Aureus found living alone again to be worse than before. She was so used to having someone to come home to, a friend to talk to, someone to soothe her after a long day, that coming home to an empty apartment was sad. Joyce's room stayed empty; Aureus couldn't face moving anyone else in there or even using it for any other purpose. It was Joyce's. Besides, she might want to come back someday. Who knew?

She had to admit, though, the chances of that looked pretty unlikely. The couple invited her to dinner at least once every couple of weeks, and it seemed like everything was going quite well. They had an easy, casual intimacy that Aureus envied. For a while, she thought she was jealous of Joyce and tried to quash the feeling. It was unfair. Joyce deserved love; she deserved a partner who cared for her. One evening, Aureus' feelings changed.

She wasn't sure what it was. Maybe she'd drunk more than usual. Perhaps she was feeling especially vulnerable. Maybe the moon was full, and God was giving her extra insight. All she knew was something altered in a delicate, smooth shift of the world, and she would never be the same again.

"Anyone want seconds?" Joyce asked, rising from her place at the table.

Aureus shook her head. Dinner had been delicious, a pot roast she knew to be a specialty of Sophie's. Joyce had probably got the recipe from her, and Aureus was stuffed.

"I'll get another helping," Tom said, pushing back his chair.

"Don't worry, darling, I'll get it."

Joyce put her hand on Tom's shoulder and bent to collect his plate. Her lips gently brushed his ear as she leaned over him. That's when Aureus knew. She wasn't jealous of Joyce at all. She was jealous of Tom.

With sudden clarity, she watched as Joyce walked into the small kitchen, seeing the swell of her hips, the way her body moved, the way her hair lay on her shoulders. Aureus was filled with longing. It wasn't only a physical desire, though there was an element of wanting. It was a longing to hold her, to look after her, to be with her. It wasn't so much wanting to grow old with Joyce. It was the sudden knowledge that Aureus didn't want to grow old without Joyce.

In Aureus' shock, she reached for her wine glass, knocking it over and spilling her drink on the tablecloth. The red wine picked out the fibers in the white fabric like spilled blood. Joyce laughed and told her not to worry, but Aureus couldn't not worry. Not now. Thinking as fast as she could, she apologized and excused herself.

"I must have drunk too much," she muttered.

"Let me run you home," Tom said.

"No, no. I'll walk." She sounded too short, too sharp. "I need to clear my head anyway."

She could barely take it as Joyce hugged her goodbye. It was like she'd never seen her friend properly before. After all these years, how could this happen? The smell of her perfume lingered as Aureus closed the door behind her and stepped out into the cool night.

She walked and walked and walked. The fresh night air comforted her, but her mind kept reminding her of that feeling. No, she told herself. No. There is no feeling. You're being ridiculous. Just no. There was so much wrong that she didn't even know where to start with it. She'd been alone too long—that was what it was. She was lonely. That was all.

By the time she reached home, she'd decided simply not to think about it. She dropped her purse on the couch, went to the bathroom, took a vial of sleeping pills from the cabinet, and shook two into her palm. In the kitchen, she swallowed them down with a glass of water. She went to the bedroom, stripped off her clothes, and climbed into bed. She'd sleep, and when she woke up, she'd laugh at herself. The feeling would be gone, and everything would be normal again. There. Problem solved.

Her eyelids were getting heavy; sleep was coming. She closed her eyes tightly, welcoming the tiredness, begging for sleep to overcome her. When it did, she knew nothing more.

***

She avoided Joyce for the next two weeks. She couldn't deal with it. When she'd awoken the next morning, the feeling had still been there, and she'd recognized it immediately. The fact didn't make it any more right, though. So she chose not to think about it. Instead, she poured herself into her work, producing a host of blood-red canvases that screamed with passion, because she couldn't scream aloud.

After fourteen days of straight working, her mind was getting fragile, her body became tired, and it was harder and harder to deny what she was feeling. Unable to face the studio again, the next Saturday, Aureus rose early. The pink rising sun glowed in the distance when she climbed into her car.

Driving the familiar roads almost automatically, she wondered why she hadn't thought of this before. Her father always calmed her, never failed to make her feel better about herself. She couldn't tell him about her feelings, but she could talk to him, and he always listened.

It was only seven when she pulled into the driveway, but she knew he'd be awake. Opening the screen door, she smelled coffee and heard the sound of plates clattering in the kitchen.

"Dad?"

"In here, Aur."

She followed her nose and found him in the middle of preparing breakfast. Leaning in to kiss him, she sniffed. "Smells great."

"Surprise visit?" Her father returned her cheek kiss. "I suppose you'll be wanting some breakfast, too?"

"Only if you're offering," Aureus said, grinning and sitting herself at the breakfast bar.

"For you, anything," he said, smiling back.

Their life together had always been comfortable. The shared bond of sadness and loss kept them close, and Aureus couldn't remember a time when they'd argued or had disagreements. Truthfully, she'd been a relatively good child and her father a good parent. If there was something she wanted to do, she had only to ask, and the two of them would discuss it and come to a conclusion both could understand.

Her father, for example, knew about all her high school parties. His only reservation had been drinking and driving, so he'd come when called and picked her up, no matter what the time. Or she'd stay with John. Her father liked John and had no problem with her staying overnight at his house. To be fair, he liked Joyce, too, and had done nothing more than raise an eyebrow when Aureus had told him about John's decision to become Joyce.

