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"Oh, please," Moira waved her paintbrush in the air, walking in front of her toward the bright yellow kitchen, "we're both adults now, honey. We can talk about sex." At her daughter's dumbstruck face, Moira smiled. Was there anything more amusing than still being able to make an adult child uncomfortable when you crossed over the parent boundary? "He's one good looking man, Hannah. I wouldn't get out of bed for weeks."
"Oh, my God. Stop," Hannah said, grimacing at the lemonade. Her mother squeezed it fresh and didn't much believe in sugar.
"Seriously. The week you were conceived... I couldn't even walk."
Hannah covered her ears, her face a complete mortified mess. "No no no no. I don't want to hear this."
Moira laughed, reaching across the kitchen counter, covering her daughter's hand with hers, paint dried under her fingernails. "Sex is a great part about life. Don't stress so much about it. I know after Sam..."
"Mom..."
"I know you just shut it off from even being an option. It really says something that this man was able to get you to let down your barriers, you know. Just sleep on that. You are so good at finding the flaws in a situation. Find the good, Hannah."
Find the good, Hannah.
It was something she heard at least a million times growing up. Moira, and people like Moira- more naturally inclined by nature to be more easy, to be comfortable in life's ebbs
and flows, people who leaned enviably toward happiness, were an enigma to Hannah. She had inherited her father's mind, critical and never resting, rather severe in character in general. John Clary and Moira Callihan were the ridiculous, cliché perfect example of opposites attracting. Hannah often wondered how she managed to grow up and never adopt any of her mother's natural ease. Why she had leaned toward anxiousness and insecurity when her mother was perpetually worry free, the kind of woman so solidly settled in her own body that it wouldn't even occur to her to be self conscious?
–
She drove back to the inn two hours later, having been unable to resist the chance to spend time with her mother and, after prying him out of his stuffy, cramped library, her father.
Her body felt like lead, all heaviness and worry. Her heart was in her throat, constricting it and making her feel like she couldn’t draw a proper breath. What had she gotten herself into? Why the heck was she just blindly following him to the inn?
But before she could debate the issue any further, the inn loomed in the distance. A home to so many late night conversations. Emily had worked there since forever, doing every job from stable mucker, errand runner, general floating lackey, to eventual manager. A child of an unstable and unhappy home, Emily had walked out one night and found herself at the inn, begging for a job and, in turn, a place to stay. She had been a full time maid by the time she was sixteen.
Hannah would sit in the doorways to the rooms as Emily stretched her athletic, lithe body pulling heavy comforters and sheets off the bed, vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing the bathrooms and redressing the beds. It was a rule that she wasn't allowed in the rooms, so the two had decided that it would be totally fine for her to hang out in the halls and chat. Young, girlish things. Boys. Music. Clothes. As they got older, more serious things: Emily's sad family life, Hannah's budding relationship with Sam. Emily had always been ten steps ahead of Hannah, despite being about the same age. Emily had fallen into bed with one of her casual boyfriends at fifteen. "Get it over with, you know," Emily had said after, eating ice cream and laughing about the faces he had made. "It doesn't have to be a big deal," she shrugged.
Emily, like Moira, was unnaturally at ease in her own skin. She knew she wasn't soft and feminine, but she moved with the gait of a sexually confident woman. Men liked her. She liked men. It was all so easy for her.
Hannah had barely gotten fully in the doorway to the inn when Emily came sauntering down the hallway, holding coffee for them both, a perfect auburn brow raised. "You have been keeping secrets," she said as a greeting, walking toward the abandoned seating room, leaving Hannah to follow behind.
Emily curled up on a chaise, her legs bent at ninety-degrees on the seat as she faced Hannah.
"I missed you, Em," Hannah said, a genuine sisterly affection filling her.
"Yeah yeah yeah. I missed you too," Emily rolled her eyes as if that didn't need to be said. "So, spill on that man upstairs."
"There's not that much to tell..." Hannah mumbled.
"Have you two been engaging in the beast with two backs?" she said, grinning as Hannah choked on her coffee.
"Exactly," Emily said, satisfied. "So there is more than enough to tell. You alright?" she asked, concern on her face. She knew Hannah almost as well as Sam. "He wasn't a tool to you, right? I'll go up there and throw him out the window."
"No, he was good. Great, actually."
"Great," Emily repeated, leaning closer. "Sounds hot. Don't leave anything out..." she said, winking and putting Hannah more at ease.
It helped to talk about it. She was someone whose default was to clam up and keep everything bottled up inside, though she had known from past experiences that she always felt better when she had someone to use as a sounding board. Sex became less of a sordid mystery when discussed with a girlfriend. It felt more... normal.
Hannah cringed. Sex was normal. She was just taking a longer time to figure that out than most. It was almost an hour later that Emily unfolded her legs from the couch and stood up. "Okay. Go on, go up there. Go get some," she winked.
"Em," Hannah laughed.
"No no. Go. I'm sure he's been waiting none-too-patiently for you. Don't worry," she said, taking the coffee mugs. "I am heading out. I won't be hearing your steamy sexing," she said as she walked down the hall, oblivious or perhaps unconcerned about being overheard. "The beds squeak a lot, you know," she said, turning in toward the kitchen and Hannah could hear her giggle. Apparently it was something Emily knew firsthand.
Hannah walked up the steps slowly, giddy from girl talk but getting more anxious by the moment. She had barely landed a second knock when the door flew open.
