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Once, years ago, Maya told Dr. Diane Lewis that the thought of dying soothed her.
She’d think about disappearing into the clouds and her heartbeat would slow down, her throat would open and allow her to breathe anew. That was the before. A different life, when she was Captain and her father was her hero and she had everything she’d ever wanted and all her friends hated her. The clouds were her comfort when she did not know who she was, when she did not know whether she wanted to be.
She no longer sought nothingness to find comfort. What brought her peace had a shape, and a voice, and a warmth. Her heartbeat was steadied by her wife’s body pressed against her side, by her breath against her neck. And the tiny human softly snoring away in the bassinet made her heart spasm with a love so intense it was almost painful. It reminded her that this love inhabited a live body.
She changed. She now craved what was alive, and to be alive herself not to miss a single moment.
When Maya opens her eyes, Carina is still asleep next to her, sprawled over her, really. Her perfect face is hidden by a curtain of wild hair. Still drowsy, Maya buries her nose in the thick mane and inhales. The familiar faint scent of vanilla makes her lungs expand, want more. It’s a smell she missed like oxygen when Carina wasn’t living with her.
She does not know how she survived the loneliness of those weeks. She almost lost everything she ever loved. It all feels more sacred now because of it.
A cry from the bassinet attracts her attention. Carina stirs, mumbles something in Italian. Maya whispers a reassurance in her wife’s ear, she extricates herself from the embrace of Carina’s limbs and gets out of bed.
The sun is bright outside, it must have been a few hours at least. Longer than they’ve both gotten to sleep in days.
Liam is fussing about, his chubby arms free from the swaddle. He stares up at her, wide awake, then mewls again, agitating his tiny hands.
Maya lifts him into her arms.
“It’s ok, Liam,” she whispers, her lips against his forehead.
She looks over her shoulder. Carina’s eyes are still closed. She has completely taken ownership of Maya’s side of the bed. Maya smiles fondly at the sight, then pads out of the bedroom as quiet as she can, holding Liam to her chest.
“Shh, mamma needs to rest a little longer,” she says, making her way the kitchen. “That was a long sleep, you’re probably hungry, yeah?”
Liam whines again.
“I’ve got you, little bear.”
Maya makes quick work of warming the formula and checks on her hand to make sure the temperature is right. By the time she makes it to the nursery, Liam’s crying has gotten louder, his cheeks red and his barely-there eyebrows scrunched together in protest. She knows it will only be a few moments before he starts wailing.
Maya sits on the rocking chair, adjusts Liam in her arms and brings the nipple to his lips.
“There we go.”
There is another little mewl, Maya watches Liam’s features change as he becomes aware of the bottle. Then he latches on and starts chugging down the formula with an enthusiasm that makes Maya laugh.
“That tasty, uh?”
Maya traces Liam’s chubby cheek as he drinks, mesmerized by how soft his skin is, by the shape of his lips. He rests his little palm against the back of Maya’s hand, his eyes trained on her face the entire time. Maya feels her heart flutter.
Do you recognize me? she wonders. Hopes. Do you know how much I love you?
Liam finishes the bottle in record time. Maya burps him and changes him into a clean diaper. The whole time, Liam gurgles and makes happy cooing sounds.
“A full tummy makes everything better, doesn’t it, Liam?” Maya grins, tickling Liam’s round belly before slipping him into a new onesie. His tongue pokes out as he smiles a wide gummy smile.
“There, all done. Great job, little bear.”
Liam stares up at her with wide eyes and babbles something. Maya finds herself irrationally wishing there was a dictionary for baby speak. She’d have every sound and gurgle memorized by now.
Liam is calm when she takes him in her arms again. He kicks his feet and chews on his tiny baby fist, drooling all over it. Maya gently pulls the fist from his mouth and Liam immediately grabs onto her finger. He squeezes, hard, like Maya belongs to him.
That spasm in her chest again.
Yes, she wants to say, I’m yours.
Clean and fed, it doesn’t take long for Liam to fall back asleep. Maya cradles him for another minute, taking in every single eyelash that flutters against his cheeks, his little puffs as his breathing grows deep.
