by C D Cain
“No. You’re right. I like this place being my own and I don’t think he could keep it from Charlie Grace. I wouldn’t want to ask him to keep a secret from her. That wouldn’t be right.” I pulled at a piece of splintered wood underneath my finger. “So, you didn’t see her or talk to her?”
“Nope.”
I felt a tightness in my throat. I was unsure as to how much Flossie knew. How much anyone or everyone knew. “What all do you know?”
“From what I can piece together, it done sound like you got caught with’n yo’ hand in the cookie jar.”
“Something like that.” I pulled the splintered wood completely free and played with it in my hands. “It was horrible, Flossie. If ever there was a wrong way to come out, that was it.”
“Ah hell, sis. None of us gone have life figured out and ‘bout the time we done think we do something gonna slap us in the face. You can plan all you be wanting, don’t mean it gonna happen dat way.”
“This would definitely fall into that category. Do you know she told Grant?”
She turned from gazing at the water and squinted at me. “Yep. Dat little piece right der part of the reason old Jacques fit to be tied. He done tired of her sticking her nose in yo business.” She put her hand over the top of mine. “It look like to me with these here old eyes dat it all in place fo you now.”
“What do you mean?”
“It all out now. Maybe not the way you were a’wanting but it all out. You free to do what you want. Free to live the way you be wanting.”
“Yeah. Free to be alone. Free to not have a home to come back to anymore.”
“What you spouting off?”
I threw the piece of wood out into the water. “I’m not welcome here anymore, Flossie. Charlie Grace told me she couldn’t love me like this. That she couldn’t love a daughter who was going to hell.” I covered my eyes with my hands and rubbed the tears away.
Flossie straightened the slump in her back. “She said dat to you? She said dem words to you?”
“Well, she didn’t say the word ‘hell’ but, yeah, pretty much everything else. She said she couldn’t love me if I was like this. Said she wouldn’t see me in eternal life. Didn’t leave much to the imagination that she was basically telling me I was going straight to Hell. She said she wished she had never given birth to me.”
The paper-thin skin of Flossie’s hand tightened across her knuckles as she balled her fingers into a fist. “Oooooh. Dat woman gone bring a hurtin’ on herself she speak dem words around me. Addie done turning over in her grave right ‘bout now. Charlie Grace done said dem words gone make me face her.” Her voice was elevated and shook with emotion.
I placed a reassuring hand on her arm. “Don’t get worked up about it. You know she probably feels like most will feel when all of this comes out. They aren’t going to think like you and Meems.”
She turned her body to face me. “How you know’d dat? You ever talked to any of dem ‘bout dis? You ever given any of dem a chance? Yo momma ain’t speakin’ for dis town, sweet girl. She ain’t the voice of dis town. I’d say many a folk gone be might pissed off they ever know dem words she done said to you.”
“Flossie, I have to face facts. Face the truth. I can’t pretend it’ll all be okay and I can just move back here as if nothing has changed.”
“And what done changed?”
“I’m a lesbian!” I didn’t mean to yell.
“What? You tweren’t no lesbian when you were home for Thanksgiving? What, you all of a sudden dis woman? You gone tell me you not have these same feelings…been dis same woman last Thanksgiving when Addie and I done watched you with your friend? Dat you not been dis same women that growed up in this town?”
“No.” I ran my finger over the roughened wood I had pulled the piece from. “I’m not saying that.”
“We all done loved you den. We all gone love you now. You ain’t no different den the girl we done watched grow up into a fine young woman.”
I looked up into her eyes. They weren’t blue like the ones I had thought of a few minutes ago but they were tender. “Do you really believe that?”
“With all my heart.” She shook her head with emphasis and pulled me in tightly for a hug.
Brown sugar and honey.
“You gotta give us a chance,” she whispered. “Give yo’ people a chance. Dis town a chance.”
The vibration of my phone interrupted her hug. My heart leapt into my throat for fear it was Charlie Grace’s name on the screen. I doubted I could handle anymore of her words.
Flossie’s eyes followed mine to the phone in my lap. “Dat one of your new friends?”
Mo’s name flashed on the screen and I felt a smile try to take over the hurt. “Yes, it is.”
She smiled back at me. “Den why don’t you answer dat while I go call Jacques and get these groceries cooked up.” She pointed to the pickup truck pulled up next to the house.
“You’re staying with me?”
“Always.” She stood up. “Now you best be gettin dat phone.”
“I think I will.” I pushed the button to accept the call while I let the happiness of seeing her name, the excitement of hearing her voice soar through me. It was quickly followed by a nervousness as to why she was calling.
“Hi.”
“Hi. Jaz told me you went home.” She sounded nervous too. “How are you doing?”
“I’m hanging in. How are you?”
“I’m hanging in too.” She paused. “So, how bad is it?”
“Probably as bad as you could imagine.”
“Are you coming back to Birmingham?”
A large oak leaf drained of its color floated in the breeze that blew high in the trees. I watched its stem hold firmly onto the branch as the wind lifted it up within its current. “Not right now. I’m drained. Physically. Emotionally. I’m just drained. I honestly don’t think I could make the drive until I can get a little bit of rest.”
“Do you have friends there you can stay with or are you staying with your mother?”
