“Les?” he said again, moving closer. “You’re scaring me now.”
Still nothing.
“Are you sick?”
He was beside the bed, looking over the mound of covers and pillows, searching for any glimpse of the woman beneath.
“Leslie.” The word was a command to respond to him.
She didn’t.
To hell with decorum, circumspect behavior, privacy. Kip grabbed the pillow, tugged it away from her and moved back a step as she released it. Her hands fell to the covers, as in capitulation.
What the hell was going on? The pillow dropped to the floor.
“Leslie?” Could he sit on the bed beside her? “Talk to me.”
He sat. Brushed hair away from her face. The strands were soaked. So were her cheeks.
“Leslie?” His voice gentled while his heart raced. Touching her shoulder, he turned her carefully toward him, again with no resistance. He watched intently, expecting her eyes to be shut tightly against him. They weren’t. Her lids were wide open, swollen. Did she even know he was there?
“Can you see me?” he asked, wondering if he should call 911—and what he’d tell them.
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
She didn’t answer. Just stared at him, as though waiting for something.
“You’ve been crying.”
She nodded, her chin puckering as though she might start again. But in the next moment she’d calmed herself.
“I’m sorry for intruding. I was worried about you.”
She nodded. That was all. No explanation. No recrimination. Nothing.
It was the weirdest situation he’d ever experienced.
Should he go? Was she going to be all right now?
“Why were you crying?” he asked.
She shrugged. “My way of coping, I guess.”
Coping with what? He’d called several times that day. She and the kids had baked cookies. Had lasagna for dinner. Watched videos. Read books. Jonathan had helped her get Kayla ready for bed.
Miracle of miracles.
“Thank you for your help with Jonathan.”
A shudder was her only response and Kip’s heart quickened again.
“Did he give you trouble?”
“No.”
What was she coping with?
“Do you want me to go?” He asked, afraid of her answer. “Move out, I mean?”
“No.” There’d been no inflection in the answer.
“You sure?”
“Yes.” No hesitation, either.
Kip’s shoulders began to relax.
“Can you talk to me, then? Tell me what this is about?”
“No.”
Okay, well, that was pretty definite.
“Is it something I’ve done?”
He had no idea what she had on beneath the covers. All he could see was white lace at her neck. Her arms were bare.
She continued to stare at him. “No.”
“Something I’m not doing?”
“No.”
He wracked his brain. “Has someone hurt you? Someone call today? Bad news at work?”
“No.”
Her gaze was clear, her answers concise. She wasn’t going to talk to him. He had to accept that.
“Okay, then, I’ll see you in the morning.”
She blinked. Looked kind of surprised. And then nodded.
“In the meantime, if there’s anything I can do, just holler.”
He turned, exhausted, with no idea of what had actually happened.
“Kip?”
Swinging around, he sought her eyes. “Yeah?”
“Can I, um, have a kiss good night?”
“Yes.” Oh God, yes. Restraining himself from rushing back, Kip moved slowly, watching her the whole time, doing his best to silently communicate that she could trust him. No matter what was bothering her.
She reached up when he got to the side of the bed, pulling him down to her, eyes closed as her lips touched his. Kip followed her, letting her lead them wherever she needed to go. Passion held in check as he kissed her, thinking of her rather than drowning in the sensation she was evoking, Kip sat down, holding her close. His tongue danced with hers, his arms encircling her.
And when she dropped her arms, letting him go, he let go, too.
“Thank you,” she said, her face unlined, almost peaceful-looking.
“You’re welcome.”
“Good night.” She slid under the covers again.
“Night. Sleep well.”
“You, too.” The last was said with a sleepy sigh.
Kip tried. Far into the night he tried to sleep. But all he could do was replay that brief time in Leslie’s room.
It was the oddest thing he’d ever lived through.
“HE TRIED TO make love to me on the couch again last night.” Dressed in a forest-green suit with her gold-trimmed silk blouse beneath it, Leslie sat in Juliet’s office the following Friday. She was there officially.
She’d called Juliet on Monday, telling her counselor she needed to be back in session, not just chatting. Juliet had responded with an immediate invitation to meet over the lunch hour. Leslie had opted for Friday’s already scheduled appointment. She needed to know she could make it that long—that she was healed enough to cope with everyday life, even if she needed occasional help with demons in the night.
Juliet had called her midweek to check up on her, and Leslie had told her about Jonathan then. She’d saved Kip for today. Their hour was three-quarters gone, but she wasn’t feeling much better.
“And?”
“Come on, Juliet,” she said, jumping up to pace around the couch. “Haven’t I been coming here long enough, haven’t we shared enough, for you to just talk to me for once? React? Validate that because I was sexually abused and for the first time in my life feel sexual desire, there might be some trauma involved in carrying desire into reality? What’s with this ‘and’ stuff—as though I’d just told you I was stopping at the bakery on my way back to work?”
Juliet’s smile trembled a bit. A first, as far as Leslie could recall. “You’re really okay, you know?”
