Part 4 of Tiny Victories

Disclaimers:

The names Mel and Janice and the corresponding physical descriptions were borrowed, everything else is fiction drawn up from the recesses of my muddled mind. Big time hurt/comfort here, people looking for the immediate gratification of a happy tale are encouraged to seek reading material elsewhere. Contains adult language and situations.

Thanks to Kat (booboo spotter) for being the primary Beta, and always thanks to Lyraine (booboo fixer) …And a special thanks to Ginger, who has asked me repeatedly for more, despite having read many, many, previous versions.

AND a big "Thank you!" to everyone who's taken time to give me feedback, because of you this series continues.

I apologize that this took so long but this has been the hardest thing I've ever tried to write, in fact it had me blocked for months.

Stepping into the Sun

by Rocky Macelli

Mel moved from the dim light of the hallway and stood in the doorway to the bedroom. The soft morning glow from the window rolled over the hills and valleys of the bedding and outlined where a body still lay sleeping. She moved quietly to the head of the bed to set down Joe's morning medication and a small cup of juice, on the nightstand.

The sleeping woman rolled over; Mel waited for a moment for Joe to settle again and then pulled the blankets up from where they had shifted. The harsh planes of the prone woman were softened in sleep; the relaxed face almost seemed to have a childlike pout. Gone were the frown lines and the knitted brow all the things that were a part of the troubled woman she had become. Mel sighed and padded back down the hall to the bathroom.

Teeth brushed, hair combed, all she had to do now was make her lunch and head off to work. Mel glanced up at the calendar that hung on the wall next to the frosted window. They started keeping the calendar there to chart Joe's cycle, way back when they had been serious about having children. Now it was just another fixture in the small room. Mel doubted that her partner's scattered memory could even recall the original reason for hanging up the freebee from the local drugstore, complete with this year's colorful picture of a puppy and a kitten in a basket.

The solstice was fast approaching, and with it a sinking, pervasive dread.

Ten years.

In just over a week, the entry of summer would also mark ten years since the day that Joe had swept her off her feet and stolen her heart. They hadn't mentioned, or even taken notice, of their anniversary since that first trip to the hospital two years ago. The hurt swelled up like an unbidden thing of the depths. Mel squeezed back the pain and drew in a lung full of tepid air. The cognizant and aware part of her mind shot up flares and waved a flag of truce, yet her heart still bled red and oozing.

The road to work was burned into her mind. Hands moved easily without conscious thought over the wheel, guiding the old Dodge into its stall like a weary plow horse. It was a good thing. Idle thoughts kept racing into the forefront of her mind, instead of paying attention to the traffic that was fortunately light at this time of the morning.

Mel liked to get to work early and have a coffee before the daily onslaught in the form of tons of bound paper. She was, thankfully, the stacker for the library proper by choice and happily wanted no part of the other media, like films, records and videos. She loved books, plain and simple. Today though, her mind was besieged with painful memories.

Letting herself into the workroom, which also doubled as a break-room, Mel started a pot of coffee and stood looking out the window watching a handful of sparrows flit through a newly greened tree just outside the window. Without realizing it, she found herself staring at the window in another wall adjacent to the one she was looking out of; it was the sunny one with the southern exposure, where she had been sitting when she met Joe.

Ten Years.

Mel sighed and shook her head trying to dispel the bouts of reverie that were cursing her this morning. Her hand brushed a pencil that been left sitting on the window's ledge to the floor, and as she bent to retrieve it, her medallion slipped from her collar and dangled before her. She captured it between her thumb and forefinger and rubbed it thoughtfully, the pads of her fingers moving over the embossed surface. Joe had never commented on her return to wearing the necklace, in fact she hadn't commented on its disappearance either.

"Happy Birthday Mel!" Joe said, setting the present on the table, narrowly missing a puddle of beer.

On the outside Mel smiled. The night out was unexpected and a nice gesture, however, she wished it could have been just the two of them; that Joe's 'friend' Terry hadn't come along. When she opened the present, and saw the wrong astrological sign, she knew that Terry had picked up the gift. All the things that she'd come to ignore or bear in silence were suddenly there -- hanging on the end of a chain.

"Thank you." She said quietly, slipping the small box into her pocket.

"No, no… Put it on!" Joe insisted

Grudgingly Mel dropped the silver chain over her head and forgot about it.

Later, after Joe had refused to dance with her, she inadvertently noticed that they were holding hands under the table. The only recourse was to get shit-faced drunk…

'I actually begged her to kiss me.' Mel thought sourly. Then she chuckled at the irony, at the anger, at the foolishness, that led to a drunk stumble home; where the sweetest of angels came into her life. This brought the first genuine smile of the day to Mel's face. 'Janice.' The small janitor had become a very good friend over the last few months, someone to laugh and talk with -- a friend who had forgiven a very, very, large slip on her part, last New Years Eve and gave her the charm with the correct symbol of a lion that now hung around her neck.

Mel brought the medallion up to her lips, still warm from being next to her skin, and then dropped it back down into her shirt. 'I wonder if she'd still be my friend if she knew what a muddled mess my personal life is?' She mused. She was sure that the blonde woman knew she was a fuck-up, but the real truth was too hard to even think about, much less admit. Mel sighed and poured a cup of coffee, there was work to do and she sat at her stool to repair some damaged books before the rest of the staff arrived for the day. The looming anniversary was dismissed to the back of her mind, at least for the time being.

Part 2

Oscar was hungry. He pattered back and forth under the cupboard where he knew the cat food was stored in the form of tins and a large plastic container of crunchy things. In his own kitty-cat way, he cleared his throat and prepared to sing. "Hmea-oooooooow!" He looked around expecting an immediate response. …Nothing. Hmph! This called for an increase in volume. "HMEA- OOOOOOOOW!!" He added a little warble to the final 'ow' for emphases. There. His sharp little ears registered a groan from the other room and then shuffling down the hall.

Padding back and forth in front of the bathroom door, Oscar made happy noises waiting for the inevitable flush of the toilet and then running water in the basin. It wouldn't be long now. "Hmea-oooooooow!" He reiterated just to make sure that Mom remembered the most important part of the morning.

Janice looked down with the one eye that would open, at the fat orange cat that twisted around her feet, threatening to trip her up with every step towards the kitchen. "C'mon Oscar!" She growled as she stumbled over him for the third time. "If I fall and break my neck, you will not get breakfast."

With Oscar happily dividing his time between the crunchies, the canned food, and a fresh bowl of water, Janice was able to fumble with the coffee maker and get it to start dribbling brown liquid into the carafe. 'What day is it?' She wondered to herself, '…Hmm, Monday …I think.' She twisted around in her chair to look at the calendar that hung under the kitchen clock. 'Ten in the morning.' She sat in a fog and watched her coffee slowly brew. Her stomach was still asleep, she decided as she idly scratched her scalp and stared balefully at her reflection in the toaster and the bleary green eyes that looked back.

