In the morning, a solicitor called in before I had even pulled myself out of bed to inform Mrs. Lewis that her marriage licence and the Reverend had been found together in a shady pub by the docks, but that it was binding and had been registered appropriately. Mrs. Lewis therefore had been declared legally a widow, and the official inheritor of Judge Lewis's estate. She was also informed that the police also declared his death an untimely and tragic accident, and whether this was because of a little leaning-on from the Navy, it wasn't my place to say - only to agree to hand over whatever documents were requested of me to throw the horrible situation one of their Captains had been forced into to light, and to help support his exoneration.
"That was quick," I remarked to the solicitor as I was still tucking my bed-head under an appropriately black widow's cap in the front drawing room. I was wearing an oversized housecoat over the nightgown I had hastily slipped on when Susan knocked on the door to inform me that I had a visitor.
The solicitor grinned at me. Huh. It seems that Mr. Lewis hadn't only been a bully in his own home. He told me to expect to have a sheaf of papers to sign by the end of week, and then the whole sorry business would be put to bed and I would have access to the accounts.
The morning paper, which I was reading over a cup of tea and a light breakfast, when Margaret came downstairs a few hours later, reported the tragedy kindly. They said that the new Mrs. Jessica Lewis was, of course, the same Jessica Franklin who had jilted him at the altar several months prior, but that he had won her over in the end and they had married in secret the night before to prevent the spread of more gossip.
Sadly, her husband was the victim of a housebreaker, according to the reports of the servants to the Bow Street Runners. The household was exonerated of any wrongdoing, and the Ton asked that the new widow Lewis was left in privacy to mourn, until such a time that she was ready to re-enter society.
Of course, unknown to the Ton, Mrs. Lewis was never going to apply join Almack's or host balls. My plan was to liquefy the assets of my late husband, except for my share in the publishing company, and to sell the ridiculous house. Regency stories were always filled with people who had a Town House and a Country House, and while that seemed like a fine idea, I really didn't need anything so grand, gaudy, and frankly, ghoulish. I refused to live in the house where all the wives before me had been killed.
And of course, those servants who wanted to find work elsewhere would be paid a severance that was shockingly handsome. And, by some sort of freaking miracle, though the gossip column reported that Miss Franklin had first come to London with a different gentleman before Mr. Lewis' love and her own good sense had won her back to him, said young gentleman had, thus far, remained unnamed.
Hopefully the event would fall out of the news immediately after I did all of this. All in all, the less said by everyone involved the better, of course, and especially for Thomas. He deserved a chance at meeting someone who was worthy of his admiration.
After I'd had a quick wash and Susan had done me up in my black again, my ex-fiance, his brother and sister-in-law, and the little wee Cooper arrived. They were shown into the drawing room, too, and I took a few minutes to let them settle and to psyche myself up for the conversation to come.
I needn't have worried so much. They'd all read the paper that morning, and Thomas was, surprisingly, a good loser.
"I'm not entirely sure I believe the story as it was laid out, whole-cloth," he said to me privately as the rest of his family partook of the tea that Susan had laid out, and to which they dutifully applied themselves to give us said privacy. "You were genuinely frightened when you sent me for the Runners."
"It's complicated," I admitted. "But it's over now."
"There has always been somebody you loved," he said softly. "Somebody who meant more to you than me. I thought you might have turned yourself to me after--" he stopped and raised his palms to the sky. "But you went with him."
I decided he deserved the truth "He blackmailed me, Thomas. I didn't want him to hurt you."
He looked up at me, fair eyebrows raised in shock. "You did it to protect me?"
"Among others." I nodded.
He looked down at his callused hands again. "And yet, you still have not said you love me. You have not even looked me in the eye when we are... alone." Thomas hesitated, then leaned in to kiss my cheek gently. "I don't suppose you fancy having a baker for your second husband, then?" He asked as he straightened, aiming for a gentle humor that he didn't quite hit the mark on.
"I don't intend on having a second husband," I told him, but as kindly as I could manage.
He quirked a sad smile. "I always had the feeling you were more attracted to my stability than me. I had hoped that you would have grown to love me."