He is perfect in a way she struggles to comprehend. A feeling suddenly slams into Maya like she was punched in the stomach. She doesn’t believe in God, or fate, but she looks at Liam and feels that she was always meant to be here, holding this perfection to her chest.
She was put on this earth to love him. She is alive to love him.
She only ever felt that way once before. When she was inside Carina and Carina whispered “ti amo” for the very first time, and for the very first time Maya felt she needed nothing else to be happy.
When she walks back into the bedroom, Carina is on her back, her eyes half-open.
“Hey. Did we wake you?”
Carina shakes her head. “You weren’t here.”
Her voice is thick with sleep. Her lips curve in a lazy smile, then she nods toward Liam.
“Is he ok?”
“Yeah. He was just hungry.”
Maya lowers the baby into the bassinet, careful not to stir him awake, but Liam’s eyes remain closed. He brings his fists to either side of his head and keeps snoring softly.
“He’s so beautiful,” Maya whispers. “I can’t take my eyes off him.”
“Hmm. That’s what I told Miranda.”
Maya turns and smiles at her wife, following the movement of her long, elegant fingers as Carina runs them through her hair.
“What about you? Are you hungry? Want me to make something?”
Carina’s smile widens, turns into a teasing smirk. “And what would you make? Lasagna?”
Maya gasps in mock-offense. “Ok, that’s very rude. And I’d like to remind you that you said my pancakes and bacon are to die for.”
Carina laughs quietly and sits up. She stretches out her hand and grabs Maya’s, bringing her down on the bed next to her.
“That’s not correct,” she says, kissing Maya’s pout. “I said they are orgasmic.”
Maya hums and lingers against Carina’s lips, her pride quickly forgotten.
They are both exhausted and sleep-deprived, but Maya’s body doesn’t seem to care. Her pulse quickens, the opening and closing of Carina’s mouth sends warm shivers all over. She falls into Carina like her body was made to be an extension of her wife’s.
She brushes Carina’s hair out of her face, smiling at the way Carina rests her cheek into her palm.
“Want to rest some more?” she asks. “He’s going to be out cold for at least another hour.”
Carina shakes her head. She presses a kiss to Maya’s wrist, then to Maya’s lips again.
“I feel like I haven’t kissed you in ages.”
“We’re kissing now, babe,” Maya laughs.
“Yes,” Carina’s teeth nibble on Maya’s bottom lip, “but maybe I don’t want to kiss you just on the mouth.”
Maya groans.
“Carina… you can’t make me think about…” her eyes dart to the bassinet, then back to Carina as she mouths s-e-x, “…while our baby is asleep next to us.”
Carina laughs, Maya’s shyness a source of wicked glee.
“He’s sleeping, and he doesn’t understand the word ‘sex’, bambina.”
“Shh, don’t say it!”
“Like he doesn’t understand if I say I want to put you on your back and—”
Maya covers Carina’s mouth with her hand. “You are a bad, bad woman.”
Carina’s giggle tickles her palm. She raises her hands in surrender and Maya lets go, only to be pulled into another kiss by the front of her shirt. It’s softer, a little messy because they are both smiling so wide.
When they break, all the wickedness is gone from Carina’s eyes. The brown of her irises is so deep and warm, she is looking at Maya with a tenderness that makes Maya sigh.
“I love you,” Carina says with a soft smile. “You’re so wonderful with him, my love.”
“You think so? Even if you think I worry too much?”
“You worry because you care. We don’t have to agree on everything, Maya. What’s important is that we talk things out. Together.”
Maya nods. She takes Carina’s hand where it’s resting on the mattress and laces their fingers together.
“I’m sorry for the way I left. I could feel myself getting angry and I didn’t want to yell at you. And with Liam in the room…”
She frowns, keeping her eyes on their joined hands. Carina’s thumb rubs her knuckles, soothing. It helps her to keep going.
“I—I’m still working on some things. I thought walking it off would be better than snapping because I… I’m scared to scare you again.”
There’s a deep inhale from Carina, but her thumb doesn’t stop caressing Maya’s hand.
