Then another memory, the summer before that train ride, having lunch al fresco in a swanky restaurant in London’s Soho district with a lesbian barrister friend of Ralph’s named Karen. She wore a brown tweed suit jacket and had close-cropped blond hair set against a symmetrical face, which made her look altogether handsome and distinguished, but in a softer way than had she been a man.

She and Ralph knew each other through their work advocating for gay marriage, as they exchanged information about the issue between America and England. I was used to this, absorbing conversation as Ralph talked to various older, learned friends, whether about arcane issues in philosophy or matters of queer-related public policy. Though I wasn’t paying that much attention—the details of lobbying the House of Lords weren’t particularly interesting to me, and I had more reservations about gay marriage than Ralph, or presumably his friend. I believed in lasting unions, even believed that Ralph and I should be married if the option were available, but I was also concerned about how marriage could compromise the countercultural force of queer life. Though this wasn’t an opinion I felt like expressing in front of a human rights lawyer and my partner, who had lectured and published on the topic.

“You know why I’m fighting for gay marriage in England?” Karen asked as she turned to me. “So you can someday be Lady Wedgwood.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard this; our art historian friend Tom, who followed British aristocracy, had made the same joke a couple of times to embarrass Ralph, who was self-conscious about being next in line for the title of baronet once his father died. He was to be called Sir Ralph Wedgwood according to his future position in British society as one rung above a knight, a detail he omitted about himself until after we’d been living together for six months. As a left-leaning liberal ethicist, Ralph found the idea of inheriting titles distasteful, so I tried not to get too worked up about the baronet thing myself, even though I’d been schooled in British literature and found it exciting to be partnered with a man some minor Austen character would want to marry for his title.