"I'm sure I would have," I agreed gently, taking one of his hands in mine. "But now the point is moot."
"What is your secret, Jessica? I cannot fathom you." He studied my face. "It is vexing to no end that no matter what I do for you, or say to you, you are always somewhere that I cannot access. I cannot reach you. There is just so much to you," he whispered, voice crackling and clearly frustrated with himself. "So much that I do not understand. You have a secret and I cannot comprehend it. You will not share and I know that , because you do not, I do not have all of you. I will never have all of you."
"Hey now," I said, attempting lightness and mostly failing, betrayed by a matching crackle in my own voice, "I already told you. I used to be a pirate."
He looked up and grinned, but it was watery and wobbly and sad. "And think of it this way - now you have the chance to meet someone who will really love you, for you."
"Suppose so," he said glumly.
I looked down at my hands, wound the fingers together with his while I searched for my words. "I'm a selfish, selfish person, Thomas," I said. "I'm not nice, I think. You deserve someone nice."
"So do you."
"I have someone," I assured him. "And I'll visit when I'm next in Bath, I promise. Have some tea and scones at the new little cafe in that courtyard next to your father's bakery you were dreaming about."
Thomas huffed a laugh. "And how do you suppose I'll afford that?"
I pulled a roll of banknotes out of my reticule and pressed them into his palm.
He gawped at the sheer number of them. "Jessica, you can't buy my cooperation in this. I understand--"
"I know," I said. "This isn't me buying you off. This is a thank you for your friendship when I needed a friend most." I added a second roll to the first. "And this is to thank your brother and his family for their hospitality."
Thomas bit his lip, but nodded and closed his fingers around the money. I returned the kiss on his cheek, made my thanks to to in-laws, cuddled the baby a bit, and sent the Coopers back out into the world. It was funny - now that I was here, I knew that Margaret Goodenough had named the nasty Cooper in The Welshman's Daughters after him, and that his name would for the rest of literary history stand in the company of the Wickhams and Willoughbys, Lintons and Malfoys, Senator Palpatines, and Viktoria's, and Prince Einons. It seemed a bit crap, but then, who except Margaret and I would know where the name came from?
After they'd left, Margaret and I began the grim slog of sorting through the piles of letters and calling cards that had arrived that morning, accepting the flowers sent our way, and reviewing the household accounts. All of the servants save Mr. Daniels, Susan, and one of the kitchen maids chose to leave, and I didn't blame them. I handed out cash bonuses from the hoarded bill rolls I found in Mr. Lewis' desk after I jimmied open the lock with the letter opener.
And when night fell, Margaret and I joined Francis, Elizabeth, and Rose at their inn for a quiet, somber dinner served in one of the snug little private dining rooms. While the meal was laid on the table, we were all silent, merely watching one another through eyes tight, or red-rimmed, or padded-under with dark bags.
"Well," Francis at last, when the serving staff has withdrawn. He picked up the wine bottle and began to pour out healthy measures for each of us. I expected him to go on, but instead he looked to Elizabeth and heaved a shaky sigh.
"Thank you, Jessica," Elizabeth said, reaching out and laying her hand on Francis'. In the glint of the candlelight, her wedding band winked gold. Right, yes, Elizabeth and Francis were married now. Of course. Their lives obviously didn't stop just because I vanished from them.
"For?" I asked. Not to be obtuse or fish for compliments, but because I wasn't sure what was known by whom around the table.
"Exonerating Francis," Elizabeth said. "And for helping him settle his debts and escape Lewis when he had... had..."
"I rather threw you to the wolf," Francis said, staring down at his lap, shamed.
"But you pulled me back out of his jaws when it mattered," I pointed out. "So I forgive you."
Francis cleared his throat awkwardly, shook his shoulders to settle them, and smiled ruefully. "I am happy to see you well, and returned to us... Mrs. Lewis," he offered.
"I am happy to be and returned, Captain Goodenough," I replied, smiling gently. "And thank you - I don't think I ever actually said it, you know. For pulling me out of the water."
"You were drowning. I could not allow it," Francis said, startled.
"But you still feel guilty all the same. For making me the lone survivor."
