Marianne K. Martin - Love in the Balance

by Marianne K. Martin

  Tears streamed down Connie’s face. In helplessness, she witnessed her lover’s anguish, until the ringing of the phone pierced their private shock. Its ring, minuscule by comparison, made answering it seem vastly unimportant. She ignored it. But the voice called persuasively from the machine. “Kasey, Connie, this is Sage. Please pick up. I really need your help.” She stayed on the line, waiting.

  Dutifully Connie picked up the receiver and heard herself say, “This is Connie.”

  “Were you listening to the news?”

  “Yes.”

  “Believe me, you’re the last person I want to bother, but Sue isn’t home. Sharon’s hysterical. I don’t know what to do with her. I’ve got her car keys, but I don’t know where the key to the gun cabinet is. She’s threatening to kill him.”

  “It’s such a shock. Kasey’s ...” She hesitated. “She’s taking it very hard.” Connie paused again, wanting to make the right decision. “We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  She approached Kasey, now with her hands gripping the top of the six-foot fence, her head down. She was sobbing. Sliding her hands up over the top of Kasey’s, Connie pulled them from the boards and wrapped them and her arms around her. For the next few minutes, she held her. All she could do was offer what strength she had and the comfort of her arms. There was nothing she could say that would help. Finally, she whispered, “We’ve got to go to Sharon. She needs you.”

  They traveled the distance to Sharon’s in silence. Connie held Kasey’s hand as she drove. Kasey stared out the window and periodically wiped her eyes.

  “I don’t think it would help for Sharon to see me,” Connie said, pulling in the drive. “You go ahead. I’ll wait here. If you think you ought to stay, come let me know and I’ll go back home.” Kasey nodded and squeezed her hand, then hurried to the front door. Connie watched until she disappeared inside, then leaned her head back and tried to make some sort of sense of what had happened.

  “Kasey.” Sage’s voice was soft as she embraced her. “I’m so glad you’re here. Are you okay?”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “I haven’t had time to think about it yet.”They released their embrace as Sharon stormed up the stairs. “Here.” Sage handed Kasey a set of keys. “This is what she’s looking for.”

  Kasey slipped the keys in her pocket as Sharon burst into the room. There was urgency in each step, indignation in her eyes, and a rifle in her hand.

  “Kasey, good. C’mon, we gotta hurry. C’mon.” She grabbed Kasey’s arm forcefully, but Kasey stepped in front of her. “No, Kasey! Get out of my way!” she shouted. “I gotta get that bastard. He hurt ’em Kase, he hurt ’em bad.”

  Sharon continued pushing toward the door, but Kasey stayed in front of her. “It’s okay, Sharon, it’s okay. The police have him now.” Tears ran down her face. She struggled with her own composure, trying to muster the strength for two.

  But Sharon, shocked and angry, wasn’t easily calmed.

  “It’s not okay. It’s not! They need me.” She began to shake, tears spilling from her eyes as she repeated the words, “They need me.” But, she knew their futility now.

  “He can’t hurt them anymore.”

  Sharon looked into the sorrowful eyes and cried out loudly, “Oh, no! Oh, God, Kasey!” Suddenly their deaths were reality. “Why? Why?”

  Kasey put her arms around Sharon’s shoulders and embraced her. “I don’t know. I sure as hell don’t know.” In the comfort of Kasey’s embrace, Sharon loosened her grip on the gun. Kasey slipped it away and held it out to Sage. Sharon buried her face in Kasey’s shoulder and began to weep. Kasey gripped her hard, rocking her gently. “Shhh.” The words were almost impossible to form now. “No one can ever hurt them again.” With her last bit of control, she whispered, “They’re together. They’ll always be together.”

  Isolated in her own emotions, Connie didn’t see Sage approach the car until she tapped on the window. Her intrusion was unwelcome, but with rain falling consistently now, she motioned her in. “I won’t tolerate any indignities, Sage, so don’t even try.”

