Fallen Elements (25 page)

“It’s no trouble. I can wait up front.” Ryan
squeezed Leah’s hands, her eyes wandering over the woman’s
face.

Leah cocked her head to the side, a worried
expression shadowing her eyes. “Is everything okay?”

Ryan nodded, she knew too eagerly, before
speaking. “I’m good.”

Leah reached up and cupped Ryan’s cheek.
“Give me fifteen minutes?”

“Of course.” Ryan fought back the urge to
cry. The warmth of Leah’s hands and the whirlwind of emotions her
touch incited in Ryan was almost more than she could bear.

Leah’s brow furrowed as she looked closely at
Ryan. Lowering her voice, she leaned forward. “Something’s wrong.
Let me cut this short and walk up with you.”

Not waiting for Ryan’s response, Leah turned
her attention back to the women. “Ladies, parting is such sweet
sorrow, but I have to go.”

Mrs. Dunkin shook her head. “You’re losing
and you can’t take it.”

Leah chuckled, tossing her cards onto the
table. “No, Mrs. Dunkin, I’m late. And for the record, Mrs. Hoffman
and I are up by thirty.”

“Then we win!” Mrs. Hoffman announced.

The women began to bicker over the rules when
one team quits, allowing Leah to quietly slip out of the room. Ryan
was leaning against the wall outside the door, and Leah wrapped her
arms around her, hugging her tightly.

“You ready to talk?” Leah’s breath was warm
on Ryan’s neck as she spoke.

“Sure.” Ryan’s voice caught as she buried her
face in the warmth of Leah’s neck.

Leah took Ryan’s hand and the two women made
their way toward the front of St. Martin’s. “See you next week,
Sister Mary Gabriel.” Leah smiled at the nun who had greeted
Ryan.

“I suspect I’ll still be here, but one never
can tell.” The woman winked at Leah and gave Ryan a smile.

The weather had finally begun to warm, and
Ryan clung tightly to Leah’s hand as they walked toward her Nissan.
“Hey, instead of rushing right over to dinner, why don’t we take a
walk in the meditation garden?” Leah offered.

Ryan was grateful for the offer. Her nerves
already had her feeling out of breath, and the idea of getting in a
car made her feel claustrophobic and sweaty. “Perfect. Lead the
way.”

“So you’re Catholic?” Ryan followed Leah
around the building, and then up along a concrete walkway that
ended near a small wooden gazebo. The path was lined with neatly
trimmed grass, along with succulents, roses, and white lantana.
Large pine trees formed a thick canopy overhead, and the shade they
provided made the path slightly cooler than the surrounding
area.

“I’m not. My Aunt Helen was.” Leah hooked her
arm through Ryan’s. “My parents weren’t religious, and I’ve never
found much use for it as an adult. What about you?”

“My family are white Anglo-Saxon Protestants
all the way back to the Mayflower.” Ryan laid her head on Leah’s
shoulder. “Which really means – at least for my immediate family –
fundraisers, charity balls, and a general sense of superiority over
the rest of the world.” The two women walked into the gazebo. “Then
of course, there’s the proverbial stick up one’s ass.”

Leah laughed. “Can I infer from that comment
you haven’t found much use for religion either?”

“Infer away.” Ryan and Leah sat down on a
bench that was built into the gazebo. Across from them was a white
marble statue of the Virgin Mary erected along one side of the
covered area.

“So, what’s happening? You’ve looked like you
were near tears since you got here, and now I know you were upset
last night.” Leah held Ryan’s hand in both of hers. Her light green
eyes searched Ryan’s blue ones.

“My aunt and cousin are in town.” Ryan
exhaled as she felt the dreaded moment begin to unfold.

Leah nodded. “Are they okay?”

Ryan was surprised by the concern in Leah’s
voice, given her and Lucy’s clear disdain for one another. “They’re
fine.”

“Then what?” Leah gently prodded.

“You know how you know something, but you
think there’s a chance you might not know something – or at least
it might be different enough that what you know isn’t really what
you imagined you knew?” Ryan stood up, her back to Leah. She knew
she wouldn’t be able to have this conversation if she and Leah were
touching. “You know?”

“Ah, I was never very good at word problems.
Could you be a little more specific?”

Ryan couldn’t bring herself to turn around.
“I need to talk to you about my mother.”

