Rum Spring (26 page)

I love you.

Dylan

Rebecca lifted her hand to her mouth to stifle the sobs that threatened to rip her body apart. She had made up her mind too late. Dylan was leaving. Leaving town. Leaving the country. Leaving her.

Fate had brought her and Dylan together. Now fate seemed to be keeping them apart. Rebecca had always heard that you couldn’t fight fate, but she was sure as hell going to give it a try.

She ran back to the bakery and called the only person who could help her now.

“You told me once if I ever needed anything, I should call you. You said you’d be there for me. I need you, Willie. I need you to take me to her.”

“Her flight’s boarding right now. By the time we get there, it’s going to be too late.”

“We’ll never know unless we try.”

Dylan sighed impatiently as the maintenance crew continued to work on the plane. Her departure time had come and gone. She and her fellow passengers had been waiting in the terminal for over an hour while a problem with the ventilation system was repaired. The ticket agent provided regular updates over the P.A. system, but Dylan had stopped paying attention fifteen minutes ago.

She was already fifty pages into the book she had brought to read during the nearly ten-hour flight to Dublin and she hadn’t even boarded the plane yet. If the repairs took much longer, she might miss her connecting flights.

She was having the worst day ever. First, she had overslept and nearly missed her check-in time. Then the guard at the security checkpoint had seemed to enjoy running his wand over her crotch just a bit too much for her comfort. And now this interminable delay. She was starting to wonder if the snafus had been signs of things to come.

The ticket agent keyed the microphone and began to speak. Dylan cocked her head to decipher the garbled words. “Ladies and gentlemen, the maintenance crew has completed its repairs. As soon as they tighten a few screws, we will begin boarding our flight to Chicago with continuing service to Dublin, Ireland. Thank you for your patience.”

“Yes.”

Dylan marked the page she had been reading, then reached into her messenger bag. When she returned to Philadelphia, she hadn’t had time to even glance at the pile of mail Erin had bundled for her. She removed the rubber bands and sifted through it. Erin had paid all the bills and Dylan had reimbursed her for her share, but Erin had left her copies of the invoices as supporting documentation. They were mixed up with the many magazines, subscription renewal reminders, and assorted pieces of junk mail that Erin had thoughtfully arranged in chronological order.

Best roommate ever. I hope the one I have in Galway will be even half as good.

The ticket agent announced it was time for all first-class passengers to begin boarding.

It’s about time.

Dylan was in Zone Three. Another five minutes and she would be able to strap herself into her seat. As the first-class passengers filed through the gate, she continued to flip through the mail. An envelope rested between a form letter from her cable company and a two-week-old copy of her favorite entertainment news magazine. The only name on the envelope was hers. The delivery address was her box in the university post office, the box she had given up when she moved out of her dorm. A bright yellow forwarding sticker was affixed to the front of the envelope. The return address was a post office box in Lutz. Rebecca’s post office box. Dylan shoved the rest of the mail aside and tore into the envelope.

“Now boarding Zone One. Now boarding Zone One.”

The letter was short. Not much more than a note. But the thirty-three words that composed it spoke volumes.

Dylan,

I choose to be true to myself and to the one I love. I choose to honor the commitment my heart made the first time I saw you. I choose you.

Rebecca

“Now boarding Zones Two and Three. Passengers seated in Zones Two and Three, please have your tickets available when you approach the gate area.”

Dylan held her boarding pass in one hand and Rebecca’s letter in the other. Which path was she supposed to take?

Willie screeched to a stop in the short-term parking lot and began running to the airport entrance, Rebecca hot on her heels. Rebecca craned her neck as a jet roared overhead. Was that Dylan’s plane?

When the electric doors slid open, Rebecca followed Willie to the wall of monitors that displayed all the incoming and outgoing flights. Her eyes scanned the screens but she didn’t know what she was looking for.

After a few minutes, Willie punched the air. “Damn. We’re too late. The flight left ten minutes ago. Ten freaking minutes. If we had one or two more green lights, we would have been here.”

Rebecca stumbled to a nearby bench and sat down hard. She was too numb to cry. Willie sat next to her and put a comforting arm around her shoulder.

“Sorry, teach.” Willie’s cell phone buzzed. She looked at the display and typed a quick text message. Then she turned back to Rebecca. “It’s going to be okay.”

Rebecca buried her head in her hands. “How?”

“Just trust me.”

“A lot could happen in a year. She could meet someone else and forget all about me.”

“I doubt that.”