  “Dammit, Connie. Two very fine people are dead and my best friend is hysterical. What kind of a person do you think I am?” She hesitated, a look of annoyance quickly disappearing. “I wanted to thank you for getting here so quickly.”

  “I’m sorry.” Her apology offered, Connie turned her head to the window, leaned against the headrest, and closed her eyes. The ensuing silence was uncomfortable, the mixture of emotions almost unbearable. Anger, frustration, and anxiety were all taking their toll. But the one emotion tearing at them the hardest now was sorrow. It was probably the only one that could bring the two of them together.

  Sage spoke softly. “I’m sorry, too, for a lot of things. I just don’t know what to say right now.”

  Connie continued to stare blankly out the window. “The only thing we can do is try to help the two people we care most about get through this somehow.” She turned to find Sage, still staring out the window and nodding in agreement. Sage finally turned to meet Connie’s eyes.

  “Do you think they’ll be all right in there alone?”

  Connie asked.

  The concern Sage saw touched her. “They’ve been through so many crises together. They were there for each other when Sharon’s brother was killed and when Kasey’s mom died. And they helped each other through both breakups. I trust they’ll know how to get each other through this. We just have to let them need each other right now.”

  Sage leaned her head back against the window, tears making their way slowly down her face. “How could this happen? How could that bastard hurt such good people?”

  “I don’t know. I never thought I’d see such hatred against someone I knew.” Tears filled her eyes as thoughts of their warm hugs and gentle smiles came to mind. “They were so nice to me, from the first moment I met them. I’ll never be able to tell them how much that meant to me.” Tears flowed steadily now. “I almost lost my mother this summer. You’d think I would remember to thank people right away, to tell them how much I appreciate them.”

  “No one expected anything to happen to them.”

  “That’s just it. Things can happen so unexpectedly. And then it’s too late to say what’s in your heart or make things right with someone.”

  Long, slender fingers dragged their tips up and down the window track. Sage watched them as if they were someone else’s. Only a few feet apart, the women grieved privately, silently. Connie’s words had hit home; their personal implications awakened Sage’s well-protected conscience. The animosity she had been holding for this woman was suddenly exposed for just what it was—a selfish, impudent cover for her wounded pride. It was a difficult thing to put into words. She was embarrassed for having lacked the benevolence to handle the situation with Connie more maturely. Once again, the silence between them had become uncomfortable.

  The rain stopped. Connie rolled down the window and breathed deeply of the cool damp air. Although it momentarily lifted her depression, she felt guilty for enjoying it. She had lost sight of her grief for only a second. Now it was back and overwhelming. Mixed with shock and disbelief, there was no relief for it and no one to share it with, unless she and Sage could get themselves on level ground. “Sage, I know this is uncomfortable; it is for me, too. Maybe it would help if we talked about something else. Maybe we should talk about the problem between you and me.” Sage stared back at her with no distinguishable expression. “I know what happened between you and Kasey.”

  “She told me she was single.”

  “She was. I’m not faulting you for that at all. I probably would have done the same thing. But I also know Kasey would like to be friends with you, and realistically that just isn’t going to happen. Not unless you and I can get along, and trust each other.”

  Before Sage could respond, the front door opened. Both women watched as Kasey approached the car. “I’m sorry,” she said, peering in the driver’s window. “I didn’t
mean for you to have to wait so long.”

  “Is Sharon okay?”

  Kasey nodded, swollen eyes very serious.

  Connie touched her cheek tenderly. “How about you?”

  “I’ll be all right. It’ll help us both if we can stay busy. I called Evonne’s daughter.”

  “Good.”

  “The family’s gathering over there. Sharon and I’ll go over. Maybe there’s some way we can help. Are you two going to be okay?”

  “I’m going to ask Sage over to the house.” She looked to Sage for an affirmative nod. “We’ve got a lot to talk about. You do what you think is best about Sharon.”

  ‘Okay.” The faint smile Kasey gave Sage was the best she could offer.