One hour, toast and 2 1/2 cups of coffee later, Janice was finally awake. She was washed, dressed, and the bed was even made -- with, ironically, a very fat orange cat snoring blissfully in the middle of it. The laundry in the hamper beckoned, the vacuum called softly from the closet, begging to go for a spin and the dishes in the sink had soaked to perfection. But a beautiful spring day just outside the door shouted loudest of all. Torn between a personal housework ethic and the lure of the sunshine, Janice compromised with herself. 'If I do the dishes and sort the laundry…'

"That should have been done yesterday." Her conscience reminded her.

…Yesterday. Janice had doubled with her sister and her husband on yet another blind date; this time a nice fellow named Gerald from Lilly's work. They had lunch and saw a matinee at The Bijou. Gerald was kind, considerate: the perfect gentleman… and about as exciting as a dirt lump.

"I wish I'd stayed home and done my chores." She muttered to the sleeping cat. "I'd have had a better time if I'd called Mel to come over for coffee. I'd have at least been able to do my laundry." The small blonde aimed an impotent kick at the hamper and only succeeded in knocking it over, sending soiled clothing across the bedroom floor. 'I guess that settles that.' She thought with a sigh and bent to start sorting.

"Yah know Oscar, coffee with Mel isn't that bad of an idea."

The feline cracked open one eye on a head that was currently twisted upside down at a seemingly impossible angle and then shuttered it closed without so much as a tail twitch. Mel this… and Mel that, Mel, Mel, Mel; didn't Mom ever have anything else to say? Not that he minded her telling him every little thing in her life but couldn't she talk about, how handsome he was, or his suppertime that was only a few short hours away.

'Yeah, …coffee, or better yet, lunch.' With that decided, Janice started sorting in earnest, she promised herself that if she finished this and washed the dishes, she'd see if the tall brunette wanted to go for lunch. It would be nice to talk to someone intelligent and throw off the bad taste of her previous 'date'.

Part 3

"Hey Stranger."

Mel looked up with surprise at the blonde head that was peeking around the corner into the workroom. She had just been in the process of opening her pack to get her bologna sandwich and an apple when her friend brought a little sunshine into her day.

"Hey yourself… Jan? What are you doing here?"

The small janitor held up a striped bag. "I needed somebody to help me eat this mess of Kentucky Ducky and yours was the next name on the lunch lotto."

"Well that's …nice." Mel said with a confused look. "But I meant how did you know where to find me?"

"It wasn't terribly difficult. I know you work here, so I asked the nice lady at the desk up front. She said that I'd find you in here."

Mel chuckled internally, 'Mrs. K, is going to be fit to bursting trying to figure out who Janice is.' She mused.

"She did, did she? Well, you should feel privileged; she doesn't let just anyone back here." Mel glanced out of the door towards the main desk and then smiled at Janice. "C'mon there's a nice place outside where we can eat that. It smells wonderful!"

The women found themselves under the spreading branches of a tall leafy Poplar, they had polished off the chicken and Mel was listening and laughing as Janice described her latest 'Date Fiasco'.

"He still lives in his parent's basement?" Mel interjected in astonishment.

Janice fell back and lay on the grass giggling in her little musical laugh. "Yeah. And get this -- his mother still buys his clothes. I don't get how someone could get to their thirties and not have a life."

Mel got quiet for a moment and stared off into distance watching some small clouds scud across an otherwise clear blue sky. "Jan, I think you're asking the wrong person. I don't have a life either."

The smaller woman sat up, bracing herself on arms that stretched out behind her, she frowned. "Gosh that sounded mean, didn't it? Don't get me wrong, Gerald was a really nice guy but we didn't 'click', you know?" Janice tilted her head and looked at her friend. "And what do you mean 'you don't have a life'? You're one of the most interesting people I know."

"Granted, I don't live in my parent's basement… but Janice, I work in a library, and I do almost nothing. My entire social life involves going for coffee once in a while… with you." Mel said looking away, and then embarrassed by her admission, she began to pick up the remains of their lunch and deposited them in a nearby trash barrel. "I really have to be getting back to work. Thanks for lunch it was a nice change."

Sitting there blinking, Janice had just started to say, "Bu…" but the other woman had already gone back into the building. 'What the hell just happened?' She wondered. Janice sat back down and leaned against the bark of the large white Poplar. Running the last few minutes through her mind, Janice realized something: they always talked about what was going on in her life, never about her tall friend. They'd chat about Oscar, Lilly, the staff at the hotel, the weather, politics, …everything but Mel.

Finally Janice stood, dusting some dry blades of grass from the seat of her jeans and wandered back to where her truck was parked. She stared out the windshield at the large building complex that housed the library and tried to list all the things she knew about her tall friend. She works in the Library and part time at the hotel as a bartender. She lives in a house a few blocks from my place. She lives with a guy named Joe '...that used to hit her', Janice remembered angrily.

Frowning, Janice gave the booties hanging from the rear-view an angry little bat. 'You have talked to this woman for hours and you next to nothing about her!' Knowing how she took her coffee and which beer she liked to drink, wasn't really much. She looked up at her eyes reflected back in the small mirror and told herself off. "Some friend you are! Always talking about yourself." Turning the key in the ignition, Janice shoulder checked and then pulled away from the curb.

Pulling up to a red light at the center of town, the small janitor made a decision. She would not let her tall friend twist the conversation back on itself where they talked about anything but the brunette's home life. "Mel Kappas," Janice told the steering wheel, "I think it's time we talked about something in your life that doesn't involve books, your car or your lawn mower."

Part 4

"I'm out of smokes. You got any?"

Mel looked out into back yard through the window over the kitchen sink. "No. I told you, I quit." Wiping her hands on a tea towel she turned to find Joe busily tucking a western shirt into her jeans.

"Oh yeah, I forgot." Joe pulled a thin folding wallet from her pocket, thumbing through the contents she frowned. "Gimmie fifty bucks."

"What happened to the money that I gave you yesterday?" Mel asked, yet she still reached for her wallet all the same. The short blonde just made a disgusted noise and held out her hand.

"You know I don't get paid 'til the end of the month."

"Well I haven't been to the bank so I can only give you twenty-five…" The bills were gone from her hand before she could blink.

"Thanks!" Joe called over her shoulder, followed by the slamming of the screen door. Mel sighed and turned back to the rest of the dishes.

Setting a clean, wet, plate into the draining rack, she heard someone walking back up to the door. "Now what?" she asked angrily without turning around.

"Sorry, I tried ringing the bell but no one would answer."

Stunned, Mel turned to find her friend standing in the outline of the back door. Wet soapsuds slid down her arms and fell soundlessly onto the floor and Mel finally found her tongue enough to say, "Hey." A tiny crooked smile followed.

"Hey yourself."

Suddenly very self-conscious, Mel quickly wiped her hands and smiled. "C'mon in and have a seat." She said, pulling out a chair from the kitchen table. "D'you mind if I get done with these dishes; I'm almost finished."

"Sure, no problem." Janice dropped down into the proffered chair, glancing around the kitchen while she waited. The small room had a worn, polished look to it, the suite where she sat was a left over from the chrome era of the fifties, sturdy and heavy looking much like everything in the room. It looked …utilitarian, plain solid cabinets, older looking harvest-gold appliances that had been kept in good condition despite their age and an honest to goodness checkered tile floor.

