Looking Through Windows (19 page)

Emily was amazed at the activity in the church hall. There were tables set with tablecloths and candles, dishes and silverware. At the tables were seated elderly people whose hands shook as they ate, homeless people with their belongings in sacks at their feet, well-dressed families who decided to eat their meal of Thanksgiving with those who usually eat alone. Other people were busy serving, carrying large bowls or platters and offering extra helpings to anyone who was still hungry. Apparently this went on all afternoon with people helping out in shifts. As Katharine, Owen and Michael disappeared into the kitchen, Emily was handed an apron and a large bowl of bread stuffing. She followed Ann's lead and started asking those at the tables if they wanted more. She felt overwhelmed at the gratitude expressed by the recipients. One old woman took Emily's hand in both of her gnarled ones and thanked her with a toothless grin. Emily couldn't help but wonder who should be thanking whom. She looked up to find Ann watching her from a few tables away. Their eyes locked in a gaze as tangible as an embrace.

After a couple of hours, they returned home for pumpkin pie and coffee. A fresh snow had begun to fall, and the clouds made it seem that dusk had arrived early. Her pie gone, Emily sat with her second cup of coffee nestled in both hands, letting the warmth spread to her whole body.

"Thank you all for one of the nicest Thanksgivings I can remember," she said sincerely.

"We're very glad you could join us," Katharine said. "Why don't you go call your family? You can use the phone in Owen's study."

"Thanks." Emily took her coffee with her. She liked the study. It smelled of leather and faintly of Owen's cologne. It wasn't a typical dark, masculine room. The furniture was cherry Mission style, with a large desk, two leather cushioned sofas facing one another in front of the fireplace and another chair near the windows. The walls were a pale sage green with stained woodwork.

She sat in the leather chair behind the desk and dialed her parents' number, and after two rings, heard her father's voice answer.

"Em!" he said warmly as he recognized her voice. He informed her that her sister and brother and their families were all there, watching football following dinner. He filled her in on the weather and how school was going. She did the same. He asked how she was, but didn't ask where she was. After a few minutes, he passed the phone on to her mother and then to her siblings. The conversation was polite and superficial, as always. After she hung up, she sat staring at the phone. She could hear the love in her parents' voices and the hesitation as well. She knew they must have been aware of the tension during her visits home without Caroline, the secretive phone calls late at night so Caroline's parents wouldn't know. They had interpreted her silence as a wish for privacy, which they had respected. But the silence had become a wall between them, especially after Caroline's death. Her visits home had become increasingly more uncomfortable. She simply hadn't been able to bear watching her sister and brother interacting with their spouses and, later, children. She could share neither their joy nor her grief. Now she felt permanently trapped in a middle zone where the conversation consisted only of safe topics such as work and the weather.

There was a soft knock on the door, and Ann poked her head in. "Are you okay?" she asked, concerned.

Emily realized she had been in there almost an hour. "I'm sorry," she apologized.

"I was worried about you," Ann said, coming to her. Emily stood and held her tightly. "Is your family okay?" she asked, still concerned.

"Oh, they're fine," Emily sighed. "Everything is the same as it always is." She let Ann go, saying, "Come on."

They rejoined the family in the kitchen where they were getting set to play poker, using matchsticks to bet with. Emily had never played poker, so they taught her for the first three hands. Two hours later, she had acquired a large pile of wooden matchsticks.

"It's a good thing I'm not a pyromaniac," she gloated as she scooped up her matches like a pirate sifting through her booty.

"We may have created a monster," Ann grumbled, with only two matchsticks left before her.

"Come on," Emily laughed, "just to show you I'm a good sport, I'll use my winnings to start a fire in the den."

Within a few minutes, there was a roaring fire in the fireplace. Emily turned from the hearth to find that Michael was in the chair she had adopted.

"Lie down here," Ann said, patting the pillow she was lying on. Emily chided herself for feeling self-conscious about such a simple gesture. She stretched out on the thick Berber carpet next to Ann and felt the electricity as their shoulders rested against each other. She was barely aware of the movie on television; every one of her senses was focused on Ann. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt this happy. She had only dreamed of being able to spend holidays with the woman she loved as part of a family gathering. Her joy was tempered, though, by the knowledge that Ann's family didn't know about their relationship. That unknown was a small grain of worry, which was a constant source of irritation, never leaving her completely free to enjoy herself. Emily felt Ann's arm press more tightly against hers, as if Ann could read her thoughts and was trying to offer reassurance.

When the movie was over, Owen and Katharine said goodnight. Emily sensed Ann's desire to stay in front of the fire, but Michael went to the sofa, picked up the remote and began switching channels. After a few moments, with the television settled on a police drama, Emily got up and said goodnight, hoping that Ann would follow.

"I'll be up in a little bit," Ann said.

'Maybe she and Michael need time to talk,' Emily thought. She changed and crawled into bed, lying on Ann's side to warm it for her. The moonlight cast a silvery glow throughout the room, with tree shadows dancing on the walls.

She woke with a start, and realized she had drifted off. Ann stepped quietly into the dark room, trying not to disturb Emily.

"I'm awake," Emily whispered.

"I'll hurry," Ann whispered back.

In a few minutes, she got under the covers, taking the warm spot Emily had just vacated. Emily moved close, enjoying Ann's clean smell. Ann put her arm under Emily's head and held her tightly.

"Are you okay?" Emily asked. She could feel Ann's pulse beat in her neck; it was rapid, agitated.

Ann didn't answer for long seconds. "Michael was asking questions about how well I know you, and how much time we spend together. He implied that we shouldn't be friends, if you could be one of my instructors."

Emily waited, but no more came. "How did all that make you feel?"

