Tansy
By mid-July, I’m intensely glad that I budgeted the money for a riding lawn mower. We had a record rainfall this spring and still lots of rain this summer, and as much as I love my little house, I think I might hate it if I had to walk to mow an acre and a half. Living on the very outskirts of town has its ups and downs. At night, when I can stand on my back porch holding a glass of wine and see the stars stretch until the mountains reach up to claim them? Completely worth it.
Even with the machine, I’m sweating as I park it in my garage and let myself into the kitchen. I strip off my soaking-wet T-shirt and walk into the kitchen wearing only a sports bra.
Gyoza twines around my ankles. “Who’s my pretty,” I coo as I scratch behind her head. She holds still long enough to stick her orange butt in the air, so I scratch it too. “Who’s my sweetie?”
She only purrs in response.
“I don’t get a meow?”
She sniffs and wanders away to sit next to her food bowl, which is still totally full. Her nose goes into the air to express her disdain.
“Well, too bad,” I tell her. “You’re getting pretty plump. The vet said you needed the light stuff.”
I’m turning into the crazy lady who talks to her cats, but I’m good with that. I put a load of laundry in, then bring my pitcher of sun tea in from the porch where I’d had it brewing on the wide-board railing. I know it technically doesn’t make the taste any different, but iced tea that’s been cooked by the sun makes me happy inside and out. I pitch the tea bags and pour myself a glass over ice to take to the papers I have spread over my dining room table.
The room is on the small side, and I don’t like the closed-in feeling. If I have a chance someday, I think I’m going to have the wall between the kitchen and the dining room taken out. Or at the very least have the door made into an archway. But at least the window looks out only on the thick screen of trees that hides me from my neighbors.
Not that I’ve gone full hermit. I know my neighbors on both sides—hard not to in a small town. Patsy, my neighbor to the north, came over to introduce herself with a loaf of poppy seed bread the day after I moved in. Norm came the next day with a list of local service people and a bottle of wine, though he spent most of his time asking me about Patsy. I think I might have the widow and widower over for dinner sometime.
Not today, though. I’m teaching summer school—low teacher on the totem pole—and I’ve got a stack of assignments to go through. Switching from my small, intimate class of second graders to teaching middle school language arts has been a pretty big jump, but I think I’m covering ground pretty well. Wrangling twenty-five students at a time has been the biggest adjustment. It helps that they’re pretty good kids.
An hour passes before I realize, and my watch beeps to remind me to stand up and stretch. I put down my purple marker with a sigh. Anthony is going to need some extra help with his grammar if he’s going to pass this time around. Maybe I should call his mom and see if he can stay after tomorrow.
I wander into the kitchen to pour another glass of tea and stand in front of the cool air pouring out of the fridge. My phone is on the counter. I flick the display on, even though I know it won’t show me anything good. No messages.
No calls either.
I lean on the counter and stare at the glassy rectangle, chewing on my bottom lip.
Cai’s been pretty quiet over the last week or so.
She always answers my texts, and the night before last we had a two-hour talk. But even that had been kind of strange—she’d ducked the idea of a video chat. I mean, yeah, she’d blamed it on her internet, but she didn’t even reset the router or anything to try to get it going.
I wonder if she’s getting tired of a long-distance relationship.
My stomach flips hard enough at the thought that I put a hand on my tummy as if I could hold my insides still. Terror streaks down my spine and turns my palms clammy.
I immediately pick up my phone and text her. Hey, lady. How’s things?
I force myself to put it back down and start putting together a salad for dinner. A watched pot never boils and a watched phone never vibrates.
I have the carrots on top of my baby spinach when her reply comes in.
Kind of fired. Will call you tune.
A second pops up almost immediately. Sorry, using Siri. Tired. Will call soon.
Oh. Well. I’m sure she doesn’t mean that the way I’m taking it. There’s tons of reasonable reasons for using Siri instead of doing your own texting. But she’s never mentioned it before, and I can’t help but feel more weight in the change than in the act itself. She’s thinking of me differently, just when I miss her more than I can say. I ache for her. She’s bored of me.
