Year of the Monsoon Read online

  Leaping at the opportunity to become involved in something that was as different as possible from her brother and sister’s activities of sports and cheerleading, the choir became Nan’s sole focus outside of school. Marcus took her on as a sort of apprentice, tutoring her at a master level on the piano as well. He taught her about choral arranging and conducting and transposing. She took in everything he taught her, and though she and Marcus never discussed anything personal, he saw a lot.

  He saw the disappointment in Nan’s eyes when she sang magnificently, glancing toward her mother, hoping to see some sign of pride only to see her mother whispering to someone throughout her hymn, not listening at all. He saw the way Nan isolated herself, hiding behind the piano rather than socializing with the other choir members, and he found her in the church at all hours, practicing, always by herself.

  Then one day, “Did you hear?”

  “Wait till I tell you...”

  Nan was revolted by the malicious delight with which the rumors were whispered and spread among the congregation.

  Marcus had been attacked. What at first seemed like an ordinary mugging was soon revealed to be a hate-motivated bashing as Marcus left a gay bar one night. But the physical beating was only the beginning. Before he was even released from the hospital, a movement had begun, spear-headed by Linda Mathison, to have Marcus fired as the church’s music director.

  “You can’t do that!” Nan argued. “So what if he’s gay? He’s the best music director we’ve ever had!”

  Linda’s face was livid. “He’s despicable and vile!” she spat venomously. “To think we allowed someone like that into our church, let him work with our children. Those homosexuals don’t deserve to live among decent people.”

  The day Marcus was released from the hospital, Nan told her mother she was going to the library.

  “Nan,” Marcus said, opening his door to find her standing on his stoop. “You shouldn’t be here.” But he stepped back to let her in.

  “I had to come,” she said, trying not to stare at his bruised face, one eye swollen shut with stitches along the brow.

  He eased himself painfully onto his couch. Nan tentatively sat beside him.

  “You can’t stop this,” he said, reading her mind.

  “But I have to try!” she blurted out. “I have to stop her.”

  Marcus shook his head. “Even if you stop your mother, someone else will step in and follow her lead,” he said. “I do not want you getting caught in the middle of this.”

  Nan’s eyes filled with tears. “But I’m like you,” she whispered.

  Through his one open eye, he looked at her sympathetically. “I know,” he said gently. “That’s why it’s especially important for you to protect yourself. And me. If you tell them about yourself now, they’ll blame me for turning you gay. It will only make things worse for both of us. I don’t want you to go through anything like that.”

  Nan hadn’t even thought of it that way, but instinctively, she knew he was right.

  “I didn’t know you played piano and sang,” Leisa said in astonishment, going to the bed where Nan stood, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

  “I don’t anymore,” Nan replied, her eyes focused on the past. “I did what Marcus asked. I kept quiet. I let them fire him. I let my mother think she’d won. For more than twenty years, I’ve regretted that decision and lived with that act of cowardice.”

  “What you did was necessary,” Leisa said gently.

  Nan turned to her, her eyes filled with angry tears. “It might have been necessary, but it doesn’t make it any easier to live with. My only act of defiance to my mother was refusing to ever set foot in that church again.”

  She wiped her hand across her eyes. “I’m not ashamed of you. I’m not ashamed of us. But I would not want to put you through what I know my mother is capable of.” She reached for Leisa’s hand. “Both of your parents’ obituaries listed me as a daughter-in-law. Even if my family got to the point of accepting you privately, they would never acknowledge you publicly. They’re too afraid of what people might say.”

  Leisa reached up and laid a hand on Nan’s cheek. She kissed her tenderly, her own eyes moist. “I’m not afraid of your mother, but I don’t want to make things worse for you. If you want me with you, I will go.”

  Something in Nan’s expression hardened. “Their definition, not mine,” she repeated, more to herself than to Leisa. “Get your suitcase.”

  They were waiting outside the terminal at the pick-up area with their bags when Stanley Mathison drove up in his Lincoln. He looked much as Leisa remembered, tall and thin, with scant dark hair combed over to one side and dark eyes magnified by thick glasses. He quickly helped them load their suitcases into the cavernous trunk and pulled away from the curb, threading his way among the cabs and hotel shuttle vans.