  Connie leaned toward the window, kissed Kasey on the lips, and whispered, “I love you.” As they watched the retreat of Kasey’s saddened form, she realized how it may have looked. “I didn’t do that to be rude to you.”

  “I know. You did it because she needed it.”

  Neither was very talkative on the way to Connie’s. Sage and Connie each did a lot of soul-searching in those few miles. Not until they sat at either end of the couch, a cup of coffee in their hands, did Sage begin to open up. “You’re being much too nice to me for as nasty as I’ve been to you.”

  “Isn’t there a saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies even closer?”

  “You consider me an enemy?”

  “I don’t want to.” Connie peered at her over her cup as she took a sip. “Maybe there’s something we can say here that will help us take the first step toward understanding each other.”

  “I think we have taken the first step.” Her face softened, the sharp outline of her masseter muscles finally blending into her cheeks. “Since I first met you I’ve tried very hard not to like you. I wondered if you had even the slightest idea how lucky you were to be with Kasey.” Her unabashed eye contact changed abruptly. Sage lowered her eyes. “But what you said in the car really hit me. I would never want it to be left like that.” Once again her eyes lifted. “The truth is, I do like you. I think Kasey has excellent taste in women.”

  “That’s funny,” smiled Connie. “I thought the same thing at the party when I first realized who you were.”

  Honesty and the change in subject had a lifting effect on both women. Sage smiled for the first time all day. With her arm draped comfortably along the back of the couch, she looked noticeably more at ease. “Are we really into true confessions here?”

  “Why not? We’ve come this far.”

  Sage nodded. “It would have been very easy for me to fall in love with Kasey.”

  “It was easy for me.” Her eyes searched Sage’s reflectively. “I had no idea what was happening until it was too late.”

  “Too late?”

  “By the time I realized I was in love with her, I couldn’t stand a day going by without seeing her. When I told Kasey, it scared her and I thought I’d lost her. That’s when you met her.”

  “Things are making a whole lot more sense now.” As she hesitated, Connie began to see for the first time a part of Sage’s personality emerge that she had suspected was there all along. Without even moving, Sage seemed to have drawn closer. “I don’t want this to sound egotistical,” she was saying, “but I’ve never had a woman go that far before and stop. I didn’t know what to think. Actually, I thought about nothing but her until I found out about you.”

  “Then you could concentrate on disliking me.” She acknowledged Sage’s nod. “Is there anything I can say here that would help?”

  The corners of her lips turned ever so slightly. Her eyelids narrowed gently. “Maybe you could tell me that she’s very selfish or has a bad temper or displays obnoxiously annoying little habits.” She had Connie smiling now. “Or better yet, tell me she’s terrible in bed.”

  Connie raised her eyebrows with a gentle laugh. “Can’t do it.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “She is very stubborn, though.”

  “I saw that last weekend.”

  “She also takes on too much responsibility at one time, and she hates to cook.”

  “There it is,” Sage smiled. “I’ll have to find someone else, so I don’t starve.”

  At last, having shed much of their personal burden, they laughed. However temporary it was, it tempered the sadness of the day. Laughter, it seemed, had a way of healing, of soothing the sorrowed soul. So indeed they had taken a first step, and maybe more, toward a more healthy relationship. One they were both in need of.

  Sage looked intently into Connie’s eyes. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For letting me see how lucky Kasey is.”

  “You’re really very sweet, aren’t you? I guess I should be glad that I met her before you did.” Before she could offer Sage another cup of coffee, the phone rang. Connie answered it in the hall.

  Minutes later, Sage watched her pass in front of the couch without a word. “Kasey?”

  Connie nodded. “They’re dealing with the media. As if grief isn’t enough to deal with.”

  “Maybe it’ll help take their minds off the pain.”

  “Like we’ve been doing. I suppose so, temporarily.” Connie stared out the window. “Kasey told me that when she lost her mother the funeral arrangements and all the responsibilities only delayed it. Later, she finally had to face the loss on her own.”

