When at long last this service ended, after the last “Amen,” people broke into groups to talk, to greet and commiserate, to pay respects to Ruby and the family, and to slowly leave the cemetery in little family clusters. The crowd thinned, but I stayed put, unmoving, while Leon and Denise and the others began to walk away, Irene and Gordon too. Sunlight poured molten all around me. I could not move for watching Terrence, who also stood rooted, ramrod straight, and pensive for what seemed forever, as though eons lay between us. Ruby rose and took her daughter’s arm. Terrence briefly kissed his aunt’s cheek and gave a whispered word to Coralee, and then, circling the grave, he crossed the distance between us, which had seemed immense, crossed it as though he were diminishing not just space, but time, until he stood in front of me.

“The oubliette didn’t work for me,” he said in a voice that was clear and firm. “I went there to forget you, but I couldn’t. I tried. I tried everything there was, and I could not forget you.”

“I tried too. I could not forget you. I’ve missed you so.”

“Do you still love me?”

“I never quit loving you.”

“I never quit loving you, Roxanne, but we can’t do it like we did before. We have to be braver than that.”

“I know.”

“We have to be stronger. We have to be willing to let the world say what it wants, and just insist on loving each other, on being together.”

“I know.”

“Are you ready to do this? Here? Now?”

“I am, Terrence. I’m ready.”

“It won’t be easy.”

“I know that. I don’t care. I don’t want to live without you beside me. I don’t care what it costs, or who hates us, or what the world tries to do to us.”

“They’ll try and destroy us. You know they will.”

“They will try, but we won’t let them. We are stronger and better together than we are apart. Oh, Terrence, Julia always said, ‘The more strength you use, the more you will have.’ I believe that’s true.”

“All right, then. We might as well take our stand here as anywhere.”

“All right,” I said. “I do.”

“I do too.”