by Robbi McCoy
“No,” said Lauren. “That one didn’t find its way into print. But I remember that site.”
“Oh, you were there?”
“I went on most of the research trips. Faith liked to make vacations out of them. Some people never did comprehend why all my vacations were centered around human skeletons and burial grounds. But I had a good time. We had a lot of fun.”
“It’s wonderful that you were so involved in her work.” Emma paused to swallow a mouthful of coffee, then set her cup down. “Hey, did you go to China with her too, the Yangtze River trip?”
“The hanging coffins of the Bo,” Lauren recalled. “Yes, I did.”
Emma seemed to bounce on the couch, slapping her hands on her knees gleefully. “Oh, I wish I’d seen that! No chance now, not after the dam was built. Oh, you’re so lucky. That was my last year at Oregon State. I would have given anything to have gone on that trip.”
“It was a great trip,” Lauren said. “I’ve got a photo album. There are a few pictures of the coffins. Would you like to see them?”
“Oh, my God, yes!”
Faith’s disorderly nature had had no impact on the photo albums. Those were in Lauren’s domain. The photos were neatly catalogued, chronologically, and everything was labeled, so it was no trouble to find the album containing their China trip.
“This young man,” Lauren said, sitting beside Emma and pointing at a photo of Joe, “was our hired guide. These two were friends, Cassie and Jennifer. And here are the coffins.”
Emma examined the photos Cassie had taken of the coffins while Lauren’s eyes lingered on a picture of Cassie. She was standing beside one of the coffins making a funny face, as if she’d walked into an old Lon Chaney horror movie.
“Thank you for showing me these,” Emma said.
Lauren closed the album and set it on the coffee table.
“You must have had some marvelous adventures,” Emma sighed. “By the way, did Faith ever get to Sky Island?”
Lauren shook her head. “We were all set to go a few years ago, but then riots broke out in Guadalcanal and it was just too dangerous. We had to cancel. After that, there just wasn’t time.”
“She wanted to see it so much. I’ve always remembered that story. She told it in my first class with her, cultural anthropology. She made the whole ritual sound so beautiful and solemn.”
“It was a favorite story. She told it often.” Lauren stood. “Emma, before I decide about the research, I want to be assured that you’ll give Faith the credit and respect she deserves.”
Emma looked up in surprise. “Of course! Lauren, I feel so much gratitude toward Faith. I was sick when I found out she had passed. I want to do this partly for her. I want to do it to say thank you to her.”
Lauren studied Emma’s eyes, trying to read her thoughts. “Thank you for what?”
“For everything. It’s because of Faith I became an anthropologist. She inspired me. She was that teacher, you know, the one who takes hold of your imagination and sends it to the stars. It was because of Faith I got my job too.”
“In Eugene?”
“Yes. Without her recommendation, I doubt they would have hired me. After I had to leave Oregon State without finishing my master’s—”
“You didn’t finish?”
“No. I quit in the middle of my last year.” Emma hesitated, appearing to be searching very deliberately for her next words. “A year later, I applied at Eugene and finished up. Then Faith recommended me for a teaching position there. It was very generous of her.”
“Was it?” Lauren asked. “She did that sort of thing for her students, her best students.”
“Yes, I know she did. She was such a wonderful woman. Such an inspiring teacher.”
“She was more than just a teacher to you,” Lauren said coolly. “Isn’t that right?”
Emma stared at her, her eyes revealing nothing. “What do you mean?”
Lauren hesitated, then decided to be direct. “You were in love with her.”
Emma dropped her gaze, then said, “I didn’t know you knew.”
Lauren held her breath, hoping Emma would feel like talking.
Emma looked up again. “That was a long time ago. She put me in my place, believe me. She even resigned as my advisor. Essentially shut me right out of the program. Even after I finished my degree, she was very firm that I wasn’t to come back to State. She would help me get on at Eugene, she told me, but she would do everything she could to prevent me from getting on here. That had been my original plan, to teach here. My family’s here. This was my home, but I understood why that wasn’t going to happen.”
“Because she didn’t want you working on the same campus.”
“Right. At the time, it really hurt. Now, though, I see how right she was. If I had come back, it would have just started up again. I mean, I would have— It would have been difficult. A couple years later, I met someone else. I fell in love again. It all worked out.” Tears were forming in Emma’s eyes. “Oh, you were so lucky to have such a woman! I thought so then, not always kindly. I hated you, to be honest. She loved you so much. She told me that. She told me I was a beautiful, smart, sensitive woman. But, she said, her heart belonged to you, all of it. All she could give me was friendship. Which she did. But I wasn’t satisfied with that. I pushed her.”
“And that’s why she had to distance herself.”
Emma nodded. Lauren handed a box of tissue across the table. Emma took one and wiped her eyes.
“She never gave you any encouragement?” Lauren asked.
Emma shook her head. “Oh, no. She tried all the time to discourage me. I should have listened, but I was, oh, well, younger. What can I say? No, Faith was completely uninterested in me that way.” Emma spoke rapidly, nervously. “She was totally into you. Not that she shouldn’t have been. That was very admirable. She was admirable in all kinds of ways. I admired her. It just sort of evolved from there. But entirely one-sided, really. It’s embarrassing to think what she must have told you about me back then. I’m sure she found me completely foolish and annoying.”
