Year of the Monsoon (12 page)

“Well, that’s good to know,” said Jo, “but that’s not why I’m here. I came to see if you needed any more help going through the house.” She bent over to pet Bronwyn who was dancing on her hind legs trying to get someone’s attention.

Leisa narrowed her eyes suspiciously, thinking Jo could have called for that, but she didn’t voice that thought.

“No, actually. Now that I’m staying here… for a while, I need the linens and kitchen things.” Leisa led the way into the kitchen. “Want anything to eat or drink?”

“A cup of tea would be lovely. It may be March, but it’s still cold out there, especially with the rain.”

Leisa filled the kettle and put it on to boil. “Is Bruce in his workshop?”

“Yes,” Jo answered as she sat at the kitchen table, one Bruce had made many years ago, and picked up the paper. “He’ll probably be there all weekend, working on my hutch. He blames it on me, but if I didn’t give him projects, he would drive me nuts.”

Leisa smiled. It was true. She couldn’t ever remember seeing Bruce sitting around doing nothing.

Within a few minutes, Leisa and Jo Ann were both cradling hot cups of tea in their hands as they read the paper.

“You do know,” Jo Ann mused as she appeared to frown through her bifocals at something on the page, “that this is not the way to solve anything.”

“Mmmm.” Leisa also pretended to read the paper. All her life, any potential arguments or conflicts had been handled in this type of non-discussion. No one ever shouted or cursed. She had never seen her parents express anger toward her or one another. This was actually how she came out to them.

“So,” Rose had said at the breakfast table as she picked up a section of the newspaper during Leisa’s Christmas break her sophomore year of college, “how was your semester?”

“Oh, you know,” Leisa answered noncommittally as she flipped through the sports section. “Grades were okay.”

Daniel spoke up from behind the business pages. “Not really.”

Leisa’s only tell was a reddening of her face. “Oh?”

“Mmmm,” Rose responded. “Funny. Your grades got here yesterday.”

“They did?” Leisa stared at basketball scores.

“Mmm hmm.” Daniel turned the page. “Anything going on?”

Leisa shook a crease out of her pages. “Well, I met someone.”

“That’s nice,” Rose said, smoothing a wrinkle in her page. “What’s his name?”

Leisa pretended to read for several seconds. “Her name is Sarah.” Her hands were trembling so badly that her newspaper rustled. She set it down and folded her hands between her knees.

She kept her eyes glued on the small print in front of her, so she was never really sure what her parents’ reactions were to that announcement, but there was a long silence before Daniel said quietly, “Well, you’re going to figure out how to balance seeing Sarah with getting better grades, right?” He was staring at stock prices. He didn’t own any stocks.

“Yes.”

“Because if you don’t,” Rose said as she reached for the lifestyle section, “you will be responsible for your own tuition next year.”

Leisa folded up the sports section. “Right.”

If Leisa had ever wondered which side of the family originated the non-discussion technique, she now knew because Jo Ann was good at it.

“Most people are not open books, even to their spouses,” Jo said as she flipped a page.

“About little stuff,” Leisa answered. She wasn’t sure how much Jo Ann knew. Nan was not usually much of a talker, and Leisa hadn’t told her aunt anything.

“Sometimes big things, too.” Jo Ann held up her part of the paper so that it obscured her face. “Especially if it involved a mistake they would never make now. Something they’re ashamed and embarrassed by.”

“Mmmm,” Leisa repeated. Okay, so Jo knew. It floored her for a moment that Nan would have gone to them and explained what was happening. If she had, she must also have told them why. “Like getting pregnant and giving the baby up for adoption? And somehow forgetting to mention it?”

Jo Ann lowered the paper, still pretending to read. “Like trying to do the right thing after making a horrible mistake. Thinking you’ve put the baby in a situation where he’ll grow up loved and cared for, only to find out he’s not going to grow up after all.”

Leisa’s hands gripped her paper more tightly. “I don’t understand her. I don’t understand how she could have a baby and never even hold him or look at him, even if adoption was the best thing for everyone.” Even as she said this, she thought about the struggle of her own birth mother, and realized maybe Nan’s way was the only way she could have given him up, but she continued relentlessly, driven by her anger and her pain. “I feel like I don’t know her anymore.”

Jo Ann looked directly at Leisa for the first time. “Nan probably needs you now more than she ever has,” she said quietly.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Leisa had confessed to Lyn earlier in the week. “My life is coming unraveled. I should be an emotional basketcase, but I can’t cry. I’m too angry to cry. In fact, it’s about the only thing I do feel.”

