A Perfect Life nd Other Stories (10 page)

“Whereabouts? I’ve never been there.”

“I was born in Salem, Massachusetts.”

“Salem. The witch trials?” Erica flinched almost imperceptibly.

“So the story goes. They actually took place in Danvers, before it
was Danvers. We didn’t live there very long.”

“Military?”

“No, just itinerant. Maine for a few years, then Vermont and
upstate New York, now here. My dad longed to ‘get away from it all,’ but ‘it
all’ kept encroaching.”

“What’d he do?” Erica leaned in attentively, as though Ann was the
only person on the planet.

“He was a carpenter. He built houses.”

“Wasn’t he sort of helping ‘it all’?”

“Good point, but that’s not how he saw it.” Fact was, he hadn’t
wanted to move. It was her mother who forced the migrations. “I’m finding small
towns are far less away from it all than cities.”

“Depending on what ‘it all’ is.”

“True. I like the anonymity of cities but I love the country.”

“And your mom?”

“She stayed home with me and—” Ann threw a glance toward Freddy.
“They’ve both passed.”

“I’m sorry.”

Ann waved her off. “They were older when they had me. They had a
good life together.” She poured them both more wine. “So what about you? When
you weren’t here, where did you live?”

“San Francisco.”

“I’ve always wanted to visit there.”

“I liked it. It was easy to fit in.”

“I’m jealous. I don’t think I’ve ever quite
found that.”

“That surprises me. You seem quite fit in-able.”

“Why thank you.”
If she only knew
.

“I mean it. I’m glad to have found you.”

Another rush of attraction warmed Ann. “Me
too.”

Erica seemed relaxed when talking about herself, but Ann could
tell she preferred listening. And despite her nervousness about the whole date
thing, Ann felt more at ease than with anyone other than immediate family.

“There’s something about you,” Erica said. “I can’t quite put my
finger on it.”

Please don’t ever figure it out
.

“I feel . . . comfortable with you. More so
than
. . . anyone.”

“I feel the same way,” Ann said.
At least
for now
.

“I wonder why that is—that some people make us nervous and others,
well, don’t.”

Ann stared at Erica, unsure of what to say. Her heart both soared
and sank. Here was someone who felt comfortable with her. Did she dare let
Erica in all the way?

Ann moved to clear the plates. Erica offered to help. “No, I’ve
got it,” Ann said. “You’re the guest.”

“I’d rather be your friend.”

Ann swooned slightly then immediately worried Erica meant
it—friends only—but if so, she wouldn’t have kissed her. Ann decided she really
did think entirely too much. “In that case, grab a plate.”

THEY SETTLED ON the couch by the fire with slices of the chocolate
cake Ann had spent the morning preparing, with its layer of raspberry jam in
the middle. Erica took a bite and moaned. “This is
so
delicious.”

Ann wondered if she could ever make Erica moan like that.

When Erica offered to add wood to the fire,
Ann went to get their bottle of wine from the kitchen. She returned to find
Erica staring at Freddy. Ann froze.

“Is he okay?” Erica asked.

“Um, yes. He’s just old.” She stood by Erica, holding the wine
bottle with a death grip on the neck. She was so used to Freddy that she had
stopped noticing the scars and stitches. He lumbered, if something so small
could be said to move that way, through the woodchip bedding. He had at least
one toe missing from each foot. They snapped off so easily and were the devil
to stitch back on.

Erica straightened. “If he wasn’t moving, I’d say he was dead. Had
been for some time.”

Ann’s heart pounded. Erica gave her a warm
smile, returned to the couch, and didn’t say anything more. Ann shot a glance
at Farkas, but he was curled up in front of the fire. Erzsebet was still
outside. She relaxed. Maybe I can get through this evening, she thought. Then,
maybe, she’d try telling her. It’s not like any of it had been Ann’s choice.

“Do you believe in reincarnation?” Erica asked as Ann settled
beside her.

“Not really. Why? Do you think we knew each other in a past life?”