He nodded, jerky, once.
I sighed and scrubbed at my eyes, not daring to meet those of anyone around the table as I made my confession. "I feel guilty, too," I confessed. "For being the last one left, when, I'm sure, there were far worthier people than me on that vessel. But," I said sharply, as they all tried to interrupt, to reassure me. "I am also stubbornly selfish and I'm glad to be alive, so don't you ever question it."
"Yes. Yes, of course, Mrs. Lewis. Only... only I wonder..." he licked his lips and trailed off and slumped back into his chair, defeated by his own nerves and the dictates of polite society.
"Where I really come from?" I asked. Everyone looked at me askance.
"I'll tell you one day," I promised. "Just not yet."
"Then you are a mermaid!" Elizabeth laughed, triumphant and doing her best to lighten the mood of our little party."
Beside Francis, Rose hiccuped a little sob and turned her head away, pressing her palm to her mouth. Margaret was between me and Rose, so I shot her a questioning look.
"Francis has told her all," Margaret said, reaching around to rub her sister's back soothingly.
"Jessica--"
"I forgive you too," I said quickly, so I wouldn't have to listen to Roses' bumbling babbling, feeling squirmingly uncomfortable. "For the Lewis thing, I mean. You were mad, you protecting Margaret, I get it. I mean, it was a shitty shitty thing to do and you need to reevaluate your morals, but I understand why."
Rose sniffled into her hand, but also nodded. Jeeze, I felt like I was at some sort of Goodenough Intervention. She fiddled with her wine glass, took a deep breath, and said. "Margaret was very unhappy without you."
"Hm. I wonder whose fault that is," I couldn't help but snipe back, and instantly regretted, wishing the words back as Margaret stiffened beside me. Getting her up on the defensive was the last thing I wanted right now.
But Rose said nothing, but nodded, accepting the blame that I was placing before her. She nodded once, firmly, as if making up her mind to something, and went on: "She stopped writing. I don't think ever I saw her pick up a quill, except to write letters. Letters to you."
"Rose!" Margaret said, flushing with mortification.
I tried not to react to that, but felt my eyes widen. Margaret hadn't written a line since I'd left? Jesus; had I just destroyed the historical timeline? Were her books now overdue? Were they going to get published, or written, at all?
"You shouldn't have stopped," I said to her. "Honestly, Margaret--"
"I was miserable, love," Margaret said softly. "I can never create when I am miserable."
"I..." Rose swallowed hard and sat up straighter. "I wanted to protect her."
"I know."
"It was for her sake and hers alone I acted."
"I understand," I said, and I did.
"But I did not realize that I would be courting the gravest kind of danger. For you, for Margaret..." she trailed off and ducked her head, contrite and in agony, tears rolling down her cheeks. "For Margaret's book!" I said, when she had finally let me go to mop up her own face. But she still looked strained. "Now, I fear, though, I must speak about Mr. Lewis--" she began, face clouded with guilt.
"He got nothing more than what he deserved," I said, solemnly. "But let's keep that between us, okay guys?"
She looked up. "Mrs. Lewis, I do not understand you. You speak so strangely, your morals differ so greatly. Who are you?"
I smiled. "I'm the woman who loves your sister."
Rose nodded, and replied, softly. "You make her happy."
"She makes me happy, too."
Rose nodded again, sitting up straight now, calm, firming her resolve. "I want her to remain happy, Mrs. Lewis. By... by any means necessary."
"You don't have to make me sound like a terrorist," I said, and I couldn't help my smirk at her choked off surprised gust of laughter.
"That's settled then," Rose said, nodding again. I had her permission and her apologies. But there was something else I wanted, too, so I reached out and took her hand again.
"Miss Rose," I said, hazarding her first name. "I want there to be no tension between us. I love your sister. I'd like to love you like a sister. And you two - like a brother and sister-in-law, too."
"I... will endeavor to do my best," Rose said. "To behave as a sister, and friend, ought."
"Thank you. And," I added, with a glance at Margaret to see if she was thinking what I was thinking. She was, and dipped her chin once to give her consent. I lifted my good left hand and laid it over her right one, a mirror to Elizabeth and Francis across the dinner table. "You better get used to this, because I'm not going anywhere. Not ever again."
