“That’s nice,” Rose said, smoothing a wrinkle in her page. “What’s his name?”
Leisa pretended to read for several seconds. “Her name is Sarah.” Her hands were trembling so badly that her newspaper rustled. She set it down and folded her hands between her knees.
She kept her eyes glued on the small print in front of her, so she was never really sure what her parents’ reactions were to that announcement, but there was a long silence before Daniel said quietly, “Well, you’re going to figure out how to balance seeing Sarah with getting better grades, right?” He was staring at stock prices. He didn’t own any stocks.
“Yes.”
“Because if you don’t,” Rose said as she reached for the lifestyle section, “you will be responsible for your own tuition next year.”
Leisa folded up the sports section. “Right.”
If Leisa had ever wondered which side of the family originated the non-discussion technique, she now knew because Jo Ann was good at it.
“Most people are not open books, even to their spouses,” Jo said as she flipped a page.
“About little stuff,” Leisa answered. She wasn’t sure how much Jo Ann knew. Nan was not usually much of a talker, and Leisa hadn’t told her aunt anything.
“Sometimes big things, too.” Jo Ann held up her part of the paper so that it obscured her face. “Especially if it involved a mistake they would never make now. Something they’re ashamed and embarrassed by.”
“Mmmm,” Leisa repeated. Okay, so Jo knew. It floored her for a moment that Nan would have gone to them and explained what was happening. If she had, she must also have told them why. “Like getting pregnant and giving the baby up for adoption? And somehow forgetting to mention it?”
Jo Ann lowered the paper, still pretending to read. “Like trying to do the right thing after making a horrible mistake. Thinking you’ve put the baby in a situation where he’ll grow up loved and cared for, only to find out he’s not going to grow up after all.”
Leisa’s hands gripped her paper more tightly. “I don’t understand her. I don’t understand how she could have a baby and never even hold him or look at him, even if adoption was the best thing for everyone.” Even as she said this, she thought about the struggle of her own birth mother, and realized maybe Nan’s way was the only way she could have given him up, but she continued relentlessly, driven by her anger and her pain. “I feel like I don’t know her anymore.”
Jo Ann looked directly at Leisa for the first time. “Nan probably needs you now more than she ever has,” she said quietly.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Leisa had confessed to Lyn earlier in the week. “My life is coming unraveled. I should be an emotional basketcase, but I can’t cry. I’m too angry to cry. In fact, it’s about the only thing I do feel.”
Lyn glanced at Leisa as they walked Bronwyn. “Why are you so angry?”
“Everything I thought I knew, everything I trusted – nothing is the way I thought it was.”
“Are we talking about more than Nan?”
Leisa didn’t answer for a long while. “I just… I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“I hope you believe that Nan loves you,” Lyn said gently. “No matter what else has happened, she loves you.”
Leisa kicked sullenly at an acorn. “I’m just not sure that’s enough.”
“Nan probably needs you now more than she ever has.”
Leisa looked at her aunt, unable to come up with a response to that. The doorbell rang.
Jo got up to answer it as Bronwyn barked and whined at the door. When Jo opened the front door, Nan was standing there, soaking wet. “Get in here,” Jo Ann said, pulling Nan inside. She grabbed her umbrella. “I was just leaving. She’s in the kitchen.”
“Jo, no,” Nan began to protest, but Jo Ann was already descending the porch steps. She bent to hug Bronwyn, and then went to the kitchen, unsure of the reception she would receive.
“Who was —” Leisa started to ask, stopping as she saw Nan standing there.
“Hi,” Nan said uncertainly.
Leisa didn’t respond, but went into the laundry room, emerging a moment later with a clean towel. She held it out, noticing the dark circles under Nan’s eyes. “Would you like some coffee or tea?” she asked.
“Some hot tea sounds great, thanks,” Nan said as she dried her hair and wrapped the towel around her shoulders.
