Honesty - SF8 (4 page)

He shook his head slowly, knowing that he was making his granddaughter angry, but determined to be honest with her. "I know it seems like these things concern you, and I’m fully aware that they affect you, but that doesn’t mean that you should be told about them, Jamie. Whether your parents had sex before they married is their private concern. How your father treats his vows is for him and your mother to discuss. You are not the wronged party here, even though you’ve been hurt by this."

Realizing that he was not backing down, she focused on the one point she was sure of. "Okay, let’s say those points are not my business. Having Ryan know something like this and hiding it from me is certainly my business. She’s my life partner, for God’s sake!"

"Yes, she is," he agreed. "Don’t you think that you should treat her like that?"

"Pardon me?"

"The woman you’ve pledged your life to is probably very, very worried about you, Jamie. If you were as angry when you parted as you were when you arrived here, I’m certain that she’s beside herself. How can you let her worry about you like that?"

Suddenly feeling very small and very cruel, Jamie hung her head, which ached more and more by the second. "That was thoughtless of me," she admitted, recalling how frantic Ryan had been after their last fight. The woman had scoured every square inch of the Cal campus during finals week just because Jamie had been curt with her on the phone. "I couldn’t bear to face her," she admitted. "It hurt too much."

"Allow me to play amateur psychologist here for a second, Jamie. It seems like you’re taking all of your anger at your parents and compressing it into one ball of rage, which now seems to be directed at Ryan, and I think that is unfair to her. Until you hear her out, you should not assume that she’s betrayed you."

With a heavy sigh she rose, blinking rapidly at the pounding in her head and feeling a little sick to her stomach. "I’ll go home and talk to her."

"Don’t force her to carry all of your anger, Jamie," he urged. "I doubt that she deserves it."

When she reached the door, Jamie gave her grandfather a gentle hug. "Thanks for being honest with me, Poppa," she murmured. "Sometimes I need a good kick."

"We all need that once in a while, Honey," he said, ruffling her hair gently as she departed.

Jamie walked the two blocks to her car in a pensive daze, not really seeing the dark figure crouched in front of the Lexus. She bit back a gasp as the leather-clad woman rose to her full height, holding her helmet in her hands.

"Ryan! My God, you scared me half to death!"

"I’m sorry," she muttered, feeling like she hadn’t done one thing right the entire day. "I just had to know that you were okay."

"How did you know where to find me?" Even though Ryan knew San Francisco like the back of her hand, it was not a small town, and Jamie was shocked that her partner had tracked her down.

"I decided to start at the most obvious place. I’ve been here for a while."

"Why didn’t you come to the door?" As soon as it was out she realized that it was a ridiculous question and she shook her head quickly, indicating that Ryan need not bother to answer. Feeling a stab of guilt over the way she had treated her partner, Jamie said, "I’m calm now. Can we go home?"

With a relieved sigh, the dark woman nodded, tears springing to her eyes. "Please," she rasped, looking like she was on the verge of collapse.

"Come home with me," Jamie insisted. "We can come get your bike tomorrow."

Ryan looked like she was about to argue, but then realized how dreadfully tired she was. Getting in on the passenger side, she eased the electric seat all the way back to accommodate her long legs. There was stark silence on the ride home, neither woman wanting to reopen the discussion. The house was dark when they entered and to Jamie’s surprise, Duffy did not run to greet them. Searching the first floor, Ryan found him under her father’s bed, looking like he was afraid for his life.

"Why is he hiding?" Jamie asked, never having seen that behavior from the normally bold dog.

"He hates to have voices raised," Ryan replied softly, not mentioning that it was Jamie who had frightened him so badly.

Now feeling even worse, the smaller woman got down on the floor and popped her head under the bed skirt. "It’s okay, Duffy Boy," she soothed. "I won’t yell at your mama any more."

Jamie could barely hear the soft, "Is that true?" from her partner; but as the words registered, she shimmied out from under the bed and faced Ryan, promising, "Yes, that’s true, Ryan. I’m sorry I was so out of control earlier. I should never have yelled at you like that."

