When at last she had told her sister everything, Jessie fell silent, waiting for Emma’s reaction. But her sister’s enthusiasm seemed muted, and Jessie was annoyed. Hadn’t she been over the moon for her, when Emma had met Katherine?
“Is something wrong, Em?” she asked. “You sound, I don’t know, down or something.”
“No,” Emma said. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just . . . I almost wish you hadn’t told me.”
Jessie drew in her breath. “About Heath? Emma, this is a big deal for me. I wanted—”
“Not about him,” Emma interrupted her. “About the eggs.”
Jessie sighed. “Really?”
“Yeah. I mean—now I’m in the middle again, aren’t I?”
“How are you in the middle? This has nothing to do with you.”
Emma snorted. “Maybe not. But you’re not going to tell Mom and Dad, so I’m in the middle.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re in the middle, Emma.”
“It doesn’t? It feels just like when we were little, and you and Laurel used to talk about how one day you’d tell Mom and Dad that you wanted to move to Baymont. And I wasn’t supposed to say anything.”
“Oh, Emma.”
They were both silent for a moment.
“Look, Emma,” Jessie said at last. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. It just—well, it seemed like too big a secret to keep from you.”
“But not too big to keep from Mom and Dad?”
Jessie took a breath. “I don’t think they would understand.”
“I’m not sure I do, either,” Emma said. She drew in her breath. “I mean, it is pretty weird, Jess. That Laurel’s going to raise your kid.”
“It’s not . . . It’s not going to be my kid, Emma.”
“Genetically it is. It came from your egg, didn’t it?”
“So?”
“So, technically, it’s your kid.”
“You came from Laurel’s egg. And you don’t consider yourself her daughter.”
There was silence on the line.
“Emma?” Jessie said at last. “I didn’t mean . . . Look, I shouldn’t have said that. I was just defending—Emma?”
“I’m here.”
“Look, I’m sorry. Okay?”
“For what? You’re right. It just feels different to me.”
“Okay.” They were silent again.
“So,” Emma said at last, “do you think you’ll ever tell them?”
“Mom and Dad?”
“Yeah.”
Jesse hesitated. “I don’t know. Maybe when the baby is born.”
Emma sighed. “Good. Because I don’t want to have to keep this secret forever.”
But Jessie didn’t tell them. The baby—a girl—was born at thirty-seven weeks. Laurel called from the hospital in Minneapolis to tell Jessie.
“Can you believe it?” she gushed. “Another little girl.”
Jessie frowned. “Another one?”
“Well, you and Emma, of course. I must be destined to have only daughters.”
Jesse sighed. “Mom, you had nothing to do—”
But Laurel cut her off. “We’ve named her Elizabeth, after Sue’s sister. But we’ll call her Liza. Oh, just wait ‘til you see her. Our dear, dear Liza.”
“There’s a hole in the bucket, Dear Liza, Dear Liza,” Jesse said dryly.
“What?” said Laurel.
“Nothing. Elizabeth what?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What’s her full name?”
“Oh. Elizabeth Halley Patterson.”
“Halley . . . That’s Sue’s last name?”
“Yes. And Patterson is Jim’s.”
Jessie hesitated, sure that the omission must be just as obvious to her mother.
“But what about yours?” she asked at last.
“Well,” said Laurel cheerfully. “That would be a little much, wouldn’t it?”
Jessie was silent for a moment. “I’m very happy for you,” she said at last, but she wondered at the sudden darkening of her mood.
“Really happy,” she added, to make up for her momentary insincerity. And she was happy for her mother, wasn’t she? The baby was fine. Laurel had a new daughter, and Jessie had a . . . Her thoughts stumbled amid the terminology. But it didn’t matter now, did it? Her part was over.
Despite her best intentions, Jessie couldn’t bring herself to tell her parents the truth about Elizabeth. She wished she hadn’t waited so long. Now, it all seemed too momentous. It was one thing to say that she had donated her eggs, that Laurel had asked her. It was another to say: this baby, she came from me.
