"It’s just different," Heather said, still facing the wall. "I thought they were kidding."
"Who was kidding?" Ryan asked.
"The other players. They don’t really tell us much, ‘cause we’re freshmen, but I heard some of them say that you were gay. I thought they were kidding," she admitted. "I um…didn’t know that gay people looked like you."
"That’s true," Ryan said slowly. "Most lesbians are much shorter than I am."
At that comment Heather turned and caught sight of Ryan’s laughing eyes. "You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?" Her lower lip was stuck out a little, and she was gazing over at Ryan from beneath half-lowered lids.
"I’m just teasing you, Heather. Don’t you like to be teased?"
"Umm…I guess," she hesitated. "I’m just not used to it."
"Don’t you have any siblings?"
"No. I’m an only child."
"Well, I can guarantee that you’re going to take a lot of ribbing with this group. Do you think you can handle it?"
"Um…I’ll try. This is just a lot for me to handle all at once, ya know?"
God, she reminds me of myself when I started high school!
"I do know, Heather, and I’ll try to keep the other players from going after you too hard, but you’re going to owe me a favor if I do that."
Turning completely around, the young woman looked at Ryan with wide eyes. "What do I have to do?"
Ryan’s warm smile reassured her slightly, and her words did even more so. "You have to talk to me when things are bothering you. You can ask me any question that you want…I’ll always be honest with you, Heather. We’re teammates now, and we have to take care of each other."
The younger woman nodded, paused a moment and asked, "Have you always been gay?"
"Yeah. I’ve always been gay, but my lover hasn’t," she supplied, knowing that Jamie wouldn’t mind having her history divulged in the name of education. "Some women know very early, and it takes some a long time to come to terms with it. It’s different for everybody."
"Do you ever wish you weren’t…gay, that is?" She was now looking at a point somewhere near Ryan’s midsection, and the older woman considered that significant progress.
"No. I really like who I am. To me that’s like wishing I was short. It’s just not gonna happen." Pausing a moment, Ryan asked, "Have you ever wished that you weren’t?" At Heather’s shocked look, Ryan added, "Tall, that is."
"OH! No, no…well, um…yeah, now that you mention it. It was hard being the tallest girl in my class. I used to wish I didn’t stand out so much."
"You know, Jamie, my partner, used to feel that way about being attracted to women. She didn’t want to stand out. But over time she’s gotten over that, and I think she’s pretty happy with herself now. Everybody has something they’d like to change at some point in their lives, Heather. But it’s hard to be happy if you don’t learn to accept yourself for who you are."
Heather gave her a grin and said, "I like being tall now. Being tall got me this scholarship–I never could have gone to a school like this without one." She blushed a little and added, "Being tall gave me the chance to be on a team with some pretty cool people, too. Thanks, Ryan." She stood and looked at her teammate a little tentatively. "Umm…can I go now?"
"Dismissed," Ryan smiled, snapping off a salute.
As soon as she could make her getaway, Jamie excused herself and headed for bed. She dropped her clothes to the floor as she walked across the room and plucked a T-shirt from the dresser. After brushing her teeth and washing her face, she settled down on the window seat to stare out at the inky stillness of the ocean at low tide. The night was very warm, not even a breeze coming through the open window, and as she stared out at the night sky she felt a few tears start to roll down her cheeks. A few minutes later she was startled out of her mood by a quiet knock on the door.
"Come in," she said flatly.
Catherine opened the door and stepped in, shutting it quietly behind her. Seeing the bereft look on her daughter’s face, she immediately crossed over to the window and sat down. "What’s wrong, Honey?" she asked as she caught the tears with a fingertip. "Has all of this started to get to you?"
"A little, but mostly I miss Ryan," she said as she started to cry more forcefully.
Catherine scooted closer and pulled her daughter near, running her fingers through her hair and patting her back gently as she let her cry for a while. A wave of sadness hit her as well, and she said, "I can’t tell you how much I regret not holding you like this when you were small. We both missed out on so much."
