by Robbi McCoy
“Mom, is somebody dying?”
“No, no, nobody’s dying. It’s not quite that bad.” Okay, just out with it, I thought. “I’ve fallen in love with someone else. I’m going to leave your father.”
She looked at me in astonishment, as though trying to read me, as though she hadn’t noticed me before. “Oh, my God,”
she said, but not in the way she usually said it with tremendous emphasis on each word. This was a more natural response.
“A woman,” I said, feeling sort of frantic to get it out. “I’m in 1
love with a woman.”
Amy stared, her mouth open. Then she blinked at me and shook her head. Say something, I thought.
“Are you serious?” she asked at last.
I nodded, realizing that I had not seen such a sober look on her face for years.
“Who? Who is your, uh…”
“GF?” My attempt to rouse her out of this uncomfortable solemnity didn’t work. Her expression didn’t change. “Rosie,” I said.Her eyes widened. She stared at me, unbelieving.
“I’m sorry, Amy,” I said, finally, just to break the silence.
She shook her head, obviously distraught. “Mom, how could you?”
She got up suddenly and ran out of the kitchen. I sat where I was, my life shattered around me. I drank my coffee absentmindedly, feeling helpless. I had hoped that Amy would be sympathetic, somehow. What did you expect? I asked myself.
That she would be happy for you? This is her family you’re tearing apart. A half hour passed and I didn’t move. I just sat staring at my hands on the table.
And then, unexpectedly, Amy returned. She poured me another cup of coffee and sat next to me. “Let’s talk,” she said in a mature tone of voice, settling in and looking at me with a frank and open expression. “So what are you going to do about it?”
I sighed. “Start a new life, I suppose.”
“No shit? At your age?” I smiled slightly, but didn’t answer.
“So you’re gonna unload Dad? We’re gonna be a broken home?
I’m glad this didn’t happen when we were little. Then we’d be like that kid in the book, I don’t remember her name—April, Tiffany, something like that, Has Two Mommies.”
“Heather,” I said, absurdly pleased that I finally got a literary reference that she didn’t know. The horrible thought that it could have happened before, when my children were little, caused me to shudder.
“Wow, Mom, I just never imagined…I never thought you, 1
well, you know…well, you’re my mom, you know what I mean?”
She shook her head. “Poor Dad.”
Amy and I sat and talked for a couple of hours. At first I was reluctant to answer her questions, but after a while it felt good, like a release valve opening. It was strange talking to my daughter about something this private, but, fundamentally, we had a good relationship, and I was grateful for that.
“I’m not a virgin, Mom,” she told me as the morning wore on. “I’m not surprised.”
“I was seventeen.”
“Jeffrey, right?”
She grinned. “Did you know?”
I shook my head. “No, but I suspected. Why didn’t you tell me then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I thought you’d freak out or something.
Or put me in a chastity belt. I guess I didn’t think you and Dad could handle it. You know, you don’t think your parents have the same kinds of feelings you do because they don’t really let you see it, do they? They pretend to be so, like, whatever, you know. Like you, Mom, all in love like this. It’s sort of amazing to see wild and crazy in your parents. Like you can’t help yourself, it’s bigger than both of you. That kind of thing, at your age. Awesome.”
I felt better. I smiled at my daughter. “I hope you’re careful,”
I said. “About sex.”
She nodded. “For sure.” Then she winked at me. “You too.”
I was incredibly relieved to see that Amy wasn’t going to condemn me. She was turning into a beautiful human being and more mature than I had ever given her credit for. She seemed to understand exactly what was going on here. Her instincts were good, even if her ability to articulate them was less than impressive.
After a lull, Amy nodded, gazing at me across the table.
“Rosie, huh?” she said. “Wow.”
She took the coffee cups and rinsed them at the sink. Then she came up behind me and threw her arms around my neck, 10
hugging me. For the first time in quite a while, I felt hopeful about the future.
“What do you say we go pick up your father’s car?” I suggested.
11
Chapter Sixteen
I remembered wondering about the idea, in the abstract, of living alone, when I was housesitting for Rosie. Now I was going to find out what it was like. It was frightening. It was exhilarating. I rented a cheerful, west-facing apartment in mid-town and, within a week, had moved my essentials into it and had a functioning living space. I didn’t bring much, very little furniture, in fact, only a two-person dining table, two chairs, one easy chair and a nightstand. The only thing I bought was a bed.
Thankfully, there wasn’t much conflict with Jerry over possessions. The most difficult thing would be photos. Amy had volunteered to have duplicates made of all of those taken prior to the digital camera. Jerry, understandably distressed, claimed he didn’t care about them. “What good are photos?” he railed,
“when you’re destroying my life? They’re just reminders of what you’re taking away from me.” But I knew he would want them some day. They would be less painful some day, for me too.
This wasn’t an automatic decision, this apartment. In fact, it wasn’t really my decision at all. I had assumed that when I left 12
my marriage, I would move in with Rosie and we would begin our idyllic life together as a couple. She, however, saw things differently.
“I think you need to be on your own for a while,” she said.
“Leaving your house was just the first step. There’s more to leaving a relationship than that, especially such a well-entrenched one. I hope you understand.”
