Spring Fever Read online

  “With all due respect, that is like saying we have to respect the alcoholic’s decision to drink.” Andy was quick to reject the invitation of diplomacy. “Are you saying that it’s not allowed to talk about ways of healing here?”

  “Honey, no one’s sick here,” Mona answered calmly. “If any of us needs healing, it’s because of the BS we have heard all our lives.”

  Andy set her features in a pout more appropriate for a child than a grown woman. Rebecca was aware of the sideways look Sara gave her, reminding her she had come in with Andy. All of a sudden, she wished she had corrected the collective assumption that they were on their way to becoming best friends.

  However, part of her could sympathize. She might still be in the dark about so many of her own preconceived notions, if it wasn’t for Callie. Maybe Andy wasn’t that lucky.

  “If there was a misunderstanding, maybe I should talk to Father Reynolds, just to make sure we’re all on the same page,” Amber suggested.

  “Does that mean tolerance doesn’t go both ways?” Andy asked. “Rebecca, you might want to tell them I’m not the terrible person they believe me to be. You let me into your house, didn’t you?”

  Rebecca held up her hands in defense. “No one here is a terrible person.” She didn’t like how all eyes were on her. She had begun feeling comfortable here, and it irritated her that both Andy and the other women apparently expected her to pick sides.

  “Look, Andy. You came to my home. You don’t think anyone of us needs healing, do you?”

  “What about David?” Andy asked.

  Her question stunned Rebecca, but only for a moment. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Andy’s expression was somewhere in between pity and triumph as she looked around, taking in the women’s surprised and somewhat curious expressions. “Why don’t we talk somewhere more private? There’s something you should know.”

  * * * *

  There was a time when spending an evening with Rebecca’s daughters would have scared Callie senseless, for several reasons. Maggie had idolized her at the beginning, still did to some extent. Dina had laid the blame for her parents’ marriage ending solely on her for some time.

  These days, the atmosphere was more relaxed between them, Maggie’s current misery notwithstanding. They were the reason, however, some distraction was in order—at least for the time Rebecca was away. Callie was hopeful that a non-traumatic Disney movie and a family pack of ice cream would do the trick, and so far, her strategy seemed to work. Maggie wasn’t as tense as she’d been earlier when the book club attendance was discussed. Maybe a break was all she needed—the same as everyone.

  Nicole, Father Reynolds, Betty, Craig—Callie went over her short list of suspects once more, wondering how they’d ever find the truth without putting impossible pressure on a little girl.

  The doorbell rang, and she got up to open the door, still lost in her musings.

  “Is Rebecca home?” David asked, bringing her right back into the present.

  “Oh…not at the moment.” Callie glanced at her watch, mostly in order to avoid eye contact. “It’s Monday.”

  “I know what day it is. When will she be back?”

  “In about half an hour. The girls and I just finished a movie. Can I get you anything?” The idea of him being here for that half hour made her nervous, and predictably, she was rambling. At least they were both aware a lot was at stake here, and for the sake of the girls, they’d try and stay polite with each other.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Well, come on in.” Callie wasn’t going to ask any questions, because whatever it was David wanted to discuss with Rebecca, he wouldn’t tell her about it.

  “I didn’t think she was going during Spring Break. After all, she wanted both girls here.”

  Callie didn’t like the insinuation, but she held back a retort. Not so with Dina, who stood in the doorway. “Chill, Dad. It’s not like we can’t occupy ourselves for a few hours. Mom has a contract with Reverend Cole for her work. We’re okay here…got some ice cream and a movie.”

  “Yeah, right,” he muttered. “Dina, I’ll be with you in a second. Let me have a moment in private with Callie, okay?”

  No. Not okay.

  “Be nice, Dad,” Dina said with a wink and closed the door.

  “We go easy on the fast food, I promise.” Callie made an effort not to sound ironic. She’d baby-sat Maggie before while he was traveling all over the country, so why the lecture?

  “See, I don’t know how people like you usually handle those things, and I don’t care. Just don’t pretend they’re your children. They’re not.”

  “I never did that. What are you talking about?”

  People like you. David had acted civil when he’d first found out about their relationship, but it seemed like there was a lot of anger still simmering under the surface. It made Callie uncomfortable in a way she hadn’t felt in a while, and she hated it.

  “You think you know everything…about Rebecca, our marriage,” David accused, pacing in the confines of the hallway, making her even more nervous. “She used to be there for the girls, always. Now, she needs to find herself attending a lesbian discussion group?”

  “Wow. Hold on. Rebecca is always there for everyone. She’s doing this one thing for herself, and you resent her for that?”

  “Seems to me she’s done a lot for herself lately.”

  “Well, she couldn’t do that during all those business trips you went on.” Callie suppressed the urge to slap her hand against her mouth. She didn’t want to let herself be drawn into this pointless exchange.

  “It always comes down to that, doesn’t it? How convenient for you to forget that I had a family to feed. Whatever…I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

  “You came here to tell me that?”

  “No, but now that we have the opportunity to talk, Craig called to tell me Rebecca’s applied for a visit. Did you put her up to that?”

