Year of the Monsoon (14 page)

“Does he know that that’s where he was born?”

“At nine fifty-two on August thirty-first,” Nan murmured as she absentmindedly poked a water chestnut with her fork. “I don’t know.” Her expression suddenly shifted as she remembered her conversation with Leisa and understanding dawned. “That’s what she meant.”

Chapter 11

“DO YOU REALLY THINK
that was a coincidence? If you could re-live that moment, and do things differently, how do you think things would change?”

Those used to be some of Leisa’s favorite topics of conjecture. “Just imagine the possibilities of all the alternate realities for every choice we could make. It’s mind-boggling,” she would say.

“Yes, it is,” Nan would usually agree. “My mind is completely boggled by the stupid choices people make. Whether they realize it or not, they create most of their ‘coincidences’ by where they choose to be or who they choose to hang out with, and then blame the universe for the fallout. They never see their own choices as the source of their misery.”

“You’re such a skeptic,” Leisa would laugh. “I absolutely believe that chance encounters really do happen, and that they change people’s lives.”

“Which kind was this?” she wondered a few days after joining her gym.

She had finished running on a treadmill and was going through the weight circuit when she heard, “Leisa? Is that really you?”

Leisa turned around to see Sarah standing there. Sarah “I’m getting married, but I still want you” Atherton. Or whatever the hell her name was now.

“Hi,” Leisa said lamely. “Do you belong here?”

“No,” Sarah laughed. “I work here. I’m one of the personal trainers.”

Leisa self-consciously pulled her stomach in a little as Sarah looked her up and down.

“You look great,” Sarah said admiringly.

“Thanks,” Leisa mumbled, cussing herself as she felt the blood rush to her cheeks.

Sarah glanced over to her client who was done with one machine and waiting by the next.

“Gotta go,” she said, flashing a big smile. “We should catch up.”

“Yeah. We should do that.”

“Yeah, we should do that?”
Leisa berated herself as she turned to her next machine.

“What were you thinking?”
She started yanking on the handles.
“You should have told her to go f — Don’t!”
She stopped herself.
“Don’t do this. She’s just someone you haven’t seen in a long time.”

The next machine positioned her so she could see Sarah reflected in the mirror. Damn, she looked good. She was lean and muscular and didn’t mind showing it off. She looked up suddenly and caught Leisa looking. She flashed that smile again. For the remainder of her workout, Leisa tried not to look in Sarah’s direction and she managed to get out of there with no further conversation.

When Leisa got home from the gym that night, all thoughts of Sarah were driven from her mind by an envelope from the New York State Health Department. Inside was a letter of consent authorizing them to give out her identifying information. That could only mean that someone biologically connected to her had registered also.

“If you sign this, there is no turning back.” In her head, Leisa could clearly hear Nan’s voice warning her. It would have been so comforting to be able to talk to Nan about this. Leisa actually picked up the telephone, her finger poised to punch the numbers, but she put it back down.

“So, what went wrong with your relationships?” Leisa had asked Nan when they were in the early stages of getting to know one another.

Nan settled back into the corner of the sofa, tucking her legs under her.

“I guess I was always flattered if someone really attractive was interested in me, and I kept thinking if they were willing to settle for someone like me they must be ready to get serious –”

“Wait a minute,” Leisa interrupted. “What do you mean, ‘settle for someone like me’?”

Nan stared hard at her knees. “You know what I mean. Beautiful women aren’t attracted to intellectual geeks like me.”

“Okay,” said Leisa, holding up both hands to make Nan stop. “First, I’m not even going to comment on how you just insulted me.”

“What? No, I didn’t –”

“Second,” Leisa interrupted again, “we need to have a serious talk about your self-esteem issues.” She cocked her head. “Why don’t you see yourself as beautiful?”

Nan picked at an imaginary piece of something on her pants. “Believe me, in my family, I’m not. And I was reminded of it frequently.”

“I’ve seen photos of your family. You look just like them.” Leisa paused. “Sometimes I wonder what that would be like,” she mused.

“What?”

“To look like other people. To look like you’re part of a family.”

Leisa focused on Nan again, reaching out to take Nan’s hand in hers. “You are beautiful,” she insisted gently. “And intelligent.” She scooted closer. “And funny in a sarcastic kind of way.” Closer still. “And did I mention that you’re beautiful?”

She pulled Nan to her for a kiss. She savored the softness of Nan’s mouth as she responded to the pressure of Leisa’s lips. After a long while, Leisa pulled away and said, “I want you to know I am not settling for you. I deserve better than what I’ve had and so do you.”

