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She starts to tell Harrison in small ways.
They’re on FaceTime so she can say goodnight, and Harrison tells her that Chad’s sister and her husband got season tickets for the Penguins, and they’re taking him to a game next week.
“I wish you could come,” he says, and Cassie’s heart cracks somewhere near the centre.
“I wish I could too, buddy, but I’ll be watching so we can talk all about it,” she offers, but he’s stopped looking at the camera. “And hey! Maybe I’ll see you in the crowd, wouldn’t that be cool?”
The corner of his mouth starts to lift, big eyes meeting the lens again. “Are you going to set up the projector?”
Cassie has a practical and, sure, small 24-inch TV. She doesn’t mind. But Harrison is always complaining, telling her to get something bigger, trying not to tell her that Chad’s is obviously much better. So, as part of his Christmas gift, she’d bought a small projector from Amazon. It was cheap, nothing to write home about, and always a production. It made most sense to project onto the blank wall behind the couch, so they’d have to pull off all the cushions to make a floor nest, or, if they were feeling ambitious, blow up the air mattress. It was always a headache but had become half the fun. She knew he wasn’t going to want to camp out in the living room with her for much longer.
“Worried I won’t see you if I don’t?” she laughs.
He shrugs, “Kinda.”
“Well, don’t you worry. You remember nurse Dana from my work?”
Harrison’s mouth quirks in thought for a moment, “The lady with the good snacks?”
Cassie closes her eyes against an eyeroll.
Every parent on staff knows that Dana is the worst offender for snack sneaking. It’s not often someone’s kid rolls in off the street or has to be dropped off by the babysitter, or stops in for a tour of the gore, but when they do, Dana is a double edged sword. Sure, your kid is guaranteed a warm, comfy time, but at what cost? The cost of an hour-long sugar high.
“That’s the one,” Cassie says, and hopes nothing in her voice gives her away. “We’re going to watch the game at her house, and she has a much, much bigger TV. Harrison approved, probably.”
“Like how big?” he asks, because he’s 11 and he doesn’t care about his moms work friend.
When game day finally does arrive, it’s Cassie’s day off, but Dana’s pulled 12 hours without much support. Sick staff, overloaded waiting room, nothing out of the usual, but Cassie can picture the hollowness under her eyes as she hears the flatness in her tone over the phone.
“D, I don’t have to come over.”
“I want you to,” Dana says, and Cassie knows she wouldn’t say it if she didn’t mean it though it doesn’t sound too convincing.
“How about I bring dinner?” Cassie asks. “You just get in the shower, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
There are days where Dana fights her on things like that, on the basics of caring, but sometimes, when Cassie is lucky, she’s just too tired.
“Rossi’s?”
“We can do Rossi’s,” Cassie laughs, warmth spreading through her chest. “You want the ziti?”
“Mmm,” Dana hums, “chicken parm.”
“Ooo,” she whistles, “one of those days?”
“Could eat a horse.”
“A chicken cutlet will have to do.”
“It’ll be so perfect, you have no idea,” Dana groans. “I could kiss you.”
She can hear Dana’s engine come to life, the roll of the window she’ll be blowing smoke out of in mere minutes on her drive home.
“Only if you’re lucky.”
The sun is falling just behind the trees when Cassie knocks on the door an hour later. It swings open, and Dana is there, freshly showered, hair dry at the root and damp at the ends like she attempted a blow dry. She’s wearing a worn out knit sweater and black linen pants, and a face that gently carries the wreckage of the day.
She doesn’t think she’ll ever tire of seeing her this way.
“I come bearing parm.”
“Then you may enter,” Dana steps aside with a flourish.
Cassie is toeing off her shoes when Dana eases the bags from her hands and pads toward the living room.
“Tomato sauce on the couch?” Cassie calls behind her. “You must really be tired.”
“Tired enough I’d do one of those espresso martinis,” Dana’s voice comes closer as Cassie wanders toward the living room.
There’s no real telling why because Dana likes coffee, doesn’t mind vodka, but sometimes, when they’re out after a long shift and someone orders an espresso martini, she looks personally offended. She suspects it has less to do with the drink and more to do with Dana’s constitutional opposition to trendiness. The second something becomes fashionable, she develops an objection to it.
Which is funny because Cassie isn't entirely convinced Dana knows what espresso is. Every so often, she hands her a latte and mentions there's espresso in it, and Dana accepts this information the way she accepts facts about the weather; without actually listening to any it.
Dana’s brushing past her, headed toward the kitchen, saying something about cutlery and wine when she stops.
“Oh,” she breathes, pivoting on her heel, catching Cassie by the waist, “and hi.”
“Hi.”
Cassie smiles, drapes her arms around Dana’s shoulders, lacing her fingers together behind her head as hands tighten at her waist. She feels her girlfriend sigh softly as they kiss, her body yielding in small motions, the drop of a shoulder, the tilt of her head. There’s a pleasant heaviness to her, like she can’t be bothered to hold herself upright when Cassie is already doing some of the work.
“Diet coke?” Dana mumbles against her mouth.
“Mmm,” Cassie hums, pressing her lips to Dana’s cheek, and then closer to her temple, “yes please."
Dana makes a noise of acknowledgment and finally peels herself away.
As Cassie pulls styrofoam and flimsy paper boxes out of the bags, the coffee table disappears beneath them. Lasagna, chicken parmesan, garlic bread. By the time she's finished arranging everything, Dana returns, balancing a glass of wine in one hand and a Diet Coke in the other, poured properly into a glass with ice.
It's one of those things she doesn't think Dana even realizes she does. Dana doesn't like Diet Coke. Thinks it tastes weird, like chemicals. Orders regular Coke maybe twice a year. Yet somehow there is always Diet Coke in the fridge, stocked specifically for her.
Dana disappears again before Cassie can say anything else.
A minute later she returns carrying two plates balanced against her hip and a fistful of cutlery.
The hockey game is already halfway through the pregame show when Dana finds the remote.
For a few minutes neither of them says much. Just the sound of commentators talking, forks scraping plates, and the occasional satisfied hum over particularly good Italian food.
Then Dana pauses.
Her eyes narrow.
"What is that?"
Cassie follows her gaze to the far corner of the coffee table. The little plastic container had somehow survived unnoticed through the entire setup.
Dana turns slowly.
"You got tiramisu?"
Cassie shrugs. "Maybe."
Before Cassie can answer, Dana leans across the space between them and plants a kiss that could only be called a "smooch” against her lips with force.
When she pulls away, she looks absurdly pleased.
"Thank you," she nods, “for all of this.”
Cassie smiles and bumps her knee against Dana's, “I owe you for all the sexual favours.”
Dana snorts.
Cassie is grateful she can text Monica, Chad’s sister, who, by the grace of some God somewhere, pretty much can’t stand Chad and still thinks Cassie is amazing.
In just a few minutes, she’s got a photo of Harrison in his custom jersey with a pretzel the size of his head.
“Look,” Cassie turns the phone toward Dana.
“Christ, he’s cute,” Dana murmurs, grabbing the phone to hold it out where she can actually see it. “You made a good one, babe.”
“Best thing I ever did.”
Monica sends her the section they’re in for Cassie to keep an eye on, and the game begins with an intensity she wishes she could see her son experience firsthand. The crowd comes through the television speakers in rolling roars.
Dana finishes half her chicken parmesan before finally setting her plate aside.
"God," she sighs, reaching for her wine. "I needed this."
"You needed food."
"I needed both."
A few minutes later, Dana shifts, then shifts again. Without a word, she swings her legs across the couch and deposits her feet squarely in Cassie's lap.
Cassie glances down.
"Comfortable?"
"Mhm."
She's already half melted into the cushions, shoulders low, expression soft. The kind of relaxed Cassie only gets to see when the day is completely over and nobody needs anything from her anymore.
Almost absently, Cassie starts rubbing her foot with one hand.
Dana's eyes close, and when Cassie hits a particularly tender spot, Dana moans a specific low moan.
Before she can say anything, Dana is lifting a hand. "Don't."
"You made the noise."
"I didn't."
"You did."
Dana opens one eye.
"I'll leave."
"You live here."
Cassie keeps rubbing slow circles into the arch of her foot as the game rolls on.
Every time the camera cuts to the crowd, Cassie finds herself scanning faces.
At one point she thinks she spots the right area. The camera lingers for barely three seconds but she grabs her phone and snaps a picture of the television. Probably useless, definitely blurry. Still, she sends it.
I think I see you!
She most certainly can’t.
A minute later her phone buzzes.
WE JUST GOT ON THE JUMBOTRON
A second photo follows immediately. Harrison grinning so hard she can feel his excitement through the screen.
Cassie smiles.
It gets her every time he sends an update. At the game, at school (even if he shouldn’t have his phone), sometimes when he’s at a friend's house and they have a cute dog or something funny happens. That in the middle of being a preteen and having the most exciting night of his week, he still remembers his mom is sitting at home watching the same game. That he thinks to include her fills her to the brim with the uncomplicated love she always feels for him.
