And everything around her is a silver pool of light
The people who surround her feel the benefit of it
It makes you calm
She holds you captivated in her palm
KT Tunstall, "Suddenly I See"


"Hi, you've reached the Johnson-Jefferson residence! We've got our hands full, can't come to the phone right now, so please leave a message and we'll get back to you as soon as we can! Thanks!"

Beep.

"Hey, Maureen, Joanne. It's Mark. I, uh, I don't quite know how to say this over the phone, let alone on an answering machine message, so if you could—"

Joanne caught the phone just before Mark decided to hang up. She hurried over to the phone in her high heeled boots. She picked up with a breathless, "Hello?"

"Joanne," Mark said, with a relieved sigh. "Hi. I didn't think I'd get you."

"You almost didn't. Maureen and I are getting ready to take the kids to my parents'," Joanne said. "We're having a hell of a time trying to make Hunter stand still long enough to put on clothes." Mark chuckled. "What's going on? You sounded so strange in your message."

Maureen entered the living room, cradling her two-year-old daughter Nina on her shoulder. "Who's it?" she whispered.

"Mark," Joanne mouthed as Mark continued to speak on the other line.

"Well," Mark sighed, "I'm just calling to let you guys know: Collins is back."

"He is?" Joanne asked and shot Maureen a surprised look, complete with a raised eyebrow. "Collins is back," she whispered for her benefit.

"Who are you talking to?"

"Maureen's standing right here. Should I put her on, too?"

"Oh. If you want to."

Joanne rolled her eyes. Mark had terrible phone etiquette, always had. She put him on speakerphone. "Okay, Mark, you're on speaker. Tell the world."

He paused. "Hey, Maureen."

"Hi!" Maureen said cheerfully, hoisting Nina up on her hip. The toddler was busily sucking her thumb, which Maureen gently removed.

He cleared his throat. "Well, like I told Joanne…Collins is back. He…he's sick."

"Sick?" Maureen repeated, giving a worried look at Joanne.

"He's got an aggressive type of lymphoma," Mark explained, "found typically in AIDS patients, especially men. He and Luc have moved back to the area. Collins wants to be in New York when he…when he goes."

"When he goes?"

"Maureen, are you just going to repeat everything I say? Yes, when he goes. His prognosis isn't good; it could be as little as six months."

Joanne swallowed hard as her stomach turned, hoping she wouldn't vomit. She put a hand to her heart. "Where are they staying?"

"In Chelsea," Mark replied.

"Oh. Not far, then," Joanne said, somewhat happily.

"Roger's back too."

"No!" Maureen exclaimed. "You got a hold of Roger?"

"More like Roger got a hold of us. You know how he is."

Joanne and Maureen gave each other a knowing look. Roger and his fight-or-flight response. "So," Joanne said, "what about Roger?"

"What about Roger?"

"Where he's staying."

"He won't say. I offered him the spare bedroom at our place here, but he outright refused. It's been a week since he's been back."

Hunter Johnson-Jefferson, five years old, ran into the room and tugged Joanne's pant leg. "Mama, are we going yet?"

"In a minute, baby," Joanne whispered over her shoulder.

"But I'm hungry!"

"Hey," Maureen took Hunter by the hand, "come on, I'll get you something to eat before we leave." She led the boy to the kitchen, leaving Joanne on the phone still with Mark.

"Sorry," Joanne apologized to him. "Hunter's getting impatient."

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't know your guys were on your way out," Mark said apologetically.

"Don't worry about it," she assured. "I'm glad I know now." She took Mark off of speaker phone and tucked the receiver between her ear and shoulder as she sat on the couch, crossing her legs as she played with the heel of her boot.

"So, they're here," Mark continued, "in New York. Everyone. We're all back."

All. Excluding Mimi and Angel, of course. "That's great. It's been way too long. Since your wedding, I think."

"No, Roger wasn't there, remember? Collins had to be my best man."

"Yeah, I remember. That was right before he went to UCLA, right?"

"It was."

A comfortable silence settled over the phone. Joanne and Mark had found a comfortable niche with each other as friends and colleagues.

"How are the kids?" Mark asked.

"Fine, just fine. Nina is talking now; we can't seem to get her to shut up. She's definitely Maureen's daughter. When are you and Steph going to have kids?"

Mark groaned. "Don't ask. First her parents, then mine, now you? Why is there a need to…reproduce? Why can't we just…be married?"

"Biological necessity? A psychology professor of mine once said that the meaning of life was to do it again, passing your genes onto the next generation."

"I guess," Mark sighed. "I don't know."