It wasn’t what Leslie had been expecting.
“What do you mean I’m okay? I’m not okay at all! Talking to a five-year-old boy about changing his little sister unhinged me. I panicked. Lay in bed thinking I was going to have a heart attack. Cried and didn’t even know I was crying until I noticed the sheet was wet. That’s not okay.”
She turned, facing her counselor, so angry she couldn’t get the words out fast enough. The tears in her eyes were angry tears, not interfering with her voice in the slightest.
Juliet’s eyes held compassion. Understanding. Love. “I’m definitely not okay,” Leslie said, depleted all of a sudden.
“Yes,” Juliet said, nodding. “You are. You’re fighting back, Leslie.” She sounded so calm, so sure, that Leslie couldn’t help listening to her. Considering the truth of her words.
“Rather than being a victim, you’re angry and expressing your anger. You’re admitting that you were abused as simply a fact, not as something to be ashamed of. You’re demanding your rights, stating your needs.”
“I’m scared to death.” She was crying fully now, the pain inside her making it impossible to stop.
“I know,” Juliet said. “But you’re also healthy. You can do this, Leslie.”
She glanced at the one person in the world she dared to trust. “It doesn’t feel that way.” A tiny lighted Christmas tree twinkled from a round table across the room.
“If it felt that way it would be easy. Life isn’t meant to be easy. It’s a series of challenges that we can either choose to conquer or be defeated by.”
She’d made the choice to conquer ten years ago, when she’d been unable to find a single suit that would fit her size-zero body for her first professional interview. That was when she’d made an appointment to see Juliet.
“You’ve overcome anorexia, an
addiction to over-the-counter sleep aids and a host of other self-defeating behaviors.”
“I’m still afraid to sleep in the dark.” She hadn’t told Juliet about Kip’s visit to her room on Sunday night. The memory was still too confusing, too private—and somewhat too precious—for analyzing. But she worried what Kip thought of a thirty-year-old woman who slept with a night-light.
“But you’re getting past your isolation,” Juliet said. “Look at you. Two months ago, you would never have had a dinner guest in your home. Today you have a family living there. Your family.”
It was a miracle. And the source of her greatest fear.
“The panic attacks are back.”
“Give yourself a break, woman!” Juliet leaned forward as Leslie sank back on to the couch. “You just lost your only sibling and you’re making incredibly huge changes in your life. Anyone would panic a bit at that. Change, no matter how small or how great, brings about fear. It’s natural.”
“Do you think I should try to sleep without the night-light?”
“No.” Juliet sat back. “One major challenge at a time, okay?”
Leslie smiled, as she knew she’d been meant to. “Okay.”
“So…tell me about last night.”
Leslie glanced at her watch instead. The hour was up. Touching the green, blue and gold crystals at her neck, she stood. “Time’s gone.”
“Sit!”
Leslie sat.
“Tell me what happened.”
She didn’t want to think about it.
“You going to come this far and then quit on yourself?” Juliet asked.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“He’d been telling me about a major new account he’d closed for SI yesterday—a professional sports league. He was so humble about it, and so proud of himself at the same time, and without thinking I leaned over and kissed him. It kind of went on from there and…and I was feeling good,” she said, not the least embarrassed with Juliet. The woman knew things about Leslie that no one else knew. Horrible things. Shameful things. Tainted things.
And while there was one important part she didn’t know, she knew enough for her acceptance to contribute toward Leslie’s healing—her acceptance of herself.
“…and then…when he undid my bra…touched my breast…”
“You panicked.”
“Yes.”
“What about the desire?”
“It was gone.”
“Completely?”
“Mostly.”
“But not completely?”
“I guess not.”
She wasn’t sure why it mattered, but now that Juliet had pointed it out to her, she was glad to know.
“The first time you were touched, you were twelve. Right?”
“Yes.”
“And this man who touched you, someone you knew, he touched your breast?”
She was sweating. And cold. Sick to her stomach. Scared to death. “Yes.”
“Which is why, when Kip touches you there, you shut down.”
“I’ve been touched there hundreds of times since,” Leslie said, the first derogatory comment she’d made about herself—out loud, in front of Juliet—in many months.
“You’re referring to your promiscuous period during college.”
Leslie nodded.
“You understand why you behaved that way and have already forgiven yourself for it.”
She was right. Of course. Breathing easier, Leslie reached for a tissue. Sat back. Wiped her eyes and nose.
“Don’t you have someone waiting?” she asked Juliet.
“My twelve-thirty cancelled.”
So that didn’t let her off the hook.
“If I don’t make love with him, he’s going to lose interest.”
“Possibly.”
“The only way I know how to make love is like I did in college.”
“That wasn’t lovemaking.”
“I know. And I don’t want that with Kip.”
“You don’t want that for yourself, ever again. You deserve to be loved. To love yourself. To love what you’re doing. To enjoy it.”