Dana nudges her stomach with her foot, and Cassie realizes she's smiling at her phone.
"Harrison."
Dana hums knowingly and settles deeper into the couch. Cassie glances at her, at the feet in her lap, at the half-finished glass of wine. At the hockey game neither of them are paying complete attention to.
There are still parts of her life that exist separately. School pickups and work, hockey games and custody schedules. Dana and Harrison knowing each other only as stories and occasional appearances in the background of phone calls. Dana knows Harrison through a few brief meetings, photos, and the running commentary Cassie provides about every science project, soccer game, and minor catastrophe.
Someday that won't be true, someday they'll meet properly. Not in passing or as coworkers orbiting the same space, but as people who belong to her.
The thought settles warmly in her chest.
Her phone buzzes again.
This time Harrison is holding up the remains of the pretzel.
"What now?" Dana asks.
"Harrison versus a pretzel approximately the size of Philly."
Dana immediately reaches for the phone.
"Show me."
Cassie hands it over, and Dana studies the picture for a moment before smiling. "Yeah."
"What?"
Dana hands the phone back.
"Still cute."
For all their petty, shitty arguing and disagreements, Cassie can admit that Chad is being generous; maybe suspiciously so. He makes no fuss when Cassie asks about taking Harrison on Christmas morning and bringing him back on the 27th. She doesn’t ask if his charitable nature is the seasonal spirit crawling up his ass or if he has plans with Chloe that would be easier without their son. It isn’t a fair question, and she’s not sure she actually cares.
Instead, she simply chooses to be happy that she won’t spend the day without her son. There is relief in that as everything around them turns fully into Christmas.
Pushing a cart around the grocery store is a crash course in navigating artificial trees where the Thanksgiving display had been two weeks ago. Giant wire reindeer, candy cane-striped displays. Inflatable snowmen the size of compact cars.
Dana pauses beside a display of gift baskets.
"Who buys these?" she asks, lifting one containing smoked almonds, crackers, and what appears to be a decorative spoon.
"People with bosses, Dana."
"Oy vey.”
Cassie nudges the cart forward. They're only there for the groceries they get when they both happen to have more than one consecutive day off together and Cassie plans to stay over. Pasta, produce and coffee.
Dana tosses a container of cherry tomatoes into the cart. "D’you think more about what you want to get Harrison?"
The question is light, Dana only half paying attention as she eyes the wilting winter produce selection, but Cassie immediately groans.
Dana eyes her over her glasses as Cassie picks up a package of mushrooms she knows they don’t need, studies them, puts them back down.
"Harrison found this hockey bootcamp he wants to do,” Cassie sighs. "You know when they try really hard to pretend they're not excited about something?"
"Ah yes, the cool kid act?"
"Exactly."
“I know it well.”
Cassie reaches for a bag of shallots. "He brought the brochure home from school and just kind of left it on the table for me to find. Real casual."
“They still make brochures?”
“Apparently.”
Cassie shrugs. “It’s this whole thing they're doing in Philly where they bring in retired players, and on Sunday evening, they do this big game where the tired old men let them win.”
“You don’t sound too pleased.” Dana crosses her arms, “You want them to beat the kids instead?”
Cassie almost laughs, but rolls her eyes. "I looked into it, and it’s just so much money. I mean, for two days? It should be illegal."
"How bad we talkin’?"
When Cassie finally pulls the number from her memory, Dana whistles.
"Christ."
"And that's before travel, and a hotel, food. Gas. Ya know, everything else."
For a moment neither of them speaks, the wheels of the cart rattling over a crack in the floor.
"What did you tell him?"
Cassie sighs. "The truth, mostly."
"Which is?"
"'I'm looking into it.'"
Dana nods. The answer every parent gives when they're trying to buy time, figure out how much room is on the credit card, how much more it could possibly take.
"And the worst part is, he's been really sweet about it, like he knows it’s too much,” Cassie says quietly. “He knows it's too expensive for me."
"Cass, It’s ok that he knows that,” Dana offers. “We can try to protect them all we want, but they intuit a lot. Might as well be honest. Develops character.”
Cassie knows she’s right, but it doesn’t make it feel any better.
"I was thinking about getting him some new gear."
"Hey,” Dana shoulders her, “he’ll love that. He’s been bugging you about that stick.”
"But I'm worried he'll open it and think it means the camp."
Dana hums in understanding.
"Like maybe he'll see hockey equipment and think that's where this is going, and then he’ll just be massively disappointed."
"He'd still love it."
"After the disappointment, you mean?"
"Maybe. But he knows you love him, and that you’d sell an organ to make his dreams come true if I let you."
Cassie smiles. "I know. I just hate when there's something he wants so badly and I can't make it happen."
Dana reaches over and squeezes the back of her neck, brief and comforting.
"I know, baby."
The conversation dies there, in favour of debating the right firmness of grapes and arguing over which coffee beans to try next.
A week later, Cassie spends her day off doing the dreaded Christmas shopping. She gets the stick, a few games for Harrison’s switch, clothes he’ll be annoyed to have to try on, and some books. She plans to do an Amazon order for a few more odds and ends, but looking at what is ultimately a small pile of gifts fills her with some sort of shame. For a brief moment, she thinks about asking Chad if they should just split the cost of the boot camp, but they’ve already decided on a budget they’re both comfortable with and, combined, it still wouldn’t cover it.
Someday, when her salary has increased and she isn’t crumbling under the weight of student debt and rent and bills and gas, and food for a kid who won’t stop eating, and hockey fees, and car insurance, she will send him to camp. And if he’s too old, she’ll take him to Mexico, or whatever rich people do with their kids. She will.
She knows her son. She’s raised a good one. He will love everything he gets.
On the 19th, Dana stops by to bring Cassie soup after a long day, fearing she might be catching a cold. And because Dana is Dana, it’s not just soup. It's soup, a loaf of fresh bread, lozenges, a box of tea, orange juice, cold medicine, and enough groceries that Cassie understands she's just been parented.
When she opens the door, Dana lifts the bag.
"Delivery."
"I didn't order anything."
"Good thing I'm not charging you."
Cassie steps aside to let her in, and Dana toes off her boots by the door, handing over the bag.
"You look pale."
"Nice, a high compliment from my girlfriend." Cassie’s hands clap against her thighs.
"You do."
"I worked for fifteen hours and ate, like, one protein bar."
"You also sound like you've been smoking unfiltered cigarettes behind a bowling alley."
“Nah,” Cassie sighs. “That’s your job, babe.”
“I don’t even like bowling,” Dana shrugs, and Cassie can almost feel her hand itching to reach out and feel her forehead. “How are you feeling? What’s goin’ on in your body?”
"It was shitty for a minute," Cassie admits, because she has to, because she already texted Dana when her throat started tickling. “But, I think I’m fine.”
The blonde gives her a withering look, the kind that has kept residents, patients, and stubborn family members alive and in their place for three decades straight.
"You’re not fine."
After Cassie settles the groceries on the island, they just stand there, four feet apart. Two days ago, Dana would have pulled her in by the waist. Cassie would have kissed her before she'd even gotten the door closed. Now both of them hesitate.
But Cassie wants to, she wants to reach for her. Dana points a warning finger.
"Don’t."
"I was just thinking about it."
"Exactly."
"It's rude to come all the way here and then refuse to kiss me."
Dana snorts. "Cassie."
"We could risk it."
"We could not."
"We could just do a quick one."
"No."
"A tiny one."
"No."
Cassie folds her arms. Dana folds hers right back.
"I cannot be sick at Christmas, Cass. Think of the babies."
"We're not even sure I'm sick."
They stare at each other for a beat, but Dana wins. Mostly because Dana almost always wins.
"Fine."
"Thank you."
The smile lingers on Dana's face as she glances around the apartment. Then she pauses.
Cassie follows her gaze.
"What?"
Dana tips her head toward the living room.
"That all you got?"
Cassie looks around. The little artificial tree in the corner, a string of lights draped across the bookshelf. A wreath hanging on the wall near the kitchen.
"Excuse you?"
Dana’s eyes crinkle with a smile. "No, no. It looks nice, baby. It does."
"That isn't how you said it."
"Hey, I was just surprised."
"That's judgment adjacent."
Dana shakes her head. Cassie watches her eyes wander over the room again.
"I haven't had time," she admits.
Dana nods. "When's Harrison coming?"
"Christmas Eve."
Dana wanders farther into the living room, hands settled on her hips, which is never a good sign.
"I have tons of decorations, and I’m not even hosting this year so I’m not going to bother with the whole to-do. I could just—"
"Dana—"
"I have bins on top of bins."
Cassie only sighs.
"I have so many bins, Cass."
"I am not letting you haul your Christmas storage across the city three days before Christmas."
"Why?"
"Because there are so many other things you could be doing, and because that's insane when Harrison is only here for two nights. We’ll be at my parents for most of it, anyway."
Dana lifts an eyebrow at her. "We could make an evening of it."
"How so?"
"I bring decorations, we put them up. Drink eggnog."