She had to tell them that there was a baby, though. Her parents asked her occasionally about Laurel, and this was far too big a development to leave out. But even that had cost her. Her face burned all through the conversation, the phone hot against her ear.
“So, she’s Sue’s?” Sarah asked, her emphasis unmistakable. “Sue and what’s-his-name’s? Jim’s?”
Jessie was evasive. They had used an egg donor, she hedged.
“But Sue carried her? She’s her mom?” There was an urgency in Sarah’s voice that made Jessie anxious.
“I guess so,” Jessie said. “But the idea is they’ll all three be the parents.”
“Jesus,” Sarah said. “That poor baby.”
“Not necessarily,” Jessie began, the weight of her lie pressing down on her. “Maybe she’ll . . . Laurel is different now, Mom. I think she’ll be a good—”
Sarah laughed dryly, cutting her off. “Laurel’s never going to change, Jessie. Laurel lives for Laurel, and Laurel alone. That’s never going to change.” She sighed deeply.
“Poor little baby,” she said again.
CHAPTER 44
A Year and a Half Later
Emma
Emma closed the door quietly behind her; she didn’t want to wake Katherine. Her heart quickened a little as she heard the latch click into place. Emma couldn’t explain it, this little rush of excitement that came over her every time she crept outside in the early morning. It wasn’t that she was leaving. That was the worst part of it, really; it was always with an effort that she tore herself away from the warmth of Katherine’s side, the scent of her between the sheets. But Katherine would be there when she returned, and here was the cool morning against her skin, with the city laid out before her, rousing itself after the briefest of nights.
Seven months ago, she and Katherine had found an apartment together in Oakland, a detached mother-in-law suite behind a Victorian house in one of the city’s older neighborhoods near Lake Merritt. The apartment had only one bedroom, and Emma had worried about putting both their names on the rental application. A family with two young children lived in the main house, and even in the Bay Area, sometimes people’s prejudices surprised you. Emma had tried to send Katherine flowers again on the anniversary of their first date, but the bouquet had not been delivered.
“We were busy,” the florist had said flatly when Emma stormed in to complain. “I’ll refund your money.”
Emma thought of the little notecard she had filled out in the florist shop—“Happy Anniversary, baby. I love you.”—and had wondered. Still, it was impossible to prove that the mistake had been intentional, and Emma had swallowed her rage and held her tongue. Instead, she had snipped a single rose from the rose garden where she had taken Katherine on their second date, slipping it into Katherine’s water glass while she slept.
The family that owned the apartment, though, had chosen theirs from the dozens of rental applications they had received. The dot-com boom was in full swing by then. Apartments rented the same day they listed; people lined up at open houses with their credit history reports and pay stubs in hand. When the landlord had called Emma to say the apartment was theirs if they wanted it, she had thought she would burst with gratitude at their luck.
The apartment was small, but cozy, with crown molding on the ceilings and built-in bookshelv
es in the living room. Emma still felt a small thrill when she saw Katherine’s books there beside hers. Emma loved that when she and Katherine were together now, there was never the looming specter of their parting, with one or the other always having to go home.
But they weren’t joined at the hip, unlike so many of the lesbian couples they knew. Often, on Saturdays, they did their own thing, Emma going for long bike rides in the Berkeley Hills, Katherine hiking in Pt. Reyes with some friends she’d made at work. Sundays they spent together. Katherine would be up by the time Emma got back from her morning run, sitting at the kitchen table with her coffee, reading the poetry in The New Yorker that Emma rarely understood. They would make breakfast together, and maybe afterwards go back to bed.
