Page 48 of Exquisite Things

He recites a poem as he approaches, unaware of the big bang that awaits him.

Our world is being re-created anew this morning.

I can feel the change like an explosion of particles.

“ For this was on Saint Valentine’s Day ,” Bram bellows like some Shakespearian actor.

“ When every bird cometh there to choose his mate. ” He enters holding a dozen red roses and a framed page of poetry.

He seems too elated to notice the glum looks on our faces.

“Oh, hello, everyone.” He raises the poem up. “It’s Chaucer. I thought it would be a nice gift because we live on Chaucer

Street. And his poem is said to be the first time Valentine’s Day was associated with love. They say he wrote it for King

Richard II and his bride—”

Maud rolls her eyes. “The royals strike again. They’re also to blame for the commercialization of love. What didn’t they fuck

up with their greed?”

Bram deflates. He finally takes us all in. Realizes we’re not floating atop the same cloud he’s floating on. We’re under a

different cloud. A black and stormy one. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, it’s not you,” Maud says. “I’m sorry I snapped. The poem is beautiful. The roses are gorgeous. You and Oliver make me

sick with how adorable you are. Living with you two is like eating too much candy. Makes you smile and make your stomach turn

all at once.”

Everyone laughs, no one louder than me and Bram. That’s the Maud we love. The one who teases us mercilessly and lovingly.

Bram hands me the flowers and the poem. “They’re for you. I had to do something for you this morning since we’re taking a

mysterious trip later.”

“You’re leaving?” Maud asks. “Today? After what’s happened?”

Bram looks to me, still unaware of all that’s transpired. Maud also looks to me, her eyes like steel. “I—I had planned something

special for—for me and Bram.”

“We all had other plans today,” Maud says. “And we’re all changing them.” She turns to the grown-ups. “Right?”

“I don’t know,” Lily says. “We need to think. To be careful. Strategic.”

“What we need is to be prompt ,” Maud argues. “We can’t wait for the moment to pass. We need to flood the streets while our hearts our pounding.” She looks

around. “Or is my heart the only one that feels like a hammer right now?”

“I’m with Maud,” Poppy says. “This is no time to sit back.”

“Me too,” Azalea says. “And there’s safety in numbers. The more of us out there, the harder it will be to stop us.”

Archie approaches Maud apprehensively. “I would love to join you in whatever you’re planning,” he says. “But if you’d rather

I not be there because... because...”

“Because you’re white and your mummy attends polo matches with Duchess Cuntlesby?”

“Maud!” Lily tries to sound stern, but she’s also laughing.

“My dear Maud,” Archie says with a smile. “Duchess Cuntlesby insists on always being referred to by her full name, which is

Her Disgrace, the Duchess of Cuntlesby. Words matter, you see.”

Maud manages a smile. “So do you, Archiekins. Of course we want you there. White faces. Brown faces.” Maud looks to Bram and

Blossom. I see Bram bite his lip, debating what to do. “We need the numbers. And maybe they’ll be less likely to arrest us

with some white faces in the mix.”

My fingers twitch when Maud mentions getting arrested.

Considering what this would mean for the first time.

Sure, I’ve run from cops here and there for minor offenses.

Busking. Sleeping outside. But what’s happening now feels different.

More dangerous. What Maud sees as protest, they see as inciting violence.

Fear possesses me so fully that I can barely stand upright. Bram puts an arm around me.

“Maud, Oliver planned a surprise for me,” Bram repeats quietly, sensing my weakness is about the trip. And it is. But it’s

about more now. It’s about the terror of what’s coming.

“What’s the surprise?” Maud asks aggressively.

I feel myself shrink into Bram’s body. His strength. I don’t know how I ever wrestled. I feel so powerless. “It’s not about

that,” I croak out.

Bram holds me close. “He can’t reveal the surprise, right? Then I won’t be surprised.”

“Maud, I-I’m sorry,” I stammer. “But I’m scared. For us. But mostly, for you. I don’t want you making a target out of yourself.

I—I want you here. With us. Safe.”

“Guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” Maud says sadly. “Just go.”

“Maud, let me discuss it with Oliver,” Bram says firmly. “Just give us some time.”

I turn to Lily desperately. “Lily, you must see my point.”

Lily nods. “Go on your trip, Oliver. You already asked me for permission. Come back tomorrow. It will be a new day.”

“But that’s exactly what I’m worried about,” I argue. “I don’t want a new day. I want yesterday back. When we were all happy.

Nothing has happened. Yet.”

Maud throws her hands up into the air. “And that is exactly the problem. Nothing said. Ever. It’s time we said it.”

“Lily, she’s your responsibility,” I implore. “Tell her it’s not safe for her to be out protesting. They’ll arrest her. Everything

will change.”

Lily sighs. Closes her eyes. When she opens them again, she’s a different Lily.

The warmth of her sunshine has been replaced by a cold edge.

She speaks with controlled precision, unwilling to let herself break.

“Children, I suppose it’s time I told you a piece of my boo-hoo backstory.

” A brief pause, a caesura in the concerto that is Lily Summers.

“I moved to London when I was twelve to live with my Uncle Alton.” I can see she’s haunting the past, as Mother used to say.

She speaks to us, but her spirit time travels.

“Uncle Alton was...” She laughs. “He was a tornado. He drank too much. Danced too hard. Loved too many. Worked just as hard as he played. For me. So he could buy me the sewing machine I begged for. If he ever managed to sleep with a posh girl, he’d steal her scarves and bring them home so I could make something out of them.