Leah leaned back on the bench, crossing her
ankles in front of her. “What about Karen?”

“I need to know what happened between you
two. Specifically.” Ryan’s back was to Leah, and for whatever
reason she couldn’t take her eyes away from the smooth lines and
grayish white skin of the statue. Its perfection seemed more like
an aberration than a rendering of a once living person.

“I told you, we had a falling out. Teenage
girls and all the drama that can come along with it.” On the
surface, Leah’s tone was calm, but Ryan could detect a slight edge
to her words. As a result, the certainty Ryan had wanted eluded
her.

Finding her courage, Ryan turned to face
Leah, her eyes brimming with tears. “There’s something you’re not
telling me.”

Leah’s brow arched. “I’m not lying to you,
and I’m a bit offended that you’re implying that I am.”

“Did you make a pass at Lucy when you were
younger?” The question shot out of Ryan’s mouth before she could
stop it. Leah’s evasiveness was irritating her, and it was
prompting a more forward line of questioning than Ryan might
otherwise be comfortable with.

Leah’s eyes widened as her breath caught in
the back of her throat. “What?!”

“I asked you if –”

“Stop.” Leah stood up, and held her hand out
in front of her. “Just – just stop.”

Ryan felt sick to her stomach. Hearing the
hurt and anger in Leah’s voice was almost too much for her to bear.
“I need you to answer the question.”

Leah shoved her hands into the front pockets
of her jeans. “Jesus Christ. First Jenny and now you. Who do you
think I am?”

Ryan wanted the conversation to end. She
wanted Leah to say the whole idea of her and Lucy was ridiculous
and comical. Instead, Leah stood in front of her defensive and
angry. When Ryan spoke, her voice sounded hollow. “Please. Leah,
please answer the question.” Tears burned Ryan’s eyes as she fought
the urge to turn her back on Leah again.

“I have never, and
would
never give
Lucy a second look. She’s a horrible person.” Leah’s eyes brimmed
with tears. “She’s hateful and manipulative. The very idea that I
would ever – it – it’s disgusting.” The tears flowed freely down
Leah’s face.

Pushing past the overwhelming need to comfort
Leah, Ryan softened her tone as she pressed on. “And my
mother?”

Leah quickly wiped at her face as she tilted
her head up. “Ryan, please don’t do this.”

Ryan stepped forward, and took Leah’s hand.
“I need to know.”

Leah looked at Ryan. The green of her eyes
was intensified by the redness her crying had caused. “Karen was in
love with me.”

The quiet of the garden folded in around
Ryan. She felt as if time were slowing down, and the space
surrounding her was shrinking. “That’s not possible.”

“It’s the truth, Ryan.” Leah chewed nervously
on her lower lip. “I didn’t love her - not like that anyway, but
she insisted. Then she told Lucy.”

The revelation that her mother was gay, or at
the very least in love with a woman, blanketed the surface of
Ryan’s mind. “But – she was so angry when I came out to her.”
Remembering the exchange six years earlier with Karen brought a
fresh set of tears to Ryan’s eyes.

Leah squeezed Ryan’s hand. “I can’t imagine
what that was like for you. Or how confusing and awful that must
have been for Karen.” Leah released Ryan’s hand, and took a step
back. “After Karen confided in Lucy, she betrayed your mother’s
trust and told your grandfather.”

Leah sat back down on the bench, her eyes
fixed on some distant point beyond the gazebo. “It got worse when
Lucy implied that I had tricked or converted Karen into being gay
so I could get at her money.”

Ryan pushed her own questions and hurt
feelings aside, seeing that Leah – in spite of many false starts –
needed to tell this story after all. She sat down next to Leah on
the bench.

“Karen and I had been best friends for
several years. She was one of the first people I told when I
thought I might be gay.” Leah wiped at her face with the back of
her hand.

“I was never attracted to her like that. I
always thought of her more like a sister, but at some point she
developed feelings for me.” Leah wiped the last of her tears away.
“She worked up the courage to tell Lucy, and the rest was a
disaster.”

Ryan put her hand on Leah’s knee. “What
happened?”

Leah looked down at Ryan’s hand. “Her parents
threatened to disown her. Your grandfather sent her to a resort in
Massachusetts.”

Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “Resort?”

