Sally-Ann is watching the cute guy at the bar again. He wonders if she meant what she said about him being her type. He’s always assumed she was interested only in women, but then, he supposes he doesn’t really know her very well at all yet.

“Sal,” he says.

She’s miles away. He reaches out to touch her arm, and she flinches, snatching her arm away. “Sorry,” she says, rubbing at the thick velvet of her sleeve. “You made me jump.”

“I’m going to get going.”

“Okay.” She hugs him again and thanks him for coming.

“By the way,” he asks as he gets up, “what was the acronym?”

She looks confused.

“SYP, etc.”

“Oh,” she says, “South Yorkshire Police Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transsexual Support Network.”

“Right.”

She laughs and the whole group choruses, “It’s a bit of a mouthful.”

He leaves them giggling at the feeble double entendre and heads off, making sure to take the long way round the bar to the door.

The pretty guy looks up as he approaches.

“How about that drink then?”

The man smiles at him. “What’ll you have?”

Tyler shrugs. “I guess that depends what you’ve got back at your place.”

The man hesitates for a few seconds, but the smile remains fixed in place. “I’m pretty sure I’ll have something you’ll like.” He drains his own glass and gets up, leaving Tyler to follow him out of the bar.

—

Lily takes sharp tugs at her hair with a copper brush, separating the straw ends with the tips of her fingers. Her right hand moves erratically and the brush jerks, not quite following the path she sets out for it. The doctors tell her this is quite normal, that she may never regain the full use of it, and she has resigned herself to that. There are worse fates, after all.

She examines her reflection in the dressing table mirror and remembers a time when her hair consisted of long, thick tresses that brought her more than her fair share of attention. But now, the woman staring back at her is only vaguely familiar, a shadow image she recognizes but can’t quite place. She pulls a handful of treacherous silver hair from the wiry bristles and drops it carelessly to the floor.

Behind this stranger in the mirror sits Edna, propped up in bed, reading. She has on her half-rim glasses and the nightgown with the roses she was wearing the day the ambulance brought her home. Her own feeble hands struggle to hold up the weight of the paperback and, not for the first time, Lily is struck by the recognition that one of them will soon be alone. She knows it will be her. It is her lot. For Edna’s sake, for all that she owes her, Lily must be the one to hold vigil. She just wishes she could remember why.