Chain Reactions Page 21

  “What?”

  “Don’t pull back into your shell. Don’t let fear get in the way of what your heart wants.”

  She hated being so transparent. She felt so exposed. Her instinct was to run. She started to withdraw from their embrace, but Brooke held her fast.

  “I’m falling for you too, Diana. You’re not in this alone. You don’t have a corner on the market for self-doubt and the fear of your heart getting ripped out.” Brooke traced her cheekbone with her fingers. “We’re not kids in love for the first time. We’re at the midpoint of our lives. We’ve both experienced heartache and loss, and we carry those scars with us always. Those truths don’t magically disappear simply because the right person walks into our lives one day out of the blue.”

  She started to say something, but Brooke gently placed her fingers over her mouth. “I’m not done yet.”

  She kissed Brooke’s fingers and sucked her forefinger into her mouth.

  “Not helping.” Brooke stepped back and intertwined their hands. “My point is, we both have something to lose if we let ourselves follow our hearts. But we have so much more to gain, that I, for my part, think it’s absolutely worth the risk. There always will be reasons not to open our hearts and lives to someone new. But now that I’ve found you, I realize I don’t want to live the rest of my life playing it safe and being solo.”

  Diana swallowed hard. “Me, either. I can see now that I’ve been existing for too long, not living. I want to live.”

  “Exactly. What do you say we take a leap of faith together and see what happens next?”

  “I’m with you. Wherever you’re going, that’s where I want to be,” Diana said. As if to seal the pact, she leaned in and claimed Brooke’s lips in a searing kiss.

  The piercing sound of the oven timer startled them apart, and Diana clutched at her heart. “Dear God.”

  “Timing is everything.” Brooke kissed her once more and donned the oven mitts. “Why don’t you grab the file with Nora’s burial instructions and we’ll talk through it while we eat?”

  As Diana went upstairs to retrieve the file, Brooke plated their dinner and willed her heart to settle. What she’d told Diana was the truth, but knowing the truth and living it were two different things. Was she ready to make room in her life for someone like Diana, someone to whom she wanted to give everything?

  In the past, she’d always known her career was the priority. Now? Now she could see herself putting a relationship first. Correction, not a relationship, this relationship—the partnership for which she’d waited a lifetime.

  Diana was so different from her previous partners. Yes, she carried emotional scars, but who didn’t at this age? Diana was accomplished and stable in her professional life. She knew who she was and didn’t feel the need to prove herself or compete with her. She’d lived long enough to recognize what was important to her and how to manifest that in her life.

  Would Diana make time for her? Would she make time for love? There was only one way to find out. Brooke imagined that if they could keep the lines of communication open and be compassionately honest with each other, they could overcome any obstacle they faced.

  “You’re deep in thought.”

  Brooke straightened. “Sorry. I didn’t hear you come back down.”

  “What were you thinking? Care to share?”

  “Honestly? I was thinking I’m glad we met at this stage of our lives instead of years ago.” She set the plates on the table and sat.

  “Why is that?” Diana sniffed appreciatively. “Oh, my God. This smells heavenly. Thanks for making dinner.”

  “You’re welcome.” She speared a potato and popped it into her mouth in order to give herself time to formulate her reply. “Earlier in my career, I was so driven, so focused on trying to prove myself, that I prioritized my work over everything else in my life. I would guess you were much the same. The world of academia is brutal. Publish or perish, fight for tenure, battle for respect, standing, and recognition…”

  Diana chewed and swallowed. “This tastes every bit as good as it looks. Yum. And yes, you’re right on target. I was a woman in a field dominated by men who didn’t think I belonged. I worked twice as hard as they did to receive the same consideration.”

  “That’s my point. We wouldn’t have had the time or space to put our relationship first.”

  “You think it will be different now?”

  “I think it can be different now, if we choose to make it so.” Diana stayed silent so long Brooke wondered if she had miscalculated. “Say something.”

  “I want it to be different this time. I do. And, I think it really helps that you’re in the medical field and can understand and appreciate what I do, just as I can understand and appreciate what you do.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “It sounds like there’s a ‘but’ in there.”

  Diana put down her fork. “But the reality is that I’m based in New York, and your life is here in Massachusetts, especially now that you own a home on the Cape. Also, I’m about to embark on the dream project of a lifetime, backed by a brand-new NIH grant, based on work I’ve been doing at Columbia.”

  “I see.” She lowered her fork as well, her appetite suddenly gone.

  “I’m not saying these are obstacles we can’t overcome.”

  She closed her eyes. Maybe she was being naïve to think this time could be different. She opened her eyes and stared down at her plate. “Aren’t you?”

  “No.” Diana lifted her chin with two fingers so they were eye to eye. “No, I’m not. I’m trying to be realistic. I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said logistics and timing make this exceedingly complicated. I’m acknowledging that up front, because I care too much about you, and us, not to address it.”

  “You don’t think we can make this work.”

  “I’m not saying that. I’m saying we have to take all of these factors into consideration.”

  Her heart hurt. If Diana didn’t have faith in the relationship at the outset, what was the point in moving forward?

