To Rae it now made sense why Ellen was such a light drinker. Even when they had gone out in days of old, partied it up, she rarely had an alcoholic drink. Other than a glass or two with dinner or afterwards she still rarely drank. Her wine cellar was well stocked and going to waste.
“When he was so happy that Ellie May Fredericks was gone, I had enough. We were going to get out. I stole her stash of money and hid it from him. If he had found it, I’d have been sunk.” That money had helped her when she first got to Southern California, before she got a job. Lord knew Owen hadn’t had much left in the bank accounts she closed. He hadn’t approved of Ellie May Fredericks, those ‘white trash’ Fredericks that lived in the mobile home trailer park. He had told Avril often enough to stay away from her.
“Wait, did he kill her?” Rae was confused, her eyebrow furrowing. Who had Ellen killed? Had she heard her right?
“No, a tornado did it. Those damn mobile homes are like tornado magnets or somethin’,” her voice began to sound decidedly Oklahoman as she told her tale. “She was in her truck when it caught her,” her voice caught again.
“Were you the one who found her?” she asked horrified, jumping to conclusions and wondering at the tale.
Ellen shook her head, gathering her emotions she said, “No, but I was the one to identify her when I heard they had found her truck and pulled a body from it. There was dirt on her face, her hair was a mess. There was dirt under her fingernails. I nearly threw up at what she looked like; they hadn’t tried to clean her up at all. I left to go to her mobile home to go through her things before the scavengers could. I got our stash, the money we were going to use to start over elsewhere.” She crawled through the debris to find the ‘safe place’ that Ellie used to hide her money and most treasured things. She found the box after a long search through all the jumble. She was relieved to find the rolls of bills and the various trinkets in the box. She cried when she found the engagement ring she had known Ellie wanted to give her, but was waiting until she was ‘legal.’ She looked around the room and took a sweatshirt she found, but other than that she left everything as it was and crawled out of the trailer. She was just in time as she took off from the other scavengers who would be looking for anything they could find and sell. Supposedly ‘looking’ for bodies, any money or jewelry ‘found’ would disappear. She hid the box among her own things, hoping to keep it from being discovered by her father.
Rae could see what this tale was taking out of Ellen. She had never seen her so vulnerable or known her to share so much. She realized now there were whole sections of Ellen’s life that she had no idea about. “Then what happened?” she asked almost fearfully.
Ellen looked at her with unseeing eyes as she pictured the night. “It was a week later. My father had been so happy about Ellie’s death; he said she had been unnatural. An unfit friend for any young girl, implying that she had done things. Ellie hadn’t touched me that way. Sure we kissed, petted a little, but she wouldn’t touch me that way until I was eighteen and legal. It was only a few weeks away. I was more miserable than I had been at any time in my childhood with him so happy about her death. The sirens went off that night and he was drunk on the couch. That annoying warning was on the television for the emergency broadcast system. It’s tone, gawd, I remember that like it was yesterday.” She shuddered at the memories.
“You don’t have to tell me now,” Rae tried to stop her.
Ellen shook her head. If she didn’t get it all out and now, she might never get it out. “I debated only about thirty seconds before leaving him there. I went out to the storm cellar in our backyard.” Her voice became a monotone as she remembered and told her tale, frequently repeating herself as she told it and relived it. She couldn’t help but wonder if her father would still be alive if she had woken him when she heard the tornado sirens go off. She had heard them loud and clear across the prairie miles from her bedroom and headed for the stairs to head for shelter. He had been asleep on the couch wearing his ‘wife beater’ t-shirt, appropriately named since he had always worn such disgusting shirts to beat not only his wife, but his daughter as well. He was snoring loudly, and she debated briefly about waking him, knowing she would be backhanded for ‘bothering’ him, but also knowing that the sirens were going loud and clear and that they should head for the shelter her grandparents had built to protect the humans from this very thing. He drooled in his sleep as his hand came up to rub his crotch and then up to rub his nose. She shuddered in disgust at the sight. The sirens were spinning around as they came louder and then fainter, it was the next circuit that decided it for her, and she headed to the shelter, alone.
It was hard for her small frame to open the door; it was a heavy steel door. The wind was blowing so hard she nearly lost her footing as she struggled with it. She could see the vent spinning around on top of the storm shelter to let in some air to the close quarters. It was built tough, but she managed to pry it open, the wind catching it before she was pulling it shut behind her and bolting it. She was in absolute darkness and she reached for a flashlight she knew they kept on the shelf. Something soft brushed against her hand, she didn’t know if was a spider web, a mouse, or what, and she squealed at the sensation, but determinedly felt for the flashlight against the eternal blackness that was before her. She wouldn’t go down the steps without seeing where she was going. It was a black pit, a void, an absence of any light, and she was frightened. She had heard the roar of the wind, the steel door had shut that out, but in the absence of sound the dark frightened her further. There, there was the flashlight. She quickly pulled it to herself and flicked it on. The beam was feeble, the batteries old and unused. She cursed in her mind, not aloud, just in case someone could hear her and berate her for her naughty mouth. She shone the flickering beam around and saw another flashlight on the shelf. This one too was weak and unused, but between the two weak beams she felt better and could see further. She saw a lantern further down and headed carefully down the stairs. The noises outside as things hit the door scared her, she wondered how long she would have to stay down here, she wondered if she should go back up and get her father. Remembering how he had laughed at Ellie’s death, seeming to take pleasure in the devastation on his young daughters face, she firmly decided that he was on his own. He would make her pay in countless ways later, but she knew it was a price she had to pay.
