No One But You

by Catherine Maiorisis

  In the end, they agreed to abide by the rules that Robin and Lily had set down.

  The third round of telling was easier. Their closest friends came to support them at the brunch to announce their breakup to the others in their circle.

  After everyone had eaten and they were socializing, Lily and Robin stood and Lily clinked a knife on a glass. The chatter stopped. “Robin and I have something to share with you.” Lily took a deep breath. “We’re separating.” She waited, giving their friends time to absorb what she’d said. “It’s amicable and a mutual decision. We don’t want you to feel you have to take sides, but we do ask you to avoid inviting us to the same events and to avoid talking to Robin about me and Jess or talking to me about Robin for at least a year.”

  The shocked silence was followed by expressions of sorrow, but no one pressed for reasons. Within fifteen minutes, Lily and Robin were alone except for the two women hired to serve and cleanup the brunch. Lily sat in the rocker in the bedroom feeding Jess and Robin went for a walk.

  It took another month for them to finally separate. Lily and Jess moved into her large sunny apartment in the building overlooking Central Park. Robin rented a loft in Tribeca, and there was a buyers’ bidding war for their apartment in Battery Park City. All the financial arrangements were in place. Jan agreed to act as the intermediary so they wouldn’t have to talk to each other.

  And that was that.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Separation

  Breaking up is easy. But if you’re still deeply in love with each other surviving the breakup is hard. Lily felt as if Robin had died. But she hadn’t. She’d chosen to leave. The emptiness of life without Robin was unimaginable. Although Robin’s playful and fun side had been in short supply during the stress and turmoil of the last few months, her love and gentleness had always wrapped Lily in a warm blanket of security. Without that comfort, Lily drifted in a fog of grief and longing, unable to write or focus on anything. Other than responding to Jess’s demands to be fed, she left her care to the live-in nurse. She lay on the sofa and watched reruns of programs like Castle, Bones and Law and Order. She tried to forget. But though her heart was broken, her mind was whole and cluttered with memories it wanted to share.

  They let her wallow in her pain for ten days, then strong hands pulled her into a sitting position and shook her. She assumed it was the nurse, who had been manhandling her, shoving Jess into her arms and pulling Jess away from her, annoying the hell out of her. But when she forced her eyes open it wasn’t the nurse but Cordy on her knees and Del hovering just behind, their eyes filled with compassion. And pain. She struggled to come back from the memories she’d been watching in rerun. From a distance she felt Del brush the hair off her forehead. “Come, Lily baby, time for you to take a shower.”

  Her sweatpants, actually Robin’s, were too long, and she tripped as her mamas led her into the bathroom. Cordy braced her as Del stripped off her sweatpants and T-shirt, then Cordy helped her into the shower. Under the hot water, with Cordy’s hands on her waist, she struggled to emerge from the haze. After fifteen minutes she felt able to stand on her own. She peeled Cordy’s hands off. “I can be on my own, Mama. I’m going to wash and then shampoo my hair. I’ll be out in a while.”

  Cordy stepped back but remained in the bathroom, watching.

  Lily sniffed. How pathetic. She smelled. Squeezing gel on her body, she methodically cleaned herself, then applied shampoo and did the same with her hair. She kept her back to Cordy so she wouldn’t see her tears. Robin loved this rosemary shampoo and used to bury her face in Lily’s hair and inhale. Frequently, it ended in their making love. The tears flowed as she massaged in the rosemary conditioner. They’d made love often in their last few weeks together. It had been tender and loving and sad.

  “Time to finish up, Lily.”

  She should have known she couldn’t fool Cordy. “Coming.”

  Cordy wrapped her in a towel and held her close. She whispered. “Be brave for Jess, my sweet girl. Your pain won’t go away, but it will get better. Jess has only one mama now and she needs you to be present.”

  Lily used the towel to dry her tears. “I’ll try, Mama. It’s just…I feel so alone without Robin.”

  “You’re not alone, Lily. It’s not the same, but you’re surrounded by love. Your mamas and your friends are here. We want to take care of you. Don’t leave us and Jess.”

