Coming Home from Lost

huge thanks to Redgarters and THBGato for all the help and advice with this one.

to the extent that this is any good, it's because of them.

COMING HOME FROM LOST

THE COTTAGE

Fiona was wrapped in a blanket in the comfy chair by the fire, nominally reading The Wild Duck, but actually was staring out the window into the storm; watching the rain pound the glass and the wind whip up the lake. But she wasn't seeing that either. A sudden flash of lightning and instant crash of thunder startled her out of her reverie with a small yelp. The pounding at the door was more insistent, but that didn't make sense, thunder doesn't sound like that. So then what is that?

"Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before," she muttered to herself. She stood and stretched, there wasn't going to be anyone visiting at this time of night, this far out of town, in this storm; but whatever: open wide she flung the door.

Dawn.......... standing there.................. soaked and bedraggled......... shivering.....

"Oh, you" Fiona looked at her with, what? Shock; confusion; fear; surprise? Yes, definitely surprise. "Um, get out of the rain!" She grabbed Dawn and dragged her through the door.

The two women looked at each other for a lifetime until Fiona broke the silence. "Why are you here?"

"I, ah, I um, it's ahh............... I love you." Instantly Dawn dropped her eyes and seemed to shrink into the growing puddle of water at her feet.

"What the fuck! WHAT THE FUCK DAWN? FUCK YOU, you can't do this!" Fiona ran into the kitchen and started slamming cupboards open and closed, cursing and crying. "Fuck, fuck!"

Tentatively Dawn followed her, "what are you looking for?"

"Vodka, whiskey, alcohol, I don't have enough alcohol for this conversation," she continued slamming drawers and kicking the kick board. There wasn't any, Fiona knew there wasn't any, she had thrown it all out and very deliberately avoided having it in the cottage, after....... that, after all that.

"OK, coffee then. You're freezing, you need something hot," Fiona tried, as emotionlessly as she could manage. Fiona started the coffee and then turned into that small useless space by the fridge and buried her face in her hands while the coffee maker gurgled.

Dawn stood, in the kitchen, as far away as still possible in the small space. Her guts were twisted, and the only way she had the will to keep standing was from a month of steeling herself for this; or was it years? In another life she would have run to Fiona and held her while She cried into her hair. In another life. In that life Fiona's hair was brighter red, now it was a more subdued orangish. In that life Fiona would have been wearing those cute pajamas and not these horrid sweats. In that life Fiona would have been cheerful and witty, not crying. That life was gone.

Fiona struggled frantically to get a grip on her metabolism, the blood was pounding in her head and her vision was blurred. She could feel Dawn behind her, standing in the entry to the kitchen. Fiona's heart had stopped when Dawn had asked "what are you looking for?" just like she always did, just as if she'd put something away in the wrong place again, and Fiona couldn't find it. Just like in that other life. Just like they were making dinner together and Dawn had put the pasta sauce in the fridge instead of the pantry. It was all so normal; it didn't seem strange at all that she would be standing there again after six fucking years and eight goddamn months. Of course she would be there, where else would she be? But it was so strange, so so strange, that the empty space was no longer empty.

"Here's your coffee." Fiona pushed past her and returned to the comfy chair. She wrapped herself up in the blanket again. It was still that same blanket; their blanket.

Dawn sat on the floor in the dark corner on the other side of the fireplace. There were no other chairs in this room; the comfy chair was big enough for two people if they liked each other enough. But now this room was too small for them. The fire was warm; Dawn could feel her skin practically burning, but the fire wasn't hot enough to melt all the ice in the room.

Fiona looked into the shadows where Dawn was sitting, in the farthest corner away from her, like she was afraid of her. Afraid of her: the person she should never be afraid of, the person who had told Dawn so many times they didn't need to be afraid of anything as long as they were together. She didn't sit on the floor in front of her, leaning back into the comfy chair so Fiona could tangle her fingers in that long, flowing, sensual, raven black hair. She wasn't playing her mandolin, humming softly while Fiona pretended to read. She was sitting placidly in the corner waiting, waiting for Fiona to make the decision that would change everything again. Dawn sat in the dark corner strongly, so composed, steadily watching her... placidly waiting. Her dark hair, and dark skin, and dark eyes melded into the shadows around her, giving a look of immortality to the tall woman.

The room was so cold, Fiona pulled the blanket tighter. She wanted Dawn to join her in the comfy chair; she wanted to scream her lungs out at Dawn; she wanted to snuggle into Dawn's hair and cry herself to sleep; she wanted to tear Dawn's hair out; she wanted to run out into the freezing rain and freeze; she wanted Dawn to hold her tight and keep her from the cold......

"What happens now, Dawn? What now?"

"I'll go now, sorry. Thanks for letting me warm up, thanks for the coffee. I just had to say that, I needed you to know. I'm sorry, I'll leave." Her voice was fluid and sensuous as she stood up in one easy motion.

"Don't be stupid, you can't go out into that again. Sit down!"

Dawn sat.

Fiona's green eyes burned into her for what felt like forever, squeezing her soul like only She could do. If Dawn could have pulled deeper into the shadows she would have. Then finally...

"OK, I can't deal with this tonight. We will talk tomorrow. You will stay here. It's late, it's cold, you need to go to bed. You know where your stuff is. It's cold, you should turn the electric blanket on."

"But there's only one bed here... and you..."

"I'm sleeping out here." Fiona got up and pulled an old sleeping bag from a closet and threw it down on the rug in front of the fireplace. "Go to bed. I just can't look at you right now."

Dawn staggered to her feet and stumbled toward their, I mean Her, bedroom; her earlier composure shattered, now failing miserably to hold back the tears. How many times had they slept together in front of that fire, back in that life? "But you shouldn't have to, this is your house.... " And not calling it 'our cottage' tore Dawn's heart to pieces.

"Shut up. Just go to bed, Dawn. Just shut up, I can't deal with you tonight. Go to bed, just shut up."

Fiona tried to sleep, couldn't sleep with Dawn mere steps away. But Dawn didn't come that night and spoon up behind her by the fire, and slide her hand up to hold Fiona's boob the way that she loved. What would she have done if Dawn had snuggled up behind her, and tossed that flowing cascade of hair across her shoulders, and..... Fiona knew exactly what she would have done.

---

Dawn woke up a little after six and She was gone. After going pee she looked at her phone and saw a message from an unknown number: call when you're ready. Dawn saved the number as a new contact: Her. Well at least now she had Her number again, so the trip was worth that much, anyway.

But now what to do? What, really, was supposed to come out of this? It was a stupid, half baked idea. Dawn cursed herself for a fool, she'd never had a real plan. Every time she'd tried to anticipate what would happen when she met Her again, a numbness took over her brain. There was no plan, just the compulsion to see Her again and say those words. There hadn't been any realistic idea of what would happen after that.

OK, so call Her. And say what, exactly? One thing at a time, get some coffee first. Then she called the number.

"Hello Dawn."

"Um hi. So I apologize for just unexpectedly showing up in the middle of the night. The flight landed at like 8 and by the time I got a car and drove out and everything..... well sorry. I didn't have your number."

"No, I changed it after I, when you... yeah, after. So look, I don't understand what this is about, and I don't know if I want to understand. After 6 and a half years you show up in the middle of a goddamn thunderstorm and lay that on me. What the fuck? Do you think we're just going back to what it used to be, just like that? That's not the way it works."

"I know, God, I'm so sorry. I don't know what I thought, I haven't been able to think about..... well.... anything. No, I know. But I was wrong about a lot of stuff, and I've figured out stuff, and I just thought, well maybe hoped... I don't know. And I couldn't call you, but I knew you were teaching at the University now, so I just came here."

"Typical. You just randomly go off with some half-baked idea and think it's all going to magically work out. That is so you." There was a hint of a chuckle in Her voice. "So OK, you have no idea what the fuck you're doing, again." The eye-roll was obvious in Her voice. "While you're figuring that out, you can stay in Our...... you can stay there. OK, so I need to get back to work, I'll talk to you later. Bye Dawn." And with that, the call went dead.

Dawn looked at the phone in her hand, it felt so good to hear Her voice again; this time not crying and swearing at her. She had sounded careful, reserved, but at least not hateful. That was something, at least. And She had almost called it Our Cottage, almost........... but She didn't.

So now what? Food probably would be a good idea, Dawn thought. Maybe it would be possible to eat today, it certainly wasn't yesterday. OK then, food. She had said she could stay for a while, but it wouldn't be fair to eat all Her food. Dawn went and started the shower, she still felt bedraggled and strung out from yesterday, a hot shower and then grocery shopping.

Dawn dried herself off and then walked back to their, rather Her bedroom. Last night she'd found her nightgown in exactly the same drawer where it belonged and she didn't look any further. Today she rummaged around in the closet and the dresser, snooping. All of Her clothes were different now, there was nothing Dawn recognized. But all Her new clothes were exactly the same size that She always wore; didn't seem to be any reason why She had entirely replaced Her wardrobe. Odd that there was nothing of Hers left from that life, but all of her own things were exactly the same.

Dawn found a few of her own things, right where she expected them to be. When Dawn had left that day she didn't do a very thorough job packing; actually, she did little more than stuff a few handfuls of random things into a suitcase and run aimlessly into the setting sun. How stupid! So dramatic! Well she hadn't been thinking straight that day, week.... couple months.... Finally, crying her guts out eventually brought some clarity. But by then She had changed Her phone number.

Dawn put on some jeans that once had been her favorite, or maybe they had been Her favorite; She always liked when Dawn wore them. Then finding a top she had totally forgotten about, put it on, brushed her hair, a bit of makeup and felt together enough to go out the door.

She locked the door behind her and was halfway to the car when she realized - her key had worked. The key she had carried for so many years still worked; She hadn't changed the locks. Dawn stumbled and her eyes blurred: she could have walked back in through that door at any time; nothing had been stopping her; nothing but her own fear.

It wasn't a big city and not much had changed since..... all that. Everyone knows that you shouldn't grocery shop on an empty stomach, so a quick lunch first. It was well past noon, the lunch crowd should be thinning out by now. There were plenty of open places in the little bistro. Dawn took her sandwich and lemonade to a booth in the back and sat down with her back to the door. Dawn ate her sandwich without noticing it and was poking at the ice in her lemonade when She sat down opposite in the booth.

"I thought you would be here," She had a smirk on Her face. "So how was the club sandwich?"

"Just like always", Dawn grinned back at Her.

"OK, so you have some explaining to do. Let's start with what you thought would happen when you inexplicably show up in the middle of the night in a fucking storm looking like a drowned kitten."

"Um, so I had two scenarios," Dawn was looking embarrassedly at her empty plate. "The one was that we would rush into each other's arms and confess our undying love, then fall asleep together blissfully and live happily ever after."

"You're crazy, you know that, right?" But She didn't look upset, just kind of mildly amused. "OK, what is the other scenario?"

"Um, well that's the one where you introduce me to your husband and three children, and then I run out into the storm and throw myself off the cliff to be dashed to pieces on the jagged rocks below; and the waves carry my smashed and lifeless body out to sea to be devoured by sharks."

Now She burst out laughing hysterically. "'Dashed to pieces on the jagged rocks below'?!?! Seriously? Only you would say that!.. God Dawn, you are so melodramatic!"

After She stopped laughing She took a drink from Dawn's lemonade. Then She scowled and her voice took on a strained aspect, "Husband and three kids..... I heard you were getting married." It wasn't a question, it wasn't an accusation, it was just a statement laid out flat on the table between them.

Dawn didn't feel nervous, nor trapped, nor suddenly anxious, just a little sad. "I don't know how that rumor started... he worked for my Dad at his law firm. My parents really liked him, and he really is a great guy, I just didn't feel anything for him. But we dated, almost two years. And I told him I didn't want to have sex before we got married; his family goes to the same church as mine so that was totally believable. And he was going to wait, well he did wait. I kinda strung him along for a long time just because I didn't want to disappoint my parents, it was a really shitty thing to do to him. I'm pretty sure he intended to propose to me. So then I bought that cabin in upper Michigan and skipped town. Yeah, I ran out on him too. I guess I do that a lot."

She stabbed viciously at the ice in the glass of lemonade for a long time, and eventually She asked, "OK, so in your crazy, overactive imagination, did it ever occur to you that neither one of your scenarios was actually very likely, and that really we would be sitting here, in this booth again, and I would be demanding answers from you?"

"No? But I guess that was obvious right?"

She rolled Her eyes, "why did I ever fall...... OK yeah. That should have been obvious. So then let's just get right to the point; what reason did you give? Have you told your parents that you're a lesbian?"

"Please don't yell at me, but........ I don't exactly think I am......"

She was about to go off on Dawn, but something about the look on her face made Her pause and bite Her tongue.

"I wanted to figure that out, so I tried dating other women...." Dawn started and trailed off.

>>>>>>>

Katie was cute, very cute. A couple years younger and nearly a foot shorter than Dawn with an amazing ass and perfect boobs. A cheerful bubbly disposition that was infectious and an adorable grin. She had short, very blonde hair in a pixie cut and looked every bit the mischievous little elf. She was a nurse at the local hospital, a good reliable job. It was totally inexplicable that nobody had scooped her up yet. This was their fifth date and Dawn knew she was dragging her feet, it was obvious enough that the younger woman was expecting something more to happen soon. The burgers were OK and the beer was ordinary; there were not many options around here.

This was their fifth date and it was obvious Katie was expecting Dawn to make a move. She had pointedly asked on their earlier dates if Dawn was involved with anyone, and specifically said she was looking for something serious. Dawn had denied being attached, but equivocated about the whole future expectations bit. What was she even doing here, just looking for a rebound relationship? Can it even be a rebound when all that happened 4 years ago?

This was their fifth date, if Dawn wanted anything to happen here then she just needed to get over herself and make it happen. Dawn focused on the conversation and turned on all the charm she could muster. She flirted, made jokes, gave Katie every compliment she could think of. It worked: the cute blonde's energy increased four notches and her eyes sparkled like a gazillion stars. They left together and Dawn followed Katie to her house, which was in town and closer.

They started to have a glass of wine on the couch, but that didn't last long. Katie slid in close and was nibbling her ear and feeling her up. She climbed on Dawn's lap, kissing her and pulling up her shirt, hands inside her bra, hands running up her sides, tongue on her neck, her hot pussy millimeters from Dawn's own, separated only by the fabric of their jeans, rubbing, rubbing; the smell of steamy cunt filling the room.

Dawn pulled back, "This is wrong...... I....... I........"

"Dawn, what?!??!? What are you doing? You can't run off and leave me like this now!"

run off...... can't run off now...... leave me......

The words stung in Dawn's brain and seared her soul; that's what she had done to Her. In response Dawn spun violently and pushed Katie into the cushions of the couch and unbuttoned her jeans. In one movement she yanked the blonde's jeans and panties down to her ankles. Crawling between Katie's legs, Dawn buried her face into the blonde's soaking snatch. Dawn loved the taste and smell of tangy twat, she really did, and she ate it with a relish. If she closed her eyes, Dawn thought, she can pretend it's Her.

"Stop! Stop! Can't take any more....... God..... oh fuck...... Dawn.... need to rest....." Katie was gasping for air and twitching in a sweaty, sticky pile of mush.

Dawn didn't know how many times the blonde had cum, wasn't counting, had only been focused on the image of a beautiful girl with fiery red hair. She pulled her face out of the blonde bush and looked up, rocked back on her knees, Katie's legs and jeans still wrapped around her neck. It was a blonde girl in front of her; it wasn't Her. Dawn blinked and stared.

She extricated herself from the tangle and stumbled to her feet. "Gotta go", her eyes were full of tears and she couldn't see. She tripped on the coffee table and crashed to the floor sending wine and glasses flying. She crawled around until she found her purse and then staggered to her feet and out the door. She was sobbing uncontrollably, "not a cheater...... I'm sorry....... I don't......... not cheat....... sorry..."

<<<<<<<

Dawn blinked and pulled herself back into the present. "God, FiFi, it was such a disaster, she probably hates me forever. I ran out on Katie, I ran out on Jimmy, I ran out on you... So I don't know what I am, except a coward. And I know that I didn't love them and that I do love you. I feel like the only one I can love is you, specifically." Dawn's voice had become tiny.

"Hmmmpf!!" She got up and took the now empty lemonade glass over for a refill. After an inordinately long time, She sat down again. "So hypothetically speaking, supposing we don't get back together, what then?"

"Um, then I throw myself off that cliff to be dashed to pieces on the jagged rocks............" Dawn half grinned at Her shyly.

"Soooo fucking melodramatic," She was slowly shaking her head and - that look was something between a grin and writhing in torture - at Dawn. "OK, so a couple things: I'm not going to predict what may or may not happen; you can stay in Our.... um at, ah, there, until you figure your shit out; and I'm kinda seeing someone right now so nothing is happening any time soon."

Dawn knew that was a possibility, had known that really it was the most probable possibility; there was no reason to expect She would just be waiting around. But hearing Her say it now, out loud, made it real; very, very real. It took a while, the tears were just under the surface and Dawn was on the verge of being sick but she'd had years of practice fighting that down. Taking a breath, "I was going to make supper tonight, what time will you be ho-?" It was impossible to say that word without falling apart.

"I won't," She said flatly. "Stay there as long as you need, I'll come h-, I'll come, go back, there, later. When you're not... you don't need it, when you leave again." Her voice was carefully controlled and She was looking past Dawn at nothing.

"But now I'm going back to work, I have a class at 14:30." She glanced at Her watch, the one Her mother gave Her for graduation; Dawn remembered that night. "And I've only had 15 hours to process this, it's enough for one day. So I'll see you tomorrow and we can really talk."

"Fifteen?"

"The clock on the coffee maker read 21:44 when I made your coffee last night." She grinned at Dawn and stood up. "Bye DeeDee," softly, and then walked quickly out the door. She always insisted on using 24 hour time - it made the math easier, She said.