  “How was your flight?” he asked Nan, who was in the front passenger seat.

  “It was fine,” Nan answered.

  “Leisa, how have you been?” he asked, glancing at Leisa in the rearview mirror. All she could see were his eyes, blinking at her through his eyeglasses.

  “I’ve been pretty good, thank you,” she replied. “I’m sorry about your mother-in-law.”

  “Yes, well…”

  There was no further conversation as he drove home. Leisa almost burst out laughing from the back seat. How long could people sit in an enclosed space and say nothing to one another?

  At length, they pulled into the driveway of a seventies-era brick ranch house. Linda Mathison came out to greet them as they climbed out of the car. She was thin also, all corners and angles in a slim-fitting sweater and pant set all in a matching shade of turquoise. She wore heavy gold bangles at her wrists and a heavier gold necklace around her thin neck.

  “Mother,” Nan said stiffly as Linda gave her a small hug. Nan closed her eyes as she picked up the scent of alcohol through the cloud of Chanel No. 5 that wafted about her mother.

  “You remember Leisa,” Nan prompted as Leisa emerged from the back seat.

  “Of course,” Linda said after the slightest hesitation, reaching a bony, manicured hand out to her. She had a smile on her face, but the expression in her eyes was inscrutable. “Stanley, get the bags,” she said, leading the way into the house, passing a formal living room and dining room on either side of the foyer. Leisa had half-expected to see plastic covers on all the furniture. Everything was tasteful, impeccable – and utterly unwelcoming.

  “Nan, you may put your suitcase in your old room,” Linda said, pointing down the hall, “and Leisa may use Bradley’s room,” she added as they started down the hall.

  Leisa caught Nan’s eye. If Linda guessed the nature of their relationship, she was taking no chances on anything happening under her roof.

  “Sorry,” Nan muttered as they went down the hall toward the designated rooms.

  “It’s okay,” Leisa assured her in a low voice. “You did let them know I was coming, didn’t you?”

  “Well,” Nan stalled. “I told Dad. I’m getting the feeling he didn’t exactly tell Mother.”

  Nan dropped her suitcase off and went back to Leisa. “We’d better not linger or they’ll think we’re tearing each other’s clothes off,” she said wryly. “Gird yourself.”

  They found Linda and Stanley sitting in the two wingback chairs in the living room, leaving the sofa for them. Nan sat tensely on the edge of the cushion, and Leisa did the same.

  “Your grandmother’s viewing will be this evening after dinner,” Linda said, picking up a crystal tumbler from the end table beside her and taking a sip of the pale gold liquid within. “We’re eating at the club. Bradley and Miranda will be joining us. The funeral will be tomorrow morning and the reading of the will is tomorrow afternoon,” Linda said. “Then we’ll all go to church on Sunday.”

  “We’re flying home tomorrow evening,” Nan said. “We can take a taxi back to the airport if need be.”

  “Won’t they be insult
ed if we’re only there for a little over twenty-four hours?” Leisa had asked when she looked over Nan’s shoulder at the flight arrangements she was making on-line.

  “They’re going to be insulted by something, no matter what we do,” Nan warned her. “At some point, my mother will get angry and give us the silent treatment. Just wait. You’ll be ready to go. I know I will.”

  “That is simply out of the question,” Linda said now, the ice in her glass clinking as she set it down hard, her lips pressed into a thin line. “What will people think?”

  Nan kept her face carefully neutral. “What people is that?”

  Leisa could see Linda’s jaw muscles tense. “All of our friends, the people we socialize with. It’s just not right.”

  “None of those people know us. They know you. What they think of us is not important.”

  “Of course it’s important,” Linda bristled.

  “No, Mother, it isn’t,” Nan insisted with a forced calm. “What other people think only matters if you let it matter. So to me, what other people think really is not important.”

  “Obviously,” Linda said icily with a half-glance toward Leisa.

