The Ladies of Lake Merritt

[Elaine]

Ever since Faye was about 13, we started jokingly calling ourselves “the Ladies of Lake Merritt.” If only Faye knew where the nickname started. I don’t know if I could ever tell her the truth. There were parts of me that I kept hidden, even from her, especially from her. How do you explain to your child that her father was not the love of your life?

After Timothy died, it was just the two of us, my little Faye and I, in our little lake-side condo. We have always had a close connection,  the type of closeness that happens when two people only have each other, and they put each other ahead of everything else. Since the night our lives were shattered by some stupid accident that took our family apart, it has been us against the world. We put each other before anything and anyone else. 

Or at least that is what I thought. Until today. After seeing her face this morning I’m not sure it was still true. 

Friends don’t hide serious relationships.

Friends don’t get married without letting each other know. 

But how do I tell her about Gunner? How do you explain to your daughter that the man you just married, seemingly out of nowhere, could have almost been her real father if things had happened differently? 

[Sacramento, California. 1994]

Gunner and Tim went to high school together in Sacramento. They were both Sac High Dragons, class of 1994, playing on the same basketball team. Gunner was good, but Tim was a god on the court. I was a sophomore, just about to turn 16 when Tim asked me to Homecoming. We were crowned Homecoming Queen and King and it was at the end of the night that I met Gunner. He was always such a striking man, tall and pale with strong cheekbones and jaw. His hair was like spun gold. His eyes were a gray-blue, not cold, but warm like placing a foot in the Caribbean Sea. But unlike Tim, words and feelings were hard for Gunner to express. Tim was a natural leader, lean and tall with glistening ebony skin, and milk chocolate eyes. He was expressive, compassionate and so connected to his feelings that it was hard not to be charmed.  

While I always found Gunner attractive, I saw him as a friend, nothing more. Tim and I became exclusive shortly after Homecoming and it was no surprise that 6 years later we were engaged to be married. 

When I came home to visit my family to tell them the news, Gunner asked me to coffee downtown near our favorite used bookstore. 

He finally found the courage to tell me how he felt, and for as little as he had said all those years he had watched Tim and I grow closer, his feelings were the most intense thing I had ever felt. I told him that I could only ever love him as a brother, as a friend. 

“One kiss?” was all he asked.

So I kissed him.

If I weren’t already pregnant, I would have likely left Timothy Archer right there, for the best friend he saw as a brother. Unfortunately, Gunner’s confession was 3 months too late.  

In Winter 2001, just 6 months after our wedding, Faye Evangeline Archer was born. 

I loved Timothy deeply. He was my sunshine, my heart. When I got that call from his work that he had died in a freak accident, I was so lost. Faye was only 8 years old. I fell apart. His loss not only crushed our family, it crushed our spirits. Faye never stopped mourning.

[Oakland, California. 2013]

It was by chance that about five years after Tim’s death, I ran into Gunner at a holiday party. He had his beautiful wife, Monica, with him. I chatted with the two of them for a few minutes, learning about their beautiful life in Berkeley, and their son, Arthur. It seemed to me that he had found love and I was genuinely happy for him. He knew about Tim’s passing, although he did not come to the funeral. He was sad for my loss, and sad for his loss, as he loved Tim once like a brother. 

He placed a hand on my shoulder. His wife looked at his hand and scowled.

At this point I was called away by my date, some guy I hardly remember now. After a while he wandered off anyway, telling me he was going home with someone else and I was left to find my way home.  

I was about to leave when Gunner found me. The party had already started to dwindle, people coupling up, leaving in pairs and trios. He brought me a glass of almost tepid champagne, held out as a peace offering. He explained that his wife had to go home early to relieve the babysitter but that he was alone to finish up some business. 

“Why aren’t you on your way home right now?”

“To be honest, Monica and I have been living our own separate lives for years now,” he explained. “Besides, I still have unfinished business.”

“Then why are you here with me?”

He leaned over and whispered into my ear. “You are my unfinished business.”

I know I should have felt guilty as we danced for the next hour. But I didn’t. I felt free. 

I didn’t remember his wife until the next morning and I found myself alone in the hotel room. 

There was a note on the nightstand explaining that he had to go, that there had been an emergency, but that he hoped to see me again real soon. 

I didn’t hear from him again for another 6 months. 

