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The front porch had a sturdy dark wooden bench, its surface covered in tiny splinters, most of them made by little kids who had jumped off it the second they heard one of their grandmothers opening the front door. It was placed underneath a window where there was almost always a fat black cat dragging his paws along the curtains, a red collar around his chubby neck.
The bench was still moist from the morning dew, though Joyce had been sitting there long enough to warm one side of it. It was just before sunrise, so the air was cold, though not unpleasant.
Her insomnia had gotten worse over the years, leaving her drained by even the smallest tasks and unable to sleep for more than a couple of hours at night. Karen had suggested everything: a stronger dose of melatonin, warm tea before bed, bubble baths, even eating enough cake to send herself into a food coma. Joyce probably should have realized that last suggestion was more of an excuse for Karen to bake, and not exactly wise. None of it worked, and Joyce found herself sleeping through the afternoon, losing precious hours she could have spent with her girlfriend.
She looked up as Karen stepped through the front door, still dressed in her nightgown. It was a lovely royal blue, with lace and tiny flower details. She also had a white-and-yellow crocheted blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The yellow reminded Joyce of Karen’s golden hair from all those years ago, while the white was much closer to the colour it had faded into.
Her nails were filed into little almond shapes and painted a wine-red colour. Karen had given up dyeing her hair, wearing heavy makeup, and buying expensive jewelry, but manicures were the one thing she had never left behind. Not to say Joyce didn’t spoil her at every given chance; she had just lost her touch for long hours of shopping and preferred going out only when Nancy or Holly offered.
“Did you sleep at all?” Karen asked, joining Joyce on the bench. She was warm, and the heat radiating from her body soothed the morning chill.
“Mm, no. But I’m fine.” Joyce scooted over, giving Karen some room. She watched Karen wince as the wet wood soaked through her nightgown. “Tired, but what can you do?”
“Stay in bed, maybe? I don’t think coming out here is going to fix much, sweetheart.”
Joyce shrugged, too tired to form much of an opinion. “Well, you don’t have to join me. I don’t want you losing sleep.”
“I know, I know.” Karen folded her hands in her lap, rubbing her thumbs together. “I just…worry. It’s not nice waking up alone, Joyce.”
Joyce raised an eyebrow, silently asking her to expand on her words.
“I mean, we’re in bed together. You’re right beside me…” Karen glanced down at their hands. “I roll over to hold you, and there’s nothing there. It makes me think—“ she sighed. “It makes me think about the day you won’t be there to turn to at all.”
“Oh, Karen. Don’t be silly.”
“It’s not…it isn’t silly,” Karen insisted, though she laughed at herself, self-conscious. “Really. What happens when I need you and you’re not here?”
“You already know what happens, honey. You and I drive off a cliff together like Thelma and Louise.” Joyce gently held her fidgeting hands. “And if I do go first, I don’t want you spending the rest of your life thinking about what’s missing. I want you to go out and live, whether you think you’re doing it for me or for yourself. You’re not going to spend your time grieving. You’re going to keep living. That’s all I’d ever ask of you.”
Karen nodded, though the worry didn’t quite leave her expression. “But…”
Joyce leaned in and kissed her before she could finish. “No. No buts.” She rested her forehead against Karen’s. “You’re not getting rid of me. Not in this life, and not in the next.”
Karen nodded again, though reluctantly, forcing herself to accept what she already knew—what Joyce always told her was the truth. “I still think about it,” she confessed. “A lot.”
“You’re smart, Karen. So, so smart. You’re already so independent—I know you’d keep going just fine without me.”
“But why would I?” Karen countered, unable to hold herself back. “Why would I cook if no one’s sitting across from me to eat? Whose dirty laundry would I complain about finding on the floor? Why would I even want to get out of bed when you’re not there to…” She turned her face away. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t apologize.” Joyce put an arm around her, pulling her closer. “What’s all this about, anyway? A bad dream?”
Karen nodded.
“Well, that’s all it was. A bad dream.” Joyce waited until they made eye contact again. “Don’t let your dreams drown out my words. I love you. I love you, and I promise that, one way or another, you’ll never be alone.”
