She got up, fil ed a gla.s.s with water, and handed Shannon one tablet.

"Nah," Shannon said, refusing both. "Once you start pil s like that you can't stop. I'd be on them al my life. I'm already into you for these. Who has an extra seventy dol ars a month? Besides, who needs pil s? The bad guys wil put me out of my misery soon enough."

Beside Shannon on the couch, she grabbed her arms again, but this time pul ed her, roughly, close and kissed her. To her surprise, Shannon didn't struggle. "You real y want to give this up? Think of al the women waiting out there for you."

She was startled to see the desire come into Shannon's eyes, kind of a blue cloud that left her looking unfocused.

"The state wil help with the costs. Come on, Shannon, we'l find some way to do this by the time these pil s run out." She let go and moved back to the kitchen.

"Yeah, like go back in."

"Hey, this is not the best time to be making decisions like that, Shannon. Have a pil before the ones they gave you at the hospital wear off. Start getting wel ."

Shannon used the arm of the couch to help herself stand.

"I don't think so. I won't need them now that I've made up my mind. It was the indecision that was kil ing me, no bones about it."

Jefferson moved to her easy chair. "Playing soldier is going to wreck your back. You won't be able to run a B-and-B hurting like that."

"You know I hate this war business, Jefferson, but it's what I signed on for. I tried to find an easy way out. I'd better grit my teeth and go for it." She grinned a sick-looking grin. "You know the slogan: 'There's strong and then there's army strong.' That's me. Sink or swim. I've been sinking and I need to learn how to swim." Shannon had a look of despair. "You'l find a home for Wings if something happens to me over there? Yolanda won't keep her forever.

She can be mama cat to your kids. Or maybe I could write a wil , leave Wings and everything else to Dawn."

Jefferson's insides constricted. "I've got to talk to you about that, Shannon."

"A wil ?"

"About Dawn."

Shannon spun toward her, a kitten under each arm. Her eyes looked like broken windows in a ruined house. "No," she said, careful y putting the kittens on the couch, as if afraid of hurting them-as if afraid she was about to be hurt. Jefferson searched her mind for the right words. She knew her face was ful of the pain she was about to inflict.

Jefferson was twelve. The boys down the street were at Choate. Jefferson would start at Dutchess Academy in town next September. A new teenager, a nice clean-cut young man, Emmy said, had moved into the El iots' old place, the brick house with the gla.s.s atrium and a heated indoor pool. He kept inviting Jefferson to swim with him. She loved to swim, to dive and pul the water with her arms and kick til her body felt like a speedboat slicing the lake.

She swam so fast she would try out for the swim team at the Academy. She bet she could practical y tow a skier, swimming fast. That was something else she loved, water-skiing, timing her stand to the second, balancing on the skis, going as fast as the boat, feeling the muscles burn in her legs, kneeling and jumping, lifting one ski, turning on the rope, sinking slowly into the lake when she reached the sh.o.r.e and waiting, eager for her turn again.

She burst out of the water after a breathless swim across the pool and pul ed herself up the steps by the silver rail, water streaming from her, a sea monster, smiling at the exhilaration of it-and there he was, the teenager, watching her, his swim trunks on the tiled surround-he was so hairy -examining her body like it was a property he was about to buy.

He said, "There's nothing up here yet," touching his own bare chest with his index fingers.

She looked at her flat front, felt humiliated. No, it was worse, she felt stripped, discarded-weak-then saw her strong thighs and wet feet and knew it was too slippery to safely run.

"Sink or swim," her father had said over and over, teaching her to swim at age three. It was her most vivid preschool memory. Sink or swim. Her dive into the boy's pool gave her the distance she needed from him. When she emerged she had enough time to grab her clothes. He was grasping at her as she opened the door to the garden and didn't care what she trampled as she headed for the hil side into the woods, skirted the backyards between their houses, and pul ed on her clothes before entering the screened back patio.

Her mother, listening to opera on the hi-fi, had asked, "Did you have a nice swim?"

