It was a small ceremony. There was no Southern pastor wearing his coat. Our friend Kelly married us. All our friends, whom we’re still lucky enough to have with us, were able to attend. Jackson’s mom came, which was wonderful and unexpected and made Jenny cry all of her mascara off. We both wore simple white dresses. It was perfect.
When I received such an outpouring following my Bryony Kinsella article, I realized the discomfort I felt was rooted in deceit because when I wrote that article I was already with Jenny, and had been for a long time. It had always felt sensible to keep my life with her private. After the article, it felt fraudulent. And so, in typical journalistic fashion, I’m letting the world know that I’m married to a woman and getting some good copy out of it. This won’t be the last of these articles I write. Jenny and I have talked about this at length and we feel passionately that the questions surrounding love, romance, sex and relationships between women who had never previously dated women must be answered with real-life stories. There will be studies and academic analysis, of course, as there must be, but that cannot be the whole picture. I’m not sure how often I’m going to write about Jenny’s and my life together, but I promise I will. I want other women in similar positions to us to see they are not alone. Much of my work since the Plague has been focused on telling the stories of those most affected by it and this will be one facet of that.
So, I will leave you not with the story of our first dance （to “At Last” by Etta James） or the joyful challenge of decorating our first house together （I like mid-century, she likes modern; aesthetic chaos ensues）， but of an argument. The only real fight we’ve ever had. I asked Jenny, two years ago, if she thought she would ever have dated a woman if Jackson hadn’t died. She nearly hit me, she was so angry. Here’s her response: “If Jackson hadn’t died, I would be married to Jackson. I never dated women before the Plague, never even considered it. I don’t know why I’ve been able to fall in love with you, Maria. There are psychologists and anthropologists and journalists and all kinds of other people busily trying to figure out women’s behavior. I don’t think it’s rocket science. I know I was lonely. I missed someone moving around in the background of the apartment as I read the New York Times on a Sunday. I missed feeling desired. I missed sex and intimacy and sharing my life with someone. I don’t think that those feelings made it inevitable that I would fall in love with a woman. But my husband was dead and I happened to go on a date with you and I fell in love. I could twist myself up in knots wondering how and why and what if but I choose not to. What’s the point? I’m happy, you’re happy. What does it matter how we got here?”
DAWN
London, United Kingdom （England and Wales）
Day 1,698
It’s how much?”
“￡768,” the mechanic says apologetically.
“￡768?” I repeat, as though repeating the number will magically decrease it.
“Safety first,” she says hopefully. There’s no point getting annoyed with her. It’s not her fault that the government’s new Department for Change has decided to review every bloody thing we use, buy and think about. Normally, I’d think it was an excellent idea, and at heart I do, but being legally required to spend nearly a grand for a new airbag （tested on female-modeled dummies）， a seat belt adjusted to my height （rather than the standard male height） and a new head rest （to accommodate my height） makes me pause. I’m as grateful as anyone that deaths in car accidents have fallen by 84 percent since 2025 but I could also churlishly point out that the population has reduced by half, the economy contracted so people stopped driving as much and female drivers are safer.
“These safety measures are responsible for making driving much safer,” the mechanic says, clearly used to disgruntled customers who like the idea of safety in theory but not paying for it. “Before the Plague, women had a forty-seven percent higher chance than men of being seriously injured in a car crash.”
That makes me pause as I’m putting in my PIN. That’s actually quite a shocking statistic. Fair enough, Miranda Bridgerton, “Minister for Change.” I’ll grant you it would be nice not to die in a car crash.