by A. K. Rose
“Right, that makes sense. I tell you what, this isn’t my specialty, per se—unless you intend to become a deadbeat dad—but you definitely have rights in this. Keep it under wraps a little longer, okay? I’ll refer you to a good divorce lawyer in Houston to help you get through it. If you can manage to do this amicably—and I know that’s going to be a stretch—it will be best for Kevin. Wait, I didn’t ask, are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. A buddy of mine saw them at the Hampton Inn together a few weeks ago, so I got suspicious. I’ve been following her for a little while.”
“Okay, Stuart, the first thing is, stop following her. I can see why you’d want to, but don’t do it anymore, okay? If you’re right, you don’t also want to be the guy who followed his wife around building a case. Let the lawyers take care of that, okay?”
“Okay. Thank you, Cass, I mean it. Thank you. I haven’t told anyone about this, and just saying it out loud . . . just talking to you is such a relief. I’d better get you back to the party though. I don’t want that supermodel of yours getting lonely.”
Cassie felt bad for Stuart, but that didn’t stop her from giving him a hearty punch in the arm for his comments.
+ + +
Cassie found Rachel gathered around the island in her mom’s kitchen, tossing a salad and talking to a couple of her cousins.
“She put me to work,” Rachel said with a wink, apparently undisturbed by alone time with the group of strangers known as Cassie’s family.
“Looks like it. Everything okay while I was gone?”
“Yeah,” Rachel started, very aware of her present company, “I’ll tell you about it later. All good with your cousin?”
“Yep, just fine. Have you met . . .”
Just then, someone started clanging a utensil against a water glass in another room, summoning the crowd for dinner. Cassie had a seat front and center at her mother’s antique dining room table, marked with a name card in the shape of a pumpkin—clearly the work of the Cricket machine they’d seen earlier. Next to her spot sat a card with Rachel’s name on it, followed by cards for Claire and her husband Tom. Marion Hollander was doing her best.
“Dinner’s ready,” Marion announced, “Y’all help yourself and don’t be shy now.”
“You’re doing great,” Cassie whispered into her lover’s ear, “just a few more hours and we’re home free.”
As the small mob descended on the kitchen, Cassie found herself inexplicably grateful. This was a first. She was home for a holiday, surrounded by her family, with the one she loved, and everyone was being civil. She was older now, not as worried about what they’d think, but she didn’t expect the kind of welcome they’d received. No one had asked an embarrassing question, at least not yet, and even her mother was trying to make them feel comfortable. The times were changing, that was for certain.
The main table sat only eight people, a relief because it meant the conversation would be controllable. Claire’s partner Tom, with whom she used the word partner in support of her sister, pulled out a chair for Rachel with a smile, and the look Cassie shot him in return said very clearly, “mine.”
“I want to thank you all for coming,” Marion started, raising a glass of sparkling apple cider, “It is such a blessing to have everyone here under one roof as we partake in this wonderful holiday tradition and nourish our bodies with this gift of food from the body of Christ. Cheers.”
“Cheers,” came loudly in unison, Uncle Jim’s slightly slurring voice resonating over all the others. The crowd had dispersed to its normal seating arrangement. Kids in the game room, Marion’s children and her own siblings in the dining room, and all the rest sitting on couches and chairs or wherever they could find a spot.
I could use a real drink, Cassie thought, as she clinked a glass of cider with Tom. He was a good guy, she’d always thought. He was the yin to her sister’s yang, bushy brown hair and wilderness beard framing his gentle face in an endearing way. She was happy to have him in this scenario as a buffer; she’d need every ounce of help she could get as this conversation started. Something told her that her mother’s Nice Nancy routine couldn’t last forever.
“So, Rachel,” Marion started, as she cut a bite-sized piece of turkey on her plate, “how do you like being a dentist?”
“Oh, well, I mean, I love it. It sounds strange to love doing what I do . . . but I have always been into teeth. I was a bit of an odd duck as a kid . . . I always knew I’d be a dentist.”
