It was fall again.  It seemed to inch up on Helena, though she had nowhere to be this time around.  Her boarding school career was finished and college—well, college just wasn’t appealing.  Her mother steadily tried to get her enrolled somewhere—anywhere.  But it wasn’t for her.  She instead took a few classes in art—history, sculpting, painting.  Those were her passions, not business or marketing, or whatever else her mother had planned for her.

She turned her head towards the window.  Her therapist, Dr. Michael H. McCauley, was saying something.  He was always saying something.  This time, it was about antidepressants and how she should use them–again.

“Doc, I thought I was the one who supposed to be talking.  It is my therapy session, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“But I’m ready to talk.”

“Well, than by all means, please speak.”

“She’s coming home this afternoon.”

There was never a question of who “she” was.  She was the topic of every therapy session since she was 14, the moment Elizabeth Porter entered the door of the home she shared with her mother in London with her father, Melvin.  Elizabeth, who was called Bette by everybody, was his youngest daughter of two (at the time).  She was 18, almost 19, at the wedding of Melvin Porter and Peggy Peabody.  Helena found the leggy brunette, artistic and well-spoken, intriguing to say the least.  She would sit and listen to her talk for hours—about art, music, politics, whatever Bette wanted to talk about.  And, in return, Bette would escort Helena through the drama of lesbian love.

Bette: Her stepsister, her friend, her lover.

“And what do you think about that?”

Helena sat up from her laying position.  She shrugged her shoulders.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel.”

“Well, she is someone that you hold close to your heart.”

”That she is.”  Helena lay back down, breathing deeply, “It’s just that, it’s been months since she’s been around.  And I’m starting to do well with out her.”

“And you’re scared that somehow, she’ll make you go back to your old habits.”

“I know she will.  She phoned to tell everyone that she would be coming home from Spain a few days ago.  I have to admit it, when I knew she was coming I drank a full bottle of scotch.  Mummy doesn’t know of course.  She’d never notice either wise.  It’s strange, isn’t it? It’s been four years since mummy and Melvin married, we have two siblings in common, and I still can’t stop myself from imagining her nude.  Is that strange, Doc?  Totally inappropriate, right?”

Silence.

“I thought so too, Doc.”

“Helena, your session is up.”

“Thanks, Doc.”  She stood up and winked at the aging old man.  She knew she did his fantasies well.  He had to be turned on by Helena’s stories of the lesbian loves she had shared with her stepsister in her early teens and up to today, “It’s been real.”

She grabbed her jacket and walked out of her therapist’s office.  He was the best therapist money could buy.  She buttoned up and tucked her hands into the pockets, bracing herself against the wind.  She checked the time.  4 PM.  Bette should be home.  She stepped briskly, out of pure necessity to get out of the cold.

The gate of the estate had a keypad that Helena put her code into.  The gates open up to her and she walked up the paved entrance way.  As she approached the front door she could hear the sound of her two half-sisters laughing—Ava and Constance.  Ava was four and Constance was 3.  Both girls favored Bette more than they did Helena, but Constance had Helena gray-blue eyes—something they both must have inherited from Peggy.  She walked inside.  From behind, she saw the curly hair of Bette.  She wanted to turn around.

“Lena!  Bette’s home!” Ava screamed, in her high-pitched, American and English blended accent.  Helena smiled at her sister and continued to walk forward.  She had been spotted and there was no turning back.

Slowly, the figure stood and turned to her.  Their eyes met.  Quickly, they regrouped and acted as if there weren’t sparks flying between them—like they always did.

“Hey, Bette.  It’s nice to see you.”  Helena hugged her as briefly as possible for it to still be considered a hug.

“You too.” Bette said.  She didn’t like being ripped away from the only thing comfortable to her in this world.

This was crazy.  It was all too crazy.  It had been crazy for years.