Lyn glanced at Leisa as they walked Bronwyn. “Why are you so angry?”

“Everything I thought I knew, everything I trusted – nothing is the way I thought it was.”

“Are we talking about more than Nan?”

Leisa didn’t answer for a long while. “I just… I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“I hope you believe that Nan loves you,” Lyn said gently. “No matter what else has happened, she loves you.”

Leisa kicked sullenly at an acorn. “I’m just not sure that’s enough.”

“Nan probably needs you now more than she ever has.”

Leisa looked at her aunt, unable to come up with a response to that. The doorbell rang.

Jo got up to answer it as Bronwyn barked and whined at the door. When Jo opened the front door, Nan was standing there, soaking wet. “Get in here,” Jo Ann said, pulling Nan inside. She grabbed her umbrella. “I was just leaving. She’s in the kitchen.”

“Jo, no,” Nan began to protest, but Jo Ann was already descending the porch steps. She bent to hug Bronwyn, and then went to the kitchen, unsure of the reception she would receive.

“Who was —” Leisa started to ask, stopping as she saw Nan standing there.

“Hi,” Nan said uncertainly.

Leisa didn’t respond, but went into the laundry room, emerging a moment later with a clean towel. She held it out, noticing the dark circles under Nan’s eyes. “Would you like some coffee or tea?” she asked.

“Some hot tea sounds great, thanks,” Nan said as she dried her hair and wrapped the towel around her shoulders.

“Great day for a walk,” Leisa said a little sarcastically from the sink as she refilled the kettle, looking out the window at the steady drizzle.

Nan shrugged. “I hadn’t really intended to go for a walk. I was just wondering how you are…” Her voice trailed off.

Leisa put the kettle back on the burner and turned to face Nan. Leaning against the countertop, she crossed her arms and thought about what Jo had said. “How are you?” she asked, choosing to avoid responding to Nan’s half-phrased question.

Nan toyed with a section of the paper, flicking the corners. She had never mastered the art of the non-discussion, preferring to tackle things more directly. “That’s what you get for marrying a psychologist,” she would always point out.

“I’m not so good,” Nan replied honestly.

There was a long and very strained silence, thankfully broken by the whistle of the kettle. Leisa busied herself making two fresh cups of tea, making Nan’s the way she liked it, with a spoonful of honey.

Leisa sat back down at the table, staring into the smoky amber depths of her tea. “You were saying?”

“I’ve left you alone this week only because I didn’t know what to say. I have no defense for what I did. I hope you didn’t think I was playing some kind of waiting game with you.”

“You’ve never played games,” Leisa said softly.

Nan looked helplessly at Leisa who wouldn’t meet her eyes. “It was so hard not to call or come over, to try and talk this out, but… There’s no excuse, no good excuse, for not telling you about the baby, except that the longer I waited, the harder it became because I hadn’t told you earlier, until it just felt like it was, I don’t know, like some kind of cancer that was best left sealed away. Most of the time I could forget it. Until these last few months.”

She gently swirled her tea in her cup. “It was almost a relief to realize that this would force me to tell you, except I was so afraid of having betrayed your trust…”

She sat with her teacup clenched in her two hands, waiting for Leisa to say something. But there was only silence. She closed her eyes, and whispered, “Can you forgive me?”

“It’s not about forgiving you,” Leisa burst out. She sat back, releasing an exasperated breath. “Everybody sees us as this perfect couple, but you haven’t touched me or held me or kissed me – really kissed me – for months. We don’t talk anymore. We sit in the same room and have nothing to say to one another. I’ve tried so hard and you just ignored everything I did. There are so many things I wanted to –”

She stopped and looked at Nan who had tears leaking from her still-closed eyes. Bewildered, Leisa felt herself grow colder at the sight of those tears rather than melting as she normally would have done.

“It’s not about forgiving you,” she repeated. “It’s about trusting you. It’s about feeling like I know who you are. Because right now, I don’t.”

Nan’s eyes opened and more tears spilled over. “Do you still love me?” she asked in a strangled voice.

Leisa blinked and looked away, confused. “That’s not a fair question right now.”

“Yes, it is,” Nan insisted, swiping her eyes with her towel and leaning forward. “Do you love me?”

“I don’t know,” Leisa murmured, her eyes still averted.