Rose looked a little startled by the clear announcement, if not surprised by the news. Elizabeth was beaming delightedly , and Francis looked a bit confused, if not opposed.
"Then it's true?" Francis said, looking between the two of us. "You really are..." I shot him a warning look. "That is, you do love my sister?"
"With all my heart," I said.
"And I Jessie," Margaret said firmly. "We would marry, if we could. But as we cannot, we will at least live together."
I told them the plan to sell Lewis' house, find something smaller for the city, and perhaps something rambly and cute for the country. The rest of the evening passed in planning, and slowly, slowly, it grew to celebration and laughter.
And I spent the whole of it holding Margaret's hand.
* * *
Three months later, a woman named Mrs. Jessica Lewis entered the town of Cheltenham in the company of her companion and very good friend Margaret Goodenough, and no one cared to comment about the change in her marital status and surname because no one knew any different. She was husbandless and melded into the faceless masses of the urban center, never to be seen again, and that was all right by me.
I wasn't that person.
Margaret had only packed up what few things could truly be called mine from the Lewis house – gowns, the same ID cards, some toiletries, and the whole of the library to take with us.
Rose and Mrs. Goodenough were now ensconced in Southampton, but Francis and Elizabeth had chosen to prolong their stay in London a little longer, presumably to give them a chance to settle in to the house. As I'd sold Mr. Lewis's disgustingly large mansion (mostly as-is, furniture, paintings of wretched ancestors and all), Francis and Elizabeth were taking advantage of my newly acquired little town house in a mostly respectable part of town where two old maids could visit the amusements of the capital without having to be in the crush of it all, or have to put up with being in the eye of the ton. I'd given Elizabeth a budget to furnish it for the family's use - including some rooms set aside for a nursery, in case any wee Goodenoughs wanted to come visit their aunties Jess and Megs for the season.
"I'm an idiot," I said as the carriage left London's city limits. The other southbound passengers on the spacious, fare more comfortable carriage than the last one I had traveled a distance in either ignored me, or quirked smiles behind fans or books or newspapers and said nothing. "Why did we stay in London so long? The air out here doesn't smell."
"Of much more than the barnyard," Margaret teased. Margaret shot me a fond, long suffering look, and rested her hand discreetly on the top of my thigh. The touch burned through her gloves, my dress and petticoats, and shot straight to my groin. I tried very hard not to groan, and instead sucked in a breath and grinned wickedly.
After two more nights in inns (god, I was sick to death of carriages and inns) where Margaret and I yearned for private rooms and had to share in the ladies' dormitories, which put a bit of a moratorium on the sort of fumbling in the dark both of us were desperate to rediscover, we arrived at our little house: two floors, six upstairs bedrooms, one room for entertaining, one for meals, one for an office-library, and a second generous little cottage for the serving staff to have their own privacy.
Susan and Mr. Daniels had come ahead of us to supervise the cleaning and furnishing of the house. They'd beought along with Ms. Lawrence, who was delighted to move from a kitchen-maid in Mr. Lewis' oppressive house to head cook with two strange, joyful women.
Despite my dream of a ramshackle little cottage on an English cliff overlooking the sea, the house we'd settled on was grander than the cramped Bath one, and was situated nicely in the middle of a sweet little garden that I actually found myself yearning to walk through.
Margaret and I each went up to our own bedrooms (joined by a door between them, but separate because as much as I loved my wife, I knew we would both need space - we both had stubborn tempers) to change and wash off the road-dirt. My room had been all laid out and supplied with those things I had sent ahead – the glass bottles, a sheaf of notes, some letters, a little of the least ostentatious jewelry I had inherited, my hair things. I threw back the curtains and opened the windows to let in all crisp early-autumn fresh air and sunshine in.
The furniture, which had come with the house, was sturdy and in good repair. The surfaces were freshly dusted, the linens clean and smooth. I washed and changed my dress, and soon enough there was a little tap at the door between our rooms. Margaret didn't even wait for confirmation that it was unlocked, just walked through and closed it behind her. I turned back to the view at the window, tried to enjoy the sight of the woods, the kitchen garden, a wild tangle of neglected roses and flowers around a garden bench. But.
