Chapter 16
Anne wasn’t alone in her house, not after she flicked on the light switch by the front door. She was met with Sadie’s absence, announcing itself in all the spaces where Anne couldn’t see her, in all the awful quiet that didn’t have her noise.
Somehow, Anne had to get herself through an entire week of this. Six days by herself: just Anne’s Sadie-less house with its drained walls and dead doors, like pale bone with no flesh.
And she’d try not to think about the fact that Sadie hadn’t promised Anne anything except that she’d return by Sunday and that they’d talk then. No guarantee the love of Anne’s life would come home ready for the commitment Anne wanted so badly.
But at least it wasn’t forever, this limbo. That was what she needed to remember. Sadie had given her a real timeline, and Anne could survive it.
In the morning, she’d figure out how. One step at a time.
It wasn’t even seven p.m. yet, but she’d never felt so exhausted. Everything Anne had inside her she’d used up today, leaving her with weak limbs, hot eyes, a blurred brain. How many calories did you burn coming out three different times to four people in one day?
Anne managed to shamble over to the oversized armchair before collapsing into it with a soft groan of relief. She’d rest here for a few minutes, maybe relax her eyes.
She only realized that she’d dozed off after the jolt that took her back into semiconsciousness.
It was fully dark in the room; Anne had slept right through the sunset.
Her purse was rudely pressed into her leg, jammed between thigh and seat cushion, and while she tried to decide whether the discomfort was enough to make moving worthwhile, the bag had the audacity to vibrate—the long kind of vibration that meant someone was calling.
She pulled out her phone, hoping for—no. Not Sadie.
“It’s been a very, very long day, Brooke.” Anne switched on the table lamp next to her, illuminating the room in a gold glow. “What do you need?”
Faint road noise on the other end. Brooke was in the car. “Hal isn’t telling me something. About you.”
The sigh Anne let out was long and deep. Apparently, she wasn’t allowed to take this process at the pace she wanted to. Did everyone’s coming-out experience involve accommodating other people’s feelings? “Can’t this wait until tomorrow?”
“I’m worried about you. First, you lose your shit at lunch with Claire and me over Sadie possibly moving away, then your best friend shows up at her son’s house, freaking out, and now Hal is telling me that I should talk to you, which means he knows something.
Why does Hal get to know what’s going on and I don’t?
Colton, do not take your brother’s iPad.
You have your own. No, you don’t get to have two iPads. ”
“Fine.” Anne dragged her hand across her face. “I’m gay. All right? That’s your answer. Now you know. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
No response from Brooke. In the background, Kaisley shrieked.
“Leave your sister alone,” Brooke said automatically, as though someone had pushed a button, and then, “What the fuck?”
That one was for Anne, clearly.
“Mom said a bad word!” Maverick cried out, obviously delighted. “Do it again!”
“You’re a lesbian all of a sudden?” Stunned bewilderment streaked through Brooke’s question. “And you decided this when? Between our lunch yesterday and right now?”
Even through Anne’s deep fatigue, irritation managed to bristle. “I don’t have to defend myself to my own daughter.”
“And this is what’s been going on? Wait. Hal knew before me? Does Claire already know?” Her voice rose. “Am I the last one you’ve told? Why am I always the last one?”
“Brooke, calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down! You can’t just spring something like this on me without—”
“Tomorrow,” Anne said, doing her best to stay calm. “You can call me back, and we’ll talk about this like adults. Good night.”
“But—”
Anne ended the call, and as her phone screen went dark, she swallowed a hard lump of resentment.
How dare Brooke imply that this was too fast—or even worse, that Anne’s realization might not be true?
Brooke had no idea what it was like to learn that you’d been hiding from yourself for six decades.
She was a thirty-one-year-old straight woman. She had no goddamn right to judge.
Her phone vibrated again. But this time, it was Sadie.
She’d sent Anne an emoji, the face with its eyes closed and several ZZZs on its forehead to indicate sleeping. I’m going to sleep, Sadie meant, or, You should get some sleep, or I bet you’re as tired as I am, or just, I’m exhausted.
But did the exact translation matter? Maybe not.
Maybe the only thing that mattered was that they’d reached the end of an excruciatingly long day—one where they’d torn at themselves, at each other, done it enough for other people to see—and Sadie still couldn’t let the day end before reaching out to Anne one last time.