Rebecca’s eyes were downcast. Her vision swam as her eyes finally begin to fill with tears. Through the haze, she saw a familiar pair of black tennis shoes.

“Is this seat taken?”

Rebecca looked up. She blinked rapidly to clear her vision. She had to make sure the blurry figure in front of her was real and not an apparition. “Dylan.”

Dylan dropped her bags and opened her arms. Rebecca flew into them. Dylan lowered her head and pressed her lips to Rebecca’s, welcoming her into the last home she would ever have. The last home she would ever need.

Epilogue

Dylan looked around the room. She nodded at all the friends and family members who had come to wish her and Rebecca well. She couldn’t get over how much love radiated from their faces.

“What did we do to deserve this?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

Dylan looked at Rebecca and grinned. “You don’t believe in luck.”

Rebecca returned Dylan’s smile. “But I believe in us.”

It had been ten months since the scene at the airport. Nearly a year had passed since Dylan had forgone her trip to Ireland in order to follow where her heart led her. Now she and Rebecca were about to take the trip to her ancestral homeland together.

After she obtained her GED, Rebecca planned to enroll in college. She wanted to earn a degree in library science so she could become a librarian. She had the life she wanted, she would soon have the job she wanted and, most importantly, she had the love she wanted. She had Dylan.

“I love you,” she said.

“I love you, too.”

Rebecca leaned forward and gently pressed her lips against Dylan’s. Given freely and openly, it was the sweetest kiss they had ever shared.

A few people broke into scattered applause, but it was Willie’s cry of “Get a room!” that caused Rebecca to blush.

Dylan brushed her lips across Rebecca’s reddened cheeks. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You’re so cute when you blush.”

Michael, who had been visiting with Sarah and her new husband Emmanuel, ran up to them. “Give me some skin,” he said loud enough for the people in the back of the room to hear him.

Grinning, Dylan bent and slid her palm across his.

He snapped his fingers (or what passed for it) and said, “Lookin’ good, dude.”

“You, too, little man.” Dylan had almost forgotten she had taught him the move. Just like his aunt Rebecca, he never forgot anything he learned. She ruffled his curly hair and watched him run back to talk to his mother and stepfather. Her parents and Rebecca’s uncle Amos were deep in conversation on the other side of the room.

Rebecca’s official announcement that she was leaving the church had not come as a surprise. Uncle Amos’s had, however. He had sold his part of the farm to Rebecca’s father and used the proceeds to buy himself a smaller piece of land he could call his own. After joining a small Anglican church that was accepting of gay and lesbian members, he began to take some tentative steps out of the closet. He found dating too daunting a prospect after forty years away from the scene, but he had met several people his own age with similar experiences and was enjoying spending time with them and getting to know them. If he met someone, that was fine with him, he often said. If he didn’t, that was fine, too. But at least he had his freedom.

Dylan took both of Rebecca’s hands in hers. She wanted to share what she was feeling. Since that day in the airport, she made sure nothing was ever left unsaid.

“I knew from the day I met you that this is where I wanted to be, but I never thought we would get here. I promise to make the journey worthwhile. I promise to cherish each moment as if it were our last. I promise to never let you forget how much I love you. And last but not least, I promise to go off list every now and then.”

Her comment elicited an amused chuckle from Rebecca. Both women were well aware of The List and its prominent role in their love story—a role that would continue to grow. Dylan waited for Rebecca’s laughter to subside before she said, “Thank you for choosing me.”

“You have shown me things I never thought I’d see,” Rebecca said. “You have taken me places I never thought I’d go. You have given me the courage to be myself and the strength to be more than I thought I could be. You make me feel like nothing is impossible. I thank you for that. I love you for that. I love you for being patient, for being kind, and for being understanding. I love you for being eager to learn and willing to teach. Most of all, I love you for being you. Thank you for choosing me.”

Dylan pulled Rebecca into her arms. They slowly swayed to the sound of the music softly playing in the background. “You and I have been planning this trip for so long. I can’t believe it’s finally going to happen. I feel like a chapter of our lives is coming to an end.”

“It isn’t ending.” Rebecca slid one hand across the nape of Dylan’s neck and buried it in her upswept auburn hair. “It’s just beginning.”

Recognizing the hungry look in Rebecca’s eyes, Dylan wished they could sneak away for a few moments to kindle the passion that always lurked just below the surface. “Really?” She trailed her fingers across Rebecca’s forearm and felt familiar goose bumps form beneath her fingertips. “Do you have something special in mind?”

“Every day is going to be special from now on. Because we’ll get to spend every day together.”