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You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
The last woman Grace loves is Frankie Bergstein.
It’s not love the way Grace has known it before, either—love that was without depth or meaning, that was clean-cut and understandable, just enough but not too much. It’s not the feeling that she’s always thought to go hand in hand with pain, either. With someone leaving, someone dying, someone choosing someone else. It still hurts, now, but because her heart is too full of it, ready to burst at any moment. These days, it seems, her love flows out of her freely, like her body simply can’t contain the joy.
Her love for Frankie is messy. It can’t be easily explained or understood, still garners raised brows from those who can’t quite wrap their heads around it, the two of them together. Grace understands that confusion, lived in it for what felt like centuries, but now sees it for what it is: the only thing in the entire world that makes the least bit of sense.
Grace has never been particularly religious, besides the occasional well-timed church service to keep up appearances. Even so, she feels holy, feels sacred every time she wakes to the touch of Frankie’s lips at the base of her neck, fingers grasping at the fabric of her silk pajamas. Every morning Frankie grants her absolution and every night she worships her, adores her, loves her the way she deserves to be loved, tangled in the bed sheets.
So Grace gives parts of herself to her. Tiny pieces wrapped neatly in clean cloths, shaky hands passing them with care so they won’t break. They’re parts she’s never given anyone else before, remnants of the hurt and fear she’s carried around for decades. Shards of things she wishes she hadn’t said, with jagged edges that may have cut once but have dulled over time. She gives her heart to Frankie, not so that she can play with it, but so she can protect it. Grace trusts her with her love, knows she’ll hold onto it for safekeeping, knows she’ll carry it around with her for as long as she’s allowed.
Because whether Grace knew it before or not—back when she couldn’t find the root of the jealousy or the anger, when she didn’t understand the feeling of betrayal that settled low in her belly—Frankie’s been collecting parts of her for years. She’s gathered them quickly and quietly, stuffed them in her pockets and lugged them around so Grace doesn’t have to. Grace had wondered what made her feel so much lighter when Frankie was around, and now she knows. Turns out when you have someone who really, truly, deeply loves you, an actual partner standing next to you to share the load, it’s easier to carry.
It’s easier to love, too, and so Grace does. She loves Frankie; loves her in the morning and in the afternoon and in the dead of night. She wakes up every day just to love her, to hold her, to kiss her, to build a life with her. She blinks blearily just as the sun comes up, turns over in Frankie’s arms, and shifts closer. Breathing in, she finds a home in her scent, runs the tips of her fingers over soft skin, and just as Frankie opens her eyes—in the split second between awake and asleep—Grace gives her the last piece. She hands over the one remaining part of herself that she has, freely and without thought, without fear, her heart keeping steady time in her chest.
Frankie’s eyes open, lips quirking upward at the edges, breath soft on Grace’s cheek. The day holds so much possibility, so much promise, and it starts in the same way it has since the night Frankie kissed her for the first time: with their legs intertwined, foreheads touching, hands lazily reaching out for each other.
“Good morning,” Grace whispers, and it is.
Watching Frankie with her grandson becomes one of Grace’s favorite pastimes. The way her eyes soften, how she gently strokes his cheek, tells him stories of Gaia (and of Grace, when she thinks she can’t hear her), their eyes meeting across the room accompanied by shy smiles and subtle smirks.
Grace has always found Frankie to be beautiful, even when she despised her, but there’s a certain way her beauty has expanded as she’s become a grandmother. It’s almost as if her heart growing to include her son’s son brings even more color to her cheeks, makes her stand up straighter, makes her glow. Grace can’t help but tell her so, the night Bud and Alison bring the baby home for the first time, and Frankie rolls her eyes, blushes, tells her to knock off the cheesefest.
Grace won’t, though. Wants to tell her every day how beautiful she is, how lucky she feels, how badly she wants to become worthy of her love. Every morning she wakes with the distinct feeling that she is undeserving of the life she’s now living, and over and over again Frankie kisses away the doubt, the insecurity, the need for repentance. None of it matters anymore, Grace realizes, as they watch the sunset from the beach for the 63rd day in a row.
“You’re counting?” Frankie asks, eyebrows raising in surprise after Grace slips and tells her the number. Grace bites her lip, embarrassed for a moment before Frankie earnestly adds, “No one’s ever counted the days they got to spend with me before.”
Frankie’s voice is reverent, and Grace swallows, tries to suss out each feeling individually as they come to her—something Frankie had taught her after their first time making love. She was so used to feeling little to nothing for so long that feeling so much at once is dizzying, and it makes her heart feel as though it may beat out of her chest and into Frankie’s gentle hands. She inhales slowly, lets her eyes fall closed.
In this moment she can isolate love, affection, hope, happiness. Some feelings she doesn’t even know how to name, at least not yet. Most of all, there’s frustration at the fact that she has too much to say, to confess, and not enough time to do it in. In a perfect world, she would get to have a lifetime with Frankie, an endless supply of days to tell her everything she needs to know. Now, though, Grace can only live one day at a time, can only try and seize every opportunity she’s given to profess the things she never thought she’d say aloud.
They sit for awhile longer, the sun all but gone as the moon takes its place, and Grace mindlessly brings Frankie’s arm into her lap, dragging her fingernails over the soft skin of her forearm. The stars above them are bright, and it reminds her how small they are in the grand scheme of things. How miniscule. And yet, here with Frankie, she feels for the first time that she takes up space, just like the stars they’re sitting under.
Eventually, Grace finds her voice, and it’s hushed, hesitant, shy. “I want to spend so many days with you that I lose count,” she breathes, and the sound of the ocean is a constant she’s thankful for, the tide coming within inches of her toes before retreating back to its home.
The look Frankie gives her is one that will be etched into her memory for as long as her neural synapses continue to function the way they should. Grace decides that she can forget where her car keys are, forget her high school yearbook superlative, even forget the memory of her father teaching her how to ride a bicycle at age five, all as long as she remembers this moment. This feeling, one which she cannot name, one which stems from Frankie’s eyes bearing into hers, the single tear she catches as it makes its way down Frankie’s cheek, the wetness on her thumb as she wipes it away.
“Quit it with the Sappho stuff, would ya?” Frankie sniffs. “Your words are so flowery nowadays—Jesus, the garden’s gonna get jealous. Not to mention I’m running out of tears to cry.” She reaches for Grace’s hand, kisses the thumb that had touched her cheek seconds before, and adds, “At least now they’re happy ones.”
