by Linda Hill
Chapter 1
Joanna and I stand just inside the doorway, our noses pressed against the windowpane. As the last car pulls out of the driveway and starts down the street, I lean back against the door and wipe my brow, feigning relief.
“Whew. I thought they’d never leave.”
Joanna pushes my shoulder playfully. “Don’t say that. It was sweet of everyone to come over tonight.” She turns and walks back through the hallway and into the kitchen, continuing to reprimand me sweetly. “It was our anniversary, after all.”
Within moments, she begins running water in the sink, stacking dishes, and pouring detergent into the mix.
“I know. It was very nice. But it’s after midŹnight.” It is incomprehensible to me that she is doing the dishes. At midnight. On our ten-year anniversary. Frankly, I have other ideas in mind for how we should be spending the next hour. But I don’t want to make a big deal about it. Nonchalance is what I’m going for. After all, it has been so long since we’ve made love that I’m not even very comfortable suggesting the idea.
The dishrag is in one hand and a plate in the other as she begins to scrub in earnest. “It was nice to see everyone again,” she says above the splashing of the water. “Do you think we were dishonest? Maybe we should have told them about us.”
“It would have been inappropriate to announce at our anniversary party that we’ve decided to split up.” I can’t help the sarcasm that creeps into my voice. The truth is that I don’t really want to split up, that I am hoping that maybe tonight we can start over. “Besides,” I try for humor. “I thought we agreed on a separation. Not a divorce.”
Her smile is discerning, and I feel my anxiety growing.
“Honey, let’s leave the dishes for now. We can do them in the morning.” She throws me a look that says she knows that while I’ve said the word we, I really mean she. We have, after all, been together for ten years. I’m not fooling her for a minute.
I grin a bit sheepishly and move to stand behind her. My arms find their way around her waist, and I press my lips to her neckline. “Why don’t we just go upstairs to bed?” I ask. “I was hoping maybe we could make love.”
I can feel her spine stiffening. “Liz, we agreed.”
I try to fight my disappointment while mentally kicking myself. My heart just isn’t into the separation idea, but I know better than to set myself up like this. “Joanna”
“Maybe it’s time for one of us to think about moving out.”
“Move out?” It feels as though she’s kicked me in the stomach. I’m not even used to the idea that we’re splitting up, and she’s already got my bags packed. The look on my face must screech volumes because she is instantly contrite.
“Honey, I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say. I’m just exhausted.” Is it my imagination, or is she scrubbing a plate that she has already washed and set aside to dry?
“It’s okay,” I lie. A slew of things come to my mind. Questions I want to ask. Statements I want to make. Anger and sarcasm struggle in my brain. But neither wins. I keep my lips carefully sealed and give the woman I love a quick squeeze before releasing her. “I’m going down to the darkroom to putter around. I’ll be up soon, okay?”
She nods and smiles. “Okay. Good night, honey. Happy anniversary.”
“Happy anniversary.” I manage a smile before slipping through the door that leads down to the basement and my makeshift office. My hand finds each light switch automatically as I make my way past the laundry room and into the safety of my darkroom.
I flip on the light and glance around, eyes not focusing on anything. My body finds its familiar position on the stool that sits before a huge photo enlarger. A deep sigh racks my lungs as my fist lifts and begins to tap my forehead quietly.
“Hello?” I speak aloud to myself, something I only do in the privacy of this very room. “Hello? What’s wrong with this picture?” I glance around the room, at the photographs and negatives hanging along the walls, and manage to laugh at my own pun. My eyes focus on a photograph of an elderly man sitting on a park bench and deftly lifting a sandwich to his lips. I direct my comments to him.
“It’s my anniversary,” I tell him. “Ten years.” He doesn’t budge. “I know. You think I should be upstairs celebrating with my wife instead of hanging around down here talking to you. You’re right. I agree completely.” I say the last few words grimly, as my self-imposed chill begins to thaw and the hurt and anger of the moment spills forth.
I don’t know why I set myself up tonight. I don’t know why I thought tonight would be different from any other night. And even though we had agreed last week that it probably made sense for us to split up, it wasn’t something that I really believed would happen. My head is shaking back and forth as I bite back frustration.
I don’t know what happened to us. It began with subtle rejection. Something that I never really wanted to admit was happening. So I learned to avoid it. I stopped laying my hand on her thigh in the car. Stopped curling up next to her on the couch after dinner. Stopped rolling over in bed and holding her all night. Stopped asking if she’d like to make love. I learned that lesson quickly. Three years of rejection is a mighty long time.
At least I think it’s been about three years. I can’t remember, exactly. I only know that it was before Sophie, our first cat, had died. We’d adopted Ginger and MaryAnn a few months later. And they were nearly three years old now. So three years seemed a good estimate, if not exact.
What happened? I have asked myself, and Joanna, that question so many times. I had believed our life was perfect for so many years. Lesbian bed death. The thought crosses my mind and I banish it, refusing to be a statistic.
The shrill of the ringing telephone sends my heart jumping, and I grab the receiver from its cradle. Who in the hell could be calling at this hour?
“Hello,” I bark.