Me too, Anne texted back, and the anger in her throat softened and dissolved.
* * *
1. Talk to Brooke without yelling at her.
Everything worth doing in life required a list. If Anne was going to do this, she’d do it right.
She sat at the dining room table, a notebook in front of her and a pen in hand. The steam from her coffee curled in the bright morning light, and a small bowl of half-eaten Greek yogurt with raspberries sat next to the coffee cup.
Her gaze flickered to the flight-tracking app open on her phone. Sadie was currently thirty-five thousand feet over Colorado.
2. Tell Claire.
Her pen paused above the paper. That one didn’t need any elaboration. At least Claire hadn’t pushed yesterday, unlike her sister, leaving only the one voicemail. Anne hadn’t called her back yet, lacking energy for the conversation they’d need to have.
How would Claire react to Anne’s news? Would she think it was out of nowhere, like Brooke? Would she make light of it, or sneer?
3. Call Margaret, et al.
Anne had never been close to her older sister as kids, and the distance had only grown over a lifetime of living in different cities, but Margaret should be informed. She was all Anne had left of her original family.
Thank God she didn’t have to tell her parents.
A sharp pain pressed inside Anne’s stomach at the thought.
Neither had been what you’d call tolerant, but Lillian Harris in particular had vociferously shared her considerable distaste for homosexuals, and Anne could remember every single instance with perfect clarity.
Her mother would’ve been utterly repulsed if she’d learned Anne—the daughter whose perfect femininity she’d prized—was one of those people.
Margaret would be more understanding. She’d always preferred wearing jeans.
Then there was Genevieve, Anne’s friend and fellow Conserve Malibu board member.
They didn’t have a history of sharing intimacies, but Genevieve would no doubt hear the news eventually, and Anne didn’t want it to come from some gossip with more high heels than brain cells. No, she’d have to call Gen, too.
4. Take a break from drinking (?)
Just writing the words made Anne uncomfortable. She didn’t know what qualified as an official problem when it came to alcohol, but it didn’t feel like a great sign when your first reaction to intense stress was an immediate, deep, and unbearable ache for a drink.
Her cheeks burned. Living alone meant that no one saw the stores of wine in her pantry or kept track of how much she drank.
If she and Sadie lived together at some point, would Anne start hiding bottles from her?
Tell Sadie she’d had just one glass at lunch, not two?
Would she pick the vacation from herself that wine always offered over the woman whose touch brought Anne back into her own body?
She didn’t know. Which was disturbing.
Given that awful uncertainty, eliminating the issue altogether seemed like the only appropriate option. She could stop drinking—at least for a little while—and see how that felt.
At the thought, a little prick of alarm punctured Anne’s brain.
Wine was the only thing she’d ever given her body without constraints.
Just the idea of stopping made her want to howl that it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right.
She’d spent so many years taking so much away from herself. Now she had to lose this, too?
The alarm felt familiar. It was the same sharp twinge she’d felt in front of her cheeseburger at Burger Bliss.
Which—even though Anne didn’t want to admit it—made an uncomfortable amount of sense.
She’d been afraid that day to give her body what it wanted; right now, she was afraid to be without the thing that dulled her wanting.
No real difference, when you came down to it.
Mouth dry, she crossed out the question mark. Then she added: Throw out the wine in the fridge. Cancel the incoming order.
5. Food
For the moment, that one word was as specific as Anne could get.
Was it really so terrible to strictly control what food went into your body?
Most of the women she’d known over the years had been even more rigid than Anne.
Christina Dufresne never went anywhere without her portable food scale.
Hannah Weisberg allowed herself just three bites of everything on her plate.
And Tricia Stefanski flat out refused to eat in front of other people.
But Anne couldn’t avoid the stark, nauseating parallel between the way she’d controlled her food intake and the way she’d controlled her body’s other needs.
She’d never let herself feel desire for women before, and she’d never let herself consume meals or snacks with the same gusto and appreciation Sadie did.
For Sadie, food was simply one of life’s pleasures, like a hot bath or a good massage.
What would it be like for Anne to just—let go for a while with food, the same way she’d let go with Sadie in that motel room? Eat whatever sounded good to her?