“I’ve never believed in that, but some people make me wonder. Like
you.”

“Your flattery is like a spell.”

Erica stiffened. “No,” she said. “I didn’t mean that. I’d never
manipulate you.”

It was as though a cold wind blew through the small house. Ann
shivered. The logs in the fire shifted.

“Hold on. I was joking, but don’t you think there’s a certain
magic to attraction? Why this person and not another?”

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s not magic.”

“Then kismet, or God.”

“Do you believe in God?” Erica asked.

My goodness she asks deep questions, Ann thought. “I don’t know
one way or the other. Could be. Maybe not. You?”

“It’s complicated.”

Ann chuckled. “Of course it is. That’s why wars have been fought
over it.”

“No,” Erica said decisively. “I don’t believe.”

So she’s an atheist, Ann thought. An agnostic herself, she found a
certain comfort from uncertainty. Could be, could not be. She didn’t know,
couldn’t know, so she didn’t worry about it.

“Any particular reason why?” she asked.

“Religion, any religion, is nothing more than brainwashing. A way
to control others. It keeps people from realizing their own power. Their own
god within.”

Ann liked the idea of a “god within.” Could it
be that simple? “Intriguing. I would agree. My ancestors fled the old country
to escape the abuse of such power.” She wondered how she could blurt out
something that had been a family secret for generations.

“Religious persecution?”

“No, more personal.” Ann glanced at Farkas, sleeping by the fire.
Maybe it was the wine. Maybe it was the beautiful woman beside her, but she
felt her guard dropping.
I’ll never know unless I try
. “The family story
is that an ancestor, a beautiful peasant girl, was chosen by a prince. She
turned him down. Rather than be humiliated, he accused her of bewitching him
and cursed the family. We were driven out of town.”

“A woman stands up for herself, so automatically, she’s a witch.”

“Torches and pitchforks. The whole nine
yards.”

“That was wrong,” Erica said, like it had happened last week.

“It was a long time ago. Who knows if that’s really what happened.
Maybe just an allegory—power corrupts.”

“It doesn’t have to.”

“What’s to stop it? I mean, maybe that’s the benefit of religion.
Someone clarifying what’s okay and what’s not.”

“Hasn’t stopped religions from being corrupt,” Erica said.

“True. My goodness, how’d we get onto such a heavy topic?”

“Must be the full moon. It brings out my
serious side.”

In the background, Heather Peace sang about fairy tales.

“I like your serious side,” Ann said.

“I like all your sides.”

“You haven’t seen them all.”

“I hope to.”

Ann leaned toward Erica and kissed her. “I want you to.”

The stereo switched to the Indigo Girls. Erica stood and pulled
Ann into her arms. As they danced, Ann gave in to Erica’s charms, melting into
her body, so warm and secure.

At midnight, Ann’s great-grandmother’s cuckoo clock chimed. She
and Erica were lying on the couch together, kissing and talking softly.

Ann sighed. “It’s late. You probably want to get going, huh.”

Erica touched her cheek. “Actually . . .” She kissed Ann tenderly.
“I don’t.”

“Oh.” Ann’s cheeks warmed with desire. “Oh.”

“You seem uncomfortable. Should I leave?”

Yes. “No. It’s just—it’s been a long time.”

“Me too.”

Before she could talk herself out of it, Ann rose, took Erica’s
hand, and led her to the bedroom. Their lovemaking wasn’t perfect at first, Ann
was so nervous. Then Erica apologized and Ann realized that she was nervous,
too. That broke the spell, and Ann pushed aside her fears, let the past and the
future drop away, and focused on the present before her.

Erica made Ann believe in the healing power of touch—her hands, so
warm and soft. Ann felt like she was flying, transformed and released, rising
past treetops and clouds and into brilliance.

LATER, A SOUND startled Ann awake. She caught her breath, then
exhaled when Erica’s arms tightened around her. She listened to her lover’s
breathing.
My lover. My love
. Neither had said it aloud, but Ann began
to hope it might be possible.

