Her cheeks burned. Living alone meant that no one saw the stores of wine in her pantry or kept track of how much she drank. If she and Sadie lived together at some point, would Anne start hiding bottles from her? Tell Sadie she’d had just one glass at lunch, not two? Would she pick the vacation from herself that wine always offered over the woman whose touch brought Anne back into her own body?
She didn’t know. Which was disturbing.
Given that awful uncertainty, eliminating the issue altogether seemed like the only appropriate option. She could stop drinking—at least for a little while—and see how that felt.
At the thought, a little prick of alarm punctured Anne’s brain. Wine was the only thing she’d ever given her body without constraints. Just the idea of stopping made her want to howl that it wasn’t fair, it wasn’tright. She’d spent so many years taking so much away from herself. Now she had to lose this, too?
The alarm felt familiar. It was the same sharp twinge she’d felt in front of her cheeseburger at Burger Bliss. Which—even though Anne didn’t want to admit it—made an uncomfortable amount of sense. She’d been afraid that day to give her body what it wanted; right now, she was afraid to be without the thing that dulled her wanting. No real difference, when you came down to it.
Mouth dry, she crossed out the question mark. Then she added:Throw out the wine in the fridge.Cancel the incoming order.
5. Food
For the moment, that one word was as specific as Anne could get.
Was it really so terrible to strictly control what food went into your body? Most of the women she’d known over the years had been even more rigid than Anne. Christina Dufresne never went anywhere without her portable food scale. Hannah Weisberg allowed herself just three bites of everything on her plate. And Tricia Stefanski flat out refused to eat in front of other people.
But Anne couldn’t avoid the stark, nauseating parallel between the way she’d controlled her food intake and the way she’d controlled her body’s other needs. She’d never let herself feel desire for women before, and she’d never let herself consume meals or snacks with the same gusto and appreciation Sadie did. For Sadie, food was simply one of life’s pleasures, like a hot bath or a good massage.
What would it be like for Anne to just—let go for a while with food, the same way she’d let go with Sadie in that motel room? Eat whatever sounded good to her?
Excitement and anxiety bristled in her stomach. She exhaled.
There was one final entry to add to the list. The hardest one to write.
6. Figure out what you want. Besides Sadie.
It felt enormous and insurmountable. Anne had never really asked herself what she wanted; instead, she’d done everything that was expected of her perfectly, and called it fulfillment. Then, after the divorce, she’d let Sadie’s large life take up so much room in her own that there was no space to see her own emptiness. She could admit that now.
What did Anne want to do with the time she had left? Who was she outside what she felt for Sadie? Each second that ticked by felt like another lost moment in a lifetime of lost moments.
No more losing her days to inertia—that was clear. Anne didn’t just want to slap the label “lesbian” onto her existence and leave everything else untouched. A realization this tremendous deserved a life that matched it.
No matter what Sadie ended up deciding.
The doorbell rang, and Anne jumped, trailing ink across the page. Shit. Now her nice, clean list was all marked up.
“I’m coming,” she called out and closed the notebook. She’d try not to be bothered by the ink marks. Sadie would’ve said they were a metaphor.
Brooke was on the front porch, alone. Her blonde hair, several shades lighter than Anne’s own, was in a loose, messy braid. There were dark circles under her eyes.
“Did I take enough time to answer the door?” Anne asked, unable to keep the annoyance out of her voice. “Or do you think I rushed into that, too?”
“Mom.” Brooke sounded tired. “I know you’re mad at me, all right? I get it. Just hear me out.”
“I’m not entirely sure I want to.” But Anne held the door open for Brooke and let her in.
Brooke followed Anne into the living room. “Can’t you just take a second to see what this looks like from my end? Literallytwo days ago, you sat in front of Claire and me and swore up and down that there was no way you were a lesbian. I think the exact word you used was ‘ridiculous,’ actually. Now, all of a sudden, you’re telling me you’re a hundred percent positive you’re gay? It’s that simple?”
The disbelief in Brooke’s voice felt like a roadblock she’d intentionally kicked in front of Anne. A rush of sudden and immense anger rolled through her, and she spun around to face her daughter. “Nothing issimpleabout any of this.”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong. Those things you said about Sadie at lunch, they weren’t exactly the straightest—okay, look. What I’m trying to tell you is that, obviously, I’ll support you, no matter what.”
“But,” Anne said.
“No ‘buts,’ I swear! It’s just—”
“There we go,” she muttered.