The Safety of a Queer Space: Mourning Ghosts In the Safe Space

The late afternoon light spills like liquid honey through our windows, and my fucking house is full of people who shouldn't fit together but somehow do. Miles Davis bleeds from the speakers—"Kind of Blue" wrapping around conversations like smoke used to wrap around jazz clubs before everything got sanitized. My chocolate-dark hardwood floors are taking a beating from all these boots and bodies, but shit, that's what floors are for.

"Mom!" Ezra's voice cuts through the noise, bright blue hair catching the light as they cradle Coltrane against their chest. The cat purrs like a goddamn motorboat, completely content in their arms. "Where'd you get this fuzzy pussy?

"

"Rescue," I say, watching Miguel maneuver through my living room carrying that blue box of Lagavulin 18 like it's the holy fucking grail. Maybe it is. "Just like the rest of us."

The kitchen island's covered in Della's spread—she's commandeered my entire cooking space and turned it into her personal fucking kingdom. The smell of her peaty warm chili mingles with whatever Cajun magic Remy's working on the sides, and there's cornbread in the oven that makes my mouth water. She's wearing my apron, the one that says "Fuck Around and Find Out" in cursive, flour dusting her forearms like battle paint while Remy stirs something that smells like the bayou had sex with heaven.

"Fifty-four years on this shithole planet," Miguel announces, setting the bottle down with reverence. His voice carries that sultry-childlike contradiction that always makes me smile. "And you're still here causing trouble."

Keira leans against the kitchen bar, watching me with those eyes that see straight through my bullshit. "You know she's here right, Wendy," she asks, serenely. "Helen is here with you, in all of us."

Phoenix sits cross-legged on our gray sectional, their purple hair this week catching the geometric shadows from our pendant light. River's got an arm around them, still in their hospital scrubs, protective as always. Brandon's claimed the ottoman with a notepad balanced on his knee, probably working on his latest piece. Sage is already sketching on napkins at the dining table, and Bubba's settled into the corner of the couch like a mountain that's decided to rest.

"Who the fuck was Helen?" Leila asks, direct as always, pouring herself something amber from my bar. She's wearing her political maven uniform—jeans and a "Nevertheless She Persisted" t-shirt that's seen better days but refuses to quit, just like her. "You mention her like she is The Mother of the Earth or something."

"Helen was the woman who taught Wendy how to mother," Elaine says from her perch on the dining room chair, nursing what looks like a Mount Gay and Coke. At sixty, she's got that graysexual lesbian energy that cuts through bullshit like a machete through kudzu. "Am I right, or am I fucking right?"

Miguel pours the Lagavulin into a crystal tumbler I didn't even know we owned, the liquid catching light like captured sunset. The peat smoke hits my nose before the glass reaches my hand—earth and fire and time all condensed into something I can swallow. "Happy birthday," he whispers.

I take a sip, let it burn its way down. Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitar starts crying through "Rivera Paradise" and I swear to fuck it's perfect timing.

"Helen was my grandmother," I start, settling into my spot where the sectional meets itself. "By blood. But she was more my grandmother than anyone else deserved to be. She was also my mother. The only woman in my life then that loved me. Not that you can do that easily..."

Julie shifts in her chair, diet Coke and Jack Daniel's in hand. At seventy-one, she's got that long-divorced distrust of men but fierce protectiveness of anyone the world tries to shit on. "She see you? Really see you?"

"She saw everything," I say simply. "When my mother—that narcissistic piece of shit—caught me with Helen's scarf around my shoulders, standing in front of the mirror like I'd discovered fire... Christ, the look on her face. Like she'd caught me murdering puppies instead of just trying to feel beautiful for five fucking seconds."

Lisa, our pragmatic farm girl lesbian, looks up from where she's been quietly nursing a beer. At sixty-something and new to this whole lesbian thing, she's still figuring out her place in queer spaces, but she knows about family rejection. "Your mother hit you."

"Backhanded me so hard I spit blood and enamel onto Helen's carpet," I confirm, the phantom taste of copper flooding my mouth. "Lost my left premolar. Helen made my mother leave."

"Smart woman," Keira says, and there's not just pride in her voice but fury—the kind of protective rage that makes me understand why she keeps that baseball bat by our bed. "Brave fucking woman."

Chris, our fifty-two-year-old Christian guy, shifts uncomfortably in the corner. He's wrestling with his sexuality again today, I can tell by the way he keeps fidgeting with his cross necklace. "That's... that's not very Christian behavior. Hitting a child."

"No shit, Sherlock," Eileen snaps from where she's leaning against the wall. The fifty-something flight attendant has that rapid-fire resistance energy that comes from years of dealing with assholes at thirty thousand feet. "Some people use religion as an excuse to be horrible. Others use it to actually love people."

Marcus, nursing his own whiskey and looking like he's trying to decide if he belongs here, speaks up. "Sounds like Helen used love as her religion."

"Exactly," I say, grateful for his insight. Marcus gets the bisexual invisibility struggle, the feeling of not fitting perfectly anywhere, but he's learning that love has many forms.