“Great day for a walk,” Leisa said a little sarcastically from the sink as she refilled the kettle, looking out the window at the steady drizzle.
Nan shrugged. “I hadn’t really intended to go for a walk. I was just wondering how you are…” Her voice trailed off.
Leisa put the kettle back on the burner and turned to face Nan. Leaning against the countertop, she crossed her arms and thought about what Jo had said. “How are you?” she asked, choosing to avoid responding to Nan’s half-phrased question.
Nan toyed with a section of the paper, flicking the corners. She had never mastered the art of the non-discussion, preferring to tackle things more directly. “That’s what you get for marrying a psychologist,” she would always point out.
“I’m not so good,” Nan replied honestly.
There was a long and very strained silence, thankfully broken by the whistle of the kettle. Leisa busied herself making two fresh cups of tea, making Nan’s the way she liked it, with a spoonful of honey.
Leisa sat back down at the table, staring into the smoky amber depths of her tea. “You were saying?”
“I’ve left you alone this week only because I didn’t know what to say. I have no defense for what I did. I hope you didn’t think I was playing some kind of waiting game with you.”
“You’ve never played games,” Leisa said softly.
Nan looked helplessly at Leisa who wouldn’t meet her eyes. “It was so hard not to call or come over, to try and talk this out, but… There’s no excuse, no good excuse, for not telling you about the baby, except that the longer I waited, the harder it became because I hadn’t told you earlier, until it just felt like it was, I don’t know, like some kind of cancer that was best left sealed away. Most of the time I could forget it. Until these last few months.”
She gently swirled her tea in her cup. “It was almost a relief to realize that this would force me to tell you, except I was so afraid of having betrayed your trust…”
She sat with her teacup clenched in her two hands, waiting for Leisa to say something. But there was only silence. She closed her eyes, and whispered, “Can you forgive me?”
“It’s not about forgiving you,” Leisa burst out. She sat back, releasing an exasperated breath. “Everybody sees us as this perfect couple, but you haven’t touched me or held me or kissed me – really kissed me – for months. We don’t talk anymore. We sit in the same room and have nothing to say to one another. I’ve tried so hard and you just ignored everything I did. There are so many things I wanted to –”
She stopped and looked at Nan who had tears leaking from her still-closed eyes. Bewildered, Leisa felt herself grow colder at the sight of those tears rather than melting as she normally would have done.
“It’s not about forgiving you,” she repeated. “It’s about trusting you. It’s about feeling like I know who you are. Because right now, I don’t.”
Nan’s eyes opened and more tears spilled over. “Do you still love me?” she asked in a strangled voice.
Leisa blinked and looked away, confused. “That’s not a fair question right now.”
“Yes, it is,” Nan insisted, swiping her eyes with her towel and leaning forward. “Do you love me?”
“I don’t know,” Leisa murmured, her eyes still averted.
An hour later, Maddie held a sobbing Nan. During a brief period of calm, Nan reminded Maddie of the night she met Leisa. “I told you I was afraid I’d find a way to mess things up.”
Maddie sighed. “Yes, well… I have to admit, ten years into the relationship, I though
t we were past that little hurdle.”
Chapter 10
MADDIE PEEKED INTO LYN’S art studio. “Hi.”
“Hi!” Lyn beamed, setting her palette and brush down so she could give Maddie a kiss, her arms wrapped tightly around her.
Maddie nuzzled into Lyn’s neck and sighed.
“What’s wrong?” Lyn asked.
Maddie pulled back so she could see Lyn’s face. “I hate to interrupt you when you’re working.”
“I’m not working on anything brilliant,” Lyn laughed, taking Maddie by the hand and leading her to the studio’s daybed where Puddles was curled up sleeping.
“I’m worried about Leisa,” Maddie began as she gently shifted the cat over so they could sit back against the multiple pillows piled against the wall.
“Why?”
“I’m not trying to pry, but in your talks with Leisa over the past couple of weeks, has she said whether there’s anything bothering her other than the situation with Nan?”
