In Medias Res (20 page)

“I want your face to be the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night. Whether that’s in Chicago or here, that’s enough for me. I know how much being here means to you. I wouldn’t dare ask you not to come. Not as long as I can come with you.”

Her eyes widened as if she had never received a similar offer. “Do you mean that?”

“I’m here now, aren’t I? Overlooking, of course, the fact that I’m flat on my back at the moment.”

She caressed my cheek. “You’ll be up and around in no time. You’ve got the best doctor in Honduras taking care of you.” She took her hand away. “But I can’t ask you to stay here. The generator’s on its last legs, the well’s falling apart—”

I held up a hand to stop her.

“You’re not asking. I’m offering. It was my idea, remember? Don’t you dare ask me to leave.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” She, more than anyone, knew how stubborn I could be. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

Even though the question came out of the blue, I didn’t need time to formulate a response.

“Living with you in an apartment in Andersonville with one hyperactive boxer and maybe a cat or two to even things out. You’ve been offered tenure at the hospital. You accept it on the condition that you can spend half the year volunteering—three months in the field, three in the women’s clinic you’ve helped establish. I’m practicing law again. On my own terms this time, not someone else’s. You and I host family dinners once a week. Everyone comes—Mom, Dad, Patrick and Kristin and the boys, your parents, Marcus, Trevor, and all our friends. Life is good.”

“Sounds like you’ve thought this out,” she said, her eyes warm and inviting.

“Not really,” I teased her. “Do you like my vision of the future or would you rather change it?”

I expected her to call me on the carpet for my presumptuousness, but she didn’t.

“Syd,” she said, welcoming me back into her arms as well as her heart, “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

I was in the middle of the ocean when it happened.

I was drifting aimlessly with the tide when I realized that I didn’t know where the past two years had gone. So much had happened—and so fast—that I hadn’t been able to keep up.

Jennifer and I had moved in together well ahead of our five-year plan. Two months after I had tracked her down in order to beg her forgiveness, we had returned to Chicago and gone apartment hunting. After three weeks of looking, we had been able to move her out of the apartment she shared with Marcus and into a gorgeous two-story townhouse in Andersonville, one of Chicago’s historic (and most Sapphic) neighborhoods. The same day we had closed on the apartment, I had inked another contract—one that had made me a member of the district attorney’s office. It’s hard work, but a job I enjoy immensely.

When our friends had discovered that Jennifer and I were an item, we had been inundated not with “I told you so” but “What took you so long?”

Even Natalie had said she was happy for us. When she told us she was glad we had finally found each other, I believed she actually meant it. Thankfully, Jack had been able to move on as well.

He hadn’t offered any resistance when I initiated divorce proceedings. In fact, he had even wished me well. It sounds strange to say, but the two of us are much better friends now than we were at any point of our romantic relationship. He had begun dating one of the psych counselors at the hospital about four months after our divorce was final. They had run off to Las Vegas one weekend and gotten married in a drive-through chapel owned and operated by an Elvis impersonator (skinny Elvis, not fat Elvis). Surprisingly, they’re still together. Our paths don’t often cross, but I hear they’re happy.

Good for him. He wasn’t a bad guy. He simply wasn’t the right person for me.

Shortly after I had become a free woman, my parents had moved to a retirement community in Mesa, Arizona, picking a spot just a stone’s throw from the Cubs’ spring training facilities. After hearing Mom and Dad wax rhapsodic about the city, the climate, and the great seats at the spring training games (yeah, that and a cable package that included WGN was what had sold my father on the idea in the first place), Jennifer’s parents had followed suit a few months later.

That Christmas had been special in more ways than one. Besides being my first Christmas with Jennifer—and the first time our parents had been home since they’d moved—it was also when my niece Kelly had decided to make her grand entrance. With just a look, the cute little seven-pounder had brought her father to his knees.

“I’ve got a daughter,” Patrick had said, tears streaming down his face as he’d held his third child for the first time. “Syd, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Neither do I,” I’d said, admiring the new addition to our family while Jennifer babysat my nephews and our parents visited with a game but tired Kristin, “but I’m sure we’ll figure it out together.”

A loud splash off to my right brought me back to the present. Jennifer, as graceful as a dolphin and about as playful as one, swam toward me. “It’s going to be another hour before lunch,” she said, knuckling saltwater out of her eyes.

I looked over at
The Painted Lady
. Anchored twenty feet away, her deck was empty except for Ali, the boxer Jennifer bought me for my birthday last year. (We haven’t gotten around to picking out the cats yet. One step at a time.) Seeing me, thirteen-month-old Ali barked and wagged her stubby little tail as if to say, “What are you doing bobbing around out there when you could be playing with me?” I waved to her to acknowledge her greeting.

“What’s the hold up?” I asked Jennifer.

“Our gracious hostesses got a little distracted while they were making the
empanadas
.”

Marcy and Ana had gotten back together after I left Key West. Leaving without saying good-bye and “I’m sorry” wasn’t my proudest moment. Marcy deserved better. Despite all that, I like to think that I had a hand in her and Ana’s happiness.

Jennifer and I visited them a couple of weeks a year, recharging our batteries while we renewed our friendships.

The first time she had met Marcy, Jennifer had turned to me and said in a voice so low only I could hear it, “You were right. She
does
have great legs.”

“It’s okay,” I had said. “Yours are the only ones I want wrapped around me.”

“They’d better be.”

Ana and Jennifer had bonded right away, erasing my fears that there would be tension between them because of the potential love triangle (square?) I had nearly placed us in when I was finding my way back to myself. As for me and Marcy, we had picked up right where we had left off—minus the whole wanting to get into each other’s pants thing. We reserved those feelings exclusively for Jennifer and Ana.

“If the boat’s rocking, don’t bother knocking,” Jennifer said.

“Sounds like a great idea, don’t you think?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“What do you think?” I swam over to her and wrapped my legs around her waist. Our relationship was incredible. I couldn’t get enough of her. In and out of bed. Thankfully, she felt the same way. I licked the side of her neck. “What do you say? Are you up for a little afternoon delight?”

Under the water, Jennifer cupped her hands under my hips. “Make me an offer.”

I suggested a race back to the boat.

“If I win, you have to put on that sexy little teddy you didn’t think I saw you slip in your suitcase when we packed to come down here.”

“And if I win?”

I sucked her left earlobe into my mouth and felt her shudder. “If you win, I won’t wear anything at all.”

“You’re on.”

We moved into starting position.

“We go on three,” I said. “One. Two.”

Jennifer began to head for the boat on two-and-a-half. Her kicking calves stirred up nearly as much white water as an outboard motor.

“Cheater!” I called out. Ali’s high-pitched bark seconded my motion.

“You look much better in your birthday suit than I do in my teddy,” Jennifer yelled over her shoulder as she extended her lead.

I couldn’t wait to compare the two.

I dug through the water, chasing after the woman I loved in the place I had learned the most important lesson in my life: sometimes you have to forget who you were to remember who you are.

Yolanda Wallace is not a professional writer, but she plays one in her spare time. She has written dozens of short stories, which have appeared in multiple anthologies including
UniformSex, Body Check, Bedroom Eyes, Best Lesbian Love Stories: New York City,
and
Best Lesbian Love Stories: Summer Flings. In Medias Res
is Yolanda’s first published novel. She and her partner of eight years live in beautiful coastal Georgia. They are parents to four children of the four-legged variety—a fouryear- old boxer and three cats ranging in age from five to eight. A writer since childhood, Yolanda has also become an avid photographer. She can often be found wandering the world trying to capture on film the elusive images she sees in her head.

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