"There's coffee in the pot," Mel said over shoulder and pointing with a soapy elbow, "Cups and spoons are in that rack, and the cream and sugar's on the table."

Janice busied herself, doctoring a coffee and topping up the cup she saw sitting on the table. "Where's Joe?"

The glass bounced a couple of times before it finally shattered.

Mel stood, water dripping from her hands, numbly staring at the shining pattern of broken pieces. She drew in a shaky breath and shook her head to clear it. "Um… Joe went out."

Janice frowned and set her coffee down on the table. "Mel, are you okay?"

She tried. She really tried to keep a passive look on her face. Despite the best of intentions however, angry tears built up in her eyes. She closed them tight, trying to wish them away and turned back to the sink ignoring the shattered glass at her feet. Leaning both hands on the edge of the sink, she stared at nothing out the window for a moment desperately wanting to quell the powerful cloud of emotion building in her chest. "Yeah…" She replied brokenly, "I'm good. Just moody I guess."

Janice watched as the tall woman mutely swept up the glass, being anally careful to get all the small shards. "You're going to sweep a hole in the floor Mel; I'm sure you got it all five minutes ago."

The repetitive motion of the broom had aided Mel in reining in the raw emotion that had been plaguing her all day. She looked up at her friend with a small grin, "I s'pose so," and returned the broom and dustpan to their home in the closet. Sliding into the chair across from the blonde, she cradled the second coffee cup in both hands taking a drink, before regarding her friend wondering what the unexpected visit was about. "Sorry about the doorbell, I've been meaning to fix that."

Janice sighed and cocked her head at woman across the table. "Quit doing that."

"What?"

"Apologizing. It seems like every second word out of your mouth is 'Sorry'." Janice reached across the table and patted Mel's hand. "You are not responsible for every woe of the world."

Mel frowned. "Oh… Sor- …Shit." Throwing up her hands she simply smiled and shook her head.

Frowning the small Janitor shifted her body forward. "You are not yourself today. C'mon this is 'me' here. What's wrong? …Is Joe hurting you again?"

The silence seemed to last forever. Slowly small noises became audible: the soft snapping of the dishsoap bubbles in the sink, and further in the distance the squealing of children playing in a nearby backyard. The tall woman stared at her hands around the coffee cup and then abruptly stood and walked into the other room. Janice wondered if she had pushed too far, but before she could decide whether to leave or not, her friend returned and set a thick photo album on the table with a thud.

Running her hands over the cover, Mel turned the stiff pages until she came to a specific one. Spinning the book to face Janice, she pointed the left hand page. "Jan, that's me and Joe almost ten years ago."

They were seated in a booth of a café, arms around each other; faces pressed cheek-to-cheek mugging for the camera. Janice blinked as she recognized Mel despite the fact the woman in the picture had short curly, auburn hair. No it was the other …woman in the picture that caught her attention, with long blonde hair and a wide infectious smile.

"Oh…" she said, and then chuckled, "What on earth possessed you get an Afro?"

Mel thought she was prepared for her friend's reaction. She had expected her to be at the very least hurt or angry at her revelation. She should have known better. Janice wasn't capable of being intolerant, there was no agenda; she very simply just cared. It made her feel foolish for the way she had acted at lunch and at that moment she knew that Janice would always be her friend - no matter what.

She turned and looked at the picture unconsciously stroking the bottom of the page with her thumb. Mel chuckled, "Heh. God, I'd forgotten how bad that was. The damn perm bleached my hair and made it brittle." She sighed, "I was young. I was in love. I was ready to try everything -- even a fuzzy perm."

"Damn. Your hair looks almost red." Janice reached over and squeezed her friend's hand. "Joe doesn't look quite like I imagined either."

"You noticed huh?"

"Uh huh." Janice smiled a patient friendly smile, and waited for the explanation she was certain was forthcoming.

At that particular moment Mel would have cheerfully reached in and ripped out her own spleen. It would have been less painful. "I'm sorry Janice, I didn't mislead you on purpose - it's just that I have become painfully embarrassed of my life; like there is something I've done to make it the way it is. I can't help but feel that someplace along the line I've made a terrible mistake." Mel's breath caught in her throat and she smoothed the picture under her hand with the tips of her fingers, trying not to fall apart. "But how can loving someone be a mistake?"

Janice stood and hugged the tall woman from behind. "No, --no, oh no Mel, loving someone is not a mistake. Don't ever think that. Something happened, didn't it? You didn't just go from being the kid in this picture to the place you are now, something must have changed."

"She got sick." Mel explained with a sigh. "A Stroke. Something in her brain broke and almost killed her." A deep shiver ran through the tall woman and she reached for her coffee, pausing to take a drink. "…And I've been living in Hell ever since. At first I thought it was a temporary thing and she would go back to being like she was. Joe was so bright and funny, and loving before…" Mel broke down and huge tears found their way down her face. "But she became angry and sad all the time. I - I kept thinking that if I could just do the right thing I could make her happy again."

Janice moved from where she was standing to crouch beside her friend. Looking up into her face she could see all the pain laying over her like a blanket. She didn't say anything, she simply was there, watching and waiting, knowing that Mel would continue when she was ready.

For long moments Mel stared into her coffee trying to find the words to express her grief. That was what it was, grief, for a life and a love that had slipped away. She gathered a breath and began to speak, "You hear about battered women all the time. How they have black eyes and broken arms. It was never like that. Joe is smaller than I am. It was mostly open-handed slaps, kicks in the shins, elbows in the ribs, pinches and pokes, that's all." Mel stared at her hands as they began to shake and her knee twitched nervously. "It's the mean words that hurt more than anything. Words like 'stupid' and 'lazy' or 'useless'. That's what really hurt."

"Oh Mel…" Janice said, almost whispering because her voice was choked away by emotion. She moved up and captured Mel in a hug, rocking her and stroking her hair while they both cried. "I'm so sorry."

They parted with watery smiles and Janice returned to her chair, pausing to take a drink of her cooling coffee. She looked up at the woman across the table and remembered something that Mel had said while they were in the bar cooler last New Years, '…the hitting stopped…' Something had changed in her friend's stormy relationship. She knew then that in spite of the painful story she'd heard so far, that there was far more to be told. Getting up to retrieve the carafe from the coffee maker she refilled both of their cups.

"Thanks Jan," Mel said wiping away the tear spots on her glasses on the tail of her shirt. "You keep riding in and saving my soul -- the one good thing in my life lately. I didn't mean to be short with you at lunch today." She held up one hand to indicate that she wasn't finished. "No, Joe is not hurting me, I mean she hasn't hit me in months. Truth be told, she hasn't touched me in any way since my Dad died …and she gave me a hug. I'd sort of given up on hugs anyway." Mel gave her friend a shy half-grin, "At least until I met you. ...Jan, you are a very special person."

The blonde blushed and turned her gaze to the table, the happy couple looked back from the picture. Something was familiar about the blonde woman. Then she realized that the happy attractive woman in the picture was also the scary woman that had showed up at the hotel one night when the bar crew was having an 'after clean up' drink. Mel had left like a shot. "Mel, …Joe was the woman at the door of the banquet room, wasn't she?"

