Chapter 5

Morning light roused Brian. During the night he had rolled onto his side. Debra was against his back, her arm around his waist. He rolled onto his back and coaxed her against him. She stirred and cracked open her eyes. "Good morning," he said.

She smiled. "Good morning."

He kissed her lips. "How did you sleep?"

"Never better. I haven't been sleeping well and yesterday lifted a load from my mind."

"Me, too ... It's Sunday," he said. "Sunday is my day for doing laundry..."

"Mine, too," she said.

"And grocery shopping."

"Mine, too. I also have some work to do in the library."

"Why don't we double up on laundry and groceries? Then, do you think if you spent the afternoon at the library, you'd be free to continue our dialogue after dinner? I think conversation like that is best between dinner and bedtime."

"I think so, too."

"Then, let's do it. I'll grab my laundry. We can swing by your place..."

"I'll take a quick shower here and change at home."

"We can combine our darks and lights. Where do you usually buy groceries?"

"There's a local market down the street."

"I'll take you to City Market. I'll bet the selection is broader and the prices lower."

Brian parked outside 325 Orchard. Debra opened the door with her key. They found Kaycee sitting at a table operating her laptop computer.

She looked up. "Well -- I see you cleared the air," she remarked.

"Yes we did," Debra replied.

"Did you work everything out?"

"Not quite everything," Brian replied.

"But -- we are engaged." Debra added.

"Engaged?" Kaycee's eyes popped and her jaw dropped. "Oh, my word -- congratulations."

"He haven't set a date," Debra replied.

"We think she should finish law school and then see where we're headed."

"I can't believe it -- you two went from busted up to engaged? Overnight?"

"That's right," Brian said. "We'll need to get a ring. Debra said she didn't need one..."

"Go for the ring, honey," Kaycee replied, "go for the ring. What are you two up to, now?"

"We're doing laundry and getting groceries. Then we're headed to the library so I can look up those cases for class."

"I've been doing that," Kaycee said. "I've been looking them up on LexisNexis. You do know we get a free subscription."

"Yeah, I know. I'll do it the old-fashioned way. Let me get my dirty clothes." Debra stepped into her bedroom and returned with two cloth duffels.

Brian held Debra's hand as he drove toward the university's law library. "It's nice having a car," she remarked. "The laundromat you use has so many machines we could do two loads simultaneously. It really saved time."

"Yes, that place charges a quarter more per load but it's big, bright and clean."

"And City Market -- that was quite the place, too."

"I bought some lobster chowder, bread and cheese to have for dinner," he replied.

"Mmm..."

He pulled into the parking lot and parked near the door. "Brian," she said, "that sign says this lot is for staff only."

"I have a staff sticker."

"Oh -- I keep forgetting."

He accompanied her into the library. She sat at one of the computers and retrieved a square pocket magnifier from her bag. Leaning close to the display she read the screen through the magnifier.

"I thought you were hitting the books," he remarked.

"Yes, but the catalog is on the computer." She removed a spiral stenographer's notebook, flipped through pages and jotted down catalog numbers. She leaned back, removed her glasses and covered her eyes with her hand. "Oh, this is so difficult. The screen is so bright and the type is so small ... it hurts my eyes."

Brian grabbed the mouse and made a few clicks. "Is this better?" He had changed the screen so the fonts were large and white against a black background.

"Yes ... yes this is much better. What did you do? I can read it without this." She held up her magnifier.

"I changed the accessibility settings."

"How did you know to do that?"

"Debra -- working with these things is my profession."

She continued querying the library catalog. "This makes such a difference," she remarked. "Okay -- I have the callouts. I'll go to the librarian to fetch these from the stacks. I can't take them out of the building so I'll need to read them here."

Brian restored the display settings to normal. He watched her carry a stack of legal volumes to a table, whip out her lens and begin reading. She made notes in her steno pad with a thick, dark marker.

He looked over her shoulder. "What's this?" he asked, pointing to her pad.

"Oh -- it's my own private shorthand. In order to read what I write, I must write it big and bold. That takes time and paper, so I came up with my own shorthand."

"Very clever." He sat across from her leaned back and twiddled his thumbs. "Debra," he said, "I'm going to step out for a quick errand. I'll be back in a bit."

"I'll be right here," she replied. "Where are you going?"

"Just back to the apartment."

Brian returned to the law library carrying a black Gore-Tex case. From it he removed a laptop computer. He unwound the cords to its power brick and found a wall outlet. Then, he powered it on and began scrolling through files and folders.

Debra looked up. "Oh, hi -- I didn't hear you come in. Did you find some work to do, too?"

"Of sorts." He continued to arrange files and folders on the laptop.

She closed the volume she had been reading, took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "Are you done?" he asked.

"Not quite -- I have one more case to read. The volume I need is out."

"I thought you said they couldn't leave the library."

