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I go into the kitchen and pour myself some red wine. The tang of tannins numbs my tongue as I carry the glass up the back stairs to my bedroom. I take down a bankers box from the shelf in my closet and bring it over to the bed. Lifting the lid, I’m confronted first with greeting cards from David I didn’t have the heart to throw out. His choices were always cheeky: naughty Santas for Christmas or saccharine bouquets for my birthday. I open the card he gave me on Valentine’s Day. It’s a ridiculous glittered confection of leprechauns and rainbows that proclaims I’m David’s pot o’ gold. I remember being embarrassed to read it at Nobu. Now I prop it on my nightstand, a reclaimed treasure.

Below the cards is a fat rubber-banded folder labeled Mom’s Missing. The brittle rubber snaps when I stretch it off. Inside, there’s the proposal I presented to my editor, the synopsis and sample chapter I wrote, the contract I signed. I sift through printed-out emails from the publisher that chart the course of my failed project, from congratulatory to inquiring, prodding to chiding, and finally, frustrated cancellation. Beneath all this detritus, I find what I’m looking for: a sealed manila envelope the size of a pad of paper.

Seeing the address of the apartment David and I shared is reason enough to shut this folder and box it back up again. It’s the return address, though, of a police station in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that makes this piece of mail radioactive. I rip open the envelope anyway, knowing my own story will be one-sided until I read what’s inside.

Chapter 40

June 26, 2015

Schuywich, New York

My darling Evelyn,

Do you remember the news breaking this morning? “Evelyn!” I cried, turning up the volume on the radio. “It’s the decision!”

We were in the dining room, matting some prints you’d cut out of an old Audubon book. “What decision?”

“The Supreme Court. Listen!”

Together, we heard Nina Totenberg read from Justice Kennedy’s opinion that the right to marry could no longer be denied to same-sex couples. We started weeping as our country decided, for the first time in history, that we, too, deserved equality under the law.

“We can get married?” you asked.

“Yes, baby,” I laughed, “in any state in the whole damn country.”

We’d discussed, back in 2009, driving over to Vermont for a marriage certificate. We already had our trust, though, and it wasn’t clear what a wedding that wasn’t recognized in our home state would mean for us. Two years later, when New York passed its Marriage Equality Act, we talked about applying for a license at the county courthouse, but we were already receiving our retirement benefits and marriage in New York wouldn’t have given either of us a survivor’s claim. This, though—this decision said that the way we felt about each other mattered as much as the love between husband and wife, that we deserved the same recognition and respect as every other American.

“We can get married?” you asked again.

“Hush, now, let me listen.”

We sat still for ten whole minutes while the news washed over us. Finally, I turned to you, my eyes shining. “Can you believe it, Evelyn? Did you ever think we’d live to see this day?”

You began to slide out of your chair. I worried you were falling. I grabbed your arm to catch you, but you kept on sinking until you were on your knees.

“I love you, Hazel McIntyre. Will you marry me?”

You looked at me with eyes as clear and present as I’d ever seen them. Beneath the slack, creased skin of your face I saw the same breathtaking woman I’d first glimpsed striding along the shore of Panther Lake. A lifetime of days had unfolded between us since then, some glorious, others grievous, most simply ours, together. We built a world of our own in this old house, lived the lives we chose on these upstate acres. Today, the nation in which we were born opened its arms to our love.

“Yes, of course, I’ll marry you, baby.”

“There should be a ring.” You sounded upset. “Why didn’t I get you a ring?”

“There’s that cute jewelry store in Saratoga Springs, remember?” I ran my fingers through your thinning hair. “Let’s drive down there this afternoon and pick out rings together.”

“Any ring you want, baby.”

You kissed me with the same passion as when your lips first found mine in that cabin in Maine. It had been years since I felt that jolt of electricity shoot through me, but there it was, as sharp and bright as it was the night I curled up beside you on my mother’s sofa.

“We should celebrate!” you said. “Oh, I know.”

You rummaged through your album collection, slid one from its sleeve, and dropped it on the turntable. The jazzy trumpet of Miles Davis bounced off the walls of our dining room. You held out your hand, your entire being luminous with joy, and said, “Dance with me, Hazel.”

I did, my memories sailing back to a night when we were young women dancing with abandon. We may have only danced like this once before, but we’d improvised every moment of the beautiful life we built together.

The song faded out. Before the next track started, I said, “Wait here, baby, I’ll be right back.”

Breathless and laughing, I skipped into the kitchen to search for a bottle of champagne that had been gathering dust in the pantry for who knows how long. It took me a moment to find the ice bucket and locate two stemmed glasses. The cork had to be popped, the bucket filled, the glasses washed and dried. Five minutes may have passed before I came back into the dining room.