In the days following, they’d spoken, shyly at first, and then more boldly. Over breakfast, over tea, Ned had confessed to wanting a child of his own someday, and Wendy had felt a fluttering response between her belly and her chest. She’d never truly thought on the possibility before of being a mother for real, but in that moment, she’d felt a blooming of hope. Since their wedding day, they’d kept the promise made to each other on the day they met; they’d become friends. They are husband and wife as well, but not in a way the rest of the world might understand.

“Would you be happier with a wife of your own instead?” Mary’s voice is guileless, simple, un-judging curiosity in the tilt of her head and her watching eyes as Wendy’s head snaps up at the question.

The question is so close to her thoughts, and yet miles distant. Love, family, like the words husband and wife, they are so fraught. The ache, the sense of something missing Wendy felt in the months between her wedding and this moment here, tell Wendy what she wants, but it isn’t a want she can put into words.

Her hand makes an involuntary movement, knocking into the little table between their two chairs so it totters without quite falling, the sound overloud in the silence. There are women, Wendy knows, in St. Bernadette’s who are here for no other reason than loving each other as Henry and Ned loved. It sickens her that the world could be so cruel, and yet she knows many of those same women, in secret, found their freedom here, making wives of each other in their hearts, in their minds, in every way that matters, away from the world’s watchful eyes.

Wendy looks for hope in Mary’s expression—holding equal parts hope and dread of her own—but finds no weight of expectation there. Relief floods her, and it feels like the same fluttering she felt when Ned spoke of wanting a child. She loves Mary, of this much she is certain. And she is growing to love Ned. But as for being a wife, to anyone, it is not something she can do in more than name only.

The realization falls into place with a dull thud. If Wendy speaks her heart aloud, will she lose Mary? Will she lose Ned? At the same time, she cannot imagine keeping silent. She can’t share Ned’s secret with Mary, but she can give her own.

“I don’t think…” Wendy hesitates again.