The moon was sharp above them, a slash in the velvety black sky. The smell of the sea hung in the cool air. Miranda threw a rock into the water. She stared stupidly at Leanne. She took Leanne's hands in hers. She felt Leanne tremble. Miranda looked at her in surprise. Leanne moved a step closer. Miranda wondered if she was trembling, too. Yes, she was. She was trembling, too. She watched herself from far away, from another life, and thought, This is it, it's all over, over a cliff, feet still running, thin air, high above the hard, jagged earth.
"I wanted to talk to you," she said again. But she didn't talk. She let her fingers move across Leanne's lips, the top lip, the bottom lip. She let her hand move across Leanne's cheek, past her ear, until she held Leanne's head cupped in her hand. She let her hand pull Leanne's head toward her. She let her face move in to Leanne's face, let her lips press against Leanne's lips.
21
Betty died the next week. The infection had gone to her heart. The cottage, so small, loomed huge and empty around Annie and Miranda. The sky lowered.
Miranda wandered from room to room in the cottage in the night, the moonlight tinny and weak. She made her way up the stairs. She remembered the night she had stood at the top of the steps and watched her mother sleep. The night of cicadas. There were no cicadas now.
Her mother had been so small and pale.
She looked at the bed, her mother's bed, empty of her mother.
"Oh, Mommy," she said out loud.
Or was it Annie who had said it? Annie was somehow beside her. They were lying in their mother's bed clinging to each other.
"Mommy," they said. "Oh, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy."
"Now, you see?" said Felicity. "You have provided for your stepdaughters very generously."
Joseph said, Yes, that was true. Betty had left them everything. The apartment and the settlement would all go to Miranda and Annie.
"As it should," he said.
"Well, should, could, would--it's all thanks to you. Thanks to you and your sense of what's right and just, Annie and Miranda are heiresses now," Felicity said. "God bless them."
Joseph nodded. His girls would be very comfortable, it was true.
"I'm so glad I was able to be supportive of you and your relationship with them. Family first, I have always said."
Even so, he asked Felicity not to accompany him to the funeral.
"Family first," she had repeated rather severely, but Joseph did not answer. He poured his own drink that night and took it with him into his study and closed the door.
Annie and Miranda took a break from crying for a cup of coffee. Annie noticed the coffeepot in her hand, the cups she put out, the good ones, the ones Betty liked. She tipped the pot and the coffee flowed in an arc to the cup. Why? she wondered. Why did the coffee bother? The phone rang. It was a cousin from Buffalo. She gave the information: Tomorrow. Riverside. My apartment after. Yes, thank you so much. She really was. I know you do. I love you, too. Her coffee was cold.
"We're orphans," Miranda said. She began to cry again.
Oh, Miranda, must you? But Annie cried, too, and held her sister tight.
They had done nothing that morning but call people on the phone, informing, arranging, crying. They had slept all night curled together in Betty's bed.
They drank their coffee and sat quietly, worn out.
"I'll sort of miss this place," Annie said after a while.
Miranda scratched her head with both hands, pulled her hair violently away from her face, made a peculiar half-sigh, half-groan, and said, "I'm staying."
And then she told Annie.
"And Leanne felt the same way for months, but she didn't say anything, either, because, really, it's, well . . ."
"Embarrassing?" Annie was shocked. Did things like that happen, just like that? "Just like that?" she said. "Just like that?"
"You think I should have done an apprenticeship? Yes, just like that, just like that, the way any change happens, any realization, any . . . well, any falling in love."
"I don't do things just like that," Annie said. "I do things gradually."
"Good. Then you can fall in love with a wonderful woman gradually."
"Oh, Miranda, you know what I mean. It's just . . . well, I'm surprised, that's all. And I guess I feel a little betrayed."
"It's not like I joined the Confederate Army."
"And I'm worried, too," Annie said. "I mean, is this another one of your stunts? Because, Miranda, there's a little boy involved."
A dreamy look came over her sister's face. "Henry," she said.
"You're not doing this just to get to Henry, are you? That would be really sick."
"You know what?" Miranda said, giving her a kiss. "For once, you don't have to worry about me, Annie. You really, really don't."
Annie wondered if that could ever be true. She said, "I guess I'm really happy that you're happy, Miranda.
"Mommy knew," she added after a while.
"Knew what?"
"About Leanne, I think."
"Maybe." Miranda drummed on the kitchen table nervously for a few seconds, her lips pursed, tears running down her cheeks. "Maybe. She knew a lot."
Miranda and Leanne had decided to stay in the cottage together with Henry. "And guess what?"
"What?" Annie was worn to the bone with surprises. What could really be a surprise except death, always a surprise, that inevitable surprise?
"Leanne and I are getting married."
"Oh, for God's sake, Miranda."
Miranda smiled. Innocent. Ingenuous. Enraging.
"I thought you didn't believe in marriage," Annie said. "What, you only believe in gay marriage?"