  Leisa could feel Nan’s anger rising, and could feel her own face and neck flushing. She’d never sat through a confrontation such as this before. Defiantly, Nan reached over and took Leisa’s hand. “I came for Grandmother, not anyone else. And we may as well clear the air right now. Leisa is here as my partner, not my friend. Once I’ve said my good-byes to Grandmother, we’re leaving. We both need to get back to our work.”

  “Well that certainly created a warm and fuzzy atmosphere for dinner,” Leisa giggled later that evening when she and Nan were finally alone. “I think for once, your mother didn’t know what to say. And your brother and sister are charming.”

  “Told you.”

  Bradley and his wife, Tammy, arrived first at the country club with their two children. Bradley had retained his athletic build and good looks, but Tammy looked as if her plastic surgeon had supplied quite a bit of assistance. Leisa tried not to stare at the overly plump lips, the stretched skin between hairline and eyebrows or the impossibly prominent boobs. Their children, a girl of thirteen and a boy of eleven, were quiet, owing largely to the fact that they texted the entire time they were seated at the table, hiding their phones on their laps under the table cloth in deference to the club’s no-cell-phone policy.

  If they were surprised to be introduced to Leisa, they hid it much better than Nan’s sister, Miranda, who responded with “Oh” when Nan made the introductions. Leisa could still see hints of the homecoming queen in Miranda’s beautiful face, but it was a cold, haughty beauty. Leisa couldn’t help feeling a stab of pity for Miranda’s husband, Ted. Balding and pudgy, he seemed like a man who had made a deal with the devil to get a beautiful wife. Their daughter, also eleven, didn’t bother trying to hide her earphones or phone, looking enormously bored to be there.

  At the funeral home, Linda and Stanley were busy receiving visitors who had come to pay their respects, or, rather, Linda was receiving them as Stanley dutifully stood near-by.

  Leisa couldn’t help but compare the frigid atmosphere of this funeral with the warmth of Rose’s only a few weeks ago. Despite the tragic suddenness of Rose’s death, there had been hundreds of visitors at the funeral home and again at the funeral. Nearly everyone had a story of some kindness Rose or Daniel had done them over the years, and there had been more laughter than tears as people reminisced.

  “Look at her,” Nan whispered to Leisa. “You’d think she actually liked the old lady, the way she keeps dabbing at her eyes.”

  “Why are you even here?” Miranda hissed, startling both of them as she appeared from out of nowhere.

  “Well, unlike you,” retorted Nan, still whispering, “I’m actually here for Grandmother.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that for all her crankiness, she was good to me,” Nan said. “She was the only one who encouraged me to escape this place. I’m probably the only one who loved her, and the only one who doesn’t care what she left me in her will.”

  Miranda’s nostrils flared. “That’s a terrible thing to say. You’re not here – you don’t come home for years, and then you have the indecency to show up with your lover at a time like this –”

  “If you ever bothered to notice anything outside your own life,” Nan shot back, her voice getting a little louder, “you would know that Leisa isn’t my lover. She’s my partner and has been for over ten years. Ten faithful years, I might add.” Nan felt a little stab of triumph at the angry flush that colored her sister’s cheeks. “And you wonder why I don’t come home more often,” she added scathingly.

  Bradley came over at that moment. “Mom wants to introduce you to some people,” he said, eyeing Leisa in a way that made her edge away from him.

  She followed Nan as they all shuffled in Linda’s direction. Miranda grabbed Ted by the arm on her way to her mother where Linda introduced them to several older couples gathered near the closed casket. Linda turned, reaching a hand out to Nan when her eyes met Leisa’s for a fraction of a second. She immediately turned her back on them, directing her friends’ attention across the room to Miranda’s daughter who was sitting sullenly in a far corner, still listening to her music.

  Nan spun on her heel, taking Leisa by the hand and leading her outside. The evening air was misty and cool, refreshing after the stuffy warmth inside.

  Nan closed her eyes and bowed her head as she leaned against the iron railing. Her hair fell forward, shielding her face from view.

