Timeless

CHAPTER 30

1970

“D on’t stop,” Diana said as Cheryl pushed inside her. “We don’t have long. He’ll be home soon.”

“I rang Lily and asked her to keep him for another hour,” Cheryl replied to her wife.

“You did, did you?” Diana chuckled, so Cheryl pushed in again. “Oh, yes!”

Their first visit to New York City had been going incredibly well. They had five days in total before they’d return home, and Cheryl had wanted to make every moment count. Simon had been excited to come to the city at first, but when he’d arrived, he’d been a little shy, with so many people walking around, seemingly always busy and with somewhere to go. They’d taken him straight to Lily and Sandy’s Brooklyn apartment, where he had a chance to see his birth mother for the first time in a few years, along with Lily’s wife. Of course, they all called each other that, but nothing was on paper. On paper, Simon was the adopted son of George and Cheryl. On paper, the house they lived in was owned by the two of them as well, while the home that George and Henry lived in was owned by Diana and Henry. It had been the best plan for all four of them and had allowed them to avoid rumors and issues for seven years.

Lily had given birth at the hospital, and after nineteen hours of labor, Simon had entered the world. Lily had held him for a moment but had requested not to hold him again. She’d said it would be too difficult to give him up. George and Henry had been at the hospital with them as well, and hours later, once Simon was cleaned up and given a clean bill of health, Cheryl and Diana had finally gotten to hold their son. Lily had moved out of their new house a mere week later. Sandy had picked her up, and off they’d gone. Cheryl knew how hard it had been for Lily to give up her son, so she understood Lily asking them not to visit or have her visit until she was ready. When Simon was three, Lily had come to their house by herself and had spent a few days with him, but other than that one visit, they hadn’t spent time together until this trip. To their son, Lily and Sandy were Aunt Lily and Aunt Sandy. They weren’t sure how much he understood as a six-year-old going on seven, but they’d started talking to him about how things that happened at home should stay at home from an early age.

When they’d first arrived, Simon hadn’t remembered Lily, so it had taken a moment for their shy son to open up, but once he had, they’d all had lunch together, and he played with a few of the toys Lily and Sandy had bought for him. Since it was their first time there, they’d done some touring around the city, showing Simon all the sights and enjoying them themselves, but today, Lily had asked if she could take him to lunch and to the Central Park Zoo by herself. Cheryl and Diana hadn’t had a moment to themselves in what felt like years, so they’d happily agreed and returned to their hotel room.

“God, that was amazing,” Diana said when she finally came down from her orgasm. “How is it that we’ve been together for all these years, and every time we do that, it’s still just as good as the first time?”

“Our first time was a mess,” Cheryl replied with a laugh before she kissed Diana’s nipple. “It took me forever to make you feel even a little bit good.”

“No, it didn’t. I felt good the whole time; trust me. It took us both a minute to make that happen, though.”

“Well, we’re clearly better at it now than we were that night.” She rested her head on Diana’s shoulder.

“You know, sometimes, I think about Isabella and Maria,” Diana shared.

“I know. So do I. I think about all of them, really. All thirty-four couples. ”

“That we know of,” Diana replied and kissed Cheryl on the top of her head. “But I was thinking about the two of them because I finally saw their wedding this morning.”

“You did?” she asked and ran a fingertip over her wife’s still-hard nipple.

Diana nodded and said, “I knew they got married. I had the feeling. I’ve never seen it until today, though. I know you haven’t, either.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“In the 1600s, a Spanish princess and her servant married in the basement of a church. Our own wedding anniversary is coming up, and we got married in a basement bar.”

“I suppose we did. But what’s your point, my love?”

“When will we be able to get married out in the open?”

“Oh,” Cheryl replied.

“It’s 1970, and Simon isn’t even my son on paper.”

“Simon is your son in every way that matters,” Cheryl returned. “And he’s mine, too. He’s our son, Diana.”