Mel sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose under her glasses. "Yeah, that was her last stay at the hospital and she'd taken off. Since then she's been on a new medication that keeps her on an even keel."

"Okay, if things are on 'an even keel' why the 'mood'?"

"Our tenth anniversary is supposed to be on the 21st. I guess with all that's happened, I've been in a bit of a funk." Mel explained with a half a smile, keeping it just short of an apology. "Joe has a 'friend' that she spends all her free time with and it makes things hard to take sometimes."

Mel shuddered slightly and waited for Janice to say something. In a way she felt lighter; until now she hadn't admitted the whole truth to anyone, not even her family. Being cuckold was an embarrassment that she had kept quietly to herself, much like the previous abuses.

Sitting across from the tall woman, Janice couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You mean she's cheating on you?"

A heavy sigh shuddered through Mel's entire frame. "I suppose you could call it that. Back when we first moved in together, I remember that we were coming home from somewhere; and all of a sudden as we were unlocking the back door, she started to cry. I was at a loss, we'd had a nice time and we'd been chatting quietly on the way home. There was nothing that should have brought on this flood of tears. Joe was almost irrational crying over and over again that I was going to leave her and she'd be 'all alone'. I did the only thing I could do -- I held her and looked into her eyes and promised that I would always be true and I would never her leave her. I have kept that promise… the stupid thing is: I never asked her to promise the same thing."

"What!" Janice was pole-axed. "That has to be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. You are bar none the sweetest and most honorable BONE HEAD I have ever met."

Mel looked up with a wry smile. "Aren't I just?" She said and began to chuckle. These gave way to snorts of laughter.

Janice found herself absorbed into the contagious irony and laughed along with her friend. They laughed 'til they howled, slapping the table and wiping away at a torrent of bitterly funny tears. Finally Mel got the hic-ups, which inspired a fresh round of giggles. The laughter and tears washed away any remnants of the ill feelings from lunch.

Part 5

Mel was still humming the song she'd been listening to on the radio before getting out of the Dodge. She felt lighter, almost floating on the wake of the previous evening's purging of her soul to her best friend. Before Janice had left for work the previous evening, Mel had promised to call her if started to feel 'moody' again, rather than trying to muddle through it alone.

The day had been warm but not stifling, due to a fresh and gentle breeze that held the humidity at bay. The traffic at the library had been light, the warm weather being far more appealing than the comfort of a good book. Mel had sailed through her day with nary a glitch and it added to her prevalent lightheartedness. Out on the street a couple of small boys went whistling by on their bikes, screeching and laughing to each other. Their sheer joy at being free from another warm spring day in school was contagious and Mel grinned as she put her key into the lock.

She didn't notice the difference right away.

Dropping her pack inside the door, she called out, "Ches…" she caught herself. "Um… Joe? Joe are you home?"

Silence. Mel shrugged and wandered down the hall to the bedroom to change into lighter clothing. It was when she bent down to pull out a drawer on the bureau; she caught the far wall in the mirror from the corner of her eye.

The painting from above the bed was gone.

Frowning, the tall woman stood and turned to stare at the vacant space where the watercolour had hung since the day they had moved into the house. '…What the?' Had they been robbed? She looked around the room with new eyes. Joe's jewelry box was missing but Mel's antique clock still sat on top of the dresser. Her heart hammering in her chest, Mel moved to the closet and threw open the sliding doors.

Gone. A few bent wire hangers hung on the rod on Joe's side of the closet, that was all. All of her partner's clothing was gone. She yanked open and slammed closed all of the drawers, confirming the absence of all of Joe's possessions.

Numbly, panting in shock, Mel stumbled out to the kitchen and turned about the room spotting things missing everywhere. Nick-knacks, small appliances, books and pictures off of the walls …all gone.

There on the refrigerator door, on the white board that they used for messages, were two words:

"I'm Sorry."

Mel fell backward from the words as if gut-shot. Landing against the wall, she crumpled and strangely, wondered why the neighbour's dog was howling. Then she realized that it wasn't a dog at all - the cry was coming from her own lips. She sucked at the air like the wind had been knocked from her chest; unable to catch a breath, she choked at the tears that were now freely running down her face.

Ah… Tuesday nights. Janice smiled. With the warm weather there was no tracked mud in the corridors of the building. That meant for a short shift in the small office building she cleaned on Tuesdays, since she wouldn't have to wet mop and could get away with a swivel mop and sweep wax. The bathrooms were done and the garbage had all been gathered. The compactor wouldn't need to be emptied until next week. Yes, this was her favorite night of the week.

The cell phone that she carried on her belt rang so seldom, that she nearly jumped out of her skin when it rang. In fact it rang twice more as she fumbled it off of her belt and finally got it open. "Hello?"

There was a long moment of quiet static and then, "Jan…"

The voice on the other end of the phone was so faint, that for a moment Janice wasn't even sure that she'd heard it. Quickly glancing at the small screen for id on the caller, she spoke. "Mel… Mel is that you?"

A long sniff and a choked noise was followed by, "Aw Shit Jan, I forgot …you're at work aren't you?"

"That's okay, I'm nearly done for the night any way. What did you need?"

A couple more long sniffs and then a cough came from the phone. "Um… I've done something stupid." Mel's voice sounded hollow and nasal like she had a bad cold.

Janice twitched as a shiver ran down her spine. "Mel, I'll be there right away - you hang tight. Okay?"

"Thanks Jan." A click and a dial tone followed.

Part 6

The red pickup rolled to a stop in front of Mel's house. Janice frowned when she spotted Mel sitting in the circle of the porch light on the front step, with what looked like a dishtowel wrapped around one hand; it was blossoming red as she watched. She sighed and turned off the engine. Remaining silent as she walked up the front walk, she knelt down and peered into her friend's face. "Oh Hon… what happened?"

Mel's face was very pale; her blue eyes rimmed red in the dim light. "I think I've broken a couple of knuckles and I might need stitches. There must have been a nail or something behind the drywall in the kitchen. I was gonna drive myself to the hospital but every time I stand up I get dizzy."

Biting back on the why that got as far as her teeth, Janice just frowned, bending to help the tall woman up. She figured the time for answers would have to come later. "Well come on then, let's get you patched up." She said, letting her friend lean on her during the short trip down the walk to the truck.

Mel looked broken sitting slumped against the passenger door. She stared out of the side window not seeing a thing, choosing instead to focus on the throbbing pain in her hand. Each beat of her heart brought a red-hot burst of pain that was far easier to contemplate than the agony of her life at this particular moment. No thinking or talking, no tears or whys, just a burning 'thud, thud, thud'.

Arriving at the entrance to Emergency, Mel popped the door open saying, "Thanks Jan, I owe you one..." over her shoulder, carefully closing the truck door before unsteadily making her way to the automatic door.

Janice watched to make sure that her friend made it inside the hospital before rolling her eyes and going to look for a place to park. 'Betcha she thinks I'm just gonna go home.' Janice thought to herself as she locked her door and walked back towards the hospital. 'Yeah, RIGHT -- as if!'

