In sixth grade, on each Monday, she’d always brought an apple for pretty Miss Fields and warmed under the bloom of her teacher’s appreciation. Anne had chosen each apple herself at the market, selecting only the ones that were wax perfect—no dents, shining just like Miss Fields’s smile.
Nearly two decades later, she’d sat alone in the back of a movie theater showingBound, telling herself she was there for the neo-noir elements, the arthouse edge. She’d left, nauseous and trembling, after one woman had touched the other woman’s breast, fully convinced her revulsion was for something other than herself.
And Missy Campbell, Missy with her pink toenails and those full, soft lips she’d pressed against Anne’s cheek one evening senior year, both of them a little drunk on Missy’s mother’s vodka. She’d left a bold lipstick print Anne had stared at in the bathroom mirror—a coral mark—then touched it with careful fingers. Wondered what the lipstick was, where to find it, how she could have it for herself.
Now she understood. The color hadn’t been what she’d ached for.
For sixty years, Anne had breathed through a straw, and she was only now just realizing it.
The wineglass sat on the counter, waiting for Anne, and she realized, with a clarity that rushed air into her lungs, that habitwasn’t the same thing as comfort. Not anymore. That starry-eyed dreamer she’d been this morning, yes, that woman had been silly, but right, too.
I can’t go back.
Sadie wasn’t here. But Anne was.
Anne rubbed her hands on the front of her jeans, drying her sweaty palms, and looked around the bright, empty kitchen. With Sadie gone, what didforwardlook like? She didn’t know where to start, or how.
But someone else might.
* * *
A familiar face emerged on the other side of the opening door. “Anne?”
“Hi, James.” She’d rehearsed a casual tone the entire drive over, but from the way her ex-husband’s forehead was crinkling, it hadn’t worked. “I’m so sorry to drop in on you unannounced like this, but I really need to talk to someone. To you.”
James swung the door wide and stood on the threshold. Thankfully, Arthur was nowhere to be seen behind him. “What happened? What’s wrong? Are the girls—”
“The girls are fine. The grandkids, everyone, they’re all fine, as far as I know. Everyone else is just fine.” Anne’s voice wavered on the last word, and she stopped.
“Did someone do something to you?” James’s eyes were wide, his face reddening. “Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt, not physically—oh, just bequietand give me a second to get this out, please, I, I can’t do it if you keep asking me—”
“Okay,” he said softly. “Floor’s all yours.”
For a stunned second, Anne thought James might actually reach out and touch her arm. He didn’t. Instead, his hand movedto cup the side of his own neck, the gesture she knew so well completely at odds with the rest of this stranger’s demeanor.
Who the hell was this man standing there looking at Anne with so much concern? Not her husband, that was for certain. Throughout their marriage, Anne couldn’t remember one single time James had ever looked at her like he could see beyond his own discomfort. Not even when the girls were born. The second time, with Brooke, he’d asked Anne if she’d prefer a little privacy during her labor. The question had stunned her so much she’d agreed.
Since the divorce, she’d attributed the changes in James to Arthur’s influence. Some emotional thawing was probably inevitable when you lived with a man who was too softhearted to attend a preschool graduation without tearing up.
But that wasn’t the only reason. Anne saw that now.
James wasn’t living to survive anymore. He’d learned how to give himself what he needed. He had compassion now, for himself and for others, growing in the green of his honesty.
What could Anne tell him? What could she possibly say that might explain to James why she’d shown up uninvited to her ex-husband’s house on a Monday afternoon? Which one of her many revelations would be good enough shorthand?
I’ve spent my entire life thinking the validation I got from men’s interest was the same thing as attraction. I’ve wanted women for decades and called it by every other name except what it was. Just the thought of losing Sadie frightened me so badly, I proposed to her. I’m attracted to Sadie in ways I never could’ve let myself imagine before yesterday.
And then realization arrived with her next breath, and somehow it was perfectly formed and wholly complete—like it had been waiting for so long to arrive.
I’m in love with Sadie.
I’m in love with her. I’m in love with her. Because somehow she slipped inside me, filled every miserable corner, and now I’ve got her ink stains all over my heart; I’ve got the curve of her smile behind my own, and the light she’s poured into me is bright enough to live by. I will love her until my eyes close forever and then I will search for her in the dark. I love Sadie Rosenthal so much that it feels like praying. The first time I touched her body, I knew why I had hands.
In another lifetime, at her birthday party, Anne had found it in herself to ask James,How did you know?Now she knew: she hadn’t been asking, but imploring.Tell me I’m not starting to wake up inside the same thing.
It was the same thing. It was.