by Lynn Ames
“Bet you say that to all the girls,” Claudia said, her words becoming slurred and slow.
“There’s only ever been one girl who had my heart, and she’s right here in my arms.” Jessie felt her eyelids grow heavy. She tucked Claudia tightly against her and got them comfortable. “Sweet dreams, love. I’ll see you there.”
“See you there.” Claudia repeated, as her breathing evened out into sleep.
The sound of Claudia’s uneven breaths awakened Jessie. She lifted her head and watched Claudia’s chest rise and fall. It seemed as if she was struggling for air. Jessie felt panic rise up inside her. Then Claudia’s eyes opened.
“Are you okay, sugar?”
“Me? I’m fine. Are you okay?”
“I’m still here, and that’s something.”
“Yes, it is.”
“What time is it?”
Jessie glanced at the large digital clock on the bedside table. “Three twenty-five in the morning.”
“Time is slipping away.”
“Don’t say that.” Jessie stroked Claudia’s cheek.
“It’s the truth.” Claudia shrugged. “So I have another special request.”
“I’m all ears, love.”
“I want to sit out on the porch swing with you and look at the stars one last time.”
Of all the things Jessie imagined Claudia might ask for, that wasn’t it. “Okay.” She thought about trying to carry Claudia outside. She was too afraid she’d drop her. “Let me get us dressed again, and I’ll ask Cecily to help me get you to the swing.”
“That would be lovely.”
The porch swing was remarkably comfortable, and Jessie rocked them gently as Claudia leaned into her welcoming embrace.
“Aren’t they gorgeous, sugar?” Claudia asked, looking up at the stars. “Just like I remember when we were flying, only they were a lot closer then.”
“When’s the last time you flew?”
“Natalie took me up last year so I could admire the new plane. Boy, imagine if we’d had something like that back in the war.”
“It sure is a honey.”
“Did she let you fly it?”
“She threatened to make me land it just to prove all your boasting about me was deserved.”
Claudia chuckled. “I bet you’d have brought her in smooth as silk.”
“You overestimate my abilities these days. I did, however, fly it on autopilot for a couple of minutes while she stretched her legs. Didn’t crash it or take us off-course, so I suppose that’s something.”
They were quiet for several minutes as they enjoyed the light breeze and the sounds of nighttime. It was Jessie who broke the silence. “She’s a great girl, Claude. Natalie, I mean. You did a fantastic job with her.”
Claudia reached up and kissed Jessie’s chin. “Yeah, she’s pretty special, isn’t she? I’d like to take all the credit for that, but really, it’s just who she is.”
“You’re too modest. I-I’m glad I got a little chance to know her.”
“I’m glad too, sugar. I always hoped you’d get to meet her in my lifetime.”
“Sorry it took me so long.” Jessie shifted uncomfortably. She knew it would be hard, but there were things that needed to be said, conversations that needed to occur while there still was time. “Claude?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I’m sorry for everything. I shouldn’t have believed you that day when you came out of the woods, and I certainly shouldn’t have believed you that morning in Vegas.” There, she’d said it.
“You had no reason to doubt me, sugar. You have nothing to apologize for. I don’t know how I would have felt in your place.”
“I should have known you would never two-time me and especially not with a piece of trash like Matt. If I’d had more self-confidence and believed I deserved you…”
“It was my fault, Jess,” Claudia said so quietly Jessie had to strain to hear her. “It was all my fault.”
“What? What was your fault?”
“All of it.”
“Don’t you dare take responsibility for what that monster did to you.” Jessie’s body shook with rage.
“I was so sure…” Claudia’s voice cracked and she took a second to compose herself. “I was so sure I could handle him. So sure he was a harmless blowhard. So sure appearing to date a boy would throw off suspicion and he would never come between us. It was my pride and arrogance that led to what happened.”
Jessie struggled to sit up a little straighter and pulled Claudia with her. She turned so that they were face-to-face. She needed Claudia to see what was in her eyes and what was in her heart. “You listen to me. I know you didn’t go on that walk willingly. I know you fought hard. I know you tried to stop him and couldn’t. I know he hurt you physically, and I can’t imagine what he did to you emotionally. I know if I could, I would hunt him down even now and strangle him with my bare hands—after I finished cutting off his genitals. So don’t you, even for a second, sit there and believe any of it was your doing.”