"Angry and defensive," Ann admitted.

"What did you say?"

"I told him that you have become a close friend, and our friendship wouldn't interfere with our classroom relationship, even if I did take one of your classes."

Emily felt a small, familiar stab of fear hit her heart. This had been Ann's first challenge – she hadn't caved in, but neither had she revealed the truth to her brother.

Again, Ann seemed to read her thoughts. "I wasn't prepared for those kinds of questions. It just didn't seem like the time to get into it."

Emily remembered how many different ways she had imagined starting that conversation with her parents. She had always told herself it was different from Caroline's situation because her parents didn't try to interfere, so it was okay to continue operating on the assumption that they knew. She felt a sudden conviction that it wasn't enough. She couldn't continue to relate to her family on the superficial level of this evening's phone call. Whatever the outcome, her family would know the truth about her, and they would either begin having real communication or none at all.

These thoughts only took the space of a few seconds, but it was long enough for Ann to interpret Emily's silence as a reprimand. "I'm sorry," she said, pulling away and sitting up. "I guess I blew a perfect opportunity to tell him."

Emily sat up and put her arm around Ann. "It's never easy. And this is all so new. You'll know when the time is right."

Ann allowed herself to be pulled back down, this time with her head resting on Emily's shoulder. They caressed one another, their tenderness and love expressed in touches that felt as intimate as anything they had previously shared. They fell asleep in each other's arms, but that night, Emily experienced the return of one of her old familiar nightmares.

Chapter 29

E
mily awoke feeling disoriented. She couldn't tell what time it was. Ann came in from the bathroom drying her hair.

"Good morning," she said as she came to sit on the edge of the bed. "You seemed like you had a restless night." Her eyes were clouded with concern.

Emily reached up to brush back a strand of damp hair. "Oh, just some bizarre dreams." She changed the subject. "What would you like to do today?"

Ann noticed Emily's not-so-subtle tactic, but decided not to pursue it. "I wondered if you'd like to go riding."

"Really? Where?" Emily asked. "You don't have any other horses here, do you?"

"No," Ann smiled at Emily's excitement. "We used to have others, but some neighbors of ours have several horses they use for lessons. They're very well-schooled and calm. I thought it would be a good way to re-introduce you to riding."

"That sounds like lots of fun," Emily said as she sat up and threw back the covers.

"Good, I'll call the Remicks and see if we can go over after breakfast. Why don't you shower and I'll see you downstairs." The last part was muffled as Ann was pulling her nightshirt off over her head as she spoke.

Emily changed directions abruptly, wrapping her arms around Ann before she could get the shirt over her head.

"Hey," Ann giggled as Emily bent to take one nipple in her mouth. Emily paused long enough to grin wickedly before moving to the other breast. Ann stood absolutely still as Emily's hands slid over her buttocks and thighs. She allowed Emily to back her up to the bed. As she lay back, Emily knelt beside the bed, her lips and tongue barely touching the soft skin inside Ann's thighs. Emily's mouth moved higher, and Ann was no longer capable of holding still.

Chapter 30

E
mily was startled by Sato's greeting as she entered their shared office. "Hi, Sato, how was your Thanksgiving break?"

"It was very nice," Sato smiled. "I stay here, and my church have Thanksgiving feast," she said, forgetting to adjust to past tense. Emily gently corrected her, following the agreement they had all made to correct one another's grammatical errors.

Sato gathered some papers and left Emily alone once more in the office. She looked down at the empty paper in front of her and realized she must have been staring out the window for almost an hour. She glanced at her watch. She was supposed to be at Ann's apartment in an hour. She took a deep breath, remembering the tension of Sunday – was that just yesterday? She and Ann had been packing to leave after breakfast. At one point, Emily had turned to Ann, taking hold of her shoulders, and said, "This has been the most special Thanksgiving of my life. You are what I'm most thankful for."

Looking deeply into Emily's eyes, Ann had replied, "I know how you feel. Everything that has happened the past few days has felt like the answer to a prayer."

As they embraced, holding one another tightly, Michael had burst in through the bathroom door. In the awkward silence that followed, all three of their faces burned a deep red.

"Knocking might be a good idea," Ann had said, to Emily's surprise.

"Sorry," Michael mumbled, but his eyes shot darts at Emily. Turning his gaze toward his sister, he asked, "I wondered if you wanted to come to New York for a weekend to shop?"

"Thanks, but I've only got two weeks of classes left before exams, so I'd better not plan anything."

"All right, I'll see you downstairs," he said with one more harsh glance at Emily.

They hadn't discussed it on the drive back to Weston. Emily had figured that Ann would bring it up when she was ready. There had been no change in Owen or Katharine's demeanor, but Michael had managed to avoid addressing Emily at all as they left. Ann had asked Emily to come over for dinner and studying Monday evening. So now Emily sat in the gathering darkness of the office, wondering if she was attaching too much importance to Michael's opinion and his influence on Ann.

She shook her head to clear it of those thoughts and began gathering books and papers she would need tonight. As she stood, she groaned; her legs were still sore from the riding lesson Ann had given her. Walking towards Ann's apartment, she noticed that while they had been gone, Weston had been decorated for the holidays. All the downtown trees had Christmas lights in them, the streetlights were wrapped in garlands and Christmas carols floated in the cold air. Passing a small jewelry store, her eye was caught by a small box in the window. She went in and asked for a closer look. It was a pair of finely wrought interlinked gold stirrups suspended by a gold chain. It was a simple, elegant design which would suit Ann perfectly. She asked how much, and after some polite dickering, agreed on a price and put a deposit on the necklace. She had no idea where she would come up with the rest of the money, but was too happy at having found such a perfect gift to worry about it.