"You don't even like eggnog."
"Nobody likes eggnog."
Cassie laughs.
"We'll put on Christmas music,” Dana continues.
"I hate Christmas music."
"You tolerate Christmas music."
"I tolerate exactly six songs."
"We'll play those six songs repeatedly."
"That sounds horrible."
"We'll have a wonderful time."
Despite herself, Cassie can already picture it. Dana unpacking bins, arguing about ornament placement. Trying to put decorations in places they don't belong.
"The twenty-third?" Dana asks.
"The twenty-third."
"Good." Dana points at her, "But we’re still not doing gifts, remember?”
Cassie narrows her eyes. "We are not doing gifts."
"We're not."
"We're not."
"Not this year,” Dana nods.
"Decorations," Cassie says matter of factly.
"Decorations."
"Eggnog."
"Eggnog."
"No gifts."
"No gifts."
And because Dana is feeling brave with the contamination risk, they shake on it.
Ultimately, Cassie doesn’t really get sick. She spends the next two days fighting whatever mutants run rampant in her system, sleeping more than usual, drinking more than enough fluids, and then feels mostly fine.
By the afternoon of the 23rd, Dana arrives carrying a single plastic storage bin.
"What happened to bins?" Cassie asks as she opens the door.
"This is restraint."
The second the door closes behind her, Dana drops the bin with a grunt and cups Cassie's face in both hands.
"There,” she huffs. “Now I can do this."
The kiss is wet and not particularly sexy. Cassie laughs into it.
"Missed me?"
"Desparately."
Dana kisses her again.
Cassie lugs the bin into the living room and eases the lid off, relieved that nothing inside looks too terribly tacky.
The apartment is transformed surprisingly quickly, because decorating with someone turns out to be one of those activities that's ninety percent standing around talking and ten percent actual decorating.
The eggnog makes an appearance despite neither of them particularly liking eggnog. Christmas music plays from Cassie's phone, and by the fourth repetition of one of the six approved songs, they sing along badly enough to lean fully into their mutual tone deafness.
Unpacked and on display, the decorations themselves are a strange collection. Some beautiful, some old, some objectively ridiculous. There is an ornament shaped like a pickle, and a small wooden sled appears on a bookshelf. Tiny ceramic houses end up on the television console. A garland finds its way across a doorway.
Cassie watches Dana work and realizes there is something deeply charming about seeing somebody else's Christmas emerge. Seeing the ornaments she can't quite throw away, the things she’s had for twenty years.
Dana hangs things with absolute confidence, regardless of whether they belong where she's putting them. At one point she stands back to admire a decorative arrangement that appears to have no organizational reasoning whatsoever.
More than once, Cassie catches herself just watching her. Watching Dana stand on her toes to adjust something. Watching her tuck loose strands of hair behind her ears. Watching her move through the apartment as though she has always belonged there. A few times, she feels Dana watching her too.
They drop onto the couch with a satisfied groan.
"There."
Cassie surveys the room, the lights, the ornaments. The small tree that suddenly looks much less lonely.
"You were right."
Dana beams. "Usually am."
Then Cassie shifts, pushing herself off the couch. “I know we said no gifts,” she starts, “but—”
“Cass.”
Cassie disappears down the hallway before Dana can argue. When she comes back, there's a small box in her hand.
“I noticed something,” she says and reaches out to run a finger along the thin chain around Dana’s neck, the crucifix itself hiding somewhere beneath her sweater. “The clasp is getting worn out.”
Dana's fingers move to the back of her neck, thinking about it. Twice in the last month she'd complained about it coming loose.
Cassie hands her the box. “I know that chain means something. I know it's sentimental. So if you'd rather just have yours repaired, I'd be happy to get it fixed for you.”
Dana opens the box. Inside is a simple gold chain. Nothing flashy, nothing extravagant, just beautiful. The sort of thing Dana would actually wear. For a moment she simply stares at it. Cassie watches the emotions move across her face.
“You bought me a chain.”
“It was either that or continue living with the anxiety that your crucifix was going to go missing inside someone's chest cavity."
Dana laughs quietly, but her eyes stay fixed on the gift.
“Cass.”
“I know it's not the original, but I thought maybe you'd like the option.”
Dana swallows. The chain around her neck isn't particularly expensive. The value lives somewhere else. In the years, in memory. In the simple fact that she's worn it so long it feels like part of her.
And somehow Cassie understood that, and had moved to protect it because it’s something Dana loves.
When she finally looks up, her eyes are shining slightly.
“Baby, I—”
The words come out almost helplessly and die on her tongue.
Cassie's stomach flips. “Too much?”
“No,” Dana shakes her head. “It’s perfect.”
She sets the box carefully on the coffee table before reaching for her. One hand cups Cassie's jaw, the other settles against the back of her neck. The kiss is slow and warm, all gratitude.
When they pull apart, Dana presses her forehead against hers.
“You pay attention to everything.”
“Only the important stuff.”
Dana breathes a laugh and kisses her again. When she pulls away, she reaches up and begins unfastening the chain at her neck, it slips free and settles into her palm. For a moment she just looks at it, then she holds it out.
"Put it on me?"
Cassie knows she’s grinning like an idiot as Dana places the old chain carefully into her hand. She’s never seen her without it, and now, holding it in her own hand, it feels oddly intimate. Because Cassie is holding something that has spent decades resting against Dana's skin.
It’s worn smooth by years of ordinary life, and Cassie handles it with surprising care. Dana watches as she opens the new box and lifts out the gold chain. With her tongue caught briefly between her teeth in concentration, she works the tiny clasp connecting the crucifix to the old chain.
Dana smiles.
"This is more stressful than surgery," Cassie mutters.
Eventually the crucifix slips free, and Cassie threads it onto the new chain. The small gold cross catches the light as it settles into place.
"There."
Cassie rises from the couch and moves behind her. Dana gathers her hair, feeling fingers brush the back of her neck, warm and careful. The new clasp clicks shut. Her hands linger for a moment at her shoulders before it settles gently back where it belongs, against her chest.
Dana reaches down and touches it. When she turns around, Cassie is watching her with that hopeful expression people get when they've given someone something meaningful and are trying not to ask if they got it right.
Dana immediately reaches for her, pulling her in by the front of her sweater.
"Come here."
Cassie laughs as she's dragged forward.
Dana kisses her forehead, then her cheek, then finally her mouth, slow and lingering.
When she pulls back, she keeps one hand against Cassie's jaw. "Thank you."
"You like it?"
Dana smiles because the answer is so obvious it barely needs saying.
"I love it."
When Cassie plops onto the couch again, Dana’s mouth tightens into a line, her eyes meeting the floor.
“Well,” she starts, “now I feel like an ass because I didn’t get you anything."
Cassie shrugs because she genuinely does not care. “That was our agreement, babe, it’s fine.”
But before Cassie can even finish the sentence, Dana is pushing herself off the couch and padding over to her bag. She can’t quite see what she's doing, but as she turns, Dana’s hands are behind her back.
She returns to the couch and sits beside her. For the first time all evening, she looks a little nervous. Not enough that most people would notice. Enough that Cassie does.
Dana produces a plain white envelope and hands it over. "Open it."
The envelope is unsealed. Inside is a folded piece of paper.
At first, it doesn't make sense. Her eyes skim over logos, dates.
Then she sees the name.
Harrison Ashcroft.
Cassie stares at it, reads it again. Then a third time. The words refusing to arrange themselves into something believable.
"Holy fuck."
Dana says nothing.
Cassie looks up.
Then back down.
Then up again.
"What is this?"
"Dunno."
"Dana."
"Looks like a hockey camp registration," Dana shrugs.
Cassie laughs, and the sound comes out somewhere between a laugh and a gasp. Her eyes are already stinging.
"Dana,” the word barely makes it out. "You didn't."
"I did."
Cassie shakes her head immediately.
"No."
She's reading the page again, as though she might discover she's misunderstood something. Maybe it's a brochure, maybe it's information.
Maybe it's—
Registration confirmed.
Camp fee paid.
Participant accepted.
It's real.
It's completely real.
The room goes blurry.
"Oh my God?”
Dana's smile softens. Cassie covers her mouth.
"Oh my God. Wh—How—You didn’t."
Dana laughs quietly.
Cassie looks back at the paper.
The stupid brochure on the kitchen table. The careful way Harrison had stopped asking. The calculations she'd been doing in her head for weeks. The impossible thing. The thing she'd already decided she couldn't give him, done. Just done.
Tears finally spill over.
"Baby," Dana shifts closer with a chuckle, wrapping an arm around her.
"What is wrong with you?" Cassie cries.
Dana laughs, "A lot of things."
Cassie wipes at her face. "This is insane."
She looks back at the paperwork. Then back at Dana. Every time she looks back, it's still there.
"He's going to lose his mind."
The smile on Dana’s face is impossibly large. "I hope so."
"He's going to lose his absolute mind."
"Kind of like you right now?"
“I just, I can’t believe—”
Dana stops her, "Well, believe it,” she pauses. “One condition, though."
