Field Notes on Love(60)

It came to her earlier, when he was sitting on the other side of the table in the café car, his face nervous as he waited for the answer to a question he hadn’t even really been able to formulate. Mae realized that no matter what happens over the course of these next twenty-one hours on a train and then sixteen hours in San Francisco, they’ll have to say goodbye at the end of it.

And she’s going to miss him.

It doesn’t seem like a big enough word, but it’s all there is: she’ll miss him. Already, and improbably, it feels like a hole has started to open in her chest. So she decided she wants to take something with her. If she can’t keep all of him, she at least wants to try capturing a tiny piece.

“How does this work, then?” Hugo asks, noticing her eyes are on the camera, which is sitting on the shelf beside the opposite seat. “Do I get the same questions as everyone else? Or do I get special ones because I’m so—”

“Annoying?” she asks with a grin.

He bumps his shoulder against hers. “I was going to say charming. But sure.”

“You get the same ones as everyone else.”

“You know,” he says, “if I were interviewing you—”

“Which you’re not.”

“—I’d never ask you the standard questions.”

“What would you ask?”

He thinks about this. “I’d ask you the best advice your nana ever gave you.”

    “She said I should try to meet a cute boy on the train,” she says, and Hugo lets out a laugh.

“Did she really?” he asks, incredulous.

Mae nods.

“Well, she sounds extremely clever. I’d definitely want to hear more about her. And your parents too.”

“What about them?”

“What they’re like, how they met, what it was like growing up with two dads.”

She’s about to say what she always says to this question: It was lucky. The luckiest thing in the world. Because my dads are the greatest.

In the hallway, a door opens and voices call out to each other. But in here it’s quiet, just the sound of their breathing and the roar of the train underneath it all. They could be anywhere and nowhere, but they’ve somehow found themselves here, and she’s suddenly grateful for it, all of it, for the extra ticket and the way it brought them together despite everything, the bigness of the world and the unlikeliness of a moment like this.

Hugo is watching her with a look of such warmth that she’s reminded of Priyanka’s words. It’s like the sun, she said, in that it makes everything brighter and happier.

Mae knows her line too: You can get burnt by it.

But right now it doesn’t feel that way to her. Not at all.

She gives Hugo a rueful smile. “It was hard sometimes.”

“I’m sure.”

“Not because of them. They’re the best. But it’s a small town, and I was the only kid with gay parents.” She shrugs. “People can be jerks, you know?”

    “I do, actually,” Hugo says, his face serious. “Though you seem pretty well equipped to handle that sort of thing.”

“Maybe,” she says. “But it can still sting. I remember one time my dad came to pick me up at school, and the new secretary wouldn’t let me leave with him because we don’t have the same last name. It was awful. It didn’t matter that it’s my middle name, or that we look exactly alike, or that he’d picked me up a million times before. She wouldn’t budge, so we just had to sit there in her office, both of us stewing, until Pop came to get us.” She shakes her head. “Another time, I was at the playground with Pop and some kid came up and said he heard he’s not my ‘real’ dad. As if biology is the only thing that counts.”

“What did you do?” Hugo asks, his eyes big.

“I punched him in the stomach,” she says with a grin. “I was only six. But still. Not always as calm, cool, and collected as I probably should’ve been.”

“It can be hard to ignore that stuff.”

She nods. “Did you guys get teased a lot at school?”

“Not so much there. It helped that there were six of us. But you should see the comments section on my mum’s blog.” He whistles and shakes his head. “If you’ve ever wondered where the racist, sexist, antigrammar crowd likes to spend their time, look no further.”

“That’s horrible,” Mae says, alarmed, but he only shrugs.

“Mum’s not too fussed about them anymore, and neither are we. Not that I wouldn’t mind punching some of them in the stomach. But it’s easier to ignore than in real life.”

“Yeah, but they’re still out there.”

“They’re still out there,” he agrees, burying his nose in her shoulder. She takes one of his hands and begins to trace the lines of his palm, and she feels a rush of pleasure when he flips it over, capturing her hand inside his own.

    “What about the blog?” she asks. “Do you read it?”

He laughs. “Not if I can help it.”

“I liked the one about how you and Alfie—”

“What,” he says with a groan, “you read it?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say I’m a regular or anything, but I had to do my homework on you.”