Emma smiled to herself at the thought, quickening her pace. She ran along the path that circled Lake Merritt, keeping her eyes up so that she didn’t see the trash that crowded in the shallows. Her thoughts turned to her sister as she ran. Jessie had called late the night before, fairly bursting with her news. She was engaged, the date set for the following summer. Hiding in the bathroom with her phone—Katherine was asleep already—Emma had laughed a little when she’d heard. Jessie had always insisted that of the three siblings, she would be the last to marry, if in fact she ever did. There was a kind of arrogance in the way she’d said it, as if, of the three of them, she considered herself the least constrained by convention. Emma and Jay might marry, but she would have more important things to do.
But there Jessie was, giddy as anyone over her engagement, and willing to let herself be teased a little for getting it wrong after all. Emma was excited for her sister, and pleased at the idea of a wedding. Katherine would go with her, and then everyone would know.
She smiled, imagining it; she couldn’t help her pride. She felt it swell within her, so that she practically floated down the path around the lake. But Emma knew it wasn’t just the anticipation of her sister’s wedding that had made her spirits soar. It was that Jessie had found it: the one person with whom she would spend her life. Heath wasn’t just one more link in the chain of her sister’s relationships. The chain was over; Heath was the final ring. The thought was vertiginous. If Heath could be the one for her sister, maybe Katherine was—
Emma wouldn’t let her mind finish the thought, but her heart raced.
Emma ran for forty-five minutes and then opened the door to their shared apartment with as much excitement as when she had closed it.
Katherine was in the kitchen, making coffee. She moved out of the way so that Emma could fill a glass with water at the sink.
“Emma, you’re dripping.” she said.
“Sorry.” Emma grabbed the dish towel from the rack and mopped her face. “You’re never going to believe this.”
“Please don’t put that back.”
“What?”
“That towel you just used to wipe your sweat.”
“Oh. Okay.” Emma draped the towel over the back of a chair. “But guess what?”
“What?”
“My sister got engaged.”
Katherine looked up. “Really?”
“Yes!”
“Wow.” Katherine poured some soy milk into her coffee and took a sip. “That’s big.”
“I know. I can’t wait for the wedding. It will be the perfect chance for you to meet everyone.”
Katherine didn’t respond. Emma downed the glass of water.
“I’m going to go take a shower, and then let’s make breakfast? I thought we could go to the flea market later.”
“I can’t, Emma. I’m going hiking.”
“But . . . it’s Sunday.”
“Well, Melinda had family in town yesterday, so I said we could go today. I thought I told you.”
“Well, you didn’t. And who’s Melinda?”
“No one. Just someone new at work.” Katherine opened the refrigerator and put the soy milk away, then glanced at Emma. “Look, I’m sorry, Em. But you and I didn’t have any plans, so I didn’t think it was a big deal. I’d invite you to come, but . . . I don’t know. I wouldn’t want her to feel like a third wheel.”
“It’s just the two of you going?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I guess I always thought it was a bunch of people.”
“Well, sometimes it is. But everyone was busy this weekend.”
“Is Melinda a dyke?” Emma asked suddenly.
Katherine hesitated. “Yeah.”
“Katherine.” Emma took a step toward her, but Katherine sidestepped away.
“Emma, sorry, but you’re disgusting. Don’t worry, though. She’s got a girlfriend.”
“You used to say you liked me this way,” Emma protested.
“All sweaty and gross?”
“Yeah. You said it was sexy.”
Katherine shrugged. “Oh.”
“So why isn’t the girlfriend going?”
Katherine turned away. “I don’t know. Why don’t you go take a shower?”
Emma was almost to the bathroom when she heard Katherine call her. Her heart leaped.
“Yeah?”
“You forgot this sweaty towel, Em. Can you take it with you, please?”
CHAPTER 45
Emma
Only six tickets left at this price, the website warned her. Act fast!
“Kat,” Emma called. “Can I go ahead and get these tickets? I’m afraid the price is going to go up.”
“Tickets for what?” Katherine said, coming to stand behind her.
“For Jessie’s wedding. Did you get the time off work?”
“Em, it’s still months away.”