Cassie looks up. "Anything."
"You tell him it's from you."
Cassie instantly shakes her head. Absolutely not. But Dana's expression is steady and certain.
"You tell him that mom figured it out."
"Dana—"
"Cass," Dana reaches for her hand. "If you could’ve, you would’ve."
Cassie feels her throat tighten.
Dana squeezes her hand. "I can do this because I don't have student loans, or hockey fees, or an almost-teenager who eats like a farm animal. I have a paid off mortgage, and no kids at home. And you know I’d never rub it in your face, because I don’t make nearly what I should, but neither do you."
33 years at PTMC, and Dana makes more than Cassie, they both know that. It won’t always be like that, but now, it is.
Dana continues, "The best gift I can give you is watching that kid be happy."
And that does it. Cassie starts crying all over again, and because she is safe here, she lets herself be gathered into Dana’s arms.
"He is going to be so excited," Cassie whispers, burying her face against Dana's shoulder.
She doesn't stop crying for a while. It’s sort of a problem for Cassie, who never really cries, and so when she does, it comes with reckless abandon in streams down her face. Dana simply wipes them from her cheeks and peppers her face with kisses.
The rest of the evening passes, neither of them particularly motivated to do anything more productive. The decorations stay lit, the eggnog remains mostly untouched. Christmas music gives way to whatever movie happens to be on television.
Every so often Cassie finds herself reaching for the paperwork just to look at it again.
Eventually the clock becomes impossible to ignore. Dana has family expecting her in the morning.
Dana stands in the doorway with her coat on for far longer than necessary.
Cassie keeps finding reasons not to open the door. One more kiss. One more hug. One more reminder to drive carefully. One more reminder to text when she gets home.
When Dana finally leaves, Cassie watches her walk to her car through the apartment window. The Christmas lights reflect softly in the glass, and for a brief moment, as she watches headlights disappear out of the parking lot, she feels her absence with a swift and deep ache.
Christmas morning arrives with the usual chaos of wrapping paper and too much coffee. A kid trying very hard to act mature while simultaneously vibrating with excitement.
The stick is a hit, as predicted. The games disappear into a growing pile beside him. The clothes receive the customary level of polite barely-hidden-disappointment. The books are unexpectedly successful.
For nearly an hour the apartment is filled with the sound of tearing paper, laughter, and Harrison's running commentary on everything he opens. Cassie loves watching him, she always has.
By noon the living room looks like Christmas exploded. The wrapping paper has been consolidated into one giant garbage bag, the stick has already been tested repeatedly in the hallway despite several warnings. And Harrison’s settled into his post-present state, rotating between gifts, trying to decide which one he’s most excited about.
Which is when Cassie decides it's time.
She sits down beside him on the couch.
"Hey, bud?"
He glances up, "Yeah?"
"You know how we talked about the hockey camp?"
His expression changes only slightly. Hope carefully disguised as realism.
"Yeah."
"Well." She hands him the envelope.
Harrison takes it, and with a cautious smile, looks at her once and then opens it.
His eyes scan the page.
Then scan it again.
Then a third time.
Cassie watches the realization happen in real time.
"No way." His voice cracks slightly. "No way."
A grin starts spreading across his face, the kind that takes over his entire body.
"No way." This time he's laughing. "Holy shit!"
"Harrison."
"Sorry!"
He immediately looks back down, still smiling. Still reading.
"Mom." His eyes lift, bright and disbelieving.
And suddenly he's throwing his arms around her. She holds him hard in the way she always wants to. For a second she thinks she might cry again.
"Thank you, oh my God, thank you."
"You're welcome, my love."
He spends the next twenty minutes reading every detail. Dates, schedule. Former players. What equipment he'll need. Every single word.
Eventually, when the excitement settles, Cassie leans her head back against the couch, finally letting the day relax into her.
Before she gives it much thought, it’s coming out of her mouth. "You know my friend Dana?"
"The nurse?"
"Yeah, from work."
"Mhm."
She looks down at her hands for a moment, not nervous exactly, but something.
"We've been spending a lot of time together."
Harrison only looks at her, eyes focused.
"And she's become a really important part of my life."
He nods.
"She actually helped me get you registered for the camp."
Harrison's eyes widen. "Really?"
"Really."
He sits with that for a moment, thinking.
Then he smiles. "That's really nice."
"It was." Cassie nudges his shoulder, "I was thinking maybe we could find a way to thank her."
"Like what?"
"Maybe,” she hums. “A Christmas card?"
Harrison considers this seriously. "As long as I don't have to draw anything."
Cassie laughs. "Deal."
He nods, satisfied.
Then immediately goes back to reading the camp registration. Cassie watches him from the other end of the couch. The lights from the tree glow softly in the corner.
Cassie is halfway back into the bedroom, shorts slung low on her hips, bangs wild, when Dana peers over the top of her reading glasses.
"Everything okay?"
Dana knows the answer is probably no. Not the overly bad kind of no, but a mom’s no. The type of “not great” that arrives via phone call to take a perfectly pleasant evening and turn it into a planning exercise.
They’d just been perfectly content in bed. Dana, with the book Cassie borderline begged her to read. Cassie, with her earbuds in, listening to a podcast, checking her email, responding to texts she’d put off for weeks.
When the phone rang into her ear, Harrison’s photo lighting up the screen, she’d answered. They’d chatted for a few minutes, she’d laughed at something, then it’d fallen silent and she’d slipped quietly into the hallway.
Normally she wouldn't have bothered. Normally she'd just take the call in bed beside her girlfriend. That she'd left the room at all meant she'd been concentrating, trying not to disturb Dana.
Now, she stands in the doorway with her arms folded, lip worrying between her teeth.
Dana eases her glasses off and closes the book. "What's wrong?"
With a dramatic sigh, Cassie nearly stomps to bed and throws herself against the pillows. "Remember how Harrison's birthday was going to be this easy breezy two kid situation?"
Dana winces before Cassie continues, "Six.”
Dana’s jaw clicks open. A laugh almost falls out, though it’s not particularly funny. "Half a football team, huh?"
"Apparently a few of the boys in his class found out about it, and he didn't want them to feel left out."
Though Dana’s head shakes, she’s smiling, and Cassie is too. “Can’t blame 'em for being sweet.”
“Sweet and really, really inconvenient,” Cassie sighs through her smile.
"Okay,” Dana breathes, “So now we're at six."
"Six twelve-year-old boys."
Dana whistles softly.
The original plan had been so easy. Just two friends, pizza, video games, sleeping bags scattered across the living room floor, a birthday party that practically ran itself.
So many of Harrison's milestones ended up split in half, celebrated twice, or shifted around calendars and schedules, away from the actual day. There had been years when Chad hosted the big party, and Cassie got a quieter evening a few days later. Years when grandparents stepped in, organizing something wonderful that she heard about afterward through photos and excited retellings.
This year, though, the party was hers. She'd been the one making the plans. The one ordering the pizza, buying the cake, listening to Harrison debate which friends to invite. She'd been excited, maybe more than she realized. Now the guest list has tripled, and every new child multiplies the cost, the space requirements, and the number of moving pieces she needs to somehow fit together.
"My apartment isn't even that small," she tries. "They'll fit sleeping-wise."
"Mhm," Dana agrees, because agreeing feels safer than anything else.
"But then what do I do with them?" Cassie throws an arm over her eyes. "Now I need three times the pizza, and cake.”
"Mhm."
"And activities."
"Yup."
"And if I take them to a movie or something—"
Dana can hear the numbers calculating in Cassie’s head and decides to let it go on a second before she settles a hand on her wrist.
"Why don't you do it here?"
Cassie peeks out from her arm and blinks.
"Babe,” she says, though it sounds more like a statement than a name. “I don’t think you want to volunteer your house to six 12-year olds."
"Why not?"
"They'll destroy it."
Dana snorts. "They won't."
"Dana, have you met twelve-year-old boys? They travel in packs. They smell weird. They eat drywall."
"I have homeowner's insurance."
Cassie studies her face, looking for the catch, though she knows there isn’t one. Dana genuinely means things when she says them. I meant what I said and I said what I meant, somehow, both Dr. Seuss and Dana Evans.
The house is big enough. Finished basement, big backyard. A driveway that could fit all the parents dropping kids off without the chaos and confusion of a multi-level apartment building with two entrances and a four-digit code everyone will text her for even though she already sent it.
"What if they break something?"
Dana thinks about it for all of two seconds.
"Then something gets broken,” she shrugs, reaches over and catches her wrist. "Cass, there were nights where I came home after a 15-hour shift to an entire colony of teenagers in my basement."
“The girls weren’t all saintly like their mother?”
“Hardly,” Dana rolls her eyes. "They stayed up until three in the morning, used every fuckin’ glass in the house, ate pizza off my grandmothers china. You know,” she starts with a laugh, “there were nights where I couldn’t go into the kitchen unless I wanted a drunk 16-year-old crying in my arms about the latest boyfriend. And I don’t mean my own 16-year-olds.”