Miranda, sitting near the kitchen where she can help if needed, nods knowingly. At forty-one, this trans woman and devoted mother understands the weight of choosing to mother with intention. "She held your pain so you didn't have to carry it alone."

"She kept that scarf," I add, voice cracking slightly. "Bloodstain and all. Said some things were worth more broken than whole. I didn't understand then, but..." I gesture at myself, at all of us, this room full of beautiful damage. "I get it now."

Grubby, our thirty-year-old intersex friend who rarely speaks, looks up from their corner. When they do talk, it's profound, and right now their eyes are bright with unshed tears. "She saw your soul before you knew you had one to save."

The room goes quiet at that, because Grubby doesn't waste words, and when they speak, we all listen.

Erik, still in his factory uniform from the assembly line, wipes his hands on his jeans. The twenty-nine-year-old trans man knows about toxic masculinity, about passing in spaces where you have to swallow your truth daily. "Did she know? What you'd become?"

I drain half the Lagavulin, let it restructure my throat. "No. The Diabetes got her long before I realized my true self. She needed insulin every morning, never hid it. 'Body needs what it needs,' she'd say. 'No sense pretending otherwise.'"

"Sounds like she was teaching you about more than just diabetes," Miranda says softly, understanding the weight of medical needs, of bodies that require intervention to survive.

"After she died," I continue, voice rougher now, "my mother threw out everything. I saved what I could—her recipe box, a scarf, her journal. Hid them under my mattress like fucking contraband."

Sarah, our stoic forty-two-year-old butch who's questioning everything while claiming to know all the answers, looks thoughtful. "She was preparing you. For this. For us."

"There was a tree," I say, understanding their gift. "A Yule tree my mother made me dump outside to die. But after Helen's funeral, I went to it. Told it everything she'd helped me understand about myself. And the fucking thing refused to die. Stayed green through seasons that should've killed it."

"Like you," Grubby speaks again, voice soft but certain. "Some things refuse to die just because others decide they should."

Suddenly there is movement at the door. Movement I recognize.

My glass hits the coffee table harder than it should, liquid sloshing. Everyone in the room goes quiet, even Miles Davis seeming to pause between notes. Because they all know that voice. They've all heard me cry about that voice in the basement of the bar, have watched me tear up every time I mention her name.

The living room door swings open and there she is. Gizmo. My eighteen-year-old psych student daughter with her father's analytical eyes and her own stubborn chin, wearing ripped jeans and a flannel that's probably older than Phoenix. Her dark hair is shorter than last time I saw her, and yet a maturity I had not seen in her before.

Behind her stands Mary, her mother — Oldest of my besties, looking uncomfortable but determined in that way that says she drove here despite her better judgment. Still beautiful in that sharp-edged way that used to cut me open, wearing the kind of perfectly coordinated outfit that makes my secondhand clothes feel like costumes.

"Hi, Mom," Gizmo says, and her voice cracks on the word like she's not sure she still gets to use it.

The world stops. Everything stops. The music, the conversations, my fucking heartbeat. All I can see is my daughter—not the one I carried, but the one I raised, the one who used to sing Queen songs with me in the car before everything got complicated, before separations and complications and the slow erosion of a relationship I'd die to protect.

"Gizmo," I breathe, and then I'm moving. Not walking, not running, but something between the two that makes me feel like gravity has shifted. She meets me halfway across the room and when we collide, when her arms go around me and mine around her, I lose it completely.

The sob that comes out of me is raw, primal, the sound of a heart that's been holding its breath for months finally remembering how to beat. I squeeze her so hard I'm probably hurting her, but she squeezes back just as desperately, her face buried against my shoulder, and I can feel her crying too.

"I missed you," I whisper into her hair, and I'm shaking, actually shaking like I'm coming apart at the seams. "I missed you, let me get a look at you."

"I know, Mom," she whispers back, and her voice is thick with tears. "I know. I missed you too."

I pull back to look at her face, hands framing her cheeks like I need to memorize every freckle, every line, every change that's happened since I last saw her. She's got a way about her now, not like before. A settled kindness. An aura, something I couldn’t put my finger on.

"I'm still your kid," she says fiercely, and there's something in her voice that suggests this conversation has been happening in her head for months too. "I'll always be your kid."

That breaks me completely. I pull her back into my arms and hold her like she might disappear, like this might be another dream I'll wake up from with tears on my pillow. But she's solid, real, here in my arms where she belongs.

Around us, the room has gone completely silent. I'm dimly aware of my chosen family watching this reunion with varying degrees of awe and emotional devastation. Phoenix is crying openly, River has their arm tighter around them, and even Sarah looks like someone punched her in the solar plexus with pure feeling.

Jesus fucking Christ, I hear Elaine's voice, barely audible, that's her daughter.

Look at her, Julie whispers so softly I almost miss it, she's got Wendy's eyes.

The kid she cries about, Bubba's deep rumble, full of wonder, she's really here.

I nod without letting go of Gizmo, still clinging to her like she's the only thing anchoring me to earth. "This is Gizmo," I manage to say to the room, voice muffled against her shoulder, managing to point at her mother in the corner, "OUR brilliant, beautiful, stubborn, perfect child."

