The firefly, p.1
The Firefly, page 1
The Firefly
Laury A. Egan
Spectrum Books
Copyright © by Laury A. Egan
All Rights Reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-915905-15-4
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission of the author or Spectrum Books,
except for brief quotations used for promotion or in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
and events are fictitious or used fictitiously.
First Edition, Spectrum Books, 2023
Cover design: Laury A. Egan/Andrew May
Cover illustration: iStock photos
PhotoShop enhancement by Vicki DeVico
Discover more LGTBQ+ books at www.spectrum-books.com
Contents
1964
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
1972-1974
Chapter 10
1975
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
1980
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
1982
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
1983
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
1986
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
1990
Chapter 33
Acknowledgments
About The Author
_____________________________________
Thanks very much for choosing this book! Consider joining the Spectrum Books mailing list to get free Kindle books, some fantastic deals and updates on new releases.
Join here!
_____________________________________
1964
Chapter 1
Robin Bennett jerked awake. The two pillows, which had been pressed against her ears, fell away. What had startled her? Then she realized what was wrong. The silence. No shouting. No arguments rising from downstairs. How long had she been asleep? Orange sunlight was slanting through the windows. Her watch said it was almost four o’clock. She had dozed for over an hour.
Robin listened for sounds below her loft bedroom and heard nothing. She swung her legs to the side of the bed, thinking about the ride north to Lake Constance. Her parents—Teresa and Elliot—had each driven a car to their vacation house in the Pocono Mountains. Her father needed a car to commute to work in New Jersey, which he would do off and on during their six-week summer stay, and her mother required one for errands and occasional trips to meet with clients in Manhattan’s Garment District. The two cars had been separated during the first hour and ten minutes of driving because her father had a heavier foot on the gas pedal, but her parents had convened at an outdoor hamburger restaurant for lunch. By the time the three of them had carried trays of food, two mugs of draft beer, and a Coca-Cola to the picnic table, she felt tension tighten between her mother and father. Halfway through the meal, an argument erupted.
Robin pressed her eyes closed, remembering how she had rushed through her French fries and cheeseburger so she could flee to the nearby canal running parallel to the Delaware River, but even at a distance, her parents’ acidic volleys could be heard crisscrossing their picnic table. As much as Robin didn’t want to listen to the two of them, she had.
“You couldn’t resist that woman, could you?” Teresa accused. She leaned away from him, as if repelled. She was wearing a flowered tunic over a white camisole, form-fitting pink Capri pants, Italian flats, and looked like what she was—a buyer for a high-end women’s fashion company.
“I never slept with her,” her father insisted.
Teresa folded her arms tightly. “Right. I saw you kissing her when I visited your office.”
“Well, that’s all it was. One friendly kiss.”
Her mother snorted. “How dumb do you think I am, Elliot? It’s not like she’s the first. How many have there been since we’ve been married? Ten women? More? I’ve lost track of the number of trophies stacked on your shelf.”
His ruddy complexion darkened. Perhaps trying to appear unaffected, he flicked at something on his checked sports shirt. “And how many notches are on your bedpost, Teresa?” His voice was laced with spite. “They’re certainly are not on our bedpost because…well…” Elliot let the inference drift in the air.
Robin noticed that the people eating at the adjacent tables were turning their heads away and blocking the view of the fighting twosome from their children. She shared the onlookers’ annoyance; she was also upset by her parents’ behavior—how when they shouted at each other, they ignored everyone around them.
For a moment, Robin studied the tan and green reeds flanking the canal, the muddy brown water that oozed sluggishly between the gray rocks, and wished she was older, already in college, and not about to begin her freshman year in high school this September, doomed to four more years of tortuous imprisonment with two people who hated each other. Two people who both insisted Robin serve as an ally, validating that parent’s perspective against the other. Sometimes she willingly sided with Teresa or Elliot if one of them was in the right; sometimes she withdrew and refused to participate in their seesaw game. Mostly, Robin wanted quiet. Hours of it. Wanted to hide in her room or disappear into the woods beyond their property where she would climb her favorite silver maple tree and shut out the world, trying to forget the acrimonious words that flew between Teresa and Elliot like a buzzing cloud of furious hornets. Day by day, she said less and less to them. To anyone.
Robin opened her eyes and acknowledged her unhappy situation. It was Saturday, June 20, 1964. She would be trapped in this house with Teresa and Elliot until early August. As Elliot, her British father, might say, “It would be absolute bloody hell.”