“Hi.” One syllable from a voice from so long ago. One syllable. My heart skips a beat with recognition before her name even registers in my mind. “This is Grace Sullivan. Sorry to be calling so late, but is Elizabeth there?”
“Grace.” The name passes my lips in a honeyed whoosh. “Hi. It’s me.”
“Hi.” I don’t miss her hesitation over the word. “I wasn’t sure if you were still at this number.”
Already my mind is whirling, thoughts and images spinning behind my eyes. I haven’t heard that voice in what five, six years at least.
“Still here,” I answer, keeping a smile in my voice.
“Does that mean you’ve finally settled down?” Thirty seconds into the phone call, and already a dig.
Ten years, I nearly scream. That’s pretty damned settled, wouldn’t you say?
“Very settled,” I manage instead, letting my own voice dip to mock her in reply. “I’m very settled, thank you. How are you?”
“Good,” she replies briskly, already moving on. “Listen. I thought you should know. Connie’s been in an accident. I don’t know much about it other than what the newsboys have been able to dig up. But I called the hospital and it didn’t sound good.”
Connie. My heart freezes as images of my ex-lover replace those of Grace in my mind’s eye.
“What happened? What did they tell you?”
“Apparently she and two other women were in a small plane that went down the night before last.” Grace’s voice is matter-of-fact. “She was the only survivor. I understand she was in surgery all day yesterday and hasn’t regained consciousness yet.”
“My god.” My stomach is turning over. “What else do you know? Is she going to be all right?”
“I don’t know anything else. Except that the plane was headed to Michigan. I assume for the Michigan Women’s Music Festival. But I don’t know for cert
ain.”
“Can’t you get more information? Don’t you have a lot of connections there?” Last I’d heard, Grace was working at a local television station in the news department.
“I told you. That’s all the guys could dig up.” She pauses briefly. “Besides, you know I like to keep my personal life private. I didn’t want to start asking a bunch of questions about a plane carrying three dykes crashing on their way to a women’s festival.”
Now I’m exasperated. Connie could be dying, and
Grace is worried about being outed. “Well, have you talked to your friends? Don’t they know anything?”
I can hear the impatience in Grace’s voice. “Connie and I don’t exactly run around in the same crowd.”
Old and familiar annoyance comes over me as I battle my response. Connie is lying in a hospital bed, and Grace is being catty.
As if sensing my thoughts, her voice softens. “I don’t mean that in a snotty way, Liz. We just don’t have the same friends, that’s all. I haven’t seen Connie in years.”
Probably not since you had an affair, I want to say, but bite my tongue.
“Anyway,” she continues, “I don’t know any more than that. But I thought you’d want to know.”
“Thanks, Grace. Yes. I do want to know.” Already my mind is moving forward, thinking of the phone calls I have to make. “I’ll call her mom in the morning,” I say, more to myself than to Grace.
“Let me know how she is, okay?”
“I will,” I assure her, then grab for a pen while she rattles off her phone number. We say good-bye, and I place the phone back in its cradle while a kaleidoscope of thoughts and feelings collide inside me.
Connie. I cannot believe it. My hand reaches for the light switch as I stumble up the stairs. Joanna. I need Joanna.
Chapter 2
By ten o’clock the next morning my arrangements were made. I spoke briefly with Connie’s sister, Charlene, who was able to tell me little more than what I’d already heard from Grace. When I asked if I’d be in the way if I came to the hospital to visit, Charlene was quick to assure me.
“God, no. Mom’s up there now. I can’t drag her away. She’d love to see you, and it would be good for her to have someone else around besides Wendy.”
“Who’s Wendy?” I’d asked.
“Connie’s girlfriend. Did you ever meet her?”
I didn’t want to admit that I hadn’t even talked with Connie in four years, so I simply said no.
“She’s kind of a trip, that one. But Connie loves her, and that’s all that matters.” We’d hung up shortly after that.
I made several more calls, shifting assignments around to make room until the end of the week. If Joanna thought it odd that I was leaving so suddenly, she didn’t show it. She expressed genuine concern, and encouraged me to find out for myself just how Connie was doing.
Two hours later I was on the plane, staring out the window at the clouds below. It didn’t occur to me until that moment that I hadn’t even considered not going. I never even thought about why I’d felt it necessary to make this trip. I hadn’t even hesitated. Scary, now that I was alone with my thoughts. I was about to dip farther into my past than I had ever thought I would again.
I tried reading the newspaper. After reading and rereading the same article four times, I gave in and closed my eyes. What irony that I was returning home to see Connie, and possibly Grace. Connie and Grace. I couldn’t think of one without the other. It didn’t matter that they barely knew each other. For me, the three of us were forever tangled. In my heart, and in my memories.
I met Connie when I was twenty-two years old. By then I had developed a love for photography and had begun working at a local processing lab. I hated most of the job waiting on customers and printing their pictures in the one-hour lab. But what kept me there was that I had access to all of their equipment. I couldn’t wait to close up the shop each night so that I could work on my own photographs. I spent most of my free time on weekends taking pictures with an old Minolta camera that my grandfather had given me. During the week, I would stay late at the lab developing my own pictures.