  The pain in Cordy’s face shocked Lily. Cordy was the rational one, the one who rarely showed a lot of emotion. Lily stroked Cordy’s face. “I’ll try, Mama. I swear I’ll try.”

  For the next two months, Lily was not alone. Her mamas discharged the nurse and moved in with her so she had company day and night, and if one of them couldn’t be there during the day, Annie or Emma or Nicole or another friend was recruited. They helped her with Jess, held her when she cried, hugged her when she was down and soothed her when she was agitated. Initially, Lily felt like a fish in an aquarium, separated from everyone by a glass wall that only she knew was there, a wall that prevented them from seeing and hearing the memories on continuous play in the background of her mind.

  Only Jess penetrated the wall. Her beautiful green eyes so like Robin’s followed Lily’s every move and whether she was nursing or eating or sitting quietly, she demanded Lily’s full attention. And though she couldn’t actually speak, she looked Lily in the eye and chatted constantly, obviously trying to talk.

  Her first word came one evening when Lily was reading her a bedtime story. The mamas and Lily stared wide-eyed at each other. When Lily laughed and hugged her, Jess giggled, wriggled her fanny, waved her arms and repeated the word. “Book, book, book.” The “k” wasn’t quite there yet, but there was no doubt she was saying “book.”

  It seemed like a miracle. In the five and a half months since Jess had been home from the hospital she had been tested for everything they could possibly test for, including deafness, blindness and neurological problems, and they had found no indicators of serious deficits. But this early speech seemed to indicate that not only had she been spared but that she was exceptional. Like her mother. Enchanted, Lily increased her reading time. The more she read, the more excited Jess got when she saw the books come out. Soon Jess was pushing books away when they didn’t interest her and nodding her approval at others.

  But the mamas were concerned that Lily showed little interest in anything other than Jess, and they gently encouraged her to get back to work. Del, of course, was more direct than Cordy. “I don’t care what it is, darlin’, write what you’re feeling, start a novel or a short story or an essay, just put your butt in the chair and write. I’ll entertain Jess. Or should I say, she’ll entertain me?”

  She tried. Every day for almost three weeks she went into her office, turned on the computer and sat in front of a blank screen, unable to think, unable to find words, any words. Then one day her mind wandered to how like Robin Jess appeared to be, and suddenly she felt an overwhelming urge to share Jess’s phenomenal intellectual growth with Robin. Not only was Jess’s vocabulary increasing exponentially every day, but she was putting words together into sentences. She couldn’t see or talk to Robin right now, but writing about Jess would give Robin and Jess a history of Jess’s early childhood.

  She opened a new folder, labeled it JESS HISTORY and started to write. Several hours later she stood, stretched and walked to the window. She blinked. How was it that she hadn’t noticed the vibrant reds and yellows and oranges of the leaves in Central Park? She shook her head. Her relationship was dead. Not her. And certainly not Jess. Whatever the problem, Lily knew Robin wouldn’t want her to stop living, that she would want her to take care of herself and Jess.

  She breathed deeply, did a few yoga stretches and went back to her computer, feeling lighter than she had for a while. She selected the folder for In a Lonely Place, the almost-complete literary novel she’d been working on before Jess was born, opened the file and began to read what she had written.


  She walked out of the office with a huge grin, brimming with ideas for changes and for the remaining chapters. The glass wall had cracked and the fog had lifted. For the first time since Robin left, she felt almost like herself.

  In the living room, she stopped to watch Cordy and Jess reading on the sofa.

  Jess pointed. “Mama is here.”

  Lily grinned. “Hey, baby girl, you reading with grandma Cordy?”

  Cordy glanced up at her as Del came out of the kitchen. The relief on both their faces at seeing her looking relaxed and happy brought home again how lucky she was to have such loving parents.

  “Reading ‘bout stars, Mama.”

  Robin had bought glow-in-the-dark stars and planets for the ceiling in Jess’s room but never installed them. When they’d moved into this apartment, Cordy found them in a box and pasted them up to replicate the solar system. Thrilled that Jess was showing an interest in science, especially space and stars, Cordy had been buying books for her. “I have free books.”