Dawn put all the groceries away, then brought in from the rental car the one bag with the few clothes she had packed. Being here again was - what's the word, poignant? melancholy? weird? yeah all that, but not just that. It was so familiar, but she felt like she didn't belong here anymore... no, not anymore. She crumpled onto the floor and started to cry; a quiet, choking, bitter, gasping cry. Everything was ruined because she had been stupid and scared. So stupid. So scared. She ran away from the thing that mattered most. Everything had been perfect and she ruined it. Why? Stupid, stupid idiot.... so stupid.....

"I've been telling myself that for years and what good does it do me?" Dawn said out loud and sat up. She didn't bother to stand, just crawled over and into their comfy chair and wrapped up in their blanket. It smelled like Her. The familiar smell took her back to the beginning.

>>>>>>>

They met in college, of course, so typical. They'd had a few freshman classes together but didn't really get to know each other until the next year. A few months into their sophomore year, Dawn came to lunch one day and saw Fiona sitting alone glumly in the farthest corner, and sat down beside her. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"My boyfriend broke up with me."

"Then he's a moron, you're the hottest girl on campus!"

"It's not that, he says that too, but we don't, I mean, I don't..... Well, sex with him is just boring and I don't like it. So he gets frustrated with me."

"You don't like sex?"

"Well theoretically I do, but with him it feels meaningless."

They talked long past their next classes; they got a few bottles of wine and went to Fiona's room; they talked until all hours of the night, and they fell asleep in their clothes on top of her bed.

The rest of the year they spent all their free time together. Dawn was studying Graphic Design, and Fiona had a dual major in Electrical Engineering and Applied Mathematics, so they had classes on opposite sides of the campus. But they met for lunch; they went to parties together and made fun of all the guys; they just hung out and painted each other's toes; they studied together, each absorbed in her own work and not talking, just feeling the closeness. They became inseparable.

Fiona was everything that Dawn was not: drop dead gorgeous, smart, admired, envied, hated, confident, feared, respected. Being known as Fiona's friend suddenly gave Dawn prestige she had never known. Lifted her out of being the dumb black girl from inner-city Toledo, into a society that had been previously inaccessible. People took her seriously now, because Fiona took her seriously. And Fiona could be downright vicious to anyone else, but to Dawn she was always tender.

Somewhere in there they started having sex together. That was a surprising night. One minute they were at a party plotting to hook up with some guys, and next minute they were back in Fiona's room fucking each other. It was the first time either of them had been with another girl.

In mid-spring, they made their relationship official. Fiona was a vision of perfection in a green pastel dress that was indescribable. Her fiery hair was held up with a clasp and a ribbon to match her dress; long dangly earrings with soft green stones that contrasted perfectly against the smooth creamy skin of Her perfect neck, with a matching necklace. Dawn stood entranced.

"Well, are you ready then?" Fiona giggled teasingly.

"You are fucking gorgeous!" Dawn gasped.

Most of the night was kind of a blur, the dinner was excellent, but Dawn couldn't focus on anything except Her. While they were waiting for dessert She asked Dawn to be Her girlfriend, "You know, officially?" and Dawn blurted out "YES" without the slightest thought about what it meant to be the girlfriend of a girl and her best friend.

They slowly undressed each other in their room after dinner. Something about it being their first time as girlfriends made this time special. Tonight they were women making love and not just college kids fooling around. And when the morning light inflamed the curly locks of the goddess sleeping in her arms, Dawn understood that She is The One.

<<<<<<<

The grandfather clock chimed 1800 and startled Dawn back into the present and reminded her of supper. "She's going to be home soon....... no, I guess She's not," and wilted back down into the comfy chair. After an interminable amount of time, then "and this was supposed to be Our Little Cottage, but now I guess that's not either." And cried herself to sleep, alone in the chair that was big enough for them both.

In the morning Dawn walked out onto the dock with her morning coffee and sat on the end, bare feet dangling in the water. and the dawn comes up like thunder, out'r China, cross the bay - the words She always said sprang unbidden into Dawn's head. "And the beauty of the fiery sunrise is again bested by you this morning," she spoke quietly to the woman who wasn't sitting next to her, and smiled sadly. "I so wish I could have all this back, how do I get it back?"

It was late summer, school had just started a few weeks ago. She would be extra busy with new students and have little extra time. This was really terrible timing for Dawn to have come down here. "OK, I didn't have a plan and that was stupid, so now I need a plan." Talking it through out loud always made Dawn engage the right side of her brain more and follow a more linear process. When she was painting or drawing, her mind could flow freely and she didn't have to try. The shapes and colors, sounds and smells, memories and dreams all intermingled and came together on the page under her hands. "She told me to figure it out, figure out what I want. OK, I need to paint it then." Painting what she wanted in her life was easy, but how to make that a reality? So that's what Dawn would do, first she would paint it.

Dawn took a gulp of coffee and walked back up. She opened the door to the little closet by the screen porch; all her stuff was still there. The easel propped in the corner; a clay vase of brushes covered in cobwebs; rolls of canvas, paints, all still in the same place. She dusted off the easel and set it up, and pulled a chair up facing out toward the lake.

----

At 13:10 Dawn was sitting in their booth at the back of the Bistro with her club sandwich, a chicken cranberry salad across from her, and a glass of lemonade between them. This time she was watching the door, waiting. She glanced at her phone, 13:12, and started to get nervous. Maybe she'd misunderstood, but that couldn't be right. She quite clearly had said "I'll see you tomorrow" (which was now today); there was nothing else that could mean. By 13:19 Dawn was fidgeting with her phone and wondering if she should call, when She walked through the door with an annoyed scowl on Her face. But She gave Dawn a big smile when She saw Her salad waiting, and slid into the seat opposite.

"Thanks DeeDee. What's wrong? You look worried."

"I was a little, I thought maybe you weren't coming, maybe I didn't understand." Dawn visibly relaxed.

"Four minutes, seriously? Am I that predictable?" She took a sip of the lemonade and leaned back into the cushion. "Oh God, what an ordeal. Brian just would not shut up, and then some idiot in a junk car was stalled in the middle of the road.... ugh; anyway! Blackberry." She smirked at Dawn as She sipped more lemonade, "are you trying to get me to fall in love with you?"

"Am I that predictable?" Dawn smirked back at Her.

Her eyes burned into Dawn's soul for a long while; those intense green eyes squeezing her heart and mind. "I asked you for answers, but first I'm going to tell you this.

"You hurt me so bad DeeDee, when you left. You never answered my calls, you never texted me back, I had no idea where you were or what was going on. I couldn't ask your parents, not without telling them what you didn't want to tell them. Months, and months and months. You just left, and disappeared, and never told me why. Do you know how that made me feel? Like I was nothing to you, nothing but some wasted years of your life. Everything I thought we had, everything I thought we planned together, gone like that. You were everything to me, everything I wanted, and then you were just gone. Gone.

"I was a wreck, for years I was so fucked up. I drank a lot, for a long time; a lot. I barely finished my doctoral thesis. I wouldn't have, except that my adviser drug me back into life and rode my ass until I got it done. It was shit, a piece of shit, but good enough I guess, and I finished my doctorate. Dr. Madison, she saved me I guess, gave me so much work I didn't have time to think about you, rode my ass and dragged my sorry self out of bed more than once. I was a total wreck.

"For years; it took me a long time to put myself back together. I stopped drinking, totally stopped. I started doing yoga, it helped. I volunteered at the pet shelter, anything to get out and keep moving so I didn't have to think about you. Fuck, I even went to church for a while." She burst out laughing.

"So yeah, it was really bad. You nearly killed me DeeDee. So now here you are again. Same time and place where we always got lunch. And you got us blackberry lemonade. And it's just like nothing ever happened but nothing is still the same. For six years and 8 months it was all over; it's not just not all over now. What am I supposed to do with this? Whatever you tell me, how do I know it means anything this time? Everything didn't mean anything to you last time. What the fuck am I supposed to do with you?

"You can't answer that. Even if you think you have the answer, I'm not sure I would believe you again DeeDee. Even if you think that you believe it yourself, how can I trust that you really know yourself what you want? Six fucking years and eight goddamn months, DeeDee. I can't reopen all those wounds, I can't do all that again. I can't, I can't do it, I just can't......."

Dawn's face was buried in her hands, quietly sobbing with guilt and shame. It was all her own fault, her own damn fault. The one person in the world that really mattered was wrecked by her own damn, stupid fear. There was no undoing that, no way to make it right, it could never be perfect again. But She didn't see Dawn crying, Her own eyes were unfocused and pointed a million miles away; Her own tears held back by six fucking years and eight goddamn months of practice.

"What? I'm sorry, what was the question?" She turned Her head and took notice of the girl who usually worked the counter.

"I asked if you need anything else. Should I clear these away?" she gestured at the untouched salad and sandwich. "You've both been just kind of sitting here a long time, are you OK?"

"Um, we're fine. DeeDee, eat your sandwich. What time is it?" She glanced at Her watch. "Shit, I have class in 23 minutes. Can I get a box to go for my salad?"

-----

When Dawn got back to the little cottage by the lake she started on her painting. She had needed to get new paints, everything was dried up and hard; and a new sheet of canvas bigger than anything she'd had already, and a few new brushes to replace the ones chewed up by mice. By dark she had it sketched out. By 11:00 the next morning she had most of the large shapes filled in.

----

When Dawn walked into the Bistro She was already there, waiting. "Hi FiFi," she said sitting down across from Her. She took a sip of the lemonade, it was plain lemonade; she grinned.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry for everything. I know you can't believe me, can't trust me. I don't trust myself. I've ruined everything, I know that, and I know I can't fix that. It's all my own fault and I just need you to know that. I needed to tell you.

She paused, took a deep breath, "You deserve an explanation.... it's too late now to matter but you deserve to know. Everything was pressing in on me, all the pressure..... I didn't know what to do........ so I ran away. I thought if I could get some space for a couple days I would figure it out, but I couldn't figure it out. And then I was scared, I was afraid of how mad you would be with me, so I kept putting off calling you back. The longer I waited, kept putting it off, the worse it was and the harder it was. And what was I going to say, anyway? I thought of a million excuses, but there was nothing I could think of to say that would make it any better. I couldn't think of any reason why you should take me back; I couldn't think of any reason why you ever wanted me in the first place.

"It started.... maybe even way before this, but when we were on our way home from Christmas that year, and we met back up in the airport to come home. And I wanted to kiss you but everyone was watching. It made me mad that we couldn't just visit each other's families together like a normal couple, that we had to split up and had to meet again in the airport. I was so angry and I knew it was my own fault, that if I wasn't so scared I wouldn't be making you do that. Then we got home and I couldn't let it go. I couldn't keep living with you and keep not really having you. I'm so desperately in love with you it's pathetic, and I couldn't stand not having you. So I ran away. I couldn't stand being scared and not good enough, for failing you.

"You're so perfect FiFi, you're smart and organized and you remember everything, you're a fancy university professor with a PhD in math, and you're absolutely beautiful and look amazing in anything. When you told your family about us you were so confident and determined and nobody ever questioned you. You just said it and that made it true and everyone just accepted that because you said it. And I'm so inadequate, and I was too scared to tell my parents, and I didn't deserve you.

"But finally I did call you back, on May 17. That was the same day you told your parents about us, junior year at Toledo, remember that? I finally got my courage up to call you on that day, but it wasn't you who answered, it was a recorded message that said your number was no longer in service. So I guessed that you changed your number and moved on, and gave up on me. And then I gave up too. I knew I never deserved you anyway. I never had the courage to tell my family, even after 5 years together, and you deserved better than that. You were going to find someone better than me.

"My body ran away, but my heart and soul never left."

"DeeDee, you did have me," She said quietly. "I loved you too, all you had to do is accept that. You're not inadequate, you were more than good enough. You had all of me and I was willing to do whatever you needed; I was OK waiting for you to figure out how to come out to your family. I tried to tell you I would help, and be there with you. You're not inadequate, you could have done it. You didn't have to throw it all away."

It was not lost on Dawn that She had used all past tense verbs. They finished eating in silence. Both knowing there was nothing they could say to make it better, and not wanting to make it worse. After a while Dawn took their glass of lemonade to get a refill.

"I don't have any more classes this afternoon, so I don't need to be anywhere. What have you been doing with yourself lately DeeDee?"

Dawn told Her about going out to California, how she cajoled a full-time job out of the video game start-up that she had been freelancing for. And when they were bought up, how she had moved back to Ohio for a while, and stayed with her parents, and worked for a local advertising agency. Then finally buying a place in Michigan and moving there 2 years ago.

"So what is a yooper?" She asked quizzically.

"Someone from the UP, upper peninsula. But not just someone who lives there now, you have to really be from there. It's this whole alternative culture, sorta like Chinatown or something, where you have all these people who seem to be normal Americans but are in, like, their own world."

"And you live in a hunting shack?"

"Well OK, it's not exactly a shack though. What they call a hunting shack can get pretty elaborate. Yoopers really take drinking beer seriously. They are right next door to Wisconsin, after all. I mean, some of these are nicer than their real houses. Mine isn't that elaborate, it's basic but decent. I needed to do some serious remodeling to it though, removing all the dead animals off the walls; and the bathroom was totally disgusting. It's perfectly livable now, even if it's a bit small. I would call it a cozy cabin."

But Dawn didn't tell Her about all the other times. The weeks that turned into months when she slept in her car; the nights that she drove past the cottage, trying to see in the window, wondering if she could just go inside; the dread of facing Her and admitting her shame, knowing that She would forgive her and that making it even worse; staying at campgrounds in the area because she couldn't figure out which way to go, and running out of money; passing out that time because she sort of forgot to eat for 3 days; having to beg a stranger for gas money to get her to California so she could take that job. She left out all of that; she left out almost everything.

-----

Dawn got back to the cottage a little before dark. They'd stayed at the bistro so long they ended up having supper there too. She wanted to work on the painting some more but she was stuck. Her thoughts and emotions were all over the place and she couldn't pin them down. After a while she gave up in frustration.

She needed somebody to talk to, but she really had nobody. Her parents were out of the question and she was an only child. She wasn't very close to any of her old friends from school anymore, not close enough to talk about this. She took a random chance and dialed the one person who had some context.

"Hi, Katie?"

"Dawn? This is unexpected, what's up?"

"Hey, do you have a couple minutes? I'm trying to figure a few things out and I just need a sanity check."

"Yeah, no problem. You're insane." She laughed loudly. "OK that was mean, sorry. Seriously, yeah I got a couple minutes, what's going on?"

"Remember that one night?"

"Of course, it was unforgettable, and not in a good way."

"Yeah, sorry about that. And how I said there was somebody else, and I couldn't do it, and I wasn't a lesbian and all that?"

"You didn't actually say any of that. But I did specifically ask you if you were involved with anyone and you specifically said you weren't. After wards, I concluded that there probably was someone else. And about not being a lesbian? I'm just going to say this, you're too good at eating pussy to not be. But what's the point?"

"Well I'm at home now and I'm trying to figure it out, if I really am a lesbian, or if it's just Her, if I even really love Her or am just lying to myself. Well, I know that I am lying to myself about some things, I just can't figure out which ones are the lies."

"You're at home now? OK, how about we pick up a couple bottles of wine and head out there and talk, we can be there in like half an hour."

"No, I'm not at my cabin, I'm in Missouri. I'm at Her house."

"Sooooo, you're at her house, in Missouri, you refer to that as home, you're calling me, and where is she?"

"Well I don't know exactly, She left after I got here and is staying somewhere..... Probably with Her boyfriend....... or girlfriend....... wife and kids, maybe, for all I know."

"Fuck girl, this is way beyond me. I only do IV's and help with brain surgery and shit. Look, my girlfriend is here right now -"

"Oh, I'm so sorry I didn't mean to bother -"

"No, it's fine. She's a shrink and - OW, well you are.... OK whatever - So Dawn, I'm going to give the phone to her, talk to her, OK?......... -it's crazy girl, I'll get you more wine..."

A new voice came on "Hi, Dawn? This is Amanda. I understand you're having a spot of trouble just now, are you somewhere safe?"

"Yeah I'm at home, I mean my gir - um anyway, yes. Yeah I'm safe."

"And how are you doing? You're not thinking of hurting yourself, are you?"

Well that's an easy question, "No, course not, I have enough pain already, no I don't need more of that, thank you very much."

Amanda chuckled gently. "OK, then, we can work with that. So tell me about that pain then."

Dawn poured everything out in a jumbled mess. She was pretty sure it didn't make much sense but Amanda just let her talk, asking an occasional leading question. An hour and a half later she felt much better, and had weekly appointments scheduled with Amanda for when she got to Michigan.

----

Dawn was awake at 0548 the next morning, according to the digital clock by the bed. She was surprised how easily she slipped back into their routine - well what used to be their routine in that other life.

Fiona would always get up every morning at 0530; having a double major meant she had to spend a lot of time studying. And after Fiona got out of bed Dawn wouldn't be able to sleep either, so she got up too.

That didn't change when they moved to Missouri for Fiona to attend grad school. And Dawn found that the morning quietude was conducive for painting and sketching.

The coffee was ready, of course, because the automatic coffee maker was programmed to start at 0520. She switched it off and took her slightly burned coffee out on the dock, along with their blanket. This time she sat in the loveseat, wrapped in their blanket, and watched the lake as the sun rose behind her.

She watched as the shadows shrunk towards her, the rays of light glancing off the dew covered leaves, the reflection on the still water; and she understood. Understood the colors, the interplay of the light breezes that occasionally sprung up, followed minutes later by gentle ripples across the lake. A fish jumped near the shore, the opposite shore from where someone was fishing in a small boat. Understood what Home means.

The shadows were gone, her coffee was cold, and her back was hot from the sun, when finally she stood up. She made rapid progress on the painting that morning.

