In the Distance There Is Light (11 page)

“We’ll have one of each,” Dolores says, without consulting me.

“And I’ll have an Amaretto, no ice,” I add.

“Make that two,” Dolores says. “We can walk home. It’s a beautiful evening.”

“Do you feel responsible for me?” I ask, once Maria has headed to the bar. I surprise myself with the question, but I guess I’m too tired, emotionally and physically, to rely on any filter for thoughts that pop up randomly in my brain.

“How do you mean?” Dolores rests her chin on her fist and regards me intently.

“You watch my eating habits. You make me breakfast. You offered me a place to stay.”

Dolores averts her gaze for a second, then looks at me again. “Not so much responsible, although I do worry about you. I think that’s only natural. But, and I’m guessing this might be mutual, you’re all I have left of him. You shared a life with him. Being around you makes me feel as though a little part of him is still around as well.”

I couldn’t have said it more eloquently myself. I don’t know if I was being flippant earlier, or what I was even trying to get out of asking her, but her easy reply has reinforced the rapport between us.

“I write him letters. Every day. Sometimes a few per day. Letters he will never read, but it helps to gather my thoughts, to give them a place.”

Dolores nods. “That’s good.”

Maria brings over the desserts and drinks and while she arranges everything on the table, I think of how that kiss this morning has torn down the last remaining wall between Dolores and me. The letters are something I would only discuss with Jeremy, my best friend, but now I’ve told Dolores, bringing us even closer.

“I talk to him,” Dolores confesses after Maria has left. “Every chance I get. In the car. When I’m alone in my office. When I’m getting dressed. I deliberately stop what I’m doing and I tell him about my day, about a new artist we’ll be showing at the gallery, or just what I had for lunch, the way I used to.” She delves a spoon into the panna cotta and, to my surprise, brings it to my mouth. “Come on, Sophie. Open wide.” She follows up with a sad smile, the kind that tries to be bright and encouraging but just can’t get there because there’s no sparkle in its bearer’s eyes.

I open my mouth and let Dolores feed me a spoonful of dessert.

Chapter Seventeen

When we go upstairs to sleep, Dolores shows no sign that I’m not welcome in her bed anymore. I don’t ask her because, although I could try the guest room, I already know I would either resort to Ambien, or crawl back into her bed in the middle of the night. I’m spent, having not eliminated all remnants of my hangover. I’m feeling extra tender because of our conversation at dinner, and a little misty-eyed because of too much Amaretto and lowered inhibitions.

As though nothing happened in the very same bed that morning, we both hop in. When Dolores offers her arm for me to lay my head upon, it does feel as though we’ve spent this Sunday as much more than two women bound together by the dead man they loved. Dolores and I are friends now. She’s the one I’m closest to now that Ian is dead. What started as shared grief has morphed into an enormous amount of respect and tenderness for this woman I was always a teensy bit afraid of, in the way most people are intimidated by their partner’s parents. And look at me now, I think, as I sink into Dolores’ comforting embrace.

She flicks through some channels, soon declaring there’s nothing on. We’ve watched all
Grace & Frankie
episodes on Netflix and haven’t started anything new yet.

“Shall I just switch it off?” Dolores asks, one hand on the remote, the other in my hair, stroking my scalp so softly, so gently, it lulls me into a different state of being. The state I was in this morning when I put my hand on her belly, when her fingers stroked my cheek, and I planted my lips onto hers.

I’m too tired, too under the influence of grief, alcohol, and affection to give much thought to it. I’m just relieved to be feeling something else than the relentless dull ache of loss that beats inside me like a second heart, and seems so endless, so impossible to overcome, that I just give in to the impulse to bring my hand back to Dolores’ belly, and trace a finger underneath the hem of her tank top. I cease to have any thoughts entirely when my fingers crawl higher underneath her top. Dolores’ muscles don’t stiffen. She just lies there while I stroke the soft, soft skin of her belly, touch the heat of it. She switches off the television, bathing the room in welcome darkness.