Mel was trying to fumble her wallet out of her pocket with the wrong hand when Janice jogged back in the building. The Janitor wrapped one arm around her friend and plucked out the billfold. Then she helped her down into the chair in front of the admissions desk. "Hey," She said to the Twenty-something blonde who eyed the now sopping towel on the brunette's right hand, "My sister tripped and fell into pile of lumber and hurt her hand. Can we see a doctor as soon as possible?" Janice held the wallet open for Mel, who blinked at her friend and pointed to the proper ID. The janitor flipped the card onto the tray in the partition, "Can we get another towel if we're going to have to wait?"

Much to Mel surprise, the girl simply buzzed open the doors behind them. "No, that's okay. I'll do up the paperwork and send it in."

She was stunned, in the dozens of times she'd come to emergency with Joe, she'd spent untold hours sitting in the waiting room, only to find that her partner had been admitted and no one had bothered to let her know. Now here she was with her friend herding her into the emergency treatment area, no one questioned or even tried to stop Jan from accompanying her. 'Why didn't I think of that?' She asked herself.

Truth be told, the tall woman was painfully shy, and related best with people behind the barrier of a countertop at the library and the bar of the hotel. To lie to someone in authority was an alien concept, she had been brought up to do as she was told - to go with the flow. One simple little white lie and she could have been… Then she remembered why she was here, why her hand was hurt. The shock hit her again and she stumbled a bit only to be caught and held up by the surprisingly strong little blonde.

"Easy does it." Janice told her friend and wrapped one arm around her waist. She guided Mel over to the nursing desk and an ER nurse scurried over to assess the situation.

"That looks nasty." The nurse said after she'd peeled back the bloody towel. The knuckles on Mel's hand were swollen and misshapen; a deep weeping gash ran the full its full length, running from the knuckle joint of her little finger to her wrist.

Mel hissed in pain as the nurse tried to gently uncurl her fingers enough to free the towel. At least the immediate physical pain temporarily drove away the agony of a freshly broken heart. She didn't want to look. Looking was bad. Looking was the reason she had gotten dizzy in the first place. She let the nurse take the towel and press what looked like a large sanitary napkin in its place. From there she let the nurse and her friend lead her over to chair in the hallway.

"Keep pressure on it and I'll get you a cold-pack for the knuckles." The nurse told them and walked away for a moment, returning with a plastic package and an emesis basin. Bending the package in her hand, she pressed it to the raw scraped knuckles and passed the basin to Janice. "It might be a few minutes 'til the doctor has a chance to have a look. She seems a little shocky to me and she might have to throw up, so keep this handy."

"Do you feel like you're going to puke?" Janice asked, brushing the long dark hair out of her friend's eyes and tucked it behind her ear.

Mel sighed and shook her head. "No I'm fine now that I'm sitting down." She turned her head and looked her friend in the eye. "How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"To tell the girl that you were my sister."

"Oh that," Janice laughed softly, "I wanted to come in with you and they won't let you unless you're family."

"You weren't worried about breaking the rules?"

"What was she going to do, have security drag me out for impersonating a sister? I'll have you know that I have been a card-carrying sister since Lilly was born."

Janice wanted to keep the conversation light. Mel hadn't mentioned her partner, and an aura of sorrow seemed to flow off of her tall friend in waves. The blonde woman could sense that something had gone down and she waited patiently to find out what.

"So you're not a nun then?"

The little janitor just laughed and mock-slapped her tall friend on the shoulder.

Twenty-two stitches, x-rays and a soft cast later, Janice and Mel wobbled back out to her truck. Mel had been lucky, all things considered, since she hadn't broken any bones and no tendons had been severed. Still she had to keep the cast on during the day and also had to return to get the stitches out in a couple of weeks. The mild sedative and painkiller the doctor had given her were making the tall book-stacker a bit loose on her pins. She leaned heavily on her friend; a few zig-zags across the parking lot got them to the truck and inside.

By the time Janice pulled back into Mel's driveway, her friend was snoring softly with her face pressed up against the passenger window. Fishing in Mel's pocket she retrieved a wad of keys and wondered which one opened the front door. Ten minutes of trial and error got the door open. Just a 'wee bit' paranoid, Janice called out "Hello!" just in case Mel's partner had come home. The house was quiet except for the gurgling of a large fish tank on the inside wall of the living room. Snapping on lights as she went, Janice arrived at the kitchen.

Several fist-sized holes decorated the wall leading to the hallway, one of which had a bloody trail that led to the sink. 'Oh Mel…' The small blonde thought sadly. A half drank bottle of beer sat on the kitchen table along with the photo album, a box of tissues and a snowstorm of wadded up used tissues littered the floor. 'What did she do to you now?'

The trip into the house was even more of an adventure than the previous trip across the hospital visitor's parking lot. Rather than go searching for the right room, Janice opted for steering her friend towards the large chesterfield. Helping her to get settled, she gently removed her friend's glasses and managed to pull off the long legged jeans, retrieving an afghan from the back of the recliner on the far side of the room.

'Wow!' Jan stopped in her tracks and examined the long scar on Mel's knee. She shook her head and spread the cover over her friend.

"Um… Hello? Is this, um? …Mrs. K?" Janice spoke softly into the phone.

A voice chuckled on the other end of the line. "That's just what the kids at the library call me, actually I'm Mrs. Kirst. What can I do for you?"

"Oh hi Mrs. Kirst sorry to be calling so late, I don't know if you remember me but I was at the library on Monday to have lunch with Mel."

"Yes, the blonde girl."

"Um yeah. My name's Janice and I'm calling to let you know that Mel hurt her hand this evening and probably won't be in tomorrow. I would have let her call you but I know that she usually opens up in the morning and she's pretty much out of it on painkillers at the moment."

Janice heard the older woman gasp in surprise. "Will she be alright?"

"Yes Ma'am, it's really not that bad. I'll stay with her tonight and she'll most likely call you herself sometime tomorrow."

"That's very good of you Janice; thank you for letting me know."

The women said their good-byes and hung up.

Janice cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, got herself a beer from the fridge. Moving back into the living room, she sat in the recliner and thoughtfully watched Mel sleep. Janice puzzled at the faint square outline on the wall above the couch where a picture must have hung.

Something was very wrong.

Part 7

Oscar was pissed! Mom was late and it was breakfast time dammit! Feeling sorry for himself he began to sing. "Hmea-oooooooow!"

"…Owwwww!" A few blocks away, a tall brunette had rolled over onto her sore hand.

Janice woke with a start and nearly fell out of the recliner.

Clutching the sore paw to her breast, Mel looked over to her friend across the room, half-awake and fighting to get upright, surprised …and not surprised, to see her there. She cleared her throat. "You realize that I now owe you at least one body part of your choice." Smiling sadly, she added wryly, "Do you need a kidney or something?"

Janice relaxed and smiled. The tension gone, the recliner let her feet drop with a small 'whoosh'. "Hey you - Good morning."