  Cordy’s eyebrows shot up. She pointed to the two books Jess was holding, then lifted the one she’d been reading from.

  Three. Three books. Her daughter was counting. “Did you teach her to count, Cordy?”

  “Not me.” Cordy turned to Del. “You?”

  Del’s eyes were huge. “Not me. I didn’t think she…no.”

  Lily swooped Jess off the sofa. “My wonderful, sweet, genius baby. I love you.” She twirled around.

  Jess screamed with delight. “Fun, Mama.”

  The next day Lily needed no prodding to go into the office. Now that the dam had broken, words were flowing and she had no problem getting back into the novel. A week later the mamas went back to their own apartment. Lily wanted to spend as much time as she could with Jess and still have time to write. Cordy recommended a few Columbia graduate students as sitters, and Lily scheduled them for two-hour slots around Jess’s naptimes in the morning and afternoon.

  With the ache for Robin constantly thrumming in the background, Lily immersed herself in Jess and her writing. But she didn’t go back to the solitary life she’d led before Robin. Enamored of their grandchild, the mamas, and sometimes Annie and Emma, came for dinner two or three times a week. She had lunch or dinner almost every week with Katie and Michael or Jan or all three. Nicole and Nora had tough schedules but stopped by for coffee or a meal when they were able. And Mei and Winnie stopped by with their spouses when they were in town. Jess charmed them all, and a part of Lily was sure they only came to spend time with the baby.

  All her visitors scrupulously avoided mentioning Robin. As worried as she was about Robin and as difficult as not knowing was, Lily fought the inclination to ask, but from the rare fragment of information she picked up, she gathered Robin had pulled away from everyone, including Katie, and rarely saw anyone outside of work. Her heart ached for her love, alone and in pain.

  With a few weeks of concentrated effort, she’d finished In a Lonely Place. Her publisher loved it and rushed to bring it out for the holidays.

  They’d been living apart seven months at this point. She tried to control herself, but she couldn’t and read the business news, the gossip columns and the gay press in the papers and online every day. Initially, the only mention of Robin was an article about her living in Milan due to a problem in the DCTI office there. Toward the end of the year Robin’s picture began appearing, usually with a beautiful woman on her arm. A different woman every time, Lily was happy to see.

  When her book hit the bestseller list, Robin sent flowers and a note congratulating her on the great reviews. More surprising, she also sent Lily and year-old Jess tickets for a vacation at LezBeach, a lesbian resort, the first two weeks of February.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Robin to Milan

  Robin swiveled her chair toward her office door when she heard it open. Her heart stuttered at the sight of Katie with baby Mikie curled up in a sling on her chest. Curled up on Katie, safe and sound, seemed like a good place to be. If only.

  Katie rubbed Mikie’s back. “We have a problem.”

  She sounded stressed. Robin racked her brain trying to work out what she’d done to upset her. “I—”

  “The Milan office is in trouble. Giancarlo was seriously injured in a car accident last night, and we have no one there capable of running the office. I’ve reviewed the senior staff twenty times trying to figure out whom to send, but I haven’t come up with anyone I’d trust to recruit and train his replacement. Any suggestions?”

  Robin twirled her favorite fountain pen, the one Lily had sent when they were courting, and studied Katie. She’d distanced herself from Katie and everyone else to avoid the questions and their concern, but she hated the tension between them. Jan was the only friend who hadn’t allowed herself to be pushed away. Laidback, she made no demands, seemed to understand Robin’s need for silence and treated her, as always, with loving, irreverent humor. They chatted and had dinner once in a while, but she knew Jan’s ultimate aim was to get her to talk and that made her uneasy. Katie rocked gently from side to side. “Well?”

  Mikie was as close to a nephew as she’d likely ever have and she’d never even held him. Had hardly looked at him. It hurt Katie. She wished she could tell Katie it was for his protection. After all who knew how dangerous she was. Maybe it wasn’t just her daughter she wanted to murder.