The touch of Frankie’s lips makes Grace’s stomach flutter. “I didn’t know you noticed. The poetry, I mean.” Grace can’t help but draw a lock of Frankie’s hair between her fingers, trying to memorize its texture, the feel of it against her skin. “I’m onto Mary Oliver now, by the way. Sappho was weeks ago.”
Frankie rolls her eyes. “Well excuse me, your Lesbiancy,” she says, and scoots closer, starting to feel cold but not wanting to say it. She settles her head in the crook of Grace’s neck, kissing just below her earlobe before nuzzling in and looking back to the water. “And anyway, I thought you didn’t like poetry.”
Grace hums and shakes her head slightly, not wanting to disturb Frankie, who is getting sleepier by the minute. “I thought I didn’t,” she admits. “Guess I was just reading the wrong kind.”
The same could be said for her love for Frankie, she supposes. She thought she didn’t need love, that she didn’t want it, that she was incapable of it. Turns out she was just trying to love the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Over the past few months she’s done a hell of a lot of reading—articles and studies, stories and testimonies—and at least now she’s not afraid to admit the ways in which she’s been fenced in all her life by the expectations of others. Now she can freely step out of the norm without fear of being chastised, judged, laughed at, of hating herself for things that don’t need changing.
She nudges Frankie’s head off her shoulder and moves to stand. It’s a slow process, getting up, but Frankie “assists” with two hands on her ass, pushing until she’s on two feet. The sand between her toes is comforting, reminds her of home, and she turns to help Frankie up, linking their arms together as they begin the trek back to the house.
“I’m headed to Bud and Alison’s tomorrow to be with the little guy, can’t remember if I told you,” Frankie says, and Grace is sure just by the sound of her voice that she’s going to fall asleep the second her head hits the pillow.
“You mentioned it. Can I come?”
“Do you want to? Because you don’t have to, y’know. You could stay home, read your gay poetry...”
“I want to be with you,” Grace insists, and the ‘all the time’ is a silent addendum.
“Hmm,” Frankie brings a finger to her chin. “I’ll have to think on it, make sure all the paperwork’s in order, that your references check out.”
“Of course,” Grace cocks a brow. “Be as thorough as you need.”
“Oh, I intend to,” Frankie says, and she’s fully awake all of a sudden, making Grace rethink the assumption that sleep would be the first thing on the docket when they get upstairs.
She checks in with her inner self again, isolates peace, contentedness, excitement, and a hint of arousal. Frankie’s fingers tangle with her own as they let themselves into the house, and Grace can’t help but smile, the fact that after all this time she’s still caught in pure wonder at the fact that this is the life she’s been allowed to live.
Later, she’ll hold Frankie’s face in her hands and tell her she’s beautiful again and again, until she can’t get the words out anymore, until Frankie believes it, until they fall asleep.
If there’s one thing they know how to do—besides build a successful company up from nothing in their seventies—it’s fight. They bickered as friends, sure, but it’s almost more explosive now, like they both know on some level that it will end with one of them on their back, breathless and begging. The promise of the making up, it seems, makes the argument all the more satisfying.
It’s fun to fight now, and it sends a thrill up Grace’s spine, their verbal sparring becoming something of a turn on. It grosses the kids out, for one, which is utterly enjoyable in its own right, but the way Frankie looks at her, eyes filled with fire, is something else entirely. Every word is planned carefully, calculated as if a chess move, and Grace raises a brow after every comeback as if to say, ‘your turn, sweetheart.’
That’s not as to say all their fights are fun and games. They’ve had their share of spats that turned into weeklong arguments, silent treatments and Frankie spending nights in the studio instead of their bed. Despite herself, Grace can’t help but think the worst every time. Can’t help but believe that this is the end, that it’s finally over, that it was all too good to be true.
None of them have been as bad as tonight, though. A fight that had been so stupid and needless, preventable if Grace had only thought before she spoke. An offhand comment from her about the mess Frankie had made in the kitchen while making more yam lube had led to an even more needless jab at Jacob, one which Grace wanted to take back the minute it left her lips. The hurt in Frankie’s eyes was tangible, and it made an intense feeling of regret simmer in Grace’s gut as she watched Frankie shut down right in front of her. In turn, Frankie’s guilt over Santa Fe bubbled back to the surface, and she only managed to get out a few choice words before she all but ran out the door.
It’s been a few hours and she’s still not back, and it’s not until Grace goes up to her studio that she realizes the reason all her calls have gone unanswered is because Frankie forgot her phone. Not that she would answer even if she did have it, Grace thinks, and she holds it in her hands tightly, reminding herself to breathe. In and out, in and out, because Frankie will come back. She came back before and she will come back again.
But soon it’s late, and none of the family has seen or heard from her. Grace is halfway to panicking now, sick with worry as her brain kicks into overdrive, ‘what ifs’ coming at her from every direction. Worst of all, she thinks, is that she hasn’t even gotten a quarter of the way through telling Frankie the list of things she loves about her. The list she’s been working on every waking hour since the night Frankie had come back to her the first time. The dread of that thought makes her legs shake, makes her sink to the floor, makes her hug her knees to her chest.
That’s how Frankie finds her minutes later, and for a moment her first thought is that the burglars have come back, that Grace had gotten caught in the crossfire. She rushes forward, gathering Grace in her arms as she checks for injury, and it’s not until Grace sobs a chorus of I’m sorry’s into her chest that Frankie realizes it hadn’t been bloodthirsty burglars that had caused this meltdown. No, this was her own fault. She had caused this hurt, these tears, this unGrace-like outburst (although in all fairness, she is getting pretty used to them). Frankie’s heart clenches in her chest as she joins Grace on the floor, Grace practically in her lap as she holds her tightly in her arms.
Frankie knew she hadn’t needed to be so dramatic. Hadn’t had to fly off the handle and leave the house angry, but she did, and she did so before she could grab her phone or her car keys, before she could ask Grace where her purse was. So she had walked until she found a 7-Eleven and then drowned her sorrows in a Slurpee concoction she had perfected over the years: banana and Dr. Pepper. She paid with the leftover quarters she’d found in her pockets from her and Grace’s arcade date with the grandkids a few days ago and headed back outside.
The evening air was warm, and she sat on the curb out front, legs crossed at the ankles. Sitting like this reminded her of the say yes night however many years back, the one where Grace told her about Guy saying he loved her, how she hadn’t said it back. How relieved Frankie had felt, on some level, that Grace hadn’t felt the same for him. Back then she had thought she just wanted a little more time to crack the nut that was Grace Hanson. Now, though, she knows she had just wanted a little more time having Grace all to herself.
