Her Rainbow Baby
Mom told me I was her rainbow baby long before she knew I was queer. I was the child after miscarriage, a rainbow, the antithesis of grief. When I confessed my queerness with a racing heart, she was quiet, forehead pinched. I wondered if she was again grieving the loss of a child, the child she thought I was. Then, on my 20th birthday, she sent a package of snacks. She called me later. “Did you get them? They’re rainbow Goldfish, just for you, my rainbow baby.” My friends still don’t understand why I cried over that bag of crackers. — Hannah Mark
Right by the Guard Rail
I traveled west to grad school. Trish went east for a job. Our college romance was over. A few hours into my drive, I turned around, heading into eastern Kentucky to find her. No address, only a little mountain community in coal country to search. After stopping at several houses and asking after her, to no avail, I decided it wasn’t meant to be. But then, on my way out of the holler, I spotted her, in her sunshine yellow car, driving toward me. We stopped and talked. I proposed right there alongside the guard rail. Married 37 years. — Mark Estepp
Love After Loss
Your father’s sudden death left me unmoored, facing mammoth financial burdens, wrenching sorrow and countless responsibilities I’d never shouldered before, including solo-parenting you. Daddy was the steady one, patient, reliable, attending each of your soccer games, organizer of your annual Yankees spring training trips. I was the artist free to be emotional, capricious. The wrong parent died. Two years later, we crack each other up after silly fights, I watch your N.F.L. recaps in the morning, you surprise-hug me when grief erupts in stifled sobs as I make dinner. “It’s OK, Mom,” you say. Love after loss? Behold: It’s you. — Mary Bacon
A Wave in the Dark
Senior year, I’d finally won a part in the high school play. This made up for my other failed auditions. But would anyone come? My parents both worked full time and attended college at night. Two brothers had sports practice. The youngest was, in my mind, too young to attend alone. On opening night, a doorbell rang, queuing me to walk onstage. There in the first row, waving frantically and smiling with a mouth full of braces, was my little sister, Susan, who had secretly learned the bus route to the school’s auditorium. My heart soared. — Barbara Moriarty