“But leaving like that… it wasn’t right.”
She looks up and meets Carina’s stare, smiling a little. The admission makes her feel lighter. Ever since she embarked on her therapy journey with Diane, she has started to discover how liberating it is to acknowledge her faults, to apologize.
She feels the difference, like her lungs are breathing in clean air for the first time in ages. Even if sometimes she still steers away from it, she always comes back to this serenity that she is conquering bit by bit.
She hopes Carina can feel it, too, this change. Maybe she does, because she takes Maya’s face in her hands, strokes her thumbs across the apples of Maya’s cheeks.
“We’re ok,” she says, and she is nothing but honest. “You’re here with me. That’s all I want, Maya.”
Maya nods.
“I can be very pushy,” Carina says after a pause. “Too pushy sometimes. I just wanted to understand your feelings, bambina. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable with my questions.”
Maya is quiet for a while. She brings Carina’s knuckles to her lips and presses soft kisses to each bone, taking time to rearrange her thoughts.
“You were right,” she finally whispers.
“What do you mean?”
“About my brother.”
Maya’s eyes drift to the bassinet. Through the netted window, she can make out Liam’s profile, the shape of his button nose. Her heart clenches with the need to take her baby in her arms and trace the slope of that nose with her finger.
“I mean, it’s not all of it, I really do believe there are benefits to attachment parenting, but… seeing Mason, it did something to me.”
“Maya, we don’t have to talk about it. I didn’t want to force you.”
“You aren’t,” Maya promises.
Words do not come as easily this time. She closes her eyes, and she is back at the parade. The chaos all around her becoming static as she called out Mason’s name and prayed that she was wrong, prayed that man across the street who was protesting her very existence would keep running, because he was not Mason.
But he stopped. Blue eyes stared back at her. Eyes like hers, though so different from her own now. Her father’s eyes.
The ache in Maya’s chest morphs into something sharper, ugly.
She blinks her eyes open and it’s her wife’s eyes staring back at her now, dark and full of concern.
“I’ve spent so many years worrying about him. Thinking about what I would say to him if I ever got the chance to meet him again. And to see him there with those people, calling us pedos and perverts…”
“Hey…”
“I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Maya hates the way her voice quivers, the sudden sting behind her eyes. Carina is immediately there, cupping the side of her neck. It is one of the ways they communicate when the other is hurting, they steady each other through touch. Maya leans into it, lets it slow down her heartbeat.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Carina asks softly.
“Remember when I didn’t tell you that my mom had moved back in with my dad during the pandemic?”
Carina nods.
“It’s the same thing, I guess,” Maya says with a shrug.
She wishes she could push past this horrible discovery, or forget it altogether. That way, she could still imagine her little brother happy somewhere out in the world. Out of reach, but happy, surrounded by love.
That dream is forever gone now. Diane would tell her it is grief that she is feeling.
“If I don’t talk about it, I can pretend it didn’t happen. I don’t have to remember that my brother is part of a hate group.”
“But it did happen, bambina,” Carina whispers, gentle. “You’re allowed to be upset.”
Her voice is pained, like Maya’s heartbreak is her own.
Maya grits her teeth. She carved out this space that belongs only to her and her wife and her baby, a space made only of light and warmth. She is so protective of it; she doesn’t want the ugliness of the outside world to seep through her cracks and touch it.
She frowns and tries to pull back, blinking away the stubborn tears that still wet her eyes. Carina doesn’t let her, though.
“No, don’t hide away,” she says, cradling Maya’s face with both hands. “Stay here with me.”
A naked knee is poking out from underneath the comforter. Instinctively, Maya bends down and kisses it. She lingers there with her mouth, kissing up Carina’s thigh. Her wife’s skin is soft like silk beneath her lips, the scent of whatever expensive cream she uses on her body beckons her, heady.
Carina threads her fingers through Maya’s hair and Maya unfurls, like a knot pulled loose.
She moves up and rests her forehead between Carina’s breasts.
“I’m so lucky to have you,” she murmurs.
