“That’s incredible,” said Nina, still stirring the eggs. “I’m sorry we can’t go.”
“Well . . . actually . . .” Maura bit her lip.
Nina placed the spatula down on a paper towel near the pan. “Are you trying to ask if we should cancel today?”
“I know the timing sucks, but I really want to be there,” Maura said.
“Do you know how hard it was for me to get everything booked at the last minute?”
“I do, and I appreciate everything you’ve done. But it’s not like I’m calling off the actual ceremony,” said Maura. “It’s basically just a day of shopping and tasting food.”
Nina sighed and shook her head, before realizing that the eggs had started to burn on the stove. She quickly switched off the flame, grabbed the spatula, and began scraping at the crispy edges of the egg white that had stuck to the sides of the pan.
Maura stared at her back as she scrubbed silently. Nina’s mood had been slightly erratic for the past few weeks, after getting into some sibling tiff with Amie—though Nina never looked to discuss it.
“Are we just dropping this?” Maura asked her.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Nina turned around to face Maura. “I thought today would be a milestone in our relationship. A day of celebration. But apparently it’s just a bunch of superficial crap.”
“That’s not how I meant it,” Maura said. “I just think this rally could be really important.”
“And our wedding isn’t important?”
“Of course it is!” Maura exclaimed. “But today is really just about a party. This rally is about . . . my life.”
“And it pains me, knowing what you have to deal with,” Nina said. “But you’re already doing so much with your group. And you’ve gone to protests before. Maybe it’s okay for you to take one day off and enjoy the other aspects of your life.”
Maura paused for a moment and drew a breath. It frustrated her, sometimes, that Nina couldn’t see things the way she did.
For Nina, their relationship felt like enough. Their engagement rings were platinum proof that Nina could look beyond the strings and love Maura for the woman she was, not the time she’d been given. The family they were building together was Nina’s top priority. And, of course, that meant everything to Maura. But sometimes she just needed more. She needed to look beyond the small circumference of their lives, needed the rest of the world to see her as Nina did. As someone worth loving. As an equal.
“God, I wish I could take just one day off,” Maura said, “but I can’t. For my whole life, I’ve had to live every day making sure I don’t seem too angry or threatening or undeserving, because that would make Black people look bad, and making sure I don’t seem too sensitive or stupid or meek, because that would make women look bad, and now I can never seem too unstable or emotional or vengeful, because that would make short-stringers look bad. There are no breaks!” She let out a full, shaking breath. “And you know how much I’ve been searching for something, some way to feel like what I’m doing actually matters. Like I’m using my time for something good.”
Nina nodded slowly, absorbing Maura’s words. “You should go,” she finally said, her voice sincere. “I can take care of everything on this end.”
“Are you sure?” Maura asked.
“Yes. And I promise, next time I’ll be there with you.”
After they parked near the National Mall, Maura and her friends joined the crowd of nearly twenty thousand people spread across the base of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial, spilling over to the nearby lawns, framed by branches now emptied of their rust-colored leaves. A large group at the center was cheering and chanting under a seven-foot banner reading “All Strings, Long and Short.”
Half a dozen news teams covered the event, perhaps because of the rumors that Anthony Rollins’s defector nephew might attend. But even with the added attention—and even with the groundswell of this new Strung Together movement online—Maura still wasn’t sure that it would be enough to prevent Rollins from winning the nomination that summer. Anytime she saw the news of another shooting, or the wreckage of a major car crash, Maura found herself praying that a short-stringer wasn’t at fault. The rest of her support group seemed convinced that the sands had already shifted. Every day that the hashtag trended, every public figure who expressed support, every news show that interviewed the student from South Africa, was proof, to her fellow group mates, that their lives could only improve. But Maura knew better than to blindly trust, or to risk growing complacent. She knew that things could always get worse, unless enough people kept on fighting.