by Geonn Cannon
Robin had started to explain herself back at the parking lot, but Molly had cut her off. “I just...need a few minutes after that. Okay?” Robin had nodded, and Molly had gone into this deathly silent robotic trance.
They were on the road to Sholeh Village, December Harbor’s counterpart on the far north tip of the island. The road was a narrow two-lane thread tracing between tall trees and wild weeds. Several times, Molly slowed to allow a rabbit or fox to cross the road in front of the car. Even during these brief interludes, watching some nocturnal creature scurry across asphalt still hot from the day, Molly kept quiet and still.
They finally pulled into a gravel parking lot with only a few other cars still in attendance. Molly aimed the car towards a stand of trees and parked. She seemed to finally realize her grip on the steering wheel and forced her fingers to relax as she leaned back against her seat. Robin made no move to get out, since Molly seemed perfectly content to stay right where she was. After a long time, when the only sound was the engine ticking as it cooled, Molly said, “How?”
“You want the whole story or just the...”
“Tell me everything,” Molly whispered.
Robin took a deep breath and looked out at the trees in front of the car. “Okay. Basically, it all started because we got sloppy. We’d gone to the mall to see a movie. We went to a late showing because we were both teachers, and it was bad enough running into students when we were by ourselves. There was only one other couple in the theater and one guy sitting at the back by the doors. When we left, there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the mall. Half the stores were closed with the grates down, the rest of the stores were getting ready to shut down for the night.”
She paused and remembered that night. It had felt like a horror movie, the last survivors of some zombie assault setting up camp in an abandoned mall. April was fading fast and had gripped Robin’s hand. “She grabbed my hand,” Robin told Molly. “Put her head on my shoulder.” She rested her elbow against the window and covered her mouth with her hand. “I should have told her to stop. But I don’t...” She shook her head and looked down at her hands. “I couldn’t. How do you ask someone you love to stop holding your hand?”
“Someone saw you,” Molly guessed.
Robin nodded.
“A student,” she said. “He worked in one of the stores we passed. He was sweeping up. He told one of his friends, they told one of their friends, and it got to someone’s parents. From there, it got to the school board. It was Bozeman all over again. Bozeman is...is where I started teaching,” she explained. “The principal was...sympathetic. I suppose you could call it that. But the school board and the parents were livid. The fact April and I lived together was common knowledge, but add to that the fact we were sharing a bedroom...”
She paused and closed her eyes.
“After a lot of meetings and a lot of write-ups in the newspaper, it was all April and I could do to keep our students on track. You should try getting kids to follow the quadratic equation when your sex life is plastered all over the front page every morning. They were doing their homework while their parents were reading about how I was a deviant and a sex fiend.
“We made it to the end of the school year, but we apparently had different ideas of what would happen next. I was ready to go. Ready to pack up, find a new town, and settle down. But April was adamant that we stay and fight it out, stand up for ourselves. That’s when April and I started fighting. The night after school let out for summer, I started packing a bag. She...she called me a coward. She said I was more willing to run away than stick up for who I was. Maybe she was right, I d–don’t know.”
Molly looked at the steering wheel, and Robin heard her sniffle quietly. Robin looked over and saw that her eyes were squeezed shut, her lips pressed into a tight, thin line. Robin said, “Are you sure you want me to...?”
“Go on,” Molly said forcefully. Her voice shook, and she opened her shining eyes to look through the windshield.
Robin took a shaky breath. “We’d been shouting it out for a good half hour. I’d put something in my suitcase, and she’d take it out and put it back on the shelf. She called me weak, I called her selfish I called her a martyr and round and round it went. I stormed out. I couldn’t look at her because I knew she was telling the truth.” She swallowed hard and picked at her cuticle with her thumbnail. “I got into the car. I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t care. April came out to the garage. She got in the car. She wouldn’t leave.”
Molly could see it all clearly as Robin continued to tell what happened that night...
“You’re not going to just run away again.”
“Go away, April!”
“No.” She got into the car and slammed the door behind her. She turned sideways in her seat to face Robin; it was the one and only time she didn’t bother with a seatbelt. “You’re going to face this head-on. You want to run forever?”
“How am I supposed to teach here?” Robin asked. “How am I supposed to teach these kids when all they see is a lesbian? When all they’re thinking about is who I’m sleeping with?”
“You push through, damn it! You take a chance! You’re stronger than running away. You’re better than that.”
“I am sick of taking chances. I’m sick of being the dyke teacher. You don’t think I’ve tried to stick it out before? The first time I got outted, I stayed for six months. My house was egged, my tires were slashed. You remember how you felt after the dance? That was just a random attack on a teacher. Imagine if that vandalism had been a statement about who you were. What you were. You’re telling me that you’d be strong enough to just ignore it? Because I’m not. I never want to go through that again. I don’t think I would survive it.”
“But this way, you have to go through it every couple of months. You have to hide your face. If you stick out the rough times just once, you could live free. You could live with me.”
Robin shook her head and put the car in gear. “No, April. I can’t.”
April leaned back in the seat as the car pulled out of the drive. She never even thought to reach for her belt. “Oh. I get it.”