Dawn was at the bistro first that day, but she had cheated and got there at 1255. She came in at 1303.

"You lose. It's supposed to be 1310 plus or minus 5."

"Well you lose too then!"

They both grinned at each other. They talked about happy things. They didn't talk about the past, or about the future, or about themselves.

-----

Dawn finished the painting on the morning of the fourth day, before lunch. She had completed in 2 days what sometimes took her weeks; the colors and sounds and smells and movement all made sense; she was satisfied with the result. She would leave it to dry and then pack it up tomorrow morning before going back to Michigan.

She was scowling when Dawn walked back to their booth; it was 1325. There was no need to ask why She was in a foul mood.

In another life She would have chided Dawn for not texting Her that she would be late, but in this life they did not have that responsibility to each other. Dawn slid into the booth quietly; she desperately wished that She would just yell at her and get the suffering over and done with.

"Sorry, FiFi." Dawn knew it wasn't the being late that mattered, it was because this is the thing they did. And if Dawn wasn't going to do it with Her, and not tell Her, then She would feel rejected.

"It's fine."

"No, it's not, I should have texted you." Dawn could see that it wasn't working.

Dawn tried changing the subject and asked Her about the new grad students She was advising. Dawn had listened carefully and remembered most everything from their earlier conversations, even if she didn't know what most of it meant. That conversation was cordial enough.

Dawn talked a bit about her own current projects, the children's book she was illustrating, some ads for a local tourist guide........... "So I know you probably want me out of your hair soon so you can have your house back. I really do appreciate you letting me stay there."

"I'm not the one who wants you to leave, DeeDee. I didn't want you to leave last time. But I know you're going to....... so..... when?"

"Tomorrow. We could have lunch before I go to the airport?"

"You'd better go straight to the airport, it will be a big hassle if you miss your flight."

They both knew that was not the reason.

They finished their meal in silence. Neither one of them touched the lemonade.

"Bye, DeeDee. Stay in touch," and She walked out the door.

----- late September

Fiona's first night back at Our Little Cottage was nearly unbearable. DD was gone again. The comfy chair that was big enough for two still held only one - alone with her thoughts. Fiona sat morosely with their blanket wrapped around her. DD was gone again, but her smell was on their blanket.

Fiona had thought that the last week she had just spent in the hotel, while Dawn was in Our Little Cottage had been bad. But now, being back here, and Dawn wasn't here now, but last week she had been here - it seemed worse. It seemed just as empty as it had been 6 fucking years 8 goddamn months and 19 shitty days ago. Fiona had thought she was making progress, was getting better, getting over her - and then DD shows up in a thunderstorm looking like a drowned kitten. Fiona liked to believe she was progressing, but now she regressed.

Fiona had started calling her DD in their sophomore year at Toledo, one night when Dawn was complaining that her boobs were so small. Her real name was Darlene Dawn Jamison, but she hated the name Darlene so she went by Dawn.

Fiona's thoughts drifted back to that night, the night that redirected her life by 90 degrees, or 100 gradians or pi/2 radians - depending on the units you want to use.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"Look at them, they are so pathetic," DD said, holding her bare boobs in her hands.

This was a couple months after the 'drinking wine half the night and passing out on my bed together' incident.

"They are pretty, they suit you perfectly. And like they always say, anything more than a handful is wasted."

"Hah, easy for you to say, you have like 3 handfuls each. And mine aren't even a handful."

"Oh we better check that!" Fiona pushed DD backwards on the bed and jumped on her, tickling her and trying to grab her boobs. DD was squirming under her, trying to get away and giggling wildly. Fiona was straddling DD, holding her down, and the other girl wriggling between her thighs was sending delicious sparks through Fiona's crotch. She could feel her pussy getting wet, Fiona finally allowed DD to push her off and escape before her arousal betrayed her.

"OK, well you're at least a double D," Fiona stated smugly.

"According to you, what do you know!" DD retorted.

"Cause it's your initials, you know? Double D," she grinned mischievously.

"Smart ass!"

That was the night Fiona started calling her DeeDee. Then DD started calling her FiFi in retaliation. Fiona's older brother had called her FiFi when they were kids and she had hated it. But when DD called her that it was endearing, and it made her heart flutter and her knees get weak.

Fiona thought DD was the sexiest girl she'd ever met; that was the night Fiona decided she was going to seduce Dawn.

DD always had a happy sparkle in her eye that sent shivers up Fiona's spine and made her pussy tingle. Her amazingly long black hair was silky smooth and made Fiona just want to wrap herself up in it. Her ass was to die for and made Fiona's mouth water. Fiona thought the name DeeDee was sexy and suited her nicely; sometimes she called her DeeDee Jay, which Fiona thought sounded like a rap artist and was totally hot. DD was surprisingly easy to seduce.

The next weekend after the bed wrestling night, they went to a party at a frat house. Fiona wore the tightest jeans she owned with a black sleeveless, cropped, mock neck top that showed a thin strip of belly. She had her hair up with a ribbon; and just a touch of makeup, barely enough to notice but enough to bring attention to her green eyes. Completed with her small wire framed glasses that screamed sexy librarian.

"We're going to get you a boyfriend tonight," she whispered conspiratorially to DD as they walked together. "You haven't been laid, in like, how long?"

DD was ostensibly straight, but Fiona knew she hadn't dated anyone while they were at Toledo, even though she'd had plenty of opportunity. Fiona also noticed that DD always got irritated around guys who flirted with her. And DD spent a lot more time looking at Fiona's rather attractive boobs than what one expected a straight girl would do.

If Fiona had been pressed to describe her sexuality at that point, she would have said "I'm keeping my options open." In keeping with the intellectual, scientific persona she wanted to cultivate, Fiona resisted being pigeon holed, put in a box. On the other hand, having her face crammed into DD's box and putting her tongue into that hole, had a certain appeal to Fiona.

They danced together for the first several songs, 'just to get warmed up.' Fiona danced a little closer to DD than merely warming up required, it started to get a bit more like steamy. They took a short breather and Fiona got them a glass of beer to share; it tasted like shit, probably it was Budweiser. When Fiona came back with the beer, there was a tall good looking guy chatting up DD. "Go out and dance with him," she whispered loud enough for the guy to hear.

As Fiona expected, DD wasn't into dancing with him and was going through the motions mechanically, but she stuck it out for one dance. When DD got back, Fiona observed casually to her, "OK, not your type, we'll keep looking." She searched out a couple on the floor with a particularly hot girl, "How about that one, with the girl in the blue dress? You could steal that one."

"FiFi, stop it. I'm not going to go steal someone just to get laid."

"Aw, come on. You've got to be horny as hell, I know I am."

"Well OK, but I'm not going to just hook up with any guy."

"Hmm, just think about it though....... those hands under your shirt, unhooking your bra, fondling your double D's... Ow - you don't have to hit me."

"FiFi, just stop it, you're not helping."

"I'm trying to help. You know you need to get laid, DeeDee Jay. Imagine that hand sliding into your panties.......... slowly peeling your jeans down your legs...... that tongue.... We need to break your dry spell DeeDee." Fiona was imagining herself doing just that to her best friend, and now had very much of a wet spell going on between her legs. And Fiona was hoping that DD did as well.

Fiona let DD marinate in silence for a while as they pretended to drink their beer and pretended to like it.

"This beer is terrible. I don't even like beer, do you?" Fiona asked.

"Well not really, but they don't have anything else."

"I have wine coolers back in my room. If you're not going to get out there and hook up, we might as well go home and get drunk."

When they got back to her room, Fiona got a strawberry wine cooler from her mini-fridge and gave it to DD. "Damn, it's hot in here, isn't it?" she peeled off her top and tossed it towards her desk. Then turning slightly to give DD the best view, she slid her jeans off, wiggling her butt to get it out of the very tight fit; bending at the waist as she slid them off her feet she gave DD a very clear view of the soaking wet crotch in her panties. She sauntered back to the mini-fridge and grabbed herself a blackberry wine cooler and flopped down on the bed in her matching green satin bra and panties, bought specially for this night. "I don't really like parties anyway, too noisy. This is way better. And with my class load, I can't afford all those distractions. But damn, that brunette in the blue dress was hot, wasn't she."

DD practically pounced on her, kissing her violently, hands everywhere. Fiona instantly reciprocated, stripping off DD's clothes as quickly as she could manage. After stoking Dawn's fire all night, Fiona herself was ready to explode. She was desperate to feel Dawn's mouth on her breasts, Dawn's fingers in her cunt, and for Dawn's flowing raven black hair to envelope her.

Her desire was met as Dawn unhooked the green satin bra and took Fiona's hard nipple into her hot, wet mouth while Dawn's hands gently fondled her breasts.

"DeeDee, fuck that feels so good. God yes, I need you."

Fiona wasted no time and reached down to finger Dawn's soaking snatch. She easily slid two fingers in Dawn's ready pussy. She tangled the fingers of her other hand in Dawn's hair. With one of her hands buried in the pussy she lusted for, and the other wrapped in the long black hair she fantasized about, Fiona was in bliss.

----

DeeDee and FiFi were just too sickeningly cute as a couple, and their friends all refused to participate in those names. Then someone came up with calling them FnD, which everyone thought was hilarious so they all called them that instead. And suddenly Fiona had a social life. Fiona didn't have friends, but FnD had lots of friends.

By herself, Fiona was bookish, reserved, and more than a little haughty. By herself, people avoided her or at least kept her at a distance. But when she was with Dawn, people liked her.

Dawn could talk to anyone, about anything. Dawn was fun, charming, funny, sensitive, empathetic, kind. When they were together, FnD would have new friends within minutes of entering a room full of strangers. When they were together, Fiona would sit with Dawn, smiling and laughing, and allow everyone to believe that she was a nice person too.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

That was nearly 12 years ago: a lifetime.

The grandfather clock above the fireplace chimed 2100 and brought Fiona's thoughts back to the empty room. She should get ready for bed. She closed the book she'd forgotten to read, laid it down on the end table and checked her phone. She had made DD promise to text her when she arrived.

1944: i got here, no trouble

2033: the trees are beautiful now

There was a photo included in the last text of a small lake bordered by trees resplendent in autumnal glory.

Fiona sent a quick reply, before getting ready and crawling into bed. The bed also smelled like DD; she idly wondered how long the smell would last if she never changed the sheets. Last time it was..... she had no idea how long, because she wasn't really very sober for most of that time. It took a long time for her to finally fall asleep.

----

Fiona hadn't exactly lied when she had told DD that she was sort of seeing somebody, technically she did have a date for Friday night. She had nearly zero expectation that it would be anything better than an unmitigated disaster. Seventh attempt at a date in 4 and 1/2 years. The first three attempts had proven that if you spend your entire time with your date talking about how mad you are that the love of your life left, then that is going nowhere. The next two demonstrated that when you spend the entire time talking about how much you miss her, that also is going nowhere.

Number 6 was informative; she saw straight away that it was going nowhere. She was a lawyer, really practiced at spotting lies and seeing through subterfuge. Her name was Alehandra, and they didn't hook up but they did end up becoming friends. At least to the extent that Fiona had any friends. Aleh wasn't the least bit intimidated by the caustic wit of a University professor with a PhD in math and an EE B. S. Criminal Defense lawyers have plenty of their own caustic wit. Maybe Aleh was her only actual real friend; because FnD have lots of friends, but Fiona doesn't have friends - never really did have.

Fiona was going out to meet #7 tonight, Friday night, at the same bistro where she had been meeting DD for the last week. This was the absolutely worst plan imaginable, but they had made the plans 2 weeks ago. Before DD had inserted herself back into Fiona's life. Bianca: that's her name, Fiona told herself. Remember her name, people want to feel like you care about them as people. God.... this whole socializing thing was so fucking difficult. What did she possibly have to talk about with Bianca? Fiona didn't bother to drive all the way home, clean up and put on a nice outfit, just to drive all the way back into the city; she went to the bistro straight from class and just got a lemonade and waited. It was plain lemonade, not blackberry.

And, predictably, it was pointless.

------

The coffee was pretty much finished at 0527 when Fiona finished peeing and walked into the little kitchen Saturday morning. It felt nice, comforting, to have little signs around that DD had been here. Small things that were not quite where they had been before, things a little bit messy, a few mud tracks across the floor. It's not that Fiona kept a spotlessly clean house, but she could always tell when something was not quite like she had left it. She was very surprised that all the dishes had been washed, that must be the first time ever DD did it without her nagging. And she had been very surprised to find a pair of dirty panties, smelling powerfully of DDs pussy. Fiona wondered if that was intentional, dirty panties don't usually end up under a pillow by accident.

It was Saturday and she had no reason to go into the city today. So she walked down to the dock and sat on the end, her bare feet dangling in the water. She allowed herself to indulge in the fantasy that DD was still here, that she hadn't gone back to Michigan, that she had never left in the first place. "And the deep, dark, still waters are not half so fluid and sensual as the beautiful girl's raven black hair," she spoke quietly to the woman who was not beside her.

Fiona was surprised and a little confused at how easy it was to be around DD again. Earlier, at that unquantified earlier time when the emotions were unbearably raw, she had tried out a million different scenarios in her head about what she would do if she ever again met that traitorous bitch. Violent, bloody murderous schemes involving ripping out her eyes and spitting in her face; pulling out her nails with some sort of medieval torture device (even searching the internet for places that might sell one of those); slowly burning her at the stake in a huge fire while dancing around it gloating - and then DD actually, inexplicably showed up. In the middle of a thunderstorm. In the middle of the night. Soaked and shivering like a lost kitten. Just wanting to come into the warm safety. She wasn't a traitorous bitch; DD was only just her own long lost lover.

That night, 1 minute before opening the door, Fiona would have said she couldn't give a fuck about Dawn; then she opened the door, and everything Fiona thought she knew was proven wrong.

Now DD wasn't here anymore, she had gone back to the UP to drive a snowmobile or chop wood or something. It wasn't entirely clear what DD did there. DD only said that it helped her to concentrate, there were no distractions and it helped her work. She'd mentioned having an appointment with a therapist. In some of her less charitable moments, Fiona would have let loose a scathing tirade about DD's need for therapy, but in her current, now introspective mood she was mildly curious and more than a little concerned.

How hard had their break-up been on DD? Was it really even a break-up? Fiona hadn't thought it was at the time, she had merely thought that DD had just lost her senses for a bit and it would soon all blow over. Typical artist, Fiona had thought: scatterbrained, impulsive, wild emotional swings. DD was all of those things, but in that other life those were the things that Fiona had loved about her. Fiona had thought they made a good couple, they balanced and completed each other; that's what she used to think.

Fiona had no doubt DD loved her, had never doubted that. DD had told her that plenty of times before, and when she said it again 6 days ago, it didn't even occur to Fiona that it might not be true. DD had never even attempted to lie to her; but sometimes her overactive imagination did lead her to ridiculous extremes - throw myself off the cliff to be dashed to pieces on the jagged rocks below; and the waves carry my smashed and lifeless body out to sea to be devoured by sharks - ridiculous extremes, crazy girl. A crazy girl, but utterly transparent and guileless, she was not capable of keeping a secret. It wasn't surprising that DD flew apart after 5 years of trying to disguise their relationship, it was surprising it didn't happen sooner.

Fiona also had no doubt she was in love with DD. But what good is being in love with DD when she isn't here? What good is DD being in love with her if she runs off again? In love or not, how to know DD won't do something crazy and hurt them both? Could Fiona survive that again? How hard had their break-up been on DD? Was it really even a break-up? Did that mean DD was still officially her girlfriend? What even is an official girlfriend? Does DD think they are still together, that this was just a little failure to communicate thing? A six fucking year and eight goddamn month long failure to communicate?

She had thought that DD would eventually call her back; sooner or later she would come to her senses and call her back. Fiona had washed all the dirty laundry and put DDs clothes away where they belonged, for her. She'd cleaned up the scattered mess DD made when packing and put everything back where it belonged. She very carefully packed DD's mandolin into the trunk, padded and protected. Because DD would be coming back. Why did she never call? DD had her number - at least up until when she didn't.

Fiona could have texted DD with her new number; when did she give up on DD? Was that the night she gave up on herself? Isn't that the same thing? Would DD have come back if she hadn't given up? Isn't that what DD is doing now, coming back? Does it make any difference whether it's six months or six years? She loves DD just as much now as she ever did, right? Can any amount of time change that? Would it have been only 6 months if she hadn't given up on herself, given up on DD, she gave up................

Fuck, this is too much. Fiona didn't want to drive clear into town, but there was a convenience store/gas station place that sold wine only a few miles away. Four bottles should be enough for the weekend.

----

Her mind was still a swirl of questions, thoughts and emotions chasing each other around in circles. She poured the rest of the first bottle into her glass and stared at the fire; gas fireplaces are nice, just flip the switch and it comes on; does DD have a fireplace in her cabin? Probably not gas though, she probably has to chop wood. Fiona started giggling at that thought, DD the artist, chopping wood -- wearing flannels probably --- maybe even driving a pickup truck; she was giggling hysterically. Her glass was empty again, how did that happen?

She plopped down on the thick rug in front of the fireplace with a second bottle. She was staring morosely into the fire again, the same way she had stared morosely into the setting sun that night on the dock. Most of that week she didn't remember.....

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

...... she was sitting on the dock as the sun was setting across the lake. She was drinking wine. She had tried to call DD, a lot of times that day; a lot of times. And had left so many incomprehensible voice messages that DD's mailbox filled up. She drank more wine. She tried sending her text messages. She drank more wine. The sun was gone now so she drank more wine. Her phone was not ringing and there were no replies to any text messages and she drank more wine. She stared at her phone a while and then started screaming -FUUUUUUUUCK YYYOOOOOUUUUUU! and hurled it as hard as she could. There was a small splash somewhere in the night and she curled up sobbing.

