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Previously…

“I know you’ll find the answer, Donna.” Kate sighed a bit and nodded with a half-smile. She noticed the picture on the book shelf. Hopefully whatever pain Donna could not express, even to her best friend and lover, might be finally relieved. Maybe things would get better. Donna might have given up on hope, but Kate had never given it a second thought. She smiled again.

“See you at home….” She wanted to add the word ‘dear’ but thought better of it and just waved goodbye as she left. Donna bit her lip and shook her head before turning her attention to Maria’s picture once again. She didn’t have the strength to get up to close the door and she hoped she could keep from crying as her eyes fell upon the smile her sister would forever display, no matter what heartache had dwelt inside.

Two are on my right hand
Two are on my left hand
Two who warmly cover
Two who o’er me hover
Two to whom ’tis given
To guide my steps to heaven

Later that week, Kate and Donna’s apartment…

Kate sat on the couch with her laptop open. She had taken a personal day; mostly to work the follow-up paperwork to her thesis but also to decompress a bit after a very long night filled with cordiality and completely bereft of any intimacy.

“I made some Fusilli to go with the sausage and peppers from the other night,” Kate sighed, looking up from her laptop as Donna walked in. Lately the rides to and from school had gotten better, but they were still had a business-like feel about them; shop talk about Kate’s lesson plans or Donna’s upcoming three day conference in Richmond. Home, however, was almost as cool inside as out, leaving Kate frustrated on most days and all too sad that day. She stood up and went to hug her lover. Donna winced a bit but seemed almost to acquiesce to the affection rather than welcome the embrace. Kate hugged her tentatively and kissed her on the cheek in welcome.

“I have to go out tonight,” Donna said, pulling away from Kate. She tossed the car keys in a straw basket on the kitchen counter and grabbed a mug from the glass-paned cabinet in the corner. She sat down and poured coffee out of the carafe on the table and sighed; almost a belated echo to Kate from only moments before.

“I know.” Kate stood by the fridge and glanced at the wall beside it to the calendar. The day had been circled, as if Donna needed reminders of the importance of the date. Kate stepped closer and put her hand on Donna’s shoulder, evoking yet another wince, which urged Kate to redouble her efforts. She stepped behind Donna and leaned closer and wrapped her arms around the chair; hugging her from behind.

“Honey….it’s….” Kate began to speak, but Donna cut her off since the words had been exchanged all too frequently over the last year.

“It is.” Donna sighed in frustration. Kate’s embrace was firm and she felt as hemmed in as the hug demanded.

“She …it wasn’t your fault.”

“She’d still …. It’s my fault,” Donna gasped. While the encouragement and subsequent protested over the past several months, the futility still hovered above their heads nearly every day like a rain cloud that dims the sunlight but never rains and never refreshed the soil below. Sunlight seemed to peer thorough the blinds of the living room window; almost a sign of the peace to come. Kate spoke softly even as her voice broke.

“She didn’t mean to….you know? What did the doctor say? That it wasn’t….”

“It’s my fault. My meds….my fault.” Donna began to sob.

“The doctor said that she never…that she was so tired of being hurt.”

“I should have been there.”

“You were there for her more than anyone. Your mother loved her and she had a few friends and even some folks at school, but no one was there more than you…for her. She never…. It was an accident.”

“If …I should have…. She…..” Donna sobbed and gasped and stammered. Kate leaned around the back of the chair and kissed her cheek once again.

“She only wanted….to get away. Didn’t the doctor say she made a mistake…?”

“Yehh….es….”

“But she was so tired and so hurt. Like you are now. You’ve been fighting for so long, honey.”

“I’m…..I’m sorry,” Donna said between sobs. Kate gently grabbed Donna’s chin and turned it slowly; facing her lover. Wife would better suit them both, but not yet and not where they were. She kissed Donna’s cheek just below her right eye and leaned close; almost rubbing noses like they did when they were girls seeing a silly penguin cartoon.

“I know honey. I can’t do this anymore.” Donna’s eyes widened; almost in fear. Kate half-smiled even as tears spilled off her own face onto Donna’s arm.

“I’m not going anywhere, but I can’t make you love me.” She half-frowned.

“You’ve done everything you can to punish yourself. And because you feel it was your fault, that makes you unlovable. And because you feel unlovable… you feel…..” Kate turned away at the thought; the pain so bad that Donna could not reach out. And guilt that left her feeling that she deserved nothing good. The only saving grace in that was that Donna actually felt that what she and Kate could have had to be good and therefore underserved. Kate shook her head as Donna began to protest.