That’s a change. Crap, a seriously sucky one.
I put my phone away and make my salad with shaky hands.
Cai had been right: moving back home was one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time. I thrive in my own house, and I feel so much more comfortable teaching regular kids instead of astoundingly privileged ones. I’m making more of a difference. My family has pooled around me in a way that makes me smile every day. I get to take Nanna to dinner every Tuesday night, and I’m her chauffer to Mom and Dad’s house for Sunday dinners.
I belong here. Time in California can only be visits from now on.
Except California is where Cai lives. We’ve talked about her moving, but only in a vague way. With lots of maybes.
And if neither of us is willing to budge, it’ll mean we stay long-distance forever. Except maybe forever is going to end a lot sooner than I thought if Cai’s weirdness over the past two weeks is a sign of things to come.
I only manage two bites of my salad before my stomach clenches in revolt. I put it down on the box that’s serving as my coffee table. I’m going to have to buy more furniture eventually. Gyoza slinks around the edge of the couch as if I might give her the tuna off the top.
“You don’t want it,” I tell her. “You don’t like balsamic dressing.”
Talking to the cat feels a whole lot less cute than it did a couple of hours ago. The house is so damn quiet that I can hear a truck rumble down the street despite my quarter-mile-long driveway.
No, wait. It’s getting louder.
I go to the front door and step out, closing it behind me so that Gyoza doesn’t get out. It’s a truck, but not a big Ford or Chevy like I expected. It’s a moving truck.
A moving truck.
I’m starry-eyed. Absolutely psychotically insane. If that’s not Cai, if that’s some stranger who’s gotten lost and is looking for directions, I’m going to throw myself down in my fresh-cut grass and simply die.
The truck lumbers to a stop. The sun slants across the giant windshield, and even when I lift a hand to my forehead, I can’t see in.
The door opens. A boot appears first, below the bottom edge of the door, then a leg in dark-gray trousers, and then Cai’s shutting the door. Cai. My love.
I’m off the front steps like a shot, running so hard that I’m pumping my arms to go faster. My bare feet smack against the cement walkway. Cai throws her arms wide, and I launch into the air.
She catches me. She always will, I know it.
I wrap my legs around her waist and my arms around her shoulders. Cai spins us. The summer air swirls. My hair is tangled around both of us. I have my face against her neck. She smells like healthy sweat.
“You’re here,” I say. I’m giggling, and I have tears burning their way down my cheeks too. I lean back enough to look at her. “You’re here.”
“I’m here, little one.” She looks fantastic, if a little tired. There are lines under her eyes and alongside her mouth. “It’s a long drive.”
“That’s a moving truck!”
Her chuckle warms me from the inside out. “With all my worldly possessions inside too. Bike and everything.”
“You didn’t tell me anything. I was weirded out. I thought maybe you didn’t love me anymore.”
She lets go of me only enough that I can slide down her body to stand on my own. She holds my face tightly, as if I would dream of looking away from her right now. The fire in her dark eyes makes my toes curl against the hot asphalt of the driveway.
“I love you, little one.” She says the words like a vow. “I couldn’t stand being away from you anymore. I missed you too much.”
“I missed you too.” I spread my hands wide across her shoulders and her waist. She’s so strong. “I can’t believe you’re really here. I’ve dreamed about this so many times.”
“I hope that means I won’t need my backup plan,” she tells me with a smile that’s growing. Her hair is down across her shoulders. It shines like onyx under the summer sunlight.
I’ve known this amazing woman for almost a year. It’s hard to believe that much time has flown by, but I think I’ve needed it. In order to be able to fly, I’ve had to let my feathers grow in. “What backup?”
“Nanna’s going to rent a storefront to me at a cut rate. Says she’ll trade me six-months rent if I put a skull on her shoulder.”