Joyce would never admit it to Karen’s face, but she was scared too. More than scared, some days.
When she saw her reflection in the mirror and an old woman staring back, with freckles hidden by wrinkles and age spots, she was scared. She had made peace with death years ago. It was inevitable, and there were far worse ways to leave Earth than peacefully beside the person you loved most. She could have died a hundred different times over the course of her life, but she hadn’t. Neither had Karen. They had survived things no one should have survived.
Was it frightening to imagine Karen dying before her? To picture a life without the one soul who understood her, without a hand reaching for hers on the days everything went to shit? Of course it was. They had reached the age where their wills sat in the top dresser drawer, where their children stopped by more often to help with groceries, change light bulbs, or lift something too heavy. They weren’t frail, but they both knew they wouldn’t survive another Demogorgon if it came down to it. They might not even survive a bad fall. Accepting that reality—accepting they were no longer the people everyone expected to have the answers, to step in and protect everyone else—hurt.
Joyce wouldn’t pretend she didn’t have bad dreams too, but hers were never about doubting Karen’s ability to build a good, happy life without her. They were about time. About whether there would be enough of it.
She hoped Karen would live to see women like them—couples like them—walk into a courthouse and say, “I do,” without the law claiming their love was invalid. They were so close. So unbelievably close.
Joyce could only hope she would be there to see it too. To watch Karen all gussied up in a beautiful dress, her makeup done exactly the way she liked it. Though, truthfully, she’d marry her in that blue nightgown if it was all they had. None of it mattered. She would marry Karen exactly as she came, and that was a far better future to dream about than waking up alone.
“Honey?”
Karen looked up, her light brown eyes the same as the day Joyce had first fallen in love with them. “Mhm?”
“No more thinking about that stuff, okay? I understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t want to spend whatever time we have left worrying.”
Karen nodded mutely.
“There’s the right answer.” Joyce patted her thigh. “How about breakfast? I think you might just be sad because you haven’t gotten any pancakes in your system yet.”
A smile finally broke through, and Karen started to push herself up using Joyce’s thigh.
Joyce then took Karen’s hands and used them to steady herself as she stood. Her knees popped, and she wobbled a little. “Shit, can you—”
“Take your time, sweetheart,” Karen quickly reminded her. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”
Joyce held onto Karen’s forearms until the brief wave of vertigo passed. “So we’re optimistic now, huh? Where was that a minute ago?”
Karen waited until Joyce had regained her balance before opening the front door. She rested a hand against Joyce’s back, gently guiding her over the concrete lip so she wouldn’t catch her foot.
“Let’s not start calling me a hypocrite when I’m the one making breakfast.”
“I never said that.”
“You were thinking it.”
── .✦
After a thick stack of blueberry pancakes and a couple of cups of coffee, Joyce finally felt ready to start the day. While Karen went to get dressed, Joyce cleared the breakfast dishes from the table, scraping the sticky syrup from the plates and stacking everything in the sink to soak.
Over the years, she’d worried Karen’s appetite would dwindle. Her liver issues had brought a fair share of digestive problems, and Joyce had spent a long time preparing herself for the day eating became too difficult, or Karen lost her appetite completely.
Fortunately, there was no need to worry about her appetite, but Karen’s memory had taken a hit.
Joyce would never romanticize it. Hearing the same stories for the fourth or fifth time wasn’t as charming as people liked to pretend, though every now and then she still found herself smiling through them. The harder moments were when Karen forgot her keys, missed appointments, or looked outright humiliated when someone reminded her they’d already celebrated a birthday she’d forgotten.
Even so, Joyce considered herself lucky. After everything they had survived together, Karen was still here, even if she wasn’t always fully present. She could only hope it wouldn’t progress into something more.
“Joy?”
She lifted her head from the cloud of soap bubbles in the sink and looked toward the bedroom. Setting a glass beside the drying rack, she glanced at the cream-coloured cat sitting on the counter.
“Don’t touch,” she muttered before abandoning the dishes and heading down the hall.
