by Harper Bliss
“You give Milly my love, okay?” Mary says. “Tell her to pull through.”
We watch Mary shuffle off. Her appearance has diminished the anger in Laura’s eyes a little.
“Are you religious?” I ask. The arrival of Laura’s tea has my hand lying limply—and stupidly—next to her arm.
“Not in the tiniest bit.” Laura straightens her spine. “I’ll save you the speech that usually goes with that statement. Though I know my parents are fundamentalists, and the thought of a higher power means a lot to many people, and there’s a big difference between the two.” Her shoulders sag again. “But in my world, religion has done so much more damage than good.” She regards me intently. “How about you?”
“We’re surely taking this a step further,” I joke, because I think the conversation needs it. “We’ve moved on to discussing God.”
“You don’t have to answer.” Laura removes the lid from her cup and starts blowing on it.
“No, it’s fine. I really don’t mind.” My joke was clearly lost on Laura. “You’ve met my parents. You know they’re pretty casual—”
I’m interrupted by the loud chime of a phone—Laura’s.
She nearly jumps out of her chair. “I turned up the volume,” she says apologetically. “Sorry, I need to take this. It’s the hospital.” Her movements are tense, her lips drawn into a thin line.
“Hello,” she says, as she listens to the person on the other end of the line. Then her face goes blank.
Nineteen
Laura
Tess must know that, without her by my side, I’d be crumbling right now. I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m about to do. She’s so strong, so unwavering in her support of me, despite me not being able to give her what she wants, that sometimes, usually late at night, I can almost see it. I can see us together. Because to me, she’s a rock. She’s always there with a joke to cheer me up, and a facial expression full of understanding when I need it.
“Do you want me to call them?” she offers now. “I can pretend to be someone working at the hospital informing Aunt Milly’s next of kin.”
The thing about Tess is that, when she says things like that, she’s dead serious about them. “I need to do this myself,” I say.
“Shall I go into the other room?” Sometimes, when she looks at me like this, her face all earnest and her eyes all kindness, I actually feel a twinge of desire to kiss her run through me.
“No, I want you here with me.”
Tess nods solemnly. “I’m here.” And that little phrase couldn’t sum up Tess more. She’s always here for me. Always.
“Okay. Here we go.” I dial the number I found on the website. I’m guessing it won’t be a direct line to the anointed Pastor Richard, but someone will be able to put me through.
“Hello, First Light Church. How may I help you?”
My heart pounds in my throat. “This is Laura Baker, the pastor’s daughter. Can I speak with him?”
“I’m very sorry, Laura. Pastor Richard is holding a sermon right now. Can I help?”
“What about Phyllis? His wife?” I wouldn’t be caught dead calling that woman my mother to a stranger. “Can I speak with her? It’s a family emergency.”
An exasperated sigh at the other end of the line. “Hold on, Laura.” The voice still sounds overly friendly and cheerful, though. “I may be able to whisk her out. Please hold.” I hear a dull click, then a hymn sounds through the speaker. Because some things in life you just never forget, I instantly recognize it as “Abide With Me”. I must have sung along to it a million times when I was a child. I still know the words by heart.
“I’m on hold,” I whisper to Tess. “Listen to this. The soundtrack to my youth.” I hold the phone to her ear. Meanwhile, my heart flings itself against my ribcage with increasing fervor. I haven’t heard my mother’s voice in more than a decade. What will it do to me now? They know nothing about my life, about what I’ve been through. If they did, they’d probably end up praying for me. Maybe they’ve prayed for my corrupted soul daily over the years.
“Hello?” A voice crackles over the phone. It’s not the same voice as before. It’s a voice I’ve tried to forget but never could. It’s the voice of Phyllis Baker. The voice of my mother.
“It’s Laura.” Automatically, a hardness creeps into my tone. “Aunt Milly passed away this morning. I thought you should know.”
“Oh,” my mother says. “I’m very sorry to hear that.”
I don’t say anything, unsure if it’s just plain reluctance on my part, or pure disdain flaring up—disdain for how she’s not falling apart right now, for how she sounds so emotionless. Does she really not care that it’s me she’s speaking to?
“The memorial service will be next weekend, here in Nelson. I’ll send an invitation.” I’m ready to hang up. I’ve done my duty. Now that Aunt Milly’s gone, I have no family left.
“I’m not sure we’ll be able to make it. Your father has a lot of obligations during the weekend.”
“Fine.” The phone is starting to shake against my ear. Without expressing a goodbye, I hang up. I stare at the phone for long seconds, unable to process the coldness I encountered on the other end of the line. Or was my mother’s heart pounding in her chest as well? Were her palms so sweaty the phone threatened to slip out of her hands? Does she ever think about the child she gave birth to forty-one years ago?
“What did she say?” Tess rises from her seat and stands next to me. I know she’s cautious about hugging me—and I know how much that goes against her very nature.
“Nothing, really.” I find her gaze briefly, then open my arms and throw them around her. Because I need human contact to get past this moment. I need someone’s arms around me.
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 holdin
g 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.”
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 kissed 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.”
