Stay with Me

by Sheryl Wright

  Debbie almost choked, “Oh my God. That’s it. Why didn’t I think of it?”

  Kira made a restless motion. “Come on Mom, spit it out.”

  “I think you’re right. Actually, I’m certain you’re right. Honey, I have a feeling I know exactly what’s going on here and Kira’s right about it being too frightening for her.”

  “What could be that frightening? She’s never afraid.”

  “Not as an adult but think about her childhood. She’s lost every woman she has ever loved. Her mother, her aunts, her grandmother…”

  “That bitch Margaret.”

  “That unpleasant, social climbing woman, yes her too. And she left when Georgie was at her most vulnerable...”

  “I would never—”

  “Easy,” Carl soothed again. “She knows you’re not her, pumpkin. In case you never noticed, the women in our family are particularly smart. You should listen to them. I do.”

  For the first time since storming out of the hospital, a ray of hope began making its way into her shattered heart. Yes Georgie was scared, but she was stubborn too. Maybe it was why she was so damned hard to kill. Well, I can be like that too. “I think you’re right but how…I don’t know what to do?”

  “Maybe I do,” Kira suggested. “Let me call my favorite Amazon. I’m sure all we need is more information. If she thinks breaking up is the best thing she can do for you then maybe all you need to do is find a more logical argument for staying together.”

  “Happen to know any good lawyers who might argue my case?” Tyler, blotchy faced, asked wryly.

  Kira smiled along with their parents. “As a matter of fact I do. But you don’t need me. You just need the facts. Once we figure out what ghosts are really fueling this, I’m sure you’ll be ready to drive this one home.”

  Tyler managed a half smile.

  Debbie and Carl looked at their daughter. At last there were signs of life where her eyes had seemed so hollow just minutes before.

  “Well what are you waiting for?” Tyler exclaimed. “Go get on the phone!”

  * * *

  Aydan sat in the darkened living room of Georgie and Tyler’s apartment. After a month the place was starting to feel like her home too, but as tired as she was, she just couldn’t bring herself to climb the stairs and go to bed. The last two weeks had been exhausting. Between her regular intern duties, learning her job as Georgie’s executive assistant, and trying to be supportive for Tyler, she was tired but more than that she felt thoroughly muddled.

  She had started out with serious prejudices around her boss and her relationship, believing their public openness had offended her family’s good opinion—not just theirs but hers too. Now she could confront herself.

  Just who am I kidding? The last family member to hold any type of positive opinion of me was Dad. I’ve spent the last fifteen years trying to be less and less of me and more of whatever it is they want but it was never ever going to be enough. I thought it would be horrid to work here, with women like them every day. Yet here I am. Complete strangers have been kinder and more respectful of me, and to me, than my own flesh and blood. And I worried they would offend me? Instead I lied to protect my humiliation, my weaknesses, and myself. Yes, I lied. That’s the true offense here. I didn’t just lie to them, I’ve been lying to myself and for so, so long.

  She hadn’t recognized the sentiment eating at her in the dark until she remembered just how angry she was at the hospital. She had grown to respect Georgie, even appreciating her process, but more than that she had fallen for the intimidating and accomplished Tyler. Not that she was in love with her, but she could appreciate the woman’s charm and beauty. That had been a two-fisted blow and the thing she had been stewing over for hours. Realization had crashed in on her the night before Georgie was physically struck down crossing Erie.

  She had been in her room reading and was up much later than usual. Seeing the time and wide awake, she was anxious to sleep. Deciding a glass of warm milk was worth a try, she headed for the kitchen. In slippers and making her silent way in the dark, it wasn’t until she was almost on the top stair when she realized someone was on the couch. Stopping dead in her tracks she was about to retrace her steps when her eyes adjusted just enough to recognize what she was witnessing.