It was the afternoon of my third open house. I was desperate to sell my condo but was hoping to get more than what had been offered so far, as this condo was the only thing I had left to sell. Unfortunately, the housing market had crashed the year before, the economy didn’t look like it was going to improve any time soon, and Faye needed expensive therapy that I just couldn’t afford while paying Bay Area prices for food and fuel. My family near Austin had offered me a chance to work in their bookstore while I got back on my feet and figured out my next steps. 

It was raining. I was starting to clean up the food and other things I had put out to make the place cheery. Faye was staying with her grandmother for a few weeks as I made my last big push to sell this place before we moved. 

I was about to close and lock the door when I saw him standing there. He was wearing a fine new suit.

Without saying anything I opened the door.

As soon as the door closed behind us, his lips found mine. I pushed him against the door, deepening the kiss. He pushed me away, his breath ragged. A tear fell from his eye as he said “That night….”

“Explain later.” I led him into my current bedroom, a guest room I was inhabiting while I sold the condo. It was barely more than a made-up linen closet, but to us, it was a bridal suite. 

He told me that his wife had died in a car crash coming home that night and that he didn’t get the calls until that morning when he turned his phone back on. That’s why he had left the note and rushed from the hotel without an explanation. We were still lying in my little folding cot, his hands making swirls around my breasts as if they were his own private map and he was exploring the topography. He knew that he had wanted to be with me, and he had wanted to leave his wife right then, but her sudden death had made it hard on their son and he didn’t know what to do. 

But now he felt certain he was ready to make the change. 

That night he proposed to me. He presented me with a diamond big enough to feed me for a decade and placed it on my hand.

Crying, I turned him down, his ring shining on my hand. I tried to give it back to him, but he shook his head. He kissed away my tears and I melted into his arms. He laid me down gently, taking a moment to look at all of me. He placed a kiss on each hand, each wrist…

“Tell me that you are mine. That you will be my wife. I have loved you since I was 17. I have always loved you.” He continued to kiss my arms, each breast. “I have always been yours, please, Elaine, tell me that you’re mine.” 

I begin to weep as his kisses trail lower. He stops and brings his face back to mine. “Don’t cry, my love. Oh please tell me why. Did I ..”

“No,” I nod. “You are right. I am yours. I’ve been yours since that first kiss in the cafe.” 

We spent the rest of the night showing each other how much we belonged to one another. 

Even so, I wasn’t ready to start a new life with him. Part of me was still mourning Tim. I confessed this to him as we woke up together. He understood. After all, he was only recently widowed himself, and even though he and his wife were all but separated before the accident, she was the mother of his only child, and would always hold a special place in his heart.

As he got up from bed, he unclasped the family torque, a gold circle, from around his neck. Sitting up bare before him, I watched as he reached down and placed it around my own, kissing the hollow of my collarbone as it rested in place.

“I can’t take this…I”

“You can, and you will. You will always be my Lady. My Lady of Lake Merritt.” he joked. “Keep this for me, until you’re ready to be my wife.”

The next week, he made an offer for my condo, one for twice what it was worth. I sold it to him, but he also insisted I keep the deed in my name and that I continue to live there for as long as I needed it until I was ready to leave my past behind. 

“You may not be a Drake, but you own my heart. Everything I have is for you.”

[END FLASHBACK]

 We had started seeing each other in secret, at my insistence.  He was ready to make our relationship public, but he also honored my space. I put away his gifts, only taking them out once a year, and never when Faye was around. On the anniversary of the night he first proposed, I would send Faye to her grandmother’s and I would spend the week with him. I didn’t know how to tell Faye about Gunner. So instead of being honest, I told her a pretty lie about a new client and an advance payment on a modeling gig. In truth, it was the money from the sale of the condo that helped pay for Faye’s therapy, her private school tuition, her tutors, and eventually her college degree.

Last night was the 10th anniversary of our first night in that condo. Gunner came to me with a dozen roses and a ticket to Vegas.

“Elaine, marry me,” he asked again, as he did every year on that same day.

Only this time I said yes.

 Checking my phone, I stand up and put the kettle on the stove, absent-mindedly rotating the diamond ring around my finger. The same ring he used to propose all those years ago, the same one he placed on my hand this weekend, this time forever. 

I have a message telling me that Faye is on her way and should arrive in about ten minutes. I pull out her favorite cookies and place them on the table next to the teapot full of loose-leaf jasmine tea. 

It is time to tell her everything.

I just hope it is not too late for her to listen.