She couldn't tel her. There was every reason on earth to say something: so she wouldn't have to go back, so the boy wouldn't do that to other girls, so her mother would comfort her fear away. Emmy wouldn't, though. She'd get upset. She'd ask questions and more questions and cry, as if it had happened to her. She'd tel her father! He'd have to talk to the boy's father. The boy would get back at her.

"Great pool," she cried, and went up the wooden stairs two at a time, frantic to get out of her wet bathing suit. She only realized when she got into her bathroom that she'd run al the way home in her white swim cap. She would go out for field hockey, not the swim team. In an instant, she'd switched from wanting to be a water-ski champ to wanting to pilot the boat that pul ed the other kids at the lake. She'd learned al the good ski tricks already anyway.

Boating, that would be her thing. You didn't have to wear a bathing suit when you spun that wheel and learned where the rocks lurked.

Facing Shannon, she felt as weak and helpless as she had that day, and once again her head pounded with those words: sink or swim. She had to tel her. What words could she possibly use? She moved to her and pul ed her close. Her rush of affection toward Shannon was so strong that she pul ed her into a hug.

"I mean it's not time to talk about Dawn and the wil ," she said, her voice sounding, to her, thin and pleading. Nothing else would come out. "I guess the upside to going back in the service would be a chance to meet the love of your life."

Shannon's breathing seemed quicker. She'd put her arms around Jefferson's back and now kissed her neck. Part of her recoiled and thought, Ew!

This felt strange to her, like she was on the wrong side of a vol eybal net, trying to spike the bal for her team backward. She had no s.e.xual desire, only a need to repair everything for her friend. She hadn't intended to make love to Shannon, didn't want to, but lovemaking was her language. She didn't know how else to speak these feelings of tenderness and comfort. Dawn would despise her if she found out. Hel , she despised herself. She'd thought herself capable of improving her play on this new course, not acting like a sandbagger.

Moving into automatic seduction mode, she framed Shannon's face with her hands, sliding her fingers into Shannon's yel ow hair, stil damp from the shower, and explored her lips with al sorts of kisses. This was interesting and repel ent, performing pa.s.sionate acts without feeling pa.s.sion. It put her in a place where she could watch herself. It was true, the language of seduction was her most articulate and she could not stop the flow of it. She'd warned Dawn, more than once, that she might be a beggar when it came to love, but the minute she noticed someone getting too serious about loving her, she went running to the next bad girl. She explained that she had a certain fascination with a kind of woman, a woman who was adventurous and therefore exciting. Eventual y she realized that only made her seem more attractive to Dawn, who had an amazing stash of lingerie in which to entice her when turned on. How lucky was she that Dawn was both a nice person and an adventurous femme?

And then Jefferson had to wonder. Was she some kind of monster incapable of love and fidelity? Had she been hunting for love al these years, or had she been learning to love? She had it in her to hit the line drives, to keep a handbal in play, to teach a team to be more than its individuals, but she seemed sadly lacking in the skil s she most needed.

She thought of Dawn with the fulfil ed feeling that came of sinking a long putt. A hole-in-one was exciting, but putts were the most satisfying. Dawn loved her. That was the simple, magical, undeniable, and incomprehensible truth. Dawn loved her. Yet here she was.

She'd always a.s.sumed she was a bad person, first, from her mother's discontent with about everything she did as a kid and from her father's disinterest, and then, because she turned out gay. Gayer than gay, real y, with her appet.i.te for women. Was it possible that there was no lack in her?

Maybe it was more about bounty. She was so ful of-of stuff-happy stuff, loving stuff, how could she keep it al inside? She'd be glad to give it al to one woman, if one woman could accept it al and not run away. Had she overwhelmed poor Ginger, who wasn't used to shows of affection, exuberance, so much focus on her-or to showing love? Ginger must have fled inside herself. She'd quickly thrown up the plywood and the two-by-fours as soon as the hurricane of Jefferson appeared in her life.

She sighed and gave herself over to what she knew best.

Shannon seemed comfortable with the way things were going so she let her hands fol ow Shannon's tal , thin body. She was surprised by Shannon's responsiveness. Probably it had been a long time for her, the way she had been obsessing about Dawn. This would be good for her, maybe break the pattern, get her thinking about other women. She reached under Shannon's T-shirt and ran her thumbs roughly across her nipples, thinking she should feel guilt or confusion, instead of the hot bubble of excitement in her chest that rose and grew larger. The perfect rapture of making love was not something to be squandered, but neither was it something to be h.o.a.rded. She expressed herself more natural y through her hands and limbs than she did with words.