I trace a finger around her belly button, let it dip in, then out again, and push her top higher with the back of my hand. Her skin is pale but smooth and so incredibly soft, I long to lose myself in its entire expanse, long to lose every little part of me that hurts so much.

Dolores’ hand is still in my hair, but slowly creeps down to my neck, where she traces her fingertips along the collar of my pajama top. This is not a level of touching we’re accustomed to; it’s brand new, stirring up something deep inside of me, something I thought had disappeared with Ian’s death. Something I don’t want to name, only feel.

“Sophie,” she whispers then, and I recognize the urgency in the low whimper of her voice. It reflects the tremor that has started beneath my flesh. This course of action that started with a touch of my finger against her belly, and has now, so it seems, become irreversible. I don’t want to pull away. In fact, pulling away from Dolores is the very last thing I ever want to do. I’ve lost so much already.

I leave my hand where it is while I push my face away from her shoulder and crane my neck to look at her. I don’t say anything. I’m not sure about what exactly is going to happen, but I do know that, whatever it is, it needs to happen in silence, in an atmosphere of solemnness and inevitability. It’s the only way. And it’s what I want. My eyes have grown accustomed to the dark and, this time, when I look into Dolores’ eyes, they do sparkle.

I could spend a few seconds deciphering that look on her face, but I don’t want to. I just want to progress, put some things behind me, become someone else, if even for fifteen minutes. I want to forget.

I push myself up, find a fragile sort of balance, with my hand now on Dolores’ hipbone and my left arm awkwardly bent, elbow thrust into a pillow.
Why not?
Is the only thought running through my head as I inch my mouth closer to Dolores’. Why the hell not? Because maybe this isn’t supposed to happen, but so are many other things. Like Ian cycling along Paterson Street at the exact moment that truck started reversing, losing his balance, and cracking his skull on the sidewalk.

If I live in a world where such a coincidental atrocity can take place, then so can this. It’s not the opposite, it won’t even things out—because what’s the opposite of death? It’s not life. I’ve learned that in the past two months. Yes, my heart is still beating, the bones of my skull are intact, but I sure as hell haven’t been feeling alive. Except now, when my lips hover so close to Dolores’ mouth that I can smell the Amaretto on her breath. It’s the most alive I’ve felt since it happened.

I know this needs to come from me. I need to initiate. I need to kiss her, lay my hand on her skin. It can’t be the other way around because then it would mean something else. But when my lips finally touch hers, I know it’s right. In my universe and in this moment, on this wretched Sunday evening, the tenth without Ian, I’m kissing his mother in her bed, and for the very first time, it’s not just grief pulsing underneath my skin, it’s this other thing, this thing I’ve been feeling for Dolores that is reaching its apex, but I can’t define just yet.

 
The kiss is tentative, close-lipped, inquiring. But already it feels entirely different than this morning’s kiss. This time, when I kiss her, it’s not an accident. All my intention is behind it, all this pain I don’t want to feel anymore. It’s all there, on the surface of my lips, when they meet hers. And again, our mouths a little wider this time, exchanging breath. When our lips touch next, I let the tip of my tongue slip in, just to test the waters. When I feel Dolores’ tongue meet mine I see it as being given permission. Permission for my tongue to further its claim on her mouth, but also permission to give in to the heat that is building in my stomach, to surrender to all these emotions pent-up in my flesh.

There’s lust in our kiss, a desire to extinguish and take from the other—I certainly want to take whatever I can get from Dolores, even if it’s just a couple of minutes of complete solace—but there’s also tenderness, a reflection of how fond I’ve grown of Dolores. Of her elegant ways, her backbone made of iron. Even though she cracks sometimes, she’s still the strongest person I’ve ever met.

When I kiss Dolores, and my tongue darts in and out of her mouth, I don’t think of Ian. Even though this kiss is the direct result of him dying, this kiss has, in its essence, nothing to do with Ian. This is about Dolores and me. The twosome we’ve formed in mourning. The unlikely bedfellows we’ve become. The alliance we’ve created against our grief when it was at its earliest and sharpest. It’s us versus everything else.