“Oh, well that’s wonderful. Cassie was an odd duck too, you know. She was always a little bit different running around in her ragged jeans barefoot, climbing trees and building forts. I tried, but she never wanted to play with dolls and tea sets like Claire. She wanted to play with the boys, running around like a maniac. I just never did understand that much. I guess I should have known . . .”
So much for Marion trying to behave. She didn’t waste any time getting to the point. Hours’ worth of good intentions had just unraveled in thirty seconds.
“Mom, that’s not being odd,” Claire jumped in to help, an apologetic look on her face, “kids today don’t get forced into toys by gender roles, you know. And who cares, anyway? CJ likes his dolls, but he also has Legos and toy cars. If he wants to play with boys, that’s great, but if he wants to play with girls, that’s fine too.”
“Well, yes, it sounds good to say that, dear . . .”
“Mom,” Cassie acknowledged, putting her courtroom face on. She may have stood for this same-old conversation if she’d been alone, but she wasn’t, and she wasn’t going to take it anymore, especially with such a large group listening. “We’ve been over this a lot. No matter what you think, I didn’t choose to be ‘this way’ and I’m not going to change. I appreciate all you’ve done today to make us feel welcomed, but if you want to disparage me, you can do it while I’m not here. We’d be happy to leave.”
“No, no! Cassie, don’t be so sensitive. I didn’t mean it the way you took it, I’m sorry.” Marion backpedaled.
“I’m only sensitive because we have this conversation every time I come here, and I don’t want to have it now, in front of everyone, okay?”
“Yes, of course, okay. I’m sorry dear.”
“So, who has something more positive to say? Tom? Why don’t you tell us how it’s going with acupuncture?” Cassie had quickly and successfully neutralized her mother. The damage was done, of course. Even though she didn’t want to make a scene, she’d been forced to make a small one. Thankfully, it was contained to just one table and she had Claire on her side. She sat listening to Tom drone on about his acupuncture business—a topic he was always happy to discuss—with her right hand on Rachel’s thigh, an effort to comfort her amidst the awkwardness.
As dinner wound down and seconds had been had, an escape plan was hatched. They’d talked and mingled with Cassie’s family for the better part of a long day, a day that had started running a 5K in the pouring rain. It was late and she’d had more than enough family bonding. They’d been sitting on her mother’s couch listening to Jim’s Vietnam stories for over an hour when Cassie decided it was time to go. When there was a momentary lapse in conversation, and without thinking, she stood up and called the room to attention.
“Everyone, I want to thank you for your kindness and support today. Rachel and I are leaving, so you may begin talking about us in about two minutes. See you at Christmas.” She raised her right hand to her forehead and saluted no one in particular, then grabbed her shocked girlfriend’s hand and headed for the door, only to bump into her mother. Rachel was good for her—her usually nervous demeanor had been diminishing of late, the uptight nature of her personality softening.
“Momma,” she said as she offered a half hug, one hand still attached to Rachel’s. “We’ll see you later.”
“Bye honey, I’m glad you could come, and I’m sorry I made a big deal. You know I’m trying,” Marion shrugged in Rachel’s general direction looking for support. “It was lovely hav
ing you Rachel, and you’re welcome back any time. You two seem very happy together.”
“Bye Mrs. Hollander . . .”
“Please, honey, call me Marion. See you two girls later.”
+ + +
“That could have been so much worse,” Rachel said as they made their way down the paver walkway to Cassie’s Jeep. “It wasn’t that bad, honestly.”
“I know, I’m sorry I had a little blow-up at the table. It’s just, she does that every time I see her. She wants to revert to what she did wrong in my childhood that made me live my ‘unsavory’ lifestyle. I think I just snapped for a minute there. I’m so sorry if you were uncomfortable.” Cassie held the door for her girlfriend to hop up into her Jeep. She thought it looked better without running boards, but the result was a high step up and over the door jamb, and Rachel was wearing a skirt—two things that didn’t naturally go together.