“No. You don’t.”
“You’re not scared. You’re ashamed.”
“Never say that!” Robin snapped. There were tears in her eyes when she turned to glare at April. “You think I’m ashamed of you? Never, ever think that. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, April. Ever.”
“I didn’t say you were ashamed of me. I think you’re ashamed of you. Of what you are. Have you ever come out to anyone on your own?”
Robin stared straight ahead.
“My sister and I...” April shook her head. “I accepted that I was gay when I was really young. My sister never did. She’s still living in denial, but I know. I know she’s gay, and I know that hiding it is tearing her apart inside. Just like it’s eating at you.”
“I’ll live. I’ve managed just fine all these years.” The car was pushing up to eighty, but there were no other cars on the road. Robin kept her foot on the accelerator, the roar of the engine muting her own angry inner pain. She clenched her jaw and reached up with one hand to wipe her cheeks.
“Robin...”
Robin blinked her eyes and saw that she was veering off the road.
“Robin!”
April reached for the wheel, but it was too late. The car hit the rough shoulder and bounced like a carnival ride. Something exploded, and both women screamed as the car began to spin. Robin tensed and her seatbelt pulled tight against her chest, and April fell forward like a rag doll. Something cracked and there was a horrifically cut-off scream, and Robin felt her stomach flip-flop as the car rolled onto its roof.
Robin cried out, “April!” She couldn’t look away from the crack in the windshield, “April!” and the world started to fade at the edges and she couldn’t understand why April wasn’t answering.
“April...” A soft sigh, barely a breath. Robin had gotten so caught up in t
he past, she was almost surprised to see that the car was still right-side up.
Both women remained extremely still. Robin had tears streaking down her face and couldn’t bear to look at Molly. She took a few deep breaths and began speaking again, her words coming slow and staccato. “When I woke up at the hospital...I asked to see April. They told me she was...gone...and I...” She closed her eyes and touched her right shoulder, where Molly had seen the bruise two nights before. “I walked away with a bruise. I’m a little sore, and she’s dead and...how is that fair?”
“Would you rather it was you who died?”
“Yes,” Robin said without hesitation.
Molly opened her door, blinding them both with the dome light, and climbed out. Robin looked at the door as it slammed shut, wondering where the hell Molly was going. She decided not to follow and covered her face with both hands. She wiped at her eyes, sniffling and trying to tamp down the pain that retelling the story had brought up. It was like losing April all over again, like having her heart ripped out all over again. The first time, she had been in shock so the pain was muted, at least. This time, it was like a brand-new wound torn open over her heart.
A few seconds later, the driver’s side door opened again, and Molly returned. Robin gave her eyes one final wipe and turned to look at her. The ponytail was gone, and her hair was lying on her shoulders in a sea of free, golden waves. She looked at Robin and said, “Hi, babe.”
“Don’t do this,” Robin begged weakly.
“Don’t do what, hon?” She reached out and lightly touched Robin’s bangs. “I just wanted to tell you that I don’t blame you. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I’m the one who stormed out,” Robin said. She closed her eyes and tilted her face towards April’s palm. It felt warm, smooth, familiarly comforting. “I took my eyes off the road, I lost control of the car. It was me.”
“You were unconscious for my last words.”
Robin flinched and shook her head. “Don’t do that. You can’t know that.”
“I do,” Molly insisted. “You were just barely conscious. I didn’t know how hurt you were, but judging by how much I hurt, I knew it was bad. You heard me. I know you did.”
Robin closed her eyes and thought back to that night. “No. I didn’t hear anythi...” She caught herself and furrowed her brow. She had heard something. But she’d put it off to her imagination. The last catches of her conscious mind, synapses firing wrong and sending some echo from the past to her ears.
A flash of bright light that was a passing motorist, the person who would eventually call the paramedics. She had a bloody nose, and it was running into her mouth. The radio was nothing but static, and her head was swimming with a rush of blood, and a vein throbbed in her forehead, pounding, pounding, pounding like a drum, and it hurt so much...
And then, above it all, she heard a single whisper. Tears in the voice. A barely-there voice. The last dredges of consciousness being used to force the words...
“Wake up...wake up, sleepyhead...”
Robin sobbed and fell forward. April...no, Molly...no, April...caught her and held her. Robin felt lips moving against her hair and buried her face against the familiar curve of shoulder. “Maybe she thought the same thing you did, what you just told me,” Molly whispered. “Maybe she thought...as long as you were all right, she wouldn’t mind dying.”
“It’s not fair,” Robin gasped, her voice rough and raw.
“Not to you. But to her. I think she would have thought it was more than fair. She loved you.”
“How do you know?” Robin asked, suddenly angry. She sat up and wiped furiously at her eyes. “You didn’t even know about me, let alone how she felt about me.”
“I didn’t know about Robin Fraser,” Molly admitted, “but I did know about you. I may not have known your name, but I knew there was a woman in my sister’s life. A woman who made her heart pound and who gave her good dreams. You’re the reason she and I both woke up with smiles on our faces.”
“You?”