  “No, I didn’t, because Rebecca is perfectly capable of making those decisions herself. Maybe you should have asked him exactly what he told Maggie when he ran away with her. You don’t want her to go?”

  “I don’t want any more talk about my family—Craig or Rebecca. He might have problems, but he wouldn’t tell Maggie she’ll end up with strangers,” David insisted.

  “How can you be so sure about that?”

  “Because he doesn’t care that you’re gay, or anyone else for that matter. For some people, it’s not an issue.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” This time, Callie didn’t try to hide the sarcasm. “I’m sorry, David. You’ll have to discuss this with Rebecca. Meanwhile, maybe you want to say hi to Maggie.”

  “You could have walked away,” he said, “and you didn’t. That was more of a choice than you left me with.”

  Callie didn’t want this dispute to escalate any further, so she didn’t tell him the truth. There was no way she would have walked away from Rebecca once she knew they had a chance.

  * * * *

  Rebecca sat across from David at the kitchen table, trying to come up with some redeeming quality for her ex-husband, so she wouldn’t give in to her weariness and frustration, and yell at him.

  His brother had put the moves on her on their parents’ wedding anniversary. He had harassed Callie in hospital and nearly let the men who’d assaulted her go free because he’d been in power—friends with the mayor and businessmen. Craig blamed Rebecca for Maria’s death, for reasons no one had ever managed to unearth. What made David think for a moment he might give a damn about Maggie?

  That wasn’t all. Amber had ended the meeting on a tense note.

  Rebecca had known Andy and David had met at Betty’s dinner party, but what Andy had told her made her doubt how well she knew David. According to Andy, she and David had a lengthy conversation after dinner, touching on subjects you wouldn’t normally discuss with a stranger. Allegedly, Rebecca was a subject too.

&
nbsp; “Do you have anything to say to that?”

  “Everything I said to her is the truth.” David’s tone was far from apologetic.

  It occurred to her that they weren’t good at handling conflicts, possibly never had been. In the last years of their marriage, David had spent half of the month, then three weeks, on the road. When he was home, they tried to focus on being a family, and maybe, something got lost along the way. On the other hand, he might have chosen to be apart for weeks at a time, because something was missing.

  “To a complete stranger? Damn it! You keep saying you don’t want the girls to live under a microscope anymore, and you tell this woman about Maggie and what a tough pregnancy I had? I don’t get you, David. I don’t get you at all.”

  “She said she was going to your brunch. You kept sharing all those things there.” When he realized that wasn’t enough to convince her, David added, “Maybe I drank a little too much, went too far. At least she listened to me.”

  “I’m listening now, and I don’t like what I’m hearing.”

  “I miss you every day.”

  “David, don’t do this.” Rebecca could tell he was sincere. She didn’t think it was fair to steer the conversation into hazardous waters like this, with Callie and the girls only a room away. Over the past few months, they’d said everything that needed to be said. Rebecca thought of Nicole and her attempts at manipulation. She didn’t have the time or energy to go through this once more.

  “What do you expect me to say? I’m sorry about Susan—” She broke off, guiltily remembering her promise to Dina.

  David shook his head, an unhappy smile on his lips. “Don’t worry about it. I knew she’d tell you, and you don’t have to be sorry. It was a mistake to begin with. I should have fought harder for you. I know that now.”

  Rebecca got up from her chair. She leaned against the windowsill, mostly to create more distance between them.

  “It makes you uncomfortable to talk about it, right? Maybe that’s because you haven’t thought things through either.”

  Misunderstanding her silence, he continued. “I left you to deal with everything on your own. I can even understand that you felt the need to experiment—”

  “Stop it! This is my life. It’s not an experiment, and it’s not up for your judgment. That’s what you need to understand.”

  “If you’re so happy, why haven’t you even told your own mother?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve heard the girls on the phone with her, trying to maneuver around the subject. It’s not fair to them.”

  “I was going to tell Mom and Dad.” Rebecca sat back down with a sigh. Unfortunately, he had a point there, even if he was wrong on everything else. “I just haven’t gotten around to doing it.”

  “When?”

  “Soon, I swear. It’s not what you think. You know my parents. I have to find the right moment, and right now, I’m more concerned about Maggie than anything else.”

  “That group you’re going to, do you think they’re helpful? You’re talking to strangers about private subjects too, and you didn’t consider the marriage counselor for a second.”

  There was nothing she could do to shift the blame from where he’d placed it.

  “Maybe it’s better if you go now.”

  “That’s right, put an end to the conversation when the outcome doesn’t suit you. Things can’t always go your way, Rebecca.”

  “Oh, watch me. I’m going to see Craig, because I think he has some answers for us, or an apology at the very least. He’s been messing with us like he always does. If he didn’t want to see me, he just had to say so.”

  David got up too, throwing his hands up defensively. “All right. Do what you want. I don’t know what that will accomplish, but go ahead.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “I don’t know. Betty seemed pretty shocked at first when you let Callie look after Maggie.”

  “No.” Rebecca shook her head in emphasis. “She’s come around. She even went with me to see Father Langdon to talk about Reynolds that time…” She caught David’s thoughtful glance on her. “I’ve been wondering…but for one, there’s no way Maggie could have been alone with him. I can’t go to Reynolds and accuse him without any evidence. He’d love that.”