She found Karen standing with her bare back to the bedroom door, struggling to fasten the clasp of her bra. Her long silver hair fell down her back, covering the lines of age and the tiny freckles Joyce had spent decades adoring.
“Can you help me? I can’t get it to hook.”
Joyce immediately stepped in to assist, fumbling with the clasp herself before fastening it securely. She already knew exactly which set of hooks Karen found most comfortable.
“Still having trouble with your shoulders?”
Karen turned slightly, an embarrassed expression on her face as she nodded.
“That’s okay,” Joyce reassured her. “I’m here to be your servant. Whatever you need.”
“Well, I might have to start taking advantage of that offer.” Karen picked up the clear container of her favourite strawberry-scented cream mixed with a healing jelly and placed it in Joyce’s hands. “My wrist’s been cramping too—can’t get this open.”
Joyce twisted the lid open for her and scooped out a small amount. The mixture was sticky and unpleasant, making her fingertips feel a bit tingly, but she paid it no mind. She gently massaged it across Karen’s chest, careful around the scars that branched toward her shoulder and the side of her neck.
“Thank you,” Karen mumbled. “For doing this, I mean. I know it’s embarrassing, having you see me unable to do everything myself.”
“Embarrassing? What?” Joyce scoffed softly, taking a little more cream and spreading it under the straps of Karen’s bra. “Do you have any idea how honoured I feel to be the one touching your boobs every morning?”
Karen laughed under her breath. “I feel needy.”
“Needy? You think this is needy?”
“Well—”
“It’s not,” Joyce interrupted. “It’s not. And even if it was, I wouldn’t care.” She placed a kiss on Karen’s shoulder. “Besides, this just gives me more time to admire this gorgeous body.”
Joyce took another small amount of cream, rubbing it along Karen’s clavicle. She blew her hair aside and began massaging her aching shoulders, putting the cream over the scars there as well.
“Is it the bras bothering your shoulders, baby? You could always—”
“I’m not going braless, Joyce.”
“Once again, didn’t say that.”
── .✦
“I can’t help you—” Joyce shoved aside a stray book. “—until I’ve found—” One of the cats jumped from the floor, skittering away as a book fell beside him. “—my fucking glasses—”
Karen shut the screen door behind her and took in the state of the living room. Joyce had, rather unsuccessfully, torn apart every corner of it in search of her glasses.
“Sweetie? Your head.”
“My what?”
“Your head. They’re on your head.”
Joyce instinctively looked up at the ceiling before the realization dawned on her. She reached into her tangled hair and awkwardly tugged her glasses free, the dark brown frames caught in the tangles.
Karen let out a quiet sigh, though she was smiling as she took off her gardening gloves. Specks of dirt scattered across the hardwood floor as she dropped them beside the cabinet by the back door, right next to the litter boxes.
Karen took the glasses from Joyce and polished the lenses on the edge of her dress before handing them back.
Joyce put them on and finally noticed one of the cats curled up on the throw pillow she’d apparently knocked onto the floor. “Oh.”
“Oh is right,” Karen scolded.
Joyce gently nudged the cat aside and brushed the layer of fur from the pillow before setting it back on the couch, while Karen helped straighten the rest of the room. She stacked the books on the coffee table and returned every little trinket Joyce had turned upside down.
“Hey,” Joyce said, brushing her hands against her jeans. “You needed help with something?”
Karen waved her hands dismissively.
“Just tell me what you need, honey.”
“I just…” Karen glanced back toward the screen door. “There was a cardinal in the garden poking around, and I thought you’d want to see it.”
Joyce couldn’t help smiling at her shyness. “Let’s see if it’s still there.”
The moment the screen door shut behind them, two of the cats put their paws against it, pleading to be let outside despite being far too spoiled to last a single day without their toys, cat trees, and scheduled mealtimes.
Joyce was still wearing jeans, and it had gotten a little too warm now that the morning sun had risen, but she decided to suffer through it. Karen, meanwhile, had changed into a pretty floral dress with a fitted waist. It wasn’t exactly practical gardening attire, but Karen had never let practicality stop her from wearing something that made her feel pretty. Besides, who was going to tell her otherwise? Certainly not Joyce.