Everyone realizes things in their own time, of which Frankie is sure, and she’s made peace with the fact that it took her a little longer to realize her truth. Made peace with the fact she hadn’t known she was falling in love, however slowly, however subtly, until Grace’s drunken phone call begging her to come home.
All of a sudden Frankie’s head throbbed, pain radiating from the top of her head to the base of her skull, and the agony of it was so great, so severe she worried it might actually kill her. She tried to breathe but to no avail, too hung up on the fact that she was about to expire while sitting on the stoop of a 7-Eleven with no wallet, no phone, and no way for the police to alert her family of her untimely demise. Grace would have a field day.
She died how she lived, Frankie imagined her obituary, Wholly unprepared.
Lucky for her, death hadn’t yet come to take her, and the brain freeze mistaken for an aneurysm eventually dissipated. She groaned, rubbing at her temples as she went back for another sip. Too bad it was so damn delicious. At least she knew to take it a little slower, although not by much.
The brain freeze had almost been enough to make her forget Grace, forget the fight, forget Jacob. She winced. Even now, half finished Slurpee in hand, just thinking his name made her feel nauseous, gave her a sense of shame she couldn’t shake no matter how hard she tried. Because she’d hurt him.
She’d hurt Jacob, the yam farmer with the kind eyes and the warm smile, the man who had wanted nothing more than to start a new life with her. He had wanted to live the rest of their lives together, surrounded by goats and gardens and Georgia O’Keeffe, and she’d lived with him for almost a month without ever really settling in. Grace hadn’t been speaking to her, and as hard as the kids tried to convince her that she was just busy with the business, Frankie didn’t buy it. She knew when she was being pushed out. Problem was, she was also aware of the fact that she had been the one to jump in the first place.
She’d been doing fine at avoidance, taking a page out of her best friend’s book and burying the feelings without isolating them, without rolling them around in her palm, feeling the weight of them in her hand. It wasn’t until she woke up one morning to a missed call and a message in her voicemail that she thought to unpack them, and by then she was mostly just scared shitless by how bad Grace sounded. Frankie had heard her friend drunk off her ass before, but she had never heard her so resigned, so defeated, even after everything with Robert and Sol.
“I have to go home,” she had told Jacob, and he didn’t look up from his socked feet where he stood awkwardly in the living room. “Grace isn’t doing too hot. I just need to go make sure she hasn’t completely wrecked her liver, and then I’ll be back to—” she trailed off, bending to try and catch his eye. “You hearing this? We need to skedaddle.”
“You have to go home,” he repeated, voice quiet, even.
“What?”
“You said home,” he sighed. “We’ve lived here together—in Santa Fe—for a month, and you still called California home.”
Frankie couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Forgive me if I haven’t quite rewritten my fifty years in San Diego just yet, Jake,” she said, and she searched for her sun hat, her snorkel, anything she’d need over the next few days. “Besides, it takes twenty-some days to break a habit.”
Jacob bit at the inside of his cheek, shifted from foot to foot. “We’ve been here for thirty.”
“Listen, honey, I really don’t want to fight with you,” she told him, a hand on his arm. “All I know is that Grace is in trouble, alright? Now, you gonna make me take the bus?”
She was halfway out the door before he said, “If one phone call from her is enough for you to run, Frankie, maybe this—” he paused, cleared his throat. “Maybe this isn’t going to work.”
Frankie felt exasperated, felt anxious, felt like she might jump out of her skin. “It’s not just one phone call, Jacob. It’s the phone call,” her voice was shaky, filled with worry. “If I don’t go back now, I don’t know that there will ever be anything to go back to.”
Jacob clenched his jaw, frustration making his shoulders tense. “Would that be so bad?”
Frankie just stared at him, disbelieving, and she looked around at their new home—the one that should have felt right but didn’t. There weren’t enough throw pillows, no stacks of mailing labels on the dining room table, no heels kicked off at the base of the stairs. The spices were all catawampus—she couldn’t find the cayenne if she tried, which she didn’t, but that was beside the point.
“Yeah,” Frankie admitted, eyes suddenly hot with tears. “I think it would.”
Jacob just nodded, sniffling once, and he grabbed his keys. They drove back to California in silence, and when they pulled up to the beach house they sat there for a moment before he leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I hope you’re happy,” he said, and it was genuine. He really did want her to be happy—he just wished she could be happy with him. Problem was that she was coming to realize the person that made her the happiest was the one inside the house.
Back on the curb, Frankie sipped the last of her Slurpee, the sun setting and the lights of the 7-Eleven sign blinking once, twice, before lighting up. “Oh, shit,” she said, standing quickly, and before she knew it she had practically jogged home to find Grace a puddle on the floor in the studio.
Which is where they find themselves now, sitting together as Grace’s tears subside. Frankie’s shirt is covered in a myriad of Grace-juices, mostly tears with a little bit of phlegm, and it’s all a beautiful picture of love, domesticity, snot. Frankie wishes she could paint this moment—admittedly it’d mostly be the color green, just because it calls to her.
“Jeez Louise,” she says, following it with a whistle. “I haven’t seen a breakdown of that caliber since the beach last March.”
“Oh, shut up,” Grace tells her, nose stuffed, but there’s no real bite to it. She searches for Frankie’s arm before she grabs it and brings it to circle around her back as they lean against the couch together, Grace fitting neatly into Frankie’s side. She won’t say it, but she needs contact right now, needs to know Frankie is there, that she’s not leaving again. Frankie moves her thumb back and forth where it sits on Grace’s upper thigh, and figures the best way to tell her she’s not leaving is to actually say it.
“You know I’m in it for the long haul, right?” she says. “You and me, together, forever. I’ll carve it into a tree and everything.”
“Frankie—”
“Some stupid thing you say in the heat of the moment isn’t going to chase me off. And it was stupid, by the way, so don’t think it wasn’t.”
Grace’s lip almost quivers again. “I’m so sorry, Frankie, I didn’t—”
“But I had my Slurpee, had my brain freeze, communed with the spirits, and we’re good. It’s over, donezo, no worries on the home front.”
Grace shifts to look back at her. “Slurpee?”
Frankie winces, barely refrains from smacking herself on the forehead. “Whoops.”
“No, no ‘whoops’. I thought we discussed the Slurpee issue.”
"You discussed it, and there’s really no issue. I do what I want.” Grace raises a brow in response, and Frankie adds, “Okay, I do what you want, mostly, but sometimes I treat myself. Remember treating yourself, Grace? Remember that episode of the show with the yellow-haired lady who annoyed you and the mustachioed man that reminded you of your cousin? Think back to that and take a big, deep breath. Now hum with me—”
“I love you,” Grace says, cutting Frankie off before she can begin the meditation. “And I’m sorry.”