  “Robin, are you still a part of this business? How about some help here?”

  “I’ll go.” It just popped out of her mouth, but actually it was a great solution. An eight-hour plane ride away from Lily and Jess should keep them safe from her.

  “What the f—?”

  “It’s the perfect solution. We both know I haven’t been much good around here lately. A change of scenery might straighten out my head. I can Skype or FaceTime into the morning meetings, though it will be afternoon in Milan, and handle any issues that come up that way. You and I are the most qualified to recruit and train staff at that level. It makes sense.”

  Katie eased herself into the chair facing Robin’s desk. “Are you sure, Rob? You’ll be all alone in Italy.”

  She hoped her sadness didn’t show through the smile she offered. “Not much different from here, wouldn’t you say?”

  “True. But it’s a choice here and some of us…” She lifted her chin. “You know I’m available any time of the day or night whenever you’re ready to talk.”

  Robin pushed her fingers through her hair. “Maybe it’s better that I go away for a while. It’s hard with Lily so close. Did she tell you I called twice? The contact was too painful for her. She cried and begged me to abide by our agreement and not call again.” She lifted her shoulders. “So what do you think about Milan?”

  Katie patted Mikie’s behind. “You know I’m here for you, don’t you?”

  “I do, Katie, and I…I love you. Someday I’ll explain.” She turned away from Katie in case the tears prickling her eyes started to flow. “So are we agreed?” Her voice was almost a whisper.

  Katie hugged her from behind, Mikie a lump between them, almost as big as the lump in Robin’s throat. “I love you too, Rob.” She kissed the top of her head. “Go. Take care of business. Take care of yourself. And come back to me soon. I miss you. Besides, Mikie is going to need a playmate before too long.”

  Her office door opened. “I’ll ask Jan to make the arrangements.” The door closed softly, then opened again. “Call me from Milan anytime you want to talk.” Katie closed the door again, leaving Robin alone with her sadness.

  * * *

  After visiting Giancarlo in the hospital and meeting with his wife and doctors, it was clear to Robin his traumatic brain injury meant he’d be unable to work for a long time, if ever. Human Resources assured her the firm’s insurance would cover all costs and the disability policy would kick in when he’d exhausted his sick leave. She turned to recruiting.

  It took a month to find her, but she recruited a terrific Italian woman currently running
a smaller operation for a German company in Berlin who wanted to come home to Italy. In addition to Italian and German, Carla spoke English. Experience-, language-and personality-wise, she was perfect to run DCTI’s Milan office. Three weeks after she arrived, they hired a second-in-command so DCTI wouldn’t face this problem in the future.

  Aside from training the new staff, conferencing with the New York staff and an occasional dinner with Carla and other Milan staffers, Robin was alone. She walked for hours, ate good Italian food, visited the sights and museums of Milan and read. One morning she woke feeling rested. It wasn’t until she was in the shower that she realized she’d not only slept through the night, but she hadn’t had a nightmare. In fact, thinking about it as she dried off, she hadn’t had any daytime terrors in weeks. Could it be?

  At the office, she went through the overnight pouch Jan sent everyday from New York. Sipping her espresso and munching on a croissant, she read the mail, newspapers and the few reports that were not electronic, then moved on to the articles Jan clipped about DCTI and other items of interest. A sheet of paper with a note in Jan’s large scrawl was clipped to a stack of the articles.

  Danger: these articles are about Lily. Proceed at your own risk. Nothing bad, though. Love ya, miss ya.

  The articles were a mix of rave reviews for Lily’s new novel, In a Lonely Place, and interviews with Lily. She made herself another cup of espresso, then read through each of the interviews twice, searching for some hint of how Lily was doing, studying the professional headshots that accompanied the stories for clues to how she was feeling.

  The only thing she learned was that Lily had nearly finished the book when Jess was born, had put it aside to be with her in the NICU, and then took several months to get back to it. Flooded with shame and guilt and sadness, Robin rushed from the office with a curt nod to the receptionist. And walked. And thought.