Ryan took a step toward her, intending a hug, but Jamie shook her head slightly. "I’m not up to it right now," she demurred, drawing another sad sigh from her lover.

Closing her eyes, the smaller woman fought with her instincts and finally forced herself to wrap her arms around Ryan’s waist, giving her a fierce, albeit brief hug. "Just because I’m not feeling affectionate is no reason to deny you a hug," she decided, smiling at the pathetically grateful look on her partner’s face. "Let’s get something to drink and sit outside, okay?"

Ryan went into the kitchen and grabbed two glasses and a pitcher of lemonade, taking a seat a few feet away from Jamie. As she sat down she realized that this was the first time since they’d been dating that they had not shared the same seat on the deck, and she felt a twinge of sadness sting her yet again. Duffy poked his head out of the open door a few minutes later and judiciously lay down across the threshold, just in case Jamie didn’t keep her promise.

Deciding to let Ryan do all of the talking, Jamie looked at her and asked, "Tell me what happened, Ryan."

Assuming that Jim had come clean, Ryan began, "When we went to your father’s apartment this spring to study, a woman came in just after you and he left."

Jamie’s eyes grew wide, and Ryan realized that she probably didn’t know everything, but it was far too late for equivocation now, so she continued. "I stayed in the apartment for a few minutes, and when he got back it, uh, quickly became clear that they were lovers."

"Oh my God!" the blonde woman moaned, her head dropping to hit the back of the wooden chair. "You’ve known for that long!"

"Yes. Yes, I have," Ryan said quietly.

Lifting her head to look at her partner, Jamie asked, "What was going on in your head? Why on earth didn’t you tell me?"

"I felt it was wrong to tell you," she admitted, drawing a very puzzled look from her partner.

"How…?"

"I make it a practice to never reveal unpleasant information about a living person unless it would cause greater harm to keep it a secret," she said, obviously having thought it through very carefully.

"Even to me?" Jamie whispered, leaning forward with her eyes burning into her partner. "Even when you knew how much it would hurt me?"

Ryan nodded decisively. "Even you," she admitted. "I don’t agree with much that the Catholic Church teaches, but one thing I’ve found helpful is the concept of sin."

"Sin? How is that relevant?" she asked, thinking Ryan was on a different track than she.

"It’s against my moral code to spread gossip," she revealed. "Because that’s a strongly held belief, it would be sinful for me to do so, even though I wanted to with all of my heart." She fell to her knees and moved until she was directly in front of her partner. "I’ve been tormented by this secret, Jamie. I knew it would wound you if you ever found out, and I had a strong feeling that your father would tell you that I knew. It’s been killing me," she whispered, tears starting to fall once again. "I’m so sorry that you had to find out about this, and that you’ve been so hurt."

Unable to resist the impulse, Jamie grasped her partner by the shoulders, the warm solidness of her body like a balm for the wounds she had suffered. "You say you can’t tell a secret unless a greater harm could result. Wasn’t this a greater harm? Didn’t you know how much this would hurt me? Would hurt our relationship?"

Ryan nodded slowly. "I knew it would hurt you, and I thought it might hurt us," she admitted. "But I had to balance the harm, Jamie, and even if I chose wrong, you’ve got to believe that I tried my best!"

Knowing that Ryan tried her best at everything in her life, Jamie softly patted her cheek, closing her eyes as she did so. "I know that, Honey. You always do."

Ryan’s dark head dropped into her partner’s lap as she began to cry again, her tears quickly soaking through the thin cotton slacks that Jamie wore. "I’m so sorry I hurt you, Jamie. I’m so sorry."

Knowing that she should leave well enough alone, but still deeply curious, Jamie asked, "If you had to do it all over again, would you tell me?"

Ryan sat back on her heels and blinked slowly, wishing with all of her might that her partner had not asked the question. Her head began to shake as she said, "Given the same circumstances, I’d do the same thing."