  Georgie and Tyler were on the couch and while the blanket that usually hung across the back was pulled over their bodies, it was more than obvious they were without a stitch of clothing. They were making love in the dark with nothing but the light from the fireplace and each other as witness. She had wanted to back away, even run away, yet she didn’t, couldn’t. Standing in the dark, she had been a voyeur to something she had long classified as nothing more than some bodily need for release, a need easily overcome with diversion or discipline. What a lie! There was nothing mechanical or even unfitting if that could be applied. A passion she had suspected between the two telegraphed into something more than she could comprehend. Tenderness, desire, pleasure in and of one another and something more: they were a world of one, and in that moment she knew nothing could challenge that.

  With that revelation, came the crushing memory she had long since blocked. The one who had hurt her all those years ago, that one first tentative and scary foray into love, the one Tyler had characterized as “the guy who had done a number on her.” Only the guy wasn’t a guy and she was ashamed at not admitting it, if not to Tyler, then at least to herself.

  “Sarah, you broke my heart and I let it shape me. Shape my relationship with my family, and shape my future. I did that. I let that happen, let it color everything in my life. Let my grieving mother and conservative and ignorant grandparents use it as fuel to control my life and shame me into obedience.”

  She had tried to shake it off, but the image of Georgie and Tyler making love was seared indelibly into her brain, awakening something she long believed dead.

  I want that, want what they have, had…no, have. I don’t know them well and yet I feel I know them as well as I do myself.

  If she could lose fifteen years over a teenage heartbreak, no wonder Tyler was behaving like a wounded animal. How many nights did her father sit up with her even after she came clean and told him everything?

  If I were Georgie and loved a woman like Tyler, would I walk away to spare her and her heart? “Oh Georgie, you hardheaded thing!”

  Standing with purpose, she climbed the stairs and strode to her room. Picking up her phone, she noted the time but didn’t care. The world had been turned upside down and if she valued her place here, with these women who had welcomed her, it was her responsibility as much as any of the rest to help make this right.

  Selecting her most frequent contact, she pressed connect.

  “Hey princess, you okay?” Lori answered.

  “I want to help. What can I do?”

  Chapter Eleven

  When Tyler walked into the office at eight a.m., she could feel the tension on the floor. Clearly the word was out and a rill of anger seeped through her. Affording a perfunctory smile, she made her way to the corner office. She wasn’t surprised to find Lori waiting in Georgie’s office, or even Aydan, but Henry was unexpected.

  “It’s awfully early, Henry. Shouldn’t you still be in bed, enjoying retirement?”

  He grimaced before explaining, “I figured you could use a lead engineer.”

  Plainly he was not so confidant the situation was something she and Georgie could resolve. “Don’t tell me she’s quit the job too?”

  He winced at the rebuke and she almost cried out at his nod. Instead, collapsing into the chair next to his, she asked, “She’s quitting?” At his saddened look, she qualified, “Everything?”

  When he nodded again, she sat in silence, her emotions perfectly schooled. “Excuse me, I need a coffee.”

  Before she could move, Aydan was on her feet. “I’ll get it, anyone else?” Henry accepted and Lori followed her out of the office, leaving them to talk.

  Once the door was shut,
Henry, reaching out and taking her hand in his own, explained, “I love that girl with all my heart, but she is as stubborn as all get-out! Now just tell me, straight out, is she worth fighting for, or is your heart too cross to forgive?”

  “I…” Her lip quivered. She’d expected him to be forthcoming. That was just who he was. But the added tenderness always stripped away her façade of control. There was such kindness and wisdom in the man, and a respect she appreciated most. His respect of Georgie she adored and understood. His respect for her, she had earned, and that in itself was a gift. “You don’t need to worry,” she said quietly. “I’m still committed to doing the best job I can. I just…Henry, what are we going to do without her? I might be in charge, but she is the company!”

  He nodded. His weathered face conveyed his concern and something more…maybe remorse.

  “What is it? Please, it can’t be any worse, can it?”

  “Just tell me little girl, have you given up on her?”

  “What?” Dropping his hand, she stood up and distanced herself from his knowing presence. But she couldn’t deny the pain propelling her these last sixty or so hours. “I’m mad. I’m hurt. I’m a million other things. But I am not giving up. I…I just don’t know how to fix this.”