I laugh. “Oh my god. Mom will kill you if you do that.”
“She said we could keep it our secret.” She threads her fingers through my hair, holding me firmly in place. “But she also said I could rent one of the apartments in her building if I need to. Do I need to, Tansy?”
I want to say no. I want it with every bit of me, except the little scrap that has learned to stand up for itself. When I catch my bottom lip between my teeth, I bite it hard enough to make myself wince, but I need the little hit of courage it gives me. “Give me something more flowery than that.”
For a long, heart-pounding moment, I think maybe she isn’t going to do it. She’ll tell me I’m silly, and I’ll probably cave and tell her that I was just teasing. Just kidding, not really. That kind of thing.
Then she takes both my hands in hers and steps back far enough that she can drop to one knee. My chest squeezes five inches tighter and my lungs are working overtime. The edges of my vision go a little bit gray, but I freaking refuse to faint. There is such a look of ardor and love on her face that I can hardly look back at her—except there’s no way I can look away either.
“Tansy Gavin, you’re it for me. I don’t know how you’re you. What you’ve been through would have crushed another woman, but you came out of the fire forged in steel and yet still as soft as velvet.” Her voice breaks a little, and tears pool at the corners of her eyes. I’ve never seen Cai cry before. It’s disconcerting and more tender than I could have imagined, both at the same time. “When Xue was taken from us, I let it harden me. I’ve been alone a long time because it was safer to be that way. Your sweetness humbles me. Will you have me?”
“You left me.” I didn’t mean to bring this up. Didn’t mean to travel down this road again. “In the hotel room, when I asked you to stay.”
“I did that because you were scared that I wouldn’t come back.” She kisses my knuckles, one hand after the other. Her mouth is a soft butterfly. I think Cai’s touch could rouse me from a thousand deaths. “And it hurt. I wanted to stay. I’ve told you that, little one.”
“I know.”
“I could barely tear myself away from you.” She looks up at me from under her dark, straight brows. “I cried so hard on the plane that the flight attendant brought me a packet of tissues and a free glass of wine.”
“You didn’t tell me that.” I know I sound kind of accusatory, but I can’t help it. “I thought we’d talked about it all. But you hid it?”
“Because I didn’t want to make you responsible for my pain.”
“I’m not responsible. But I’m in this relationship with you. If we’re going to do this, you’re going to have to trust me to hold my own weight.”
Her mouth quirks into a little smile. “See? This is what I’m talking about. You’re amazing.”
“Are you teasing me?”
“One hundred percent not.” She reaches into the pocket of her trousers and pulls out a ring. It glitters sharp and cold. The diamond in the middle is radiant cut in a way that makes the rectangle shape shimmer even more. A handful of smaller diamonds circle it, set in beautiful rose gold, so that the whole thing has a vintage look. I love it.
I would never, ever admit it, but I’ve scrolled through rings on a dozen sites, always late at night, in the dark, and on my phone. With my privacy browser on. This is the style I wanted and Cai has picked it. She knows me. Knows my taste.
And I’ll have so much lace on my dress that I’ll look like a goddamn doily.
“Tansy Gavin, will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I breathe, almost too quietly. I can barely hear my own voice, and I have to clear my throat. Only moments ago, I could have sworn that I was close to tears. Instead laughter bursts from me, strong enough to lift me onto my toes. My words come out louder this time. “Yes, Cai. I want you forever.”
“I’ll keep you forever and a hundred years.”
When I hold out my hand, Cai slips the ring onto my finger. It’s cold at first but rapidly picks up my heat. My jaw falls a little as I stare at my hand decorated like this. A way it’ll be decorated forever. It’s astonishing and humbling, and I’m happier than I think I’ve ever been.
She surges to her feet, taking my mouth with hers.
The kiss is hard enough to bend my neck back. I fold my arms around her shoulders and let myself melt. Cai will never let me go. She’d never let me fall, and she’ll never try to hold me down either.
Together, we’ll fly.