She stood and walked to the window of her loft bedroom. Outside, a light breeze riled the skittery leaves on the white birch trees. On the floor below, a cedar deck ran across the back of the house, accessible from two sets of sliding glass doors in the living room. A staircase from the deck led to the ground-level cement patio, from which a grass hill dropped to an earthen path that followed the shoreline of Lake Constance, a name Robin thought was ironically similar to “Constant,” which neither parent was to the other—the only constant was her parents’ turmoil over their infidelities. The lake was pretty, however, and fascinated her with its changeability, as its colors varied from bright blue, to gray, to black, and was sometimes a flat sheet of water and at other times was pleated with small waves, especially when the west wind blew down the three miles of the lake’s length. The distance across was about half a mile; at night, house lights on the far shore were visible among the thick trees unless curtains of fog or rain erased the view. Perpendicular to the land was their wooden dock, a place Robin spent many hours sitting on an Adirondack chair or lying on a towel, happy to be the farthest distance possible from her parents without swimming or escaping in the boat or canoe.
As Robin observed the tranquil scene before her, she noticed that the dark green canoe was resting upside down on the floating platform. Odd. The canoe was always stored in the garage for the winter, on its lightweight trailer next to the bigger trailer that held the white outboard boat. When they had rented the house one week in February for their skiing vacation, the canoe had been inside. Her parents were the primary renters and usually the first of the season, with only August, September and October and a few weeks during the winter available on the schedule for other families.
Although this was perplexing, Robin’s attention returned to the eerie silence that pervaded the house. She hesitated to go downstairs because her parents might have temporarily cooled off, and her entrance might blow air on the fading embers of their hostilities. Even so, she slowly descended into the living room.
No one was there. In the kitchen, a cabinet door was open. Some canned goods, snacks, and bottles of beer and soda rested on the countertop. Robin had helped her parents carry groceries in from her mother’s car, some of which she had stored in the refrigerator, as well as six bottles of wine, which she placed in a rack. As she did, her parents had begun sniping again.
Elliot blew out smoke from his cigarette. “And what about that guy? What’s his name? The owner of that boutique you love? Oh, yeah, Rock or Rick or Brock or Brick. Something like that—”
“Brad,” her mother retorted. “I am not having an affair with him!”
“Then why are you dieting and spending hundreds of dollars on sexy outfits?”
Robin said nothing, aware they didn’t really see her as present, as someone who might be upset by their disagreements. She knew all couples fought, but it was her impression most of them did so in private, to shield their children.
Teresa glared at Elliot. Her eyes were as dark as her black hair and smoldered when she was mad. “Sexy outfits? So kind of you to notice, mio caro! Maybe I want to look nice for you!”
“Ha!” Elliot stubbed out his cigarette, straightened to his full six feet, and clenched his jaw. “I doubt it.”
A smile curled his lips. He made no response.
Hands on hips, Teresa said, “You never think of me, do you?”
Elliot shrugged, as if this were a careless gesture, but Robin knew it was meant to goad his wife. “I think of you all the time, darling. And how I wish I didn’t!” He removed his wallet from the back pocket of his khaki pants and threw four twenty-dollar bills on top of the snacks. “Here. That ought to keep you in scotch for a few days.”
Seeing no end to the argument, Robin had grasped her suitcase and satchel and trudged upstairs. The last things she heard, before entering her bedroom and throwing herself on the bed, were Teresa saying she would go to the liquor store and her father protesting she drank too much. To this, her mother shouted, “Anyone who buys half a gallon of vodka every week shouldn’t complain about me! And you don’t just drink at home. I’m sure you have lots of two-hour liquid lunches with your bimbos.”
This blame game wasn’t new and had dozens of permutations, attacks that were discharged with zeal, as if hurting each other was a pleasurable sport. Unlike her friends whose parents’ marriages were in trouble, Robin would have welcomed a divorce and had told Teresa and Elliot this. Her remarks had calmed the waters for a week, presumably because her parents were embarrassed, but during this fragile détente, they individually told her the same thing: no divorce until she was out of the house, at university. Almost immediately, the animosity had been rekindled.
Robin had no idea what specific transgressions had agitated them at lunch and when they arrived at the lake. All she knew was that she was the only person presently inside the house. Robin looked through the kitchen window and didn’t see anyone by the water. Turning, she glanced through the narrow window facing the west side of the house. Elliot’s black two-seater Thunderbird wasn’t in the driveway. Why had her father left? And her mother’s aqua-colored Mercury station wagon was gone—probably driven to the liquor store—although it didn’t take this long to buy some scotch.
Robin hurried into her parents’ bedroom. Her father had arrived first and opened the house, but his black suitcase wasn’t there. Her mother’s yellow American Tourister set and garment bag weren’t in the bedroom, either, but Robin recalled that her luggage hadn’t been carried into the house—only the groceries. If Teresa had departed shortly after Robin had fled upstairs with her own suitcase, her mother’s things might have remained in the car.