That next day the sun was high and hot when she awoke. She was covered in mosquito bites, her head pounded, her mouth was unworkable, and every bone and muscle throbbed. She rolled off the dock into the water and decided to drown. But the water was too cold and too shallow so she stumbled to shore and laid on the sand for a while, hoping a meteorite would decide to strike her; too bad Missouri didn't have alligators. When she tried to stand, it didn't work, so she crawled to the house into the screen porch, far enough from the mosquitoes, out of the sun, didn't need the bed, the floor was good enough.

That's where Anna found her. They were supposed to be working together on a project, and Fiona hadn't shown up. Anna was on her phone with someone when Fiona woke up.

"I think she's still alive, she's breathing but she looks like total dog shit........................... yeah, like 8 or 9 empty wine bottles, let me count, no 11 at least................ I don't know, I didn't see her yesterday or the day before either.................... oh wait, she might be waking up................ Fiona,...... Fiona.... are you conscious?................ yeah OK she's moving but not talking, I think you should just come and help me with her................ OK bye."

"I'm fine, don't worry about me."

"Fiona, you are not fine, not even close. First thing is we are getting you in the bath, you reek and are covered in mud."

"..... under the wide and starry sky just dig the grave and let me lie, I hate my life and would gladly die......."

When she got her new phone a few days later it was just easier to get one with a 573 area code, since she didn't have the SIM card anyway.

<<<<<<<<<<<

On Sunday afternoon DD called her. Fiona had recovered somewhat by then, but was still sour and prickly.

"Hi DeeDee."

"FiFi, it's good to hear your voice. I hope now is a good time? I wasn't really sure of your schedule........"

"No, now is fine, this is a good time."

"Are you sure? You don't sound like it, is everything OK?" The problem with an artist as sensitive as DD, is that it's impossible to hide from them your feelings.

"Yeah, it's fine, just a rough night, I'll be OK."

"Uh, OK. Well, so'd you do anything fun yesterday? I went and picked a bunch of apples. I'm going to try making apple pies. I have an old family recipe, they claim it goes back 8 generations but I don't think I believe that."

"Yeah, that sounds like fun."

"Yeah. I'm thinking maybe it would be fun to have some apple trees by my cabin, what do you think?"

"DeeDee, I don't fucking know. If you want apple trees then plant some."

"Jeez FiFi, OK then."

"Look, I'm sorry. I just don't feel great right now."

"FiFi?" DD's voice sounded tiny, "Why? Were you drinking?"

"Dammit DD that's my own problem, what the fuck do you care anyway?!"

.... long silence, and then "FiFi, I do care. Maybe it's not like that anymore but I still care about you and I want you to be OK. I know I don't have any right to tell you what to do, but you don't have any right to tell me that I can't still love you if I want to."

..... long silence, and then "DeeDee? You're right, now is not a good time. Can I call you tomorrow?"

"FiFi, you can always call me. I won't ignore your calls anymore, I learned my lesson."

"Thanks DeeDee, goodbye, I love you," and clicked off. Then Fiona realized what she had just said. Did she really mean that, or was it just force of habit?

Well there were 5 more bottles of wine in the fridge, she could just.................. no. She wasn't going to do that to DD. She wasn't going to use wine trying to keep DD out of her head, they would only drink it together for happy occasions.

Fiona took the wine out of the fridge and carried it to the small closet by the screen porch. Fiona was good at using memory tricks; she would put the wine in DD's closet and then she couldn't touch it unless DD gave her permission. The closet was surprisingly clean for not having been opened in nearly seven years................. no, clearly it had been cleaned recently. The tubes of paint looked new, some of the brushes were new, there was a long aluminum cylinder with screwed ends that was never there before......

-----

Monday evening when she got into her car to drive home, Fiona put on her headset and called DD.

"Hey FiFi, feeling better today?"

"Yes, a lot better. Sorry I was so bitchy."

"I know, I get it, that happens."

"I thought I was doing pretty good and I could just have a glass or two, but it turned out to be three......"

"Glasses.... or?"

"Bottles. Yeah. So I guess I need to own that. Here's what I did, I put the other bottles into your closet and I won't touch them again, not unless you say I can. Is that OK? I didn't want to toss them, in case you ever come to visit again, and then like maybe we could have one... together?"

"Yes, FiFi. Thank you. I'm glad you did that." She giggled softly, "Surprised though, you're always the strong confident one, I never thought you would need my help. Thank you for trusting me."

Fiona didn't feel like the confident one, and she was ashamed that DD would think there had ever been a time Fiona didn't trust her, maybe she hadn't been paying close enough attention all those years? "DeeDee, I'm not though, you are the strong one. I'm sorry I took you for granted..... you were the best girlfriend, I'm sorry I gave up you, on us....

"Um DeeDee? I also noticed, it looked like you'd been painting...... there's a new shipping tube that wasn't there before...... I didn't open it."

"Yeah, it's a painting. I needed to make that, to help me figure stuff out. You can look at it..... you can have it."

"Thank you." Fiona was nervous about what she would see on the painting, it would be DD's soul laid bare.

They talked until Fiona parked in her driveway and shut off the engine.

Fiona didn't have the courage to take out the painting that night. She took her laptop to the comfy chair and started writing a paper for a conference that she hadn't had any intention of attending until 5 minutes earlier. But she needed to take her mind off..... all that.

---- mid October

Over the next weeks Fiona was tormented by the war raging between her heart and her brain. Fiona's brain tried to tell herself that she was deciding whether to forgive DD, whether to let her come back. But that was never really a question, was it? From the instant Fiona had cast her lot with the tall, ebony skinned beauty her fate was sealed. "From the instant she cast her lot"... was there a specific instant? More like, as they became better friends Fiona had fallen deeper in love. Had she even really had any choice in that?

But her heart told her it doesn't even matter; the only thing that matters now is what we are going to do about it. Say "no"? As if that were ever an option.............

Fiona, as was her wont, spent the evenings deep in thought, trying to understand what were her wants. There wasn't any question that she cared deeply for DD - OK stop with the equivocation and just say it: as much in love with DD as always. But now what? Everything was still all over, and couldn't just be not all over anymore. DD hadn't even said anything about getting back together. True, her first sentence had been those 3 words, but that doesn't necessarily translate into 'I want to get back together, get married, and spend the rest of our lives together.'

Now, they are both much different people than they were 6 fucking years and 9 goddamn months ago. Fiona didn't really know who Dawn is now; and had serious doubts about whether she ever had really understood DD.

How could Fiona see it through DD's eyes? Fiona made herself a glass of plain lemonade (because plain is what DD preferred) and sat in the corner by the fireplace - the corner where DD had huddled in fear that night, one month ago. In fear of her.... afraid of the person DD should never be afraid of, the person she should be able to trust with her life.

Fiona huddled in the corner, snippets of conversations, things DD had said to her at various times over the years were running through her head...."couldn't keep living with you and keep not really having you"......"afraid of how mad you would be"......"you're really scary when you get mad, you know"......"epitome of the fiery redhead"...."wish you didn't tell me what I'm doing wrong all the time".... "everyone is afraid of you FiFi"..."I mean I love you, but"... But something, there was always something.

Fiona hadn't been a very good girlfriend; huddling in this corner now she saw that. Had DD run away? Or had she herself chased DD away? Had she been judgmental and critical instead of supporting? Was she so caught up in herself, her persona of the intellectual, fancy university professor, that DD had felt ignored, maybe even intimidated? inadequate - DD had used that word, why? People don't feel that way without reason, and Fiona was beginning to suspect that the reason had been herself. How much courage had it taken for DD to come back, after so long, in a thunderstorm, and face Fiona's wrath? DD is the strong one in this relationship; DD is the brave one, and Fiona was chasing her away...... again.

Finally hearing Dawn's words, Fiona recognized that she herself bore a lot of the responsibility for scaring DD away. One question was: is DD still the person I fell in love with, those many years ago? But the bigger question was: Can I be a better girlfriend this time? Fiona had no choice but to try.

As soon as Fiona committed herself to being a better girlfriend, she approached it with her typical methodological attitude. And she realized that she was completely ignorant about a major part of Dawn's life. Research and learning was easy for Fiona, so that's where she started.

-------

"Hi, Ms. Maxwell. Please come in and have a seat."

"Hi Pastor. Thanks. So, like I said on the phone, I'm not a member of your church and it's very unlikely that I'll join. I know I'm kind of wasting your time, so I'll get to the point. First off, I'm a lesbian." Fiona waited to see what reaction that had.

"Don't worry about wasting my time Ms. Maxwell. What can I help you with?" Pastor Ericson didn't blink.

"So that doesn't matter?"

"It doesn't matter that you're not a member here. As far as being a lesbian? It doesn't matter to me, personally; but I suspect it matters a lot to you or you wouldn't have told me. Is that what you want to talk about?"

"Yes, and no. I'm not sure where to start.... my girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend... anyway, Dawn. Her family is really religious..... and I never took any of that very seriously. They are very judgmental, she was afraid to tell them about us. And I would always just say they're a bunch of hypocrites and you can't worry about what they say. But now I see that my own attitude is just as judgmental, only in the other extreme. I didn't make any effort to understand that part of who she is.

I don't know anything at all about religion and never really cared. But Dawn grew up in that culture, that tradition; I think she felt like I was asking her to reject that part of herself. And I think that I kinda was.

Now, maybe there's a chance for us to get back together, I don't know, but I need to be able to understand that part of her. And right now I don't know anything about her religious beliefs."

"Is it OK if I call you Fiona? OK, thank you. I'm glad that you are asking these questions, of yourself and about your relationship with Dawn. Without knowing any more about her than what you just told me, I would guess that you are correct to think that she felt like you were rejecting an important part of her. Religion is very important to many people, and you don't have to agree with it, but you should respect it. And when it's a person you love, then you should do your best to understand and appreciate it.

"Can I suggest that you join one of our bible study groups? We also have an adult catechism class that will start in February. Like I said, you don't have to accept it, you don't have to believe any of it, but maybe it will be helpful for you to have that knowledge base."

----- late October

The concentration Fiona had applied over the previous weeks to listening more carefully to Dawn, to learning about her religious background, to stop calling her a 'crazy girl'; but rather to appreciate her unique insight, and to be less judgmental and more supportive had the effect of rekindling her longing for Dawn's presence. The embers of desire had never died, and now the flames were growing.

On a crisp autumn evening a few days before Halloween, Fiona was sitting in front of the fire. Tonight she wasn't staring morosely into it, she was enjoying its warmth on her back. She'd unpacked DD's mandolin, cleaned it up (maybe? what did she know about mandolin maintenance?? hopefully she hadn't done something bad) and was now sitting in front of the fire fiddling with it (she grinned at that, fiddling with a mandolin, good one, right?). When Dawn had run off that day she'd left her mandolin sitting in the comfy chair; sitting where they both had been sitting right up until the moment that the screaming match happened. Fiona had carefully packed it away, because she would be coming right back.... right? She just knew that Dawn would be coming right back again, and then she would get out the mandolin and play it again, and everything would be right again.

Now, holding the instrument in her hands that was so intimately interwoven with her best memories of Dawn brought Fiona a comfort she hadn't felt in years. She wondered if Dawn had bought a new one. Did she even still play music anymore?

Even though they talked occasionally, neither one had approached the subject of where to go next. Fiona wasn't ready for that conversation, not yet.

And Fiona still hadn't looked at The Painting. How could she look into the deepest desires of Dawn's soul before she had even started to resolve her own intentions?

Her own intentions then, let's figure that out. Her feelings were clear, she was in love with DD and always would be. Seven dates had proven that moving on wasn't something she is capable of. But neither would she survive if DD ever left her again; the conundrum seemed intractable so she decided to get an independent opinion.

To the extent that Fiona has any friends, she dialed the number.

"Hey there, Fiona! Are you in jail? I can totally bust you out."

"No Aleh, I'm not in jail, why is that your first question?" Fiona laughed.

"You have to ask? Nobody calls me at this time of the night unless they are in jail - well except my mom. Anyway, how have you been?"

"I was perfect, right up until everything went to shit. And you are the only person I know who tells me the strict, unvarnished truth. OK really I was just as shitty as always but I was successfully denying it."

And then Fiona told Alehandra the whole story, starting with DD coalescing out of a thunderstorm in the middle of the night on her front step.

"OK, Fiona, so there is one thing I don't understand. What is the question?"

"What do you mean? Obviously, I want your advice."

"What for? You're in love with her, she's in love with you, she wants to get back together.... I don't get it. What is the question?"

"Aleh, what if it doesn't work out this time either? What if she runs off again? What if I chase her off because I'm a... what did you call me that time?"

"A supercilious cunt. Yes, you are that and she already knows it, and apparently she can deal with you. OK, so what about all that? What if an asteroid hits the earth tomorrow and we all die? Who the fuck cares? Don't even start with me again on all your probability calculations, I'm sure they are correct and they are also irrelevant. You are not happy without her, that is what's relevant. You are inventing a lot of artificial obstacles for yourself, creating doubts and uncertainty unnecessarily. You've been lying to yourself for the last 2 months that there is some reason why you can't get back together with her. Do you know what is the most useful thing I ever learned, when I was just starting out as a lawyer?"

"Of course not Aleh, that's a rhetorical question."

"Right. The most useful thing is: that you cannot get the right answer if you don't ask the right question. So Fiona, you are asking all the wrong questions. The right question to ask is: how do you maximize the probability of a successful relationship with Dawn? So get out your calculator, figure that out, and make sure I get an invitation to the wedding."

Aleh had just restated the problem and clarified everything for Fiona. Now she needed to talk to Dawn.

"Hi FiFi, how are you tonight?"

"DeeDee? So, in September, when you were here...... what inspired that?"

..... long, long, pause "I had a meeting in San Jose in July, with a web developer, I don't know why they thought I needed to go there in person, but whatever. So one evening after work one of their software engineers says we should all go out for a couple drinks, so we go. But then after like 15 minutes all his friends leave and it's just me and him. So it was a total setup and that kind of annoyed me; OK, not just kinda, it really pissed me off. And then he's saying all this stuff, trying to show off how smart he is, and he's talking about algorithms, and error checking and how complicated the math is and he is so smart 'cause he understands all this stuff and I'm supposed to be impressed, right? Because I'm the stupid black girl from Toledo.

"But I totally wasn't impressed with this punk, because you're ten times smarter, and you have a PhD in math and you can probably write error checking algorithms way better than anything they have. So now I'm getting totally pissed off with him. Then you know in The Princess Bride, when the grandfather tells the little boy "Yes, you're so smart, now shut up"? That's literally what I told him and then I walked out. I mean, like why should I be polite to that jerk when the whole situation was a scam?"

When they had finished laughing, "Yeah, so what's really funny, at our next meeting I told them that their project was going to cost three times the amount I had told them earlier, and they actually paid it! Oh, that was so good.

"But what that jerk had said about error checking kept going around in my head, and I kept thinking about you, and that I needed someone to do error checking on my life and that you always did that for me. Like I don't even understand what you're doing, but you always get the right answer. Whenever I started to do something stupid you would check me, and I needed that. I needed you to stop me from making stupid mistakes. So then I just got on a plane and went to see you, I didn't really think it through. It just sort of came together in my brain and the next thing I was standing on your doorstep."

"DeeDee, you really are something else. God, I love you." And Fiona really meant it that time.

After they had said goodnight to each other, Fiona took out the aluminum shipping tube from DD's closet. She nervously unscrewed the end and took out the canvas. It was two women seen from the side: their features indistinct; sitting, or kneeling together; looking into the distance. Around them was a swirling blend of sky, water, shadows, clouds, storm, sunshine mixed together. Very little of the black haired girl could be seen, her long raven black hair was wrapped around them both. The redhead was wearing a lime green dress and holding her close from behind; her hands disappearing into the cascade of flowing black hair. It took a minute or two for Fiona to understand what the painting was saying, and when she did understand she dropped it and turned quickly away so the tears wouldn't hit it.

---

"Hi FiFi, how was your day?"

"OK, pretty typical..... So DeeDee, last night, I looked at your painting..... Does it mean what I think it means?"

"It means.... it means that the heart of the red haired girl is wrapped in the soul of the black haired girl; and the black haired girl needs the red haired girl's hands, on her head, guiding her; and everything swirling around them.... the rest of life... everything else doesn't matter."

"That's what I thought."

"FiFi? That is what Home means to me..... I want you to have it."

"Thank... you.." she choked, trying to keep her voice steady. There was another question she wanted to ask, but she didn't trust herself to speak anymore that night.

So she called Dawn again the next morning, as soon as she had some coffee in her system.

"Morning FiFi. I'm just getting the fire started so give me a sec." There was some rattling for a bit and then, "OK, I'm here."

"DeeDee, I'd like to see this cabin in the woods that you have, would it be OK if I came to visit some time?"

"Of course FiFi! Oooohh that would be fun. There's so many things I want to show you."

They decided on a few days toward the end of the Christmas vacation for Fiona to visit. She was in a particularly happy mood, that morning, driving in to work, the fall colors were at their peak beauty and the weather was perfectly pleasant.

---

A few weeks later Fiona came in to work one morning to find the Dean of Science and Engineering waiting for her.

"Good morning, Dr. Chao," Fiona greeted him warmly.

"Good morning, Dr. Maxwell. May I have a quick word with you? I promise it will be brief."

"Of course," she unlocked her door and led the way into her office.

"Dr. Maxwell," the dean began when they were seated, "as you know, I intend to retire at the end of the next school year, and Dr. Evans is expected to move into my position, leaving that of the Assistant Dean open. As yet, there are only 2 applicants, and you are not one of them. I strongly encourage you to rectify that, Dr. Maxwell. The application window is open for another 5 months."

Fiona was astonished. She had never considered herself suitable for the Assistant Dean's position, even though she did generally have quite a high opinion of her own abilities. She'd always considered herself to be more of a technical expert, whereas this job would require leadership ability and people skills. She was skeptical.