Never told me to go into the streets like the other—”

She stops herself. She’s journeyed back to a time we’ve never talked about. A time before she had introduced the world to

the Lily we know and love.

“He loved music. The music that reminded him of home. And the music that let him dream of America. Ray Charles. Chuck Berry.

Little Richard. But he never judged me if I cried in my room listening to Joan Baez. I would lie in bed at night, repeating

her song ‘Girl of Constant Sorrow,’ until he came home from whatever trouble he was causing and tucked me in bed with a prayer.

The other kids said I wasn’t Black enough, which was code for not being man enough. Uncle Alton never cared. He took care

of me. Just like he promised my parents he would.”

Another silence. Longer. Not a caesura. A fermata. A full stop as Lily prepares for the next movement.

“When I go to my Alcoholics Anonymous meeting on Sundays, I’m really going to visit him in prison.”

“Wait, what?” Maud asks softly. “Lily... I’m...”

“I do go to meetings on other days. But on Sundays, I give him back the love and the gifts and the devotion he gave me.”

“But... why was he arrested?” Bram asks.

“Why?” she asks. “For nothing . Three of them were arrested fleeing a house party. The police said the party was illegal. It was. But what were they supposed

to do when pubs wouldn’t serve them? They said Uncle Alton was selling drugs. He wasn’t. They piled one accusation after another

on him. He couldn’t afford no fancy barrister. The first time I visited him after he was put away for life—”

“For life ?” Maud echoes.

I look around at the grown-ups. Azalea, Poppy, Blossom, Archie. They all look unsurprised. They know all this already.

Maud paces across the sliver of free floor space in the kitchen. “How can you just accept that he’s in some cell— How can

you— How can you live without talking about him all the time—”

Lily puts her hands on Maud’s shoulders, stopping her from nervously wandering the area. “I don’t tell you about it because...”

She doesn’t finish so I say it for her. “Because it’s too painful,” I whisper. I’m thinking of Mother now. Of how warm and

wonderful she was. Of how rarely I bring her up to my new friends and family. “Because anything you might say would diminish

the magnitude of what he means to you.”

Lily’s gaze freezes on me. I know she’s wondering who I’m talking about. “Exactly,” she says. Her eyes burn with contemplation.

Like speaking about this aloud has helped her see it differently. “I do want to protect you children from the horrors of the

world. But maybe, well, maybe I also want to protect myself from living in that sadness and anger. If we live in sadness and

anger, they’ve won.”

Maud looks up at her. “So you’re saying we shouldn’t go out into the streets? Shouldn’t fight?”

“No, child, not at all. Protest isn’t giving in to sadness and anger. It’s rising up as a community. It’s connection and hope.

It’s exactly what we must do. But maybe... The truth is I don’t like thinking of myself as a victim. That’s why I don’t

talk about the things that hurt me most. Why I don’t like boo-hoo backstories.”

Hearing Lily open up like this, allowing her powerful facade to melt into vulnerability, shifts the energy in the room. It

fills me with a longing for the person who loved me into being. The woman I’ll never see again, no matter how long I’ll live.

Time only marches forward. I wish it could also bring me back. Just one more sonata played by her side. Just one more taste

of her cookies.

Lily hoists herself up onto the kitchen counter. Crosses her legs. “I want to tell you what he said to me that first time

I visited him.” Lily rubs her lips against each other, then she speaks in a different voice. Her uncle’s voice. “If dem arrest

me fi stealing fabric from posh girls fi you. Well, mi would hold mi head up high. Serve mi time proud. But dem yah charges

is lies. I’m... living a lie now. Look at me. You know wah dat means? Means you haff tah live true enough fi both of us,

child.”

“Live true enough for both of us,” Maud repeats, almost to herself. Then she sighs out, “Fuck me.”

Lily wipes a tear from her cheek. She’s not done.

“I don’t like wallowing. And I didn’t want to tell you kids about Alton because I want you to carry hope with you always.

Not sadness. Not regret. Not the realization that this world is full of people like him, sentenced for crimes they didn’t commit.

” Lily turns to Maud. “I’m telling you this now because you need to understand that what happened to him can happen to you.

If I’m protective of you, it’s because I’m scared of losing someone else to a jail cell.

But I won’t stop you from rising up either.

In fact, I’ll join you. Because that’s living true, isn’t it? ”

I don’t dare say what I’m thinking. Which is that living true shouldn’t mean taking such unnecessary risks. I know Maud will

end up just like Uncle Alton if she goes out there. She’s a butch Black lesbian. She’s everything they fear. I want to protect

her, and I also know that expressing that will feel like the opposite of love. It will come across like I want to control

her. Put her in another kind of prison.

Lily pulls some lipstick out of a kitchen drawer.

Azalea sees an opportunity for a mood change and takes it. “Girl, why do you keep lipstick next to your forks?”

Lily raises a shoulder coyly. “A lady must have lipstick handy everywhere.” With that, she puts the first piece of her face

on. Turns to me and Bram with glossy red lips. “You two go upstairs and get yourself ready for a beautiful Valentine’s Day.”

She hands me a vase. “Be sure to put those in water right away. Wouldn’t want them to die.”

As Bram and I head upstairs, that horrible word lingers in my mind. Die. Death. It will happen to them. Inevitably. Maud,

Lily, Archie, Azalea, all of them. These people I now love. Just as I loved Mother and Brendan, and they’re gone.

I feel, for the first time since following Bram into his new life, a sincere and painful pang of regret. I shouldn’t have

allowed myself to welcome all this love. It will only end, like all the most beautiful concertos, in the melancholy silence

that longs to recapture the beauty that’s passed forever.