"A prof can take one out," she replied. "Probably my prof has it. I'll need to use LexisNexis for this one." She headed back to the computer she had been using. "Brian -- how did you change the screen?"

"Try this instead," he said and turned the laptop to face her.

"You set this up already..." She sat and manipulated the mouse. "Ah -- here's my case..." Her gaze switched between the screen and her steno pad.

Then, she put away her marker and closed her notepad. "Thank you for letting me use your notebook computer," she said. "I was dreading having to read that case in Lexis, but this made it easier than reading the books."

Brian shut down the laptop, slipped it into its case and held it to her. "It's yours, Debra."

"Mine?" She regarded his face. "Oh, Brian -- I couldn't."

"I bought this eight years ago when I started working here. At the time it was a top-of-the-line laptop. About a year ago I had to replace it because it wasn't fast enough for some of the things I wanted to do. The one I use now cost half as much and is three times as powerful."

"You'll really let me have this?"

"That laptop means a lot to me, even if it can no longer do what I need it to. I don't want to throw it away, and I could never sell it for what it's worth ... what it's worth to me, that is. It should have plenty of capacity for your needs. I loaded it with a copy of Office so you can do PowerPoint presentations, write papers, do spreadsheets ... Don't worry -- the university has a student site-license that's perfectly legal for me to install. Like I said, Debra -- we're all cousins. If I can help a cousin..."

She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his lips. "Thank you. I'll take good care of it."

"Shall we go heat up some chowder and crack a couple of Molsons?" he asked.

"Yes -- I'm getting hungry."

Brian escorted Debra to his sofa. "Mmm," she said. "Yummy dinner." She pressed her hand against her abdomen. "I was hungry and it feels good."

"Are we ready to continue our dialogue?" he asked.

"I am," she replied. "I kept going over what you told me last night. I do understand where you're coming from, Brian. I trust you ... now, more than ever."

"I would never intentionally hurt you, Debra. Remember that."

"I know. I've been thinking about what to tell you about me."

"Do you have your thoughts together?"

"Yes."

"Then -- let's have it," he said.

"Just a moment..." She stood and headed into the bathroom and returned with the box of facial tissues that normally rested atop the toilet tank. She set it on the coffee table.

"Uh-oh," Brian remarked. "Is it going to be THAT kind of a tale?"

"Just in case," she replied. "I'm going to try not to need them." She sat beside him and he held her hand.

Debra drew in a deep breath. "My upbringing had some similarities to that of your first girlfriend. I mean, no we didn't have money and I didn't go to a boarding school. You see -- I was an unwanted child."

"Unwanted?"

"Unanticipated might be better. My mother was always in trouble. She got pregnant and hid it from my grandparents until it was too late to do anything about it. I was born and she tried to take care of me ... but she couldn't. So, she gave me up."

"For adoption?"

"My grandmother had a younger, spinster sister -- Aunt Gemma; and she took me in."

"At least you stayed in the family."

"At least ... My mom eventually spent a couple of years in prison."

"Prison?" he replied.

"It was a bad bunch she ran with. I lived with Aunt Gemma until I was thirteen. By then my mother had gotten her life together. She served her time, went back to school and married a decent man. Aunt Gemma spent the bulk of her golden years rearing me and by then she was tired. So I moved back with my mom."

"How did that go?"

"Rough at first. We had lots to make up. By the time I was a senior in high school, she and I had a good rapport. We still do."

"That's good at least," he remarked.

She drew in another deep breath. "Aunt Gemma must've bought into the albino evil seed myth, to some degree. Her mission was to make sure I didn't turn out like my mom. Gemma believed that Mom's problems were the result of my grandfather's permissiveness ... and, Mom's promiscuity. She was determined that I would not travel that same path."

"I have an idea where you're headed," he said.

"Gemma made sure to discourage any curiosity I had about boys and about my own body. 'You don't want to end up like your mother, ' she would say over and over to me. Of course, I didn't want to end up liker her."

"Powerful stuff," he remarked.

"I was a bed-wetter, too -- until I grew out of it by age eleven or twelve. Gemma was convinced that self-pleasuring exacerbates that condition so she was determined to nip any of that activity in the bud. I never had a moment's privacy with her, Brian. I had to sleep with my door open, dress with my door open, shower with the door open ... And, Gemma had one of those radio baby monitors that she kept in my room so she could keep tabs on me."

"What an awful childhood," Brian remarked. "It's probably not actionable, but that sounds like child abuse to me."

Debra squeezed his hand. "Add to that the taunting and teasing I endured at school. I was pretty miserable ... and, pretty lonely."

"You appear remarkably well-balanced as an adult."

"Appearances can be deceiving. At any rate, I had a better time in high school. Like I said, most of the really mean taunting had subsided by then. Mom was much more laid back with me than Aunt Gemma. I still was considered uncool, but there are a lot of uncool kids in high school. I even had some friends."