"Dean Chao, I'm not sure I'd be good for that job. I do think I'm a good teacher, of course. But Assistant Dean, that's not something I feel I would be suited for. I'm not the best at dealing with people - as you know."

"Your students adore you Fiona, and the other faculty have enormous respect for you. You could be very good at it." He paused and leaned back, "You've matured a great deal since... " he paused reflectively, "since you've made full professor. I'm confident you can do the job well. Please at least tender your application. You wouldn't need to make a final decision yet for another year."

Fiona pondered that for a long time after the Dean left; until she glanced at her watch and realized she had only 2 minutes before her class started. She grabbed her satchel and hurried to the lecture hall.

THE CABIN

Dawn called her mother on her birthday.

"Darlene, hello dear, how are you?"

Dawn cringed slightly at that name, only her mother used it. "Hi mom, happy birthday. I'm pretty good, how is everything there?"

"Oh, pretty well, you know......" her mom went on to talk about a lot of people that Dawn barely remembered and didn't care about.

She was only half listening, throwing in an occasional platitude just to let her mom know she was still there.

"Oh, by the way, your friend Fiona from college sent me a lovely birthday card. That was so thoughtful of her."

Dawn was startled at the mention of Her name, "Well She always was the responsible one in this relationship." Then Dawn realized how that sounded.

There was a brief pause, until her mother continued, "When are you planning to come home for Christmas? I'll send your father to the airport to get you. There will be a beautiful program at church again that you need to see."

"Oh, I don't know, I haven't looked at plane tickets yet. I'll let you know when I get those." The question made her uncomfortable, she hadn't felt at 'home' in her parents' house for many years. In her mind's eye she saw The Picture - her own personal vision of home. Visiting her parents was not going home, it was more of a duty, a chore of enduring days of interrogations and lectures about her failures. Home is where Fiona is, and this year she hoped Home would be coming to her.

"And did I tell you that Miranda Thomas is pregnant again? Their oldest boy Tyler is going to be Joseph. She has such a beautiful family. How about you Darlene, do you have a boyfriend yet?"

"Of course not mom," she laughed dismissively. "You know that's not happening."

"Now Darlene, that is no attitude to have. You should find yourself a nice young man soon, you're not getting any younger and you need someone to take care of you."

Dawn bristled at every word of that. "Mom, I'm doing just fine without any man." She spat that out a little more venomously than she had intended.

"You know that you can't just paint things and not have a husband to provide for you and your children. Now Janine Denotter's boy Michael has been asking about you again, and I think you should see him while you're here. He has a very good job at the car dealer, and their family goes to our church."

"Mom, I need to go right now. Happy birthday, say hi to dad." And Dawn hung up without waiting for an answer.

Dawn was seething: at her mother's meddling; at her own failure to say how she really felt about Fiona; at not belonging anywhere. She didn't belong to her parent's world, didn't belong to Fiona's world, didn't belong in the silicon valley world she derived her income from, didn't belong anywhere. Black culture felt alien to her, she hated rap and even hip-hop, she was a bad dancer, couldn't play basketball even with her nearly 6 foot height; but all of society treated her like the inner-city black girl that she had never been. Again she felt the pressure of judgment from all sides; felt the urge to run from it all.

She pulled on her jacket and Hush Puppies and left the cabin. The elemental simplicity of the forest calmed her. This is why she had moved here: the squirrels, rabbits and partridge didn't judge her. They just regarded her warily, not caring what she did as long as she kept to herself. It wasn't cold yet, but it was cloudy and a few flakes of snow were tossed on the slight breeze. The overcast sky suited her pensive mood; the seething she had set out with settled into mere dissatisfaction.

She practiced spotting and identifying birds, just to distract herself. When she had first moved here, she had been absolutely ignorant of everything. So she had bought every Peterson Field Guide that applied to this region and studied them. She had a quick eye and a perfect memory for visual detail; those things which made her such an effective artist allowed her to rapidly learn all her neighbors of the forest. She knew this particular forest was transitional between an old field, farmland long ago abandoned, and the northern climax forest it would return to in a few centuries.

Walking along the familiar trails calmed her, and brought a sort of peace. Forty acres isn't really all that much space, only a 1/4 mile on each side, but she had extended some of the trails into the surrounding state forest land so that a few miles were available.

It was after dark when Dawn arrived back at her cabin hours later. She was feeling better, but still restless. Painting or sketching was out of the question, she wouldn't be able to concentrate on that. She stirred up the coals in the stove and arranged a few small sticks of dried white pine on them, then gently blew on it. Within seconds a cheerful little blaze was crackling happily. She added a few larger pieces to gradually build up the blaze, and left the door open so she could watch the growing flames. Dawn thought of that fireplace thousands of miles away in Our Little Cottage. Was FiFi sitting by that fire, thinking of her tonight?

The fire had reached a point of steady state - as much as a wood fire ever can - so she tossed in a big chunk of hard maple and closed the door. Dawn retrieved her viola from the small back room where she kept all her instruments and sat on the floor by the fire. She spent a few minutes tuning it, in slight annoyance. The only thing she didn't like about this cabin was that the drastic changes in temperature and humidity made tuning an instrument a constant challenge. Dawn decided to ask Fiona about that when She came to visit, She would probably figure out some solution. Dawn played for hours, nothing in particular, letting her emotions flow through her hands into the strings.

When Dawn woke up next morning it was still dark; which didn't mean much, it wouldn't get light until nearly 8 at this time of year. In her own cabin she reverted to the artist's initiative of keeping no set schedule. She worked when she felt inspiration, slept when she felt sleepy, and ate when she remembered. It was the only place her soul had the freedom to thrive.

She found a few small coals remaining and got the fire going quickly. Starting the coffee, she looked at her phone and saw it was about 6:30. This morning she was feeling much less disjointed and much more resolved. She was going to have the conversation with her parents soon; she played with the fire. The freedom she found in the forest gave her the confidence to do what she needed to do next. What she needed to do next scared the hell out of her, she swallowed hard; she had been defying her parents wishes for at least a decade now, the only difference about today is that she is going to admit to it openly. And after more than a decade of hiding, of excuses, of pretending.... today she is done with all that. It was terrifying and liberating. No more pretending, hiding.

She calculated that the best time to catch both her parents together would be about 7. She did not have any hope that this was going to go well. She took a moment to anticipate all the words, what her parents would say, the arguments they would posit. It would be ugly, no avoiding that, it would be very ugly. Dawn tried to take inventory of her feelings, but there were so many. Fear, that one was obvious but surprisingly not the strongest of the warring emotions. There was some anxiety for the anticipated argument; Dawn abhorred any sort of conflict. But mostly there was hope. Hope for the love and acceptance she so desperately wanted to feel from her parents; hope that they would be happy for her, not judgmental; hope that all her fears will turn out to have been misplaced and she would end the call thinking how silly she had been for being so afraid.

Her hands were trembling as she scrolled through her contacts and pushed her dad's phone number. She held her breath - it shouldn't have to be so hard at her age, after so much time.

"Hey sweetheart, how are you?"

"Hi dad, pretty good. Hey are you still at home, is mom there too? I want to talk to both of you."

"Yeah, just minute let me put this on speaker....."

"Hi honey, is everything OK?" her mom came on.

Dawn took a breath and steeled her voice, she wanted to sound calm and confident but the blood was already pounding in her ears. "Yeah, everything is just fine. So I was thinking yesterday, that there is something important you should know. I'm a lesbian, and I'm in love with Fiona, and I very much intend to marry her - if she will have me that is."

"Darlene you can't do that!... sweetheart what are you talking about?... sinful and God will... have you lost your mind.... where did this suddenly come from....." They were yelling at her and talking over each other.

The confusion gave Dawn a chance to regroup, it would be impossible to get a word in until they calmed down. Dawn laid her phone down, walked over and refilled her coffee. She had done it, told them what she wanted to tell them 12 years ago. She finally felt like she had lived up to Fiona's expectations, and that knowledge gave her icy confidence.

When she picked up her phone again, her mother was asking "are you listening to anything I'm saying?"

"No mom, I'm not. I'm not listening to you in exactly the same way you don't listen to me. At this point, what does it really matter if you don't accept this? You don't approve of anything else in my life either. And about coming to visit for Christmas, I think I'm really not going to be able to work that in. I'll be terribly busy ice fishing that weekend. Bye dad, bye mom. Say hi to Jesus."

When she hung up she felt a tremendous calm. The anxiety that had been crushing her soul for years was swept away. But swept away also was the hope, the hope that she would be loved and accepted, the hope that she was more important to her parents than their religion, the hope that they would see her as a daughter and not an accomplishment. All of it was gone.

-----

Fiona was briefly surprised by the small size of the airport in Iron Mountain and she very much appreciated the ease of negotiating it. Dawn was easy to spot waiting near the baggage claim. They waited only a few minutes for her checked bag, and then walked out to Dawn's car.

"Seriously DeeDee? You drive a Subaru and then claim you're not a lesbian? Really?" Fiona laughed as she put her luggage in the back.

"Hey, it's all wheel drive so it's really good in the snow."

"Actually, I had this vision in my mind that you would be wearing flannels and driving a pick-up truck, with a gun rack in the back window."

"Hey, don't knock flannels! You're going to want some in a couple days. It's supposed to be down to 20 below."

"No way! Is that even possible?"

"You know that is it, Miss Scientist. But we don't have to go outside for that if you're too wimpy."

They enjoyed easy conversation during the drive to Dawn's cabin. Even though it was not yet 7pm, it was dark when they arrived. Fiona was astonished at the darkness of the unpolluted night, and amazed at the plenitude of stars that were visible in the perfectly clear sky. She gazed in wonder for a few minutes; then suddenly the sky was weirdly lit by streaks of green, yellow and red.

"Dawn! What it that?"

"Aurora borealis. You know, as in: while green, yellow, and red, the north lights swept in bars."

"It's incredible!"

"It's why I never have any of the outdoor lights turned on. I like to see the night."

They watched for several minutes, but as spectacular as it was, Fiona was getting cold just standing there and began to shiver.

"It's fucking freezing out here, let's go inside."

"You're such a wimp," Dawn laughed at her. "It's not even below zero yet. You definitely are going to need some flannels."

Fiona looked around the "cabin" as Dawn poked around at the fire, blowing on it and getting it going again. It was more like a ski lodge than a shack, she thought; not cramped and dark and dank at all. Dawn insisted on leaving all the lights turned off, so the only illumination was from the moon, the northern lights dancing across the sky, and the cheery glow of the fire. It was eerie, romantic, mysterious (and probably a few other adjectives that didn't come immediately to mind), all at once.

A large array of windows occupied one whole wall. As Fiona's eyes adjusted to the night, she looked out over a span of snow covered weedy brush, with a marshy area in the corner, and backed by a towering mass of spruce and pine. It was a vision of arboreal winter perfection. Breathtaking.

"DeeDee, this is not at all what I imagined. I can see now why you love it here." Fiona didn't know a lot about art, but she could appreciate how the large windows, the idyllic view, and the solitude would be inspiring.

The fire started to crackle ambitiously and Dawn stood beside her. "They planted this all into a food plot, so the deer come right up to the windows. Then they could shoot the deer without even going outside; it's the absolute laziest way of 'hunting' that you can possibly imagine." She sort of laughed and sort of cringed. "But I replaced all the windows because they were absolute rubbish and let in too much cold air. So you can't open them and shoot deer anymore. The deer still come up to the window though. It's fun to watch them."

"DeeDee, do deer like apples?"

"They love apples."

"Then you do need some apple trees; I'll help you plant them." Fiona took Dawn's hand and they looked out the window in silence. Fiona could imagine herself here with DD, watching the deer, watching the northern lights, burying herself in that cascade of raven hair. Whatever lingering doubts had been sabotaging her intentions were summarily killed and Fiona took a breath, now is the time to say it.

"You're probably tired from your trip and want to get some sleep, FiFi. Let me just change quickly and grab some blankets and then you can get to bed." Dawn disappeared into the bedroom before Fiona could reply.

A few minutes later she came out in flannel pajamas that made Fiona's mouth water. She never imagined that flannel pajamas could be sexy, but these were a light blue with the cutest pattern of snowmen, Christmas trees, and puppies that had red bows around their necks. They fit DD perfectly and displayed her amazing ass to the best possible advantage.

"DeeDee, those are the cutest pajamas ever, where did you even find them."

"Oh, I had to make them. You know how nothing ever fits me right, because I have this deformed body. So I ordered this fabric and then made them to fit me. They are very cozy, which believe me, is an important factor here.

"I turned the electric blanket on FiFi, so it will be warm in a minute. Just make yourself at home. Let me know if you can't find something." Dawn disappeared into the bathroom.

Fiona changed into the long tee shirt she usually slept in and was coming from the bedroom about the time Dawn was coming from the bathroom.

"DeeDee, I don't want to put you out of your own bed, this is your house. I'll sleep out here."

"Nope, it's only fair. You slept on the floor when I came to Our... to your house, so my turn now. Anyway, I need to keep the fire going, so this will be better."

Fiona crawled under the unusually large pile of blankets, it wasn't quite warm yet but the electric blanket was working hard to get it there. Had she misread the situation? She had been on the verge of kissing Dawn and telling her she loved her, that she wanted them to get back together, to finally consummating what each had been dancing around for 3 months now. And then DD had abruptly changed the subject.

She looked around the snug little room, it had a certain rustic charm, a simplicity. At first she had a hard time picturing DD in this environment, but as she drifted into a half awake dream state it made more sense. DD had always prioritized authenticity over ostentation. Her art, music, complete being, disregarded extravagance; it made total sense she would flourish in a place scoured clean of artifice.

---

A rattling and clanging woke Fiona. The cozy bed was warm, but everything looked wrong, she blinked her eyes trying to remember where she was. This was Dawn's cabin; right. She sat up, everything was dark but the bedroom door was open and a small glow was visible in the other room. She got out of bed, the cold air and freezing floor yanked her awake. She rummaged around until she found her slippers and relieved her feet of contact with the icy floor.

"Hey, sleepy head. I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up," Dawn greeted her, as Fiona tentatively found her way through the dark.

"What are you talking about, it's still night."

"Actually it's nearly 6:30. I have some coffee ready. Here, sit by the fire and I'll get you some."

"I can't believe I slept that late, I never sleep that late."

Dawn brought her a cup of coffee, with genuine half and half, no sugar. Exactly how she liked it.

"It will start to get light in about an hour. So I'll make us some breakfast and then take you to see all the sights."

Fiona sipped her coffee and watched DD thoughtfully. The tall black haired beauty moved smoothly, confidently around the small kitchen. She was efficient, deliberate, self-possessed. There was no hint of the delicate artist Fiona had always thought her to be. She had an intrinsic strength Fiona had never known was there.

"DeeDee, you are a strange, crazy girl," Fiona spoke half to herself. "In my wildest imagination I never expected you to fit so perfectly this space."

"I love you too, FiFi," Dawn grinned at her. "But let's be honest, your imagination is not very wild."

They laughed easily together. It was so easy to sit by the fire and watch DD make them omelet sandwiches for breakfast. She handed Fiona a plate, sat down on the daybed next to her, and arranged the blanket around them.

"I don't even know why I have a table. I never use it. I always just eat here by the fire, or outside if the weather is nice. You need to come during summer FiFi. That's the best time... well except for the mosquitoes and deer flies."

An hour later they were stepping out of the porch into the frigid arctic winter. Fiona was bundled up, with every patch of skin covered. DD was not, she had on just a light jacket and not even mittens.

"See it's not that cold, you're not going to freeze to death." DD teased Fiona.

"OK I'll concede that argument. But seriously, 20 degrees sounds cold. Maybe it's some psychological thing, but being surrounded by all the trees makes it seem warmer."

"It's because of the colors. If we were out in the open, with white snow and blue sky, then that feels cold, open, exposed right? But here we have the browns of these ash trees, the deep green of those spruce and the brighter green of the pine arching overhead. And these yellow gold popple. It makes everything cozy, feels warm. But it really is warmer too, not by very much, I'm not sure you actually can feel it. When the sun is up, the snow just reflects the heat and doesn't get warm, but the trees absorb the heat and hold onto it, so it really is warmer."

Fiona looked at her in amazement, when had DD become some sort of ecologist?

"DeeDee, I don't want to sound judgy, but why do you know that? Since when....?"

Dawn waved dismissively, "Oh well, if you are going to paint a thing, then you really have to understand its life. But its life is connected to everything around it, so they all change each other. You know what I mean?"

"No, not really. But I'll take your word for it." Fiona thought of all the times DD had just listened attentively to her talk about some math or engineering subject. Fiona had felt slightly superior at those times, knowing that DD didn't really understand it but just enjoyed listening to her.

And now it was Fiona's turn to just listen as Dawn talked, walking together along the forest trail. DD pointed out birds, explaining how to recognize them, talked about the bushes and which had seeds or berries the birds ate, a million little details that would go unnoticed by any normal person. And Fiona just listened, feeling pleasure and pride in hearing the love of her life describe these details. Love of her life? Fiona rolled that idea around her brain.... yep, that felt right.

"SHIT!!!"

A sudden explosion of noise, snow, wind, wings erupted right under their feet.

Fiona saw a blur of brown streaking off through the trees, "what the??"

Dawn was catching her breath and laughing. "Partridge. They scare the shit out of me every time." She was gasping. "Yeah, they are totally invisible when they are sitting still, then they wait until you're like 2 feet away and just explode off the ground like that. I think I pee'd my pants...." she giggled.

Fiona, likewise, was laughing, crying, trying to breath and catch her breath. "Shit.... fuck.... I thought we were going to die."