“I thought you did great, honestly. Your family is really not that crazy, you know? I’d say they’re smack dab in the middle—they’re pretty normal.”
“If you say so.”
“So . . .” Rachel paused, unsure how to tell Cassie the one bizarre thing that had happened at the gathering. She usually didn’t have a lack of words, but this news was going to be unsettling.
“Oh, I don’t like where this is going. You’re not breaking up with me because of my mother are you?”
“Oh, God, no. Cass, it wasn’t that bad, trust me! But, there was something weird, and I don’t exactly know how to tell you about.”
“Did Uncle Jim not let you go? He gets like that you know; you can’t encourage him. You can’t give in and talk about A Clockwork Orange.”
“No, no, he was fine. Really. It’s your cousin’s wife, Jennifer.”
“Did you hear about her?” Cassie asked, suspicious. Stuart certainly wouldn’t have shared his news with Rachel, would he?
“Hear about her? No, something else. I excused myself from kitchen duty to go to the bathroom and get a little quiet time for a minute, and when I came out, she was waiting to go in.”
“Okay?”
“Cass, she propositioned me.”
“She what?!”
“She told me that if things didn’t work out between us, to give her a call. She wasn’t looking for anything more than a ‘good time,’ she said, and tried to give me her business card. I didn’t take it; I just thought you should know, that’s all.”
Cassie was taken aback by this admission. Twice in one day she’d found out something unsettling about her cousin’s wife, and she was having a hard time reconciling the conflicting news. She found herself tapping the steering wheel lightly as she processed the latest.
“Wow. Thank you for telling me—that probably wasn’t easy. I haven’t thought about Jennifer in a long time, and twice in one day I’ve received surprising news about her.”
“What do you mean? What did Stuart want to talk about?”
“You know, I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but considering what she did to you, it’s relevant. Stuart thinks she’s having an affair with her boss,” Cassie offered, considering. She had assumed Jennifer’s boss was a man, but hadn’t asked. Was that not the case?
“Wow, she really gets around, huh? Is the boss male?”
“You know,” Cassie started, “I don’t know. I didn’t ask because I just assumed so, but now, who knows? Stuart wanted my help to figure out what to do, and I told him I’d help him find a good lawyer. Now, I’m sure I’m going to help find him the best divorce lawyer in Houston. Where there’s smoke, there’s often fire, and that bitch crossed one line too many!”
FOURTEEN
Rachel survived Thanksgiving with Cassie’s family and found herself wondering if she’d see more of them. She wasn’t close with her own family; hadn’t been to Tennessee in years. Cassie’s family had been as welcoming as she could have expected—it most definitely could’ve been worse.
As they drove back to Austin the next day, she started thinking about her childhood, memories trickling back through a tiny pinhole, the dam she’d built years ago giving way just slightly. She was in the driver’s seat of Cassie’s Jeep, a sleeping blonde sitting beside her, head canted towards the window, the cutest little half-snores escaping every now and then.
They’d been up most of the night before, unable and unwilling to keep their hands off each other, and had agreed to take turns driving back to Austin so the other could sleep. It was a short drive in all reality, but Cassie fell asleep during the first shift and it looked like Rachel would be doing almost all of the drive by herself. Even though she didn’t give her parents credit for much, she was thankful her dad had taught her how to drive a stick shift all those years ago. They’d gone in the back pasture of the farm with an old F150 and practiced letting off the clutch and smoothly pressing the gas; moving the truck forward by finding the sweet spot where the clutch would engage on its own; going in reverse and parallel parking between two bales of hay. She hadn’t driven a stick in years; her Lexus was tricked out with all the bells and whistles, but Cassie loved that Jeep and loved to drive them around, so she obliged even though it drove like a tank compared to her luxury SUV.
