to the stack of square hay bales and sat down as the rain pelted the roof.

  “Why do you call this ‘the shed’ and not ‘the barn,’” Erin asked. She moved closer, leaning against the goats’ stall.

  “I don’t know. It started out as a shed, I guess. The chickens and goats came later, so it’s been added on to twice. I guess it is more barn than shed now.”