“We shared dreams sometimes.” She shrugged as if it was perfectly natural. “Not always like...watching the same movie or anything. But I’d get general images, feelings. And they would make me feel happy. Satisfied. I may not have known your name, but I knew there was someone like you in the picture.”
Robin looked away, guilty.
“Is there anything else you want to say to her?” Molly asked.
Robin looked at her. She wasn’t Molly right now, she was April. Robin blinked, her eyes filled with tears as she scanned Molly’s face. She touched Molly’s bottom lip and whispered, “Good-bye, April.”
Molly reached out and cupped Robin’s cheek. “April loves you.”
“I know. I know.” A new tear slid free and she ducked her head.
“It’s okay,” Molly whispered. She brushed her thumb across Robin’s bottom lip and leaned in to lightly kiss her mouth. As she did, she felt something shift inside of her, and she closed her eyes. Robin again whispered, “Good-bye” into Molly’s mouth, her fingertips playing with the threads of Molly’s hair.
When they parted, Molly pulled the rubber bands from her pants pocket and took a moment to put her hair back into a ponytail. Robin watched as she put her hair back up, scarcely believing the change; from being April to suddenly not. Molly glanced over, seemed to read her expression and looked away quickly. “Are you ready to head back to December Harbor?”
Robin nodded slowly.
They drove back to town in a different kind of silence and, when Molly put on the right-turn blinker to pull into the bed-and-breakfast’s driveway, Robin said, “Wait. No. Go to the cemetery.”
Molly glanced at her but stayed on the road.
The cemetery was at the opposite end of town. Molly drove through the deserted streets and pulled through the wrought-iron gates that were almost always kept open. Robin thought of the first time she’d met Molly, inside these stone walls and the reaction it had caused. Panic, sudden heartache, fear, surprise, confusion. And since then, those feelings hadn’t really dimmed. But meeting Molly, getting to know April through her, had changed them somewhat.
Molly parked at the top of the hill, and they got out together. They walked to the Page family plot. Neither of them had thought to bring a flashlight, so they relied on the ambient glow from a nearby streetlight to read the names. The names of their parents were engraved, but the spot above the freshly turned earth was still blank.
“April Polly Page,” Molly said, as if imagining the future engraving.
“I used to make fun of that name,” Robin said softly. “Polly Page. It sounded like a country singer from the sixties.”
Molly smiled. “I’m Molly May.”
Robin laughed. “I guess it’s good your parents gave you different first names. I can’t stand all that rhyming crap.”
“They never dressed us identically either. At Halloween I was a princess, and April was a pirate.”
“A pirate?” Robin said. “God, even when she was a little girl she was cross-dressing.”
“Oh, no, this was when we were sixteen.”
Robin laughed again and looked down at the stone. “When will they engrave it?”
“I don’t know. Someone told me it takes a while to get it done, but I don’t...I don’t remember when Mama and Daddy’s were done, so...”
They were silent for a while. Robin hugged herself, rubbing her hands up and down her arms in an effort to keep warm. Molly’s ponytail moved lazily in the wind. She looked up at Robin, and, when Robin felt Molly’s eyes on her, she looked up. Molly said, “Tell me something.”
“Sure.”
“No, I meant...” Molly smiled and looked down at the marker again. “I meant tell me something about her. Anything. I don’t care how stupid it is, I want to know.”
Robin thought for a moment and then chuckled. “Oh, okay. Well, the first year we were together, April danced in her boxer shorts for a student council talent show. Sort of a
Tom Cruise in Risky Business sort of thing. Big hit with the boys in the audience. At the end, the students got to pick one of the teachers to take a pie in the face. Fundraiser thing, you know, kids paid for the honor of pie-ing a teacher. April told me that she wanted to make sure all the kids in school loved her for at least that one day.”
Molly laughed. “That sounds like her.”
Robin said, “Your turn. Anything.”
Molly scanned the low stone wall that ringed the cemetery, and a slow smile spread across her face. “April made me take her driving test for her. She could pass it on her own; she just got nervous with the instructor in the car. I made her go on a test run with me to make sure she was telling the truth about knowing all the ins and outs.”
“So you did it?”
Molly shrugged. “She was my sister. I would have done anything for her.” She looked up at Robin’s profile and said, “She loved you. I know she did. She would have done anything for you, too.”
Robin looked up and her eyes were wet with tears. “I wish I’d met you before. I wish I could’ve...met you and seen you with April.”
Molly nodded and reached up. She cupped the back of Robin’s neck and touched their foreheads together.
Together, they wept and mourned the woman they had loved.
##
Molly dropped Robin off at the Appleton bed-and-breakfast and drove back to Gail’s. It was close to eleven, so the place was closed, but she had to get in. She had forgotten it was payday; her check was more than likely waiting on Clifton’s desk. She parked in her usual spot and went to the restaurant’s front door. She knocked a few times and was about to give up hope when Shane appeared at the kitchen door.
Shane smiled, crossed the dark and empty dining room, and let Molly in. “Hey. How’d...whatever it was...go?”
“Fine.”
“You look like you’ve been crying. Are you okay?”
“Really good,” Molly assured her. She squeezed Shane’s hand and said, “Thank you for asking. Are the checks still on Clifton’s desk?”
