My Starchitects
When my partner Todd died in 2018, I needed evidence that our connection endured. A local medium assured me, “He’s with you.” During our second session a year later, she told me, “There’s a potential of someone coming into your life; Todd is guiding him.” Shocked, I asked, “He wants me to have sex with someone else?” She paused and replied, “He said he doesn’t have the architecture now.” Nine months later, I received a message from a high school classmate, an architect, who wanted to reconnect. Ed and I met, eventually had sex and, in 2023, we wed. — Shelly Ellison
‘Commonalities Over Candlelight’
We met in fall, or “autumn” as Sarah calls it. She had a degree in “maths.” “Don’t you mean ‘math,’ without the ‘s’?” I asked. She said she had been in Dublin for “tree” years. Born an ocean apart — I in San Diego, Sarah in Belfast — we sat in the dark “pub” (bar) finding commonalities over candlelight. She was funny, charming, beautiful, handsome. Twelve years later, our baby boy is due any day now, and will be shaped by both of us. I just wonder about his accent. — Ada Kintner
When It Was Too Much for Us
A week after my father died unexpectedly, I turned 19. My mother couldn’t get out of bed. We had stale takeout pizza for lunch, and my mother apologized to me. My father couldn’t wish me a happy birthday. It was too much for us. But that night, my cousin Pia — who lost both her parents as a teenager — showed up at our home near Paris, made dinner, set out candles. I fished out my blue dress. I don’t remember what we ate, but there was cake. The worst of the grief was yet to come, but there were smiles, too. — Raphaëlle Morzadec
Maa’s Magic
I was 7, perennially and maybe genetically shy, when we moved to a new home in Delhi. I asked my mom, “Maa, who will I play with now since all my friends didn’t move with us?” “Don’t worry,” she replied. But I worried, even cried. In the evening, she took my hand, walked me over to a group of children in the playground and said, “Here, play.” It was both an order and permission for both sides. And we did. For a long time. — Mayur Chauhan
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