“I can’t,” she said now to Bron. “I can’t just call her when I need something.” Bron answered by rolling on her back for a tummy rub. Just then the telephone rang.

“Hi.” It was Nan.

“You must be a mind reader. I was just thinking about calling you.”

“You were?” Nan asked cautiously.

“Don’t sound so worried,” Leisa said guiltily. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Really?”

“There are… things we need to talk about.”

“Yes,” agreed Nan. “I was calling to see if you could come over for dinner tomorrow evening?”

Leisa thought for a couple of seconds. “That sounds nice. What can I bring?”

“Bron?” Nan asked hopefully. “I miss her.” She paused awkwardly. “I miss both of you.”

Leisa emerged from the toilet stall, wiping her mouth with a wad of tissue. She went to the sink and rinsed her mouth and face. She raised her eyes to her reflection in the mirror. “Who the hell are you?” she whispered to herself. The face staring back seemed to her to be the face of a stranger, one she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

She was startled by Maddie’s entrance into the restroom.

“Hi,” Leisa said as she quickly began washing her hands.

“Hi,” Maddie returned. She went into a stall. “Nan said you went over for dinner a couple of nights ago. How was it?”

“It was… okay.”

“Just okay? From what Nan said, it sounded as if you two had a good talk.”

“We did.” How could she explain that by the time she got back to her mother’s house that night, it wasn’t Nan she was angry with, it was herself.

Nan’s face had lit up with delight when she answered the door. “You don’t have to ring the bell, you know,” she said as she squatted down to hug Bronwyn. “This is your house, too.”

“I know,” Leisa said awkwardly, “but…” She looked around at the familiar foyer, trimmed in the original oak that she and Nan had painstakingly refinished.

When Bron calmed down enough to let Nan up, Leisa extended a hand to pull her to her feet.

“Thanks,” Nan smiled, holding onto Leisa’s hand a few extra seconds.

“Dinner smells wonderful,” Leisa said, noticing as she passed the dining room that Nan had set the table with a tablecloth and candles. “I brought a bottle of the merlot you liked at the wine tasting we went to last Christmas.”

“How about pouring then? I think everything is about ready,” Nan said.

Leisa retrieved the corkscrew from the drawer where it always was. This was so weird. Her furniture, her dishes, her house… but not. Leisa poured two glasses of wine while Nan put a bowl of chicken and rice on the floor for Bronwyn and then dished out huge servings of pot roast with potatoes and carrots. There was a basket of warm, fresh rolls already on the table.

“This is delicious,” Leisa commented as she took her first bite.

“You always were easy to impress,” Nan smiled. “Remember the first meal I made for you?”

Leisa grinned. “Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup,” she recalled.

“That’s what you said you wanted.”

“I love simple food,” Leisa shrugged.

They ate for a few minutes in silence.

“How are you doing?” Nan asked. “You didn’t seem like you were in a really good place on your birthday.”

“Oh, that.” Leisa said sheepishly. “Yeah, well, I guess I was just having a night of feeling sorry for myself. Fueled by this,” she added, swirling her wine.

“It sounded like a little more than that,” Nan probed gently. “I didn’t realize what you meant at the time, but it sounded like you were wondering if your birth mother ever thinks about the day you were born?”

Leisa’s cheeks burned with her embarrassment at the memory of that pathetic whimper.

Nan knew her well enough to read her thoughts. “There’s nothing wrong with wondering about that connection.” She hesitated before adding, “I don’t know about anyone else, but I always remember that day, the exact time…”

Leisa looked at her, searching Nan’s face – a face that was as familiar as ever, but different as she opened up about this topic for the first time. “Was it hard?”

Nan’s eyes were hard, flinty. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.” For several seconds, Nan held Leisa’s gaze, then she asked, “Would you like to see what he looks like?”

Leisa blinked. “Yes, I would.”

Nan got up and returned a moment later with Todd’s photo and letter. Leisa stared transfixed at his image. She was reminded again that for them, life was now defined as “before Williamsburg” and “after Williamsburg” and nothing would ever be the same. “It was the start of the monsoon,” Nan was to say much later when they looked back and realized that that overheard conversation, that unintended revelation had become the thing that knocked their shaky relationship off its crumbling foundation.

“You know,” Leisa said wistfully, “over these past few weeks, I’ve wondered what life would have been like, what our life together would have been like if you’d raised him. Our son.”

“I’ve wondered that, too,” Nan admitted. “Paths not taken.”