“Oh no. I’m not welcome there. If I have any doubts or confusion in all of this, that’s one thing I can hold certain. I’m not welcome in my home.” I watched Flossie carry grocery bags from the truck into the cabin. She caught me looking at her and waved. “But I’m not alone. I’m staying with a friend.” I paused. “No, I’m staying with family at my cabin.”
She was quiet except for her breathing. “Hey, Rayne?”
“Yes?”
“Do you have doubts and confusion?”
“Well, yeah, of course I do.”
“About being a lesbian?”
I watched the leaf take another ride in the force of the wind. “Not about being who I am. Not about that. I have my doubts as to what the road ahead will be but not about who I am.”
“And what are your thoughts about me? Do you have doubts and confusion about me?” Her voice was even more nervous than it was before.
“Well, to be honest, I’m a little confused. I’m surprised you called.”
“Can’t say I blame you there. And doubts?”
“No. I can’t say I have those. In fact, I’ve actually never been surer of what I want from you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“This that you want, would it be the same you asked me for in your apartment?”
“The very same.”
She took in a deep breath. “What if I disappoint you?”
“And what if I disappoint you, Mo? We don’t know what each other will need in the future. We don’t. How can we possibly know if we are going to be all they need when those times come? But what I do know is, you’re here. You called me. You’re here now. That’s what’s important to me. For once, I want to live in today and not my carefully planned out future.”
“Well, alright then.” I heard the smile in her words. “So, what are you doing tomorrow?”
The breeze was becoming cooler as it lowered closer to the water. I drew my legs up against me to try to overcome the damp chill of it. “Tomorrow? I’m not sure. Why? What do you have in mind?”
“I was thinking maybe you could drive over to Baton Rouge and pick me up at the airport.”
“You’re flying into Louisiana tomorrow?”
“I thought maybe you could use some company driving back.” She hesitated for a moment. “And besides, I miss you. I need to see you.”
The smile I had felt when I saw her name as the caller was nothing compared to the smile I was wearing now. “Watch out, Mo. You’re getting dangerously close to acting like a girlfriend.”
She laughed. “I know. It’s pretty scary, huh?”
“Not to me, but how are you handling it?”
“I think it might look good on me.”
I caught sight of the leaf as its stem gave away from the branch to be carried gently in the air until it landed on the surface of the bayou. Its ripple altered the mirrored reflection of the trees lining the water’s edge. It floated away until it was lost in the brilliance of the sun on the water. It was free to drift into parts unknown. There wasn’t a way to know what was beyond the future immediately in front of me. There wasn’t a way to see past the sun’s light. Yet I was free of the branch that held my stem. Free to set my own path as I drifted into the next phase of my life.
I held the phone against my chin and thought of the woman whose voice had brought me happiness and security at the height of the next phase of my life. I thought of the woman in the cabin who had come to make sure I wasn’t alone in the first steps of this new life. I thought of Jazlyn’s calm, friendly voice of comfort in my ear at a time when I felt my world spinning out of control. Then I looked up into the sky and thought of the woman who had loved me unconditionally.
It was these things I would hold on to. It was these women who would give me strength. And it would be these women that would walk this next path with me. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t alone. I turned from the sun as it dipped lower in the sky and let the heat warm my back as I walked toward the cabin. Tomorrow was a new day.
My phone vibrated yet again in my hand. I chuckled at the thought of Mo calling me back so quickly.
“Wow. You really do miss me.” I didn’t even look at the screen before answering.
“Rayne.”
“Sam?”
“Yeah.” There was a long pause. “Can you talk?”
The weight of her heels carried on her fingertips grew exponentially with each step Samantha LeJeune took walking away from the only woman she ever loved. She wanted to turn back, take Rayne Storm into her arms and run away from everything that would keep them apart. The problem was Rayne wasn’t ready to give her what she needed to make a life with her. If she couldn’t run away with her, she would at least run away from her and all of the memories of Alabama. Without a clue as to her destination, she hit the road with nothing on her mind but healing her broken heart strong enough to never fall in love again.
Gentry Bell didn’t really have a home like others would describe. For her, home was a small town filled with suffocating memories of painful abuse and betrayal by those who were supposed to love her. There were only two woman who kept her from moving as far away as possible. The sudden passing of one of those women and a new job with the National Park Service, were her signs that it’s time for her to move on. She’s never feared being on her own or venturing out into the unknown. Actually, it has always been her breath of life. But this time, she isn’t alone. Maybe the silence of the wilderness will have the answer she needs to decide what to do about the baby she is carrying.
An immediate connection develops when these two broken women meet on the road that carries them away from the life they were living. But will it be enough to open their hearts to trust again? And if so, will they be strong enough to hold onto that connection when an unborn child seems to be pointing them to return back to a home where memories of trauma and a first love are still ever so present in each of their hearts?
CD Cain grew up in Louisiana fishing the bayou cutoff with her papaw, gardening vegetables with her mamaw and riding her three-wheeler in the woods when given a full tank of gas. These childhood memories are the essence of her Louisiana roots. A woman torn between medicine and creative writing, she eventually decided to do both. When she’s not trying to find precious bits of time around her clinic practice to write, she’s somewhere out and about enjoying nature. This may be paddling on the water, hiking a trail, basking in the view from a mountain or simply sipping a glass of red wine while sitting on her backporch. She lives in Georgia with her wife, son and furbabies. She always enjoys hearing from readers and can be followed at www.cdcainauthor.com.