Adermoor Cove: Donovan Road - 4. Chapter 4

Back at Ramona’s house later that night.

"...Mom's making her roasted chicken you like so well." She was dressed in a pretty red dress and wore a white pearl necklace. Lipstick and eyeshadow colored her face. Makeup turned Ramona from beautiful to stunning but it also turned her into someone Moira didn't recognize.

Moira didn't have the energy to hide her reluctance like she usually did. Setting her purse on top of the dresser, she sighed heavily and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Ramona, I've had a very long, very stressful day. I don't want to go over to your father's. I was kind of hoping we could stay here, make some popcorn, watch a movie, you know?"

"It's just for a couple hours," Ramona said in a chiding voice, as if Moira was being difficult. "We can always do this stuff when we get back."

Moira sighed. It had been this way from the moment they'd started dating: Every Friday or Saturday they went to Scott and Anne Sterling's house for dinner. They sat at the long kitchen table and listened to Scott talk about whatever it was he wanted to talk about it. And the whole time she had to endure the disapproval glimmering beneath his bushy salt-and-pepper brow and the put-on pleasantry. The real torture was knowing the truth: Scott did not approve of their relationship. A same sex relationship.

While Anne had been nothing but kind to Moira she did nothing to stand in her husband's way.

"Not tonight, Ramona.

"Come on…"

Perhaps it was residue anger from dealing with Mack Kelly, coming up from a well of suppressed emotion, but Moira couldn't stop the words from coming out of her mouth. "When I go to your father's house and I sit at his table, I feel like I'm drowning. Drowning in his disapproval of me. Of us. And no matter how many times you doll yourself up and drag me along with you, your daddy will never accept the fact you're a carpet muncher."

Ramona flinched at the last two words. Moira hadn't meant to say them but out they had come, of their own accord.

"I'm sorry," Moira said more gently. "I got accused by Tim Kelly of only sticking up for my own kind when his son bloodied Riley Hartford's nose because he's been raised to despise anyone who's not white and male. So you go to your parent's. I'm going to stay here, take a little nap, and when you get back we'll have popcorn and watch a movie."

"Okay." Something in Ramona seemed to have shattered. With just a few words Moira had shattered her hopes. Her shoulders had slumped and her eyes glistened with tears. "I didn't know you felt like you were drowning."

"In your defense it's partially my fault. I have a tendency to hold onto my emotions until I just explode. I wanted so bad to make you happy, to make him like me, but I'm done pretending. I wasn't trying to be a bitch, Ramona."

Ramona smiled. "I know." She bent down, kissed Moira on the forehead. "See you when I get back."

                               …

She was in the car on Donovan Road. Lullaby by The Cure was playing on the radio. The headlights cast a ghostly yellow glow on the asphalt.

The bear stood outside the car; she could tell by the crafty look in its eyes it was trying to decide whether or not it wanted to eat her.

She kept trying to take her foot off the brake and put it on the gas pedal but she was paralyzed with fear - her brain was not communicating with the rest of her body. She prayed that if she held still the beast wouldn't be able to see her. A ridiculous thought of course - bears and tyrannosaurus rexes were not the same, not even close.

Moira could only watch helplessly as the bear slowly approached the car, its sides heaving beneath the patches of black moss-like substance. More of that black fluid dripped from its open mouth, which gaped at her like the mouth of a cavern.

It was close enough now its breath had begun to fog up the windshield. She could already smell its rotten breath, a fetid dying smell. She imagined being eaten by the bear, being digested in its infected belly along with whatever remained of the buck it had killed earlier in the week.

Again she tried to put her foot on the gas pedal but couldn't move. Her heart was pounding in her chest. I'm going to die, she thought. I'm going to die in this fucking car.

With every step the bear took toward the car, the ground seemed to shake beneath its feet. It was humongous; she hadn't realized just how big it was until it was standing next to the car. It looked at her again, its eyes meeting hers. There was a cruel sort of intelligence in its eyes that shouldn't exist in bears. Then it bellowed and stood on its hind legs.

When it came down its paws dented the roof. Cracks formed a spider web across the windshield. Even as the bear tore the car apart with its claws she couldn't move, couldn't breathe. Somehow its claws had torn through the roof, ripping a sheet of metal off and throwing it aside as if it was nothing more than a piece of dead skin.

It looked at her once more and then its mouth stretched open, black saliva dripping from its jaws, and then its head darted forward to devour her.

                                                    …

She was laying in Ramona's bed; her heart was trying to beat its way up her throat. She didn't recall falling asleep. She just remembered sitting at the edge of the bed, feeling like a bad girlfriend, thinking, How did things go so wrong? Why did I ever move to this place? I miss my parents. And with a bite of bitterness and resentment, she realized as she stretched out on the bed, breathing in Ramona's smell, Ramona had yet to visit her parents in New York.

Moira's parents had come here from New York one summer, renting a room at The Clam's Pearl Inn. They seemed to genuinely like Ramona; but then Moira had recalled with a stab of nostalgia, Jeff and Rachael Compton liked everyone.

Everything has to be on Ramona and her father's terms. This was the last thing she remembered thinking before she closed her eyes.

