I didn’t tell anyone. I knew they wouldn’t understand or approve.

Until, one day in early February, Emma came into the library to talk to me about college, telling me she had spoken to some people who were quite impressed with me and thought I had a good chance at…

Something in me broke, the control I thought I had. I couldn’t bear Emma’s animated face telling me what I knew to be impossible.

“I’m not going to college,” I burst out. “I can’t. I can’t live in that house anymore.” Then I cried, I just sat down and cried, unable to hold back my despair anymore.

Emma put her hand on my shoulder, but I shook it off, humiliated at breaking down and sobbing in front of her. A few minutes later, Rachel came in, wrapped her arms around me, and led me to the office she had near the kitchen. She held me until I cried myself out. I told her about dropping out of school and leaving on my eighteenth birthday, that I couldn’t stand to live with Aunt Greta a day beyond that.

The next day Emma was waiting for me when I came to work. She told me that it was all arranged, she had talked to her lawyers. On my eighteenth birthday, I would come and stay with her, finish high school, and go to college.

She brushed off my attempt to thank her by saying she had plenty of room and, besides, I was such a hard worker she didn’t want to lose me.

Emma kept her word. At midnight on February 28, she drove out to that ugly Metairie house and got me and my few belongings.

I lived with Rachel and Emma until I went off to college in the fall. I became one of Emma’s “girls,” women who received money from the scholarship fund she had established.

I had, in some way, been closer to Rachel, spending more time with her. I sensed some equality between them, knew that Rachel wasn’t just a servant, but she and Emma kept their sexuality carefully hidden from view, mine included. (I don’t guess they knew I was a lesbian for sure until I was twenty-one and Rachel caught me with another woman in a very compromising position on her kitchen table.)

I’m ashamed to say that the idea that these two women could be lovers wasn’t a possibility to the eighteen-year-old that I was. Partly it was race, class, those ugly things I was only beginning to see beyond, but also my own conflicted views about sex and love. It was easier and safer for me to believe completely in their asexual front. If Emma was a sexless spinster, she wouldn’t want from me what Bayard said she would want.

I cursed my closed throat, wanting to apologize for my blindness and to congratulate them. For the years they had endured together and the courage to break every so-called rule for love.

Maybe I should break a few rules. Like the one I had imposed on myself about rich doctors and bayou trash.

“Are you doing okay?” Rachel leaned over the front seat to ask.

Oh, hell, I realized, that means everything I’ve told Rachel, Emma probably knows. And I’d told Rachel a fair bit, since she had a recipe that could cure everything from a hangover to a broken heart.

I nodded, trying to speak.

Rachel cut off my feeble attempt with, “Not a word out of you for the next week.”

I nodded again, not sure I could violate her dictate if I wanted to.

After we arrived, Emma insisted on carrying my suitcase up to my room and told me to take a nap if I wanted to. I demurred, intent on getting ice cream on the grocery list. I headed for the kitchen to find Rachel. Since ice cream was already on the grocery list, I underlined it three times so she would understand the importance of this particular item.

Rachel laughed, promising not only the store-bought kind, but her special homemade brand, a treat worth getting strangled for. Well, almost.

Time passed, lazy summer days of sleeping late, eating too much ice cream (is there such a thing?), and swimming contentedly in the pond. At night, Emma and I played chess. I even won a few games after spending a day or so reading and memorizing strategy books. Sometimes I listened to her practice on the piano or harpsichord. Rachel usually joined us during these private concerts. She claimed she preferred more tangible pursuits, like gardening and cooking. Once, when I asked via notepad why she liked being in the kitchen, she said, “No chicken ever called me nigger. Besides, I like to cook,” she added. “Truth be told,” she said and winked, “it’s a real hard choice between good oyster dressing (the only kind I make) and sex. Good thing I don’t have to choose.”