Leah sniffled. “That’s what they called it,
but really it was a psychiatric hospital that specialized in
fixing
gay people.”

“Jesus.” Ryan couldn’t imagine what that had
been like for her mother. She had read about ex-gay movements, and
knew some of them went as far back as the late sixties and early
seventies. “What happened?” Ryan forced the question. She wasn’t
sure she had the stomach for the answer.

Leah hesitated. Her voice cracked when she
finally managed to speak. “When she came home, she was so angry and
hateful. She blamed me for what she had been through.” As she
spoke, Leah’s eyes filled with tears again. “She was angry she had
stood up to her family for what in the end turned out to be
nothing.”

“But it wasn’t nothing if she
was
gay.” Ryan insisted, her mother’s reaction to her own coming out
ringing truer in light of what Leah was telling her.

“She didn’t see it like that, and we had a
terrible falling out.” Leah frowned. “I think she married your
father to prove something to her family – or to herself.” Leah’s
gaze was distant.

“Leah.” Ryan put her hand on the woman’s
back. “It’s not your fault. You were honest with her.”

Leah’s eyes shot up to Ryan’s. Her face
distorted with grief, and something else Ryan thought akin to
shame. Leah quickly got up.

“What is it?” Ryan felt some of the certainty
of the past few minutes begin to falter. She didn’t want to go
backward with Leah.

“Nothing. I haven’t talked about any of this
for a long time.” Leah couldn’t make eye contact with Ryan, and she
had thrust her hands back into her pockets.

Ryan closed her eyes, an errant tear running
down her left cheek. In that moment she knew Leah was still holding
something back. The fact Leah would lie to her so emphatically
after what she
had
shared, threw Ryan back into the deep
recesses of doubt.

“Ryan?” Leah was standing in front of her.
“Tell me.”

Ryan sniffled. She was tired. Her body
suddenly ached with fatigue, and she wanted nothing more than to
curl up in her bed. “I’m not going to be able to have dinner with
you tonight. I just remembered I promised Carol we would get
drinks.”

Leah’s shoulders slumped, a frown forming on
her perfect mouth. “Ryan, we should talk about this.”

Ryan stepped around Leah, and began walking
back through the garden. “What’s to talk about? You’ve said all
you’re going to say, right?”

Leah quickened her pace to catch up with Ryan
before grabbing the woman’s forearm. “Wait. What’s going on?”

Ryan spun around. “Did you tell me
everything?”

The last trace of hope Ryan had was hanging
on Leah’s next words. When Leah said nothing, Ryan’s fall into
doubt was even greater than she could have imagined. She had
already gone so far with Leah that the journey away from her seemed
perilous and exhausting.

“I have to go.” Ryan pulled her arm away from
a dumbfounded Leah, and quickly retreated to her car. Leaving the
convent, Ryan veered off onto a residential street, pulled
alongside the curb, and put her car in park.

She looked up at the sky, catching glimpses
of white clouds between the branches of nearby trees. Like Leah,
they had nothing to say. Ryan felt a pressure on her chest, and she
thought it must be the weight of suspicion pressing into her,
reshaping her skin along with her feelings for Leah. She suddenly
felt heavy and clumsy as if she were fraying in places.

Resting her forehead against the steering
wheel, Ryan wondered if she weren’t better off not knowing.
Everything Leah
had
said left Ryan wondering if no answers
were the best, lest she have to try to unlearn the ones she didn’t
like.

Isaac woke me before dawn this morning. I
was slow to rise as I can feel the time of our child’s birth is
near, though the sickness and cramping have left me.

Isaac and I have struggled over the past few
days to find our way back to each other after the terrible words we
had. My husband has reminded me though, that where we have love we
have forgiveness.

I fear there will be no forgiveness for
Margery and her family. As much as it pains me to write, I know now
that what they are accused of is true. Coleen called upon me just
yesterday, she said at the request of Isaac. She was, as always,
gracious and kind in her reassurances that all would be well with
the birth, and that she had no doubt our child would flourish.

“
Your family is a strong one,
Remembrance.” She had not touched the warm ale I had given her, but
absently ran her finger along the mug’s rim. “You must know the
Allerton line is one of strength and conviction.” Her eyes had
narrowed and an inquisitive look crossed her face. “Did Isaac tell
you my husband knew his father?”