Confused, Robin returned to the living room and slumped on the plaid sofa, drawing her legs under her. What was going on?
Chapter 2
Robin Bennett jerked awake. The two pillows, which had been pressed against her ears, fell away. What had startled her? Then she realized what was wrong. The silence. No shouting. No arguments rising from downstairs. How long had she been asleep? Orange sunlight was slanting through the windows. Her watch said it was almost four o’clock. She had dozed for over an hour.
Robin listened for sounds below her loft bedroom and heard nothing. She swung her legs to the side of the bed, thinking about the ride north to Lake Constance. Her parents—Teresa and Elliot—had each driven a car to their vacation house in the Pocono Mountains. Her father needed a car to commute to work in New Jersey, which he would do off and on during their six-week summer stay, and her mother required one for errands and occasional trips to meet with clients in Manhattan’s Garment District. The two cars had been separated during the first hour and ten minutes of driving because her father had a heavier foot on the gas pedal, but her parents had convened at an outdoor hamburger restaurant for lunch. By the time the three of them had carried trays of food, two mugs of draft beer, and a Coca-Cola to the picnic table, she felt tension tighten between her mother and father. Halfway through the meal, an argument erupted.
Robin pressed her eyes closed, remembering how she had rushed through her French fries and cheeseburger so she could flee to the nearby canal running parallel to the Delaware River, but even at a distance, her parents’ acidic volleys could be heard crisscrossing their picnic table. As much as Robin didn’t want to listen to the two of them, she had.
“You couldn’t resist that woman, could you?” Teresa accused. She leaned away from him, as if repelled. She was wearing a flowered tunic over a white camisole, form-fitting pink Capri pants, Italian flats, and looked like what she was—a buyer for a high-end women’s fashion company
“I never slept with her,” her father insisted.
Teresa folded her arms tightly. “Right. I saw you kissing her when I visited your office.”
“Well, that’s all it was. One friendly kiss.”
Her mother snorted. “How dumb do you think I am, Elliot? It’s not like she’s the first. How many have there been since we’ve been married? Ten women? More? I’ve lost track of the number of trophies stacked on your shelf.”
His ruddy complexion darkened. Perhaps trying to appear unaffected, he flicked at something on his checked sports shirt. “And how many notches are on your bedpost, Teresa?” His voice was laced with spite. “They’re certainly are not on our bedpost because…well…” Elliot let the inference drift in the air.
Robin noticed that the people eating at the adjacent tables were turning their heads away and blocking the view of the fighting twosome from their children. She shared the onlookers’ annoyance; she was also upset by her parents’ behavior—how when they shouted at each other, they ignored everyone around them.
For a moment, Robin studied the tan and green reeds flanking the canal, the muddy brown water that oozed sluggishly between the gray rocks, and wished she was older, already in college, and not about to begin her freshman year in high school this September, doomed to four more years of tortuous imprisonment with two people who hated each other. Two people who both insisted Robin serve as an ally, validating that parent’s perspective against the other. Sometimes she willingly sided with Teresa or Elliot if one of them was in the right; sometimes she withdrew and refused to participate in their seesaw game. Mostly, Robin wanted quiet. Hours of it. Wanted to hide in her room or disappear into the woods beyond their property where she would climb her favorite silver maple tree and shut out the world, trying to forget the acrimonious words that flew between Teresa and Elliot like a buzzing cloud of furious hornets. Day by day, she said less and less to them. To anyone.
Robin opened her eyes and acknowledged her unhappy situation. It was Saturday, June 20, 1964. She would be trapped in this house with Teresa and Elliot until early August. As Elliot, her British father, might say, “It would be absolute bloody hell.”
She stood and walked to the window of her loft bedroom. Outside, a light breeze riled the skittery leaves on the white birch trees. On the floor below, a cedar deck ran across the back of the house, accessible from two sets of sliding glass doors in the living room. A staircase from the deck led to the ground-level cement patio, from which a grass hill dropped to an earthen path that followed the shoreline of Lake Constance, a name Robin thought was ironically similar to “Constant,” which neither parent was to the other—the only constant was her parents’ turmoil over their infidelities. The lake was pretty, however, and fascinated her with its changeability, as its colors varied from bright blue, to gray, to black, and was sometimes a flat sheet of water and at other times was pleated with small waves, especially when the west wind blew down the three miles of the lake’s length. The distance across was about half a mile; at night, house lights on the far shore were visible among the thick trees unless curtains of fog or rain erased the view. Perpendicular to the land was their wooden dock, a place Robin spent many hours sitting on an Adirondack chair or lying on a towel, happy to be the farthest distance possible from her parents without swimming or escaping in the boat or canoe.