Still feeling a little lightheaded, Fiona took Dawn's hand as they resumed their walk along the trail. "... and having narrowly survived together that near death experience, the two girls were bonded for life..." Dawn smiled and gripped Her hand tighter.

The trail they were taking was a long meandering loop that eventually brought them back out on the driveway between the cabin and the county road.

"How about you go inside and make us some hot cocoa? I'm going to go collect the mail and I'll be back in just a minute." Dawn headed down the driveway toward the mailbox.

A few minutes later Dawn came in and dumped a handful of mail on the table before pulling off her boots and snow pants and going into the bathroom. Fiona started idly sifting through the mail, more out of habit than actual interest. DD came back out and sat down at the tiny table, sipping her hot cocoa and looking content.

Fiona's eyes landed on an envelope and froze. "Dawn, what is this?"

Dawn glanced at it and she suddenly looked like the deer in those headlights, "Oh yeah, property taxes, I just need to pay those next month. Go ahead and put it in the stack of bills."

Fiona continued looking at Dawn silently.

Dawn took a deep breath, "And the reason that your name is on it, is because you are half owner of this," she waved her hand vaguely.

"When I bought it... it was right after 'Mad Killer' sold out to that other game company, and I had all this money so I paid cash. We had always talked about having a little cottage together, and I thought..... well I didn't think about it.... I just felt like it wouldn't be so lonely here if you were part of it, owned it with me.... so I added your name to the deed.... then it would be like you were here too, in a way. It was all cash, so you didn't have to sign anything..... I know it was just a pathetic attempt to hold onto something that can never be, but I'm not sorry I did it."

Fiona had her own secret to confess, she took a deep breath, "Dawn, there's something I need to tell you. The night you showed up in the rain? I thought you came to get your money."

"My money? What.... money....?"

"You never changed your direct deposit information. Remember how we set up a joint account, to save up for buying the cottage? Well you didn't change that and so your money kept accumulating. And after I got my degree and an actual professorship then I was putting more money in too.

"I think you never actually read our lease agreement, but probably you remember that we had an option to buy Our Cottage; all we needed to do was exercise it within 5 years. And your name is still on the agreement. So we were both putting all this money into our joint account, and I used it. I used it to exercise the option and buy Our Little Cottage; but a lot of that was your money and I should have asked you first, if you still wanted to do that. But I always just thought you were going to come back soon. Well, we don't completely own it, we still owe a huge amount on the mortgage, but yeah."

"Are you actually serious? So now we own two places together? That is so....."

They, both laughed together briefly, at the lunacy. And then fell into an excruciating silence.

-----

Dawn was thinking of what FiFi had said earlier on the trail; of what she had told her own parents a month ago; of how she had never heard Her mention a name. In the four months since she had gone to Missouri, they still had never directly addressed any future; Dawn needed an answer.... "FiFi? I need to know..... it's not really my business but just tell me this much..... you said you're kinda seeing someone...... where does that leave me?"

Fiona stood and slowly walked to the window, looking out for a long time. Dawn followed, sat on the floor behind Her, cross-legged on the thick rug, watching Her. Dawn waited for the verdict, for the words that would define the rest of her life - one way or the other.

Fiona began to speak without looking at her, still staring out the window. "I'm seeing someone, DeeDee, a beautiful, sexy, smart woman. She's everything I ever wanted: fun, full of life, she's an incredible artist, a talented musician who can play half a dozen different instruments..... I see her in my dreams.... I see her long black hair everywhere but then it's not her.... every time I close my eyes I see her; but I can't touch her. She left me, 6 fucking years 11 goddamned months and 5 shitty days ago. I have one of her paintings, she took the others with her when she left me, but I have one, and I see her there too. I see her in The Painting. But she's not with me, I can't touch her, not the way I want to.

She turned to face Dawn, "It's you DeeDee. I can't stop seeing the you of seven years ago. Now? I don't know if you are still her. I'm in love with who you were, but I don't know if that's who you are now. I want you to be.... I just don't know.... That's why I came here, to tell you, ask you... I couldn't say it on the phone." She stood helplessly, forlorn.

"FiFi? The Painting? That's Home for me; I'm lost and I need you to help me find my way Home. How do I get Home, FiFi?"

"I'm lost too, DeeDee." And Dawn rushed to Her and held Her while She cried into that flowing long black hair.

After a few moments she sighed and drew back far enough to look into Dawn's eyes, "DeeDee, I don't care if we regret this in the morning. Right now I need to have you; let's go to bed."

They walked hand in hand to the bedroom, hesitantly, cautiously not sure what the morrow would bring.

But when they embraced and came together, kissing, touching, sighing and whispering, all the barriers and anxieties fell away. They absorbed the knowledge that each of them wanted this, wanted the other, wanted to get back what they had lost so many years ago.

Their gentle touches quickly grew more desperate, demanding release from the years of repression. They were tearing at each others' clothes with an eagerness neither had felt before.

Dawn lifted Fiona's naked body and dropped her roughly on the bed, following her down, kissing her and groping her breasts. "I love your breasts, FiFi. Two handfuls and a mouthful each!" She slid lower and took one of Fiona's nipples in her mouth, and with her hand worked gently on her other nipple.

Fiona buried her hands in Dawn's hair; drew it over her face and buried herself in its raven darkness. It smelled like a mixture of wood smoke, fresh air, pine trees, and Dawn's own natural scent that Fiona knew so well. Feeling Dawn's hands and mouth on her body, buried in Dawn's hair, Fiona rediscovered a joy she once thought was gone forever.

Within moments Dawn's long fingers were inside Fiona's slippery tunnel. Fiona thrust her hips into Dawn's hand, trying to get more into her hungry cunt. Years of longing fueled her desperation to be claimed and satisfied by the woman she loved. Dawn curled her fingers up, pressing the tips into Fiona's G-spot while her palm crushed into Fiona's clit. Minutes later Fiona was thrashing through a powerful orgasm as Dawn pulled her close, holding her tightly through the blissful release.

When Fiona recovered, she crawled on top of Dawn. They both knew what was coming next, it was all so familiar but after so many years apart it seemed unreal. Dawn spread her legs so Fiona could position herself, their pussies mashed together.

"Fuck me FiFi. Fuck me like you used to do. Fuck me like you want to do, FiFi."

---

They were tangled together, luxuriating in the afterglow. Dawn propped herself up on one elbow and kissed Fiona, then pulled her long black hair over them both, encapsulating them together, their faces inches apart. "My mom says thank you for the birthday card," she whispered.

"This is sort of a random time to bring that up."

"I wanted to tell you.... when I called her on her birthday she told me that you sent her a card. And I made a comment about how you were the responsible one of this relationship. I don't know if she picked up on that, she changed the subject right away. But it kept bothering me, and I started to get angry again, and it was just like last time. And I couldn't stand to pretend anymore, about how I felt. So I called her back the next day, both of my parents, and I told them everything, that you used to be my girlfriend, and that I'm in love with you."

"Wow, DeeDee, that was really brave. What did they say?"

"A bunch of stuff, I'm going to hell probably.... I don't know, I wasn't actually listening. And I don't care, that's not the point. The point is that I don't want to be your 'used to be girlfriend,' I want to be your still girlfriend."

"You know we never actually broke up, right? I know that I gave up trying to find you, and I tried to get over you and move on, but I never actually could. I am still your girlfriend, DeeDee. I always will be. The last seven years proved that."

They got out of bed long enough to make themselves some lupper in the late afternoon. FnD, largely the F part of this couple, had concluded that eating three times a day is an inefficient use of time, and that lunch and supper should be consolidated into one meal. This meant that A) if they go out to eat they can go during the least crowded time for restaurants; and B) if they didn't go out they could spend more time in bed together.

They occasionally threw a chunk of wood in the fire, but mostly they kept each other warm in bed.

---

The cabin was cold and the eastern sky was just getting light when they finally woke.

"Good morning, girlfriend," DD kissed Fiona tenderly.

"Hmm, this is the best way to wake up, snuggled in a warm bed kissing the most beautiful girl ever."

"Yeah, the bed is warm, but as soon as we get out it's going to be freezing."

"In that case, we'd better get warmed up first." Fiona pulled the blankets over their heads and began kissing DD's neck. Slowly she worked her way down, licking between DD's breasts, taking one nipple between her lips and sucking gently. Then letting it go, licking the aureola around it, feeling it harden even more. Switched to the other, licking, sucking, teasing.

Fiona's hand was on DD's stomach, gently stroking, up along her ribs, down her side, her thigh, her leg. The little contented sounds DD was making were driving Fiona mad with lust. Fiona slid her two middle fingers into Dawn's steamy center, curling up to stimulate her g-spot while massaging her clit with her palm. In moments DD was screaming in the pleasure of release.

Fiona cuddled and kissed Dawn as she recovered her breath.

"My turn now." DD slid down between Fiona's legs and spread them apart. She put her nose right into Fiona's pussy and inhaled deeply of the aroma. Fiona's juices were flowing freely; without any more warning Dawn shoved her tongue deep into Fiona's pussy and vigorously ate her out.

Fiona's breath was becoming steady again and focus returned to her eyes while DD held and kissed her. "Warmed up now?" Dawn grinned at her. "So we're going to jump out, get some clothes on as fast as we can. Then I'll get the fire going while you get an apple pie out and stick it in the microwave."

"Why an apple pie?" Fiona asked, still not quite present.

"For breakfast. I don't know about you, but I worked up an appetite."

"Apple pie for breakfast? Are you crazy?"

"You know I am, that's why you love me. But apple pie is the best breakfast ever, it's very healthy."

Five minutes later they were snuggled under the blankets on the daybed in front of the fire, listening to it crackle while the apple pie thawed and the coffee pot gurgled.

"OK, I think the coffee is ready, I'll get us some. Stay here and keep it warm." Dawn jumped up and ran to get the coffee.

Fiona couldn't stop admiring DD's ass as she moved quickly around the tiny kitchen, in those adorable flannel pajamas. She felt a little envious of those tiny snowmen, who got to press up so tight against DD's flesh.

Dawn pulled the pie out of the microwave and shoved it into the toaster oven, cranking the knobs. She brought their coffee over and handed both cups to Fiona. "Can you hold mine for a minute while I throw in more wood?" So saying, she opened the stove, and bending at the waist poked around at the fire, her ass wiggling appealingly mere feet from Fiona's eyes. She tossed in a few chunks of wood and closed the door. Fiona was entirely convinced DD was trying to torment her.

Dawn looked briefly at something on the wall, "It's up to 34 now." She slid under the blanket with Fiona and took her coffee.

"What is?"

"The temperature in here. It was 22 when I started the fire, so up 12 degrees."

"Are you fucking kidding me right now? I knew it was freezing, but I didn't think it was actually legitimately freezing."

"It's your own fault you know. Normally I would get up and throw a piece of wood in during the night, but you wouldn't let me go. I was trapped in bed."

"Sure, blame it on me. How long does it take the apple pie to bake?"

"About 2 orgasms."

"2 orgasms, huh? I didn't know that was a unit of measure."

"Then you mathematicians need to get more creative with your digits."

"Don't you mean units?"

"Nope, pretty sure I mean digits." Dawn lifted Fiona's hand and one by one took each finger into her mouth, slowly sucking them, swirling her tongue around them. "Digits."

Three orgasms later they were catching their breath. Fiona grabbed the blanket from the floor and covered them back up with it. The smell of apple pie was beginning to overtake the smell of sex.

"I hope the pie isn't burned," Fiona observed.

"No, it won't be, I only put it on 300, just in case. Worst that would happen is it dries out," Dawn assured her. "I'll go get us some. Throw some wood in the fire, would you please?"

While Fiona figured out how to operate the wood stove, DD skipped to the kitchen and rummaged around. She came back carrying the pie, coffee, and some bowls. "Do you want ice cream with yours, FiFi?" She piled everything on top of the wood stove and dished up some pie for each of them.

"It's still freezing in here, how can you eat ice cream?"

"Well I'm not, but I thought I'd offer. Anyway it's up to...." she looked at the thermometer on the wall, "47 now, so it's not freezing anymore, it's practically summer now."

"Smart ass." Fiona took a bite of the pie, "you are right though, apple pie for breakfast is brilliant. I think you've corrupted me DeeDee."

They ate their pie in pleasant silence. It was now morning and Fiona remembered how she had worried that they would regret this in the morning. It took less than a second to recognize that the only thing she now regretted was having waited, having fought against herself, having denied that she wanted this. She certainly didn't regret eating apple pie for breakfast, snuggled in front of the fire with the love of her life.

"I don't know how cold it's going to be today, FiFi. I wanted to take you looking for Kirkland Warblers today, but if it's 20 below I'm not going outside."

"Those are a bird, I take it?"

"Yeah and they only live here, in the UP I mean. Everyone thought they were extinct......" and Dawn told her the whole story. "I got some pictures of them last summer. But I want to get some in the winter so I can do a painting. I've never seen them in the winter yet, but I imagine it would be beautiful."

This woman next to her was not the shy, insecure person Fiona thought she remembered. This DeeDee was reserved and thoughtful, but also capable and determined. Had DeeDee changed that much? Had Fiona never noticed before? Had Fiona herself changed, and now could recognize what had always been there? She pulled DeeDee's arm around herself and nestled into the taller woman.

"DeeDee.... yesterday I said I didn't know if you are the person I remembered..... I don't remember you like this.... so confident, wise.... you're so much better than I remember. When did that happen?"

"You're different too FiFi, more patient, less uptight. I've always been in love with you; but I like you better this way."

-----

It was 15 below outside so they decided to stay in. Dawn told Fiona about the things she was working on, showed her some of the paintings that were in progress, explained that the light changed drastically from one day to the next. "... like today, the sun is really bright, and it's reflecting off the snow, so there's a lot of yellow and distinct shadows. But yesterday, remember how it was more subdued, less stark? So I have to paint different things on different days, depending on the light....."

Dawn was not in the mood for painting though the joy in her soul was bursting forth and she needed to express that with music. "FiFi, I need you to figure this out for me. I can't keep any of these in tune."

Dawn drug her by the arm to the small room where she kept her instruments.

"Shit DD, you have all these? What even are these things?"

"That's a guitar, obviously, I don't play that much, it's kinda boring. Sax, obviously, which isn't a problem keeping in tune. Ukelele, that one is fun but it's hard to find any people who know songs I can play that on. Trumpet, obviously, for when I'm feeling the whole Miles Davis vibe. Lately I play the viola, mostly, and she doesn't like the changes in temperature."

"Yeah, temperature and humidity. Just controlling this room wouldn't be that hard but still doesn't help with when you bring her out."

Fiona seemed to be preoccupied, like something was bothering her. Dawn waited for the question.

"Before.... you played mandolin a lot, before, DeeDee."

"My mandolin isn't here, though. FiFi, I can't go buy a different one and then pretend all of that didn't happen. That's why I play a viola now, not a violin. They are tuned the same, mandolin and a fiddle, and they occupy the same space in a song. Obviously they are not the same and Itsak Perlman and Chris Thile would have very much to say about how different they are. But I can't be in that space.... well I couldn't before yesterday. The viola is sometimes thought to be a poor second to the violin, what you do when you can't have what you really want.....

"I've been playing her a lot the last several years."

----

Now Fiona sat on the daybed behind DD, pretending to read a book while tangling her fingers in that long, flowing hair. And all the time that Fiona was basking in the simple pleasure of Dawn's life, she was plagued by the knowledge that she was leaving in two days. There was no question of Dawn moving back to Missouri with her; she was too much entwined in this place, the forest, the animals, the cabin, the solitude. Like picking a flower, or cutting down a tree, or killing a deer and sticking its head on the wall, when you try to posses it the thing itself is destroyed and only the empty shell of its body remains.

The music that DD was playing was deeply moving, at times sad, mournful, then with a spring of cheerfulness, later falling into thoughtful melancholy. It was something by Beethoven. Tears came to Fiona's eyes as she watched and listened to Dawn; so much a part of this place. Fiona felt DD slipping away again, mere hours after they had found their way back home to each other.

---

FnD had a dinner date with Katie and Amanda planned for that evening. Katie had made Dawn agree, as payback for the time Dawn had interrupted their night, months earlier. It was about a half hour drive over to Ishpeming, and there was a light snow falling.

DD drove her Subaru confidently along, seemingly unconcerned with the weather. Fiona was perfectly familiar with snow as well, having grown up in Ohio, but she had been a kid then and didn't do much actual driving in it. The stark wilderness, seemingly buried under snow, with the deserted highway stretching before them was a bit disconcerting. DD was chatting happily, talking about a canoe trip she'd been on during the summer and speculating about whether to buy a canoe. Fiona was much less relaxed with the conditions. The car hit a small patch of snow and ice and slid a little; Fiona's heart leapt into her throat.

"I'd like to go canoeing with you, FiFi, I think it would be fun. But the best time is in the early spring, and you probably have to teach classes then." DD didn't even seem to have noticed, or cared, about the patch of ice.

The ease with which Dawn navigated this life in the north woods brought to Fiona's mind the image of a lumberjill. "DeeDee," Her voice was a bit strained. "You've convinced me of the advantages for all-wheel drive, and even flannel pajamas, but I don't want you cutting your hair and going all butch on me now."

"Hmm, maybe I'll try just to see what you do about it.." Dawn started to tease, but then stopped short. "I'm sorry FiFi, that's stupid. I wasn't thinking about your feelings, I guess I need you to do some error checking on me again. I don't want to do something stupid again."

"DeeDee, you're not stupid though. I think you are underestimating yourself. I know that before these last couple days I was underestimating you, I completely failed to appreciate everything you are. Maybe I still am. Don't say you're stupid."

"I'm not like you though, you're a math professor with a PhD, and I'm just a..... And you can figure anything out, you just like calculate stuff and know the answer, and I can't figure anything out... I couldn't figure it out and I got scared and ran off, and it's all my fault that...." Dawn was fighting back the tears.