Margaret was there, standing beside me, hair loose and blowing gently around her shoulders, her chin high and every line of her body relaxed, content. I reached out, and hooked my pinkie finger around hers.
"Happy?" I asked. "Do you like the house? The town?"
"You make me happy," Margaret said. "And, what's the word you like to employ? Fuck the rest of it. Yes, it is delightful. But it's only delightful because you are standing here beside me."
"That... that's way, way hotter than it should be," I said, feeling my eyes go wide, my breathing speed up. I crashed up against Margaret, herding her against the door to make sure it was closed and locked before grabbing her by the shoulders and aiming us both in the vicinity of the bed.
"Say it again," I said into her mouth.
She fell backwards on the bed, pulling me and twisting at the same time to get on top. She straddled my thighs and ran her hands down my sides, dipped at the waist, reversed direction and skimmed them up to grasp my breasts.
She leaned down, that horribly wonderful little devil smile stuck at the side of her mouth curling up. "Fuck," she whispered into my ear, her breath warm and sweet and shiver-inducing. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
"Ung," I said. "That's so hot."
I reached up and pulled her down and we were very, very late for afternoon tea.
* * *
"You hurt me," Margaret said, panting into the darkness of our new bedroom long after everyone else in the house had gone to bed.
The candles had burnt down, and the fire Susan had built had settled into glowing red embers in the grate. I turned over, tucked my shoulder under the pillow, and waited for her to say more. She kept her eyes on the shadows on the ceiling, hesitating.
"Why are you bringing this up now?" I prompted.
"Because I do not wish the first night of the rest of our lives here to be filled with my regrets. Let it be said, finally, and let me put it behind me forever. Indulge me, my love?"
"Sure," I said, pulling her tight against my side. "Shoot.
"I grieved powerfully," she admitted. "In those weeks, I did not even dress. I was ... distraught." She frowned, struggling for a potent enough word. At first I blamed myself; I had said the wrong things, I had been too quick to accept the judgement of my sister when she had no bearing on my future happiness. I was angry at you, for your hurtful words and your cowardice in fleeing."
I opened my mouth to defend myself, but she put a hand over it, turned her head to look me in the eye, peering through the nest of our combined hair.
"No, please, just listen," she said. I nodded and she went on: "But then I understood. You left because you wanted me to be safe and content, and you knew that I could not be happy living in such an ... unnatural way. With so many secrets. You left because I had spoken sharply and unfairly with you, yes, but mostly because I had been thoughtless and unkind, and you wanted for me what I thought I wanted for myself, despite the pain it must have caused you. Upon further reflection, however," she added reluctantly, screwing her eyes closed to pull up her courage, "I see that the only thing that could feasibly make me happy is you, here, as my truest friend, my confidante, my editor and my sounding board, my lover." Margaret went very still beside me. A small, carefully suppressed sob escaped her lips, and felt something hot and wet against my neck.
"Oh, Margaret," I said, reaching up to wrap my arms around her shoulders and rock her. "I know. I know all of this. I love you. I love you, and I'm here."
Margaret sniffled, and tried to cling to me when I reached down, tugging something I'd hidden under the bed earlier up onto the mattress beside us. It was a single, slim package wrapped in brown paper and tied off with twine.
"Here," I said, pressing it into Margaret's hand. "I got you a housewarming gift."
"Oh, Jessie," Margaret said, sitting up. "What is it?"
"Just open it," I urged gently, but firmly. "Trust me. You'll like this."
Glaring at me playfully, Margaret sat up and plucked at the string. She pushed the brown paper away, revealing a rich emerald green leather cover, embossed with a gilt frame of decorative vines and flowers, the book designer had told me, native to Wales.
"Jessie," Margaret said slowly, eyebrows climbing upwards in her disbelief and slowly dawning comprehension. "What... what is...?" Her words dried up and her eyes widened in awe when she turned the little book on it's side to read the gold lettering on the spine.