This itch of hers for other women might look like betrayal, she thought, but was real y a heart on the loose, directing hands that sometimes seemed to heal before they inevitably hurt.

Neither of them would expect to do this again and would not talk about it. Their friendship would be stronger for it. Was she kidding herself? Was she in for some screaming fits with both Dawn and Shannon? She was confident that wouldn't happen, as she was confident that she and Shannon were supposed to be doing this. Here. Today.

She had her thigh against Shannon's closed legs and that way guided her backward to the couch, hands on her hips. She was able to slip Shannon's shirt over her head before Shannon fel back onto the couch and reached to unb.u.t.ton Jefferson's shirt. Butch, femme, it didn't matter. At the first touch of b.r.e.a.s.t.s she always felt an explosion of l.u.s.t that propel ed her onward. Shannon was in sweatpants and was a wriggling naked treat for Jefferson in no time. Jefferson got out of her own pants and they lay, front to front, touching from lips to feet, holding each other on the couch for the longest time, making smal , delicately exciting movements with their hips and thighs, b.r.e.a.s.t.s and bel ies. Their hands stayed out of it.

She was drifting off when Shannon shivered. Jefferson quickly pul ed the throw from the back of the couch over them. The light rubbing her movement caused made Shannon gasp. Jefferson scrambled to invert her body. Both expert at this, they parted each other's moist lips simultaneously, and she felt the touch of Shannon's tongue as hers touched Shannon. And then a rush of hot tenderness for the fine troubled woman Shannon was engulfed her. They both adopted a light, slow, rotating rhythm, matching each other. The tension built and she knew she would have no trouble coming, but they went very slowly, teasing each other until their breathing became quick and loud to her ears. When Shannon's thighs tensed, Jefferson moved against her tongue enough to push herself over the edge she'd been avoiding and they breathed audibly together, Shannon bucking, Jefferson arching, coming powerful y, feeling exquisite pleasure for herself, without a worry about taking care of a femme, although that was normal y part of her pleasure.

They both sat up then, looking under their eyebrows at each other.

"Are you hungry?" Shannon asked.

"I could do with something tasty. Hey, do you like strawberry ice cream?"

Shannon's grin was like a kid's. No, she thought, it was a kid's.

They sat side by side on the couch, TV tuned to an old Law and Order, both acting sil y. Now and then Shannon would poke her with an elbow and she would poke back. Neither of them stopped grinning except to suck pink ice cream off their spoons.

Jefferson chuckled as they got into bed together that night. "We're pretty pleased with ourselves, aren't we," she said. As soon as the drugs leave Shannon's system, she thought, Shannon would be gone to start her life over.

Shannon spooned her bottom against Jefferson. "It was real y nice," Shannon said before she fel asleep.

She thought for a long time as she lay beside Shannon. Thought about having the freedom to do what she had just done. Shannon had needed this release to her future. She was a bit honored that she could give her that. Yet it would hurt Dawn to know that she had. She needed to marry the two forces of her nature. She couldn't reconcile deceit with honesty; she would have to choose. Was a life with Dawn worth sacrificing the freedom to indulge her impulses? Pick your sport, she told herself. Would it be softbal or golf; would she be part of a team or move in the world as a self-styled one-woman wonder?

Wait. Wait. Wait.

In a moment, she was on her porch, pacing in the chil night. What made her think she was the only one who could give al these women what they sought? What did she think she was-some kind of super lover? Who said she could stomp on anyone's heart: Dawn's, Shannon's, or her own, for that matter? Al her career, she'd taught her students to play by the rules, and she thought she was exempt?

She sat heavily on the edge of an old wooden Adirondack chair. Good gravy, she thought, do I even want to do this anymore? Give it a rest, Jefferson, she heard Glad say. You've been handed a terrific second chance. Are you going to throw it away for some sleazy fun?