Lyn shook her head. “No. But I’ve had the same feeling that there’s more going on. When I asked her, she just said she felt like she couldn’t trust anything right now – whatever that means. Why, what have you noticed?”
Maddie sighed again. “She’s surly with everyone. She has pissed off more people in the past two weeks than I do in a year. If I only knew her from work, I’d have to pull her in for a talk about her attitude. It’s so unlike her.” Maddie thought for a moment. “Do you have any idea what she meant when she said she can’t trust anything?”
Lyn shifted on the daybed so she could face Maddie with her legs crossed, a position interpreted by Puddles as an invitation to climb into her lap. “Not for certain, but the last time I was at her mom’s house, she had boxes out and was packing things away,” Lyn said as she automatically began stroking the silky coat of the cat who was now purring loudly. “She said she wanted to de-clutter the house, but the only things I saw in the boxes were photos. Every single one. Even the one of her and Nan.”
“I wondered if it might be something like this,” Maddie said thoughtfully.
“Like what?”
“I think maybe Leisa is feeling like everyone she was closest to has left her. It’s almost as if she’s trying to push the rest of us away, and, I have to admit, she’s doing a really good job of it. The only one she hasn’t distanced herself from is Mariela. I think she feels as alone as that little girl right now.”
Lyn thought about this for a moment. “You know, the ironic thing is that if she were any of our other friends, we’d ask Nan to talk to her.”
Maddie nodded. “You’re right.” A few seconds passed, then she exclaimed, “Oh, shit!”
“Madeline Oxendine,” Lyn scolded. “You know better than to use language like that. Your mama would tan your hide.”
Maddie stared at her, wide-eyed. “Today is Leisa’s birthday.”
“Oh, shit,” said Lyn.
Leisa groaned a little as she eased herself onto the couch in the family room and propped her legs up on the ottoman. She patted the sofa, and Bronwyn hopped up and curled up next to her.
“I don’t know why in the world I thought a gym membership was a good thirty-fifth birthday present,” she said to Bron as she leaned over for the wine glass sitting on the end table. She sat in the dark, the family room lit only by the strobing blue glow of the television as she flipped disinterestedly through the channels. “I’ve had way too much to drink tonight,” she muttered as she took another sip.
The telephone rang. She let the machine pick up, listening to Rose’s recorded voice. Then she heard Nan’s voice saying, “Leisa? Are you there?” After a few seconds with no response, she heard a click, and continued flipping through channels.
About five minutes later, the phone rang again. This time Nan said, “I know you’re there. Jo said you left their house over half an hour ago.” She paused. “Please pick up.”
Reluctantly, Leisa picked up the handset from the end table. “I’m here,” she said.
“Hi.”
When Leisa remained silent, Nan said, “I wanted to be sure you got the package I left.”
Leisa glanced at the otherwise bare mantelpiece where a framed watercolor of a beach scene leaned against the wall. “Lyn painted it from that photo you took last summer at Corolla,” Nan said.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their breathing.
“Are you all right?” Nan asked at last.
“It’s…” The wine was muddling Leisa’s thoughts. “It’s just a very odd feeling, knowing that there’s no one left who has any memories, any connection to your beginnings.”
“You’ve still got Jo Ann and Bruce,” Nan reminded her gently.
“I know, but we didn’t move back to Baltimore until I was three. It’s just not the same. I can’t ask them why –” She stopped and was silent again.
“Why what?” Nan probed.
“Nothing.”
“Can I come over?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Leisa replied. Her words were a little slurred.
“How much have you had to drink?”
“That’s why it’s not a good idea.” Leisa pressed her wine glass to her forehead. “Sometimes,” she whispered, “sometimes I wonder if she remembers this day…”
Nan’s last client of the day, Ellen Cavendish, wrapped up her final thoughts as her session drew to a close. Ellen was also a psychologist, doing group therapy at the regional women’s correctional facility. She came to Nan regularly “or they’ll drive me crazy,” she joked. Despite her jokes, the psychological and emotional issues the imprisoned women were dealing with – abuse, rape, addiction – were enough to throw anyone into a depression if they took it all in.