  “Probably. Did it ever occur to you that she might have those nightmares because something in her little world is irreversibly broken?”

  Rebecca took a step backward when she realized how close they were standing.

  “It’s awful to see her like this,” David said.

  “I know. I’ve seen it a few times.”

  “Maybe what she needs is to see her parents together again, to be a family.” He stepped into her personal place again, his intention obvious.

  It was relatively easy to see where people like Father Reynolds or Andy were wrong, where bigotry got in the way of basic respect for other people’s lives. It wasn’t that easy with the man she’d loved for a long time. Rebecca came to a realization though. The more pressure he, or anyone else for that matter, put on her, the clearer she saw that there was no way back. Neither did she want one.

  Her only hope for them was that one day, they could stop having these awkward, passive-aggressive interactions—for the sake of their daughters, if nothing else.

  “Can’t you at least hear me out?” he pleaded.

  “I’ll talk to my parents. I’ll let you know if we find out about who told these things to Maggie. Good night, David.”

  “They told her she couldn’t stay with you anymore, because you were sick. Do you think it was easy having to sort that out for her?”

  “Is that what you believe, or did Andy tell you that?”

  “I just want my life back…with you.”

  She didn’t have the heart to tell him that the life he referred to didn’t exist anymore.

  Abruptly, David picked up his keys and turned to open the door. Rebecca didn’t follow, just waited until the good-bye rituals with the girls were done and the front door fell into the lock. Moments later, Callie came inside, a worried look on her face.

  “Are you okay? I’m sorry for the ambush, but I couldn’t reach you on the cell.”

  Rebecca stepped forward to embrace her.

  “Aside from the fact that this accomplished nothing…I’m fine. I’ll have to be a lot more careful about Andy. She—”

  She broke off when Maggie joined them in the kitchen. “Hey there. I hear you had a nice movie night.”

  Maggie smiled, but she looked as tired as Rebecca felt.

  * * * *

  “I can’t believe this. I wish I knew what’s gotten into him!”

  Rebecca locked the bathroom door behind her and sat on the rim of the tub, but she got up again right away.

  “He’s scared for Maggie too,” Callie offered, wondering if she should postpone the shower in favor of this conversation. Dina might wonder what they were doing in here. “Frustrated.”

  “I get frustrated sometimes. It’s no wonder Susan left him if he was in such a foul mood all the time, letting her know she was second best. I would have left too…I’m sorry,” she said, as if it only now registered with her why they were in the bathroom. “You can go in the shower. I needed a place to ramble where the girls don’t hear it, and I really don’t feel like taking a walk in the woods.”

  “Give me a few minutes,” Callie said, turning Rebecca to her for a quick kiss. “We’ll talk when the girls are in bed.”

  “Yeah.”

  Rebecca’s eyes didn’t leave her as Callie stripped. “I wish I knew what it takes to make him understand.” Her expression was wistful, longing, distracting Callie from the matter at hand. She reached behind to open the clasp of her bra.

  Rebecca stepped behind her to do it for her, not missing a beat in her musings. “I mean, what is he thinking? Being angry with me is one thing, but did he have to detail our marriage to Andy, of all people? One more reason not to be friends wi
th her. What’s it to her, anyway?”

  “Some people are like that. They can’t leave it alone.” Callie was aware her vague interpretation was unlikely to be satisfactory, but she had never gotten any further trying to figure people like Andy out. Frankly, she didn’t want to waste too much energy on them.

  “I’m not going back. I don’t know in how many words I can tell him.”

  “He’ll understand eventually.”

  Callie touched her hand against Rebecca’s, a small display of gratitude before she stepped into the stall. Once inside, she leaned against the tile, for a moment enjoying the hot water cascading over her body. It all came down to finding the person who had lied so shamelessly to Maggie. When that was accomplished, maybe David would stop calling or dropping by at times he knew Rebecca wasn’t there. She’d had some sympathy for him in the beginning, but he was losing her. Discussing details of his marriage with Andy meant crossing a line that had nothing to do with him being angry at Callie. In any case, it was easier from her point of view to be forgiving when Rebecca’s priorities were this clear.

  She opened her eyes to a sight that quickly did away with all the somber thoughts.

  When Callie leaned back against the wall again, the cool tile presented a nice contrast to the heat of Rebecca’s naked body.

  “I want you to know this has nothing to do with my frustration about the people who seem to enjoy making our lives harder. I just need to be close to you.” The water ran, enveloping them in a cloud that drowned out all the sounds from inside—Rebecca’s warm, urgent whisper, Callie’s gasp when Rebecca began to explore her body—the light touch a gentle torment. She tilted her head back, and Rebecca found that spot on her neck again. The kiss, together with the slow slide of the fingers inside her, created a sensual and emotional overload.

  Then, the world stopped. Callie opened her eyes, her breath catching at the sight of Rebecca, who had dropped to her knees, looking up at her with that confident, knowing smile.

  Oh, God. She knew she’d said it out loud when Rebecca’s smile deepened.