For Rene
written by: Lade
Rene will not stop scrubbing the kitchen counter. She alternates between scrubbing and rubbing the back of her bruised neck as if she were scrubbing away something. Or someone. Me? I understood. She had to keep her hands occupied. If she stopped, she would start to feel. To think. And given how I feel now, that would be cataclysmic. Still, her silence is unbearable. I wish for her passion.
I stand in the doorway of her kitchen wanting to kiss the bruised part of her neck, the curve of it. But I do not say that. I know she will not look at me. She will probably never look at me again.
I have just told her that we have committed an abominable crime, but she has not stopped scrubbing. I told her that though we have not killed or stolen, it is just as disagreeable. “It is even worse than if we did those things, Rene. That is what my pastor said. Rene, do you hear me?”
Her hand stops, trembling on the counter for a few seconds, then she begins to scrub even harder. I watch as her frail fingers bleed onto the surface, and still she does not stop. What I really want is to go past this doorway, to comfort her, to hold and clean the rough palms that have held my face tenderly. To look into her eyes for longer than I am allowed.
But I am still standing here, leaning on the doorway, bouncing my right leg, as withered petals fall from the flowers I am holding. “A gift for you,” I had called them. “I picked them on my way here. The ones you like — from the sidewalk by the bookstore. Rene, please say something.”
The small, shrinking flowers will not stop falling. I have been here for quite a while, crouching now and then to pick them up with trembling fingers. “I do not know what to do to make you feel better, Rene. I have never done this before.”
This must be what insanity feels like. To want a person more than the air you breathe. This will be my bane, and I am not very sure that I mind it at all. I deserve this pain.
I just want her to feel better after all I have said. I feel cruel, but my Maker does not condone this. I have no choice. Can she not see that to be with her as I dreamed of it was to dishonor my existence and my origin?
My sister was the first person I told. I had been crying for weeks in my room about my feelings, the way my heart skipped too many beats when she smiled, the way I was fascinated by the rings on her fingers, the way her mannerisms seemed ethereal. The way she clapped her hand on my thigh as she laughed whenever I said something funny. The way I lost my mind when she kissed me, when she touched me.
The way I felt something I had never felt before. Devotion. It is a funny thing, understanding emotions. Accepting them is the hardest part.
I told my sister all of this. The turmoil, the confusion. “Have you ever felt this way before, Sarah?”
“Yes, but only with boys. I think you should see the pastor. I won’t tell Mum — just see the pastor.”
I did not miss the way she looked at me. I knew that look. I had been handed a cross to bear at birth, a terrible plague.
I saw the pastor and told him only that I would die if she left me. He jumped from his chair as if fire had been ignited beneath it. “Jesus,” he yelled, “save this girl from this spiritual uncleanliness!”
Now I was terrified. “Do you know this is an abominable sin?” he shouted. “Worse than murder! You burn with passion for the devil.”
His words made the guilt settle like a stone in my belly. I doubled over, clutching my chest, heaving. I had known I was condemned, but now I knew there was no hiding from an all-seeing God who abhorred my love for another woman.
He read from Romans 1:26–27: “For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature…” He paused, then shut the holy book — sealing my damnation. I sobbed hysterically at the rejection of what had come naturally to me.
“We will save you,” he said. “God will save you, using me and His word. Rescue is here for your soul. Now kneel!”
And when I knelt, he prayed aloud, called on God to descend, to purge, to cleanse, and through it all, I burned only for her. Rene.
Now, standing in the doorway of Rene’s kitchen, I was expected to break all forms of contact with her. To cleanse myself of her. But my thoughts negate my plans. I have returned to the church, the prodigal returning home to his father, the leper made whole. Yet nothing has changed. My salvation feels deceitful, my longing for her is all I know to be holy.
I stand completely enthralled, wanting her more than before. The depth of my feelings threatens to swallow me. The certainty of my doom stands before me in the body of this woman. It is in her lithe fingers and kind eyes, her sharp nose and high cheekbones, her narrow hips and strong shoulders, her crooked teeth and full lips. In the smile that transforms her face. In her compassion. Her consideration. It is in everything that she is.
I would never do better than her. The pastor did not know her.
“I should not say it,” I whisper, “but I love you. I could never love you less than I do now.”
Her hands stop. Did she hear me? I want her to hear me. Even now, as she stands doing nothing particularly remarkable, I am in awe of her. The strong scent of bleach and detergent fills the kitchen. It may all seem unsightly, but with her in it, it is sublime.
My knees buckle, and I fall to the ground, overwhelmed by her presence. I do not know anymore whether to ask God to forgive me or to worship her for the rest of my life. My position on my knees, doubled over in tears, finally draws her attention, and I am almost grateful for the weakness I feel.
She is yelling at me. It is the first time I have seen her be something other than understanding, and I am the reason.
“You are very unkind, Lydia. You call what we have an abominable sin, but do you know that I have only felt alive when I am with you? Living has never felt this way. Now you hurt me and say it is for your God. You seek forgiveness with lips that have touched mine. You clasp fingers that have caressed my body together in prayer. If what you seek is penance, stand up and go elsewhere, because you will never find it with me.”
“It is unfair that you keep your head down in silence,” she whispers after a while, out of breath.
I stay kneeling on the floor, my head between my knees. My trousers are soaked with tears. I am cold, shivering, even though the sun shines brightly outside. Its rays pierce the bars of the window, shadowing me, but my teeth clatter. My chest feels constricted, as though I am in a box that is shrinking, soon to be crushed until my blood and flesh squirt out.
I feel her anguish, and I want it to bruise me. I want her pain to become mine. I want her to feel my love, but not like this. I want her to feel it when I kiss her, when I hold her.
“Please hate me if you must,” I want to say, “but never lose your light. It is beautiful.”
But the words stay trapped in my throat.
Words of prayer float through my mind, but they mean nothing to me. It would comfort me more to live my life with her and be turned away at heaven’s gate than to spend eternity apart. Yet I cannot bring myself to fall so completely, to hold her as I desire, knowing heaven itself would turn its face from me.
Maybe if she despised me, I could be free. Maybe her hatred would absolve us both. But I have known her love, and it is steadfast and bright.
I look at her now, tears streaming down my face. She stands above me, her strength mirrored in defiance. She wipes a stray tear from her cheek.
“Leave! If I really am filth to you, leave now!” she says, pointing toward the door, her face contorted in pain.
“Please, Rene,” I whisper between sobs. It is the first thing I have said since she raised her voice. I do not know what I am begging for, her arms or my absolution. I cannot tell.
“Get up and leave. And I never want to see you again, Lydia.”
I rise at last, my face wet with tears, moving toward her instead of the door she had pointed at. There is that invisible pull that has always drawn me closer to her. She does not flinch. She does not retreat. She only stands there, breathing unevenly, her gaze fixed somewhere beyond me.
When I reach up and brush away a tear that has escaped down her cheek, she trembles.
In that moment, her words seemed to have read like a revelation to me; they had revealed a truth I had not been willing to admit. I am not ready to leave her. I doubt I ever will be.