“Only three months. We should really get our tickets. The price will only go up.”
Emma felt Katherine go still behind her. She swiveled around in the desk chair so that she was facing her.
“What’s wrong? Did you not get the time off?”
“It’s not that, Emma,” Katherine said. Her voice was very quiet.
Emma’s heart stopped. “Then what? Don’t you want—”
“I’m just not sure I should go.”
“What? Why?”
“Emma, it’s just that I know what a big deal it is to you. You want to show me off to everyone. And it doesn’t feel right.”
Emma felt her whole body go cold. She waited.
“Emma, I just don’t think I should go and meet your whole family as your ‘girlfriend’ when I’m not even sure . . .” She trailed off; she no longer looked at Emma but at the floor.
“You’re not even sure what? Katherine, for Christ’s sake, say it. You’re killing me.”
She saw Katherine nod ever so slightly, then take a breath. Emma held hers.
“When I’m not even sure we should be together.” She sighed deeply, like it was a weight off, to have said it at last. But still she didn’t meet Emma’s eye.
Emma leaned back in the chair. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
A long, awful moment passed. “Katherine,” Emma managed at last. “Why?”
“Oh, Em. We’re just so different. And . . . And the passion’s going, don’t you think?”
She peeked up at Emma’s face, as if she expected her corroboration. But Emma shook her head vigorously.
“Katherine, no. That happens with everyone. It’s never like it is at the beginning.”
“But—”
“Katherine, please. You don’t have to be sure. It’s my sister’s wedding, not ours. Everyone has doubts, Katherine. It doesn’t mean—” Emma’s voice cracked. She couldn’t say, It doesn’t mean it’s over.
“Emma, there’s someone else.”
What was the difference between despair and desperation? Maybe there wasn’t one, or perhaps it was only one of degree. Because, with Katherine’s words, Emma felt she had been transported from the midst of one to the far edge of the other. The desolation she felt overwhelmed her.
“Katherine, please.” She had to clench her teeth to stop her chin from trembling, and su
ddenly a long-suppressed memory of Laurel sprung to mind: Laurel, distraught in that psychiatrist’s office so long ago. “Emma, please,” Laurel had begged her then. Well, now it was Emma’s turn to plead. She braced herself for Katherine’s scorn.
“Emma, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“Who is she? Or he?”
Katherine hesitated. “I don’t think I should—”
“Katherine, who?”
Katherine shook her head a little. Her eyes went to the ceiling and she sighed again, as if Emma was trying her. “Melinda,” she said flatly.
Emma let out a little wail. All those hikes, all those Saturdays . . . God, how had she been so naïve?
“But I thought . . . You said she had a girlfriend.”
“She did. They’re . . . ending things, too.”
Emma hadn’t known that pain could be so multifaceted. Each jagged edge led to another. There was the outrage of it, the hot lash of jealousy. And God, the shame. The shame was the worst. Emma hadn’t been enough for her; Katherine wanted someone else.
They’re ending things, too. It was that one word, too, that poked its awful, fatal hole in Emma’s disbelief.
She spoke quietly. “So this is the end?”
Katherine nodded. And there it was, at last. That look of pity for which Emma had waited for so long, and then had somehow stopped expecting. It was a look that said that all of Emma’s desire was a pitiful thing in the end. Pitiful not because it was small or insignificant, but because it was to be pitied.
“Oh, Em,” Katherine said. “I’m so sorry.” She reached out for Emma, as if to comfort her.
But Emma couldn’t stand her comfort; she was burning with the shame of it. “Don’t touch me,” she whispered. “Just go.”
Katherine did go, and then it was worse, for Emma was sure she had gone straight to Melinda. Emma writhed on the bed, imagining Katherine telling Melinda what had happened, that it was over at last. Melinda would give her a sad little smile, but how pleased she would secretly be. And then they would cling to each other, each comforting the other about the wreckage she had brought. And then they would . . . Oh God.
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