As they flew over the Grand Canyon, Joan pressed her forehead to the window and looked as far down as she could at the vastness of the chasms below. She marveled at the millions of years of time Earth had existed without humans on it, at how unhurried the Earth had been to unfold.

Joan looked back at Vanessa. She watched the smile erupt on Vanessa’s face as she kept them steady just over the North Rim, the calm that took over as she pulled them up, back to altitude. Joan saw Vanessa’s ears move back, her eyes soften, her shoulders drop, all nearly imperceptibly. This was the woman she loved.

And Joan could find no fault with her, no complaint that didn’t, in that moment, feel so small. Joan had not ever believed that God sent down two halves of a soul in separate bodies, destined to meet. She did not believe in a God that could.

But she did believe in a God that had led them here. That led their lives to intersect. That led Vanessa to need what Joan had to give. That led Joan to have what she needed.

That led the North American tectonic plate to shift, causing the uplift of the Colorado Plateau, pushing former seabeds nine thousand feet above sea level. Joan believed in a God that, indifferent and unknowing, sent the Colorado River cutting through those rock formations.

She believed in a God that put a young girl without a father in proximity to a family friend with an airplane. She believed in a God that had pulled her to Joshua Tree to fall irretrievably in love with the stars. She believed in a God that had led them to this very moment: the two of them flying together, so safe, above the Grand Canyon.

And Joan loved that God.

Later, Vanessa laid out a blanket under the stars in Montana. She brought out Joan’s telescope, which she had carefully packed up. And a picnic basket she’d picked up from a deli, and a glass bottle of sparkling water.

“I forgot cups,” she said.

“I don’t care,” Joan told her.

They drank out of the bottle, passing it back and forth.

“There’s Pegasus,” Vanessa said, pointing east.

“Vanessa,” Joan said. “I want to do this forever.”

Vanessa turned to Joan and smiled. And then kissed her temple and said, “Wouldn’t that be something?”

Summer 1983

They spent the fall, winter, and spring of their second year together, shifting from desire into comfort.

That rush and ache that Joan had once felt at the graze of Vanessa’s hand along her arm had muted. There was less newness between them, almost no mystery.

But Joan knew she felt less buzz because she also felt no fear. There could be no danger between them when they made each other this safe.