Joanne just chuckled. "It may seem like a scary concept now, but trust me—it's worth it in the end."

"Joanne!" Maureen's voice called from the kitchen. "We have to go!"

"Oh," Joanne said into the phone, "Mark, I've got to go. Call later, okay? We need to catch up."

"Okay," Mark said after a pause, glad that he and Joanne had managed to remain friends. "I'll talk to you later, then."

"Later," Joanne agreed.

In the past ten years, Maureen and Joanne's relationship had its share of turbulence. They ran hot and cold, breaking up twice more: once due to Maureen's infidelity and once because of Joanne's inattention and dominance. But once Joanne managed to coax Maureen into couples' therapy—for Joanne really did love Maureen and wanted so badly for this relationship to work—things were going more smoothly. Five years ago, they made the decision to start a family. Joanne hoped that a baby might calm Maureen down a bit. Using a sperm donor, Joanne conceived their first child, Hunter. Maureen volunteered to carry a second child, using the same donor, so that their children would at least be half-siblings. Their daughter Nina was born three years later.

Now, the Johnson-Jefferson family was happy, healthy and stable. Joanne started her own law firm, specializing in civil rights and representing several gay and lesbian couples and families throughout Manhattan. Maureen was a drama instructor and had recently begun directing small theater productions.

Later that night, after they returned from the Jeffersons', insomnia struck both Maureen and Joanne simultaneously. They sat up in bed—Joanne, engrossed in a novel, and Maureen with a legal pad and a copy of Six Characters in Search of an Author, her latest venture.

Joanne finally broke the silence. "So," she said, keeping her voice low. "Collins."

"Collins," Maureen repeated with a small sigh. She looked up, brushing a few stray dark curls out of her eyes. "I guess it was only a matter of time."

"Maureen, that's so morbid," Joanne marked her place in her book with a postcard from Bali.

"It's true," Maureen said gently. "I know it's morbid, but it's true. I'm not being insensitive or anything."

"It sounds like you are."

"But that's how this disease works. It's an insensitive disease. No one knew that Angel was going to go as fast as he did. And Mimi—well, Mimi was never really very healthy to begin with, was she? She never got over that cold she had, and that turned into the pneumonia that killed her. No one knows why Collins got this cancer, and we never will. I'm sad, alright? I'm so unbelievably upset that I can barely function. It's killing me inside. It's no different from when Mimi and Angel died. I'm just looking at this from another angle. I'm dealing with this in my own way. Can you let me do that?"

Joanne was silenced for a minute. Maureen had her own reactions to certain situations, different ways of dealing with different emotions. When her father died, she only took solace in repainting the entire apartment—twice. Joanne had slowly learned how to gauge Maureen and her mood swings, but every so often she would judge incorrectly, and it would turn into a fight. Now, Joanne could sense a fight with Maureen like animals could sense impending bad weather.

"Fine, baby," Joanne replied. "I get it."

"Thank you." Maureen went back to her play, making pencil marks in the margins for blocking. Joanne could no longer concentrate on her book.

"I'm going to go make some tea," she threw the covers off her legs. "Do you want some?" Maureen shook her head, her brow crinkled as she tapped the pencil's eraser against her chin.

Joanne headed to the kitchen, returning five minutes later with a steaming mug in her hands. She placed it on the night table before getting back into bed. "What about Roger?" she asked, taking the mug back into her hands and sitting cross-legged.

"Yeah. Roger. How about that."

"I wonder how long he's here for," Joanne mused. "He must be miserable here. He swore when Mimi died that he'd never come back. Do you think he'll stay until Collins—"

"I don't know," Maureen looked up once more. "You can't tell with Roger anymore. He's such an enigma now."

"Wonder where he'd been all these years."

"Las Vegas," Maureen replied, very matter-of-fact, "with his brother."

"Roger has a brother?"

"A brother, a sister-in-law and a nephew, apparently. Mark told me. Roger doesn't talk about his family much. He won't talk to his mother, even when he was living here. He and his brother are close, kind of. I think I met him once." Maureen made one final note in her play, marked her place with a Post-It note and closed its covers, yawning. "I'm starting to get bleary-eyed. I think it's time for me to turn in."

"I might stay up for a bit more," Joanne replied. "Do you want me to turn out the light? I can go into the kitchen or the living room."

"No, it's okay," Maureen piled up her legal pad and books and dropped them on the floor, where they landed on the carpet with a soft thud. She clicked off the bedside table lamp and kissed Joanne. "Goodnight, baby. Love you."

"Love you, too. Goodnight."

A/N: Sorry about the end of this chapter ... I didn't know where else to go with this. The next one will be better, I promise.