“No…just….. Hear me out. Okay?” Donna didn’t say no. Kate continued.

“You deserve every good thing I can bring you. I love you!”

“Why…why do you love me?” A fair if impossible question to answer, maybe? Kate blinked back some tears and spoke

“I’ve always loved you…sort of. Like best friends when we were little and on-again/off-again best friends and frenemies when we were in high school.” She paused and smiled.

“But I fell in love with you when I saw what a heart you have for the kids here. It goes beyond just helping them get better grades or even succeed when their homes tell them they can’t. But when you look at a boy and tell him he’s just fine the way he is. When you look at a girl and she can feel how much you care just by the way you smile? That’s what I love about you. Your heart. You have all the love to give to everyone else, so long as you don’t have to receive in return. The kids come and go, and what they have with you is fleeting and temporary. No investment in receiving because they’re gone.”

“I….” Donna shook her head; more out of tired resignation than disagreement, but tired resignation was exactly what she needed to feel.

“I’m here. Now. And I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving like the kids….” She paused.

“Don’t…don’t you say it….” Donna’s eyes grew wide in recognition.”

“It feels like Maria left because she was broken and she felt hopeless; she didn’t leave, honey, so much as you stayed behind to be exactly who you needed to be. And that means that her death didn’t signal what you should have done but what she said…. What did she say to you…the last words the day before….”

“I should have guessed….”

“She never left that option because she didn’t know what she was doing was forever…like the doctor said. She took too many pills…not because she wanted to die….she just didn’t see any hope. But what did she say, Donna?” Kate was almost at the point of breaking down herself, but she had to keep strong…if only for a little while longer.

“She said she knew I ….” Donna’s eyes fluttered a bit and she turned away, but quickly faced Kate again.

“She knew I did…what I could…. She said I was her best friend….” Donna began to sob once more. Kate stood up and walked around. Kneeling in front of Donna, she pulled her into a soft embrace as she began kissing the tears from Donna’s face.

“She didn’t think she was going away, honey. She said she had what….what did she say?”

“She….she said I gave….I gave…..” Donna looked away once again, as if she had no business speaking the words that would free her from the past. Kate remained still. Donna had to find her way herself. Her need to remember and not Kate’s need remind. Donna sighed and turned once again and half-smiled; partly in spent grief, and partly in relief, but every bit in revelation as she spoke at last.

“I gave her hope.” Whatever was left of guilt and shame would be lost slowly and surely in the days and weeks to come, but the heartache and the self-doubt left the room almost like the setting sun beamed the last of the day’s warmth through the gaps in the blinds. She collapsed in hopeful tears as she spoke the most important words she would ever say for her own benefit as she kissed Kate on the face.

“I love you….I love you….”

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Sleeping sofly, then it seems
Heaven enters in my dreams;
Angels hover round me,
Whisp'ring they have found me;

The next afternoon, Luck Lane in the Brandon area …

“Hey…” Jason heard a familiar voice over the scrabbling sound of his skateboard wheels on the asphalt.

“Nice board…. “ The girl waved as she stepped off her own skateboard and walked down the sidewalk to the boy.

“Yea…yeah.” He looked slight up; even off her skateboard, the girl was probably a good two or three inches taller than him. He smiled nervously.

“I’ve been…..My brothers and I….” He looked over his shoulder in the direction of his dad’s townhome.

“Me too….my sister and I….until she got sick.” She put her head down and Jason muttered but still audibly, “oh fuck.”

“Oh….It’s’ okay. She’s all better, but between Norfolk State and her job….we don’t get out to skate much lately.” She paused and then quickly changed the subject.

“Is that an Element? That is so cool.” She smiled, leaving him both proud and embarrassed once again.

“Yeah… My dad got it for me for my last birthday.”

“You go to the park over at Williams Farm?” The girl smiled and closed her left eye in thought before adding,

“Jason, right?”

“Uh…yeah.” His face grew red as he scrambled around in his memory, searching….”

“It’s Aubrey…most people don’t remember the first seven times,” she laughed, making him more nervous. He stared at her chin, noting a small scar just beneath her lower lip.

“Fell off my bike when I was four,” she said as her eyes lowered a bit.

“I….”

“It’s okay, Jason. You barely know me. Your name…. an adventurer.” Her laugh was soft and welcoming, but she caught herself and practically stood straight up, as if in salute.

“I’m sorry….I didn’t mean to tease,” she said haltingly as it became her turn to blush. But her face grew a bit hotter and she backed up a bit; the old habits from other days and other places seemed to jump in between her and the boy, as if some bully was playing keep away between her and Jason.