“No, I don’t understand. I want to be with you. That was the whole point.”
“You’ve never been on your own. Everyone should know what that’s like. It all sounds silly, I’m sure, but I think this is going to be a really valuable experience for you, and a necessary one. I’d rather you came to me when you weren’t running away from something else. That way, it will be a real choice you make.”
I really didn’t understand, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. Although it felt like rejection, she assured me that it wasn’t.
Regardless of where I moved to, I knew that moving was the right decision. Jerry and I had nothing to hold us together but the past. Once I had finally made and acted on the decision, it had been much easier than I’d ever expected. Far from stepping off a cliff into a freefall, as I’d imagined, it was more like stepping onto terra firma. As soon as it was done, a serenity descended over me. For the first couple of days, all I felt was relief.
Amy, assuming the role of emotional nursemaid to her father, had become a sort of rock for us both. She even attempted to cook for him a couple of times, which went to show how sorry she felt for him. She helped me unpack and set up my new living space, presenting me with the most cheerful of demeanors throughout.
Whatever her own heartbreak was over this family disaster, she kept it out of our sight. Very thoughtful, I realized, and probably rare under such circumstances.
Just as I got settled, the day that my new bed was delivered and set up, in fact, Rosie left town to attend a political convention in San Diego with our new mayor.
“Bad timing,” I said to her over the phone as she packed her 13
suitcase.
“Yes, I’m aware of that,” she said. “Can’t be helped.”
“You’re going to miss our Chinese visitors. I’m going to have
to deal with them all by myself.”
“Oh,” Rosie said with a laugh. “I thought you were going to say you wanted me to help you break in your new bed. But it’s all about work with you, isn’t it?”
“The other goes without saying. I can’t wait to get my hands on you again. But this Chinese thing is scaring the shit out of me.
I thought you’d be here.”
“Well, the dear boy needs me. He’s a little unsure of himself.”
“He’s not the only one,” I said. “You’re going to be running the city whether you’re mayor or not, aren’t you?”
“Mike needs some help right now, but he’ll find his footing soon enough. He’s a good man. Oh, and he says the doll museum deal is all but signed thanks to you. He told me to relay his appreciation.”
“That’s great.”
“Yes, it is. Excellent work. And my other news is that I got a letter of apology from Tanya. Must have nearly killed her to write it.” Rosie laughed. “I’ll show it to you next time you’re over.”
“Congratulations. You’ll withdraw your ultimatum, I assume.”
“Oh, sure. I don’t think she’ll be giving me any more trouble, at least for a while.”
“Rosie, call me whenever you can the next couple of days.
I’m sure I’ll be in the middle of a potential disaster every hour.”
“Don’t worry, Jean. You’ll do fine. You can handle it. I could tell by the itinerary you drafted that you know what you’re doing. Just don’t forget about political ideologies, that’s all. And I think I will be able to be here for the last day anyway. We’re flying into Sacramento early. If you schedule the museum tour for afternoon, I can make that. Which I’d like to.”
“Okay. I’ll count on that, then.”
“And once our visitors have left, I expect an invitation to your 14
new place.”
I could hardly wait for that day myself. It had been a long time since that blissful night in San Francisco, so long, in fact, that it had taken on a dream-like quality. I knew that it hadn’t been a dream, though, no matter how fantastical it appeared in my memories. I longed for something more mundane between us, something run-of-the-mill, if that was possible. I had trouble imagining run-of-the-mill where Rosie was concerned, but I needed to get there, somehow.
The Chinese team arrived as planned, four middle-aged men and their female interpreter, a round-faced woman with a perpetual smile who spoke extremely rapidly in Mandarin and extremely slowly in English. Her English name, she told me, was Cindy. I had to stick with them eighteen hours a day, arriving at their hotel at six in the morning to be sure to be there to accompany them to breakfast. Because of the language barrier, it was an interesting experience. There was a lot of laughing on both sides of the conversation, though often neither side really understood the joke.
I arranged for a gigantic gift basket of local fruit to be delivered and waiting for them in their hotel suite upon arrival.
I took them to the symphony, on a riverboat trip through the delta, on a tour of the university, and showed them all around town, of course, including our small Chinatown. Things seemed to be going fine. During lunch both days, I called Rosie and we relayed the details of our two separate adventures. On the third and last day, for our tour of the museum, Rosie met us there as she had promised. It seemed to me that every time she was out of my sight for a few days, I forgot how lovely she was until that moment she came into view again. This time was no exception.
I’m sure it showed on my face when she walked up the stairs and into the foyer. After a brief look at me, a wide grin broke out on her face.
Our Chinese visitors politely accompanied us through the displays showcasing Weberstown history, and then through the art galleries, including Rosie’s pride and joy, the portrait gallery, 15
which was the newest permanent exhibit and contained a gold plaque just inside the doorway that read, “This exhibit was made possible through the contributions of Rosalind Monroe, Dr.
Chandra Patel and Kenneth Sturtevant.”