  “Georgie’s been the family fixer ever since…since we lost…” He stood, taking cautious steps to her side. “Baby girl,” he fretted gently. “She’s in trouble. I don’t know what that so-called doctor said, but something’s broke in her. We all know you’re the one bearing the brunt of all this, we do. It’s new territory for all of us.”

  She bristled at the “we all know” comment. “So, I take it the whole family knows? What’d she do, give a press conference or something?”

  Henry chuckled briefly. “Now, none of that. It was just the gruesome twosome and me. We got to talking…after they brought her home.”

  She gave him a pathetic smile. “You call Lori and Marnie the gruesome twosome? I’ll have to remember that. Please, sit,” she said, waving her hand to the upholstered chair she knew he preferred. “How are your knees today?”

  “Oh, no complaints,” he answered, settling in. “All this rain has been hard. I feel it in my bones and I think old Maggie does now too.”

  “How is she? I haven’t seen her since Lori and I picked her up from the vet.”

  “Better now that she’s back at her mistress’s side, but she’s as blue as a second moon, maybe even as blue as our girl.”

  Tyler waved Lori and Aydan back in, accepting a fresh cup of coffee before taking a seat beside Henry. “I assume you three have something to tell me. Something that you think will help us, meaning Georgie and me?”

  “Not quite,” Lori answered. She set her cup on the large coffee table Tyler had chosen for Georgie.

  They had been waiting in Georgie’s office, not hers, when she arrived and Tyler was grateful for the show of deference, especially under the circumstances. With a real possibility that she might have to lead this company without her lover, she knew setting an example was how it was done. She wanted to be the leader they needed to make this enterprise a success, but without Georgie she was hard-pressed to even care much for the prospect. Pushing out a ragged breath, she said plainly, “I’m listening.”

  “Well,” Lori said, “Friday, after we got her up to the house, I went for a little drive. I guess something’s been eating at me since the whole thing about old Aunt Georgina’s will blew up and everyone learned she left Cattaraugus Creek to Georgie and me, the big ol’ lesbians in the family. So—”

  Sounding more like Marnie than herself, Tyler cut her off. “Please tell me you didn’t go harass the woman. Jee…Jupiter, Lori!” She would not curse in front of Henry no matter how upset she was. “Breaking someone’s heart is not a capital offense. Even if it was, I think the statute of limitations is long over for a forty-five-year-old breakup between old Aunt Georgina and her Helen.”

  “Come on, Tiger, cut me some slack. I just went over and introduced myself all nice like. Helen was the one who invited me in. She said she knew exactly who I was and even remembered me from when Marnie and I were tots. She was cool and nice. A lot nicer than I imagined and I learned a lot, some not so nice, but it explains some stuff.”

  “I’m not going to like this am I?”

  “Aydan,” Henry interrupted. “Why don’t you and I go put your design for the new office on the big table and have a look-see?”

  She nodded without comment and got to her feet. Once they were out and the office door closed, Lori moved to sit across from Tyler. “You okay?”

  Tyler just stared. She was sad and mad and a million things in between, but okay? Not so much. “I know you’re going to tell me some crap about every woman in her life walking out, but I didn’t leave. She dumped me!”

  “Hey Tiger, I know, I know, no one’s blaming you here. We all think she’s lost it, but we know some stuff, stuff we never knew before and I think it’ll help you.” When Tyler didn’t object or comment, she pushed on. “Anyway, things between Helen and Aunt Georgina did not go down as we thought.”

  “We?”

  Lori groaned. “Okay, me. I thought she’d bailed on Aunt Georgina and married some guy. I couldn’t be more wrong.”

  “Let me guess, old Georgina bailed on her just like my Georgie…”

  “Your Georgie didn’t bail! Well, she did, but she thinks she’s doing you a biggie! That dumbass thinks this is honorable, letting you out now as opposed to dropping dead on you sometime down the road when you need her most.” Seeing Tyler’s expression, she pleaded hastily, “Come on, Tiger, you know she’s scared. Do you want to know what we think the problem is?”