Karen nudged a few gardening tools aside with her foot, clearing their view of the flowerbeds. “It was around here.” She pointed toward the coneflowers beside the patch of weeds she’d missed the last time she was out. “It was the richest red I’ve ever seen, and had these big beady eyes.”
Joyce smiled. “I’ve never seen you so passionate about birds.”
“Well, they’re your hobby,” Karen reasoned. “And after finding that bird feeder for Christmas, I figured I might as well learn—” She winced. “Sorry. Pretend you didn’t hear that.”
Joyce reached over and poked her in the hip. “Spoiling Christmas in July?”
“Shush. I never said a word.” Karen scanned the flowerbeds again for any sign of the cardinal. “Anyway, it was adorable. I did a little reading on the computer last week—figured it was about time I started learning a few bird facts of my own to impress you with—and somehow I ended up falling down this huge rabbit hole about cardinals and hummingbirds.”
── .✦
Eventually they sat down for lunch, Joyce happily munching on a grilled cheese sandwich. She’d always made them for the boys with slices of processed cheese, but ever since she and Karen had started living together, she hadn’t eaten one without proper cheese and bread toasted in a pan with butter. She felt so spoiled. Karen had made a creamy tomato soup too, rich with whole milk and little green herbs Joyce could never remember the names of.
Now Karen stood behind her, pulling a wide-toothed comb through Joyce’s hair with the help of some expensive-smelling oil.
After the divorce in 1988, Karen had started working so she could support herself and the kids. She’d become a hairdresser and cosmetologist, doing beautiful bridal makeup, everyday cuts, and perms. She still took the occasional client, though far fewer than she once had. People always felt guilty whenever her hands cramped or she needed to sit down for a few minutes, so these days it was mostly Holly, Nancy, and Robin who took advantage of her talent.
Working with Joyce’s hair was different from Holly’s long, thick blonde hair or Robin’s healthy brunette waves. Joyce’s had once been thick too, falling to a decent length, but it had gradually thinned. Even while Karen distracted her with a good lunch, Joyce knew the real purpose was to tease out the tangles and remove the loose strands before they ended up all over the house.
“Just tell me if I’m being too rough.”
“You’re not being too rough. You have never once in your life been too rough.”
“Well, you know, when Nancy was little, I was awful.”
Joyce suppressed a smile. She knew this story all too well.
“I’d tug and yank her pretty curls and get so frustrated when they’d mat overnight, or after swimming lessons, when they were impossible to dry.” Karen frowned. “And Holly…I’d pull those poor little pigtails so tight I’m surprised she doesn’t have permanent brain damage.”
She set the comb aside and ran a little of the oil through Joyce’s ends instead. They were the most fragile part of her hair and long overdue for a trim, but Karen stubbornly tried to get them back into better condition herself.
“Neither of them told me how careless I was until years later,” Karen quietly continued. “Who knows what sort of torture I’m putting you through that you’re just too nice to tell me about?”
Joyce turned in her chair to face her, a few crumbs on her lips. “You’re not being too rough.”
“But—”
Joyce closed her eyes, tuning out Karen’s stream of guilty apologies about accidentally hurting her already sensitive scalp, her nails being a little too long, or the one time she’d yanked a knot—a single, isolated accident that Karen still refused to forgive herself for.
“Karen, please.” Joyce set her glass of chocolate milk on the table. “I wouldn’t care if you plucked every strand off my head. You’re okay.”
Karen remained cautious, occasionally peeking over Joyce’s shoulder to steal a bite of her grilled cheese. By the time Joyce had finished eating, Karen had put her hair into a clean Dutch braid, making sure it would stay out of her face. She’d already trimmed Joyce’s bangs the week before, so they could wait a little longer to be fixed.
Karen tucked a few wisps behind Joyce’s ears. “My pretty girl,” she murmured. “How does that feel?”
Joyce ignored the flutter in her stomach and answered with a thumbs-up. “Would you mind curling it next week when the boys take us out for dinner?”
Karen’s brows furrowed. “When’s that?”
“Next Thursday. Mike and Will—maybe Jonathan too. They wanted to go out for lunch, but you had a hair appointment at one, so we moved it to around five.” Joyce watched her hopefully, waiting for the memory to resurface.
After a long pause, Karen nodded. “Thursday. Okay. What are we doing?”
“Dinner. I think Mike suggested Olive Garden. They’ve got salads, pasta…all kinds of things. We went there for our anniversary two years ago, remember?” Joyce hesitated before asking softly, “Do you want me to write it in your calendar?”
Karen nodded again and went back to the kitchen to retrieve the little pink calendar notebook she always kept propped up against the counter. If she left it anywhere else, she’d lose track of it. Returning to the table, she slid it in front of Joyce along with a red pen.
Joyce offered her a tired but understanding smile as she uncapped the pen and wrote down the date, the time, who would be there, and where they were meeting.
She knew she’d remind Karen again when the day finally came, but it still hurt, even if only a little, that Karen couldn’t remember making the plans in the first place.
── .✦
Slowly lowering herself onto the mattress, Joyce let out a long yawn. She pulled the covers over herself and settled in, adjusting the extra pillow behind her back until she felt supported. It was a small thing, but she’d learned that if she slept the wrong way, she’d wake up extremely stiff. She was too old to pretend she could push through it like she used to.
The bed was cozy, so that wasn’t the issue. They’d recently found a beautiful set of light sheets embroidered with lilies and wildflowers. Karen kept a little teddy bear in the middle of the bed, a brown one with a fluffy coat. There were matching bears in both spare rooms, something the grandkids—and even the older kids—always seemed to appreciate.
They’d gone back and forth over whether keeping so much extra space was wasteful, but one room also held Karen’s crochet supplies and Joyce’s sewing things. They filled the other with old belongings the kids no longer needed but were too sentimental to throw away.
Karen came in from the living room a few minutes later, already changed into her nightgown, her makeup washed off, and her hair brushed out. She set her book on the nightstand, some cheesy romance novel she’d picked up at Barnes & Noble.
She sat on the edge of Joyce’s side of the bed, taking off her earrings and placing them on the nightstand so Joyce could remind her to put them back on in the morning. Then she rested a hand over Joyce’s leg through the blanket.
“I had Holly do some research,” she said. “Apparently, drinking liquids before bed is bad for you. You’ll just have to get up to use the bathroom more. So no more tea before bed.”
Joyce raised an eyebrow.
“No nicotine, either.”
“Karen, I haven’t smoked in years.”
Karen shrugged. “Well, it’s still good advice, isn’t it?”
“Sure,” Joyce muttered. “What else?”
“Soft music is supposed to help. Journaling. Meditation. A nice massage…” Karen paused, trying to remember everything Holly had told her. “Keeping the room quiet and dark. I could find some better curtains if you think that would help.”
Joyce shook her head. “No. I think we’re doing everything right. It’s just a me problem.”
“Your problems become our problems, sweetheart.” Karen traced the creases in the comforter with her nails. “How about a warm bath?”
“How about not?”
Karen laughed softly, and Joyce patted the empty space beside her, waiting for her to climb in.
Once Karen was under the covers, Joyce adjusted the pillow behind her neck exactly the way she liked it. Karen always preferred sleeping on her side, facing her. Joyce tucked the blanket snugly around her shoulders, making sure she was comfortable before leaning back against her own pillow.
“Maybe I can help,” Karen whispered.
“Kisses don’t put me to sleep, baby.”
Karen ignored her and placed the gentlest kiss on Joyce’s forehead, then another on the bridge of her nose, her cheek, and finally her lips. Joyce tried to keep a straight face, but she couldn’t help smiling into the last kiss.
After a moment, Karen reached over and switched off the lamp. They lay quietly until their eyes adjusted to the darkness, then she cuddled close again.
“Wake me up if you need me, okay?”
“Okay,” Joyce murmured. “Love you.”
Karen smiled against her neck. “I love you more.”