The next time she woke, cool air bathed her
back as Erica slipped out of bed.
No. Don’t go
. “You okay?”

“Just need the bathroom,” Erica said. Lit by moonlight, she pulled
on Ann’s robe.

The only bathroom was off the kitchen. She would have to walk
through the whole house to get there. The light of the full moon shone
brilliantly through the window, reflecting off the fresh snow. The bedroom door
creaked. And so it ends.

This was how it had gone down before: potential girlfriend number
one ran screaming from the house (that had scared Ann celibate for two years);
number two feigned food poisoning and left before dessert; the third one made
it to a second date, but then didn’t return Ann’s calls; the fourth moved away
(Ann thought that had been overreacting, perhaps); and the last one found it
kinky, and Ann had to break up with her or run naked through the back field,
howling at the top of her lungs.

Ann pulled Erica’s pillow to her and cried softly.

After what seemed like hours, during which
Ann imagined all sorts of unseemly storylines involving Erica fleeing, dying
from fright, or going to the authorities, the bedroom door creaked again and
the mattress shifted as Erica slid back into bed.

Ann waited, curious. “Everything . . . okay?” she asked.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you,” Erica said, snuggling
close, her voice tense with energy. “It was incredible.”

“What?”

Erica described how she had found Farkas curled by the fire—not in
his bed, safe in the shadow of the corner, Ann lamented—and how the light of
the moon was just hitting his face.

“As the moonlight spread, he changed,” Erica said, her voice
filled with awe. “His fox features elongated, his soft brown coat turned gray
and coarse. He grew right before my eyes.” She’d sat on the couch to watch. “He
grew and grew, until he was the size and shape of a large wolf.”

Ann felt faint but stayed quiet.

“He looked right at me, like he remembered me from earlier. His
eyes were so intelligent, but there was also a wildness. It was like he both
wanted to curl up with me and eat me.”

Ann nodded in silent agreement.

“Then,” Erica said, “he stretched this amazing new body and
charged through the dog door.” She paused while she pulled the blanket tighter
around them. “Will he be all right?”

Ann was struck dumb. Erica was worried about Farkas? Not terrified
of him? “He’ll be fine. He’ll run through the field, howling till morning, then
he’ll come home and sleep for a day.” Ann paused. “Was . . . that all?”

“Oh, there are a bunch of eviscerated mice strewn about the
kitchen.”

“Erzsebet, I’m afraid.”

“I figured. She was lapping up their blood and rolling in the
gore.”

“Oh god. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Erica kissed her cheek. “Want to tell me what’s going
on?”

So Ann told her. “At least since my great-great-grandmother’s
time, Farkas, Freddy, and Erzsebet have been handed down, generation after
generation. A beastly bequest. It’s the burden of immortality.”

“Did it have anything to do with the curse you mentioned earlier?
About your ancestor insulting a prince?”

“Yes,” Ann said, “but he didn’t curse the family, exactly. He
cursed the family pets. Farkas became a werewolf, Erzsebet a vampire, and
Freddy a . . . what? What do you call an undead hamster?”

“Zombie,” Erica said, like it made sense.

Ann felt tears well. “You don’t mind?”

Erica kissed her neck. “No. Wait till I tell you about the
skeleton in my closet.”

Ann blinked. Outside, in the dim light of the first hint of dawn,
a wolf howled.

She curled into Erica’s warm embrace. “Tell me, my love,” she
whispered.

The Stranger

FROM THE SHADOW of the trees, Lin watched her house, not with an
assessing eye, but with a wary one. A woman sat on her porch, and she’d been
sitting or standing or pacing there for three hours now. Lin hadn’t seen her
arrive, she’d been in the woods. From the trees, across a small meadow she’d
carefully cultivated to look wild, beyond the vegetable patch where weeds
needed pulling and tomatoes harvesting, she had a clear view to the porch and
the stranger.