Frankie exhales, her whole body relaxing in a way that only Grace’s presence can achieve. “I know you are. And we’re okay.”
“Still not okay with the Slurpees, though,” Grace contests, crossing her arms.
“Oh, for the love of—it’s just ice and syrup, Hanson! A little sugar never hurt anyone.” Frankie’s getting worked up now, and Grace is feeding off of it, squirming a little where she sits. “And to quote Lesley Gore, you don’t own me, y’know, and. Oh my God,” her eyes light up with realization, a finger pointing accusingly in Grace’s direction. “You’re trying to get me in bed with you!”
Grace bites her lip, looking at Frankie with sparkling eyes. “Is it working?”
“Depends,” Frankie says. “How do you feel about couches? ‘Cause I power walked almost ten blocks to get here, so if you want a bed you’re probably gonna have to drag me there, and I don’t think either of our backs can handle that.”
Grace just laughs, kisses her, revels in the fact that she’s home.
The kids start coming over every other week for brunch, an unsaid excuse to have a front row seat to the domesticity that has become Grace and Frankie’s lives. There had been shock (and perhaps a hint of disappointment) throughout the ranks the first time they’d come over and nothing was really different than before; like the kids were surprised that their mothers’ existences hadn’t been upended by their commitment to each other the way their fathers’ had. It did make a certain amount of sense, though. After all, their mothers had basically been married for years by the time they decided to actually name it.
On days like these, the usual peacefulness of the beach house is traded for complete and utter chaos, children scampering in every direction as the adults try to eat, drink, be merry. Babies cry and neighboring dogs bark, and it all gets to be a little overwhelming, which is why Grace searches for a moment she can be alone. Well, not alone, exactly, but as close as she is to alone anymore; alone with Frankie, as alone as she ever wants to be.
Grace manages to finagle Frankie into the front closet, eventually, which is mostly bare and empty except for a few light jackets and cozy blankets they reserve for the beach. She leaves the door open just a crack, the easy escape mixed with Frankie’s presence putting the panic of the enclosed space on hold for at least a minute, which is all she needs, really. Just a good sixty seconds of Frankie’s voice reserved only for her.
Frankie looks around, confused. “Didn’t we just come out of this?”
“I only need a minute, alright?” Grace says into Frankie’s collarbone, forehead resting on her shoulder. “It’s pandemonium out there. God, where did all these children come from?”
“Your daughter and my son, respectively. Alison if you’re getting technical. Don’t know how Mitch fits in there, in that case, but you pinched me last time I mentioned his na—fuck! ” Frankie curses, grabbing her upper arm where Grace had squeezed. “Okay, that’s it, the pinching stops here. It’s not cute.”
“Since when do I care about being cute?”
“You don’t care about being cute, you just are. And when did this become a private ‘let’s compliment Grace’ session?” Frankie puts her hands on Grace’s shoulders. “Listen, pal, I love you with my entire heart and soul, but right now there’s a tiny human out there begging to be held in my mega soft hands, so I’ve gotta split.”
The closet door flies open, revealing Brianna who stands unfazed, sipping a bloody mary through one of the curly straws Grace had bought on a whim for Maddy and Mack. “Okay, so are you guys playing this weird version of seven minutes in heaven for seniors called ‘seventy minutes in heaven’, or is there room for one more?”
“Brianna, if you set so much as one foot in this closet I will hyperventilate,” Grace warns.
“So that’s a no? Sorry, you’re going to have to be, like, super specific,” she sways a bit where she stands. “‘m a little tipsy.”
Grace swats at her, trying to get her to move on. “Get out, you’re going to give us away.”
“Fine by me,” Frankie insists, hands up in mock surrender as she edges out of the closet. “Brianna can have my spot.”
“Wait, Frankie—” Grace tries, but it’s too late, and she’s still in awe of how fast Frankie can move when she wants to. At Brianna’s attempt to take Frankie’s place, Grace raises a warning finger. “Don’t you dare.”
She scurries past her daughter and follows Frankie into the living room, heels clicking on the hardwood floor. Bud looks relieved as his mother takes the baby, saying he’s never had to pee so bad in his life, and quickly disappears. Grace would much rather be somewhere else, somewhere quieter, somewhere less rowdy, but one look at the soft smile on Frankie’s face and it’s like all the noise fades. She sits as Frankie does, close enough that their bodies touch from their shoulders to their ankles, and she puts an arm around Frankie's shoulders like there’s nothing more natural to do, like she’s made for nothing else but this. She can’t help but reach out, stroking the soft hairs on the baby’s head as Frankie tells him about the Civil Rights Movement.
There’s something about these days with the kids, Grace thinks, that make her yearn for a past she can’t return to, one that never existed. For a moment she allows herself to wonder what a life with Frankie would have been like, returning home every day after work to a gaggle of children that called both of them ‘mom’. A life filled with parent teacher conferences and neighborhood barbecues, playdates and college graduations with Frankie at her side.
Like she finds herself doing so often now, Grace wishes she had known what she wanted sooner; wonders how things would have been different if she had known then what she knows now. She doesn’t let herself dwell on it for too long, their new grandson gurgling away happily as the rest play with their Uncle Coyote on the deck outside. She wouldn’t want to change anything for fear of losing the people they are now, the people they’ve become, of losing this moment right here, together.
Her eyes slip closed and she leans back into the couch cushions, fingers playing absentmindedly with the fabric of Frankie’s caftan, the voices around her becoming nothing but a gentle hum. Suddenly, a glass is placed in her hand, and she opens her eyes to see water with lemon, the only beverage she’s been drinking recently besides coffee or tea. “You okay, mom?”
Mallory kneels at her feet, concern in her eyes, and Grace reaches out, runs her fingers through her daughter’s hair. If Mallory’s surprised by the gesture, she doesn’t show it, just leans into the touch, and Grace’s heart cracks wide open. “I’m fine, sweetheart,” she says, looking around at her family, the delicious disorder of it all. “I’m fantastic.”
Usually when Frankie approaches her this way it’s to tell her she “accidentally” signed them up for racquetball lessons. That she spilled marinara on the new duvet or invited some of her Del Taco friends over for dinner. Something about today is different, though, and it sets Grace on edge, makes it hard to concentrate on the Audre Lorde in front of her. By the time Frankie takes what she believes to be her third sneaky step, Grace all but slams her book shut, moving her reading glasses to the top of her head.