Mel looked around the room trying not to see the empty spaces of missing things that made everything incomplete and then sighed. "Shit…" she murmured spotting the time on the VCR. "I'm late for work."

"I called Mrs. Kirst last night, she knows you aren't coming in." Janice informed her. "You were out of it and the number was by the phone in the kitchen. I told her you'd get in touch sometime this morning."

"Oh…" Mel didn't know what to think. She blinked a few times, still in a bit of a fog. "Okay." She grimaced, "I got some pain pills from the doctor last night, didn't I?"

Janice hopped up and moved towards the kitchen, "Yeah, I left them by sink. Hang on a sec, I'll get them."

Mel watched her friend move out of the room and a shiver rolled over her as she realized that Janice had been in the kitchen, had seen the mess in there. What must she have thought? Mel ran her free hand over her hair and sighed. The whole thing was moot now. Part of her didn't want to think about the fact that Joe had left her. Another part of her was worried sick and wondered if Joe had remembered to take her morning meds. Her heart, her brain …and her hand hurt; at the moment she didn't know which one hurt worse.

"Here you go." Janice held out a couple of T3s and glass of water.

Downing the pills and chugging the water, Mel just sat there a moment examining the empty tumbler. "Um… sorry about the mess in there. I guess you're wondering what's going on."

"Hey… You don't have to tell me a thing if you don't want to…" Janice started.

"…No, I owe you that much. Hell! This is the third time now that you've rode in to my rescue. You are a wonderful caring person Jan and you deserve an explanation." Mel summoned up her courage and tried to swallow down her heart that had suddenly lodged itself in her throat. "I came home last night and Joe was gone."

The words seemed to echo around the room for an eternity. Mel's eyes started to burn with a fresh bout of tears. This time she didn't fight them; she let them come. They rolled down her face freely and carried on down her neck to be absorbed by the collar of her t-shirt. "She isn't just off fooling around …this time…" Mel sucked in a wet breath of air and sniffed. "This time she took all her stuff." Blood shot eyes awash in tears turned and looked at the little janitor. "She's really gone Jan. I feel so lost - I don't know what to do."

Janice turned and walked away. Mel's head dropped to her chest and she rocked holding her injured hand like a toy doll. What had she been thinking to dump something like this on her friend?

"Hey…"

Mel opened her eyes to find the little blonde looking up from where she knelt in front of her. Janice held up the box of tissues from the kitchen. Pulling a couple from the box she began to mop the tears from face of the broken woman. "I am so sorry Mel, you don't deserve this. I won't tell you not to cry." Empathetic tears appeared in the misty green eyes. "You need to cry - so cry and then we'll make breakfast and talk, …'Kay?"

Mel nodded wearily and skooched forward, gathering her friend in a needful hug. They stayed like that, kneeling on the floor of the living room for a long time, just absorbing the warm aura of feeling. Mel felt empty and oddly filled, all at the same time.

…And Janice, she felt a glimmer; the tiny seed of something that she couldn't put into terms of previous experience. Suddenly she was aware of the solid feel of the woman in her arms, the softness of her hair against her cheek and the comfortable way their torsos fit together. She didn't try to rationalize it, it simply felt right.

"Oh …hey. You cleaned up in here?" Mel had been all prepared to see the mess from the previous evening.

Janice just smiled and pulled out a chair from the table, indicating that she wanted Mel to sit. "We need to get some food into you. It can't be a good thing to have those pills sitting in an empty stomach."

Letting out a quiet sigh, Mel shook her head. "Thanks Jan but I'm really not hungry. I'd kill for a cup of coffee though."

"C'mon Mel, at least have a piece of toast …Please?"

Blowing out a louder sigh, the tall woman graced her friend with a small smile. "Okay. You win - one piece of toast."

Janice beamed and hustled about the kitchen, stopping here and there to ask where various things were kept. With some urging she managed to get Mel to eat not one, but two pieces of toast, a small glass of OJ, followed by several cups of coffee.

Janice didn't like to let the conversation dwindle, rather she rattled on keeping her friend's attention, subtly dropping little unassuming questions here and there, to get Mel to talk about herself. It didn't hurt that the painkillers seemed to have eroded the wall that was usually there.

"Yeah, I went to school here in town. Kindergarten straight through to high school and then one year at the college." Mel said pulling at a loose piece of gauze that poked out from the appliance on her hand. "I always meant to go back and finish my BA at least…" she sighed, "life sort of got in the way."

The blonde could tell that her friend was starting dwell on her troubles again and decided to distract her, "I had a girlfriend in high school, you know…" Janice offered almost too conversationally.

Mel blinked. Her jaw dropped slightly, all thoughts of her heartbreak taking flight for a few moments at least. She blinked several more times and turned her head like she hadn't heard properly. "Come again?"

Chuckling, Janice grinned. "That got your attention, didn't it? Seriously though, for a couple of months in high school, I had a pretend girlfriend. We did it mostly to shock people - yah know? We'd walk down the halls holding hands and she'd give me little kiss before class."

Mel was still gaping like her friend had suddenly sprouted an extra head. Straight little Janice had a tiny bend in the middle.

"Ha! You should see the look on your face." Janice grinned when she saw a tiny smile appear.

A faint whisper of a quiet laugh finally emerged and Mel reached over and squeezed her friend's hand, "Don't you dare ever change Jan."

Glancing at her watch, Janice grimaced. "I should get home and feed Oscar. You wanna come with and get out of here …take your mind off of things for a while?

Mel squeezed Janice's hand again and then let it go. "Nah, go ahead. I think I'm going to call the library and then go to bed."

Janice frowned but didn't say anything right away. She gathered up the dishes and put them in the sink. Mulling the situation over in her mind, she made a decision and turned back to her friend. "Tell you what, I'll run home for a couple of hours and do a few errands and then we'll get out of here and go for lunch." She conceded, and then added with a grin. "Seems to me that it's your turn to buy."

She was rewarded with a genuine smile and a nod.

Mel scrubbed her teeth awkwardly with her left hand, and glared balefully at the face in the mirror and its rabid appearance due to the toothpaste. She'd tried to sleep after she'd talked to Mrs. K, but the thoughts kept rolling around in her head and she wound up wandering around the house staring at one bare corner or another where a piece of her life had sat. With a bit of ingenuity and a plastic bag, she had managed a cursory shower and clean clothes. At least she'd look human even if she didn't feel like it.

Glancing at the calendar, something niggled in the back of her brain. Something else happened in June… 'What was it?' she wondered. The thought pestered her for several minutes when a burst of clarity rushed through her brain. 'Oh Yeah…' Her battered heart gratefully latched on to the happy thought. Nursing that tiny island in an ocean of grief, Mel made a quick decision and hurried to find her keys. If nothing else she knew she had to get out of this house full of painful memories and this was the best excuse going.

"Here." Mel said without any fanfare, pushing the small beautifully wrapped parcel across the table between the salt and peppershakers and the napkin holder.

