The next few years do pass slow, and before you know it I've been in Manchester for three years. I feel like I've kind of been here forever, life has settled to a rhythm I can count on. Years have patched up the wounds left by the loss of Morgan, and of course Allies words, they have been healing. To be so loved and so wanted by her, it is beyond anything I could have ever imagined and even from afar, it is as if she touches me more with words than physical touch ever would. I love Alberta, more than I've ever loved another, it is so deep, it feels like it must be as old as I am. A forever weaved within my soul. Although I've worshipped her from afar, and savoured every last word she sends, I feel as if I have hit some kind of wall. I don't look outside to the world enough, I have got so lost in Allie and the future that I no longer live in the moment. I go to school, teach, go to the gym, and return home. When I have visitors staying I enjoy them, but when they go home I am again three years into a life alone here, and it's not that I want someone else. I couldn't think less about women. I've not looked or thought about anyone else since Allie came to Oregon and told me that she loved me. No there would never be another for me, but I needed to breathe a little for a while, to stop obsessing over Allie's messages. I had to go live out in the real world here on the east coast, checking in still of course with Allie, but breathing between them, not checking my Mail and inbox frantically for word, because right now, we couldn't be physically together. We both had to live, separate lives, for now, whilst we waited for our forever.
***
Allie would get my message about taking some time to breathe, but she had news for me too, her mama was sick and she needed me to return home. Of course as soon as I read those words I was booked on a flight and returning home to them.
***
The trip home was pretty harrowing. Helena passed away hours after I arrived, but not before a revealing letter by Mary that I read to her. Allie sat there and listened as she learnt how her mother and Mary were once in love, how her mother was the one who helped me leave town that day. She learnt how she sent me to Mary, and of course it was an overwhelming surge of confusion, grief and anger that would follow, washing over her and dragging her away.
Allie was furious, beyond devastated by her mothers death and desperate to make it all stop, the raining bullets of grief, of pain, of betrayal. Allie would do something I don't even like to talk about, she would take our love, take my loyalty and stretch it as far as she could, push me beyond my boundaries, say things that she didn't mean, make me feel like I wasn't someone she loved at all. Then she took the longed for intimacy, and she engaged it, but not in a loving way, she would kiss me, touch me, have me do the same to her, to devour her, take her, and refuse to make it anything but an angry and grief filled fuck to desperately try and smother the pain she felt. The thing was, she filled me with that pain, she filled me up with it and sent me off, to go and hold it, and to nurse it. I left the funeral the week after. I didn't have the strength to deal then with my parents, and the conversation that would be had with Mary, at their home, before we left town again.
***
I think I've pushed Willa too far. Way too far from me, and far from the love that threatens to end me. I didn't mean to take it all, all of that grief and pain and pour it into her, to make her hold me and then the pain and take it thrust by thrust, kiss by kiss. It was a deadly combination of lust, and desperation, to forget it, forget everything.
Oh Willa,
I'm so sorry.
I never want you to feel the burn from my flame or the cut of my tongue. Words are all I have ever had, and I used them against you. I feel like I've assaulted you with them and I can never take it back. I want you to forgive me more than anything in the world but I fear you won't. I fear you've gone and you will never return to me, and every day since the funeral, since you left...I've grieved you and Mama. It's as if you both left here at once, going together, and that loss it is far, far too much to bear. I am seeking therapy and learning, about myself and life, about why it was I behaved that way when I never would have in a million lifetimes usually. It is not an excuse, but I was not in my right mind, and my god, I hope you know me enough after twenty six years to know that was not me. I love you more than you will ever know my love, so much more than you could imagine.
Please, forgive me.
Allie x
***
"It's time Willa, time to have this conversation" Mary reminds me as we pull up to my family home of old. "It's time to let go of it all and be honest. Time for them to say their peace and move forward in some way with you... the in between is not enough"
"It's not" I agree, as we step out and I look up at the home I grew up in. My throat feels as if it is closing on sight of it.
The front door opens and my mom steps out "welcome home my darling" she says sweetly.
I feel absolutely nothing. I am still emotionally assaulted from my encounter with Allie this week, and the funeral of Helena. I am kind of a walking, talking zombie with no senses working, nothing at all. I shouldn't perhaps have entertained this idea of seeing my parents and feeling out a road to forgiveness and peace. I quite honestly had no more to give, not to them, not to anyone. I would let Mary lead the conversation, and one day when my mind worked, and the cogs turned...I would take it in, what happened this day.
It of course started with the letter my father had pressed into my pocket the day of the funeral.
My Willa,
You will always be, my Willa. Whether I recognise you now or not, my darling daughter, our youngest child, that's you, and nothing changes that, let me tell you that first.
You are our child, our blood and you know if you ever needed me I would come to you in a heartbeat.
