“That’s right.” Maud nods. “The first time I came to the house, I was a lost person. I called the helpline first. A lot of you know the story by now. I spoke to Bram before I met Lily.”
There’s a hush when Bram’s name is spoken aloud. People whisper to each other.
“I’m sure wherever he is, Bram is thinking of Lily. Oliver too.” Maud pulls her wife closer. The supportive look on her wife’s face fills me with agony. Maud did it. She found love that lasts. A true partner. Happiness, I hope.
“We shouldn’t be here,” I say to Bram. “If they see us—”
“They would be thrilled to see us,” he says. “Didn’t you see Maud’s face when she spoke of us? She doesn’t hold a grudge.”
“If they see us, Lily’s memorial will become all about us. The ageless wonders. We can’t do that to her. Today is about her, remember?”
“Right.” He takes my hand, just as Maud took her wife’s hand. I know comparison is the enemy of peace. Lily said that once. Still, I can’t accept how much easier their touch felt. Maud and her wife touch each other in a way that feels natural, automatic. Ours is forced.
“Lily left the home after Bram and Oliver left. Too manyghosts, she said. Lily didn’t like living among ghosts. You know how she was. Always changing. Curious. Maybe those boys did the right thing, she told me. Children are meant to fly away. She told me to fly away and I did. But never too far. She walked me down the aisle, didn’t she?” Maud kisses her wife’s cheek. “She didn’t move far, of course. Found a house just a few roads down. Kept taking in children. Kept telling them to fly away when they were ready. And eventually, she took in her last child. Her own Uncle Alton. That man spent four decades in prison for a bogus charge before he was finally exonerated. All those years Lily missed with him.”
“And we’re still dealing with racist cops,” Azalea calls out, bringing back the energy of the old uprisings.
Poppy chimes in. “They’re exonerating the old cases but arresting new boys. It’s youth they want to take from us. They’ll let us be free when we’re too old and tired to take what’s ours.”
Now Archie steps forward. “Look at Turing’s Law. Passed only eight years ago. Not until 2017 did our government think to overturn the convictions of gay men arrested for doing nothing but being brave.”
“We’re still fighting the same fights,” Maud says. “Black Lives Matter. Police brutality.”
“Anti-trans bullshit,” a young Black boy calls out as he scratches his beard.
“Who’s that?” I ask Bram.
“His name’s Tobi. I’ve never met him. Probably one of Lily’s last children.”
“He’s so young. He looks like he’s our age.” Bram shoots me a curious look. “You know what I mean,” I say.
Tobi keeps going. “The prime minister wants to remove legalprotections for trans people in the Equality Act. Families are leaving the country because their children are being bullied. She-who-must-not-be-named has devoted her magical powers to attacking us. Hate crimes against us are at a record high.” Tobi’s voice thumps with righteous rage. The fury of youth. “I’m just so filled with... with...” I think he’s going to say anger, rage, frustration, but what he says is, “Hopelessness. Lily’s gone and hope is too.” Tobi buries his head in his hands and breaks down crying.
Maud rushes to Tobi’s side and puts an arm around him. “Hey, it’s an emotional day. Let it out.”
Tobi cries on Maud’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know this is meant to be a celebration of life.”
“In all its beauty and brutality,” Maud says. “Celebrating life means acknowledging all of it. Not just the pretty parts.”
“I know Lily didn’t want no boo-hoo backstories,” Tobi blubbers.
Maud lifts Tobi’s chin up. “Hey, this isn’t a boo-hoo backstory. This is grief. For the mother we lost and for the joy they want to take from us. This isyourstory.Yourtime. You’re how old now?”
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen.” Maud exhales the word luxuriously, elongating the last syllable. “Your life is ahead of you.”
Tobi wipes the tears off his face. His jaw hardens into defiance again. “She gave everything she could to this country and look at it now. Moving backward instead of forward. I’m scared of what’s ahead.”
“I know you are. I am too. But the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice.”
“Too slowly,” Tobi says.
Archie awkwardly inserts himself into the moment. “It’s true there are challenges still. But these times are the best we’ve ever had. Poverty is in free fall. More humans have access to food and education and clean water than ever. Children used to die of scarlet fever. Our community used to die of AIDS.”
“Still do, last I checked,” Tobi says.
“Because of ignorance and greed,” Archie replies.