A veery called, high and flutelike. If the sound reached the
stranger, she didn’t appear to care. But Lin paused in her wary watching to
enjoy the birdsong. August woods tend more toward quiet than the cacophony of
spring, with all the shouts and posturing of courtship. By August, most of the
chores of raising a family are done, as they were for Lin, who was well beyond
her own August.

Cicadas buzzed while a soft breeze rustled the oak leaves and
whispered through the pines, cooling the sweat of sitting still. A small,
stifled sound reminded Lin of why she was sitting on a log, her legs falling
asleep. A sneeze. The woman, the stranger, had sneezed. Lin watched her get up
from the steps where she must have grown hot in the sun. Her details were
indistinct at this distance. Long limbs, dark hair, jeans, white T-shirt. She
dug a tissue from a pocket and wiped her nose. Then she moved onto the porch,
under the shading roof. Lin’s roof.

Why won’t she give up and leave?
This had happened before. A reporter
had once camped out on Lin’s porch, forcing her back into the woods to spend
the night in her blind. For a time, the newspapers had been all over her story,
and she had been willing to tell it. But it hadn’t done any good, so now she
shut up about it. Eventually the reporters had stopped coming around, except on
certain anniversaries—one year, five years. Ten had been the last. After that,
they’d moved on to the next headline. So why now? Quick mental math calculated
out to sixteen years. No significance to that. Sure, the child would be twenty-one
now. Lin squinted at the stranger, wishing she had her binoculars with her.
That would have solved this easily. She could hope that was Emma waiting there
for her, but knew that was unlikely. She hadn’t shown up when she’d turned
sixteen and could drive, nor at eighteen when she was emancipated. Why would
she now?

She’s probably not even called Emma anymore
. Emma had been Lin’s
idea. They hadn’t been able to settle on a name. During labor, the deadline
loomed. “She needs a name,” Jan had panted between contractions.

Lin ran down the list again, but neither felt
comfortable with any of them. “She’ll have it her whole life,” Lin said. “It
has to be something we’ll like forever, not some trendy, latest starlet name.”

Jan nodded then squeezed Lin’s arm as another contraction hit.
Nothing got your attention quite like deadlines and the risk of your arm being
broken. “How about Emma?” Lin asked tentatively.

Jan finished her breaths and sank back on the pillow, her dark
curls plastered to her neck by sweat. “Huh,” she said. A few more pants.
“Maybe.”

Further debate was interrupted by a command from the doctor at the
other end of the bed. “Time to push, Janice.”

Later, when things had calmed down, after Lin
had held her new, wrinkled daughter, had kissed Jan who slept from exhaustion,
and returned from taking a break to get something to eat, they learned that
“Emma” had been entered on the birth certificate. Neither was sure they’d given
the authorization, but amid the confusion it was certainly possible, so it seemed
fated and, besides, would make an interesting story. Jan never asked, and Lin
never bothered to say how she came up with it. To name their child after a TV
character, however obscure Mrs. Peel might be, seemed too much in line with the
whole starlet theme. Best to let it go. Instead, she gently drew her calloused
finger down the baby’s butter-soft cheek and introduced herself. “Hi, Emma,”
she said softly. “I’m Linda. Everyone calls me Lin, but you’ll call me Mama.”

Lin stood and stretched, letting the memories
drop away like the pine needles from her shirt. She stared across the bright
meadow to the figure now in shadow. She debated whether to go forward or
retreat back into the woods. She hadn’t always been like this, shy as a deer,
wary and watchful. It had happened slowly, bit by bit, as her life had been
exposed, cross-examined, counter-charged, fund-raised for, and eventually
blasted into such small bits that she wasn’t sure who she was by the end. Not
that there was an end. Closure, her therapist of a few weeks had intoned.
That’s what she needed but, she was convinced, could never have.