  It was all Tyler could do not to go straight over the coffee table and pound the living daylights out of her. “Good God, you’re infuriating, Phipps!” But Lori was right, she did want to know what the hell had sparked this disaster. Georgie was a loyal woman, as loyal as they get, so why had she done this thing, this one thing Tyler was sure she would never do? Yes, she wanted to hear, to know, so she sucked back her rage. As usual, it took time for Lori to wend her way through the story. It was hard listening patiently. She liked Lori, liked her storytelling, but she missed the simplicity of communicating with Georgie.

  At the end of Lori’s recounting of the separation of Helen and Aunt Georgina, Tyler shrugged and said simply, “If this is true and Georgie’s dad is complicit, it’s, well it’s tragic, but what has that got to do with us, and me. Unlike her dad, there’s not an abusive bone in Georgie’s body.”

  “No, you’re right, but it explains why Georgie clung to Aunt Georgina and why Aunt Georgina stayed in the big house. She built that beach house for her and Helen, but instead of moving in she had Helen’s brother take up residence to keep her safe from Georgie’s dad. I think she was scared for Helen, just like she was scared for Aunt Winnie and Georgie too.”

  “You think he hurt her?”

  “No, and neither does Helen, but then again, they kept Georgie with them day and night. They tried to get Aunt Winnie to leave, even offering her and the kids their own place down at the beach.”

  “And where was Henry during all this and what about your grandparents? Old Luigi and Sophia must have known something was going on.”

  “What the hell? What’s with the attitude?” Lori demanded.

  “Look.” Tyler stood needing to move or scream. “It’s horrible to learn that Danny DiNamico—that Georgie’s father was the kind of man who enjoyed pounding on women, but I don’t see how that helps or explains anything…Wait, you don’t think I’m…” She couldn’t finish, but the horror on her face conveyed everything she was thinking.

  “What? No!” Lori asserted, astonished by the assumption. “Crap. I so suck at this. Geez Ty, no one thinks that. We all know you’re the one shining light in Georgie’s life. We don’t want her to lose you and vice versa. Hell, if there’s anything to this, it’s her worry she’s going to turn out like her father, let you
down, or leave you alone with no love or support. Come on!”

  She stood, but didn’t crowd Tyler’s space. “I think the real thing was Aunt Georgina’s loss. We all lost something that day, but she was really the only one who knew what was truly going on. I mean it must have been hard on Dad, but he still had us, and we had Sophia but…Look, maybe a lot of Georgie’s drive to work for the company, and keep all of us in sight, was about protecting us from Uncle Dan.”

  “That’s a stretch don’t you think? You already said he never touched her.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t need to protect us.”

  Tyler slumped back down on the couch. Lori was right, whether they needed protection or not, Georgie would have seen it as her lifelong duty to take over where her aunt had left off. No wonder she had isolated herself, both as a child and an adult. Between her military service requiring her to lie about her sexual orientation, and her protection of her family siblings among which she included Henry’s kids, she must have endured constant pressure. “You once said you thought Georgie grew up isolated…lonely. Maybe she likes it better.”

  “Ty!” Lori begged, planting her ass on the coffee table in front of her. “You know that’s not true. Two months ago, when we were on the shakedown cruise, she sat me down for a big talk. Wanna know something she told me? I think you do,” she insisted when Tyler held up a hand to stop her. “She said my girlfriend Peachy wasn’t the one or I would know. She was sure Peachy would live with all the tears and holes and black spots on my soul, but if I waited for the right one, it would be different. She said you fill all those dark places in her, shining light where even she has always feared to go. She begged me to have fun, but not to settle for tolerance and acquiescence. They always fall short, she warned. Better to risk it all for someone like you, someone who fits so perfectly.” Intertwining her own fingers in front of Tyler to demonstrate her point, she added, “She told me you were everything to her and that you more than fit her, you were her complement, and her…damn it, what’s that musical term…um, counterpoint? Yes, complement and counterpoint. Who the hell even talks like that? I had to Google it for chrissake!”