"It isn't all your fault though DeeDee, most of it is my fault. I threw my phone in the lake and you couldn't call me. I never lost your number though, I know your number, I have it memorized. At any time I could have called or texted..... I'm the one who gave up on you. Maybe the first three months were on you, but the next 6 years and 5 months are all on me. And you are the one who didn't give up, you are the strong one, you came Home and showed me what Home looks like. You figured out the most important thing DeeDee, you figured out what Home looks like. I'm the one who was stupid."

---

Amanda and Katie were already at a table when FnD came into the bar and grill, laughing together and holding hands. Amanda had counseled Dawn to not expect too much from Fiona's visit, just to take things slowly and focus on communication. Amanda was anticipating an uncomfortable evening, so she was more than a little surprised and pleased to see them so happy together. A small smile spread slowly across Amanda's face while Katie grinned broadly.

"Good evening ladies. Am I then to conclude from appearances that your circumstances have improved?"

"Amanda, Katie. Meet my girlfriend Fiona."

The dinner conversation was pleasant and enjoyable, if the meal itself was rather ordinary. They concluded the night with a resolve to meet regularly.

---

On the drive home, the snow got increasingly worse. Fiona took note of the deteriorating weather and realized that for the last few days she and Dawn had been so focused on each other, that they had not been paying attention to the weather forecasts. She checked her phone, but apparently there was no coverage on this stretch of road.

"DeeDee, what radio station has weather reports here?"

"One of the AM stations, I think it's 980 or something like that. Why?"

"I'm wondering how bad this snowstorm is going to be."

"Are you worried that we might get snowed in together, stuck in our cabin, all alone? Don't worry, I have plenty more apple pies and I know some ways we can occupy our time."

"Actually, I'm more worried about my flight getting canceled."

"That would be even better then, wouldn't it?"

"You do have a good point there, DeeDee. OK, but seriously, how are we going to do this? I can't imagine you not having this cabin to work in, and I have an opportunity to be Assistant Dean of the college next year. Now that we're back together, I couldn't bear trying to manage a long distance relationship."

By now, Fiona had found the radio station and they drove in silence listening to the weather forecast. It was indeed going to be a severe winter storm, which virtually assured that Fiona would be forced to spend a few more days with Dawn, trapped together in their Cozy Cabin; oh what a terrible hardship!

"FiFi, when we get back to our Cabin will you review my financial situation for me? I think I have a lot of money, or at least it seems like a lot to me."

"Sure, if you want. What are you thinking?"

"Well I don't know how much university professors get paid, but probably a lot, right? And if I have a lot of money too, then we can just fly back and forth as much as we like. Missouri is too hot in the summer, and we really don't want to be in Michigan very much during the winter. So we can come and go as we please."

"You really are taking this footloose artist lifestyle to heart, aren't you?" Fiona teased gently. "I think it could work though."

There was 3 inches of snow on the road, and Dawn was down to driving 40 mph by the time they got home; but she didn't have to switch it into 4WD until going up the hill into the driveway for their cabin.

Fiona fired up her laptop as soon as they got home (first time during her whole trip) and checked her flight status. The airline was encouraging everyone to proactively reschedule so as to avoid the inevitable delays and cancellations. She double checked her class schedule, and then delayed her return as long as she thought she could get away with. Meanwhile, Dawn was stirring up the fire again, and building a nice little blaze.

"Hey FiFi, do you want some mulled wine tonight? I think it would be perfect for the blizzard."

"Brilliant idea!"

Dawn mixed up her secret concoction of wine and spices and set it on the wood stove to simmer.

An hour later they were sitting in front of the fire eating strawberry ice cream and drinking hot mulled wine.

"It doesn't get any better than this, FiFi, stranded in a blizzard with you, drinking wine and eating ice cream, in front of a cozy little fire."

"True, but that fire is more than just cozy, it's getting really hot in here."

"Are you going to take all your clothes off again now?"

"Again?" Fiona looked at Dawn quizzically.

"Like the first night we got together; that's what you said, 'it's really hot in here.' Then you took all your clothes off and just sprawled out naked all over the bed in front of me."

"Oh, yeah, I did." Fiona smirked, then got an evil glint in her eye. She stood up and slowly began unbuttoning her top. "Did I ever tell you DeeDee.." she unbuttoned another button "... that I had planned that night for weeks.." another button ".. planned to seduce you... " another button ".. I was lusting after you.." she slipped her top off and tossed it on Dawn's lap "... all night at that party, I was trying to get you all worked up... " she unhooked her skirt and let it drop ".. fantasizing about all that I wanted to do to you.. " with the toe of one foot she tried to flick her puddled skirt into Dawn's lap, but instead it landed partly on Dawn's head, briefly covering her face.

Dawn ripped the garment away and leaped at Fiona, tackling her to the plush rug in front of the fire. Dawn smothered her, kissing her furiously and pulling away the smaller woman's panties. Fiona was soaking and Dawn's fingers slid easily into her yearning hole.

"You're so evil, FiFi," Dawn mumbled around Fiona's tongue.

Fiona relished the weight of Dawn's body pushing her down into the rug, Dawn's cascade of hair covering her face and depriving her of vision. Immersed in the sounds and smells of the woman she loved, closed off from the rest of the world, Fiona thrilled in total surrender. Dawn ravished her, and Fiona begged for more. Fiona's orgasm took her suddenly, she pulled Dawn's lips tighter, mashing against her own and screamed into their kiss. Dawn inhaled, breathing in Fiona's own exhaling breath. They clung to each other until Fiona's climax subsided.

Dawn drew her mouth away from Fiona's as they tried to catch their breaths. Fiona brushed Dawn's hair back so she could look deep into the eyes of her lover, her own green eyes glittering with joy, "You attacked me again DD, just like last time."

----

The next morning, after a breakfast of apple pie, they were snuggled together on the daybed in front of the fire with a jumble of papers. Fiona looked up from the notebook where she had jotted down all the numbers. "DeeDee, you really do have quite a lot of money saved up. Can I ask you, how much money did you get when they sold Mad Killer?"

Dawn chuckled bashfully, "Well I was supposed to get $2 million, but after all the lawyers and taxes and stuff it was a lot less."

Seeing the shocked expression on Fiona's face DeeDee explained. "You know how you always told me to make sure I kept ownership of my copyrights? So I won't have something happen like Taylor Swift or Brittany Spears? You know my dad's a lawyer, not that kind, but he has a friend who is that always read the contracts for me. They tried to threaten me and say I would never work for them if I didn't do what they wanted, but I didn't like any of them anyway so I didn't care if they hired me or not. But they ended up agreeing. So then when it sold, I owned a lot of the artwork in the game and they would have had to spend too much time replacing it. So they gave me a lot of money to not delay the sale."

"Damn girl! You never cease to amaze me DeeDee." Fiona was genuinely impressed. "Not only are you probably the only black artist in the UP who can also play several instruments, you're a millionaire besides! How did I end up with you?

"So DeeDee, the next question then is, how much do you normally spend, all your total expenditures for a year?" Fiona asked.

"Well let's see..." Dawn thought a minute and then began listing off everything while Fiona scribbled quickly.

Fiona took a minute to add everything up. She looked at all the numbers again, her brow furrowed. The total number was substantially less than she expected, and yet there was nothing obvious missing. "This is all?"

"So DeeDee, your cost of living here is quite low. You don't have a mortgage or a car payment, all your other expenses are modest or below average. You really don't need much money for your current standard of living. Plane tickets between here and there are, let's say $800 if we plan ahead, I got mine for a bit less than that. Even at 12 trips a year you can easily afford that."

"And you're right, university professors get paid well, not sure I would call it 'a lot' but it's better than most. I don't have as much in savings as you, and am still paying on my student loans and the mortgage on Our Cottage. But I still could afford that too. And I think neither one of us wants to fly back and forth every month, so in reality it would probably be half that number.

"Which means money is not the biggest problem. All we need to do then is decide when we want to be where," Fiona concluded.

"And I want to be where you are, FiFi. So at least for the rest of the school year I guess we will go to Our Little Cottage." And Dawn took great satisfaction in being able to call it that again.

The last throes of the blizzard were still lingering outside, reluctant to dissipate, so they remained in the Cozy Cabin for the day.

Dawn was in high spirits and felt the inspiration to paint. She pressed Fiona into being her subject, who agreed with no more than a token resistance. Dawn wanted some pictures of Fiona at home in their Cabin, so Fiona was reading on the daybed while Dawn sketched.

"Oh DeeDee, there's something I want to ask you, a favor. You might think this is strange. I know your faith was very important to you at one time. I used to ridicule that and I'm sorry, ashamed about that. I don't know if you still do, or want to, but if you do want to go to church, would you bring me with you?"

Dawn was silent for a long time, struggling how to understand that. So many years her experience with her religion had been inextricably bound to feelings of guilt. Guilt from the church and her parents over her same sex relationship. Guilt from Fiona about her belief in something She dismissed as superstition. More recently, guilt over how she had ended the last conversation with her parents. But equally strong was the long suppressed longing for the comfort she used to draw from her faith. Longing for the reassurance she had found in its message of hope and love and acceptance. Could she ever believe in that message again?

"It's been a long time, FiFi. I don't know, maybe. I don't know if I can, I don't know if I want to. I don't know if they want me to."

----

Fiona wasn't exactly getting used to it, but she was beginning to take a perverse pleasure in their morning routine of jumping out of bed into a freezing, literally fucking freezing, house and racing around to get the fire started, coffee made and an apple pie cooking, then hiding back under the blankets by the fire for an ice age while the temperature crept inexorably up to survivable.

They were in the middle of the best part of that routine when Fiona became aware of an alarming racket outside the house. She pulled her mouth off Dawn's breast, "What the hell is that?"

Dawn's fingers in her pussy didn't slow down, "It's just Einar." And she pulled Fiona's mouth to hers for some more sloppy snogging.

After the requisite number of orgasms for an apple pie to bake, Fiona was looking out the kitchen window while Dawn rummaged through her freezer on the porch.

"DeeDee, is that contraption plowing the snow?"

"Yeah, Einar plows snow for me." She came back into the kitchen with a package of frozen cinnamon roll dough. "Can you bake these quick. He's going to be finished in a few minutes. I forgot he would be coming over, you sort of distracted me. But I need to go out and move my car so he can finish plowing."

Dawn didn't bother putting on a coat, just stuffed her feet into her boots and ran out the door. Fiona watched her and shook her head, "That crazy girl is going to fucking freeze to death."

Fiona was stirring up the fire and adding wood when DD came back in a few minutes late. Fiona had already brought the pie and coffee over to the wood stove to keep them warm.

"DeeDee, you're going to freeze to death, what are you doing, going out with no jacket?"

"It's not even cold out, it's like 20, and I was only out there for a minute." Dawn got her coffee and some pie and sat on the daybed. "I asked Einar to bring us more firewood too. We could use another load."

After a bit there was clomping on the porch, followed by the appearance of a strange beast with shaggy hair, a weird hat with ear flaps, a beard full of frost and ice and covered with a flannel shirt and insulated bib overalls. He did not at all look like he had just stepped out of a Lands End catalog; he looked like nothing civilization would consent to. He was either about 20, or about 80, or somewhere in between.

Dawn jumped up and took the coffee pot from the wood stove. "Want some coffee? Einar, this is my girlfriend Fiona."

"Yah, sure, tanks. Girlfriend ey? Nice ta meet ya. I guess den dat Isto is gonna be bummed." He sat at the kitchen table and took the coffee from Dawn.

"I told him a thousand times I'm not interested, it's not like it's a news flash." Dawn retorted. She took the cinnamon rolls out of the toaster oven and started smearing the frosting on.

"Yah sure, but not interested 'cause he's an asshole is different than not interested 'cause ya got a hot girlfriend." He laughed. "So, you a troll den?" he asked Fiona.

Fiona had joined them in the kitchen and sat down in the one other chair at the table. It didn't sound like an insult, but Fiona couldn't think of what else it would be.

Dawn answered for her, "No, FiFi lives in Missouri. She's a math professor at the University. She came up to visit during Christmas break." She glanced at Fiona, and explained, "a troll is someone who lives in the lower peninsula, below the bridge. And I bought this place from Einar's uncle, so he sort of came with it. They all used to hunt here, so they are a bit annoyed at me for buying it. I let Einar and Aino hunt here now, but his cousins are assholes, like he said." She set the cinnamon rolls in front of Einar, who began eating them without comment.

Dawn nudged Fiona, "You can sit on my lap." Fiona stood and let Dawn sit down first. Sitting on the taller woman's lap, Fiona was about the same height. And Fiona felt more comfortable this way.

Einar looked at them and smirked, "You two are cute like dat. Aino will wanta meet ya den. So ya comin ta bingo tanite?"

Dawn looked at Fiona, "Do you want to? It will be fun and you can meet everyone. You should, because you half live here now."

Fiona agreed and they chatted for a while longer until Einar had polished off the last of the cinnamon rolls.

After Einar had clomped back out to his truck, Dawn looked at her, "Well FiFi, you just met your first genuine yooper."

-----

Dawn had a number of details to sort before leaving the Cabin unoccupied during the winter. Since it would be unheated, the water needed to be shut off and everything drained. Perishable food, or anything that would attract mice, disposed of. And a host of other considerations.

Therefore, it was a few weeks later that she rejoined Fiona in Missouri. Fiona was fidgeting on the other side of the security door, waiting for her. The instant Dawn was through the door they rushed into each other's arms. And giggling like teenagers in love they walked down to the baggage claim hand in hand.

An hour and a half later they were sitting in front of the fire with a glass of wine; both sitting in the comfy chair, together, because it was big enough for two people who loved each other that much.

---

Wednesday morning they were snuggled in bed, stealing a few last minutes together before getting up to get dressed. Fiona had put off the question as long as she could; last time she'd raised the subject Dawn's reaction hadn't been encouraging.

"DeeDee? Tonight I have.... every Wednesday night.... for the last couple months I've been attending this thing... a bible study at the church." She waited, waiting for any reaction. Dawn's breath may have hitched a little, and she might have tensed a bit.

"So tonight, I'm wondering if... I could either skip it... unless you want to come with?"

"That's unexpected FiFi, considering what you used to say. Why would you do that?"

"I realized I was being just as intolerant of religion as some people are of us. I understood nothing about it but yet I criticized it. That was unfair and hypocritical of me. Well and it's also contrary to the scientific method, which I claim to adhere to.

"And I think I caused you a lot of stress because of my criticism. You never said that, or maybe you did and I wasn't listening. I thought, if I learn something about it, then maybe I'll be able to understand better how you feel about... well it was an important part of your life and I don't understand anything about that part of you. I want to."

"I'll come with you, FiFi, at least for one night. Then we'll see."

----

Dawn had left most of her clothes in Michigan since she was planning to restock her wardrobe in the Cottage. She decided to do some shopping while Fiona was at work, to avoid the extra trip back and forth. So she was thinking about what she might want to get while they were driving in to the city.

"FiFi, what happened to all your cute clothes?"

"You think my clothes are not cute?"

"You only have business clothes, which is fine for a professor when you're teaching, except they are kind of boring. And you used to have so many really cute outfits but not a single one is still in your closet."

"I couldn't wear them DeeDee. They reminded me too much of you. I couldn't wear anything without thinking of something we did, or something you said...... so one night in a drunken rage I piled them all up and set fire to the whole lot."

"Everything?"

"Pretty much."

"FiFi, that's...." Dawn couldn't finish the sentence. Fiona had always cared about looking nice, cared about wearing clothes Dawn would like to see her in. Like that green satin dress Fiona wore the night they became girlfriends; the green satin dress the redhead in The Picture was wearing. And Fiona had set fire to that whole piece of herself.

----

The bible study was uneventful. Everyone was polite and friendly. There were a few raised eyebrows when Fiona introduced Dawn as her girlfriend, but one look at the expression on Fiona's face discouraged any trouble. About 20 minutes after they started, a teenager with spiked green hair joined them. It wasn't immediately evident what their gender was.

Not too long into the discussion the teenager began heatedly arguing some point. An older lady, who Fiona knew as Millie spoke up.

"Alyssa, you need to be respectful. It's not necessary to shout."

"I am not shouting, Mildred Anne. I am merely making my point with vigorous arguments."

The other members of group smiled knowingly, a few rolled their eyes. Fiona guessed Millie to be Alyssa's mother.

She was proven right after the group broke up. The teenager approached them confidently.

"Hi, I'm Al. We've never met. I know pretty much everyone in church 'cause I've been going here my whole life. Did you just join?"

"Nice to meet you Al," Dawn replied. "That's short for Alyssa, is it? We haven't actually joined yet, but are considering it."

Al scowled and looked at her mother. "Mildred believes she can call me that because it's the name she happened to assign me at birth. I, however, do not accept it. She also insists on applying she/her pronouns to me, rather than my preferred choice of xe/xim."

"Oh, good to know," Dawn replied graciously. "Thanks for letting us know. I expect you must get misgendered often, and I would not like to make that mistake."

"Yeah. Thanks. You might be the only one who hasn't tried to argue with me about that," xe grinned. "Hey, so you two are a couple, right? Lesbians?"

Dawn sensed Fiona getting ready for an argument, so she took Her hand. "Yep, FiFi and I are recently reunited. Why do you ask?" Dawn suspected the teenager had something bothering xim that xe wanted to talk about.

"Well, 'cause, like I think I am too. But I don't know anyone else who is, so like how do you know? And my mom would.... Mildred Anne, I mean, would have a fit if I ever told her."

"Al, I'm sure you do know plenty of others who do not identify as hetero, about 30% of people who are your age do not. Perhaps they are not as brave, perhaps there are other reasons they choose not to disclose their relationship preferences." Fiona was in schoolteacher mode now that she saw that Al needed advice. "And there is no need to label yourself, not now or ever. Your own preferences may be very different at different points in your life. But you should prepare yourself for a conversation with your mom, with Mildred. She is very intently staring at you having a conversation with a lesbian couple right now. It's not easy having that conversation with parents. DeeDee is better able than I to speak to that though."