As he laid a plate of eggs in front of her, Aureus smiled. She saw how his hands were still strong, his fingers long and delicate like her own.

It wasn't until later, after breakfast, once they'd moved to her father's workshop that Aureus began to talk about what was on her mind. She liked the workshop. It had a smell of fresh-cut wood, the shavings on the floor soft under her feet. When she was a child, she'd liked to go barefoot in the shop, though her father had warned her about the risk. Inevitably, she'd got a splinter, a large one, and after that she'd been more careful.

Her father planed a piece of wood gripped tightly in a vice. He never used power tools, only hand tools. He said using electricity was cheating. Aureus sat on a camp chair and thought about what to say. She'd have to be circumspect.

"What's it like being in love, Dad?" she asked.

He kept working. "Big question, isn't it?" He worked for a few minutes in silence. "It's like nothing else in the world matters anymore," he said finally. "Like you could die tomorrow, and it would be fine, because you had this. It's like the culmination of everything you've ever wanted, even though you didn't even know you wanted it."

Aureus thought about his words and nodded.

"But what if, say, the love goes against God?" she asked.

Her father looked up at this, his brow furrowed for a second before he bent back over his plane.

"Religion was always your mother's thing more than mine," he said. "I try to live a good life, live by God, but sometimes I think we don't always get it right. Can love be against God? I don't think so. I think he created us to love, so no matter what or who we love it has to be right. Do you understand?"

"Yes," she said slowly.

It was a conclusion she'd been coming to herself, and one she thought was correct. Love was such a good thing, the essence of life, so it couldn't be wrong. At least she didn't think it could.

"You loved Mum," she said—a statement, not a question.

Still he kept working, the movement of the plane smooth and regular.

"I loved you mother more than anything in the world. Well, until you came along. Your mother was everything to me. When she went, it was like half of me went with her. Still is."

Aureus could barely remember her parents together; she hadn't been old enough to notice their relationship with each other, only their relationship with her. The whisking of the plane continued.

"Aur, if you find it, then you take it. No matter what. There's one opportunity, one chance. Take it, trust me." He put down the plane and released the wood from the vice. "I'm sixty years old this fall," he said, examining the planed board. "I spent ten of those years with your mother." He put the wood back in place and picked up the plane again. "Even though I've paid for those ten years with fifty years alone, I'd do it again in a second. I'd do it all again for just one day, one hour with her."

Aureus was quiet. Her father had never spoken like this of her mother before.

"I'd have done anything for your mother, except one thing. There was one promise I couldn't keep."

And she instinctively understood what he meant, though he hadn't said the words yet.

Long curls of pale shavings were dropping silently to the floor as he worked. "When she knew she was going, she asked me, made me promise, to find someone else. She didn't want me to be alone. She wanted you to have a mother again. But I didn't. Couldn't."

Aureus closed her eyes, pressing them tightly until sparks of stars burned in the blackness.

"She was the one. The only one. And I've never wanted anyone else," her father said quietly. "I'm half a man without her, but I'd rather be half a man than be with another woman." He laughed, a short, sad chuckle. "You know, I talk to her. Every day. Even now. Twenty years it's been, and I still remember every tiny detail about her. She still tells me to wipe my feet every time I step through the door."

"And what," Aureus said, her voice choked, "what do you do if the person you love is with someone else?"

Once more, her father removed the wood from the vice, this time nodding his satisfaction. He picked up a piece of sandpaper.

"Then, you wait," he said simply. "Because if it's meant to be, it will be. One day he or she will realize you're their world. And they'll come to you."

Aureus's heart beat hard and fast. Did he know whom she was talking about? But he showed no reaction, no surprise or judgment or anything else. He merely kept sanding with long, even strokes.

"Your mother would have been proud of you," he said, putting the wood down and picking up another piece. "She loved art and would have loved your work. She would have been sad to see you shut a part of yourself away."

"What do you mean?"

"You're like me in that respect," he said, not directly answering the question. "When there's an emotion you can't handle, you shut it off until you're ready to deal with it. You always did it, even as a child. You could be screaming with frustration one minute, then simply walk away and calmly do something else the next. But life doesn't always work that way. You can't shut something off forever because if you do, you miss out. It's the worst thing you can let happen. So wait, by all means, but don't close those feelings in a box. When you do, you run the risk of not being able to unlock the box again."

She sighed. He was right. He was always right.

"I'll tell you what, Aur," he said, pulling on the plane again. "You might wait your whole life for five minutes of love, but it'll be worth it."

***

On the drive home, she thought long and hard about what her father had said. Wait, he'd said. Wait. If it was meant to be, it would be. Was his advice true? She had no idea. However, she did know she was willing to try.

The question was did she love Joyce enough to be her friend and supporter while she was waiting? Could she see her every day and say nothing about her feelings? She smiled. For the first time, she regretted Joyce not being John. Not because loving a woman was hard, although it was. It was because keeping feelings from John would have been far easier. Joyce—confident, beautiful, and more in touch with herself than John had ever been—would be a lot harder to fool. Aureus could do it, though, if only because she couldn't imagine her world without Joyce in it.

It was only a short while after nightfall when she arrived home. She took herself straight to bed. No sleeping pills, no help, only pure, natural sleep. She slept through the night, and when she woke, the first thing she did was call Joyce.