She would stay there, she’d disappear into her wife if it were possible, but she pulls back because she wants to see Carina’s face, and she wants Carina to see hers, to see that her words aren’t empty but every piece of her that makes her who she is believes in what she is saying.
“I don’t know what would’ve become of me if I hadn’t found you. You saved me, Carina.”
The sunrays hit the side of Carina’s face, there are speckles of gold in her eyes. She is unbearably gorgeous.
“I think we saved each other,” Carina says, her eyes a little wet despite the smile on her face.
Maya knows this to be true. Even if it is still hard to believe sometimes, she knows Carina needs her as much as she needs her wife. She feels it, whenever Carina reaches out for her without even realizing it. Whenever Carina buries her face in her neck and sighs in relief.
She is Carina’s safe place. Maya is forever grateful that she can be this for her wife, that Carina allows her to love her like this.
Her thoughts drift to her brother again. Before Carina, she didn’t think it was possible to find solace in another human being. And she didn’t know what it was like to be someone’s fortress. She thinks about Mason, being so alone he sought that solace in a group of people consumed by hate, and her stomach twists.
“I wish Mason could’ve found a love like this,” Maya says, the words out of her mouth before she can stop herself.
She cringes hearing herself and shakes her head.
“I’m sorry, I’m not making any sense.”
“Maya, it’s ok—”
“No, and we shouldn’t be talking about this. It’s not right.”
“Why?”
Maya hesitates. She doesn’t want to say it out loud and give substance to what worries her. The unspoken loss that hovers over this conversation. For as painful as the circumstances are, her brother is still alive.
Discomfort entwines with guilt and she struggles to hold Carina’s stare; it was only a few months ago that she threw that very loss in her wife’s face.
Two fingers under her chin make Maya tilt her head up. There is nothing but kindness in Carina’s eyes.
“You can talk about your brother, Maya,” she says, understanding everything even though Maya did not utter a word.
Maya knows Carina’s empathy, the magnitude of it. She is still astounded by it.
A weight comes off her shoulders. She no longer tries to stifle her pain and lets it spill out of her instead.
“He was such a kind boy,” Maya whispers. “He didn’t have a bad bone in his body. But my father… he saw that as a flaw. He’d call him a wuss, just because he was sensitive. He made Mason hide his kindness. Hide himself.” She grinds her teeth, hard enough to hurt. “And I did nothing.”
“You were a kid.”
“I should have protected him and I didn’t. My dad would look at Mason with so much contempt in his eyes, and then he’d turn to me and say I made him proud. And I was so…”
“Relieved?”
“Happy,” Maya says. The word tastes foul on her tongue. “I think at the time I believed that’s what happiness was. To have my dad’s love, even if it meant ignoring my brother’s pain.”
There’s a tickle deep in her throat, she swallows hard, but it only heightens the sensation. She hates that even now she can hear her father’s voice, reminding her that crying is for losers.
“I abandoned Mason because I didn’t want my dad to look at me the way he looked at him. I let Mason feel wrong. Invisible. All the way to my gold medal. And to his OD.”
Carina scoots closer and reaches for Maya’s hands again.
“That wasn’t your fault, Maya.”
“Yeah… Mason preferred living on the streets than moving in with me when I asked him. He never looked for me even if he knew where to find me. I wasn’t a good sister to him. I wasn’t a good person. I was...” Maya lets out a sad chuckle. “I was like my dad.”
“No, Maya. You’re not—”
“In Mason’s eyes, I am,” she insists, shame and guilt gnawing at her. “We both hurt him. I didn’t help him and now he’s…”
Carina grabs Maya’s face and shakes her head. Her lips are set, her eyes determined.
“I won’t let you feel guilty for Mason’s choices.”
“He grew up without love.”
“You love him. You told me that, remember? Me and Mason, we are the only people you ever said that to.”
“But he didn’t feel it. And these are the consequences.”
Her voice trembles and Carina’s eyes soften at the sound of it.
“I know you want to protect him,” she says. “He’s your baby brother, you want to keep him safe, even from himself. Trust me, I get it.”
“Carina, we don’t have to—”
“No, listen. Just listen.”