A brilliant smile blossomed across Janice's face. "But my birthday isn't until Friday!" she exclaimed, none the less joyfully tearing away the paper. Endearingly the tiniest bit of the tip of her tongue peeked out of her mouth as she opened the box …and then she sighed, "Oh Mel, it's wonderful. Thank you!" Pulling the chain free she admired the silver medallion featuring the ancient symbol of the twins: gatekeepers into summer. "You couldn't have come up with anything better if you tried." She then stood and gave her friend a neat little kiss on the cheek, before hugging her tightly. "I absolutely love it."

"It's the very least I could do, after all you've done for me. I'm glad you like it." Mel replied quietly, as Janice released her back into her seat, the colour rising in her cheeks. "I really lucked out finding it in the third store I went into."

For the next minute or so after putting the necklace on, Janice simply sat quietly looking at her new jewellery, tracing the design with a fingertip and beaming. Then she looked up and captured Mel's eyes in a warm gaze that only broke when the food arrived.

Part 8

The Summer Solstice came and went without a single word from Joe. The stitches healed and were removed. The pages of the calendar in the bathroom counted the weeks that followed. However, Mel's heart was not healing at all. It thumped away in Mel's chest, a broken battered thing unable to do anything but move blood. If it was possible, Mel withdrew even further than she ever had before, answering questions with short exact words and falling into sullen silences. Days were gray things that came and went, with restless sleep in between. If not for the continuous momentum of routine, Mel's life would have staggered to a halt.

Janice did all she could to connect with her friend. Her calls were always gladly received, albeit one sided. And she made a point of stopping in for coffee on Tuesday nights if her shift didn't run too late. The fact that her friend worked during the day and she worked at night, didn't seem to stand in the way of their burgeoning friendship, rather it tempered it into a strong and flexible relationship of give and take. Mel wasn't the major contributor to their conversations, yet she was always a willing ear and eagerly tackled any little favor she could do for her friend. When it came to Janice, 'No' wasn't in her vocabulary.

Yet every time the phone rang Mel would jump. The dread of a phone call that would tell her that Joe had gone off the deep end or worse been killed, ate at her. Then she heard through mutual acquaintances that Joe and Terry were living in a small apartment on the far side of town and that Joe was an intern in minor law office as a paralegal. The news was a relief and hurt beyond imagining. It gnawed at her that her ex was well enough to have stable employment and that she should be happy for them, but all she could manage was bitterness. Being petty was alien to her and it was startling to recognize it in herself.

Much to her private embarrassment, Mel still couldn't sleep without the pillow that Joe had used. It took all of her willpower just to wash the bed linens, except for that pillow. Had all of those years of her life been a lie? Knowing that Joe was doing okay without her, both depressed and elated her. The rest of the world moved on and she stood still.

Standing on the sidelines watching her friend grow more quiet and pale day after day, Janice often mused while mopping or buffing, about what she could do or say that would bring the tall, shy, woman out of the quiet place she had exiled herself to. Idly, she would find herself playing with her Gemini medallion and wonder how her friend was doing.

The idea came to her one night while scrubbing crayon from the walls in a pediatrician's waiting room. It could go horribly wrong but the limbo that Mel was mired in couldn't be much worse. She needed to take an emotional pry bar to the silence and let a little air in. The fact that the anniversary of their meeting and consequently Mel's birthday, was looming in the next few days lent itself to a possibility.

She sprung her plot on Mel that very evening. "Will you be my pretend girlfriend?" She asked coyly over the lip of her coffee cup.

The poor woman didn't know whether to cough, choke, or run screaming off into the night. So she sat. …and stared. …and sat. Finally her brain fired enough times for Mel to work her jaw to make it open but no sound came out. A small wet choking noise started in the back of her throat and she managed to at least blink but still she was struck mute. Working a wooden tongue up between rubber lips, she finally managed a solid "Huh?"

"I said," Janice enunciated slowly, "Will you be my pretend girlfriend?"

Mel frowned, waiting for the punch line. When it wasn't forthcoming, she leaned back in her chair and arched a brow. "Have you been smoking those funny cigarettes Jan?" She asked.

The blonde laughed, "No. I need to shock my sister into not trying to fix me up every five minutes. She already thinks I spend too much time with you and not enough time dating. When the truth is, I am not even slightly interested in what she thinks is a 'good catch'." She shuddered to emphasize her point.

"Just what would being your 'pretend girlfriend' entail?" Mel asked dubiously, still uncertain that her friend wasn't pulling her leg. The fact that her little friend was snickering giddily across from her didn't help matters.

"Well…" She began, glad that her friend hadn't dismissed the notion out of hand. "We go out have some fun and I tell Lilly that I'm seeing someone, …you."

"You mean like out on a date 'fun', not just coffee like we usually do?"

"Yeah. We go to a Movie and then maybe supper and dancing at that club down in the industrial subdivision …what's it called? Oh yeah, 'The Pit'."

Mel frowned. "How do you know about The Pit?"

"Oh come on. Everybody knows about it."

Running her hands through her hair, Mel shook her head. "No. Jan, I just can't go back there." For the first time ever, Mel said no to her friend. The mere thought of that place unearthed painful memories; that returned often enough unbidden, without actually inviting them.

Undaunted Jan just changed tactics, "Okay, no dancing just supper and a movie. And…" she added, "You have to hold my hand in the lobby of the theater. I want Lilly's friend Ernie to see us. He can't keep anything to himself."

"Ernie?"

"Yeah," Janice made a sour face, "Blind date number five. All though the date he kept flipping his hair and talking about his car. …Please! You have to save me. These blind dates are getting up into the double digits now -- with no end in sight. I'm afraid she's going to start importing these lame guys soon. I've finally gotten my friends to stop trying to set me up. Now if only we could just make Lilly get a clue, I would be forever grateful."

Mel sat back and said nothing for a long time. More or less accepting that Jan was serious, she wondered if Janice had thought this whole wild scenario though and all the complications of being viewed in a gay relationship. "Jan…" she began, "What you are proposing could be dangerous. It's all fine and good to want to shock your sister but lots of people out right hate gays, …even if they are only pretending to be gay."

"I'm not planning on marching in a pride parade, Mel. I just want to go out, have some fun and accidentally be seen holding hands with you …my best friend. If people want to read something into that, fine."

The tall woman was warming to the idea, Janice could tell. She smiled her most pathetic puppy-dog smile and said, "Pleeeeease!" in her best whiny voice.

Shaking her head, Mel clapped her hands to the sides of her face and rolled her eyes. "What am I going to do with you?" She moaned rhetorically.

Janice pumped her arm into the air and started dancing around in Mel's kitchen. "I KNEW it!" She crowed.

"Hey, …wait a minute here. I smell a rat. You've already told your sister, haven't you?"

Janice stopped her little impromptu romp around the room. "Ummm…"

"You have!"

Janice did a terrible job of feigning innocence. "What if I did?"

Mel could help but start to laugh. "You little shit!" She bounced out of her chair and grabbed the little blonde, tickling her to within an inch of her life.

Part 9

"Okay, so how do you know this guy Ernie will be here?" Mel asked, trying not to feel self-conscious about the fact that her friend's hand was clasped lightly in her own.