“I…I gotta get home,” Jason said, stepping up onto his own board.”

“Okay.”

“Aubrey? Is that your friend? He’s welcome for dinner if he doesn’t have any plans.” Aubrey’s mother called from their front door. She turned back to ask but he was already skating down the block toward home.

“Oh…..fuck.”

She shook her head as the ghosts kept up their whispers. She walked slowly back toward her house; only then realizing she had left her own skateboard in the grass where they had just stood. A Diva autographed by Paula Costales. At that point, she didn’t feel like a diva, certainly. She hardly felt good enough to be a skateboarder, much less one of the best women in the world.

And at that moment, standing on the sidewalk in front of her house, she looked once more down the block. The boy was barely visible, but she still could see him enough to want to know him more….the first boy she ever crushed on. And she didn’t feel like a girl at all. She picked up the board and headed back to the house, shameful tears falling to the ground as she walked.

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Two are sweetly singing,
Two are garlands bringing,
Strewing me with roses
As my soul reposes.

That Thursday afternoon, the office of Dr. Rita Adler…

Rita sat in the wing chair across from the couch. The figure in front of her was familiar if very awkward to begin with.

“So what do you think?” Kim pointed to the short hair barely visible under the edge of her ball cap.

“Well, short hair is nice, I suppose, but the question is, what do you think of it?”

“It’s okay.” Kim folded her arms and leaned back.

“Okay….. I get that. Okay. You like the way you look?” She smiled and tilted her head in question. Kim took it exactly as she hoped and half-smiled; almost trying to convince herself of her next words.

“It’s fine.”

“Oh…fine. Okay. I asked because for something that is so fine, you don’t seem very happy.” Kim shook her head slightly but remained silent.

“Girls….most I would say….we often get our hair done and really aren’t happy with it.” She said, stressing the word we. Kim shook her head a bit more emphatically but still kept silent.

“So I gather our little talk about body language only works on other people? You’re thrilled with your look?” The tease was pointed, but Kim looked up to see that Rita almost seemed sad.

“You’ve done everything you can, Kim. You watch TV shows you think your father will want to talk about even though he doesn’t call you. You’ve stopped wearing pretty things even though he hasn’t seen you in how long?”

Kim bit her lip and her nostrils flared. It had been nearly three weeks since she talked briefly with Pete when he called up about the car insurance, and then only for him to hang up quickly when he learned Cara hadn’t gotten home from work. And she couldn’t even recall how long it had been since she saw her father other than when he sat in the car when he dropped off Joey and Jason for their weekend with Cara.

“Now you did something much different.” Rita said; almost a lilting sadness surrounded her words.

“It says somewhere that a woman’s hair is her glory….I don’t know if that’s true, but how we see ourselves and how we wish to be seen. You’re fourteen and you cut your hair off just to please him and he won’t even notice. That must hurt so much.” Rita lowered her face just enough to catch Kim’s gaze.

“You’ve tried to be someone he wants to love.” It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right but it was true; true enough to brush up painfully against the dagger of neglect that pierced her heart.

“I ….I want to be a good boy,” the girl said. She almost looked odd, since even in boy’s clothes with short hair, she would never be and should never have been mistaken for a boy.

“Are you good, Kim? Don’t you love everybody no matter what? Don’t you keep trying to do whatever you can to bless others? What isn’t good about you, Kim?”

“I’m bad.” She folded her arms once again, but not in anger but in self-comfort, as if her embrace would be the last hug she ever got.

“What makes you bad, Kim?” Rita hated this part of therapy, since in order to face the good, Kim and every child like her had to stare down and spit in the eye of the bad.

“I’m not….” The last two words stuck in her throat. Not in shame, but somehow because they should have to be uttered in the first place.

“It’s okay, Kim…..you are doing great,” Rita said in encouragement. The words needed to be spoken; even to be set aside once and for all, but Kim still needed to say them in order to deny them.

“I’m not a boy…okay? Are you happy now?” She practically snapped even as she began to cry.

“No Kim. I’m not happy at all, and you aren’t, either. This hurts so bad, honey, but you’re doing great.”

“Why, Rita? Why wasn’t I ….”

“I don’t know why, honey, but that’s not the question we need to ask, is it?”

“I don’t …. What?”

“You’re not a boy, are you? Have you ever even felt you were a boy? You know….since you started really thinking about yourself…when you started to wonder who you were…like we all do?”

“N….”

“Yes, Kim?” Rita leaned closer, as if Kim’s words were just whispers; not shameful and wrong.

“N…no.”