Sniffing softly, Jamie looked up with red-rimmed eyes and asked, "Why didn’t you?"
Catherine closed her eyes and let the memories fill her mind, trying to recall the young woman she had been 20 years ago. "I’m not sure, Honey," she said, the sadness feeling like a sharp pain in her stomach. "I guess I just didn’t know how."
"I don’t understand that, Mom," she said, her lower lip quivering. "Didn’t you want to hold me?"
"Of course I did," Catherine said, holding Jamie close. "You just didn’t react well to me. When your father held you, you quieted down immediately, but when I did it, you always fussed even more. Either he or Elizabeth used to take you from me almost immediately," she sniffed. "I thought you didn’t like me."
Now Jamie cried even harder, her tears merging with her mother’s as they both mourned for the wasted opportunities of those early years–irredeemably lost forever. "I don’t ever remember not liking you. I thought you didn’t like me," she choked out.
Pulling back slightly, Catherine fixed her daughter with a fierce stare, her brown eyes flashing with an inner fire. "I loved you then…and I love you now. I love you more than I’ve ever loved another soul, Jamie. You mean the whole world to me! I’m so sorry that I wasn’t able to show you that then."
Clinging tightly to her mother, Jamie released some of the hurt and pain that she had been storing in her heart for so many years. "Thanks, Mom," she said finally. "That means a lot to me."
"I have so much to make up for, Jamie. It’s not too late, is it?"
Catherine had such a hopeful look in her eyes that Jamie would have told her it wasn’t, even if it was. Luckily, she was able to answer honestly. "It’s not too late, Mom. Not at all."
"God, I’ve been hoping for this," Catherine sighed, resting her head on her daughter’s shoulder. "You don’t know how much."
Jamie kissed the fine blonde hair and asked the question that had been in her mind for weeks. "What made you decide to try to get closer to me?"
Taking in a heavy breath, Catherine wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, smiling when Jamie pulled one of her enormous T-shirt sleeves out and dabbed at her eyes. "Thanks," she said. Looking at the inscription on the shirt, she smiled and asked, "Ryan’s?"
Jamie looked down and blushed as she read the front of her shirt. "Um…I’m not really a Lesbian Avenger…and neither is she. She just likes Tshirts with a message." Blushing even more fiercely she admitted, "I took it out of the dirty clothes so it would smell like her."
"When I was young I used to wear your father’s dress shirts before I had them sent to the cleaners. Elizabeth thought I was mad." She chuckled softly, adding, "Marta used to take them from the laundry chute for me. I think she approved."
"She would," Jamie agreed. "Too bad Marta wasn’t my nanny. I think we would have done much better as a family."
"I couldn’t agree more," Catherine said. "Although having Elizabeth for a cook would have been frightening also!"
"Good point," Jamie agreed, the elderly Englishwoman’s penchant for the blandest of foods legendary in their house.
Now that the wash of emotion had passed, the embrace they shared began to feel a little too intimate for both of them, and they slowly broke apart, but not before Jamie leaned in and placed a soft kiss on her mother’s cheek. "Let’s do that again soon, okay?" she asked, putting words to her fear that this developing closeness might evaporate.
Catherine gazed at her and smiled, nodding her head slightly as she did so. "We have a lot of hugs to make up for, Jamie. I’ll do my best."
The younger woman stood and stretched, releasing some of the tension and sadness that had been building up in her body. "You didn’t answer my question," she prodded, as she recalled getting sidetracked. "I really think you made the first move here. What made you decide to do so?"
"I might have made the first move, but you’re entirely responsible for that, Dear. I saw the light when I came to your house this past spring to ask you about your relationship with Ryan."
"Huh? Why did that make you want to be closer? I thought you were angry with me."
"I was, Jamie. I was angry that we didn’t have the kind of relationship where you felt safe to be honest with me. The next week I got on the phone and found a therapist. I’ve been seeing her twice a week ever since."