"He works here as the assistant manager, also know as 'ticket taker guy'." Janice answered, indicating a foppish looking fellow with long feathered hair made ridiculous by a receding hairline. "Let's get some popcorn." She added, towing the tall woman behind her in the direction of the concession. "You want something to drink?"

"Jan, I wish you'd let me pay for something."

"For the last time …NO. This is my idea, your special day and my treat. If you want to pay for something, pay for the cover charge for dancing at The Pit."

"Nice try." The brunette replied wryly. "…But the answer is still no."

The smaller woman didn't push the issue, she just smiled saying, "Fine, I'm buying. Waddaya want? Butter on your corn, a coke, some candy maybe? Come on Mel, it's your birthday, …live a little!"

She couldn't help but give in to the onslaught of generosity being thrust at her, so Mel graciously conceded to being plied with a carry box filled with the very finest of junk food. "At this rate we won't need to go for supper after the show." She muttered, juggling the tray with one hand since Jan insisted on holding on to the other one.

Which left the tickets in Janice's free hand. She held them up grinning, to the aforementioned 'Ernie', AKA 'ticket taker man'. Surprisingly, he only took a couple of moments to notice the tickets since he was busy looking at Jan's other hand and quickly saved face with a business like tear of the tickets and a brisk "Enjoy the show."

Janice started to giggle even before they chose their seats. "Did you see that? He was so stunned that he forgot to flip his hair."

"Uh huh… Um… Jan you're gonna have to let go so I can sit down."

"Oh!" Sheepishly, the janitor let go of her friend's hand with a little squeeze. "Sorry about that. I guess I was enjoying the connection. I'm not usually this clingy with my 'dates', honest."

Mel just chuckled and took her seat.

It was a silly thing really. But Mel began tearing up when an old tune that had been 'their song', played in the background to a scene in the movie. Considering the movie was supposed to be a comedy she tried to keep quiet and hoped no one, especially her friend would notice. Instead of seeing a young couple chasing a duck around a kitchen, she kept getting flashes of holding Joe in her arms and dancing to the music. The pain was so raw it was all she could do to simply sit, her whole body clenched, waiting for the music to pass.

That happened all the time. She would come across a memento or an old photo that hadn't made it into the album and relive the happier time in the past. Then the pain would come and all the little things she had or hadn't done would gnaw at her. What if… I'd been more attentive; maybe I'd have noticed the signs sooner - gotten her help. Maybe it wasn't the illness at all -- maybe I'm just a bad lover, a poor partner. Questions without answers hammered at her soul.

'Not now dammit!' Mel thought silently. Angrily she forced down the depression that was crawling out of the dark shadows of the theater to steal what had been the first real fun that she'd had in very long time. 'It's MY birthday and I won't spend it in the past …not today.'

The scene increased in tempo and the wild farcical chase was reaching Keystone Cops proportions. Mel heard the musical laughter of her friend and let it wash down over all the scarred places inside. She felt the corners of her mouth turn up in an unfamiliar smile. For this moment she would the leave the past where it belonged and just enjoy being.

In their time in the theater, the evening had turned into the darkest part of twilight. Moviegoers spilled from the air-conditioned haven and out onto the sidewalk that still radiated with the day's sluggish summer heat. They moved past the two women that walked out hand in hand without even sparing them a second glance. Getting to the cool comfort of a moving vehicle was far more important.

Mel reached up with her free hand to push her glasses up on her nose as she leaned in to inspect the poster for next week's feature attraction. While she tried to pretend that she was interested in the colourful picture, she was very aware of the smaller fingers wrapped around her own. It felt good -- it felt bad. She was all mixed up inside.

"That was a funny show, I liked how the director used the duck as a metaphor for sexual tension." Janice said swinging their joined hands like a little girl. "What did you think?"

"It was very silly." The tall woman smiled, "But I think I'm acquiring a taste for 'silly'."

The conversation about the movie spilled over into the restaurant, Mel simply sat back and smiled between bites of pizza and nodded in all the right places. She even spoke a bit about a previous movie that she'd seen on television by them same director and then weighed the various images and performances by the actors. Emotionally she invested nothing -- living in the here and the now and let life delicately happen.

They said little else as they walked, again hand in hand, back to Janice's truck. Janice gallantly unlocked the passenger door first and relinquished Mel's hand. As she climbed in her own door she asked, "So what would you like to do now? Coffee? Bowling? A triple scoop at the Dairy Queen?"

Mel Laughed and shook her head. "No thanks Jan, supper and a movie was plenty for a pretend date. Don't get me wrong… I had a fantastic time. But I think I want to go home."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, it's been fun, Jan …honest."

The soft rumbling of the truck's engine coupled with the quiet music on the radio filled the cab of the pickup on the way home, it was as if neither woman wanted to break the spell of the calm summer evening. As Mel opened her door in her driveway, Janice surprised her by pulling her in for a soft little kiss, claiming that it wasn't a real pretend date without a 'goodnight kiss'.

"Happy birthday Mel." Janice said smiling, sliding back behind the wheel.

"Thank you." The tall woman responded graciously and stepped out onto pavement. Pushing the door shut, she turned and gave a little wink before heading up the walk.

Tossing her keys onto the small table in the entranceway, Mel frowned at the answering machine sitting there mutely, its little red light, dark as a closed eye. No one had called. Mel had secretly hoped that at the very least, Joe might have called and left a message to wish her a happy birthday. She sighed and thought back to her evening. It had been nice …to let go a float free for a few short hours. Here and now though, surrounded by the home she had tried to make with her partner, all the years and regrets thundered around the rooms. Getting a beer from the fridge, Mel sat in her recliner and stared at the bare spot above the couch.

It would have been so easy to keep drinking until she felt numb but instead she barely touched the bottle that dangled in her hand. Closing her eyes she replayed the evening and the warmth of her friendship with Janice. The pain was still there but it was a little further away, sitting on the far side of the room rather than pressing down on her chest. Gracefully, at that very moment, she accepted that her partner was not coming back. Both a small smile and a tear sat on opposite ends of her face. Her soul twisted and turned in on its self, because she felt lighter with the revelation and heavier with the grief of loss …and yet. And yet a warm little glow of happiness burned quietly in her chest from spending the evening with Janice.

A scant few blocks away, Janice sat brooding in the cab of her truck listening to the cooling engine hiss and click. The light was on in her kitchen, which meant only one thing; Lily was there. Probably wanting to talk. Before, this pretend date thing had been something nice to do for her friend that was hurting. And she hadn't been kidding about how much she wanted her sister to stop trying to set her up with every Tom, Dick and Ernie that she knew. It was just that now she wasn't so certain of her motivations.

The good night kiss had been a last minute inspiration. It had been brief and chaste, like a kiss she would have given her grandmother when saying goodbye. She hadn't counted on the warm rush that filled her chest or the crew of butterflies that started fluttering in precision drills in her stomach. Heck, the New Year's kiss had been longer and lustier and she hadn't felt any of these things at the time. It was like she had been standing in the shadows all of her life and all she had to do, was take a single step into the sun.

Note: This is the forth in a series of Alt fiction dealing with recovery from physical and emotional abuse. Please let me know what you think. - Rocky