Maya obeys, trying not to squirm away.
“You’re looking for someone to blame, because seeing him like that hurt too much.”
Carina is gentle with her. Her voice is soft and her touch softer. She kisses Maya on both cheeks, on her forehead.
“That someone isn’t you, my love.”
Tears pool in Maya’s eyes. One escapes, trickles down her cheek, and Carina kisses that, too.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whispers.
“Whatever you feel like doing. You can cry, or scream, or let me hold you. But let go of this guilt. These groups exploit people’s weaknesses. That Mason’s fell prey to them is not your fault.”
“It’s hard to believe it.”
“Then I’ll keep telling you,” Carina says, bringing their foreheads together. “Ok?”
The space between their lips is so small yet unbearable. Maya closes it and kisses her wife until the taste of her mouth is all she can think of. She folds into Carina then, hugging her tight. She can feel her wife’s heartbeat against her chest.
“I love you,” she says with her face in the crook of Carina’s neck.
“I love you too.”
Maya exhales when they separate, wiping the tears from her eyes.
She looks at the bassinet again and feels drawn to it, gravity pulling her toward her baby. She gets up and comes to stand next to the bassinet.
Liam is sleeping peacefully, his little heart-shaped lips parted just barely. Those rosy cheeks she could spend the whole day touching, kissing, look even rounder while he’s asleep.
Maya smiles, overwhelmed by the love she feels for him, this tiny baby who brings her solace just by existing.
“He’s so perfect,” she whispers. She doesn’t have the vocabulary to put into words what she feels for him, she just knows it is immense.
There is the rustling of sheets behind her and then Carina’s arms circle her waist from behind. Maya covers Carina’s hands with her own and sags against her wife’s body.
“I love him so much. Do you think he knows?”
“He does, bambina. He feels it. Like I feel it.”
“Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve him. Like…”
“He’s your son,” Carina tells her. “You’re his mom. I look at him and I see you, Maya. I see how much you love him.”
Maya turns in Carina’s arms. She needs to see her eyes, to find her safe harbor in them before her fears can take root.
“We have to make sure he feels loved every day.”
Carina nods, kissing her temple.
“He needs to know, always. He can’t ever doubt that we love him. He needs to feel safe with us, we have to—”
Carina silences her with a kiss, and the ghosts in Maya’s head grow quiet.
“We will, my love,” Carina says. “We’re not our parents. And when we—”
She falters, a shadow passes over her face. Maya doesn’t know what it means until Carina speaks again.
“If… if we adopt him.”
“Carina…”
“He’s going to feel loved every day, every minute.” Her bottom lip twitches, Maya sees the glimmer of tears in her eyes. “I hope we get to do that.”
That’s when Maya remembers that she isn’t the only one who is scared. Carina’s fears have a different shape than her own, but they are no less haunting. Just like Carina has done with Maya’s, she needs Maya to chase them away.
“Come here.”
Maya guides them back to the bed. They lie side by side, sharing the same pillow. She opens her arms and Carina immediately sinks into her embrace, sighing when Maya starts caressing up and down her spine.
“He’s ours, Carina. You said it, I’m his mom and you’re his mamma.”
Carina nods, her eyes so big and sad and scared that Maya instinctively pulls her closer.
“No one is taking him away from us. Va bene?”
And at that, Carina finally smiles. Maya feels the tension drain from her body, then Carina lifts her hands to Maya’s face and kisses her.
“Did I say it right?”
Carina nods, still smiling, and Maya preens.
“Now say it for me.”
“Va bene.”
Maya shakes her head. “No, not that. Liam.”
Understanding fills Carina’s eyes, but she hesitates. Maya can see that she is still scared, and her heart aches for her wife, her wife who experienced so much loss she is terrified to let herself love Liam without restraints, even if it’s too late for that. Maya has seen them together, has seen Carina glow whenever she holds him in her arms. There are no bounds to her love for their baby.
“You can say it,” Maya encourages her, kissing the corner of her mouth. “Nothing bad is going to happen.”
Carina inhales deeply, then says in a whisper, “he is ours.”