Lauren took a deep breath, relieved to hear that Faith had kept Emma at arm’s length.
“When exactly was that?” she asked.
“Um, that would have been ten years ago. My last year at State. What would have been my last year. I think everything came to a head around November, when she’d finally just had enough. I do know that by Thanksgiving, I had dropped out.”
Ten years ago? thought Lauren, realizing that had been the year they’d gone to China, the year Lauren had met Cassie. Oddly, they had both weakened their defenses that year, allowing someone to move closer to their hearts. Why was that? Had they come to some vulnerable point in their relationship without being conscious of it, some thinning of their devotion, like an old sheet with one threadbare spot that, if pulled on just a little too hard, will tear apart? Or was it just another strange coincidence that both of them had attracted the attention of an outsider that same year?
Emma was sobbing now. Lauren wasn’t sure why. Because she had loved someone who was unavailable to her? Because the person she had loved was gone? Because she was no longer the woman who fell in love with her teacher? Faith had always said you never fell in love the same way twice. Lauren assumed she meant you never fell as deeply in love the second, third or fourth time around. When questioned, though, Faith just said it was “different” each time, that one grew wary of one’s own undisciplined passions. Maybe that’s what Emma was crying about, her lost youth.
Lauren felt herself growing more compassionate. Emma was just a woman who had fallen in love, after all. Then she remembered the letter and how Emma had been under a misconception all this time that Faith had had no feelings for her. Lauren considered showing her the letter, but then changed her mind.
When Emma had composed herself, Lauren said, “I’ll show you the den. All of Faith’s research is in there, though it may not be organized as you’d like. It’s goin
g to take some time to go through everything.”
Lauren felt slightly guilty at the appreciative look Emma gave her.
Chapter Twenty-Six
After Emma had gone, Lauren sat silently in the living room thinking, Cocoa sleeping beside her. She was relieved to learn nothing had happened between Emma and Faith, nothing physical anyway. But the episode must have been troubling for Faith, considering the information provided by the letter. In the midst of that crisis, Faith had chosen not to confide in her.
And she herself had done the same, she thought, staring at the photo album on the coffee table. They had both weathered these threats to their relationship on their own. Communication had never been their strong suit, not when it mattered. Even when Faith was told she had cancer, she’d kept it to herself for over a month. Lauren had been furious with her for that. Or perhaps she’d just been furious at the cancer. But it had hurt her, Faith’s decision not to share the pain and fear of that. It wasn’t out of character, though.
Maybe she was just trying to protect me, Lauren thought, returning to the subject of Emma. That had been her reason for silence in the case of her illness. She always did think she had to shield Lauren from the hard lessons of life.
When they met, Lauren was so young. Faith never got over thinking of her as a wide-eyed innocent, ill-equipped to face the world by herself. So Faith had never said a word about Emma. And Lauren hadn’t said anything about Cassie either, not until three years ago when Faith had pointedly asked her.
Lauren picked up the album and turned past the Yangtze River trip to the photos from Cassie and Jennifer’s spring visit the following year. There was a picture of Lauren sitting on a rock beside Cassie, engrossed in conversation with her, both of them with the tops of their heads cut off, neither of them aware their picture was being taken.
Lauren hadn’t looked at any of the albums since Faith had died. They’d gone through them together after she got sick, though, reminding themselves what a fabulous life they’d had together. They weren’t thinking at the time that Faith would die. At least Lauren wasn’t. It seemed like such a remote possibility... at first. Looking at these same photos of Cassie and Jennifer, Faith had said, “They were fun. That trip to visit them, that never happened. Why not?”
“Oh, you know,” Lauren had replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Everybody’s busy. People just never get around to things like that.”
“But the two of you were so happy to have found one another. You said she was like the little sister you never had. What happened? Why did you cut it off?”
“Cut it off?” Lauren had asked, startled. Faith’s expression was solemn and Lauren knew she wouldn’t let her brush this aside. She wanted an explanation. She knew about Lauren and Cassie. Knew enough anyway, from watching them together, from photographs like this, their arms intertwined, their heads close together like girls in collusion.
“Why didn’t you ask me about it then?” Lauren had asked.
“At first, after they’d gone home, I didn’t realize something had happened. Once I did realize it, I think I was just afraid to deal with it. You were so sad. You were in mourning. That’s how it seemed to me. Whatever made you decide to end it, I was afraid of doing anything that would make you change your mind. It seemed smarter to be quiet and still, like a cornered animal, and wait for it to pass.”
Lauren stared at her. “So you knew?”
“All I knew was that you had strong feelings for her. It seemed like it was mutual. And then, suddenly, after that visit, it was over and you didn’t mention her again. There wasn’t another word about visiting them. There wasn’t any explanation. She was out of your life. It wasn’t a gradual drifting apart. It was a deliberate termination. So what else could I think but you had stopped it because it was a threat? To us. And how could I know how hard or how easy that was for you, that decision to choose me over her.”