Friends had gently suggested she move away,
start over, at least clear out Emma’s room. But Lin loved this house, this
land. They were not the guilty parties. They had done nothing wrong. She had
closed Emma’s door and whenever she’d tried to open it, to deal with what lay
inside—the books, the LEGOs, the absence of Barbies—she was blown back as
though by a force field. One that sheared her breath from her and numbed her
limbs.

After countless appeals, after she’d lost hope of reversing the
decision, the court had ruled in her favor, affirmed that she had been, after
all, a parent, an important part of Emma’s life, and granted her visits, but by
then Jan had vanished with Emma. Only then did she enter the room. She knelt on
the floor, pulling books off the shelf and piling them into boxes. Her fingers
caressed the frayed spine of Emma’s favorite, the one about the duckling,
separated from its family, searching among the reeds and lily pads, asking over
and over to every creature it encountered, “Are you my mama?” Then Lin cried.

As soon as she had come home from the hospital, Emma was read to.
At six months, she chewed through books. Literally. But still, Lin read to her,
wiping drool as she turned the pages. At two, Emma pulled them off the shelf
and asked in the language that only Mommy and Mama could translate, “Read this
one.” But no Heather, Disney princess, honey-obsessed bear, or big red dog held
her heart like that near-tragic duckling. “Mama,” she had said, pointing to the
mother duck. “That’s you,” she had added, poking Lin in the chest. Then she’d
giggled in her four-year-old way, astonished that there could be more than one
Mama.

Lin turned back toward the house. The shadows had grown and
deepened. She was getting hungry. Who was this blocking her way? This stubborn
someone. Social worker? Her case had never closed, but priorities had shifted,
money was tight, and Emma, everyone assumed, was at least safe. While Jan had
leveled plenty of allegations at Lin, she, in turn, had never hinted that Jan
was anything but loving toward Emma. Private eye? Lin’s money for that had run
out years ago. No one had been able to find them. Down south somewhere, they assumed.
Cop? Had something happened to Emma or to Jan? Had they been found? That alone
almost urged her legs to move toward the house. But the police had long since
stopped coming in person. They called occasionally to see if she had heard
anything, and there was a warrant for Jan’s arrest, of course, but they looked
to Lin for breaks in the case. Her answering machine was the only link she
needed to law enforcement.

Maybe this was a new generation of reporter for some gay press,
anxious to resurrect an old, stale story. Things had changed across the
country, she might say, how do you feel about that, she probably wanted to ask.
But nothing had changed for Lin. Her story was hardly unique. Had they been
allowed to marry back then, it might not have changed anything. Even the
Goodridges had divorced, after their eponymous groundbreaking case had etched
them into the stone of history. Plenty of straight families broke up and did
not make headlines.

In February, Emma had turned twenty-one. Lin
blew out a quiet breath. That’s how old she had been when she’d met Jan in
their last year of college. How had they missed each other over four years?
What if they hadn’t met that fateful afternoon? They used to joke about that,
then laugh as they made up fake lives for each other. Now it was Jan who felt
fake. Nine years would be a mere blip in most people’s memories, across a span
of twenty-plus years, and countless lovers, girlfriends, and, these days,
wives, but a child changed everything. They didn’t decide to have a child to
save the relationship, nor did the child ruin it. Having a child was the
logical next step to something that had felt so perfect and so right. Having
children wasn’t something Lin had thought about before Jan mentioned that it
was something she’d thought about. But once the thought was in her head, Lin
had no problem with it. How could she not want to raise a child with this woman
she loved?

By some definition, Lin could be considered
Emma’s father. Though the sperm was not hers, she did push the plunger,
impregnating Jan. And while the doctor had said an orgasm was not required for
a woman to become pregnant, Lin had found the whole endeavor so arousing that
she didn’t think twice about including it in the plan. So they made love. Then
they made a baby. Afterward, lying spent and entwined, they plotted out their
family’s future. The name list began, schools were chosen, potential
professions considered, and the speck that would become Emma grew inside one
belly pressed against the other.