Connie had become a regular at the shop. She was a photography instructor at the local arts center while she was earning her teaching degree at night. It eventually took nearly eight years of night school to earn her the degree that others received in four.
At twenty-seven, Connie had white-blond hair that fell just to her shoulders. She was thin as a rail and had high cheekbones and white, creamy skin. Her eyes were a startling green, and she wore a pair of thick, wire-rimmed glasses that habitually slid down her nose. I fell for her almost instantly. She began helping me out in the lab at night, patiently teaching me subtle tricks about photography that seemed to make each photo take on a life of its own.
Connie taught me the difference between taking a picture and the art of photography. We’d spend hours at the lab. And when we ran out of film to develop, we’d spend hours over coffee while she told me her dreams and made no bones about what mine ought to be. She tried time after time to convince me to go to college, but I shrugged her off, cocky and arrogant, believing I’d make it even without that piece of paper.
We dated for two years before she finally got her degree. Within weeks, she had teaching offers from all over the country. So many that she couldn’t make up her mind. But at the end of August, she packed everything she owned in her Ford wagon and took off for the West Coast. She didn’t ask me to go with her, although I would have gone in a heartbeat. She promised she’d send for me, though. Once she was settled. Of course I wanted to believe her. But somewhere, deep down, I never trusted that she’d ever call and say the words. I’d gotten rather close to her family during that time, and it was Connie’s mother and sister who kept me believing that one day that phone call might come. And then I met Grace.
Even now, I can’t think about Grace without hurting. Even today, my memories and emotions become instantly confused as I think back to the time we’d met. But I can’t won’t think of Grace just now. It is dangerous. That much I know. And this trip is about Connie, I remind myself. Not about Grace.
There’s no such thing as a direct flight between Los Angeles and Champaign, Illinois. Naturally, I miss my connecting flight and end up arriving in Champaign well after dinner, much later than planned. I pick up a rental car and drive the roundŹabout way to my hotel, purposely avoiding my old high school and the neighborhood that I’d grown up in. I had visited enough of my past via memories already today.
Skipping dinner, I flip on the local television news, unpack my suitcase, and flop down on the bed, exhausted. My last waking thought is one of wonder that all of the news anchors, including the weatherŹman, have been on that same station over fifteen years ago. I marvel sleepily, noting that they’ve barely aged at all.
I wake the next morning with a single-mindedness to get to the hospital as soon as possible. Without hesitating, I dial the phone number that Grace has given me and am somewhat relieved to get an answering machine. I explain that I’ll be leaving the following afternoon and tell her to leave me a message if she can squeeze me into her schedule somehow during the next twenty-four hours. But I’m not counting on seeing her.
I hate hospitals, and being in Champaign’s Saint John’s does nothing to change my mind. The smell of disinfectant hangs in the air as I find the intensive care unit and brace myself for what I am about to see.
I never could have prepared myself for the scene before me. Tubes and machines and monitors and blood. My throat begins constricting, and I force myself to take slow, even breaths. Jesus. My stomach threatens to lurch as my vision blurs, the room becoming nothing more than blobs of color. White. Stainless steel gray. The brown-orange color of dried blood.
A white sheet is pulled tight over her torso, tucked under her armpits. Her right arm and leg are encased in plaster. Needles and tubes and tape sprinkle and cover every inch of her left arm. My eyes follow one tube
and settle on the steady drip, drip of liquid in the bag above her head. The only sound is the steady beep that accompanies the green line that jumps on the heart monitor nearly every second.
I cannot recognize the swollen features of her face. But I know it’s her by the white-blond strands of hair that lie against the pillow. My eyes try to avoid the matted dried blood that covers most of her scalp.
“Elizabeth? Is that you?” The voice that reaches me from my left is immediately followed by a shadow that enters my peripheral vision.
Vaguely, my mind registers the voice. But I am slow to turn and respond. “Mrs. Kaplan.” Connie’s mother is wrapping her arms around me, her small frame pressing against mine as she squeezes tightly.
When she finally releases me, she stands back and blinks up at me, the red of her eyes in sharp contrast to the pasty white of her skin. She appears so much older than I remember her. My eyes trace the deep lines that etch her cheeks and note that the skin that stretches across her bones seems almost translucent. I take a deep breath, the drastic change in her appearance unnerving me even more. Then we are both talking at once, awkwardly throwing out one line after another.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Kaplan.”
“Thank you for coming, Elizabeth.”
“I’m so sorry.” I must have repeated the same line a half a dozen times.
“It was so sweet of you to come all this way.”
I feel a prickling sensation along my spine and sense rather than see another pair of eyes on me. Almost against my will, I lift my head and find myself frozen by the dark eyes that practically hold me in my place.
She sits stiffly in a chair at the foot of Connie’s bed, slender arms crossed, dark skin smooth across high cheekbones. Her black hair is smoothed down and slicked back. A splash of red lipstick is the only bright color that adorns her features, as she is dressed completely in shades of brown.
My mouth grows dry as she lifts her chin, almost regally, and speaks without getting up.
“I’m Wendy,” she announces simply, as if there is really nothing else of importance to say.
