Chapter Text
A perpetual sunrise.
Her gaze, a perpetual sunrise.
In one smooth elegant motion, Carol rose from the table, her eyes never leaving Therese’s as she murmured a polite but brief “Please excuse me,” only the slight tremor of her hand as she left her napkin on the table betraying her emotion. They moved through the restaurant into the lobby silently. Carol thanked the coat-check staffer, and together they stepped out into the street.
How she was still standing Therese did not know. She watched as Carol looked up into the misty night sky and inhaled deeply, as if deciding something, and then lowered her eyes back into Therese’s gaze. For a long moment they stood, tremulous, the rumble of the subway under their feet their only accompaniment, until Therese reached for Carol’s arm and led her down the block towards Carol’s car.
“Now. Everything happens now,” Therese thought, breathless and on fire. Her thoughts still tumbled over each other, as they had since the moment Carol had said she loved her, and the entire ground had shifted within Therese’s being. So much had gone unspoken between them those winter weeks, unspoken because forbidden, unspoken because who had words, unspoken because uncertain, unspoken because unknown. Now it was spring, and all things were new.
“You know the way to my apartment from here?” Therese asked as they settled into the car. Even in the car’s dark shadows she could see the slight flinch of puzzlement and desperate hope around Carol’s eyes as she said yes. Her own anxiety and self-doubt gone from the moment of Carol’s declaration, Therese discovered she understood Carol’s subtle expressions with new clarity, and was moved by her quiet vulnerability. She would not make her ask what she was thinking, ever again.
“Carol,” she said softly, turning to face her more fully, her hand sliding down Carol’s arm to squeeze her hand, “look at me.” Carol’s eyes were startled, open, expectant. “I’d like you to come to my apartment with me, please. Come, and stay the night. Would you?”
Therese did not miss Carol’s quick gasp, and thought her face could have lit all the streetlamps in New York as she replied, “Yes, dearest, yes,” squeezing Therese’s hand in return.
After starting the car and pulling out into the street, Carol had quietly slid her hand across the seat to Therese, who clasped it in her own with a sigh. To sit in Carol’s car again felt as natural as shade under a tall oak in summer. Therese found herself mesmerized yet again by Carol’s hand on the steering wheel, by the curve of her right cheekbone, by the way the leather of the glove accentuated the strength of her hand, and now, new, the quiver in the upturned corner of her mouth, as if she could not hold in her smile.
They rode in silence. Therese glanced out the window without really seeing and tried to remember to breathe. She was with Carol. Carol had said she loved her. And now they were in Carol’s car, arriving at Therese’s apartment. A vibration of excitement settled into Therese’s thighs, a tingling that threatened to dissolve her as they quietly climbed the stairs to the third floor. Unlocking the door, she gestured Carol inside with a gallant wave that made them both laugh with sudden freedom.
Still giggling, Therese closed and locked the door as Carol walked into the living room. Therese watched as Carol draped her coat across a chair and slowly turned, scanning the room, seeming to absorb its essence. “You painted,” Carol said, “I like it. This blue, it suits you.”
Therese was momentarily surprised Carol noticed, as she had only been there twice before, but then remembered that Carol paid much closer attention to things than she let on. She also knew that commenting on the paint was Carol’s way of covering her shyness, and she smiled gently at her as she drew close.
“Thank you. I…needed a change. I needed…many things to change.” She reached up to caress Carol’s hair, tucking that unruly set of curls behind her right ear as she had watched Carol herself do so many times. Carol’s eyes were wet, and Therese knew they were both feeling the unresolved ache of sudden departure and months of loneliness. She cupped Carol’s cheek, grazing her thumb over Carol’s cheekbone.
“Carol,” she whispered, and suddenly with a choked sob Carol had fallen into her arms, and Therese was kissing the top of her head as they stumbled to the sofa. “Shh, shh, it’s ok now, it’s ok, Carol,” she whispered in between kisses as she held Carol to her chest. “I’m so sorry,” Carol gulped between tears, “Therese, I’m so sorry…” Carol clung to Therese’s lapel, the other arm wrapped around her waist. Their words mingled, overlapped, and Therese continued kissing Carol’s head, humming her comfort into her hair, holding her tight as Carol leaned into her.
“Shh, it’s ok now...”