The museum had one room with artifacts recovered from the early Chinese settlements in the area, so Rosie steered us through that next, explaining to Cindy that our Chinese heritage was deeply-rooted and highly valued. Cindy, observing the displays of old Chinese coins and flatware, laughed. “Eighteen-forty-nine!” she exclaimed. “You think that is old?”
Rosie shrugged. “It’s as old as we’ve got,” she said. “For California, it’s old.”
Cindy turned to her countrymen and explained to them what she was chuckling about. The four of them broke out into a joint chorus of good-natured hilarity, pointing at our “old” Chinese artifacts.
“You come to Xi’an,” Cindy said. “I will show you myself what is old.”
“You mean the terra cotta warriors?” I asked, remembering this from my art history class.
Cindy nodded in an exaggerated fashion. “Yes, yes. You must see those. Those are old.”
“That’s for sure,” I said. “Third century BC. That would be something. But you know what I’d really like to see? Some of those three-legged bowls, those Shang dynasty bronze dings. I’ve only seen pictures, but I just love those. And they’re a lot older than the warriors.”
I noticed that Rosie was staring at me in surprise, but I wasn’t sure why. Maybe I had made some kind of faux pas. But Cindy was nodding emphatically and did not seem at all put off. “Oh, then you must come to Shanghai Museum,” she said. “Not only can you see them there, but the entire museum building is shaped to resemble a ding vessel.”
Cindy turned to explain to the others what we were talking about, and I stepped over to Rosie and whispered, “Did I say something wrong?”
16
Rosie shook her head, her expression full of affection. “Not at all. You’re doing everything right.”
Although I was utterly exhausted from these three days, as soon as I returned from the airport after dropping off my visitors, I immediately began to plan for Rosie’s first visit to my apartment. I invited her over for Saturday night, then made vegetable lasagna with three cheeses and a green salad. During the layering of the zucchini and cheese that afternoon, I felt like there was no way I would be able to eat anything. My stomach was turning cartwheels all day.
Rosie arrived on time with a bottle of Riesling and a broad, mischievous smile. After she stepped into the apartment, I took the wine from her, feeling oddly shy and a little insecure.
As she gazed over my space, she nodded. “Nice. Bright,” she said. “Cheerful. I love the window seat and skylights. A little sparsely furnished, but that can be remedied over time.”
For how long, I thought, are you going to leave me languishing here. I put the wine in the refrigerator, then said, “Would you like the grand tour?”
Just as I turned toward the doorway separating the living room from the bedroom, Rosie caught my arm and pulled me toward her. “Come here,” she said. “I can’t wait any longer.” She kissed me urgently, one arm firmly around my waist, one hand gripping the back of my neck. She was apparently not feeling the least bit shy. I let myself fall into her, closing my eyes and feeling the marvelous sensation of her mouth on mine. It was reality, after all, my memory of how completely she owned my body. We stood together, kissing one another for several minutes, until she said, “Do you have a bed in this place?”
I took her hand and led her through the doorway into the bedroom. There was almost nothing in this room either except the bed, the nightstand and a portable CD player providing a soft background of classical piano. On the nightstand and windowsill, I had placed a few candles, already lit.
“This is my favorite room in your apartment,” Rosie said, sitting on the edge of the bed. She reached over and grabbed me 1
by the waistband of my jeans, pulling me roughly between her knees. Her eyes were dark, flashing with desire. “Will dinner be ruined if it has to wait a while?”
I shook my head. “Dinn
er has always known that it was the second course tonight.”
Rosie grinned and pulled me onto the bed. Dinner waited patiently under a foil cover in the oven as we renewed our acquaintance with one another.
Afterward, I lay with my arms wrapped loosely around Rosie’s naked body, my cheek pressed against her back, chin still wet.
The heat of passion was wearing off and the chill of the night was beginning to creep over me. But I didn’t want to move, not even to pull up a blanket.
I felt like I’d always been here with this woman in my arms, that this was right, that this was me. “I still can’t believe that this could happen at my age,” I said, sliding my hand over the curve of her hip.
“You’re not alone,” she said. “There’s even a support group, as a matter of fact, called Late Bloomers.”
“Really?”
“Yes, composed of women like yourself, women who led exclusively heterosexual lives into middle age and beyond.”
“It happens that often?”
“It’s not as rare as you’d think.”
“What about you, Rosie? When did you first suspect?”
She rolled over to face me. “A very young age. All my adolescent crushes were on women—a sixth-grade teacher, a movie star, my best friend. I guess I just passed that off as unremarkable, since they were innocent and, as I understand it, not so unusual even for the ‘normal’ girls. I dated boys and went to the prom and did all the things you’re supposed to do, and married David Lamont, of course. But I think I knew all along. Once I admitted that, there were no more men. I am most definitely not bisexual.”
“What about me?” I asked.
“Nor you. You’re a late bloomer.” She smiled fondly at me in the flickering candlelight. “But oh, what a beautiful bloom!”
1
Chapter Seventeen
On one of my trips to my old house to get some things, I noticed Abby in her driveway taking grocery bags out of the trunk of her car. She looked up and saw me. I called a greeting to her, and she granted me a nod of her head, but said nothing, and then turned away. Okay, I thought, resigned, it’s started.