With a heavy sigh, Jamie got up, grabbing her head as the throbbing increased with the altitude change. "I’ve had enough for one night," she muttered, walking inside.

Ryan got to her feet and followed her, standing in the middle of the room and looking lost when Jamie grabbed a T-shirt and her toothbrush, saying, "I’m going to sleep in Rory’s room."

"But you’ve…we’ve never…" Ryan murmured, looking like she was on the verge of tears again.

"You’ve never hurt me this badly, Ryan. I just can’t be close to you tonight. I’m sorry, but I just can’t." With that, she quietly walked up the stairs, turning her back on her partner, without even a backward glance.

It was after two when the door creaked quietly. Ryan had not fallen asleep, exhausted as she was. She had gone over the scenario again and again and again, coming up with the same answer every time. She would not have told her partner, given the same set of circumstances, and she was not going to lie and tell her differently even though she knew that Jamie would forgive her if she did so. Her eyes were well adjusted to the darkness since she had been staring at the ceiling for hours, and a small smile involuntarily settled on her face when she saw her partner trying to walk stealthily across the floor. "I’m awake," she said in a soft, fully alert voice.

"Have you fallen asleep at all?"

"No. You?"

"No. Well," the smaller woman said with a sigh, "if we’re not going to sleep, I guess we might as well talk."

"Okay," Ryan agreed, not really happy about continuing the argument, but unable to relax either. "What do you want to talk about?"

"I’ve been going over this in my mind, Ryan, and it finally dawned on me that for you to insist that you would do the same thing says that this means a great deal to you. Can you explain it to me again?"

"Sure." Leaning back against the headboard, Ryan said, "Here’s how I thought it through. There was nothing that I could do to take away the fact that your father had an affair. Telling you would not have made him stop cheating on your mom, but it would have wounded you greatly, and would have destroyed your faith in him."

"This is true," Jamie agreed, feeling exactly as Ryan described.

"I was also very much afraid that if you knew, you would tell your mom. They have obviously come to some sort of an agreement over the years, and I was afraid that having this out in the open could destabilize their marriage."

"Okay, that makes sense," Jamie agreed. "That explains why you didn’t tell me at first. But it doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me once I already knew."

"You didn’t know much," Ryan reminded her. "And for all we know, your mom doesn’t know that it’s still going on. I was still concerned that this information would harm their relationship. That’s not a small issue for me, Jamie. For me to intrude on the sanctity of marriage is a very, very big deal." She shook her head slowly, surprised at her own naïveté. "There was also a small part of me that had the foolish notion that your dad might stop cheating if he knew that I knew. I guess I thought he might be more concerned about your and your mom’s feelings than his own needs."

"I think we know the answer to that question," the smaller woman said derisively. Pausing a moment, she asked, "Did you tell him you knew when he came to the house?"

"Yeah. He was trying to make me mad, and he finally did. I said it just to piss him off." Ryan shook her head, still angry with herself for rising to the bait. "That was an incredibly immature thing to do."

"We’ve all had our immature moments," Jamie reassured her. "Well, everyone except Mother. She’s taken the high road all the way."

"I admire her," Ryan said softly. "Putting up with a cheating husband just to provide stability for her child is a very selfless act."

"I couldn’t do it," Jamie warned, reminding her partner once again that cheating would never be tolerated.

"It will never be a concern for you," Ryan vowed once again, her sincere blue eyes shining almost clear in the moonlight.

Jamie sighed, leaning against the headboard, shoulder to shoulder with her partner. "I’m still hurt, Ryan, and I still think you should have told me, but I think I understand your reasons."

"I know you’re angry, Jamie, and I understand why. All I can say is that one of the things I bring to our union is my integrity. I have to do what I think is right, even when there’s a very good chance that you’ll be angry with me or have your feelings hurt. I would never hurt you intentionally, but sometimes it just can’t be helped."