  “We all face loss in our own way, sooner or later.”

  Focused in their stares, they struggled to do just that until Connie finally spoke. “I still can’t believe it happened.” She paused. Sage was leaning forward on her thighs, still staring at the floor. “Should I turn on the news?”

  Sage lifted her head. “It might help answer some questions.”

  Connie rejoined Sage on the couch and waited quietly through the last few minutes of a program and impending commercials. Then the news anchor began the story they dreaded. “Our top story tonight is the double murder this morning of two local women at their home in a quiet rural neighborhood.” The report continued with a picture of Donna and Evonne smiling happily with their arms around each other. He reported the information from the earlier broadcast concerning their ages and lifestyles and where they worked. Then the picture changed to film clips taken during the day. “Police were called to the scene about ten this morning by a neighbor who said she heard gunshots and saw another neighbor leaving the scene carrying a rifle.”

  The reporter pointed out the familiar surroundings, the yard, the house, the postholes that Kasey and Donna had dug only days before. Horrible visions of gentle women taking their last painful breaths began washing over the weak dam Connie’d placed on her emotions. The only relief to the nagging ache was a fresh flow of tears.

  “It is unclear,” the reporter was saying, “whether the murders were the result of a boundary dispute. The women were in the process of installing a fence separating their property from that of the suspected killer.”

  “It wasn’t over the boundary. Those holes were a good foot inside the boundary stakes.” Anger, rumbling in the pit of Sage’s soul all afternoon, found its way to the surface. “It was about playing God—about eliminating what you can’t change. There is no justification for that kind of hatred.”

  The camera focused on Evonne’s daughter, Jenny. Through obviously guarded emotion, she fielded the reporter’s questions. Yes, there had been threats. Yes, they were reported to the police, even as recently as yesterday. She was asked if the animosity had anything to do with the women’s lesbian lifestyle. “Donna and my mother were gentle, loving people. There would be no reason on earth for anyone to ever harm them,” she answered as the guard on her emotions began to fail. Blinking back developing tears, pursing about-to-quiver lips, she turned and walked away.

  The coverage switched again. With the use of a cane, the suspect could be seen laboriously making his way into the police station. “One questions what could possibly have prompte
d this elderly man, in his obviously disabled condition, to allegedly pick up a rifle, travel the distance needed, and murder his neighbors,” stated the reporter.

  “That son-of-a-bitch isn’t any more disabled than I am. Look at him. You saw him. He wasn’t having any problem walking last weekend.”

  Connie got up and switched off the set. “It won’t matter, Sage. It doesn’t change the facts.”

  Her words sounded dangerously resolute. “Somebody should shoot him.”

  “And then they’d be playing God, wouldn’t they?” Words that, no matter how true, were incapable of dulling the sharpness of this kind of pain—this kind of anger. She reached out to Sage and carefully stroked the soft wavy hair.

  As the tension loosened, Sage leaned her head against Connie’s slender hip and bore her anger in silence.

  Twenty-nine

  Two days passed filled with anguish and sorrow and many strained confrontations with the media. The funeral would be somewhat of a blessing today. It needed to be over, at least to the extent that a funeral was capable of bringing an ending. They needed to say good-bye.

  The wills had been quite explicit, with all arrangements decided ahead of time. Amazingly, there was no opposition from either family. Donna and Evonne would be buried together. Reverend Mary Griffin, who had blessed their union, would now bless their departure. The families had decided on only one ceremony, to be held at the graveside. Everyone who met at the funeral home to form the procession quietly and privately saw them for the last time and said their good-bye. So many tears in so little time. There hardly seemed to be anything left to cry with. Yet still the tears came, and Connie suspected they would for quite some time.

  Close friends and family were seated in the first two rows. Inadvertently, Connie found herself sitting between Kasey and Sharon. But it was neither the time, nor place, to worry about something so trivial. The service had begun.