“If you’re trying to murder me don’t you think it’s best to approach from behind?” she asks.
Frankie stops in her tracks, caught, but doesn’t say anything. Grace’s eyes narrow, the fact that Frankie hadn’t taken the bait of obvious innuendo worries her, makes her nervous, makes her think whatever Frankie has to tell her is more serious than she’d thought. She racks her brain. There hadn’t been a doctor’s appointment, had there? The kids hadn’t called or texted, Robert and Sol were in the Cayman Islands on their cruise. There were no social events they had to attend for at least another two weeks, and even then they would probably cancel.
“I may have fucked up a little,” Frankie finally says, wringing her hands, and she doesn’t take another step forward, just stands awkwardly a few feet away from Grace. “Not a little, actually. A lot. Probably.”
“If it’s parking tickets again, it’s fine, we’ll pay them,” Grace tries. “Or if you got caught snacking on the produce at Whole Foods before buying, we can just start going to the farmer’s market instead, the one you’ve been trying to drag me to.”
Frankie’s voice is void of emotion in reply. “It’s not parking tickets or produce.”
“So tell me what it is, then,” Grace practically begs, exasperated. “Otherwise I can’t help y–”
“What was your mother’s maiden name?”
All the air in Grace’s lungs leaves in a sudden whoosh. “What?”
“You said your mother’s name was Rebecca. Rebecca Dawson, right? But that was her married name. What was her name before?”
The earnestness in Frankie’s eyes scares her, makes her want to curl in on herself. Grace hasn’t thought seriously about her mother since that night on the beach more than a year and a half ago. Why would Frankie be asking her about this now?
Somehow, she finds her voice, and she speaks over the sound of her heartbeat ringing in her ears. “Westin,” she croaks.
“Shit,” Frankie exhales, and she practically falls back into the chair across from Grace, sitting with a thud.
There’s no follow up, no explanation, and it’s eerily quiet, even for them. “Frankie?” Grace asks. “Please, just tell me. I’m not upset about whatever—I just need to know—”
“I found her,” Frankie whispers, and Grace can feel herself go numb. “Did some amateur sleuthing and...” she trails off, shrugs.
Grace hadn’t expected to hear those words today. She’d woken up thinking she’d read a little, ship some Vybrant orders, maybe even surprise Frankie with the peanut butter pretzel bites from Trader Joe’s she likes so much. This, however—finding out her mother still exists out there somewhere—was definitely not something she’d pencilled into her day planner.
“Where is she?” Grace asks, and her voice sounds exactly like the little girl that had woken up one day without a mother.
Frankie moves to kneel in front of her, joints popping, and she reaches out to hold each of Grace’s hands in her own, looking up at her with an awful combination of sadness and sympathy.
“Bellevue Cemetery.”
A year and some change since the stroke means the doctor doesn’t hesitate in giving Frankie the go-ahead to fly, and the tickets are booked before Grace can confirm whether she even wants to go or not. Frankie knows she will, though, so she reserves the seats before bed, and when Grace shakes her awake during the middle of the night, hardly able to form the words to say that she wants—needs—to go, Frankie does nothing but bring Grace’s hand to her lips and tells her it’s taken care of.
By tomorrow evening they’ll be an hour outside of Boston, there for nothing but a hello and a goodbye. The first time Grace gets to see her mother in over sixty-five years and it’ll be nothing but a name carved into a gravestone. The thought of it alone is enough to make Frankie teary, but this isn’t hers to grieve, isn’t hers cry over. As they board the plane among the screaming babies and uptight suits, Frankie knows she is here to do nothing but hold Grace upright.
Grace hadn’t been surprised at the news, once the initial shock had worn off. For Rebecca to be alive she’d have had to be ninety-five years old, and considering Grace’s father has been in the ground for almost fifteen years now, the likelihood of it didn’t seem so high. Frankie had still seen Grace’s shoulders fall, though, the hope she had felt for a split second at the thought of a mother-daughter reunion quickly evaporating, being replaced by a mask of indifference that didn’t fool Frankie for a second. What was worse was later that night when Frankie had let the final piece of news drop: Rebecca had died at thirty-four.
“She didn’t even get to live,” Grace had said into the dark as they lied next to each other, and Frankie could tell she was replaying what she was doing in 1956, a tiny seventh grade version of herself, hopelessly in love with a girl who wouldn’t love her back and blissfully unaware that miles away her mother was dead.
The flight attendant asks them if he can get them anything to drink and Grace just asks for water, which is especially impressive, considering. Frankie grabs her hand over the armrest and squeezes, asks her what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling, to distract from the fact she could be getting shitfaced right now if she wanted to (and she does want to, Frankie knows, but also knows something is holding her back—has been holding her back for months).
Grace thinks on it for a moment, actually ponders it, and it blows Frankie’s mind a little that Grace had taken her onetime post-coital suggestion and run with it. “I’m angry,” she says, sipping at her water.
Frankie’s first reaction is to ask, ‘at me? ’ but she knows better, knows if Grace was upset with her for any of this she would have said something by now. So she pushes a little. “About what?”
Grace shakes her head, bites the inside of her cheek, tries as hard as she can to rein it in. It’s one thing to cry in front of Frankie (which she seems to do almost daily now), but crying in front of a plane full of strangers is something else entirely. Frankie’s halfway to telling her it’s okay, that they don’t have to talk about it yet, that they can touch base tonight at the hotel after all of this over, but the answer spills out of Grace quickly and quietly, almost like the words are never said at all.
“I’m angry she died without knowing how much she hurt me.”
Frankie feels like she’s just taken a punch to the gut, has to try and keep her breathing even, because that’s that. What more could Grace say, really, and what could Frankie ever tell her in return?
Grace downs the rest of her water like it’s something much stronger, and they settle in for the rest of the flight. By the time they land, they’ve both caught up on some sleep, and they decide to pay for a car to take them to the cemetery. The hour it takes to get there feels more like a decade, and Grace switches between biting her nails and twiddling her thumbs. The fidgeting only ends when Frankie intervenes, drawing invisible landscapes on the backs of Grace’s hands that soon turn into familiar settings: their house, the beach, the studio, their bed.
Frankie knows roughly where Rebecca should be, towards the back few lots by a sturdy oak. The cab takes them as close as they can get, and the man driving is kind enough to tell them he’ll wait until they’re finished. Frankie shoots him an appreciative glance as she helps Grace out of the car, and she looks up to the sky. It looks like it may rain, and Frankie wishes they’d remembered an umbrella, the rainbow one Brianna bought them as a joke that they haven’t gotten the chance to use yet.
