Heart Stopper by R J Samuel

turned to her. “Yes, that was a surreal experience. I’ll never forget sitting them down at the kitchen table, two Indian people in their seventies. I’d never spoken to them about anything even vaguely relating to sex or sexuality before. And now I was telling them that their only daughter was a lesbian. I think my mom thought I was changing nationality again.”
    She smiled as Reyna laughed again.
    “For all their worldly travels, they really were quite innocent. My mother never really got it. She still suggested guys from good families every time I saw her. You know, if she'd been able to talk when I saw her in India the last time she'd probably have told me about a great guy she had found for me.” Priya found her eyes were filling and whispered as she turned away again, “And I probably would have agreed.”
    Reyna laid her hand on Priya's for a second and then jerked it back to the steering wheel. She said, “Seems so strange to me. Leo and Catherine were so easygoing about everything. It barely even seemed to register with them that I was gay.”
    They had reached the turn-off from the already narrow road onto a road that was barely one, with tufts of grass popping up in between two worn stone tracks. It was the bog-cutting season and stacks of turf were piled at the sides of the deep cuts in the dark ground on either side of the road.
    “I used to spend some summers here. Leo had the house and the three of us used to visit.” Reyna had to slow down as the car skewed sideways a few inches on the loose stones. “It’s okay, the road will get better soon. It'll be worth it, Catherine really is an amazing cook.”
    “How come he had a house in Connemara? I thought foreigners couldn't buy or build here.”
    “Leo was Irish. It’s his family home. He left Ireland when he was very young.”
    They turned onto a slightly wider road.
    “Was Daniel not with ye? You said the three of you came here for the summers.”
    “Daniel stayed with his grandfather in New York when Catherine left to go to California with Leo. She was pregnant with me.”
    “I never heard Daniel mention his father at all.”
    “I don't think Daniel ever forgave Leo for causing his mother to go. Daniel grew up thinking of his grandfather as more of a father. And his grandfather didn't have a son of his own so it was the same for him.”
      “Yes I heard him talk about his grandfather. He was in awe of him, I think. But then I only really spent any time with Daniel after he opened the clinic. How old was Daniel when Catherine left?”
    “He was nine. She wanted to take him with her. He chose to stay. Daniel didn’t really know Leo, our father, at all. Leo had set up the place in California and wanted to move there and Daniel wouldn’t leave his grandfather. I don’t think he ever forgave Leo; he never attempted to meet him. But when Leo died 6 years ago, Daniel agreed to meet Catherine, and me.”
    “Wow, so you’ve only been in contact for the last few years. That must have been weird, knowing you had a brother, or did you?”
    “I knew. I guess I had a very unusual upbringing. I grew up in what you'd probably call a cult. Leo was a very charismatic healer and Catherine developed her skills over the years. We lived on this farm-like place in Southern California. A commune of people, who shared everything, and worked and lived off the land. Very hippyish.”
    “That’s funny; I can’t see you as a hippy.”
    “I wasn’t. I got out of there as soon as I could and I went to college to do Business. Did the usual, worked all kinds of jobs, and took student loans, got through it. I was somehow never taken that seriously in business though when I told anyone my name was Rain. I didn’t get around to changing my name till a few years ago.” Reyna smiled. “The Irish used to have a lot of fun with my name when I visited.”
    “So were you working in a business before you went to work for your granddad?”
    “No. I was in a totally