When Aunt Harriet died, we planned to hold the reception in one of the hotel ballrooms downtown, but when we realized it was going to be too small, I called the really big VFW in the south part of town. Geri nixed that pretty quickly, and while it frustrated me, nobody knew Aunt Harriet better than Geri. I mean, they’d been friends for more than 50 years. She ought to know.

            So, she called Aunt Harriet’s principal, and the service or ceremony or whatever was held in the auditorium, with the reception in the gym.

            And it was nice. It really was. I think just about every relative of some kind spoke, and a shitload of students and teachers and even the mayor, who talked about how she secretly taught him to play chess the Saturday he was in detention.

            It was like she had single, private relationships with all of us that packed the auditorium that day. For me, Aunt Harriet had bailed me out of jail when I was a junior in high school and never told anyone.

            “I wonder what’s going to happen to Geri and the house and everything now,” Teddy said. He was my cousin and my closest friend, and I knew Aunt Harriet had given him the down payment for his first car without his parents’ knowledge or permission. “Think they were closet lesbians like everyone says?”

            “Don’t know, don’t care.”

            “Maybe they were like lovers, once upon a time. And now that they’re older….”

            Teddy stopped mid-sentence and stared off across the room.

            “You OK?”

            “Yeah.” He shrugged his shoulders.

            “MaryBeth?”

            He shrugged again.

            The two of them were always on about something.

            “It’s weird. Can’t imagine them still doing it, you know? At their age? But you knew there was some serious, real friendship there. You know? Besties. While me and MaryBeth still can’t keep our hands off each other and probably talk less in a month than they did in a day.”

            “Yeah.”

            “I’d trade with them,” Teddy said. “Maybe we just fuck better than talk, you know?”

            I laughed.

            “Hey, don’t say nothing, OK?”

            “What’s said in the gym stays in the gym, pal.”

            I saw Geri standing at the far end against the wall, on the other side of the basket and began walking toward her.

            I’d told Teddy I didn’t know or care about Aunt Harriet and Geri’s relationship, but I did. As their lawyer, I’d done the paperwork to get Geri’s name on the deed to the house, and I was probably the only one anywhere who knew they’d gotten married in Boston in 2004 and wanted to keep it quiet.

            “Doing OK, Aunt Geri?” I said, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek.

            “Interesting time for you to call me ‘Aunt Geri’ for the first time.”

            I reached out and put my hand on her forearm.

            “Let’s keep it that way, OK?”

From Milly Mahoney-Dell'Aquila: