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“I worry about it, yeah. I always worry about something happening to you, though. I know we’re only about to be thirty, but anything could happen. And if you get sick, I can’t even be in the hospital room with you because, to everyone else, I’m just your best friend.”

“I know. I hate that, too.”

“I was thinking that maybe if… Never mind.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to think about it.” Diana shook her head.

“Diana, it’s okay. We have to be able to talk about thisstuff. We have a son. He’s getting older, yes, but he’s a long way from being out of the house, so he needs us.”

“I know. I just… I don’t like talking about something happening to you. When I saw Bess die, it about killed me. Elizabeth had to stand behind Bess’s husband. She couldn’t even hold her hand because Bess’s mom had the other one, and it…”

“My love, it’s all right. You know we’ll always find each other.”

“Yes. But if something happens to you, what happens to me? And vice versa? If I died tomorrow–”

“Don’t say that.”

“Fine. If I die when I’m eighty, and you’re perfectly healthy and years from death, do I just float around somewhere and wait for you?”

“I don’t know, my love.” Cheryl cupped her wife’s cheek. “There’s just so much we don’t understand about all of this. I do know that when we both die one day – hopefully, very far off in the future – when it happens, we’ll be reunited, just like we were when Harriet and Deb died.”

“Yes, buttheydiedtogether,”Diana argued. “When Bess died, what happened to her after? You saw Elizabeth pass away from a broken heart more than a year later, so we know they didn’t die together. Did Bess just go somewhere and wait? When Antoinette died so young in 1920, where did she go until Dorothy joined her in 1922?”

“I don’t know,” Cheryl said honestly. “I’m not sure we’ll know anything until we die ourselves. And maybe we’ll never know, or it just feels like an instant. One minute, we’re here. The next, we’rewaking upin someone else or being born as them and discovering our past lives.”

“Maybe,” Diana replied. “But I wanted to know what I should do if something happens to you.”

“What’s bringing this on now, Diana?” Cheryl sat up in bed and looked down at her. “Oh, I understand now. My mom.”

“She’s sick, and they say they can’t do anything.”

“She had the surgery,” Cheryl said. “There’s a chance with that.”

“Yes, a twenty-five-percent chance. I hope she makes it through this, I really do, but it’s got me worried about what might happen if I lose you. I could lose youandSimon.”

Cheryl nodded and replied, “I think we have to do it, then, my love.”

“We said we wouldn’t.”

“If we marry them, it’s legal. They only let us adopt him as an unmarried couple because Lily gave Simon to us. If I marry George and you marry Henry, if something happens to me, George will give up his parental rights and let you and Henry adopt Simon legally. I asked that lawyer I trust at the paper. He said it would all be on the up and up. No one would take Simon from you. And you’d be protected with Henry as your husband as well. It just makes sense.”

“I’myourwife,” Diana said, shifting until she was out of bed and standing.

“Of course, you are. This wouldn’t change any of that. We’d have a piece of paper from the city that says we’re married to them, yes, but they’d go to their home down the street from ours, and we’d go home to our son. This works, Diana. Our friendship with the boys works. They’re willing. They have more to worry about than we do, and they’ve asked before.”

“I know. But I married you in front of our friends, and I made vows to you, Cheryl. I’d have to make vows to Henry. I don’t know if I can.”

Cheryl got out of bed and walked around to her wife, pulling her into her naked body with arms wrapped around her waist.

“I don’t like it,” Diana added. “I hate it, actually. I want to be able to walk down the street holding your hand, kiss you in the park, or hold you from behind while we stare out at the pond by the house.”

“I want that, too,” Cheryl said. “And I truly believe that one day, there’s gonna be a version of us that will get that.But for right now, this is the best option for us. It protects George and Henry as well. Besides, you don’t have to look at Henry when you make those vows. I can stand on his side of the aisle, and you can look atme. Make vows to me again. Then, we’ll go home, put our son to bed after dinner, and we’ll make love like we were the ones that got married again.”

“You really want to do this?”

“No, of course not. We’ve been putting it off because neither of us wants to marry a man, even if only on paper, but you’re right: my mom is sick, and she might not make it. She’s not exactly old, and it could happen to me one day, or something else could happen. I don’t want to risk it. We’re lucky, Diana: we have George and Henry in our lives. And they love Simon. I know they’d take care of him if something happened to both of us. But if it’s just me, and my name is on the adoption papers… Simon would go to George as his father. I know he’ll give up his rights for you to have him, but this just makes it all easier, doesn’t it?”