Only when Dolores brings both her hands behind my neck, do I allow myself to slip on top of her. I glance down at her but then quickly close my eyes again, and kiss her. I kiss and kiss her, until everything inside me mellows, my skin melts into hers, until her mouth on mine is all I feel. Until I’m no longer grieving Sophie, but Sophie so full of desire for another person, I lose myself completely.

I’m not sure how long we’ve been kissing when Dolores pulls back a little. It’s not the sort of flinching away that indicates a sudden change of heart or rejection, but a pause. Dolores looks at me while she sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, as though she wants to taste the remnants of our kisses. And it’s strange because her lips don’t curve into a smile, but it feels as though she’s smiling at me, encouraging me, telling me something with a facial expression that isn’t even there. This is how things have evolved between us. I understand Dolores in a way I’ve never understood anyone in my life. I feel what she feels. I want what she wants. I suddenly know what cosmic alignment feels like, even though I’ve never even thought of that concept a single time in my life.

Dolores slips from underneath me and pushes herself up to a half-sitting position. She brings her hands behind my neck and kisses me again and while she does, she pushes me down onto my back, until she’s the one lying on top of me. Instantly, it feels different. More heated. More fire lighting up under the surface of my skin. For the first time, I wonder what she’ll do next, because her weight on top of me tells me something else: this is Dolores’ house, Dolores’ bedroom, and she’s in charge here. It’s how I want it, oh so much. For her to let me do this—let us do this—but to take the reins from me. To take responsibility.

Do whatever you want with me
, I want to scream.
I’m all yours. Every last fiber of my being belongs to you right now. I want you.

I want Dolores.

She slides half off me and, slowly, starts unbuttoning my pajama top. She brushes the sides away and fixes her eyes on my chest. Her stare is soon followed by a fingertip brushing against my skin, in between my breasts. It’s only when her finger reaches one of my nipples, hardening it beyond belief, that it hits me that we’re really doing this. A fresh pang of lust burrows its way through my flesh. Even though I can’t in good conscience lie here, underneath Dolores’ increasingly insistent touch, and claim that I’ve dreamed about a night like this for a long time, it doesn’t come as a surprise either. It feels more like a natural, logical progression of two women sleeping in the same bed for so long.

Dolores circles my nipple with her fingertip, and I seem to feel her gaze on me as much as her touch. When she leans in and traces her tongue around my nipple in a circle, the exact same way her finger did a second earlier, something lets loose inside of me. Perhaps the last ounce of inhibition I had left in me. I bring one hand into her hair, and one to her back, underneath her top, and a moan escapes me. I’m already so lit up for her, so fiery, so ready.

She focuses on my other nipple, expanding the reach of her tongue, then kissing her way to my throat, where her thumb rests against the hollow of it.

I start hoisting up her top, even though I know I can’t get it off her like that, but I’m so overcome with desire to shed all that stands between us now. Our clothes have to go pronto. I want to keep this delicious momentum going, this string of explosions in my flesh, this complete erasure of what’s been going on in my life. I want all of Dolores, all of her skin against mine, all of her inside of me.

Dolores catches my drift. She pushes herself away from me briefly and in one fluid motion pulls her tank top over her head and bares her chest to me. My pulse picks up speed at the sight of her, because this really is the point of no return. I shrug out of my pajama top and start pushing my pants down, but Dolores puts her hands on me, calming me. She gives me a look I’ve never seen before, perhaps not on anyone, and I give her control over my further disrobing.

She hooks her fingers underneath the waistband and slides my pajama bottoms down, until I’m lying in front of her in just a pair of flimsy panties. I glance at her, see her swallow hard. From what I’m seeing, what we’re doing is turning her on greatly. When she looks at me there’s nothing but intent in her glance, total focus. It doesn’t even matter whether she’s doing this for me, or for her, or for us. None of it matters. Yes, we’re having sex, consensual, all-the-way sex, but this is so much more than two bodies meeting physically. I know she knows. We’re still aligned. In fact, my desire is aligned with Dolores’ so much, that the sight of her lust spurs mine on even more. I can’t explain why my body reacts this way to her touch, but it does. Oh, it does.