"You have?!"
"Yes, I have, and it’s been wonderfully helpful. She’s helped me see how much of the distance between us is just a legacy of my family. But she also helps me realize that just because I was raised that way, doesn’t make it all right to continue the tradition with you. I’m responsible for my actions–irrespective of how I was brought up."
"That’s true," Jamie said thoughtfully. "We are each responsible for our actions. That’s why we need to make sure we keep talking like this. We have only ourselves to blame if we don’t try to make our relationship better."
Catherine got up from the window seat and crossed the room to stand directly in front of her daughter, the light scent of her perfume wafting on the air to reach Jamie seconds before her mother did. Catherine placed one small hand atop each of Jamie’s shoulders and tilted her head up to be able to gaze directly into her taller daughter’s eyes. "This is a life goal for me, Jamie. I know that I’ll never be the best mother in the world, but I promise to try to be the best that I can be."
Sniffling away the latest wave of tears, Jamie nodded her head, unable to reply with words. She wrapped her arms around the remarkably thin waist and held her close, relishing the comfort and security of a mother’s love.
"Hi, Sweetheart." Ryan’s deep voice came through the phone line clearly, making her sound like she was nearby, rather than 3,000 miles away. "I didn’t wake you, did I?"
"No, no," Jamie sniffed a little, looking around the room for a tissue. Catherine handed her one and gave a small wave as she walked towards their adjoining door. "Mother and I were just talking."
"Honey? Are you crying?" Ryan’s voice was immediately full of concern, and Jamie smiled broadly as she soaked up the love she could feel speeding her way through the phone line.
"Just a little, Love. But they’re good tears." She paused a moment, trying to decide how to characterize her feelings. "I just realized that I’ve felt more loved in the past three months than I have in the previous 21 years."
"Even with the problems you’ve had with your father?" The question was out before Ryan could censor herself, and she mentally kicked herself since she had decided to wait until her partner was home to tell her about Jim’s visit.
"Yeah." Jamie paused a beat then added, "I’m angry with him, but I don’t feel that he loves me any less than he did before. I just think he’s misguided, Hon. I’m hoping that by the time I get back he will have had some time to reflect on this, and be able to be more open minded."
"That would be nice," Ryan agreed.
It’s not gonna happen, but it would be nice
. "So tell me about these happiness tears," she asked.
"I’ve got so much to tell you, Love, but it’s too late to go into detail. Let me just say that this is the second best trip of my life. I’m so glad that I came."
"What was the absolute best?" Ryan asked, having a pretty good idea that she accompanied her partner on the one in question.
"That’s a toughie," Jamie teased. "It’s either the summer Olympics in Barcelona in ‘92…or being on the AIDS Ride with you."
"Hmm…I can see why that would be a tough choice. Either being up close with some of the most gifted athletes of our time, watching people show off their gorgeous bodies, seeing people perform feats that you could barely imagine…or going to the Olympics. I think it’s a flip."
"It’s a flip all right," she giggled. "God, I miss you. Nobody makes me laugh like you do."
"Me either," Ryan sighed. "I enjoy your sense of humor more than anyone else’s I know."
"I enjoy every one of my senses when I’m with you," Jamie murmured. "I was thinking today about what I miss the most. It was a very difficult job, since a thousand different things came to mind, but I think I came up with the answer."
"Don’t tell me, let me guess," Ryan said, thinking for a moment. "Is it a part of my body?"
"Mmm-hmm."
""Let’s see…a part of my body. Do I have two of them?"
"Mmm-hmm. You sure do."
"Is it the part of me that you can’t wait to get your hands on when we make love?"
"Nope. Not even close."
"You like a part of me better than my breasts? I’m stunned!"
"Hey, just because I have a fetish doesn’t mean that I’m fixated only on your luscious breasts. I like other parts of you equally well."