  “Brooke…”

  “I heard you, Diana. Let’s focus on Nora’s wishes and the funeral, okay?” She stacked their plates and carried them to the sink.

  “Brooke…”

  She couldn’t have this conversation right now. She needed time alone to think and to sort through her emotions. “I know we’re not done talking about this. But, I need time to process before either one of us says something she’ll regret.”

  She squeezed a dollop of dish soap into a large, round Tupperware container, added soap to the sponge, and buried her hands and the dishes in the soapy water. She could feel Diana’s eyes on her back. “What does Nora say about a burial plot? Anything?”

  Diana sighed heavily. “She doesn’t want to be buried.”

  “Does she want her ashes sprinkled somewhere? Or does she want you to hold onto them?”

  “Huh. I didn’t see that coming.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m reading her internment wishes. Aunt Nora wants her ashes buried near the Chapel-on-the-Hill at Oak Ridge.”

  “Why? Does she say?” Brooke dropped any pretense of doing the dishes now. She dried her hands and returned to the table. “As far as I know, your great-aunt didn’t have a religious bone in her body.”

  “She says that’s where her life really began and ended, so that’s where she should be.”

  “Oh, my goodness, that’s a loaded statement.”

  Diana’s gaze was filled with sadness. “I suppose we’ll understand it better when we read her journal.”

  “I sure hope so. What about a funeral? I know many of her colleagues and friends at Dana-Farber will want to be there. Probably some of the Harvard faculty too. She stayed close to those folks.”

  “Would you know who to invite or how to get in touch with them?”

  “I can take care of Dana-Farber, and they can take care of Harvard. Also, we probably should place an obituary in the Boston Globe and the
Herald.”

  Diana removed a piece of paper from the folder and handed it to her. “Looks like Aunt Nora’s done the work for us.”

  Brooke shook her head in admiration. “Leave it to Nora to pen her own obituary.”

  Lindstrom, Nora – Dr. Nora Lindstrom of Cambridge, MA passed away on the ______ of ________, 20__, at age _____. Dr. Lindstrom retired from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 2000 following a lengthy career dedicated to bettering the lives of children with leukemia. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

  “Short and to the point,” Diana said.

  “And lacking in any detail, which I gather was the point of her writing it, rather than leaving it to someone else.”

  “Speaking of the details of Aunt Nora’s life—”

  “Yes, we should.”

  “I didn’t even finish my sentence,” Diana complained. “How do you know what I was going to say?”

  “You were going to suggest that we resume our attic adventure.”

  “I hate that you’re right, you know that?”

  “It’s a gift. Let’s go.”

  Brooke led the way back upstairs and into the attic. Was sleeping with Diana a mistake? Should they have hashed out their feelings and plans more fully before becoming intimate?

  Diana was a tenured professor at the height of her career, and that career was based in New York City. Duh, Brooke. Of course she’s not going to walk away from that or place a relationship highest on her list of priorities. How did you miss that red flag?

  Sure, her own career was in flux, but the idea of moving to New York held absolutely no appeal for her. She wondered if Diana remembered that one of the first times they’d spent time together she shared that she preferred the quiet of nature to the bustle of a big city.

  “Earth to Brooke, come in, please?”

  “Huh?”

  “If you don’t want to go through more of Aunt Nora’s stuff right now—”

  “No. I want to do this.” The sorrow and uncertainty in Diana’s gaze pierced her heart. “Where did we leave off?”

  “Nora’s ID badge.”

  “Right.”

  She handed the badge to Diana. As she did so, she noticed another ID card hiding underneath. This one said Townsite Resident’s Pass. The pass certified that Nora was a resident of Oak Ridge, gave her particulars, was signed by her and a security guard, and authorized her to enter and leave the premises without search only through the gates on Highway 61. “You’ll want to see this one too. Looks like they go together.” She handed it to Diana, along with a pay stub.

  “This is so cool. This stuff brings history to life.”

  “If Nora was ashamed of this part of her career as you seem to believe she was, why do you suppose she saved all of these mementos?”

  “I haven’t figured that out. Maybe because she knew they had historic value?”

  Brooke considered what she knew of Nora. “I don’t think that would motivate her.”

  “Well, she’s not here to tell us, so unless there’s an explanation in her personal letters or the journal, we may never know.”

  “There’s one more letter in this stack.” She slid the contents out of its envelope. “It’s from Ernest Lawrence, again.”

  Dear Dr. Lindstrom,

  I understand congratulations are in order. I don’t know how you did it, but you have managed to train high school-educated girls to operate my highly sophisticated Calutron machines and achieve better results and more product than my doctoral students.

  Keep up the good work.

  With admiration,

  Ernest O. Lawrence

  She passed the letter to Diana. “That tells us a little more about what Nora’s function was in Oak Ridge, doesn’t it?”

  “That corroborates what Aunt Nora said to me in that last conversation. She told me she supervised the girls who operated the machines that created the enriched uranium.”

  “Now you have proof.”

  “Now we have proof.”

  She accepted the letter back from Diana and put it at the bottom of the stack. “That’s the end of the professional materials.”