Now she lay in the stillness and silence of Ramona's house. She wasn't sure how long she remained still, just listening, before she realized Ramona had not yet returned from her parents. Still she had the feeling something wasn't right. There was danger close by.

She got out of bed, exited the room, and tiptoed down the hallway. The wood floor felt cold beneath her feet. No intruder tried to attack her as she reached the doorway to the bathroom. Just to make herself feel better, safer, she reached for the switch and flicked on the bathroom light.

Moira continued onto the staircase. She slowly walked down the stairs with her hand on the rail. She was grateful for the strange yet eerie sense of calm that had descended over her. It was at the bottom of the stairs, just two or three steps from the front door, she heard it.

A chuffing sound.

Something big moving through the dark.

The bear - it was back.

A tide of rage crashed over her. Rage, not fear.

"Fuck this," she said, "I'm tired of this."

She went into the living room and studied the double barrel shotgun hanging above the mantle of the fireplace. On top of the fireplace, hidden in plain sight within a blue marble bowl was where Ramona kept the shells.

She could still hear the bear circling around the house, going for another lap. I'm not stuck in a dream this time. This time I have a gun, she thought. She grabbed one of the armchairs and dragged it over to the fireplace. She climbed up top, grabbed the gun from the wooden pegs, and snapped it open to see if the chamber was loaded.

Empty.

She slid two shells inside just as Ramona had taught her to do, suddenly glad Ramona had taught her how to fire a gun. She stuffed a handful of shells in the pocket of her pants just in case. Moira climbed down carefully from the chair. The gun felt heavy in her hands, heavier than it looked. She pushed the door with her foot and stepped out on the porch. The night air was turgid with summer heat.

The wooden steps creaked loudly as she stepped down into the grass. She hoped the sound would attract the bear. Let it come around the house….

How are you going to shoot a bear? You've never shot anything in your life, not even a rabbit or a squirrel. The voice in her head continued to mock her as she made a full lap around the house...and didn't bump into the bear.

It was nowhere in sight. Had it gone back into the woods behind the house? She walked the four yards to the barn and nudged the door of the barn open with the muzzle of the shotgun. Winchester, Ramona's black gelding, peered at her inquisitively over the top of his stall.

And the bear wasn't inside.

Of course it wasn't, why would it be?

Because you're crazy chasing after some bear because you think it's chasing after you. Bears don't just stalk one person like this.

She closed the barn up, went back into the house, put the shotgun back on the mantel, and the chair back in place. She was relieved Ramona had not yet returned from her parent's house. What would Ramona think if she came and found Moira creeping around the farm with her shotgun, chasing after a bear that wasn't there?

She should have been relieved but all she felt was disappointment.

                                   …

Moira was making popcorn when Ramona came home.

Moira stood at the stove, listening to the ping of the kernels bouncing off the glass top. She heard the front door open. Seconds later Ramona came traipsing into the kitchen, her shoulders drooping. Her mascara ran down her face. Moira, alarmed, turned off the stove and went to her. She'd never seen Ramona cry before. Of the couple, Moira was the emotional one.

"What's wrong?" Moira could feel the tenseness of her lover's body as she wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close. Ramona's whole body was trembling.

"Dinner didn't turn out so well."

"Why not?"

"I tried talking to Dad."

"Oh. And it didn't go well?"

Ramona shook her head. "He said he'd been trying his best but he said he would always love me no matter what but he couldn't accept me being with a woman."

Moira immediately regretted the swell of triumph she felt inside, the urge to say, I told you so; didn't I tell you so?

Ramona shrugged, a sign she was ready to be let go. Moira sensed she was embarrassed and remembered Ramona did not like to be seen with her vulnerabilities exposed. She didn't take it personal but decided to give Ramona the comfort she needed from a distance.

Even cowgirls get the blues.

"You were right," Ramona said. "I knew the truth I just didn't want to admit it to myself. My dad is an asshole...and my mother isn't much better. I mean when we're alone and it's just her and I, she does her best to show me the truth of how she feels but then when she and him are in the same room together she just parrots him. She didn't even say anything, just stood there at his back with her hand on his shoulder. Betraying me."

Listening to the wobble in her voice, hearing her pain, made Moira realize just how lucky she was to have the liberal parents she had. They both taught at the university in New York. She was reminded just how different things were here on the island. People still lived in the past, forever stuck in their ways of doing things.

It just made her feel like a fish out of water. A really big fish. And she was helpless, too helpless, unsure of how to help Moira with her pain. Useless.

"So I told him," Ramona was saying, "...I told him if he didn't start treating you better, since you're a big part of my life, then he could forget the Friday-Saturday night dinners. He just shrugged his shoulders and said so be it." She pursed her lips and leaned heavily against the counter. "I thought I could change him, you know, because I'm his daughter. I was wrong."

"I'm sorry," Moira said. It was the only thing she could think of to say.

To her surprise, Ramona went to her and kissed her, kissed her as if it had been ages since doing so. When they parted Ramona said, "I love you. You are the most important person in my life."

Moira looked away. It was the first time Ramona had said I love you. And the intensity with which she had said it excited and frightened Moira in equal measures. "I love you too," she whispered.

"So," said Ramona, "popcorn and a movie?"