known Roz to do drugs, other than that time. And at the end of it we were both more than a little uncomfortable around each other.”
“You’ve never talked about it?”
“Never. She may not even remember it, not in detail.”
“Thanks for telling me.” Though, Kate reflected, it was hard to know what, if anything, to make of this long- ago episode of youthful indiscretion. Except…
“I don’t suppose that there was one of the, what do you call them,
“Okay, sweetheart,” Kate said absently. “I’ll be there in a bit.”
“Don’t work too late.”
Kate did work late—or rather, early, when a faint light in the east was bringing definition to the Bay and the northern shore beyond. Through the night, while the traffic fell silent and the streetlights dominated the darkness, while the sea haze coalesced into clouds and set the house’s downspouts to their musical tapping, Kate searched the tangled threads of the Web for three lonely names, and eventually, working backward from Roz’s Web site, using search engine and Web links, she found them.
“Womyn of the EVEning,” they called themselves, and their Web site began with a soliloquy on the night.
Eve was the first, a creature of the darkness, who with her apple freed her children from the tyranny of the Ruler of paradise. Eve, whose thirst for knowledge was so great, it changed humynkind. Eve, whose act was called shameful by males, who stands in pride and strength as the Mother of us all.
We, too, are creatures of the night. Night is a Goddess who wraps Her dark cloak around us, allowing us to become invisible as we work Her will. For too long, womyn has been invisible in the daylight, a being with no voice, no face, whose labors in the home are only seen if they are not done, whose birthing and raising of children is only noticed when she fails.
Males call us weak, males attack us with their stronger muscles, males try to convince us that the Night is a place of danger, that we must stay inside, lock our doors against the lurking, unseen threats of the dark.
Why do we believe this? In truth, for too many of us, it is the well-lighted home that places us in danger, the locked and bolted door that traps us and makes us vulnerable.
In truth it is the dark, all-concealing Night outside that will make us safe, Night’s dark cloak that shields us with invisibility. Our weakness and our fear shall become our strength and our weapon, until it is the male who hides in the light, cowering from womyn’s dark vengeance.
The night is ours, to do with as we please.
The dark is ours, to punish the evildoer.
Here are some of the males who would deny us our dark safety.
And then came the names.
GRITTY-EYED AND U N W A S H E D , Kate stumbled off and collapsed between the sheets for three hours, when she was dragged out of unconsciousness by a steaming mug and Lee’s voice.
“Your hair,” Lee purred into her lover’s ear, sinking her fingers into the matted brown tangle on the pillow. “ ‘Your hair flows like a flock of goats, spilling down the side of Mount Gilead.” “
Kate opened one eye to glare at the face of her partner, who was convulsed with hilarity at her own wit. “You woke me up to tell me that?”
“I woke you up to remind you that you have an appointment in Marin at eight o’clock.”
Kate looked at the clock, and then nearly knocked the mug out of Lee’s grasp as her own hand shot out for the telephone. She punched in the number, as familiar as her own, and then grimaced at the woman’s voice that answered.
“ ‘Morning, Jani,” she said carefully. “This is Kate. Have I missed Al?”
“He’s in the shower, Kate. Can I have him call you back?”
“Okay. I’m at home. It’s kind of urgent, Jani.”
“Isn’t it always?” Jani commented, and the phone went dead. Kate put her own phone down, wondering if she should read anything into Jani’s brusque dismissal, and if so, how much. She had seemed okay on the phone the other night, so maybe it didn’t mean anything.
“What’s wrong?” Lee asked, again holding out the mug. Kate took it gratefully, slurped off the top inch, and arranged a couple of pillows behind her head.
“Janididn’tsound veryhappy tohear me,”Katetold her.“I’d thought it was calming down with her, but maybe not.” Jani still held Kate to blame for the kidnapping of her daughter, Jules, while under Kate’s supervision just before Christmas. Since in Kate’s opinion Jani was right, she could hardly complain at the woman’s treatment of her. Still, it added a degree of tension to her partnership with Al that was sometimes awkward.
Lee, however, had an alternative explanation for the exchange.
“It’s probably her morning sickness. Didn’t you tell me she was about ten weeks along? She was probably just trying not to vomit into the receiver.”
“You think so?”
“I think it’s possible. You might check with Al before you get het up about nothing.”
“Is ‘het up’ a medical term, Doctor?”
“Definitely. New Age terminology meets the Victorian era.” Lee drew a deep breath, looking down at her hands, and Kate went instantly wary. “Sweetheart,” Lee began, “I’ve been thinking about what you said the other night.”
Kate made no pretense at not knowing what Lee was talking about. There was only one subject at the moment that called for low voice and lowered gaze.
“About a baby?”
“Indirectly. Or rather, on the way to a baby. I’ve never really apologized properly for what I put you through last summer.”
“That’s not—”
“Let me say it. I treated you like shit. I made you crawl and then shoved you away, just to prove I could. And when I finally heard that you’d been hurt, nearly killed, it was like—oh, I don’t know. Like having a bucket of ice water dumped into my brain. All I could think of .was, if you’d died, you would have gone thinking that I wasn’t coming back. It was a shock, that idea, it made me feel… I can’t begin to describe how I felt,” admitted the articulate psychotherapist. “I think about it every day. And I am sorry. Mostly—” she held out a hand to stop Kate’s protest. “Mostly I’m sorry for what my actions did to us. You’ve been insecure about us ever since, which I can understand. But let me say, here and now, that I am not going anywhere. I love you, and I am staying here with you. If you can just think of the other as a sort of temporary insanity, I would be very grateful.”
Kate was not exactly proud of the memory of her own response to Lee’s abrupt exit, which had gone from drunken self-pity to reckless rage for weeks. She had not told Lee, would not tell her now, but merely took her lover into her arms and held her.
After a minute, Lee stirred. “Now we can talk about the baby thing. I’ve found an OB/GYN over in Berkeley who is willing to work with a disabled lesbian. I made an appointment for early next month. I’d like you to come with me.”
Kate smoothed Lee’s own unruly curls. “You’re very sure about this?”
Lee sat up again to meet her eyes, taking Kate’s hand. “I think I’m sure, if that makes sense. What I mean is, I want very badly to try, but if at any point along the way the difficulties become too major—if the doctor says absolutely not, if the insemination doesn’t take, if problems crop up—I will back off. You may need to remind me of that promise, by the way,” she said, her smile a bit lopsided. “If I’m becoming fixated, let me know. Loudly.”
“That’s a deal.”
“One more thing.”
“Only one?”
“At the moment. We haven’t talked about money.”
“We’ll manage.”
“A baby’s an expensive addition. And if we commit ourselves to in vitro, it gets really expensive. Plus, I can’t