  Diana checked her watch. “It’s getting late. Maybe we should call it a night and start fresh in the morning with the journal.”

  “Okay.” She stood. She’d promised Diana they would sleep together tonight. In light of their earlier conversation, she wondered if that was the best plan. Well, a promise was a promise, wasn’t it?

  Diana’s eyes had long since become accustomed to the room’s darkness. She could easily make out Brooke’s silhouette, scant inches away from her. Brooke’s back was to her and she was curled on her side, one arm thrown over the covers, the other tucked underneath her pillow.

  When Diana had made her promise they’d sleep together naked tonight, this was not what she had envisioned. Then again, she imagined it wasn’t what Brooke had pictured, either.

  She rolled carefully onto her back so as not to wake Brooke. She put her hands underneath her head. Why was it that every time she made progress with Brooke, she stuck her foot in her mouth and wrecked everything? Self-sabotage? A latent desire to fail? Fear of success? All of the above?

  All you did was tell the truth as you see it. You were being practical and realistic, not to mention the fact that this research project has the potential to drastically alter and save lives. Surely that was something Brooke could understand and appreciate?

  She had told herself the same thing ten other times tonight, but it still sounded contrived. Other people made these kinds of situations work all the time. Was she a commitment-phobe? Selfish? Uncompromising? What would a reasonable compromise be? Meet on the weekends out at the Cape? Making that commute from New York every week would be pure hell. It was one thing to do it while Aunt Nora was dying, it would be quite another to undertake that drive on a regular basis.

  Besides, she didn’t want to be a weekend warrior who showed up, made love to her girlfriend for three days straight, and then returned to her “normal” life. She was too old for that crap, and she couldn’t imagine treating Brooke as a part-time playmate. Brooke simply wasn’t that kind of girl.

  Therein lay the crux of the problem. She meant every word she said before things went south. She truly was falling head over heels for Brooke—not the kind of infatuation she experienced when she first met Bethany—no, this was something so much deeper and more profound. It was the kind of connection she wanted to nurture, protect, and spend a lifetime exploring.

  Tell her that. She’s right there. Go on, tell her. She turned toward Brooke and reached out to stroke her bare shoulder.

  They’re empty words until you back them up with concrete actions that prove you intend to put the relationship, and her, at the center of your universe.

  She pulled back without making contact and glanced at the clock on the bedside table: 4:35 a.m. One thing was for certain, none of this ruminating was getting her closer to a solution, and the lack of sleep meant that she was going to be a zombie for the day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The first thing Brooke noticed when they met in the kitchen after their morning showers were the deep purple circles underneath Diana’s eyes. Brooke didn’t need to be a detective to know Diana had slept poorly. In addition to the dark circles, Diana had risen before her and disappeared into Nora’s bathroom, and she barely mussed the covers on her side of the bed.

  Brooke tossed and turned a fair amount too, prior to giving in to emotional exhaustion. Still, she was in better shape than Diana. “I’d ask how you slept, but I’m pretty sure I know the answer.”

  Diana poured herself a cup of coffee and stood at the kitchen island. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Mm-hmm. Are you hungry?”

  “I can get it, thanks. I’m going to have one of those bagels. Do you want one?” Diana asked.

  “No, thanks. Yogurt and fruit for me. Too many carbs and I won’t be able to climb those attic stai
rs.”

  She was painfully aware of the awkward silence that ensued as the two of them went about putting together their own breakfasts. Since she’d been the one to postpone the conversation about the parameters of their relationship, she supposed it was up to her to broach the subject again.

  What was she going to say? It didn’t matter that Diana believed her career was the most important thing? It did matter. In fact, it mattered a great deal.

  But was that really what Diana said? What she said was that she was in the prime of her career and was about to embark on a critically important research project backed and bankrolled by the NIH.

  Whatever the words, the bottom line was that Diana’s heart was in her work, and that work was based at Columbia. There was no way to put a pretty face on it.

  She got up, rinsed her dishes in the sink, and put them in the dishwasher. “If we’re headed back up to the attic, I’d better put on a few extra layers.”

  As she navigated the space between the sink and the eat-in nook, Diana latched onto her forearm. “Please, don’t go yet. Can’t we talk about it?”

  She paused. “Honestly, I don’t know what to say. If I did, I’d say it. You were kind enough to make your priorities plain before we got ahead of ourselves, and I appreciate your candor. You no doubt saved me a lot of heartache.”

  “That’s it?” Diana pushed her chair back and stood up so they were eye to eye. “You’re just going to give up without a fight?”

  “I detest confrontation, so let me be clear that I don’t want to fight with you…now or ever.”

  “I didn’t mean fight in the literal sense, Brooke. I meant you don’t think what we have is worth trying to salvage?”

  Salvage? The word stung. Salvage was like dumpster diving to find an item that might be of use. Step back. Take a deep breath. You’re tired, you’re cranky, and it’s an emotionally charged time. Don’t react. “There’s nothing to salvage. We kissed a few times and slept together once.” As soon as the words were out, she regretted them. Diana looked crestfallen.