She got the lantern lit and it provided much more light than the weak flashlights that she turned off. The wind could be heard around the steel door and a little gray showed through the small window in the door. She could see nothing except an absence of black beyond it. She could see nothing except an absence of black beyond it. She looked around the storm cellar. Her grandparents and even her mother had stored things in here, but her father never did, he didn’t even use it, only swore that he had to cut around it in the backyard with the lawn mower. Occasionally she jumped as something fell against the door or window; she could sense the power of the wind.
Ellen skipped some of her story, unable, or unwilling to retell it to Rae. She had consciously chosen to let her father die at nature’s hands and the guilt she had lived with for twenty years. Going back, seeing the town, suing a few of the people who had stolen from her in many ways only helped a bit. It had, at least, started her on a path to healing.
“You didn’t kill him, his drinking killed him,” Rae tried to reason.
“But I could have tried to wake him,” she answered.
“No Ellen, he probably would have smacked you. He deserved to die. Some people are born to die,” she answered.
“It shouldn’t have been my choice, I should have…”
“No Ellen. He chose to drink. He chose to treat you that way. It wasn’t your fault.”
Ellen looked at Rae sadly, as though she didn’t understand. “I sued a few of the people who stole our things when I went back to have the house leveled,” she explained. Rae knew about her drive to Oklahoma in Ryan’s Maserati and the girl she had help
ed. She had arranged for a job in her firm for her to help Ellen so that there would be no calls of favoritism.
“Do you feel better for having sued them?”
Ellen shrugged. “I got a few things back of my mothers. I just wanted people to know that I knew, that everyone knew what they had done!”
“Yeah, I hope that revenge made you feel better. Did it?”
She shook her head. “No. Having Mama’s things back helped enormously,” she glanced around the bedroom at the antiques she had purchased. They reminded her of home and they felt right. The revenge, had been sweet. She had the means, the scandal she was assured by Mr. Mann had been enormous, but it didn’t bring back her mother, it didn’t bring back her youth. “I think it helped me to move on though,” she said quietly. She was exhausted. She lay back against the headboard and pillows.
“I’m sorry you went through all that Ellen. I would never have guessed,” Rae said sadly as she began to lean back too. Ellen pulled her close so Rae ended up with her head on Ellen’s shoulder. The sound of her heartbeat under her ear was reassuring.
“The thing is, it was all so long ago. I lived with it for all this time. It played a major part in making me who I am.” she said musingly as she thought it over. “I think going back and seeing things through the eyes of an adult was cathartic.”
“Is that what began to change you?”
Ellen nodded. Rae could feel the bobbing of her head against her own. “I think the therapy helped. I’d started to change after Ryan’s death, but seeing it all, realizing it didn’t matter anymore. That was what really began to change me. They didn’t have a hold on me anymore. Daddy has been dead. He paid for his abuse with his life. You know, he never even really owned that farm? When Mama died it was to come to me but he wouldn’t let her will be read. Everyone assumed it was his.” She shook her head at the perfidy of it all. “I guess it will always affect how I look at things, but I don’t have to let it rule my life anymore.”
“Is that why you hate the wind?” she asked in reference to the tornados that took her first love and her hated father.
Ellen nodded. “I love the rain, I always have, but hate the wind,” she said ruefully.
“I’ll hold you when the wind comes then,” Rae said as she hugged her close.
“Rae?” she asked and waited for her to look up. “Will you move in with me? Or is that too long a drive to work?”
“Do you really want me to move in with you?” she verified, her heart leaping with joy at the offer.
Ellen nodded. She had never lived openly with any of her girlfriends. She wanted this though. She wanted Rae to be there with her every day. To be there when she got home at night, she wanted a lot of what tonight had been like.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Just because we made love…” she began.
“I’m sure,” she said adamantly. She placed her hands on either side of Rae’s face and held her still. “I love you. I want you to move into this huge house I have here so we can be together.” Her animated face altered slightly as she had a thought. “Unless you don’t want to…” she began but Rae silenced her with a kiss.
“I want to,” she said clearly. She couldn’t seem to help herself though as she asked, “You think this will work?”
Ellen thought over her response carefully. “I’ve never asked anyone to live with me before,” she answered slowly, thoughtfully. “I want to try to make it work. I know I love you. All I can promise is that I will try.”