It wasn't sleazy fun, she told Glad, told herself. Bringing women out, making love to lesbians, these were responsibilities and a privilege. So many, many times she'd acted as a bridge for other women. It was, she admitted to herself now, one of her greatest pleasures to hear their struggles and to ease them for a time, sometimes for longer. It made her feel good about herself. Comforting them, making them feel good was her most selfish act. It even, she realized now, turned her on.

Did she have no responsibility to her primary relationship, then?

What had she just done? Stone-cold sober, she'd risked hurting Dawn horribly and losing the chance of a life with her, not because Dawn would ever know about this, not because Dawn wouldn't forgive-she might-but because fooling around like this would prove toxic to the way she herself saw any relationship. The lake, too, she'd almost destroyed the peace of the lake, her Innisfree. She was so tired of this balancing act. So tired of herself.

Except-there was Shannon sleeping inside, ful of life once more. And here she was, the lesbian, the butch, who Mother Nature had made this way perhaps with a purpose.

Chapter Forty-One.

They went down to the city for their four-month anniversary, singing along with old disco songs as they drove. Shannon had gone off to war, apparently cheerful from the relief of having made a decision. So far al the news had been good, including the fact that her truck-driver buddy had divorced her husband, gone up in rank, and was keeping Shannon out of combat, getting her trained in some computer skil s that she could use back home in addition to running the bed-and-breakfast. Either that, Shannon had e-mailed, or home would be wherever her buddy was stationed.

Jefferson's heart wasn't exactly simmering with cheer to be back in the city, but she could probably avoid running into most of the people she'd known with Ginger. Not so their ghosts, who inhabited her mind at each sighting of a familiar place. Briefly, she wished for amnesia, but without the life she'd lived how could she have been ready for Dawn or be who Dawn needed? She felt a distinct pul to the West Fourth Street Courts for a handbal game.

She'd have to teach Dawn some day, though where to find a handbal court up at the lakes she did not know.

It was only in the forties that day so they walked into Central Park and back to Jefferson's car for the sheer pleasure of it. This was terrific, she thought, having a chance with Dawn to be seriously new together. She'd considered tel ing Dawn about Shannon and decided not to. It was the very last time and Shannon was gone, possibly forever. With some struggle, she'd forgiven herself and was determined to prove she could trust herself.

Dawn had wanted to introduce her to some friends. To show her off, was how Dawn put it. The woman was in love. She was glad to see Dawn so happy; it enhanced her own elation. Dawn was smart, funny, appealingly exotic, stable, self-supporting, didn't want to live together yet, imaginative in bed -a wonderful match fueled by more than the physical and, on Jefferson's part, by a trust in someone else, as wel as in herself, that she'd never before experienced. Someone had once told her, if you were persistent in love, love would come back with a wil ing woman. Maybe that was true.

She'd expected Dawn to broach the subject of a civil union, now, shockingly, legal in conservative New Hampshire. Not doing so was very smart on Dawn's part: Dawn had heard the warnings in Jefferson's stories-or confessions-and was appropriately wary.

Dawn was dressed in a spotless white nylon parka too light for fal at home. She had her hair up in a twist and looked sharp on Jefferson's arm.

Despite her doubts about this whole jaunt, she started to feel like her much younger self, promenading across from the park, near to skipping with glee at the sight of two striped cats in a window watching pigeons. Her leather jacket would never fit the way it had in her thirties, but she'd sloughed off enough new pounds to be comfortable in it again. When she squeezed Dawn's arm to hers, a memory of walking like this with Ginger ambushed her, like a ghost who quickly left. She breathed in until her lungs would hold no more of this pretty air.

"What is it, Jefferson?" Dawn was watching her face. "That sounded like a sigh of regrets."

She shook her head. "No." She was denying the truth to herself as wel as to Dawn. "Or maybe." Her emotions were such a jumble. She clasped Dawn's hand, that soft, always-yielding hand that seemed to exist to be cherished, and said, sadness taking on weight around her, "Not to have found this, not to have found you, until now? Part of me wants to cry because I had to wait so long, the other part wonders how I got so lucky."