“That’s actually really sweet,” Cassie smiles. “They felt safe here.”
She can easily imagine it. Dana fifteen years ago, standing in a kitchen she still owns, pretending to be annoyed while feeding half the neighbourhood. A revolving door of teenagers showing up hungry, heartbroken, loud, and sure, occasionally intoxicated. The kind of house kids remembered years later because somebody always answered the door and there was always room at the table.
"Point is, I survived it then. I’ll do it again."
Cassie lets it sit for a moment, absorbs the certainty behind it. Dana isn't being polite, because that’s not what she does. She genuinely wants to help, she genuinely wants Harrison to have a good birthday. She genuinely does not seem concerned about the possibility of six boys turning her basement into a battle zone.
"What would we even do with them?"
"We can do a fire outside, boys love fire,” Dana flicks a finger out and begins to count, “We can order pizza. You can bring your projector, and we can throw a sheet on the side of the fence. Bring your air mattress, I have another, and we can take the cushions from the couches, make a floor bed in the basement."
Cassie just stares at her.
Dana keeps going.
"I've got lawn chairs in the garage. We can—"
"Hey,” it comes out softly as Cassie shifts on her hip and settles a hand over Dana’s stomach.
"What?"
"You're really good to me."
Dana's smile falters slightly. “You’re easy to be good to,” she says, and the way it comes out sounds like the most obvious thing in the world.
"Still,” Cassie leans over to lay a kiss on Dana’s arm. “Thanks for showing up for us."
Dana blinks, eyes immediately shiny.
"Don’t make me emotional when I'm trying to plan a birthday party."
The plan comes together gradually after that. When she tells Harrison they're moving the party to Dana's house, he doesn't question it much beyond asking if there’s a TV in the basement.
At this point, Dana has stopped existing solely as a coworker in Harrison's mind. There’s more to her now. She occupies that funny space children have for these sorta-someone adults who keep appearing in their lives. Familiar enough not to require explanation, but not important enough to ask any real questions.
Since Christmas, they’ve seen each other a bit more.
After Dana helped with the hockey camp registration, Harrison made her a Christmas card. She'd expected a quick thank you scribbled in pencil. Instead, he'd spent nearly an hour on it, carefully writing about the camp and, though he said he wouldn’t, drawing what appeared to be a hockey player suffering from a severe lack of proportion. Dana displayed it on her fridge immediately.
A few weeks later, Chad dropped Harrison off earlier than expected one evening. Dana was still there, and the three of them ended up sharing takeout around Cassie's kitchen table. Nothing remarkable happened. Harrison mostly talked about hockey while Dana listened attentively and asked questions that made it clear she was actually paying attention, and he liked that, because being heard by Dana makes people feel special.
Cassie thinks she’ll probably never let go of the image of them sitting across the table from her.
Then there was the game.
Dana had come because Cassie invited her, fully expecting her to slip out once the final buzzer sounded. Instead, she'd stayed. They’d both gotten over involved during the game. At one point, Cassie had to remind Dana that they were just kids and she probably didn’t need to cuss out anyone's dad. At another point, she found herself digging her fingers into Dana’s thigh during a particularly stressful play, and, as she released her grip, felt all too happy that they were there together.
When it was over, Dana stood in the parking lot, one hand buried in her coat pocket, the other trying and failing to hide a cigarette while waiting for Harrison to emerge from the arena carrying his gear.
Cassie would never forget the look on his face when Dana told him he'd played well. She wasn’t exaggerated or performative. Just a simple observation from someone who had taken the time to watch.
You did a wicked job, buddy.
The interaction lasted less than a minute.
Harrison shrugged in that self-conscious way kids do when they're secretly pleased. Dana had gone home. Life continued.
By the time the birthday approaches, Harrison no longer asks, "The lady with the snacks?"
Now it's:
"Is Dana going to be there?"
Or:
"Does Dana know how to start a fire?"
Or:
"Do you think Dana has ketchup?"
And Cassie feels both warm and proud when she can answer with a certain yes.
The morning of the party arrives in a blur of errands. Pizza orders to confirm, sleeping bags to pack. A cake to be balanced precariously in the backseat. By noon, Cassie is standing in the kitchen trying to decide if she bought enough chips to feed six boys or a small village
Harrison moves around the apartment gathering things he insists are essential to a successful sleepover. A pillow, a hoodie. A second hoodie. A third hoodie. An old yo-yo. Cassie’s pretty sure most kids don’t yo-yo these days.
Before they take the final load to the car, she feels a knot looping itself through her stomach over and over. If she’s being honest, she’s ignored it for days. She could keep ignoring it. No one is asking her to do anything differently than she’s been doing it.
But she thinks she wants to.
She knows she does.
"Harrison."
"Hm?"
He's kneeling on the floor trying to zip his overstuffed duffel bag.
"Can you come sit with me for a second?"
For a second, he looks almost annoyed to be stalled during what is clearly his own kind of organization, but he sighs and moves toward her.
"Yeah?"
For a moment, Cassie doesn't know how to begin.
She wants to do this right.
She thinks about Dana and all the times they've talked about this. All the times they’ve discussed the difficulty of what could be a very easy conversation. She thinks about Harrison and what he might feel, and how maybe today, his day, is the worst day. But what if he sees something? Because Harrison sleeping at Dana’s house means Cassie is sleeping at Dana’s house, and even though they’ve discussed all the ways they can do this, Cassie doesn’t want to sleep in the guest room, and act like Dana is someone who isn’t part of this.
"You know Dana?"
"Obviously."
"Right. Obviously."
"What about her?"
Cassie folds her hands together.
"You know how I told you she's really important to me?"
“Yeah.”
She takes a breath. "Dana’s really important to me because she’s more than just my friend."
The moment it leaves her mouth, she coughs. She’s not sure why because there’s nothing in her throat, and she didn’t really need to, but it happens, filling the space around them until Harrison is blinking in silence.
"You're dating?"
"Mmm,” Cassie hums, "A little bit?"
Harrison’s face scrunches in confusion, and Cassie realizes she’s already fucked this up.
“More than a little bit,” she mutters quickly. “We’re—yes, we’re dating.”
He looks at her, and then he looks at the floor for a moment.
"That makes sense," Harrison shrugs.
Cassie stares. "That's all?"
"What do you mean?"
A nervous laugh bubbles out of her throat. "I thought maybe you'd have questions."
"I guess I kind of thought you were."
Now it's Cassie's turn to blink. "You did?"
"You just spend a lot of time together."
Fair.
"Also she came to my hockey game."
"Yeah,” Cassie breathes, “she did.”
"And she helped with the camp."
Harrison leans back against the couch, as if the information has already settled into place, just another fact entering his understanding of the world.
"You okay with it?" The question comes out quieter than she intends.
Harrison looks genuinely confused. "Why wouldn't I be?"
“No reason,” she offers. “I just want you to know that you can have whatever feelings you have, about anything.”
"Dana's really nice," he shrugs up at her. “And pretty.”
The simplicity of it nearly undoes her. Kids are often so much better at identifying what matters.
You like her. She likes you. She's nice. She’s pretty.
"What gave it away?"
He thinks, then shrugs. "You always smile at each other.”
“Yeah,” Cassie nods. “I guess we do.”
He looks at her with those big, round eyes, and she could almost cry at how easy this all is. How unaffected he seems.
“Cool?” She asks.
“Cool,” he nods, and then he’s standing, making his way back over to the half-closed duffle bag.
By the time they pull up in front of Dana's house, they’ve had a drive full of Harrison’s favourite songs, belted out the window as spring brings the city back to life. Harrison’s face is split with a grin.
Cassie shifts the car into park and looks over as he unbuckles himself.
"Hey, before you sprint out of this car,” Cassie reaches over and squeezes his shoulder. "Just remember to thank Dana."
"I know, mom," he groans.
But when he looks at her again, he’s smiling.
Outside, the afternoon sun is warm. The trees are finally green again, and the front garden looks suspiciously gorgeous for a woman who claims to not care about gardening.
Before either of them can get out of the car, the front door opens, and Dana steps out onto the porch and starts down the walkway. Jeans, an old PTMC hoodie. Sunglasses pushed up on top of her head.
She's smiling before she's even close enough to talk properly, one hand lifted against the sun as she heads toward them. There is an ease to her that Cassie has come to love.
"About time, birthday boy!" she calls.
Harrison grins. Cassie expects him to immediately start talking about the projector, or the fire pit, or his friends. Instead, he hesitates, just for a second. Like he's working up the nerve for something.
Then he walks straight toward Dana.
And then he's hugging her.
Not the full-body enthusiasm he reserves for his grandparents. Not the roughhousing shoulder-checks he gives his friends. Just a sincere, slightly awkward hug around her waist.
"Thanks for letting me have my party here."
For a second she freezes, then Dana's face softens in a way that almost hurts to watch. One hand settles gently against the back of Harrison's shoulder, then the other, drawing him into a proper hug.
"You're welcome, kid." The words come out with the same warmth Cassie has heard hundreds of times over.