“I’m so sorry. I should have…”
“You couldn’t, Carol, how could you…”
“Wait, I should have said wait…”
“We’re here now, shh, it’s ok now…”
Another sob cracked. “I…I missed you. God…”
Therese turned Carol’s face up to hers, kissing her forehead. “Oh God, don’t you know how I’ve missed you?” She smiled tenderly, drying away Carol’s tears with her thumb. “Shh now, we can talk more tomorrow.” She gently shifted them upright. “Shh now. Enough for now.” She stood and turned to take Carol’s hands, asking softly, “Come with me now, would you?” Carol’s eyes shone with more than tears now. With a deep breath she nodded, “Yes.”
Therese led them through to her bedroom. Her eyes never left Carol’s as she began to unbutton her own jacket. Carol blinked. “I’ve let my nose run all over your lovely jacket,” she observed. “Believe me when I tell you I do not care,” Therese responded, her voice deeper as she dropped the jacket to the floor and stepped towards Carol. Though she was certain, her heart still pounded. She suspected from Carol’s sudden flush that hers did as well.
Therese ran a finger along the brooch on Carol’s jacket, tracing the nubs of the pearls and the smooth, curved edge. Carol’s breathing quickened, and as Therese looked up into her gaze of unabashed longing she unbuttoned the top button of Carol’s jacket. “Don’t you know how I’ve missed you?” she breathed into Carol’s ear. Carol quivered like a plucked string, her breath almost vibrating, matching Therese’s own, but still she didn’t move.
By the second button Therese realized Carol wore only a camisole underneath the jacket, no blouse or sweater – it was spring after all – and suddenly she found her hands impatient, undoing buttons and zippers and hooks with trembling fingers. “Don’t you know how I’ve missed you?” she whispered again, daring to kiss the bare flesh at the exquisite notch where Carol’s collarbones met. She felt more than heard Carol’s moan as she leaned into Therese’s hands.
Therese felt Carol’s tentative hands on her shoulders. She slid a hand around the back of Carol’s neck, drawing her in for a kiss, an encouragement, a promise. She marveled at the hunger contained in such softness. She felt Carol’s hands caress slowly down her back, and pulling back slightly to rest her forehead against Carol’s, she felt her own voice shake as she murmured, “Carol,” – she kissed her forehead and looked her in the eyes – “don’t you know I love you, too?”
Carol threw back her head with a cry and then pressed her lips to Therese’s with startling force. Now all their hands moved with a fury, Carol pulling at Therese’s sweater, Therese fumbling with the eye hook on Carol’s skirt. “I think I tore it,” she gasped in between kisses, as the skirt slid to Carol’s ankles. “Believe me when I tell you I do not care,” Carol rasped, kicking the skirt away, her shoes along with it. The deep husk in Carol’s voice made Therese forget she had knees, and they tipped onto the bed, casting away the last of their underthings.
They paused, calm between the furies, catching their breath between gentle kisses. As Therese traced her features, she saw Carol’s face was again full of light. “My angel,” Carol murmured, her fingertips grazing the curve of Therese’s hip. “Yes,” Therese smiled at the memory, “Yes, your angel,” she repeated, pulling at Carol’s hips until their bodies were touching knees, thighs, bellies, breasts.
“Yours.”
And there were hands and lips and skin, curves and muscle and sinew, softness and tremble and shudder.
Limbs entwined, Therese was never sure whose heart it was she felt beating, whose breath trembling, breath and heart their own rhythm, a rocking subterranean rumble giving way to triple beats over double, shifting accents losing any sense of downbeat, sliding suspensions releasing months of ache and loneliness.
She only knew she had never felt more alive as their bodies resolved their longing in an exquisite chord drawn out on breath of wonder, on a beat held until they could hold no more.
As Carol ran her fingers quietly up and down Therese’s back, Therese buried her face in Carol’s neck, inhaling deeply the heady scent that was a blend of Carol’s perfume and their mingled sweat. If heaven did not smell like that, she thought, she was not interested. Once she felt she could move again, she padded to the kitchen and back with a glass of water. Raised up on one elbow, Carol took several deep swallows and then handed the glass back with a mischievous look in her eye that Therese recognized from that first day at the store, when Carol had complimented her silly hat. That look made her belly flutter, then and now.
Carol said one word, and Therese melted back into her arms.