Maya nods with a smile. “Yes, my love. Ours.”
Carina smiles back. It stretches slowly on her face, until it’s so wide she flashes her teeth, the shadow nowhere to be found anymore.
They lean in at the same time and meet in a slow kiss. Carina’s tongue brushes gently against Maya’s and Maya makes a little noise of pleasure. After all the years together, her desire for her wife only sparks brighter.
“He’s our baby,” Carina says again when they break the kiss, a lot surer this time.
“Yes.”
“We have a baby.”
Carina says it with astonishment in her voice, with a laughter of joy tinging her words, and Maya laughs with her.
“That’s kind of crazy, right?”
This bewilderment when they stop and say it out loud is something they have experienced almost every day since bringing Liam home. It’s incredible, and terrifying, and wonderful.
Carina smiles at Maya and traces the features of her face with the tips of her fingers, like she is trying to memorize her through touch. Her smile widens, the look in her eyes turns so soft that Maya can’t help but ask, “What?”
“Nothing, just… he looks so much like you.”
Maya blushes hard.
“Carina, that’s not possible.”
“Oh, it is very possible. He takes after you, so he looks like you.”
“That’s not how biology works, babe.”
“Allora,” Carina points her finger at her, “I’m the doctor so leave the biology to me, okay?”
Maya chuckles and rolls her eyes, but Carina cups her face to keep her looking at her.
“He can’t sit still like you, always kicking his swaddle off, that one.”
“That’s literally every baby ever.”
“He has your smile.” She presses a small kiss to Maya’s lips. “Your nose.” Another kiss to the tip of Maya’s nose. “He scrunches it when he laughs just like you do.”
Maya can tell Carina believes every word, as biologically impossible as it may be. She has this enamored look in her eyes that makes Maya blush to her ears.
“He’s way cuter than me,” she says, using humor to end it there because Carina’s words are making her feel oddly vulnerable.
But Carina doesn’t let her. She holds her face like Maya is something cherished, something to keep from harm.
“He is my little version of you.”
Maya really does try to keep the tears from her eyes. They come anyway, as her heart throbs wildly.
Liam is their greatest gift. He is their future. And Carina sees her in him. It is the kind of love Maya believes in only because it flows in her veins. Otherwise, she would not be able to comprehend it, much less believe it is real. It’s a blessing, something countless people will go through their lives without ever experiencing.
She wants to live every minute, every second that she has on this earth to keep loving and being loved like this.
She pulls Carina into her arms, hugging her like she wants to fuse their bodies together. Carina slips her hands beneath the fabric of her shirt, splays her palms up Maya’s back, warm and soft. Even in the calm of the moment, Maya feels claimed.
She will choose it every day. To belong to Carina. She has never felt more like herself than in her wife’s hands.
“We will adopt him, Carina,” she promises. She leans back so they are staring at each other again. “He’s our son. And when he’s a little older, we will take him to see his mamma’s home country. We’ll watch those chubby feet splash in the sea of Sicily.”
Carina smiles but unexpectedly, a flash of sadness darkens her eyes. She glances away, down at the small space between them, and Maya is at a loss.
“Did I say something wrong?” she asks gently.
Carina shakes her head.
“No. It’s a beautiful dream.”
She smiles again, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. It’s a while before she speaks again.
“Italy isn’t a great place for a family like ours right now.”
Maya inhales deeply. This is a pain they have talked about before, one Carina doesn’t mention all too much, but Maya knows she carries it like a tender wound. It hurts and bleeds when something pokes at it.
She props herself up on her elbow, reaching out to take one of Carina’s hands. Her wife’s eyes are still downcast. Sorrow is the only emotion Maya can see in her blank stare.
“Is it very bad?” she asks.
Carina shrugs at first, but a moment later, she nods.
“It gets worse every day. If you’re not straight, or even if you are straight but you’re a woman…”
She doesn’t finish the sentence and closes her eyes, her face taut with pain. Maya remembers their conversations about the Italian government’s attacks on women’s rights to their bodily autonomy. She feels the injustice of it, the violence, on her skin as though it was happening to her. She can’t imagine what it must feel like to Carina, who made it her life mission to help women.