Al glanced over xis shoulder at xis mom, scowled for a moment then shrugged. "I guess I just outed myself then. Oh well, it can't have been a surprise. But what you said about not applying labels, I like that, it makes sense. I mean, I can just say I'll fall in love with whoever I want. Nobody can argue about that, right?"

"You'd be surprised. Have you read Romeo and Juliet? Lot's of people think they get to have an opinion on who you love," Dawn laughed. "If it's not gender, it will be race, or religion, socio-economic status, nationality... there's always something."

"Alyssa, are you ready to leave now?" Mille walked up to them.

"Yeah, I guess. See ya DeeDee and FiFi."

---

After the not horrible reaction of people at the bible study group Wednesday night, they decided to give Sunday church service a try. They were having coffee and donuts in the social hall after wards.

"FnD is back!" announced a happy voice behind them.

They turned in their chairs to see a woman about their age in a pretty dress, with two children.

"Virginia, how nice to see you again," Dawn instantly recognized her.

"I'm so glad to see you two together again. You were always so cute together," she laughed. "Fiona the studious, stern one, and Dawn the fun friendly one. Oh and these are my twins, Jack and Jill."

"Oh, aren't you two just so adorable," Dawn gushed at the twins who were dressed similarly in bib overalls and plaid shirts.

"... went up the hill to fetch a pail of water.. " teased Al, sneaking up on the twins.

"Stop it, Al!" Jack yelled at xim and tried to kick Al, who dodged easily. Then Al reached down and picked him up and kissed him on the cheek, annoying the little boy even more.

Virginia was smiling at Al's antics, then turned back to them. "Do you know Al? She babysits for us, the kids adore her."

"We do, we met xim at bible study on Wednesday." Fiona stressed the pronoun, still trying to figure out where they knew Virginia from.

Virginia cocked her head questioningly at the unfamiliar pronoun.

"Al shared with us that xis preferred pronouns are xe/xim/xis," Dawn explained.

"OH, I'm sorry Al, I didn't know that. I'll try to do better. I was friends with FnD when we were in grad school. I stopped at my Masters degree, but Fiona got a PhD and is a professor at the University now. Dawn, are you still painting? You do such beautiful work."

They chatted a while longer, eventually parting with a promise to meet up for coffee one morning.

---

Spring Break meant that Fiona didn't have any classes for over a week. They decided to spend it in Memphis where they could find a variety of concerts. For the first 3 evenings they enjoyed a variety of music and casual events.

On their next to last night, Fiona had made reservations for them on a riverboat dinner cruise, and asked Dawn to wear her nicest outfit. They were nearly ready, but Fiona was still wearing a bath robe. She asked Dawn to wait a moment while she put on her finishing touches and went into the bedroom.

A moment later she returned.

"FiFi! It's.... " Dawn was speechless. She was wearing the green satin dress, and it still fit Her perfectly. Twelve years, almost to the day, Fiona was wearing that same dress as the night they first became girlfriends - you know, officially. The same pastel green satin dress of the red haired girl in The Painting.

"Well DeeDee, are we ready then?" Fiona offered her arm and they walked together to the hotel lobby.

"I thought you burned it, FiFi," was all Dawn could get out as she was hit with a flood of emotions.

"Not this dress, I couldn't. I never expected to wear it again, I couldn't even look at it. I locked it away in the trunk with your mandolin, with all the memories."

Most of the night was kind of a blur, the dinner was excellent, but Dawn couldn't focus on anything except Her. While they were waiting for dessert She asked Dawn to be Her wife 'FINALLY' and Dawn blurted out "YES" without the slightest hesitation.

---

"Let's call your parents and tell them first DeeDee. I don't want to be pessimistic, but we might as well get it over with quickly."

Dawn had talked to her parents a few times since that fated day in November, but their relationship was still very much strained. To make it less likely for a confrontation, they had decided to each make the announcement to the other's parents.

Dawn dialed her phone, put it on speaker and set it down between them.

"Hello Darlene, how are you?"

"Hi Dad, is mom there too, can you get her on?"

"Yes, wait a minute," there was a pause and talking, then her mother's voice came on. "Hi Darlene, what is it?"

"Fiona and I have something to tell you," Dawn looked over at Her.

"Mr and Mrs Jamison, I have asked your daughter Dawn to marry me, and she has accepted," Fiona delivered the statement matter of factly.

She waited a moment for a reaction, then "Now would be a good time for you to congratulate her."

"Yes, congratulations sweetheart, of course." Her father was first to recover but his voice held a decided lack of enthusiasm.

"Congratulations Darlene. This is not what I intended for you, but I suppose you're just going to do whatever you want anyway." Her mothers voice was emotionless at best, if not icy.

Fiona chose to ignore that, "We will most probably hold the ceremony at the church here in Missouri where we are members, of course we hope you will be able to attend. We haven't considered any dates yet, so please let us know if there are specific dates that would be inconvenient for you and we will plan around that."

She waited a moment for a reply before continuing, "So after we have met with our pastor and looked into venues for the reception, we will be letting everyone know the details. We are very excited to see you there, Mr and Mrs Jamison. Of course you don't need to wait until then, we would love to have you visit us whenever you like."

"Thank you, Fiona. Yes, we will have to come visit soon." Dawn's mother answered, softening to Fiona's steady voice.

"Good bye. I love you mom, dad. Bye."

"Good bye dear."

The call to Fiona's family was a much longer and livelier one.

A couple hours later Dawn's phone rang, an unrecognized number. She answered it.

"Hi Dawn? This is your cousin Keisha. I just heard you are getting married, congratulations!! This is so exciting! Who is it? Is it that same girl?"

"Thank you Keisha, yes, it's Fiona. My girlfriend from college...."

"OH my God, this is so exciting!" she was talking a hundred miles an hour. "I knew it, I knew there was something between you two and you always told everyone you were just friends. I was 13 when you broke up and it was so sad, I could tell you were devastated and people don't get like that if they're just friends. But this is so romantic, you have to tell me the whole story! But first your mom called my mom a little bit ago and she is really mad about it. And then my mom started talking shit about you so I told my mom that I'm gay too. I finally came out. I was worried about telling her at first, but then it was so inspiring hearing how brave you are that I just told her, and that shut her up. And you have to let me plan your wedding. Who is your Maid of Honor? Wow! Seven years after you break up you get back together and get married. Can I be your Maid of Honor too? Oh, this is so romantic! I will help plan everything. When is it going to be, have you decided on the date?"

"Keisha! Slow down girl. We just got engaged last night so no, we haven't decided anything else yet. I'll ask FiFi about helping to plan the wedding, hang on." Dawn put it on speaker phone and set it on the bed between them. "It's my cousin, Keisha my mom's sister's daughter."

"Hi Keisha, this is Fiona." Fiona introduced herself.

"Fiona! Congratulations! I'm so excited for you two! You probably don't remember me, I was just a little kid but I met you once when my mom picked up Dawn from the airport one time. I just told Dawn that I'm gay too, I just came out to my mom like 10 minutes ago when she told me you two are engaged. You have to let me help plan your wedding and be Maid of Honor."

"Keisha, what are your wedding planner credentials?" Fiona asked.

"Are you kidding me? 27 Dresses is my favorite movie ever, I've seen it like a hundred times! I'm totally qualified."

"OK then," Fiona laughed. "I guess that's more than me. Dawn and I have never planned a wedding before either, so why not."

"And now we can blame you for everything if it's a disaster," Dawn teased.

After they finally got Keisha to stop talking and they said goodby, Fiona took a breath and rolled her eyes. "What the hell.... is she always like that?"

"I don't know, I haven't seen her in years, and we never really talk to each other because she's so much younger."

Fiona's phone rang, "Why is my sister calling me? Amelia, hi, how are you?"

"You inconsiderate cow!" the voice screamed on the other side. "You're engaged to Dawn and I have to find out about it from Mom and Dad? You never even told me you were getting back together. When did you get back together?"

"January 8th" Fiona answered automatically.

"That was 3 months ago! And you didn't bother telling me?"

"It's 2 months and 12 days actually, it rounds to 2 months."

"Fiona, I swear I am going to punch you so hard. Is she there, put the phone on speaker I want to talk to her."

Fiona did, and set the phone between them.

"Hi Amelia, we were going to call you next, I promise. But we just now got off the phone with my cousin."

"Congratulations Dawn! I'm so happy for you. God it's about time, this is so exciting. Tell me everything, how did it happen. Fiona never tells me anything, so you have to give me your phone number so I can talk to you instead."

Dawn told Amelia the story.

"Fiona, I am so going to punch you," Amelia said when Dawn finished. "Dawn came back like a year ago and you waited this long to get engaged, and you never told me anything. You are such a cow. Lucky for you I'm coming down there and we are going shopping for wedding dresses. I'm going to book the tickets right now, what airport is closest to you?"

---

A week later they were back in Our Little Cottage when Keisha called for their planning meeting.

"Hi girls, so I'm going to talk to Amelia tonight when she get's off work to go over the list for invitations. And I also talked to Uncle Andy, and he is going to do the wedding ceremony for you. Any time in July or August is fine with them, they're planning to come back for vacation this summer anyway. Now we just have to decide on the venue. I have several options in the Dayton area that have dates available in July or August. So how much is our budget?"

"Dayton? DeeDee and I are planning to have the wedding here, in Missouri."

"Fiona, that doesn't make any sense. Everyone lives here. Dayton is about half way between each of your families. Nobody lives in Missouri, well except you. OK, it doesn't have to be Dayton, but it's going to be not more than 200 miles from either of Dawn's parents or your parents houses. Amelia and I have already decided on that."

"So you and my sister are hijacking our wedding plans? We have a lot of friends down here that want to attend. Our parents can just fly down for it."

"Fiona, you and Dawn have no wedding plans, yet. God, if we leave it up to you two, you'll fuck it up again and it will be another seven years. No. We're not doing that, Amelia and I got this. OK, so who are all your friends then? I'll add them to the invitation list."

"Well there's my friend Alehandra, and then..... what was her name DeeDee? Jack and Jill's mom?"

"Virginia Lamarsh. Her husband is David. I'll send you their address."

"So all two of your Missouri friends then, I'll invite them."

"We really do appreciate all the help you're giving us, Keisha," Dawn continued, ignoring the sarcasm. "You've put a huge amount of work into this already. I really don't know how we would manage without everything you're doing. Fiona appreciates it too. Don't you FiFi?"

"Yes, thanks Keisha. You really have put a lot of work in, how have you fit this in with all your classes?"

"Oh, well that's the great part. I convinced my adviser that this should be considered 'project management' which is a critical aspect of my business degree. So now I'm getting four credits for doing this. I just have to compile it all into a report that I need to submit before May 15th. Which means I really need you to stop arguing with me about it and give me a budget value. And then.... it would help me a lot if you review my report too..... having a university professor sign off on it would really help." That last sentence was delivered with an uncharacteristically bashful note.

"Of course Keisha, it will be my pleasure. Please work up a budget estimate for us. I guess we will start referring to these calls as project review meetings now, right? If I'm going to be reviewing this, I'm going to insist that your work will be good enough for an A."

----

Fiona was pleased to reflect that Keisha had got an A+ on her project report, as she looked around the banquet hall. She had yet to meet DD's cousin in real life, though they had spent countless hours talking over Zoom during the last 4 months. Fiona was grateful that the energetic girl had appointed herself as their wedding planner. Fiona spotted her sister Amelia in a corner of the room, deep in conversation with someone that might be Keisha. As she approached and got a better look, it was.

"Seriously Keisha? Are you really hitting on my sister?" Fiona teased.

"Hey Fiona? Well it was worth a try," Keisha said bashfully. "Too bad she's straight... she has a friend though!"

"I'm going to introduce Keisha to Kate," Amelia clarified.

"Your friend Kate is gay?"

"Fiona, my God, where have you been? How do you not know this? Kate has had a crush on you for like, forever. I told her a million times to give it up though 'cause you and Dawn were always going to get together eventually."

"That was far from a very likely outcome, me and DeeDee."

"You're such a daft twit, Fiona. The whole entire universe can see how obsessed you and Dawn are with each other. Oh my God, if Keisha and I had taken charge of your relationship earlier, we could have saved everyone so much trouble for the last ten years. But we were just talking about the decorations here. We should be finished in a couple hours, but the rehearsal is at 4 and Dawn's parents aren't here yet."

"I don't know if.... " Fiona started to reply.

"They will be here!" Keisha stated forcibly. "I have instructed them that this is NOT optional." She took another look around the room.

"Tony, you were supposed to be here an hour ago!" Keisha screamed at a tall young man who had recently entered. "What the fuck! Can you never be on time?"

"Who is that?" Amelia whispered.

"My stupid unreliable brother.... " Keisha began, and then "Amelia? Are you actually, seriously drooling right now, Amelia? Oh, for fucks sake!"

Keisha turned back to her brother, "Idiot, where is mom? Go make yourself useful and help Amelia hang up decorations." Grinning, she pushed Amelia toward her brother.

Fiona and Keisha stood, surreptitiously laughing together as they watched Tony follow Amelia across the banquet hall, very obviously staring at her ass.

"Where is Martha and Charles?" the woman demanding an answer was an older version of Keisha.

"I don't know, mom. Aunt Martha isn't answering my texts. And rehearsal is in an hour and a half." Keisha was chewing her lip nervously.

"Hi Fiona, nice to see you again. I'm Mary, Dawn's aunt, in case you don't remember me. I just saw your parents and brother at the hotel, they are on their way over. Where is Dawn?"

"She's with Uncle Andy," Keisha answered. "They're finalizing the details of the ceremony. FnD have their vows written and memorized. Dawn and Uncle Andy are just deciding what else to include and what to skip."

Keisha's mom was stabbing at her phone. "Martha, where are you?..... like hell you will!" And she blasted from the building.

----

It was almost perfect, Dawn thought, looking around the table. The rehearsal had gone fine, not good; how can it be good when your parents are pretending that you don't exist? Her cousin Keisha, who she'd never even been close to before, had somehow pulled together almost her entire family. Almost, because her own parents were still not there. Aunts, uncles, cousins.... but not her own parents. FiFi's family was all there, she didn't have nearly as many aunts, uncles, and cousins; but her brother, her sister, and her parents were all sitting at this table right now, getting ready to celebrate the rehearsal dinner right now, showing their acceptance - but not her own parents. It was almost perfect... no it wasn't. It was complete bullshit.

Dawn tried to think what else she could have done, what she could have done differently, anything she could have said. But her mother stubbornly refused. Uncle Andy had tried convincing her, they had thought that since he is the pastor at a large church in Georgia that maybe it would have some influence. Uncle Andy even tried talking to the Pastor of her mom's church - that didn't work either. Her mom steadfastly "refused to countenance a hedonistic relationship." Keisha had assured Dawn they would find a way, but apparently they hadn't.

Dawn looked at Keisha, sitting next to her at the table, in her Maid of Honor position. Keisha's mom had been quick to accept that her daughter was gay, maybe because it was all hypothetical at this point; Keisha wasn't dating anyone yet. And on the other side of FiF was Her sister and Maid of Honor. Amelia and Keisha were giving each other nervous glances.

Keisha suddenly looked at her phone. "Ten minutes," she whispered across the table to Amelia.

Amelia stood and started dinging a spoon against a water glass, "Finally, after all these years, we are here to toast the wedding of Fiona and Dawn." She launched into a PG (or slightly R) rated version of the wedding couples tumultuous relationship. "But really Keisha and me should get all the credit because these two would have fucked it all.... um, sorry, I mean... managed to mismanage their whole lives. So, to me and Keisha!"

Everyone laughed and drank to that. So then Keisha had her turn. "Amelia is right, that we did all the work for these two. And you can't believe how much work these two needed. So much, in fact, that I wrote a report on it, and I got an A+. So, to US!" And she dramatically took a bow.

And everyone laughed and drank again. Dawn noticed the way Keisha was looking at Amelia when she said the word 'us'. Was there something going on there? Dawn wondered about that.

"Sorry we're late everyone, I hope we're not too late for dessert at least," Aunt Mary called out as she entered the private room. She was propelling before her Mom and Dad.

"Mom and Dad! You're here!" Dawn jumped up and ran to hug them.

"My little sister came after me with a frying pan and threatened to bash my head in." Her mom smiled ruefully. "I'm sorry I was so stubborn about it, Darlene."

Dawn looked over at Aunt Mary, who was smiling smugly - "she would have done it too," thought Dawn.

----

Dawn walked from the left wing of the hall, escorted by Dad. FiFi, holding the arm of Her father was approaching from the wing on the right side. FiFi was a vision of perfection in her white dress, which Dawn was pleased to note did marvelous things for her marvelous boobs.

Keisha had assured Dawn that she was stunning herself, in a aqua tux her cousin said made her look regal. Judging by the look on Her face, Keisha must have been right.

The rest of the wedding party followed and took their places alongside the couple. Jack and Jill entered last, looking adorable in coordinating, summery yellow outfits. Jack was holding their rings.

Uncle Andy wasted as little time as possible on preliminaries before getting right to the good part.

"Fiona, do you take Darlene Dawn Jamison to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

"I do. DeeDee Jay, I vow to listen to, value and trust you. Loving you is embedded into my soul and always will be. I promise, I vow, and I commit my entire being to everything you need from me. I vow to never give up on US again."

"And Darlene, do you take Fiona Elizabeth Maxwell to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

"I do. FiFi, I vow to trust you, to believe you and to argue with you. When we have trouble I vow to fight with you and for you. I promise to run toward US, and not away. I vow that I will never run away from US again."

"FnD, I now pronounce you wife and wife. You may kiss your brides."