She started to cry. “What if I can’t?”
“Was that a negative statement?”
“No,” Leslie said, since such a thing was taboo during Juliet’s sessions. And then, head high, “Yes.”
“You’ll never succeed with a defeatist attitude, Leslie.”
“I know.”
“There are no guarantees in life, ever. Not about waking in the morning, getting home safely at night or anything in between.”
In other words, worrying about what might or might not happen in the future was a waste of time. Borrowing trouble from the future, Kip would say.
She’d promised him she wouldn’t do that.
Add it to the list of promises she’d made herself over the years and still struggled to keep.
“You know what to do.”
She did. She just wasn’t sure she had the emotional capacity to do it.
“You make a conscious decision about what you want in life, and you take one step toward it. Then another. You’ve said you want to be in love, to be married and have a family. You want a lifelong companion. A soul mate.”
Yes. More than anything. But did Juliet really understand what they were talking about here?
“I want him like crazy,” she said, smiling through her tears. “But then, when it starts to happen…”
Juliet waited.
“Well, if I don’t do it, I might lose him,” she whispered.
More silence.
“I feel so trapped. What I most want, I don’t want. Which means either I’ll never have what I desire most in life, a soul mate, a husband and family—or I live a life I can’t stand, giving myself sexually without sexual feelings.”
“There’s another option here.”
Leslie peered at her counselor, the small Christmas tree in the background, almost hoping…
“You could talk to him about all this.”
Her stomach fell.
“No.” She stood up, grabbing her purse. “Absolutely not. Out of the question.” The door was directly in front of her.
“So often, the right partner is a bridge to the final phase of healing.”
Stopping, her back to Juliet, Leslie said, “I cannot tell him.”
“Then maybe he isn’t the right one.”
Maybe not. Just maybe damn well not. Because Kip Webster was the last person she was ever going to tell about her past. If she did, she’d never be able to keep her deepest secret from him. And that was something she’d take to her grave. Leslie shut the door quietly behind her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CLARA’S ARRIVAL late Saturday morning changed everything yet again. Loading his makeshift new family into the car to go to and pick up Leslie’s mother at the airport, Kip had caught a glimpse of himself, as if from outside and above, and hadn’t even recognized the man he’d seen. For a second he’d been tempted to tell Leslie to go by herself, to pull out his personal address book and find someone to spend the day with.
Someone impermanent.
And then Jonathan had called out to him to hurry and that was exactly what he’d done. What he’d wanted to do. Whether he recognized himself or not.
By evening, Clara, who was staying with them for the couple of days it would take to get her utilities and phone hooked up, had taken over the household. At least on the surface.
Kip had an idea that Clara would only be successful insofar as Leslie allowed her to be. Cal’s little sister had grown up to be a woman who was strong in all the right ways. She was giving and compassionate, nurturing, but she had her boundaries and somehow managed to persuade others to honor them.
Her brother would be proud.
“Okay, you two, I have things under control here,” Clara had said as they all finished the cabbage rolls she and Leslie had made for dinner. “Kayla’s bath, then storytime and bed for
these two—who, by the way, I’d like to spend some time with. Alone.”
She grinned at her grandchildren, both of whom appeared to have taken to her immediately. The hand-held young learners’ computer she’d brought for Jonathan and the large wooden puzzles for Kayla hadn’t hurt her cause any.
“The stores are open late,” she’d continued, looking over her shoulder from the sink to the table, where Leslie had been wiping Kayla’s face and hands before getting her down from her high chair. Kip had been sitting there, full and bemused and feeling like he should be doing something other than watching Jonathan play with the computer he’d hardly put down, except to watch the holiday video Clara had bought for them—one Leslie had apparently seen so many times she’d had it memorized. Miracle on 34th Street, the original version. It had been a first for Kip and the kids.
“You two should go out and do some Christmas shopping before everything’s all picked over.” Clara had come to the table to collect the last of the silverware.
Christmas shopping. Something else he’d never done. The thought appalled him. Intrigued him. Stumped him. His entire life he’d been envious of people who had those trees with all the presents underneath. He’d never once imagined being the person responsible for getting them there.
“How does one know what to buy?” he asked.
“You make a list,” Leslie said, kissing the small cheek she’d just cleaned with a loud smack. Kayla returned the favor, adding a delighted giggle. “It’s like any other project you take on—you get a sense of everything you need to do when you see it all down on paper.”
Okay. He was certainly game to try. Christmas the way he’d done it all his life hadn’t been much of a hit.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT for Christmas, son?” Kip knelt on the floor of Jonathan’s room, while Leslie, who’d insisted asking was necessary, stood by.
The boy was sliding another disc into the slot on his new computer toy while Clara bathed Kayla.
“I dunno.”
“Your aunt Leslie and I are going shopping tonight, so now’s your chance to speak up.”
Jonathan turned the device back on, his new program accompanied by a series of beeps and a tune about frogs and lily pads. “I dunno.”
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