Harrison pulls away first, looking faintly embarrassed now that he's completed his mission. The universal expression of a boy who voluntarily shared a feeling and would like everyone involved to forget it happened.
Dana looks equally flustered.
Which somehow makes it sweeter.
"That was nice of you,” Cassie whispers as he meets her at the open trunk.
Harrison shrugs.
When she looks up again, Dana is still smiling, a smile that reaches all the way into her eyes. And Cassie realizes, with a little rush of affection, that Dana is trying very hard not to look as touched as she clearly is.
"Alright," Dana says, clearing her throat and clapping her hands together once. "Let's see what kind of nonsense you two brought into my driveway."
Harrison immediately turns and points at the trunk.
"We have sooo much stuff."
And as the three of them start unloading the car together, Cassie catches Dana looking at Harrison, a small glance full of fondness.
For the first time, standing there in the driveway beneath the afternoon sun, they don't quite feel like three separate people. They feel like something beginning.
Time passes in a pleasant sort of chaos.
Cassie follows Dana around the property carrying armfuls of supplies only to discover, repeatedly, that Dana has already thought of the things she's about to suggest.
The sheet for the projector is already strung between two posts at the back of the yard, stretched tight enough to serve as a screen. A stack of firewood sits neatly beside the pit. There are lanterns tucked along the edge of the patio, and a handful of decorations that somehow manage to make everything feel festive without looking like they came from an obnoxious party store.
"Huh," is all Cassie manages the first time she notices something else.
Dana glances over her shoulder.
"What?"
"Nothing."
But it isn't nothing, it’s everything.
The fact that Dana had clearly spent part of her week thinking about Harrison's birthday when nobody asked her to.
Eventually, they carry the sleeping bags downstairs. The basement is exactly the kind of place twelve-year-old boys dream about. Big television, old couch. Enough floor space to become whatever it needs to become.
Harrison immediately begins unpacking. His Switch appears within seconds.
"Can I hook this up?" he asks.
Dana crouches beside the entertainment unit without hesitation, "Absolutely."
Within minutes she's tracing cables while Harrison hovers nearby offering deeply unhelpful commentary. Cassie watches them for a moment, the ease of it. The familiarity that's forming.
A moment later, Harrison is occupied testing controllers and planning which games everyone will play later.
Dana and Cassie make their way back upstairs.
The moment they're out of sight of the basement stairs, something in Cassie finally gives way. She catches Dana by the sleeve of her hoodie and pulls her to a stop in the hallway. Dana barely has time to laugh before Cassie's arms are around her.
She presses her face against her shoulder, and for a moment, just stays there, holding her, breathing her in. Dana's arms settle around her waist.
Cassie pulls back enough to look at her, hands sliding up to Dana's shoulders.
"You've thought of everything."
"I put up a sheet."
"You put up a sheet and found firewood and decorations and—"
Dana is laughing now, the sound that makes Cassie's chest ache.
Her hands find the sides of Dana’s face as she leans close to her ear, “You have no idea how badly I want to make out with you right now.”
“Christ,” Dana laughs, “this is what turns you on?”
But Cassie doesn’t have much for words or explanation, so in the privacy of the hallway, she backs Dana against the wall and with excruciating slowness, pulls her bottom lip between her own.
Dana's smile lingers against her mouth, hands sliding beneath the hem of Cassie's sweatshirt to rest against her skin.
"I wanted him to have a good birthday,” she mutters into Dana’s neck.
"I wanted you to have a good birthday party for him."
Cassie kisses a line up Dana’s neck, the feeling of being understood warming her belly. Understood in being the mother who wanted to be the one making the memories this year. The one who'd been worrying over pizza costs and sleeping arrangements and whether six boys would fit in an apartment.
When she opens her eyes again, Dana is watching her with a familiar intensity that somehow manages to be tender.
From downstairs comes the unmistakable sound of Harrison shouting triumphantly at a television.
Cassie laughs against her skin before Dana steals one last kiss.
"Come on."
The party unfolds the way all good parties do, loudly.
There is pizza everywhere. Somebody spills an entire soda into a lawn chair. Somebody else nearly falls into the fire pit trying to demonstrate a skateboard trick without a skateboard.
Dana remains remarkably calm throughout all of it.
As evening settles in, the projector comes to life.
The original Star Wars flickers across the sheet stretched between the posts. The boys scatter themselves across camping chairs, blankets, sleeping bags, and the grass itself. The fire crackles, the spring air cools. And for the first time all day, things become still.
Cassie finds herself standing beside Dana in the kitchen, both of them looking out the window over mugs of coffee neither particularly needs, but that feel appropriate when wine is only an option for one, and that’s not really what chaperones do.
The house is quiet behind them. Outside, the boys are illuminated in flashes of blue and white light from the screen.
Harrison is sitting cross-legged on a blanket near the front, completely absorbed.
Dana follows her gaze.
"He looks happy."
"He does."
For a few moments they simply watch.
Cassie finds herself behind Dana, hips bumping against her back as she reaches around to settle a hand against Dana's hip.
Within a fraction of a second, she feels Dana tense.
Dana glances over her shoulder, toward the backyard, then back at Cassie again. She lets out a quiet laugh and catches Cassie's wrist before she can settle any closer.
"Cass."
"What?"
The innocence is entirely fake.
Dana shakes her head. Her hand slides briefly over Cassie's knuckles, lingering there.
"We shouldn't do this."
The words are gentle, not a reprimand.
Cassie follows her gaze toward the window where a collection of twelve-year-old boys are loudly explaining Star Wars to one another.
"I don't think they're paying attention to us."
“Well, we don’t want to find out they are.”
Cassie lets her hand remain exactly where it is.
"I told him."
"Wai—What?"
"I told Harrison."
For a second, the words don't seem to register, until they do. Dana's face reads surprise until it seems to shift into something else.
"When?”
"This morning."
Dana turns in Cassie’s arms.
"How'd it go?"
"He basically shrugged."
A smile pulls at Dana's mouth. "That's it?"
"More or less."
Dana shakes her head and then moves past Cassie to the fridge, reaching for their very secret order of sushi that no young boys will know about. Dana didn’t know she liked sushi until Cassie made her try it.
She places the small plate on the island as Cassie watches her carefully. She can tell Dana is thinking, processing something, running it through the gears in her mind.
"Are you upset? Cassie finally asks, because she wishes Dana would say something, anything more.
But Dana looks entirely confused when she looks up from spearing a piece of sushi with a single chopstick. “That you told him?”
"That I didn't tell you first."
Realization blooms across Dana’s face as she pops a chunk of vegetable roll in her mouth.
"Baby, you didn't need my permission,” she nods. "That was your moment." The answer comes simple and certain. "He's your son."
Cassie feels a rush of affection as she settles next to Dana at the island. “On the drive over, I was just wondering if maybe you would’ve wanted to be there.”
Dana smiles softly, bumps her hip. "If you'd wanted me there, I would've been there." Then she runs a hand over Cassie’s back. "But if you wanted it to be just you and Harrison, then that's exactly what it should've been."
The certainty in her voice almost makes Cassie emotional.
She opens her mouth, but suddenly, outside, somebody cheers. A lightsaber battle has apparently begun. The boys erupt into chaos. Both women look toward the window at the same time.
Dana laughs. "Must be getting good."
Cassie leans gently into her shoulder.
This time Dana doesn't flinch. She turns her head and presses a kiss into Cassie's hair.
Outside, Harrison throws his head back laughing at something one of his friends has said, the sound carrying through the glass.
The first week of June settles in with a heat wave that makes everything feel slow and sticky.
Hockey equipment has migrated permanently into Cassie's small storage closet. The days stretch longer. Harrison's backpack grows steadily lighter as teachers stop assigning real work and start showing movies.
Summer hovers just over the horizon.
Cassie is halfway through unloading groceries when the front door bangs open.
"Mom?"
"In the kitchen."
Harrison appears a second later, sunburnt around the nose, carrying the restless energy of a kid about to be free for the summer.
He drops his backpack by the door.
"What are we doing for Pride?"
Cassie looks up from her overstuffed bag of groceries. "What are we doing for what?" She’s not sure she made out the last word.
"Pride." He says, like she's forgotten something pressingly imminent. "What are we doing for it?"
"What do you mean?"
Harrison leans against the counter, his riddled with exasperated disappointment in her, "Like for Pride Month."
The confidence with which he’s asking suggests there is an obvious answer. There is not. At least not to her.
Cassie opens the pantry as she searches her memory, realizing that she’s spent the first week of June without thinking of Pride Month even once.
"Buddy, I don't think we have plans."
Harrison looks genuinely confused as he picks at unwashed grapes, and Cassie feels a shameful sort of embarrassment creeping through her. Apparently, she's the sort of lesbian who forgets Pride Month.
"Did you ask Dana?" He asks around a mouthful of green mush, like Dana who has never once bothered with a label and barely understands words like sapphic or comphet or friend of Dorothy, would possibly be the one making their gay plans.