The grass here is overgrown, and she half expects an uppity comment from Grace about the state of the grounds, but one never comes. She’s too busy making sure her heels don’t sink into the dewy earth as she walks around, arms crossed protectively around herself, trying to catch a glimpse of her mother’s name staring back at her. They split up to search, weaving through headstone after headstone, and Frankie tries not to get too skeeved by the fact that she’s walking over a bunch of bones. Hopefully everyone here is resting easy; she’d rather not have any lost souls follow her home if she can help it.
Frankie’s the one to find her, finally, and she has to bend down, dust away years of dirt and grime, before she can make out the words. It’s nothing particularly lavish, just a well-carved stone that reads, Rebecca Westin, 1922-1956. She wonders who grieved for her, who buried her, wonders whether it was a conscious decision to not let Grace in on the fact that her mother hasn’t been part of the land of the living for the past sixty years.
“Honey,” she calls to Grace, who’s a few paces to her right, and she points to the ground. Grace nods and approaches on shaky legs, reaching out to Frankie to steady herself, to anchor her, to tie her to the earth.
“Should have brought flowers, huh.” Grace is trying to be funny again, that can’t be a good sign. She reaches forward with trembling fingers to touch the engraving, to feel the crisp edges, the rise and fall of the letters as they appear across the smooth stone. She spends special time on the R, the W, picks at the weeds that grow where the monument meets the earth.
“You want to say anything?” Frankie asks her when she’s done, hand still and steady on the small of her back.
Grace looks like she considers it for a moment, like she has too much to say at once, and then nothing at all. Her face becomes blank, and she shakes her head, turning to walk back towards the car without so much as a second thought, no goodbye in her mother’s direction. Frankie, for her part, brings her fingers to her forehead in a quick salute to the ground before rushing to catch up.
On the ride to the hotel, Grace speaks up, saying the one thing that’s been on her mind since the cemetery. “All this poetry I’ve been reading and I still couldn’t think of one goddamn thing to say,” she says, quiet, and it’s accompanied by a mirthless chuckle, a deep disappointment in herself.
Once they arrive, they check in, get their room key, and take the stairs rather than the elevator. They’re both quiet in their own reflections, walking parallel, close but without contact, until they reach their room. Frankie takes their bag, unlocks the door.
The minute they cross the threshold, Grace lets herself fall apart.
Grace has had a difficult time deciding how to refer to Frankie in the time they’ve been together. ‘Partner’ seems too formal, ‘girlfriend’ seems too juvenile, and ‘lover’ seems like something Brianna would make a show of fake vomiting at at the dinner table. Nothing seems right, doesn't fit what she feels, doesn't do Frankie justice.
Frankie doesn’t seem to have the same problem, just refers to Grace as whatever comes to her in the moment, ranging from ‘main squeeze’ to ‘side piece’ and everything in between, and Grace is jealous, honestly, that it all comes so easily to her. That she can brag to the guy at the yogurt shop about her ‘better half’ without blinking, all while shoving samples of toasted marshmallow in her mouth.
And it’s not that Grace wants to hide their relationship from people. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s just that she wants whatever word she chooses to hold the same weight that Frankie does in her heart. A word that’s a proper representation of the struggles they’ve faced, the losses and the gains, the fact that this is it.
Grace is checking out at the grocery store, Frankie having insisted that they needed “snackage” for their marathon of the show where Drew Barrymore eats people. Frankie’s waiting in the car, at Grace’s plea for her to stay behind.
“It’ll be faster without you,” she had said, patting Frankie’s knee. “You while hungry combined with free roam among snack foods is the opposite of a good idea. I’ll be back in a flash.”
And it had only taken her a few minutes to gather all the supplies, setting them on the counter along with a package of Wet Ones for the glove box, just because Frankie has a habit of messy eating in the car and it’s good to be prepared. Outside, Frankie honks the horn with her foot. It’s her current favorite way to drive Grace crazy, and she’s almost learned to tune it out, except that the grocery clerk looks to the noise, asks, “Friend of yours?”
Grace turns, sees Frankie with her hand out the window practicing American Sign. “My wife,” she sighs, mindlessly, looking for the exact change she needs for her purchase, and the term comes naturally, without thought. She doesn’t even realize she’s said it until she’s handing the cashier her coins, and her heart catches in her throat, eyes widening a fraction as she freezes in place, looks to the linoleum.
“Oh!” the woman replies, an almost too-kind smile on her face as the receipt prints. “Well, good for you.”
Grace grabs her bags, offering a tight lipped smile, and suddenly she understands the widespread annoyance with straight people overcompensating when they encounter gays in the wild. “Yes,” she says, slipping into autopilot as she puts her sunglasses back on. “Good for me.”
Frankie grins at her through the windshield as she approaches the car, and Grace hands over the snacks, sitting down in the driver’s seat. Frankie doesn’t even wait, opening one of the bags and stuffing a handful of veggie chips — unsalted — into her mouth. “All good?” she asks, crumbs falling into the cracks of the leather seats. Grace is going to have to vacuum.
“Mmhmm,” Grace hums, not trusting her voice as she turns the key in the ignition. Her mouth is dry, palms sweaty on the steering wheel as she drives them home.
The exchange follows her for a few days. It’s in the back of her mind when she’s meeting with distributors for Vybrant, when she’s making the summer squash soup Frankie loves, when she’s trying to focus on reading Pat Parker before bed. She plays it over and over again, the way the word had fallen easily from her tongue, like she’d been saying it all her life, like she’d never known anything else to be true.
She thinks back to when her and Robert were newlyweds, tries to dig under the initial panic, the fear, the worry that she’d made a mistake. She thinks about the weight of the ring on her finger when she said ‘I do’, tries to remember how she felt when she called Robert her husband for the first time, but can’t. Had it been nothing to her, back then? Just a new title, a new term, a promotion to a higher position?
Even if it had been with the wrong person, Grace had always found marriage to be understandable, logical, concrete. A straightforward, ‘yes, this is who this person is to me’, with a piece of paper to prove it. The fact that someone was legally obligated to stay, unless they’d rather go through the process of dividing assets, filling out paperwork, sharing custody.
Unless someone better came along.
But the hurt from Robert leaving her is only a dull ache, now, and from the wasted time more than anything else. They’ve made their peace with it, laughed about it, shared links to articles and plans for Pride. It had been harder for Frankie, she knows, who had thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with Sol, floating around in the love bubble that was eventually popped by the pushpin of reality, lies, unfaithfulness.