“Nan,” Ellen said after confirming her appointment for the following week, “please understand that I’m speaking as a friend and colleague. I don’t know what’s going on with you the last couple of weeks, but I can tell something’s not right. I don’t know if you see anyone, but if not, you may want to.” She picked up her purse and gave Nan’s shoulder a squeeze on her way to the door.
Nan gathered up her laptop and a few files, plus the day’s mail. She drove home, or rather, to her house. “It doesn’t feel much like a home anymore,” she’d admitted to Maddie. When she opened the front door, the interior of the house was dark despite the bright spring sunshine outside and she realized she’d neglected to open the blinds again. She forced herself to open all the blinds and saw the pillow and blanket on the couch where she’d slept last night – and how many other nights? There, spread across the coffee table were the photo albums. In a masochistic fit of nostalgia, she’d spent the previous evening crying her way through their old photo albums – remembering earlier days when things were good and they were happy. Sighing, she went into the kitchen to find something to eat.
Sitting at the table a few minutes later while the microwave zapped a frozen meal, she sorted through her office mail. Mixed in with the bills and insurance payments was a large manila envelope with Bill Chisholm’s return address. The microwave beeped and she transferred the steaming plastic bowl to the table where she pried the flap of Chisholm’s envelope loose and tipped out the contents. Staring up at her from an 8 x 10 school photo was a dark-haired teenage boy who looked just like her. Todd had written a letter also, explaining that the photo was last year’s when he was a sophomore because he didn’t have any hair now.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there staring at the photo. Her untouched chicken fajita had grown cold when she reached for the phone. “Hey, can I come over?”
“Oh, my gosh,” said Maddie and Lyn in unison a few minutes later when she showed them the photo and letter.
“I know,” Nan said miserably. “It’s not that I thought Chisholm was lying before, or that I thought he had the wrong person, but it didn’t feel real. Not like this.”
“That’s why he did it,” Maddie observed wryly. “You’d have to be d
ead not to have a visceral reaction to this.” She set an extra place at the table as Lyn put large bowls of rice and stir-fried vegetables on the table.
“Has this changed your mind about meeting him?” Lyn asked.
“Probably,” Nan admitted. “I don’t know how I could say no after that.”
“Will you have them come up here?” Maddie asked as she poured water into three glasses.
“No,” Nan answered emphatically. “No. I want neutral territory. They live in Savannah, so I was thinking of suggesting Raleigh.”
Maddie looked up in surprise. “Does he know that that’s where he was born?”
Despite the fact that Maddie and Nan had “practiced” being ready for months, Maddie was groggy as she groped for the phone ringing in the dark. “Hey.” She squinted at her bedside clock and saw that it said three-ten.
“I’m not sure what labor feels like, but I think I’m in it,” came Nan’s voice.
“Has your water broken yet?” Maddie asked, wide awake now.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I mean I don’t know,” Nan said crossly. “I’ve never done this before. I think I might have peed myself. How am I supposed to know?”
“I’ve never done this before, either. This is supposed to be one of the benefits of being a lesbian, remember? But from everything the books say, I think you’ll know when your water breaks,” Maddie pointed out reasonably.
“Then it hasn’t.”
“It better not happen in my car,” grumbled Maddie. “I’ll be right there.”
Maddie stayed with Nan through thirty hours of labor, thirty hours during which Nan’s most enduring memory – “besides the endless pain,” she would have added – was Maddie’s Afro, lit from behind by the ceiling lights. “It looked like a halo,” Nan remembered always.
Nan refused an epidural until it was too late.
“Why didn’t you talk me out of it?” Nan demanded as she gasped in pain, squeezing Maddie’s hand until Maddie winced in pain, too.
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