“Again.”
~ ~ ~
From the kitchen table where she was nursing a cup of coffee, Therese heard Carol stir in the bed and got up to go to her.
“Therese?” There was a trace of anxiety in Carol’s voice.
“Here, Carol, I’m here,” Therese said, sitting down on the bed and reaching for Carol’s hand.
Carol rubbed her eyes with her free hand. “Not a dream then? For a moment I…”
“No, definitely not a dream. Believe me when I tell you,” she said with a smile.
Carol met her smile with her own. “Thank God.” She pulled Therese’s hand towards her and kissed it.
“Coffee? I was not exactly expecting company,” Therese winked, “so don’t have much to offer, but I can make you some toast and eggs.”
“You’re a sweetheart, thank you.”
Therese gestured to an extra robe she had set out while Carol was still sleeping. Carol pulled it on and wandered into the living room. Therese handed her a cup of coffee.
“These weren’t up last night, were they?” Carol asked, gesturing at the walls with her cup.
“The photographs? No. I did that while you were sleeping.”
Therese had only slept a little, too excited to sleep. She had risen with the sunrise and pulled out all her photos of Carol and of their trip, hanging as many as she could from clips on twine that stretched across the walls of the living room. She had wanted to surround them with good memories, on this new day. There were landscapes and road signs, an occasional shot of Therese, but most of all Carol, starting with that first photo at the tree lot.
Carol smiled widely. “Beautiful, Therese, this is beautiful.”
“There’s one more, it just finished drying. Hold on.”
Therese returned with the new photograph and handed it to Carol, who held it with care. It was a photo of their hands, fingers intertwined, resting on Carol’s belly with Therese’s blanket angling underneath. Carol looked up at Therese, beaming and puzzled. “But how? When?”
“While you slept. It was tricky, getting the right angle, holding the camera, not waking you up, you know. But the light from the sunrise was so perfect, and you…well. It took several tries but this one is perfect.”
Carol sighed, content. “Perfect. Full circle.”
Therese smiled, suddenly shy, and headed back to the kitchen to make Carol’s breakfast. As she beat the eggs she could see Carol still looking at the photograph, and around the room at the others. She smiled to herself as she poured the eggs into the pan. “Won’t be long,” she called out.
At the table Carol nibbled her toast thoughtfully. “You kept them. You didn’t throw them away. I’m not sure I could have done that if I had been in your shoes.”
Therese placed a hand over Carol’s. “Honestly, I thought about it. But I couldn’t. I missed you, for one thing, and then here was all this evidence that you were real, that this experience that changed me was real. I couldn’t. I did put them in a box, eventually,” she confessed. “But I couldn’t throw them away.”
“You thought I discarded you. You weren’t going to do the same.” It was more of a question, Therese thought, reading Carol’s eyes, and she got up to make more coffee, giving Carol’s hand a squeeze as she rose.
“Yes, I did. I did think that, for a while. In fact I was never entirely sure until last night. That’s why I said no to you at first, when you asked me to come live with you. Then you said you loved me, though, and…well, that changed everything.”
“I should have told you sooner, I should have” –
“Carol, listen to me.” Therese sat back down and put a hand on Carol’s arm, trying to sooth her. “Remember in the car, that day, after Waterloo? You asked me what I thought and I told you I thought I was selfish.”
Carol nodded, “Yes, but –“
“Just listen, ok?” she said gently. “I’ve thought a lot about that. I know you told me it wasn’t my fault, but I still think I was right, in a way.”
“What do you mean? You couldn’t have possibly known –“
“But I could have. No no, being followed was not my fault. But I said yes to you, without ever wondering what impact it would have on you. I was just…it was all so new to me, to feel what I felt, and I was just so thrilled you saw me, so…taken with your attention, I never thought of your life. I could have asked. I just wanted you, wanted you to myself. I said yes, because I just wanted to be with you. Selfish, you see?”
Carol’s eyes narrowed, but kindly. “I still think you’re being hard on yourself. I invited you into the mess of my life,” she said, with a wave of her hands. “At least I knew what I was feeling, I suspected it was new for you but –“
“Who can just come out and say, ‘hello, I know you’re a woman but I think I’m falling in love with you, what do we do now?’ All we had were hints, clues. Half the time I thought I was imagining things. Until Waterloo, of course.”
