Page 84 of Timeless
Her own father had passed away a year prior to Lily’s visit. He’d been killed while walking to the shop late at night to get some work done. A man who had had too much to drink had hit him and had run off. They’d found him, and he was in prison now since he’d confessed that it was him. That had been the last time she and Cheryl had gone back to that town. Her father’s will had provided for her, and since the shop had started making money after about two years, there was a little something for the two of them to use to buy a house. That wouldn’t be easy because, for so many things, they still needed a man’s signature or name.
So, when they’d first begun going to the underground bar, which was for women like them, they’d spoken with the bartender who owned it and had asked if she knew of a male equivalent that they could visit. Sure enough, she had, and soon, they’d met two men who were together, just like they were, and they’d all made a deal that would allow Cheryl and Diana to buy a house of their own and for the two men tohave a girlfriend to take home to the family should they need one. It was all very complicated, and keeping lies straight with different people wasn’t easy, but it was the only way they could have the life they wanted together. That life, for the past year or two, had included the dream of having children together and knowing that it could never be.
“I don’t know whether it will be temporary or not,” Lily went on. “I can stay here until the baby is born. You can take care of them for me with the money I send. I’ll go and get settled with Sandy. Then, I can come back for the baby, and we’ll be on our way.”
“Why don’t you know if it will be temporary?” Diana asked.
“Because I… I never wanted children. But I don’t know if when they come out, I might change my mind. You know how women sometimes don’t want children, but then there’s this baby, and suddenly, they’re a mother, and they could never think of giving them up? I only ever wanted Sandy, but I can’t promise that when the baby is born, I won’t want them, after all,” she said of the woman she loved. “Sandy’s in New York now.”
“We know,” Cheryl said, leaning into Diana’s side, and Diana wrapped an arm around her shoulders to pull her in closer.
Sandy and Lily had been together in secret for two years before Sandy had gotten a job, rare for a woman in her field, in New York City. She’d had to move then, but Lily couldn’t, so they’d separated, deciding it would be too difficult to stay together.”
“I phoned her yesterday. She wants me to come, after all.”
“I thought you two broke up,” Cheryl said.
“We did because she moved away and it would be too hard, but when I told her that my father was making me marry someone, we started talking again on the phone every chance we got. She’s got some money; not a lot, but she’s already got a place to live, and I can live there with her.”
“Why can’t you go now? Be there with her while you’re pregnant and put the baby up for adoption there.”
“Because she doesn’t want children, either, and I’d rather be pregnant here. At least, I’m in familiar territory. I have friends here and the bar. Sandy is going to get the apartment set up for me since it’s just hers right now, and we’ll need a fake bedroom and all that. I can go, though. If you say no, I will go there, and she and I will make do, but I’d rather be here during this time. He won’t find me here. Neither will my father. I’ll pay you while I’m here. I’ll get a job waitressing while I can still work and pay you whatever I can. You have the spare room. I’ll stay out of your way. As for the adoption, I can do that and let the kid be with some strangers, but you two want a baby. I know you do. You want to be mothers. And I know you. I trust you.”
“We couldn’t adopt him,” Diana pointed out.
“Not as a couple. But you have that arrangement with George and Henry. I’m sure we can figure something out if it comes to that. I don’t mind the boys being in the baby’s life. They’re good men. But I’d want you two to raise the baby yourselves.”
“It’s dangerous,” Cheryl replied. “Eventually, that baby will grow up. Kids talk and spill secrets accidentally, Lily. I don’t know…” She sighed and glanced over at Diana. “What if they say something at school about how we live together and share a bedroom or that they’ve seen us kissing or something? It’s one of the reasons, outside of the obvious, that we’ve put the idea of having children away.”
“The obvious?” Lily asked.
“Having sex with George or Henry to try to get pregnant, or using their… Well, I heard of a woman who used something to… put the sperm…”
“Ah,” Lily said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Diana added. “We don’t want to do that, so we gave up on the idea of us ever having children. I’m not so worried about the baby growing up and telling people. I think we can handle that by teaching them not toand explaining things away to people, if we have to. We’re only twenty-three, though, and while most women are married and pregnant by now, we like our jobs. I don’t know how we’d take care of a baby, with both of us working. We’re buying a house soon, so I suppose that would give us more space, but it also costs money, and so will a child.”
Cheryl turned to her then and asked, “My love, do you want to be a mother with me? If the answer is no, then Lily can still stay here, in my mind, at least, and when she has the baby, she can decide what she wants to do, but we won’t be an option. If you do, though, then, Lily stays here, and we all keep talking about this. We’ve got about six months, right?”
“Yes. The doctor I went to outside of the city, to be safe, told me that I’m twelve weeks along. I’m going to start showing soon. I’m lucky that I’m very thin or I’d be showing already.”
Diana stared at the woman she loved and said, “I do. You know I’ve wanted to be a mom with you.”
“Then, we can do this. If Lily wants to give us her baby, we’ll take them. We’ll have to talk to the boys to see if they can help.” Cheryl turned to Lily and added, “But, Lily, we would adopt the child, and we would be the parents. We’d make sure George and Henry are all right with having one of their names on the records, but this would be our baby. We would be their mothers. You can’t just come back into their lives later and try to take him or her from us. If you want to be in the baby’s life somehow, we can work that out.”
“I understand. I wouldn’t want to interfere or confuse the kid, Cheryl. I know what I’m asking here. I wish I never would’ve agreed to be with him that night. He was very persuasive, and I thought it might pull us closer together before we have to be married, but I can’t do this.” Tears welled in her eyes. “This way, he’ll never even know that he was a father, at least of this baby, and I’ll be safe with Sandy. I’ll probably even change my name. You’ll have men and a baby to cover for you two. I know I need to be strong. I already love this baby.” Lily pressed her hand to her belly. “But it’sbetter for them to be with you than to be with two women who never wanted to be mothers. I look at you two, and I can see clear as day how much you love each other. You’ve been together since you were seventeen years old. I know you’ll be together forever, which is what I want with Sandy. If I can give you this gift of a child when you’d given up on that dream,” she said and sniffled, wiping at her now-falling tears. “I want to do that.”
“I’ll make some more tea, and we’ll keep talking,” Cheryl offered before she leaned over and kissed Diana on the lips. “I love you with all my heart.”
“I love you, too,” Diana replied.
As Cheryl made tea, Diana moved to the arm of the chair, offering Lily a handkerchief. She rubbed the woman’s back and told her that everything was going to be all right. As she watched Cheryl in the kitchen then, putting the kettle back on the stove to boil the water for fresh tea, she could picture it. Normally, they would picture their pasts as other women. They’d met more of them over the years. She’d once had a vision of Harriet and Deb talking about how they were seeing visions of their own past lives. Cheryl, it turned out, had had a different vision of them discussing it as well. She and Cheryl had a list in their bedroom, tucked into a box at the bottom of their closet, that had the names of all the women they’d seen in their minds over the years. So far, there were twelve couples. The last new one had been added the previous year.
Cheryl liked talking about the past, but Diana loved talking about the future with her more. She could picture Cheryl in their kitchen, with a toddler on her hip, cooking dinner. Diana would be baking them something for dessert or coming home from her work as a nurse in the city’s biggest hospital, and she’d kiss her wife and child. Then, it hit her…
Cheryl passed Lily a new cup of tea and set one down on the table for Diana. Then, she went back to the kitchen to retrieve a fresh cup for herself, so Diana moved back to the couch to wait for her. When she arrived, Diana wrapped her arm back around her shoulders.
“Lily, will you do something for us?” she asked.