“Swallow please,” Cassie tsk’s, “and no, not yet.”
"Well, I could help,” he offers. “I learned all about it today."
“Oh yeah? What did you learn?”
Harrison shrugs, still leaning against the counter. “A bunch of stuff.”
Helpful, Cassie thinks as she waits him out. He’ll start talking again, he always does.
“Mrs. Palomino told us that Pride is a celebration now but it used to be a protest, like the one we went to for the roverway thing.” He pops another grape into his mouth.
“Roe v. Wade, babe.”
“Oh, yeah, that. Anyway, people were getting arrested for being gay.”
The words are delivered with matter-of-fact certainty, the same way he tells her the mitochondrion is the powerhouse of the cell or that the wheel was invented in Mesopotamia.
“Then we learned about how people lost jobs because of it, and some people couldn't get married.” Harrison frowns. “Which is dumb.”
“It is dumb, isn’t it?” She agrees, shoving shaved turkey into the fridge.
“And then lots of people died because of AIDS,” he says. “And apparently the government didn’t help very much.”
Cassie nods. “That's true.”
Harrison shakes his head. “That's also dumb.”
“Did they tell you who did help a lot during the AIDS crisis?”
“Who?”
“Nurses,” she settles her hands on the island. “A lot of people were really scared because they didn’t really know what it was, and nurses were some of the only people who kept caring, even when families stopped showing up. And you know who else?”
“Mm-mm,” he shakes his head.
“Lesbians. They volunteered, cooked meals, sat at the hospital with people, organized fundraisers, and took care of people when they were alone.”
“Like Dana?”
“Well,” Cassie chuckles. “Sort of! Dana wasn’t a nurse then, and she’s not a lesbian but—”
“She’s not?” Harrison’s face falls.
“No, you know Dana was married for a very long time to a man that she loved a lot. But kind of like how me and dad decided we would be better just being your parents rather than being together, Dana and her ex-husband decided that too.”
Harrison still looks confused. “But you’re a lesbian?”
“Yeah,” she nods, “that’s true. When dad and I broke up, I realized that I felt differently about him than a wife should. Not in a bad way, because I loved him a whole bunch, it was just different than what we both want to feel when we’re in love with someone. Being a lesbian means I only feel that way with a woman, and Dana could feel that way with a woman or a man.”
She can see the gears turning in his head.
“But she loves you the way you love her, right?” he asks, and Cassie feels her chest heave with a sickeningly overwhelming kind of love.
“Yes, she does,” she smiles. “Being in a relationship means that we’re choosing each other, and so, even though Dana could have feelings for a man or a woman, she’s giving all of those feelings to me and I’m giving all of mine to her,” she explains. “We could both have feelings for other people, but that doesn’t matter when we pick each other.”
“That makes sense,” Harrison says simply, reaching for a cookie from the plastic package.
Then he launches into a description of rainbow flags, community symbols, and an unexpectedly detailed explanation of why there are apparently several different Pride flags now. At some point he begins trying to remember all the colours. Gets them wrong, starts over. Gets distracted. Returns to the subject.
And as she listens, she feels that familiar swell of affection she always gets when Harrison talks about school, because she loves his school. Loves that somewhere along the line they stopped treating history like a collection of dates and started teaching kids that history is made up of people. Messy people, complicated people who fought for things. People who were excluded from things. People who made mistakes. People who changed the world.
She loves that nobody sat Harrison down and told him what to think. Instead, they'd given him information and context and trusted him to arrive at the obvious conclusion himself.
That arresting people for who they love is ridiculous.
That people deserve dignity.
That communities take care of one another.
That history matters.
She thinks about being twelve herself, and how it would have felt to hear a teacher stand in front of a classroom and explain that people like her existed, had always existed, and were worth learning about. Instead of being whispered about, or ignored. Or treated like a problem.
Harrison keeps talking.
Something about a rainbow crosswalk, a display in the library. A teacher who brought cupcakes. The details blur together.
“Anyway,” he says finally, “I just thought we'd probably do something.”
Cassie smiles. “Apparently we should.”
She’s not going to see Dana for two days, their schedules opposite, working when the other is off, off when the other is sleeping. But that night, she calls her in bed.
“We’re going to have to do something for Pride,” Cassie says as she hears Dana rummaging around her bathroom drawer for moisturizer.
There’s a pause, and then a quiet, tired, “What now?”
Cassie tucks deeper beneath her blankets. “Harrison came home today and asked what our Pride plans were. Apparently we're supposed to have plans.”
Dana laughs. “What did you tell him?”
“That we didn't have any.”
“That would be true,” Cassie hears her voice come out strained as she slathers the skin of her cheeks in serum.
“It’s like he assumed this belongs to us. Of course, we’d be there.”
Dana is quiet, and Cassie can hear the faucet running briefly in her bathroom, can picture her standing in front of the mirror, hair half pinned back.
“That's actually pretty sweet when ya think about it,” Dana says eventually.
“Right?” Cassie rolls onto her side. “When I was his age, if somebody had told me there’d be a day at school where teachers talked openly about gay people, and not as a mortal sin, I would've thought they were insane.”
Dana laughs. “The nuns at St. Francis’ would’ve had a stroke.”
“Then he found out that nurses and lesbians helped during the AIDS crisis and asked if that meant you.”
“Christ, does he think I’m 80?”
“He’s not really a numbers guy.” There’s a silence as Dana finishes with whatever she’s doing. “I had to explain bisexuality.”
A bark of laughter reaches over the phone. “How'd that go?”
“He was mostly concerned with whether you love me the same way I love you.”
The line goes quiet, then she can hear Dana flicking a light switch. “Of course I do?”
“I know that, and so does he.”
“Does he want to talk to me about it?” Dana asks. “Make sure I’m gonna treat his mother right?”
“He pretty immediately moved on to the cupcakes someone brought, so I don’t think he’s all that worried."
There’s the sound of sheets rustling, and then a long, exhausted exhale.
“So what are people doing for Pride these days?” Dana asks.
“You are asking the wrong lesbian.”
“I've never even been to a parade.”
“Me either.”
“Well that's embarrassing, what kind of queers are we?”
Cassie nearly winces. “How come when you say it, it sounds like a slur?”
“You can take the girl out of the 80s, but you can’t take the 80s out of the girl, baby.”
“Charming.”
“Listen,” Dana yawns, “I’m on for the next two days, and then we have, what? A day off together?”
“Mmm,” Cassie hums, thumbing through their shared calendar, “three, actually. I switched shifts so I could have Harrison his last day of school.”
“Why don’t we talk about it then?”
“Sure, I’ll start looking to see what’s going on.”
“And I’ll start thinking of ways to describe my sexuality to your son.”
“Incredible, maybe a slideshow.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Okay, have a good sleep, babe.”
“Mhm, I will,” comes Dana’s tired mutter, “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
The next two days pass in a blur of work. Cassie catches glimpses of Dana mostly through texts. A photo of a disastrous hospital coffee, a complaint about a physician who apparently couldn't locate a chart sitting directly in front of him.
By the time Harrison's last day of school arrives, the heat wave has settled but summer seems to have actually arrived.
Cassie picks him up just after 3.
His backpack is nearly empty, his shoes so dirty they could be an entirely different pair than they were in September. And his mood is so good it's bordering on suspicious.
"How was your last day?"
"We watched movies."
"Educational."
By mutual agreement, they spend exactly 17 minutes at home before heading back out. The celebration destination was chosen by Harrison months ago. An arcade restaurant where the pizza is mediocre, the prizes are disappointing, and kids somehow lose their minds every time they walk through the doors.
Dana is already there when they arrive, standing near the entrance with her hands in the pockets of her jeans.
The second Harrison spots her, he speeds up. Not running because cool kids don't run, but definitely moving with purpose.
"Dana," comes tumbling out of his mouth, “guess what?”
“Getting held back? Gotta repeat sixth grade?”
He only sort of rolls his eyes, “No!” And then he’s on his tip toes, talking under his breath near her ear.
Cassie just barely catches something that sounds like “asshole” and “tripped him.”
By the time Cassie reaches them, Dana’s face is all pride, meeting him in a fist bump.
“Atta boy,” Dana reaches out and ruffles his hair.
“What was that?”
“Don’t worry ‘bout it,” Dana shoots a mischievous glance over her shoulder.
Cassie’s told her at least four times to stop encouraging Harrison to bully the bullies, not because they don’t deserve it but because she’d rather he let the teachers handle it instead of risking getting his ass beat.
She forgives her when she holds the door open for both of them and taps Cassie’s ass on her way in behind her.
Inside, everything dissolves into beautiful nonsense. There is air hockey, there is laser tag. There are basketball machines that Harrison insists are broken every time he loses.
Dana becomes unexpectedly competitive at skee-ball. Cassie learns this only after she destroys both of them in a way that feels personal.
By the time the tickets are counted, Harrison has accumulated enough points to acquire approximately five pieces of candy and a plastic spider.
He is thrilled.
The pizza arrives.
Then more games, then somehow another round of pizza.