Grace can’t help but want to give her something better. At the end of the day, that’s all she wants, and the terminology and the paper are just a bonus. She wants everything she has to be theirs; wants the ease of knowing exactly where they stand. She wants to wake up every morning and go to sleep each night content in the fact that she’s living the more that Robert had talked about the night he left her. It surprises her, all of a sudden, how much she wants it. How much she craves it, needs it.
She wants to marry Frankie. God, she wants to marry her so, so badly.
She sits on the idea for a few weeks, which turn to months, and it’s not that Grace is avoiding it, it’s just that she’s giving it careful thought. She turns it over in her mind until the idea is well-worn, frayed, half-faded from holding onto it for too long. Finally, she decides, sitting on the couch and watching Frankie as she paints, lips downturned in concentration, that it’s time to turn thought into action.
Grace is acting strange.
Well, stranger than usual, at least, judging by Frankie’s calculations.
She starts disappearing every Tuesday at ten on the dot, saying she has a quick meeting and will be back before pre-dinner, and it’s not that Frankie doesn’t trust her, just that she’d really, really like to know where she’s going. Even if it’s boring, even if she can’t tag along. Doesn’t seem like too wacky of an idea, but even so, she doesn’t push.
The curiosity does get the better of her, eventually, and she can’t help herself one day, a couple weeks into the recurring ‘meetings'. She gets on Grace’s laptop while she’s gone, expecting to find some answers, but the thing is wiped clean. There's nothing about the meetings in her email, her calendar, her texts. In the end, all the snooping does is make Frankie feel dirty, distrustful, and she ends up taking a stress nap to try and sleep off the guilt, only waking when the door opens, the sound of heels echoing through the hall signalling that her girl is home.
And it’s not that Grace comes back any different than when she left, either. Every time she returns right when she says she will, breezing into the kitchen with a smile on her face and a peck to Frankie’s lips, like nothing’s strange, nothing’s out of the ordinary. The sleuth part of Frankie wants to ask, wants to shine a bright light in Grace’s eyes and interrogate the hell out of her. The part of her that’s been heartbroken by a partner before, though, doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t even want to think about it, so she tries not to. Tries not to stare at the ceiling in the middle of the night, Grace asleep beside her, and think that secrets are being kept from her again, that this can only end in the worst way.
It takes a couple months for Frankie to finally break, before she has to know for the sake of her own sanity, and she’s waiting for Grace the minute she walks through the door one evening. Grace looks happy, sated, content. Frankie feels like she may explode.
“Okay, I tried to do the wait it out thing, but if you’re cheating on me you’re just gonna have to tell me.“ She’s pacing. She hates pacing, wishes she could stop, can’t. “And tell me who she is, too, because I may be a pacifist, but I’ve got some sick jiu-jitsu moves I learned on YouTube that are going to absolute waste.”
For her part, Grace doesn’t look surprised at Frankie’s meltdown, and it does nothing but rile her up even more, fists clenching at her sides. Wordlessly, Grace goes to retrieve a blanket from the hall closet and takes Frankie by the arm, heading out the back door and to the beach.
“Where are we going?!” Frankie yells over the wind, but Grace doesn’t respond, just keeps walking. “If you’re going to drown me, you’ll have to tie me up first! I’m spryer than I look!”
Grace only stops once they reach the sand they’d first sat in together, back in the peyote days. Now that's a memory, Frankie thinks, and she forgets to be mad for a second. Next to her, Grace is laying out the blanket, taking her by the shoulders and all but pushing her to the ground. Frankie shifts so she’s criss-cross applesauce, looking to the ocean and closing her eyes, trying to breathe in its serenity. Soon, she feels Grace’s body next to hers, something square being placed in her hands.
She opens her eyes to see a small wooden box, and Frankie looks Grace up and down, trying to figure out where she could have possibly been keeping it. Grace doesn’t say anything, just nods her head as if to say, open it, so Frankie does, flipping the lid up. Inside lays a ring, housed in velvet. Her jaw drops.
It’s beautiful, intricate, made of rosewood. Healing, she thinks as she reaches out to touch. Grace had remembered her in-depth, one day only presentation about the heart chakra, about feminine energy and the meanings and uses of different trees. She remembered rosewood.
Frankie thinks she might melt — from fondness or embarrassment she’s not sure.
The material of the band itself is smooth, shiny, a deep brown—almost burgundy. A line of pearl joins the dark wood grain, running around the middle, and Frankie takes the ring out of the box, holds it like it may break. It’s light, yet sturdy in the palm of her hand, nothing but rounded edges, a never ending circle. Mesmerizing.
“There’s a guy up near Escondido,” Grace’s voice breaks the silence, and they’re the first words she’s spoken since Frankie ambushed her back in the kitchen. “He helped me make it. I could have bought you one, but I just thought—”
A record scratch sounds somewhere. “You made this?” Frankie asks, taken aback, and she looks down at the ring with new eyes. She can see it now: the simplicity, the meaning, the attention to detail that’s inherently Grace. Frankie’s holding a piece of Grace’s heart in her hands, real and tangible.
“Yes, I—” Grace worries her lip between her teeth. “The sketches for it are back at the house, if you want to see.”
“Hell yes, I wanna see,” Frankie says, because of course she does, because Grace dreamt this, breathed life into it, created it from nothing. Grace made art for her, and she can wear it on her finger, which she does. “God, it’s perfect. How’d you know my size?”
“You’re not exactly a light sleeper,” Grace explains with a knowing look. “I measured a few months ago.”
“Months? This took you months?” And it clicks, suddenly. This is where Grace has been going every Tuesday. She’s spent hours every week designing the perfect ring, making it with her own perfect hands, probably foraging in the woods for her own materials, knowing her.
“This was my final project, actually,” Grace clears her throat, and she looks up as if trying to remember. “I’ve made key dishes, rolling pins, a couple chairs…”
“Oh, Grace,” Frankie says, and she’s leaking love from her eyes, her nose. “You’re getting gayer by the minute.”
Grace rolls her eyes, reaches to wipe away Frankie’s tears. Then she looks at her, all heart, all beauty, all affection. “Do you like it?” she asks, and her voice is timid, nervous.
“Honey, I love it,” she sighs and holds her hand up, never wanting to take her eyes off of it. “But you still haven’t asked me.”
“I haven’t...oh,” Grace’s eyes widen in realization, like she was so caught up in worrying whether Frankie would like the ring that she forgot the words to go along with it.
“I know we’ve gone about this whole relationship thing a bit backwards, but usually the ring comes after the declaration,” Frankie says, and she’s being a smartass, but she can’t help it.
