Joan’s scientist mind could come up with a series of explanations for this that had to do with the brain’s talent for denial and compartmentalization. But she suspected that the truth was that acceptance so powerful made everything else feel small.

Vanessa loved her. Would love her. Showed no signs of stopping. And did it at great risk to her own future.

“Yeah, of course,” Joan said. “Obviously, you should fly the T-38 with Hank. It’s not even a question.”

“Are you sure?”

“Really,” Joan said. “I get it. You have to do it. I will be mad at you if you don’t.”

Vanessa laughed, and just the sound of it made Joan happy. Joan wanted to love Vanessa in a way that never made her give up what she wanted. That never changed her.

—

But, maybe, that wasn’t exactly true.

After Vanessa went flying the next day, she showed up late at Joan’s apartment, when Joan was already in her pajamas, getting ready to go to sleep.

Vanessa took off her pants and her bra, brushed her teeth, and got into bed in her T-shirt alongside Joan, pressing her cold legs against the warmth of Joan’s body.

As they were falling asleep, Vanessa said, “I haven’t had a dream about my funeral in months.”

“Really?” Joan said. “I wonder why.”

And Vanessa, as she buried her head in Joan’s neck, said, “You.”

Joan and Vanessa were driving back from dinner in Vanessa’s convertible with the top down, the hot August wind in Joan’s hair.

Joan noticed that Vanessa had taken to driving with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on her knee. Sometimes, Joan would watch Vanessa do a reverse three-point turn, her palm flat as it moved against the wheel. It never failed to light something up in Joan.

Vanessa pulled into her driveway and cut the engine.

“I want to take you somewhere special,” Vanessa said.

“I’ve always wanted to go away,” Joan said, and then more quietly as she moved closer: “Somewhere far from here where no one can see us, and I can kiss you in the sunshine.”

Vanessa closed the convertible top, and they walked inside. Once the door was shut behind them, Vanessa pushed Joan against the wall and kissed her. Joan never got tired of it, being pushed and pulled like that.

“Do you know what I want?” Vanessa said. “I want to be lying on a beach where we don’t know a single soul. And you are in a bikini. And I lay out this big blanket. And everything smells like suntan oil. And there are waiters bringing us French 75s. And the water is warm.”

“And we can go into the ocean together and I can put my arms around you as the waves come and put my legs around your waist and just rest there with you.”