That was enough for Rae. She knew she loved Ellen. This Ellen, who had revealed some of her deepest and darkest secrets. This vulnerable Ellen was the one she loved. She could only hope that the hard Ellen, the not so likable one, was kept at work.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
RESTITUTION
The high definition television had just been installed in the recreation room in what would normally be the basement of the house. Since they were in California, basements were rare, instead this ‘basement’ was a three-quarters underground set of rooms, built into the hillside, that led out onto a barbeque patio. Within these rooms was the television room, a wine room, a sauna, a work-out room, and an elaborately old-fashioned Victorian bar with brass fittings, a full length mirror, and rich wood appointments. Ellen had taken the posters that had once been Ryan’s from his home, the ones of comic book characters, rippling muscles, tight costumes, and the ones of video game characters that she didn’t quite understand, and placed them around the rooms as art. She liked having a part of Ryan in her own home. Greg hadn’t cared for the framed posters and had long ago started looking for a new boyfriend, already gone through several. It annoyed Ellen, the disloyalty, but it had been years and she understood that Greg was easily distracted and probably lonely.
“I think that is crooked,” Rae said as the techs eased the flat screen back against the wall.
“What?” Ellen asked distractedly as she looked at what Ryan had thought of as art. She kind of liked the comic book covers now, but still hated the video characters ones.
“The television?” Rae nudged her to bring her back in focus to the techs.
“You want the surround sound right Ms. Christenson?” one of them asked as he bumped the television with one of the speakers, making it definitely lean to the left. “Oops, sorry,” he apologized to the other two techs who had measured, even using a level to get it even.
“Um, yes. Surround would be great,” Ellen replied as her eyes returned to the comic covers and memories of Ryan.
Much later after the techs had hidden all the wires they left, leaving her with a dizzying array of channel changers, Ellen looked at Rae, her expression a mix of seriousness and humor and said, “So, how do I watch television?”
Rae chuckled. It was insane. One of the rectangular boxes was for the television, one was for the cable, one was for the stereo and surround sound, one was for the VHS player. It could be confusing if you wanted a ‘simple’ television program. “Do you really not get what these are for?”
Ellen grinned. People frequently mistook her for the ‘just’ the paper pushing partner of the firm. As much as Ryan had enjoyed his gadgets, he had shown her how to use them and sometimes she enjoyed them more than the techy had. She confidently turned on the television and the cable box so they could watch the local news.
“In national news tonight, a series of tornadoes have swept through tornado alley including Texas, Oklahoma, and into parts of Illinois. The effects can be seen here…” the newscaster’s voice began to drone.
Ellen sat up and looked at the map they were showing of Southwestern Oklahoma. She reached for her phone and made a series of phone calls. Several of them had no answer and she repeatedly tried. “Can you get me the governor?” she asked in one phone call.
Rae was sitting there watching her girlfriend take command of the situation. She didn’t understand what was going on but it was at that moment she really realized how important Ellen was, she was able to command the attention of the governor, but which governor she wasn’t sure as she listened.
Ellen was on the phone for an hour before she had the answers she wanted or needed. At some point Rae had slipped a pad of paper and a pen to her and she gratefully accepted it as she made notes. Smiling in thanks at her thoughtful girlfriend before turning her attention back to the phone call.
“What’s going on babe?” Rae finally asked, she’d been ignored for long enough.
“Apparently tornadoes swept through Oakley where I grew up,” Ellen said bleakly. She’d used the channel changers to switch back and forth to news stations that had anything on the tornadoes, trying to catch a camera shot of the devastation she was looking for.
“This is the same place you told me about?” she asked gently, remembering how Ellie and Ellen’s father had died. She could see that Ellen was shook up.
“Yeah, but it was over twenty years ago and a week apart that the two took…” she swallowed back the hurt and anger that threatened to take over.
“This time they came through within hours of each other,” she explained.
“Is there something we can do?”
Ellen looked at her. “This is my…” she began but Rae shushed her with a well-placed finger across her lips.
“Tell me what you need,” she said quietly.
“Could you pack a bag, I don’t know how long I’ll be gone?” she asked gratefully.
“I’ll pack two, and we should have enough for a week or two,” she said confidently as she rose from the couch.
“We?”
“I’m coming with you,” she told her in a no-nonsense voice as she made her way to the stairs to go to the first floor.
Ellen made a few more phone calls and by the time Rae had bags packed for them both a private car was outside to take them to the airport. They were met by a team of employees from Gigitech and Animated Studios, including the students from Oklahoma that she had given scholarships to. All were carrying their own luggage as they made their way to the private plane that Ellen had hired. “Everyone set?” she asked and there were a few solemn nods.
As the plane took off a few questions were asked and Ellen told them she didn’t know what to expect. They were flying into the nearest airfield, not a major hub, but one that could accommodate the private jet. Everyone was quiet, no laughter could be heard, but each kept to their own thoughts. Rae reached out to hold Ellen’s hand which told more than one what she meant to the redhead. A few had suspected but no one knew that Rae and Ellen were living together. Ellen had never hidden her sexuality but her girlfriends hadn’t lasted long, it was a standard joke among her employees. This show of affection wasn’t precedented. Most didn’t really care, Ellen was a good if demanding boss. They had unrestricted freedom to explore and create. Everyone benefited. As they made their way east, a few tried to sleep.
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