I am quite ashamed, my child, that I sent you away that summer, that you did indeed stay away, and that we didn't come and bring you home. Every day that you were absent it got harder to come. I needed you to be the one to come back to us. I was wrong! I am your father and I should have brought you home and sent you to college myself. I see now, that sending you away, all it did was make this worse. To have you go and live with Mary, how silly of us, you went straight to a home of sin. How would you ever find Christ again there?! Homosexuals seem like they live freely out there Willa, but they need Christ, and you need him. I would love you to return, to us, to him, to church, we all still long for it, for you to be here back with your family. I heard you and Morgan separated, and I knew it then that you needed to come home, because as is evident my darling, those relationships you seek outside of marriage and the church, they will never last. They will never fill your soul, and never bring you home. Willa your mom is wrong to accept this as your fate, and I will never lie to you, you know it. I love my children too much to let them walk away from their destiny. I will not give into society's pressures and accept something that is a sin.
I love you Willa, it's all I want you to know. I hate that you perhaps hate me now, because I am not in agreement with you lifestyle. I don't hate you though, and I want you to know it. I don't hate you, and even though you live a life I don't love, I do love you. I know there's a strong chance you will continue to live away from us, and to live this life. I know we may lose you, to try and change you, but I cannot change my view, and if you cannot change yours then we are at an impasse my darling daughter. I will always, always, expect you home, one day, and I will be waiting for you when you do, with open arms.
Your loving father,
X
***
He loved me, but he didn't love my lifestyle, that was about it. We were indeed at that impasse, my mom being the only one who seemed to accept my change, because she knew it made me happier to live authentically.
"Hi Kate" Mary greeted, kissing her cheek as my mom wrapped an arm around my shoulders and brought me into the house.
"Sit, I made tea and some cake" she says, gesturing to the chairs in the family room as she took a tray from the dining table, and laid it out in front of us.
"Thank you" Mary said, taking a cup, and having a slow sip. "I've forgotten what a wonderful pot of tea you could make Kate"
My mom smiles but returns her gaze to me, probably wondering why I am so quiet.
"Willa, I missed you" she says.
I look back to her from the window I had been staring out of "I miss you too mom" I say honestly, with a weak smile. All I could offer at this moment.
"I hope you know my baby, how I love you" she she says, with a look of sadness.
She comes over and sits on the arm of my chair and pulls me into her embrace. The warm scent of my mom envelops me. It is a mix of soap and baking, a scent from childhood and perhaps the most comforting scent you can ever find, that of your mother.
"I do mom" I reply. "I know that you atleast try"
Her eyes fill with tears " If I could, I would do more. I would love to come and stay with you in your life and meet your people. Mary tells me you have quite the friendship group in Oregon, and of course now in New Hampshire"
I smile thinking of them all "I do, I have quite a wonderful family in Oregon"
"Family" she asks, clearly hurt by that description.
Mary interjects "Yes Kate, a family. Willa has been surrounded by love in Oregon, whether it be from Erica and I, or the Nomikos family... we all took her in and made her feel loved"
"Mary you think I didn't show her love" she asks, going up in volume, surprised at her sisters tone.
"Did you Kate" Mary asks her in reply. "When she needed it the most...did you"
My mom moves away and sits opposite Mary, almost whispering as if I couldn't hear her "I know I didn't do enough to show it, and I regret that, but it's not that easy when Brian wouldn't have me come after her"
"Where is Brian" Mary asks.
"He's upstairs, he wasn't sure this was a good idea" my mom reveals.
"He's hiding" Mary states "from whom? Willa? Me? Or the truth... to see it... the pain he has caused his child. All because he cannot accept that she is not like him, that she is different... but she is happy and content, and shouldn't that be all that you want for your child"
"Mary" Kate scolds. "That isn't fair"
"Not fair" Mary barks back "I will tell you what's not fair-" Mary begins.
I stand from my chair.
"Let's go" I suggest, and they both stand.
"Willa" my mom asks with surprise.
I shake my head. "This wasn't a good idea" I state, walking into the hall to find my dad coming down the staircase.
He looks at me, and doesn't say a word. I stare at him for what feels the longest time, but can only be a moment. "I read your letter" I state, and he nods "an impasse" I say. He looks away momentarily, seemingly uncomfortable that I am addressing it with him directly "I don't hate you dad... I just hate the way you make me feel"
I open the door beside me, and leave. Mary follows me out.
"Willa please don't leave" my mom begs, running out behind us.
I stop and turn, and I wrap my arms around her and kiss her cheek. "Mom, I love you okay"
"And I you" she says clutching me tightly.
"One day" I whisper "one day you will come...I know you will"
She nods and wipes her tears "I will...I promise" she whispers back.
I step away, as Mary replaces my arms and holds my mom too, both crying now "I didn't mean to sound so blunt" Mary offers "I just wanted you to stand up for her, and for you. If you want to do something Kate, such as visit with your child out of state, than you should... you should"
My mom nods, and they share a kiss on each cheek, before Mary and I depart once again. A visit we could probably have all done without, but it was a relief in a way to say some peace and let it lay there for a while, in the dust of the impasse, as we all tried to make our way through it and come to some common ground which should always, always, be love. It would take a long time but eventually my mom would make it to where I lived... in New Hampshire. Our relationship would shift as they sometimes do over time, and we would be close again.... It just took time.