Eventually they settle into a booth near the back of the restaurant. A slice of birthday cake-sized chocolate cake sits between them despite nobody having a birthday. School is over, that feels worthy of cake.
Three forks appear, the sharing begins.
Cassie steals the first bite.
Harrison objects.
Dana sides with Harrison.
Democracy prevails.
A few minutes later, as they scrape icing from the plate, Dana leans back against the booth, and points her fork at Harrison.
"Your mom tells me we're supposed to be doing something for Pride."
The look of satisfaction that appears on Harrison's face suggests he feels completely vindicated. "I knew you guys forgot."
Dana glances at Cassie, Cassie glances at Dana. Neither of them has a good defense.
"What would you want to do?" Cassie asks.
Harrison shrugs. The universal signal that he absolutely has an opinion.
"I don't know."
"You do know."
"Okay, maybe the parade."
Dana smiles. "Any particular reason?"
"Because I've never seen one."
Simple, straightforward. Dana turns her fork slowly between her fingers.
"So, let's do the parade,” she says simply.
Harrison nods, almost gravely. Not like it’s fun, like it’s a civic duty.
"You’re going to have to explain all the flags to us," Cassie nudges him.
He brightens. "Oh, I can definitely do that."
They’re lucky that the parade happens to fall on a Saturday they’re both already off.
It starts at noon, and Dana makes only one request for her first Pride celebration: Cassie drives, and they post up at a spot on the route that has access to a bar so Dana can get cheap Miller Lite’s.
The night before, they stay over at Dana’s.
The evening cools enough to make the fire worthwhile. Harrison sits in an Adirondack chair looking humorously small with a roasting stick balanced across his knees. Dana occupies the chair beside him, nursing a beer. Cassie is stretched out on the outdoor loveseat opposite them, watching sparks drift upward into the dark.
For a while, the conversation stays where most conversations do, summer, and the relative merits of various video game weapons. Eventually there is a lull, a comfortable silence that comes from spending enough time together not to need constant noise.
Dana pokes at the fire, then glances sideways at Harrison.
"So," she takes a sip of her beer. "Harrison, I was wondering if you had any questions for me."
"About what?"
"Me."
Harrison looks genuinely surprised, and Cassie bites the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.
"What kind of questions?"
“You asked your mom about my feelings," she offers."You asked if I loved her the same way she loved me."
Harrison immediately looks embarrassed. "I wasn't being weird."
"I know,” Dana's voice is warm. "You weren't."
The embarrassment fades a little.
"I don't really have any questions."
Dana nods. Cassie believes him. Harrison has never seemed particularly troubled by the situation. Curious, yes. But not bothered.
The fire pops loudly.
Dana watches the sparks rise. Then says, casually: "You know, when I was your age, nobody talked about gay people."
He looks over. "What do you mean?"
"I mean nobody." Dana settles deeper into her chair. "No teachers. No books. No Pride Month."
"No Pride Month?" The horror in his voice makes Cassie laugh.
“Nope.”
"That seems bad."
"It didn’t seem that way at the time,” Dana looks into the fire. "Because I didn't know any gay people."
"You didn't? I know lots."
"Well,” Dana thinks, “I did too, actually. But I didn’t know it then. Sometimes, they didn’t either."
Harrison frowns. "How?"
"It wasn't something people talked about."
The answer seems to genuinely puzzle him, and Cassie watches the realization slowly unfold across his face. A generation so different from his own that it almost sounds fictional.
"So then what happened?"
Dana laughs softly. “In the world? In Pittsburgh?”
“For you,” he says simply.
"I got married young."
"I know."
"I loved my husband." The statement is simple, no revisionist history. Just true. "I built a life. I raised kids, I worked a lot."
"Mom says you work too much."
Dana's gaze drifts toward Cassie for a moment, a laugh coming from deep in her throat. “She’s probably right,” Dana says, and then drops her voice to a whisper, looking only at Harrison, “But don’t tell her I said that.”
“Then what?”
"Then one day, I met your mom." The smile that appears on her face is impossible to miss. "You know, I didn't really think about myself all that much." The words settle quietly between them. "I think a lot of people from my generation were like that. And because of that, I spent a lot of years making things harder than they needed to be."
The firelight flickers across her features, warm gold and shadow.
"But falling in love with your mom?"
Her eyes find Cassie's.
"That's the easiest thing I've ever done."
Cassie feels her face warming despite herself.
Harrison looks between them, then shakes his head.
"You guys are really gross."
The judgment is immediate and absolute.
Dana bursts out laughing, Cassie joins her. And just like that, the moment breaks apart again, back into marshmallows and summer plans.
But later, when they're cleaning up the fire pit and Harrison is inside brushing his teeth, Cassie catches Dana by the hip and kisses her with all the feeling of two women who hadn’t let themselves have this for far too long.
By 10am the next morning, the three of them are camped around Dana's kitchen table making loose plans for the day, Harrison treating it like a field trip requiring tactical preparation.
Later, he emerges from the guest room triumphantly in a bright pink t-shirt with REAL MEN WEAR PINK stretched across the chest.
He gives them a spin in both directions as Dana whistles an-almost-but-not-quite-sarcastic wolf whistle.
Cassie, meanwhile, has somehow acquired a sleeveless muscle tee featuring a rainbow heart so aggressively ugly it almost loops back around to being charming.
Almost. Dana takes one look at it and physically recoils.
"Oh, absolutely not."
"It's festive."
"It's a hate crime."
Dana herself refuses all Pride merchandise.
No shirts, no hats. No rainbow suspenders, no novelty sunglasses.
Eventually Harrison finds a compromise with his small sheet of rainbow face stamps.
The negotiations last approximately 10 minutes, and by the end, Harrison has managed to cover himself in six separate rainbows.
One on each cheek, one on his forehead. One on his arm. Two more for reasons nobody can explain.
Dana submits to a single stamp placed carefully on her cheek.
Cassie gets two. Mostly because Harrison applies them before she can object.
By the time they reach the parade route, the city already feels different, busier and louder. People move through the streets wrapped in flags, rainbow capes trailing behind them. Music drifts between buildings. Food vendors line the sidewalks.
Cassie expected the crowds, but she couldn’t have expected the feeling.
The three of them settle near a stretch of road close enough to Dana's preferred dive bar.
Harrison immediately begins pointing things out. "The bisexual flag."
"Which one?"
"The pink and blue one."
"Oh, ok."
"Mom,” Harrison says with a hint of annoyance. "You’re literally dating a bisexual.”
"Hey,” Dana calls as she returns to them, beer in hand, “I never said I was bisexual.”
“You like girls?” Harrison asks, Dana nods. “You like boys?”
“Men,” Dana corrects, “And really just one, I liked one man.”
“You're bisexual,” Harrison says matter-of-factly and turns around, leaving no room for argument.
A group of women walk past holding hands, then another. Then a pair of elderly men wearing matching baseball caps. Then a family pushing a stroller decorated with rainbow streamers.
The parade hasn't even started yet. Cassie finds herself smiling because none of it is particularly remarkable. That's the point, the ordinariness of it. The sheer number of people. Thousands of people, just existing.
Dana seems struck by it too. Cassie notices her watching people, taking it in. A woman with grey hair and tattoos holding hands with her wife. A group of teenagers draped in flags. Parents carrying children on their shoulders.
The variety of lives represented in a single city block.
"You good?" Cassie asks quietly.
Dana glances over. "Yeah." A pause. "I didn't think there'd be this many people."
Cassie laughs softly. "Me neither."
The parade begins shortly afterward.
Music.
Marching groups.
Community organizations.
Sports teams.
Healthcare workers.
Churches.
Activists.
Businesses.
The whole thing feels equal parts celebration and neighbourhood block party.
Harrison loves every second of it. Every float, every flag. Every terrible dance routine, every free sticker handed out by volunteers. He explains colours, explains symbols. Explains things he's only learned himself a few weeks earlier. At one point, he receives a rainbow bead necklace and reacts as though he's been knighted.
Dana watches him with open amusement.
Cassie watches both of them.
More than once she catches Dana smiling at something and realizes it's the exact same expression Harrison is wearing. The same wonder and delight.
Beside her, Harrison is laughing at a drag queen who has somehow incorporated a leaf blower into a performance.
The afternoon sun has warmed Dana's skin. Her Miller Lite sits forgotten at her feet. The tiny rainbow stamp Harrison insisted on applying has begun to fade at the edges.
Dana squeezes Cassie's hand. When Cassie turns, she finds Dana already looking at her, eyes soft, and something else, a little overwhelmed.
She reaches up and cups the side of Cassie's face, thumb brushing once along her cheekbone before she leans in and presses a kiss to her lips, tender and brief.
“I’m proud of you,” Dana whispers against her mouth.
“And I’m proud of you.”
When Cassie turns back toward the crowd, Dana slings an arm around her shoulders. She loops her own arms around Harrison's shoulders as he waves at a group of dancers blowing kisses their direction.
With the press of Dana’s lips against her temple, the summer sun settles warmly across all three of them.