“But you’re not my wife on paper, either… I guess I just want to know about the future versions of us. Will one of the couples be able to finally be who they are out in the open, fall in love out in the open, get married, and have it be legal? Will they be able to adopt a child together so that if something happens to one of them, the other one doesn’t lose their son?”

“Are you worried about that?” she asked as she shifted to look down at Diana. “That something would happen to me?”

“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 this stuff. 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, but they died together,” 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’re waking up in 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 you and Simon.”

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’m your wife,” 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 at me . 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?”

“You do realize that if you get married without your parents being there, they’ll be very upset with you; especially with what is going on with your mom.”

“We won’t tell them.” Cheryl moved her arms to wrap around Diana’s neck. “No matter how displeased they might feel about it, they’ve already accepted the fact that I’m not marrying anyone. I know they’ve figured it out. They might not want to admit it to themselves or talk to me about it, but they know that I love you and you love me. They have to know that you are my wife, the love of my life, and that Simon isn’t really George’s. He’s still their grandson, and they love him as much as they would if I’d given birth to him myself. I truly believe that. I don’t want to tell them that George and I got married because they might think it was for real when it’s not.”

“Okay. You’re right. We should do this.” Diana’s arms wrapped around Cheryl’s waist. “I’ll look at you and make my vows. We’ll go home, make Simon’s favorite meal, share it together, and after he’s asleep, we’ll make love, and I’ll tell you over and over again how much I love you, how you have my whole heart, and how I will always, always find you.”

Cheryl smiled at her and asked, “Want to start a little early on the making love part? We still have about an hour before Lily is going to bring Simon back.”

Diana kissed her slowly then, cupping both of Cheryl’s cheeks as she moved them both back to the bed with the scratchy blanket.

An hour later, they were already dressed, and Cheryl was in the bathroom, putting on her earrings. Diana was reading the paper in the chair when there was a knock at the door.

“Mommy!” Simon rushed to Cheryl’s legs, wrapping his arms around them and nearly knocking her over.

“Well, hello there.”

“I might have given him a chocolate bar,” Lily said with an apologetic expression.

“Mommy!” Simon said loudly again before he moved from Cheryl to Diana, jumped into her lap, and wrapped his arms around Diana’s neck. “We saw all the animals. Aunt Lily took me around the whole zoo,” he shared excitedly.

“She did?” Diana wrapped her arms around their son.

Cheryl watched as her wife kissed their son’s forehead before she looked at Cheryl and gave her a smile. Yes, they’d take this step that they’d avoided for a while. It would protect all of them, and that was what mattered.

“Would you like to have dinner with us tonight? It’s our last night here. You should bring Sandy,” Cheryl said to Lily.

“I think… I’d rather let him have dinner with his moms,” Lily replied. “I had a great time with him today, though. Thank you both for this, letting me see him.”

“Of course,” she replied. “Anytime. You know that.” She reached for and squeezed Lily’s forearm.

“Maybe Sandy and I could come for a visit next year?”

“We’d love that.”

“Simon, say goodbye to your Aunt Lily,” Diana said.

“Goodbye, Aunt Lily. Thank you for taking me to the zoo. ”

Lily smiled at him and replied, “You’re very welcome, sweet boy.”

“I’ll send you his next school photos,” Cheryl promised.

“Thank you. I’d love that. Now, I should go. Sandy is waiting for me to cry on her shoulder.” Lily sniffled. “It’s still hard to see him, but… you two are amazing parents. I’ll never be able to repay you.”

“You gave us the best gift in the world, Lily. You never have to repay us. We have to repay you .”

“She’s right,” Diana echoed.

“Well, safe trip home,” Lily said.

Cheryl nodded, and Lily turned and walked down the hallway.

“Mom, can I have another chocolate bar?” Simon asked Cheryl.

“You can have a tickle,” Diana replied instead and began tickling their son, who giggled wildly.