"Oh!" Margaret breathed, and then suddenly she was trembling, face hidden in her hands and the book laying on her lap, "Oh Jessie!"
I snugged up against my lover, wrapped an arm around her waist and rested my chin against her shoulder. Her hair, spilled out of her neat curls from our enthusiasm earlier, tickled and brushed against my cheek when I pressed my lips right against the shell of her ear and whispered:
"Congratulations, honey. You're holding, in your hands, the very first book of the run to come off the press."
Margaret picked up the book and very carefully, very reverently, placed it on the nightstand. And then she threw herself on me, bodily, and made it very, very clear how overwhelmingly pleased with my little surprise she was.
* * *
And that, more or less, was that. Margaret's book made a modest splash, but no big fanfare. We spent our days much as we used to in Bath - writing and editing in the morning, going into the little town and running errands, going to shops, meeting with our growing circle of casual friends, visiting the amusements, or just walking.
Margaret somehow became custodian of a small kitten that had a surprisingly-on pitch yowl. We named her Beyonce, just for the fun of the in-joke.
A brown mood would come over me occasionally, worsened by nightmares and waking in the dark of the night. It would inevitably wake Margaret and she would bring me back to bed, kind and soothing and sweet. Walking among the flowers relaxed me further, and more and more my time in London faded like misty memories, lost in the burning dawn of Margaret's smile.
And as Margaret began work on what I knew was going to be her bestselling sophomore book, I took up my own bit of pencil and, wobbly, wrong-handed, and slow, began to record my own story.
"Are you trying to compete with me?" Margaret asked from her writing slope by the window, overlooking the side garden, teasing. I was on the sofa we'd had put in the library, a small journal balanced on my knees as I scratched out one shaking letter at a time. "Will you write something to best my work?"
"Never," I said, standing to press a reassuring kiss to Margaret's temple. She had been teasing, yes, but there had also been a shaking thread of real concern in the question. Despite the good reviews, Margaret was still very unsure of her book's reception and her own talent. She hadn't seen any royalty payment yet, it was too soon, but I knew that it would be enough to secure the truth in her that she really was a published author and a literary triumph both.
"Then will you not tell me what you are writing?" she asked.
"When it's done, you can read it." I craned my head to look at her own papers, which she had covered with a blank sheet when I had gotten up. "What, you won't let me see either?"
"It is only fair," she teased, and remembering my promise to Rose to remain discreet, I pulled the curtains closed before I kissed the curling grin out of the corner of Margaret's mouth.
It didn't take me long to write my tale - I was very familiar with the characters, after all, and knew the plot intimately. Three days later I laid the journal in Margaret's hands and said, "Le me know when you're finished reading it."
Then I went to my room and rearranged the furniture by the fireplace so I could stare directly into the flames. I stirred up the embers, adding some firewood and blowing until there was a roaring blaze. It made my skin prickle, and I smiled. It was nice to be warm, dry, on solid land. I'd spent so much of the last 78 hours remember the plane crash, the ship, and the life that that I'd led up to that moment.
I went to the drawer of my dresser and pulled out my ID cards, inspecting them in the firelight. I leaned forward on the settee, the one I had dragged as close to the fire as the protesting little hairs on my calves would allow.
I thought about Margaret, Margaret's writing, her books, her family, and me. I thought about seeing myself, seeing us in what would eventually become The Welshman's Daughters, in Jane and Mary, and William. I thought about Jane the heroine, who loves desperately and futilely, who walks through the rain, who loves to tease and have a laugh, who comes around to her love in the end, who teaches Mary that there are graver and more sullen things in the world, who questions authority and tradition, who shows Mary that the world must, inevitably change.
I thought about Mary, lost in London, loving inappropriately, about a real and solid love finally found despite all outside influences, despite the dour welsh father-in-law. I thought about Jane and Mary being accepted into a home that was not theirs, but only truly understood by one of the other inhabitants, only truly cherished by the person who comprehends and loves each of them best.
I thought about the new fairy story that Margaret had recounted to me the night before, whispering with hot, goose-bump inducing breath against my ear, about a girl out of place, about rights and slavery, morals and family and ultimately what makes someone happy, about the mermaid come to shore in a culture where nothing makes sense and everything is backwards.