Grace straightens her shoulders, sits up, sniffs unaffectedly. “Maybe it’s just a ring,” she shrugs.
“Is it?” Frankie swallows, almost believes her for a moment.
Grace shakes her head, grabbing Frankie’s hand and running her thumb over the ring that now sits on her finger, the one she’s slaved over for weeks. “I thought I’d have a little more time to come up with what I wanted to say,” she admits, eyebrow raised, and Frankie blushes in response. “But I think it’s about time, don’t you? God knows I’ve waited—” she cuts herself off, emotion catching in her throat. “I’ve waited a very, very long time for you, Frankie, and I don’t want to wait anymore. So, would you—could you—”
Frankie can’t wait, kisses her, tries to channel all her positive energy, her love, her gratefulness into a message she delivers with her lips. Grace cups her face with her hands and pulls her closer, holds her tight. Frankie wants to make love to her right here on this beach, but she pulls back, knows Grace wouldn’t go for it. Not after last time, at least.
“You’re telling me you used power tools?” Frankie asks the second they pull apart, eyes closed as she catches her breath, and she can’t stop smiling. “Do you have pictures? Because that’s definitely something I’m gonna need to see. Like, yesterday. Immediately.”
Grace nods against her forehead, laughs. “Are you still mad at me? For not telling you.”
“Oh, baby, I got over it the second I opened the box,” Frankie says, pulling back to look at her ring again. “Grace, this is. Yowza, this is next level.”
“Is that a yes?”
Frankie nods emphatically and they laugh, kiss again, wait for the tide to tell them to go home.
In a frame in their living room, hanging on the wall, is a crumpled piece of paper. Over the years it’s seen its fair share of events, of drama, of declarations, and each of the memories makes Frankie smile, makes her think fondly of her wife. On the paper, in a messy scrawl, are Grace’s wedding vows. The ones she hadn’t been able to bring herself to say in front of an audience, the ones she had had to hand to Frankie to read silently to herself, the ones that weren’t technically vows at all.
It’s just five lines, seventeen words written on a torn piece of paper that Grace had folded and unfolded over and over as part of her wedding day jitters. Frankie can recite every one of them from memory, can see them when she closes her eyes, and besides the ring on her finger, this is the one piece of art that means the most to her. Standing in front of it now, she kisses her fingertips, brings them up to the glass. Brunhilde, the ancient Bernese they’d adopted on their first anniversary, lays at her feet, keeps her company as she drinks her morning coffee.
Frankie misses Grace. Hopelessly, desperately, wants nothing more than to fall asleep next to her again. It’s been too long. Almost long enough that Frankie can’t remember her warmth, her softness, the way her breath catches as she dreams of purely Grace-like things, like color-coded bookshelves or the container store.
She can remember their wedding day, filled with only close friends, family. The way Grace whispered ‘I can’t believe this is happening’ as she reached the end of the aisle. How she smiled, held her hand tight, actually ate cake at the reception. All of it feels like a dream, like magic, unbelievable to her even now.
Frankie sniffs, suddenly overcome with emotion. On the other end of the room, the door opens.
“Jesus, Frankie, no need to help,” Grace says from the doorway, lugging in two suitcases, and Frankie wonders how she got them down the stairs by herself. Eventually, she gives up trying to carry them, opting to kick them across the floor until they slide into the kitchen island with a thump.
“Seems like you’ve got it,” Frankie replies, one hand on her hip and the other holding her coffee mug. “Plus, my hands are full.”
“Yes, I can see that.” Grace rolls her eyes, out of breath, and Hilde approaches her slowly, tail wagging as Grace reaches down to pet her greying muzzle. “Did you remember to feed her while I was gone?”
“Oh, I fed her.” Frankie’s eyes are shifty. Grace doesn’t need to know about the all-human food diet the dog keeps while she’s out of town. It’s not like she could blame her, anyway; the dog’s practically a million years old.
Grace drops her purse on the dining room table, looking through the mail Frankie had refused to open while she was away. Grace’s book of the week pokes out of her bag, pages curling and dog-eared at the corners, and Frankie can just make out the author. Highsmith. Grace has moved onto queer fiction in the 48 hours she’s been away, apparently.
“Hey,” Frankie says, chin on Grace’s shoulder as she wraps her arms around her from behind. “You came back.”
“A forehead kiss is a forehead kiss,” Grace responds, distracted as she opens the quarterly reports from the new owners of Vybrant. “I’m back under penalty of law.”
“Right, that’s the reason.” Frankie clicks her tongue. “How’s Darwin?”
“David wants to commission four new coffee tables,” Grace corrects. “Thinks he can win me over just because he flies me out to his workshop for the weekend. Jokes on him, though, because it’s not happening.”
“Trying to keep your artistic integrity?”
“Trying to keep my sanity,” Grace says, leading them towards the couch. She groans as she sinks into the cushions. “Not to mention everything hurts. Have I mentioned that I’m 78?”
“Once or twice, maybe, but who knows? My memory’s shot."
“Yeah, well, whoever decided I should take up late in life carpentry should be shot.” She follows it up by throwing a dramatic hand over her eyes for good measure.
“I dunno, I’m kind of fond of this piece,” Frankie tells her, and she lifts up her left hand, still enamored by the way the band on her finger shines in the light.
Grace reaches out, holds Frankie’s hand in her own as she inspects the ring as closely as she can without her glasses. “You know, if I were to make this again today, I wouldn’t have—”
“Hands off, Hanson-Bergstein!” Frankie defends, swatting Grace’s hand away. “She’s beautiful the way she is. Leave her.”
Grace looks at her with a telltale twinkle in her eye, the one that’s reserved only for Frankie, the one that never fails to make her stomach do a somersault followed by a backflip followed by a stuck landing. A perfect ten. “God, I missed you,” Grace says, and it’s déjà vu all over again.
Later, they’ll head to bed, passing the frame that holds Grace’s vows on the way. They’ll change into their pajamas, take their pills, and try and fail to keep Brunhilde off the foot of the bed, giving up when they realize they’re no match for a grumpy dog in its golden years. Lucky for them, they like sleeping close anyway.
And as Frankie’s eyes drift shut—in the split second before awake and asleep—Grace will tell her she loves her. She will tell her so that she knows, so that she remembers, so that it’s at the forefront of her mind when her eyes open again in the morning. She will tell her because it’s her favorite thing to do, love her wife, and what’s better is that her wife loves her back.
my lover is a woman
& when i hold her
feel her warmth
i feel good
feel safe