“You should have asked me. Actually, I should have told you. You had nothing to worry about. I never would have chosen her.”
“But you were in love with her,” Faith said.
“It didn’t get that far. Once we recognized where it was going, we stopped it. Both of us stopped it.”
“That must have been difficult.”
“It was difficult,” Lauren admitted. “But I didn’t consider doing anything differently. Nor did she. Neither one of us ever wanted more than friendship.” Lauren looked Faith in the eye. “That’s why I was so sad. Because I lost her as a friend. It wasn’t because I wanted to leave you.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it at the time.” Faith took hold of her hand. “I should have. I knew you were in pain. I was just afraid. Your feelings seemed so intense. Sometimes your intensity scares me.”
“Sometimes it scares me too.”
“Still, we should have talked about it. You must have felt very lonely.”
Yes, Lauren now thought, that’s exactly what she had felt. So alone. She had lost her best friend and she couldn’t ask her lover for comfort because she felt too guilty for feeling that way about another woman.
“I got over it,” she had said. “And, eventually, I was very happy with how I handled it, how we both handled it. It might have gone differently. It might have destroyed people’s lives.”
“You never saw her again?” Faith asked.
“No. I never heard from her at all after that spring.”
“And you never regretted your decision?”
Lauren shook her head vigorously. “Not at all. I’ve been in love with you every day since we met.”
“Every day?”
“Every single day. Even those days when you were yelling at the TV with a can of beer in your fist like some yahoo from the sticks.”
Faith laughed. “Baseball!”
“We all have our faults. But, seriously, my love, I was never for a moment tempted to leave you. We’ve been very happy together. I know a good thing when I’ve got it.”
Lauren had kissed her then and they had said no more about it.
Apparently, they had both had secrets. No matter how close you are to someone, there are things about her you’ll never know. She wasn’t thinking just about other women like Emma and Cassie now. She was thinking about the feelings and thoughts you keep from one another, to avoid hurting each other.
But what she’d said to Faith that day had all been true. She had never considered leaving, as much as she had been drawn to Cassie. There wasn’t a woman anywhere on earth who could have taken her away from Faith. She felt lucky to have found her true love when the time was right for both of them. She also felt lucky they were able to spend so many joyful years together. She was grateful for that the entire time. In the last ten years, she’d also been grateful to herself for turning away from the temptation of Cassie. Faith had been the right woman for her, then and always.
A lot had changed since she and Cassie had known one another. She had changed. Cassie must have changed too. Maybe the mistake they had made ten years ago could be put behind them after all. Lauren went to the phone and dialed Cassie’s number.
“I’m thrilled you called!” Cassie said after Lauren identified herself.
“We’ve got so much to catch up on,” Lauren said, settling into the deep cushions of her couch. “So you’re a lawyer. How did that happen?”
“Honestly, Lauren, it’s because of you.”
“Because of me? How can that be?”
“The way you kept telling me I was smart enough and how if I didn’t do it, I’d regret it later. Just the pep talks about pursuing your dream.”
“I guess I was right, then.”
“I loved law school from the first day,” she continued. “I really blossomed. Not surprisingly, that was the beginning of the end for me and Jennifer. She was threatened by my new ambitions. She’d always said, and I believed her, the reason she didn’t want me to go to law school was that our income would suffer so badly for a while. But I began to understand
that wasn’t the real reason at all.”
“She was intimidated?”
“Yes. Somehow just talking to her about school made her defensive, so I quit talking to spare her feelings, but then she felt left out of my life. And, realistically, she was.”
An hour ticked by as Lauren listened to Cassie describe her life. She had dated sporadically, but was not in a serious relationship, not since Jennifer. She’d devoted herself to her work and had a small practice with one other attorney. It sounded like she was involved in her community and doing good work. She spoke of it with love and enthusiasm.
When it was Lauren’s turn, she told Cassie she had taken an early retirement. “I decided to quit working when Faith got sick so I could stay home with her. It was the right decision because there was a lot to do. Then, too, we had that year together.”
“That must have been a lot to handle. I hope you had some help.”
“Yes. There were friends. Faith had some wonderful friends. I was very grateful for them. And Faith’s sister came out for three weeks during a rough patch. We managed.”
“What have you been doing since then?” Cassie asked.
“I’ve continued writing. That’s going pretty well, actually.”
“I’m so glad to hear that. So we’re both doing what we wanted to do.” After a brief pause, Cassie said, “Hey, here’s something you don’t know. Remember that day you and Faith drove us down the Oregon coast? I just adored Coos Bay, if you recall.”
“I do. You said you could imagine yourself living there. I remember you really enjoyed that day.”
“I bought a place there!” Cassie announced joyously.
“In Coos Bay?”
“Near it. A little house with an ocean view. It’s my vacation home. Aren’t I the pretentious bitch? Vacation home!”
“No, I think that’s wonderful. When was this?”
“Couple of years ago. I’ve been out there several times. It’s the perfect place to run away to.”
“Are you going to retire there?”
“That’s the idea, yes. It’s a small town, but Oregon is fairly liberal and who’s going to care about a harmless old dyke living alone with her cat anyway?”