“But, Jess—”
“No, Claude. Matt did what he did and took what he took, not because of anything you did or didn’t do. It really had very little to do with you. He was a nasty, hateful, hate-filled, mean, arrogant, entitled SOB who preyed on an innocent girl.” Jessie’s eyes opened wider, as everything clicked into place for her. “In the end, he accomplished exactly what he set out to do—he took you away from me. That was always his goal, don’t you see?”
Claudia nodded slowly. “I suppose you’re right. If I’d been less traumatized, frightened, and frantic, I might have understood that. But alas, we can’t go back and undo what was done so long ago, can we?”
“God, I wish we could, Claude. I’ve missed you so much.”
“Surely, you haven’t been alone all this time?”
Jessie’s ears burned with shame. “I wish I could say I’d been as nobly celibate as you, but you were always the stronger one. I’ve done many things I’m not proud of.”
“Don’t be ashamed to have found love, sugar. I always wished that for you. It’s another reason why I didn’t try to find you. Knowing how you felt when we parted, I was convinced that you would forget about me and move on, find someone you could love, and live happily ever after. I didn’t want to be selfish and interfere with that.”
“Love?” Jessie laughed harshly. “Who said anything about love? You are the only person I’ve ever loved, sweetheart. I had sex with other women to punish myself—to remind myself that I wasn’t good enough for anything more than a passing fling. I let them use me, and I used them. I never allowed myself to get emotionally involved with any of them. Heck, I never even had sex with the same woman twice.”
“Oh, Jess.” Claudia closed her eyes. “That must have felt so empty.”
“That was the point. I was empty. The only woman who filled my heart had chosen another path—so I believed, anyway.” Jessie shook her head. “Did you really not try to find me because you didn’t want to disrupt my life?”
“That was part of it. It was complicated, sugar.”
“I’m listening.”
“The things Matt did to me that day.” Claudia swallowed hard. “The things he said he would do to you if I told. I was terrified for you. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow him to destroy you. I knew you, sugar—you wouldn’t have been able to live with the idea that a boy, especially one like Matt, could overpower you. But he could have. He was savage.” Unconsciously, Claudia fisted her hand in Jessie’s nightshirt. “And I knew that if I told you the truth, you would have gone after him. He would have enjoyed breaking you and believe me, he would have. So you see”—Claudia looked up at Jessie, tears spilling onto her cheeks—“he won either way. This way, at least I knew you were physically and emotionally safe from his brand of torture.”
Jessie captured one of Claudia’s tears on her fingertip. “And all those years afterward? You could’ve come to me. Surely his threat didn’t carry all that weight
so many years later?”
“My fear of him and what he was capable of never lessened, sugar. The memory of what he did, how his face looked, what his voice sounded like…that never faded. Many nights I woke screaming in the middle of the night, sweat pouring off me, picturing him looming over you.”
“I’m so sorry, Claude.”
“Me too. And then there was Natalie’s safety to consider. You and I were the only ones who knew who her father was. If I went to you and he somehow found out, he would be able to figure out that Natalie was his, and I could have lost her to that monster. God only knows what he would have done.”
“Logically speaking, the chances that he would have carried out his threats after returning from the war were slim. You know that, right?”
Claudia shook her head. “Not to me they weren’t.”
“I suppose that kind of terror isn’t logically based, is it?”
“No.” Claudia sighed heavily and rested her head again on Jessie’s shoulder. Jessie could see that she was tiring.
“Do you want to go back inside, love?”
“In a minute. I don’t want all that ugliness to be the last thing we think about out here on this beautiful night, when there are so many stars in the sky.”
“Okay.” Jessie searched her brain for a pleasant topic. “So you let Natalie get her pilot’s license, after all. And you flew big muckety-mucks all over the place. Good for you, Claude.”
Claudia smiled. “Like you, flying was in my blood. I couldn’t just walk away altogether.” She hugged Jessie tighter. “Did you go back to flying when you got home?”
“For a short spell right after the WASPs. But then I moved to New York City and I gave it up for a long while.”
“Then you found it again?”
“I did.” Jessie smiled at the memory. “I met a gay boy who called himself Lila. He rescued me from being arrested one night outside a gay bar in Greenwich Village.”