Is there a statute of limitations on parenthood? Are you still
considered one if you’ve been thwarted in the effort for sixteen years, since
your daughter was five? Lin never got to say goodbye, to reassure the
frightened little girl that her Mama would always be there for her, even if she
couldn’t live with her. Maybe that was why she never moved away. Could the
memory of a five-year-old survive into adulthood and lead her back home?
Doubtful.

Lin would never abandon a child. Would never have abandoned Jan.
That she might become one who could be abandoned had also never occurred to
her. Lin had grown up sure of herself. Jan had grown up afraid—of her demanding
parents, of her religion, of society. At first, Lin had found that
attractive—this vulnerable, fearful girl who could be protected.

Lin sometimes wondered if it wasn’t to her credit that the
relationship had fallen apart. If she had only bullied Jan, like her family had
all those years, Jan might have stayed. But Lin had showed her how to be
independent. She had insisted on it, and had thought Jan had thrived.

A headache formed at the back of her skull. She was thirsty and
hungry. She’d spent the morning marking trees for harvesting. Some to sell,
some for her woodstove. Rob would come by on the weekend with his chainsaws and
they’d make quick work of it. But now, she’d wasted the afternoon watching a
stranger sit on her porch, trespass on her property. Why hadn’t she just
marched across the field and chased her away? Lin rubbed her temples. The past
was gone, the future didn’t exist yet, all she had was this moment in time. Was
this how she wanted to spend it?

Lin turned her back on the stranger and breathed deeply the scent
of sun-warmed pine. Deep, cleansing breaths, as her yoga instructor had taught
her. Breathe out the rage. The rage had made her turn to yoga. At first, no
longer able to contain it, she had tried to run from it. But it had followed. After
Jan and Emma vanished, she raged through her woods, inflicting scars still
visible these many years later. With her ax and the darkness of rage, she
felled a dozen small trees, completely unaware. When she awoke from a
migraine-drenched stupor, some unknown number of hours or days later, she
looked around at the carnage and wondered if a tornado had passed through and
she’d miraculously survived. She spent the next two days building a loose
definition of a cabin, her blind. A place where she could retreat from one
world and observe another—track mink in winter, watch birds court and nest in
spring, escape mosquitoes in summer, and listen to leaves drop in the autumn
chill. Grateful not to have severed a foot, she turned to yoga to tame the
rage.

Yoga, however, was no match for the guilt that to this day sat in
her like bones, had become the structure of her. Because, of course, Emma
didn’t know any of this, what Lin had done to hold onto her, then to find her.
And that’s what bothered Lin most. That Emma grew up thinking Lin had abandoned
her.

That was what she would tell the reporter.
I did not abandon
her. Make sure she knows that.
Maybe if it were in print, it would find
her. Emma could Google herself and see a news article. If she were still called
Emma. If she remembered who her Mama was. Lin knew that Emma and Janice
Williams no longer existed, that much her money had bought her. And Linda
Johnson was too common for Google to be of much use.

Lin bent and wiped her hands on her jeans, then rested, head down,
to clear her thoughts. Straightening, she turned. The low sun angled onto the
porch and she could see the woman’s legs and feet, clad in sandals. The rest of
her hidden in shadow. Time to face the demon. Lin stepped onto the path that
led through the meadow and to the house.

She was halfway across the field before the woman stirred. Had she
been dozing? Lin’s heartbeat quickened when she saw the woman stand, then move
to the edge of the porch, into the sun. Passing through the goldenrod, the
Queen Anne’s lace, the Joe-pye weed, Lin shoved her hands in her pockets to
steady herself. On the porch, the long limbs and dark hair clarified into
familiar features. Freckled forearms crossed in front of her white T-shirt, and
hips tilted as she shifted her weight to one foot. Lin stopped. Jan stood like
that. Jan had long limbs and dark hair that curled around her face. And
freckles. It never occurred to her that Jan might be the one who would come
looking for her. The woman squinted in the light. Lin was backlit, perhaps
anonymous still, so she urged her feet forward.