Military Minds (Lesbian Story)

Chapter 1

Walking along the winding path of Dangar Street was Rebecca Hearthrome. Her long dark brown curls swayed across her face in the slight breeze, as she pulled the collar of her school parka forward. It was her last day of school.

She was moving to a place called Sunbury, in Victoria. She dreaded saying her final goodbyes to the comforting scenes of Kandos. If she had her way she wouldn't have to leave her familiar hometown, but her father - a successful business man - had been promoted. The new business was in the town they were moving to; the Station Family Bistro.

Her best friend, Rachael, had invited her to her birthday party in two weeks. Rebecca, urgently wanting to go, would have to consult with her parents about returning to Kandos for the special event. She knew her father was a very strict man. She could only hope he would give her consent.

As Rebecca opened the front door, she was aware that something was wrong. Her mother was sitting in her favourite red recliner armchair, her feet up. Usually Rebecca's mother, Melanie, was scurrying around the house and cleaning up anything that might have dirtied floors in the last minute or so of cleaning.

Rebecca slid her bag from her shoulder and stood in front of Melanie. Her eyes were closed, and her skin had gone from olive to almost snow white. In her hand she loosely held a half-empty bottle of Jim Beam. That was when it struck Rebecca; her mother never drank alcohol. The only other time she had seen Melanie drink was when she was feeling depressed.

"Mum?" Rebecca asked hesitantly. She brushed her hand over her mother's bare arm, and almost screamed. She was stiff and ice cold.

She was dead.

At that moment, when Rebecca covered her face to prevent herself from breaking into tears, the front door slammed open with an almost deafening bang. She looked up sharply. Two men dressed in suits had entered the house. The taller of the two, a broad shouldered man, rushed over to the armchair and slid his dark glasses to the tip of his nose. He seemed to be analysing Melanie with his leaf green eyes, almost as if he could pick out the whole story of what had happened by just looking at her. The other man joined him by his side and put a black bag over Melanie's body, zipping it up.

Rebecca felt her heart die inside her chest. She was too numb to move, too numb to cry. She just stood back beside the black coffee table, biting her knuckles.

*****

A few days later Rebecca's father, Glenn, was driving them both to the cemetery. After spending half an hour at the Tobin Brother's Funeral house, and seeing her mother motionless in the coffin that held her, Rebecca's eyes were stinging and bloodshot.

"I'm sorry your mother's dead," Glenn said.

She knew he had to concentrate on the road, but she found herself looking over at him involuntary. His hard facial features had always fascinated Rebecca. She wondered if he had been a lady's man back in his high school days. His mop of black hair fell over his forehead and eyes, his cheek bones were sunken, and his skin had always seemed tanned no matter how much he wasn't in the sun.

"It's not your fault, dad," she said. They were pulling up at the cemetery, a spread of land inhabited by grave stones that looked like rows of crocked teeth. "I just wish I knew why mum killed herself."

She sensed his hands tense around the wheel as he parked the car under a tree and pulled the keys from the ignition. He turned to look at her now, his baby blue eyes full of despair.

"Over the twenty years that we were married, I've never known her to act like that," he said. "We'd better go and say goodbye to her."

As Rebecca rose from the passenger's seat the soft breeze blew in her face and through her hair. She found herself welcoming it, welcoming the relaxing sensation it brought to her. She breathed a sigh, walking beside her father to the grave where her mother would be lain in for eternity.