They walked past lamp posts and trash baskets and ornate apartment building entrances on their way to their distant parking s.p.a.ce. They smiled at each other after they pa.s.sed a woman in long boots and a gray fur coat walking her long-legged gray dog.

"You wouldn't have wanted me then," Dawn said, pressing her cheek to Jefferson's shoulder.

Without hesitation she replied, "I would always have wanted you!"

"Oh, Jefferson, sometimes you're such a goofy romantic. You never would have gone for a mousy librarian from Pipsborough."

"Hey, Kitten, you're not mousy."

"You wouldn't have noticed me long enough to find that out."

"You would have gotten my attention somehow. Right?"

Dawn slowly shook her head as they waited for a light to change. "No, Jef. When you were drinking I would have run the other way."

"Good girl," she said. "That's one reason I love you. Putting up with my s.h.i.t is not on your agenda." She put her arms around Dawn and hugged her hard, then let her go and leapt into the street, weaving through the traffic, Dawn's hand in her own.

"Jefferson! You're crazy," Dawn cal ed with a loving laugh.

They reached the sidewalk without any trauma beyond the shout of a cabdriver in a language they didn't understand. She grinned at Dawn. She couldn't wait to introduce her to Angela.

It wasn't only Dawn, was it, she thought. It was laughing at the sight of another dog walker with a brace of four eager poodles heading to the park. It was knowing somebody was crazy about her again. It was the history they'd begun to acc.u.mulate, the antic.i.p.ation of a rich life ahead. It was surviving, stil being here though Ginger was gone. Yet Ginger wasn't gone. Ginger, like her old friend Glad, was in the sunshine and the city, the walkers and this sweet lady beside her. Ginger seemed to share her every breath. She wasn't glad Ginger was gone, but she was so happy to have this new life for herself, it seemed to balance the sadness in her. Dawn made her want to swing around lamp posts and serenade her. She'd missed her own exuberance.

Gloom, grief, guilt, she could let al that go. "I love you, little Kitten," she said.

Dawn's always surprising eyes, a shade not unlike the lake in sunshine, flooded with light, the way they always did when she was pleased beyond words. Jefferson relaxed, swung into Dawn's mood, and grabbed her in her arms, singing "Our Lips Are Sealed." They danced and dipped in circles until the end of the block. Dawn, as usual, tripped on her own and Jefferson's feet, managing to smack a shin on a hydrant on their journey.

"I'm such a klutz," Dawn said, laughing as she rubbed her leg. Jefferson went down on one knee, not as easy to do as it once had been, and pushed Dawn's pant leg up to survey the damage. "No blood, but a good sc.r.a.pe."

"My hero," Dawn said.

Jefferson helped herself up using a lamp post, trying to disguise her need for the prop. She loved bopping around the city like this. "You are terrific for my confidence, Dawn." It was true. Being loved was a powerful booster. Not always enough, but powerful.

"Come on, my dancing d.y.k.e. We need to get down to Chinatown for Mom's shopping. Wait til you taste what she's going to make us tomorrow night.

Oh, let's remember to stop at the notions store for Aunt Tuyat's special thread."

They drove to the library where Dawn once worked and said hel o to two friends who were stil there, then Jefferson got a tour.

"The staff is almost al straight," Dawn told her. "Can you deal with husbands if my friends visit us up at the lake?" Dawn asked.

Jefferson made a sour face.

"They're such great friends. These women are the ones who gave me the confidence to know I could run a rural library." Dawn chattered on about how she had to do circulation, reference, be the children's librarian, get very creative with grants. No wonder Dawn had such a fiercely loyal Friends of the Library in Pipsborough.

"You're what I cal a competent femme."

"And this is a good thing?" asked Dawn.

She stroked Dawn's head and ran her hand down her lovely loose hair. "You're a good thing." The irrepressible pleasure of being with Dawn Northway was a feeling she'd experienced in a few smal tastes and moments before, but this continuum of happiness baffled and delighted her. She had to work to simply accept and enjoy it.

"Then why do you look sad? Is it Ginger?"

"No. Yes. A little. It doesn't detract from us, though. Makes you more special, if anything."

"It must be hard. Where do your feelings go when someone you love dies? They don't disappear."