“You’re a girl, aren’t you?” The words would have almost seemed to be leading except Kim had already begun to mouth them silently before Rita began to speak.

“Yes….”

“Then the question is…. What do we do with what we know to be true, right?” Kim nodded almost reluctantly.

“Your mom believes in you, right? Not just believes you, but believes in you…. She trusts your personhood and your being. To her, even if she called you Peter for all those years?”

“She would call me Kim when Daddy wasn’t home or maybe when we were in the laundry folding clothes….” The tears continued to fall, but Kim’s visage had brightened in moments.

“And what does Joey say?” it was a hard question to answer, but not hopeless or as painful as the ones to come.

“He….he still calls me Petey, but….it’s funny. It feels like things have changed with him. Like even if he doesn’t call me a girl, he sorta sees me. Mom tries to make sure she calls me Kim when the boys are over, even when she doesn’t really have to call out a name, you know? The last time the boys were over…for the first time?” Kim began to smile at the memory; a memory which would serve to sustain her progress over the last few minutes.

“She said, ‘Joe, would you help Kim set the table?’ And he didn’t…for the first time he didn’t turn around and glare or make a face or correct her, you know? ‘Mom, Dad says we have to call him Petey.’”

“So he’s getting used to the idea of having a sister? Or maybe not so much used to it as not fighting it as much?” A small but important victory.

“Yes,” Kim said with a sigh.

“What about your Dad? That must still hurt a lot,” Rita asked.

“He doesn’t seem so….mean. He still calls me Petey… I mean it’s not like we talk a lot, but it doesn’t feel so angry?”

“So it doesn’t hurt as much?” It hurt so much less, but still remained almost too painful to bear. Her only hope was that change of tone….things just had to get better, didn’t they?

“So Joey is getting used to you and your father isn’t so angry, is that right?” Kim nodded nervously, but even as she agreed, the tears began to fall once again.

“But they’re not the only ones, are they?” Of course Rita knew the answer, but the prompt was important because the remaining member of the family probably held the key to the change in the family. Almost the heart and soul of the Brunettis, so to speak.

“No….” She gasped.

“Your….best friend, you said once. There’s only about eleven months between you two, right?

“Yes…..” Kim stifled a sob.

“It’s okay to cry, Kim. It hurts …probably more than anything you have ever gone through….maybe more than anything you will go through….because….?”

“He….protects me…that should be enough, right?” She put her head down, missing Rita’s slight head shake. No it wasn’t, but Kim needed to see that for herself.

“What do you think? Do you feel that he loves you?” The question might as well have been another poke at that dagger of neglect that still stabbed her. It’s said that the opposite of love is not hate, but rather indifference. Kim bit her lip and began to rock in place on the couch.

“It hurts to say it, Kim. If you say it….” Confession actually means to say the same as; to agree. For Kim to agree, it also meant every bit of hurt that went along with the confession. But the healing couldn’t begin until the wound was cleansed by the truth. Her father might even hate her in a way, and Joey might not understand her, but it was what she had to say that would lead to her healing, as well as the family’s as she spoke.

“Jason…doesn’t love me….” Not the teasing confusion of a thirteen year old. Not the ignorant hatred of her father; there is always hope for change when someone is ignorant since they just don’t know. But the neglectful withdrawal by Jason Brunetti hurt more than anything else. Even worse than Benny’s betrayal, because he was just a friend. But her brother’s retreat hurt more than any single thing she could recall.

“Kim? Do you believe you’re loveable? What’s the last thing you see each night and what’s the first thing you see when you get up and what do you hear? What did you tell me last time?” It seemed almost futile to insert a pause in the middle of the measure, but it was not only called for but effective. She looked up at Rita and smiled weakly.

“When I go to bed….and when I get up….Mom is sitting on my bed. She holds my hand until I fall asleep and when I wake up she says, ‘There’s my girl….’” She bit her tongue trying not to cry, but these tears and the hope they brought were needful. She gasped before saying at last,

“There’s my girl.” She turned to the side and sobbed against the back of the couch.

Rita stared at the girl. As much as she wanted to surround the girl and protect her, there was a real angel so to speak in the guise of Cara Brunetti, who filled that role superbly. It didn’t stop Rita from feeling motherly at all though, since all the children she saw were her children in a way. She mouthed the words silently to herself

“There’s my girl.”

God will not forsake me
When dawn at last will wake me.

To be continued…

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Evening Prayer
(When at Night I Go to Sleep)
Abendsegen
From "Hänsel & Gretel"
Engelbert Humperdinck
As performed by David Wigram
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg9NBMR4sT8