“Jessie!”
“Well, I did find my share of trouble…or, more accurately, it found me.” Jessie stroked Claudia’s hair. “Anyway, Lila was much younger. He’d been a pilot in the Vietnam War. He convinced me to fly with him. So on weekends we’d go up.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“Oh, I wish you could have met him, Claude. You would have been fast friends.”
“He sounds special.”
Jessie turned wistful. “He was the only friend I ever had other than you.”
“What happened to him?”
“He died in my arms in 1987. AIDS.”
Claudia rubbed Jessie’s heart. “I’m sorry, sugar.”
“Me too. Like I said, you really would have loved each other. I used to talk to him all the time about you.”
“About me?”
“That’s right. He was the only one I ever told our story to. He used to give me a really hard time—called me a dunder-headed fool for not trying harder to chase you down.”
Jessie put two fingers under Claudia’s chin and tipped it up until their eyes met. “I did try to find you once.”
Claudia gasped and put trembling fingers to her lips. “You did?”
“Hired a private detective, but he had no luck. That was a lot of years ago. I’m sorry I didn’t pursue it again.” Jessie thought once more about the deathbed promise Lila extracted from her. She imagined that Lila was smiling down on them now.
Claudia shuddered against her. “Claude?”
“I’m afraid I’m fading on you, sugar.”
“Let’s get you back to bed.”
“In a second. Kiss me under the stars, Jess. Let’s pretend we can turn back the clock and do it all over again.”
Jessie cupped Claudia’s neck and closed the distance between them. “I love you, Claude. Now and always.”
“I love you, sugar. Always and forever.”
The kiss lasted a long time, each of them giving and taking and giving some more, until the intervening time and all that had come between them disappeared. All that was left was the purity of a love strong enough to span sixty-seven years.
Eventually, Jessie pulled back. The stars twinkled above, and the very beginning traces of a pink and orange sunrise shown on the horizon. “It’s time for us to go, love.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
Jessie rang the bell to summon Cecily so she could help get Claudia back inside.
When they were resettled in the bed, Jessie looked up at Cecily. “Thank you for making that happen.”
“No problem. Everything okay?”
Jessie considered. “Yeah. It is.”
“You need anything else?”
Jessie looked down at the woman she held in her arms. “No. I’ve got everything I need right here.”
“I’d say that goes for her too,” Cecily said with a smile, indicating the expression on Claudia’s sleepy face. Cecily waved at Jessie and took her leave.
For a moment, Jessie simply watched Claudia as sleep took her. She was as beautiful as ever.
“I love you, Jess,” Claudia mumbled. “You’re my one and only.”
“I love you too, Claude. You’ll always be my girl.” She tucked Claudia’s head under her chin and fell asleep.
In her dream, Jessie saw Claudia and Lila together. Together?
“Hey, Jess. You were right about her, she’s gorgeous, you old son-of-a-gun.” Lila looked young and vibrant, much as he had the night he’d rescued her from the paddy wagon.
Claudia was twenty again and radiant. “Come on, sugar. Join us. It’s beautiful here. The skies are limitless and the stars are breathtaking. We could fly forever.”
Claudia held out her hands and beckoned, and Jessie gladly took them.
The End
About the Author
An award-winning former broadcast journalist, former press secretary to the New York state senate minority leader, former public information officer for the nation’s third largest prison system, and former editor of a national art magazine, Lynn Ames is a nationally recognized speaker and CEO of a public relations firm with a particular expertise in image, crisis communications planning, and crisis management.
Ms. Ames’s other works include The Price of Fame (Book One in the Kate & Jay trilogy), The Cost of Commitment (Book Two in the Kate & Jay trilogy), The Value of Valor (winner of the 2007 Arizona Book Award and Book Three in the Kate & Jay trilogy), One ~ Love (formerly published as The Flip Side of Desire), Heartsong, and Outsiders (winner of a 2010 Golden Crown Literary award).
More about the author, including contact information, news about sequels and other original upcoming works, pictures of locations mentioned in this novel, links to resources related to issues raised in this book, author interviews, and purchasing assistance can be found at www.lynnames.com.
You can purchase other Phoenix Rising Press books online at www.phoenixrisingpress.com or at your local bookstore.
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