“We wouldn’t be recognized as Liam’s parents.”
Carina’s words send a shiver down Maya’s spine.
“Really?”
“Not both of us, not in a way that’s truly safe. It’s complicated. And the laws about this are so unclear on purpose. They can take away your rights on a whim. They tear families apart without blinking.”
Maya tightens her hold on Carina’s hand and Carina squeezes back like it’s a lifeline.
“It’s horrible,” Maya says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to make you think about this.”
Carina shakes her head.
“It’s not you. Since we have Liam, I’ve been thinking about it more and more.”
She is quiet for some time. Maya follows her stare and realizes it’s fixed on their fingers, on her own wedding ring.
“You aren’t my wife in Italy,” Carina whispers, her voice cracking in the most horrible way. “We’re not… we are nothing in my country. Whenever I remember it, I want to cry.”
“Baby…”
“They’re passing laws to force women who need an abortion to listen to the fetus’ heartbeat, which is one of the cruelest things I can think of. But gay marriage? That’s where they draw the line. It’s so…”
She squeezes her eyes shut and makes a sound akin to a growl. Her shoulders drop on an exhale, she looks defeated.
When she opens her eyes again, her eyelashes are glistening.
“I’m glad I live here. I found my home here.”
There is no mending this wound, Maya knows it. She cannot snap her fingers and make hatred disappear from someone’s heart, she cannot change the laws of a country, though seeing her wife in tears make her want to overthrow a government.
What she can do is protect her family, her little world. She can nourish it as best as she can and let it bloom, in all its beauty.
“You know what?” Maya says, determined. “This is all fucked up. And it’s unfair. But I don’t care what any government says. You are my wife, and I’m yours. It’s not a piece of paper that makes us a family.”
She tucks a strand of hair behind Carina’s ear, traces the delicate shell with her fingers.
“And when gay marriage is finally legal in Italy, I’ll marry you again.”
Carina laughs.
“We’ll have grey hair by the time it happens.”
“So we’ll have grey hair. We’ll be two grannies and you’ll still be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
It is Carina’s turn to blush.
“Shut up…” she mumbles, but Maya continues.
“I’ll see you in whatever you choose to wear and my world will stop just like it did when we got married here.”
Carina smiles, bashful like Maya has rarely seen her be. She leans closer and nuzzles Carina’s cheek.
“Liam will give us the rings. He will be taller than us and the most handsome guy at the ceremony.” She kisses her favorite beauty mark. “And at the party he will dance with his little sister.”
“Sister?”
Maya nods, smiling at the sight of Carina’s eyes sparkling. She can see the hope there, a dream taking shape.
“Yeah. Or brother. But we’ll watch those two and we will cry because we’ll be two emotional grannies.”
“I’m getting emotional now,” Carina laughs softly.
Maya strokes her face. Her eyes take in every detail. She tries to imagine this same face, this same smile, thirty years from now. The image is just as breathtaking.
“And we will dance too,” she says. “All night long, even after everyone else has left. Just you and me, my love. How does that sound?”
Carina’s chin wobbles. She blinks away fresh tears and exhales on a smile.
“It sounds like a future I want.”
Maya nods. She bends to kiss the hollow of Carina’s throat, follows with her lips the line of Carina’s tendon up to the jaw.
“We will have it,” she promises in the spot below Carina’s ear. “I will marry you again and again.”
Carina surges forward and her mouth envelops Maya’s.
“Ti amo,” Carina says in-between kisses, over and over.
“You said you’re lucky, but I’m lucky too, Maya,” she whispers. “I’m so lucky to have you.”
Maya feels it again. How every part of her is alive, how every part of her loves. It expands beyond the limits of her body, of the transience of human life. She knows that long after she is gone, this love will endure.
“You’ll have me forever,” Maya tells Carina, tasting her lips, her skin. She impresses that promise with her mouth. “You and Liam. You are my everything.”
The clouds and their numbing embrace are nowhere to be found. She feels, everything.
She is alive.