The sun was out with intensity, a far cry from the rainstorm of just one day before, and Rachel thought about how she arrived in Texas after undergrad. She’d wanted to see something new, to escape the oppression of her family and her small hometown in East Tennessee, to branch out and spread her wings. She’d decided to go to dental school in Texas, much to her father’s dismay. He didn’t want her to leave the state. He tried to control her decisions; he threatened to disown her if she left, but he couldn’t keep a twenty-two year-old grown woman under his thumb, and she left without looking back.
Sure, they’d been civil to each other over the years. They’d even had some smiles and laughs from time-to-time, but they didn’t have the dream family by any means. For some reason, she thought about that photo on her dresser from her undergraduate graduation. That was the last time she remembered things being fairly easy with her parents. It was before they knew. Before the one thing that could apparently change their opinion about their daughter had come out, and ever since she’d told them, it had never been the same.
Now here she was, somewhere between Houston and Austin, driving home after a mostly peaceful, mostly enjoyable Thanksgiving dinner with a family that wasn’t her own. She’d had that one awkward encounter with Cassie’s cousin’s wife Jennifer, but otherwise, it was a good trip. Rachel started thinking about the future. She saw herself with Cassie, saw them building a life together, wanted to get to know her every quirk and fault, her curves and her edges. She loved the sleeping beauty sitting next to her and was thinking of doing something drastic.
No, Rachel told herself. It’s too soon. Not yet.
“Where are we?” Cassie was awake. She’d slept for more than ninety minutes—they’d be home in less than an hour.
“It won’t be long, we just got on Highway 71. Did you have a nice nap?”
“I did, thank you for driving . . . I had an interesting dream.” Cassie was running her fingers through her hair, trying to shake the sleep out of her head.
“You did? Tell me about it . . .”
“Well, it was still Thanksgiving. We had just gotten there, and when we went in, I introduced you to everyone as . . . my wife.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, is that weird for you?”
“Well, I don’t know. Is it weird for you?”
“Not at all.” Cassie was oddly calm in the moment, normally busy hands resting gently in her lap, fingers loosely intertwined and perfectly still. “I can see it. I really can see it.”
Rachel looked straight ahead at the road as she thought, taking in this news. A little more than one month together and one family gathering and she was pretty sure they were talking about a lifetime already. It was fast.
“You know what? I can see it, too . . . someday, yeah, I can see it.”
“Did my mom ask you about your five-year plan?” Cassie asked, curious.
Rachel smiled. Marion Hollander had in fact asked her all about her five-year plan, just as she’d been warned might happen. “She did, just like you predicted.”
“And?”
“I told her it was still unfolding and as far as her daughter was concerned, but I only had honorable intentions. Do you want to know what it looks like? The plan?”
“Of course I do . . .”
“Okay, well . . . I see it like this. I would love to move out to the country somewhere, you know, get some acreage. Nothing crazy—twenty acres would be plenty. I want to have animals. A horse, some sheep, chickens. Not an excessive amount, but an appropriate number. I want wide open spaces. I still want to work, but less, you know? Maybe three days a week. I love Austin, but I’m a farm girl at heart. I miss the quiet comforts of country life.” Rachel paused, realizing her five-year plan might be completely different from anything Cassie would like. After all, she lived in a high-rise downtown. That wasn’t exactly roughing it. “And, if I’m lucky, I’ll have someone special to share it with, to go on long walks with; to swing on a front porch swing with; to love. If I’m lucky . . . well, I see you in the picture, too. . .”
Cassie was hanging on every word of this dream as it was verbalized. She was having a slight out-of-body experience as Rachel described her perfect scenario—the country, the animals, the reduced workload. She didn’t know if all of that was feasible in five years, but Rachel’s dream aligned almost perfectly with her own.
“Cass? You haven’t said anything. Are you okay?”
“Yeah . . . it’s just . . . I just can’t believe how similar your dream is to mine. It’s really, really similar. It’s . . . perfect.”
“You mean you want to leave the city? You’d be okay with that? I thought you liked your shiny new apartment with all the sleek fixtures and view and all that?” Rachel was surprised by the admission. Could it be that their objectives were the same? It couldn’t be.