I thought about plane crashes and yellow life preservers.
Footsteps creaked along the landing, and Margaret opened and closed the door quietly, setting a dish of something sweet smelling on the small table beside my bed. She crossed the room in a swish of skirts, and sat down as close to me as she could, thighs pressed against one another from knee to hip, warm and soft through the silky fabric.
"Thank you," she said. She had my journal in her hand, a bookmark already at the half-way point. "For telling me about your childhood. For sharing your family and your life with me."
I kissed her once, soft and sweet. "I wanted it to be somewhere. For it to be preserved in one last place before I--" I looked down to the handkerchief bundle on my lap.
"What's this, then?" she asked, sliding a hand down my left arm, tickling over the pulse point, then sliding along the back, over the knuckles, to wind in between my fingers and pull out what I was holding.
She stared at them for a moment. Then, without turning to me, lay her head against my shoulder and said, "These are your identification cards."
"Yeah," I said, the warmth from the fire and the warm bubble of lust and contentment from Margaret's proximity making me languorous. "Driver's licence, right to universal healthcare card, student ID."
"I think they're beautiful," Margaret said.
"They're my last connection," I confessed. "The last proof that I have that I'm not crazy. That I didn't make it all up."
Margaret tilted her chin up, put her lips against the lobe of my ear and puffed, "I believe you. I would not have filled my stories with yours if I did not believe you."
"That's good enough for me, then."
I leaned forward, slowly, half hoping she would stop me and mostly glad that she wasn't. Carefully, I fanned the cards out above the flames.
"Jessie." Margaret grabbed my wrist, but not hard. Steadying, not pulling. Making sure that I really wanted to do what I was about to do.
"It's okay, Margaret," I said.
I dropped the cards one by one onto the hottest part of the fire. They sat there for a second, the lamination glittering in the refraction of the flames, and then the clear plastic coverings curled up and blackened. The student card was cheapest, it bubbled in the center, the corners withering like rose petals before it collapsed with a plastic whizzing hiss into a puddle of yellow and white goo.
The health card went next, sturdy government issue weight, popping up like a parody of a balloon, green and yellow. The driver's licence was last, purple, spitting up black smoke, that horrendous picture where one pigtail had fallen out and the DMV photographer hadn't bothered to tell me so, finally imploding in a smear of greasy black.
"There," I said, trying not to breathe too deeply as the plastic fumes curled around the mantle, the colder air of the night sky sucking it upwards and out of the room. "Now there is no more proof that Jessie Franklin ever lived. There's just Jessica Lewis. Here." I turned, cradled Margaret's face between my palms, and she didn't flinch at my right hand, not at all. "Now. Committed to this place and time. And you. Forever yours."
"Hello, Jessica Lewis," Margaret whispered against my mouth. Her lips were slightly chapped and the brush of dry skin was exciting.
"Hello, Margaret Goodenough," I said, and kissed her. I dug my fingers into her hair, sucked on the moist air in her mouth, and tried to crawl down her throat. She laughed and lay back obligingly on the sofa. I pulled away, enough to take in the curling spray of hair, the laughing eyes, the reddened, swollen lips, the high flush on her cheekbones, the pool of fine cloth around her waist, obscene and beautiful.
And all for me.
And I knew exactly how to get to keep it, too.
"And now what?" Margaret asked, when our kisses had reached a natural pause, having turned slow and comfortable, and indulgent.
"Honestly?" I said. "We do this. Just like this. We live here, we raise a cat, we love each other."
Margaret smirked. "And I write. And you publish the rest of my books."
"Yeah."
"I was thinking, maybe I'll buy us a couple of those cute pearl rings we saw in town? We can wear our feelings out in the open and no one will ever know. And live here together as spinsters until we die."
"As 'lifelong companions'? Yes," Margaret teased, pressing the agreement into the corner of my mouth.
"As lifelong companions," I agreed. "You know, I read about it in a book once. Sounds kinda nice, doesn't it?"
"Yes, it does." Margaret laughed. "It is a most excellent idea."
The End
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