“Waterloo!”
And they laughed as Therese retrieved the fresh coffee and refilled their cups. “Here’s to Waterloo!” she said, and they toasted with a grin.
Carol looked at Therese over the top of her cup. “You fell in love with me?” she asked quietly.
“Of course.”
Carol blushed, shy. “Me too.”
Therese smiled and kissed her hand. “I know that now. I’m so sorry for how hard this must have been for you.” Carol tilted her head and just smiled, a small ache in her eyes.
“Your letter…you were right, you know. Eventually I understood that. You were right, I wanted a resolution, an explanation. But the explanation was clear enough, once I got beyond myself. And as for resolution…you love Rindy, you did not love your husband, and you did – do – love me…well, we don’t live in a world where those things are allowed to be resolved with any kind of ease, if at all. Regardless of how we feel about each other, it will be a long time before things are resolved with Rindy. I understand that now.”
Therese had never said so much to Carol as she had this morning. “You didn’t throw me away. You went to try to find a way through this mess. I’m so sorry for the pain it’s caused you.” Carol’s head was bowed over her cup, and she heaved a shaky sigh. “Come on,” Therese said, taking Carol’s hand. “Let’s go sit on the sofa, and you can tell me about Rindy. Tell me what happened.”
So they sat together, Carol leaning into Therese and laying her head on her chest. Therese quietly stroked Carol’s hair while Carol poured out the story of the meetings with the lawyers, and the psychotherapist, and the emotionless family and society dinners, and the realization that her misery was no gift to her child, and that her freedom, though it meant being apart, was the better way to love her daughter in the long run. The custody agreement allowed for visits, unsupervised, which was a surprise, and Harge promised not to interfere with Carol’s life – also a surprise. Her new apartment was hers alone, Harge had no key and had to ask the doorman to ring up. Abby visited of course but still, the apartment felt large and empty, without Rindy. Without Therese.
Therese kissed the top of Carol’s head. “Strange, isn’t it. That to be free can bring pain and joy, both. Unresolved. That’s what your letter meant.”
Carol sighed. “Yes.” She pressed a kiss to Therese’s palm. “Please know that even though it pains me to be apart from my daughter, you bring me such joy. All the feelings are not so easily separated.”
“I know,” Therese responded, and pulled Carol closer. They stayed silent for a time, Therese occasionally kissing Carol’s head, Carol rubbing her thumb back and forth across Therese’s collarbone.
“Carol, would it be harder to be free, if I moved in with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“These photographs, for example. I assume Harge or someone drops Rindy off at your place? Would we be able to have them out? Not all of them, obviously, some are –“
“Private? Yes. I hadn’t thought of that. I’m not sure. Harge has promised to be on better behavior but at least for now…why, what are you thinking?” Carol asked, shifting to see Therese more clearly.
“Please don’t worry,” Therese said, cupping Carol’s cheek for a moment. “It’s just…I was just wondering if I moved in with you so soon after the custody agreement, if that wouldn’t make things more awkward right now, when they are so delicate. Give everyone a chance to live into it a little.”
“But, I want to be with you, Therese, I will not –“
“Believe me when I tell you, I want the same thing. So here’s my proposal: You come live with me. Oh, keep your apartment,” she said a Carol began to speak, “and spend your time with Rindy there, but we’ll spend our time together here, where we can be more free, where I can be surrounded by these beautiful photographs of you, where you can get to know my world too.”
Carol searched Therese’s face. “Sounds…messy. Unresolved, if you will.” A smile teased the corner of her mouth.
“Most definitely,” Therese agreed with a small laugh. “What do you think? Carol, I’m hoping you‘d like to come live with me. Would you?”
Carol’s gaze blazed like the late morning sun pouring through the window, her hair illumined by the light, her smile broadening as she leaned towards Therese.
“Yes, dearest, yes.” And her kiss left Therese breathless.
~ ~ ~
Later, with Carol naked and sleeping in her arms again, Therese contemplated her apartment, regarding the freshly-painted walls with a new eye. The blue she had chosen, she realized, was the blue of clear sky at sunrise. She had surrounded herself with the sunrise, and now the sun was in her arms, in her bed. Nuzzling her head into Carol’s neck and pulling her closer, Therese sighed, content.
A perpetual sunrise.