  “Are you all right?” Leisa asked softly, brushing Nan’s hair back behind her ear. When Nan didn’t answer, Leisa said, “I think this time at the funeral home is the only time I’ve seen your mother without a drink in her hand since we got here. Does she always drink this much?”

  Nan nodded, still not looking at Leisa. “She never gets falling down drunk, or out of control. She just… No one wants to deal with it, certainly not my father. That was a big part of why my grandmother wanted me to get away. She saw everything, and knew it wouldn’t change.”

  She picked her head up, swinging her hair back, and looked at Leisa, her eyes shining. “I’m so sorry you had to be subjected to this,” she said. She took Leisa’s hand and kissed it. “But I’m so glad you’re here for me.”

  As Nan entered the church the next morning for the funeral, she stopped on the threshold of the sanctuary and took a deep breath. They took a seat in the pew with the rest of the family. Nan looked around, toward the choir loft. Leisa reached for her hand.

  Nan blinked the tears from her eyes, looking down at Leisa’s fingers wrapped around hers. Even as she dimly registered her mother’s indignant huff of disapproval, she clung desperately to Leisa’s hand, like an anchor holding her in the present, refusing to let the ghosts of the past pull her under.

  Chapter 8

  IT SEEMED THAT THEY had no sooner returned to Baltimore than it was time for Nan to pack again for Williamsburg. Leisa carried an armful of clean laundry upstairs to the bedroom.

  “Here’s some clean underwear and socks,” she said.

  “Thanks.” Nan’s voice echoed a little from the bathroom. Leisa was sorting clothes into piles on the bed when Nan emerged.

  “Have you decided what –” Leisa began as she looked up. “Have you been crying?”

  Nan didn’t answer as she pulled open a dresser drawer and rummaged through it for sweaters to bring. “It’s always so damned cold at these things.”

  Leisa went to her and took her by the shoulders. “What is it?” she asked, concerned.

  “I just don’t want to go to this conference,” Nan replied moodily.

  Leisa smiled in relief. “It’s only for a few days.” She pulled Nan to her and kissed her neck. “We could send you off with some good reasons to hurry home,” she said suggestively, as her hands slid under Nan’s t-shirt.

  Nan grabb
ed Leisa’s wrists and stopped her. “Not now. I’ve got too much to do,” she said a trifle impatiently as she pulled away.

  Leisa’s face burned as if she’d been slapped. She turned back toward the laundry on the bed. Nan realized what she’d done and reached for her arm, saying, “I’m sorry.”

  “What is wrong with me?” Leisa asked, hurt tears welling up in her eyes.

  “Nothing. Nothing is wrong with you,” Nan insisted, pulling Leisa down to sit next to her on the edge of the bed.

  “Do you know how many months it’s been since we made love?” Leisa asked. “I try, and you don’t respond. There must be some reason,” she gasped as she started to cry in earnest.

  “How did you expect her to react?” Maddie asked days later when Nan’s world blew apart and she finally told Maddie everything.

  “It’s me,” Nan said, trying to put an arm around Leisa’s shoulders, but Leisa shrugged her away. “I just can’t… I can’t be that for you right now.”

  Leisa turned to look at her with tears streaming down her cheeks. “I don’t understand.”

  “There’s so much I need to tell you –”

  Leisa stood suddenly, her eyes cold and accusing. “Is there someone else? Because if that’s it, don’t you dare give me this ‘it’s all me’ bullshit.”

  “No!” Nan exclaimed. “There’s no one else, I promise. Not… not like that. Please,” she pleaded. “We need to talk. I tried before my grandmother died, but… I just can’t get into it right before I leave. I’ll explain everything when I get back.”

  Leisa’s eyes remained distrustful. “Fine. Maybe when you get back, I’ll sleep with you again. But not tonight.”

  She left the room and went down the hall, slamming the door of the guest room.

  Friday afternoon found Leisa stuck in rush hour traffic on I-95 South. Jo Ann and Bruce were watching Bronwyn for the weekend so Leisa could drive to Williamsburg and surprise Nan.