Sweet mother of God, I catch from somewhere behind me, she looks just like her.

That's Wendy's baby, another voice breathes, the one from all the stories.

Gizmo pulls back enough to wave at everyone, face streaked with tears but smiling through them. "Hi, everyone. I've heard so much about you all. Phoenix, right? Mom talks about you constantly. And Della—I smell something amazing coming from the kitchen."

"Oh my god," Phoenix breathes, starstruck. "You're real. You're actually real. She talks about you all the time but we thought—"

"That I was imaginary?" Gizmo laughs, and it's watery but genuine. "No, I'm real. Just... complicated family shit."

She sounds like her too, drifts from the kitchen where Della's pretending not to eavesdrop, same stubborn streak in her voice.

Brandon looks up from his notepad, eyes bright with understanding. "Family's never simple when you're building it from scratch. Trust me, I know about complicated."

Mary steps forward then, clearly uncomfortable but making an effort. "Wendy," she says, nodding at me. "You look good."

It takes me a moment to process her presence because I'm still drunk on having Gizmo back in my arms, I measure my next words carefully, but emotionally, "Punkin," I say carefully. "Thank you. So do you. So…..do you."

"She wanted to come," Mary says simply. "It's your birthday. And she needed to see you."

Lisa, still adjusting to her new lesbian revelation at sixty-something, wipes at her eyes. "That's what good mothers do. They know when their kids need something, even if it's complicated."

Gizmo looks between us and I can see her making calculations, reading the room dynamics the way she's always done. My brilliant daughter, already analyzing the social psychology of the situation at eighteen.

"Actually," she says, reaching into her back pocket, "I have something for you."

She pulls out a crumpled envelope, obviously carried around for a while, obviously precious despite its worn edges. "I wrote this months ago but didn't know how to give it to you. And then Mama G (her nick for her mother) said it was your birthday and..."

I take the envelope with hands that are still shaking, still not quite believing she's here. Inside is a single page, handwritten in her careful script, the one I taught her when she was little and wanted to write like grown-ups.

Mama R—

I'm in college now, like you always said I would. College is hard as fuck, but every time I want to quit, I hear your voice saying "You're smart enough to figure this out”.

I wouldn't have made it this far without everything you put in me. The curiosity, the stubbornness, the refusal to let anyone make me small. That's all you, Mom.

I miss our Queen singalongs. I miss your terrible dad jokes. I miss feeling like I had a mother who saw me for exactly who I was.

I love you, Mom.

Happy Birthday. You deserve all the love your heart can hold.

Forever your daughter,

Gizmo

I read it twice, then a third time, and by the end I'm crying so hard I can barely see the words. This letter, this perfect distillation of everything I hoped she understood about what we built together, about who we are to each other.

"Gizmo," I whisper, looking up at her through tears.

"True," she says simply. "Every word is true."

I fold the letter carefully, hold it against my chest next to where my heart is trying to beat its way out of my ribcage. Then I look around the room at my chosen family, all of them watching this reunion with expressions ranging from joy to devastation to protective fury on my behalf.

"Everyone," I say, voice still thick with tears, "this is a Gizmo."

"She looks like you," Keira says softly, and there's something in her voice that suggests she sees it too—the way Gizmo holds her shoulders, the way she analyzes everything with those sharp eyes, the way she moves through the world with careful observation.

"She's smarter than me," I say proudly, one arm still around Gizmo's shoulders because I'm not ready to let go yet. "Always has been."

"Too smart for her own good sometimes," Mary says, but there's affection in it. "Always wanting to understand the psychology behind everything."

"Like her mom," Della calls from the kitchen, where she's been pretending not to eavesdrop while probably crying into the chili. "Questions that make you think deeper than you want to."

Erik, still covered in factory dust, nods knowingly. "Questions that keep you honest. Keep you growing."

Gizmo looks around the room, taking in the mismatched furniture, the chosen family dynamics, the way everyone seems to revolve around me with a combination of love and protective instinct that must be fascinating from a psychology perspective.

"This is what you built," she says wonderingly, and there's awe in her voice. "After everything fell apart, this is what you built."

"Not just me," I say, squeezing her tighter. "All of us. Together."

"But you're the center," Phoenix says suddenly. "You're the mom. The one who holds it all together."

"Because that's what love looks like," I say, finally finding my voice again. "Taking care of people. Seeing them for who they are. Making sure they know they matter."

"Like Helen taught you," Gizmo says, and my breath catches.

"You remember Helen?"

"I was old enough to understand that Helen was the reason you knew how to see me," Gizmo says simply. "The reason you never tried to make me into someone else's version of what a daughter should be."

The room goes quiet again, everyone absorbing the weight of that statement. Here's my daughter, my brilliant daughter, connecting the dots between Helen's love and the way I raised her, the way I learned to mother from being mothered by someone who saw potential instead of problems.

"Helen would have loved you," I tell her, voice thick with emotion. "She would have seen exactly what I see—someone brave enough to think for herself, smart enough to ask the hard questions, stubborn enough to find her own way."

"Like someone else I know," Keira says meaningfully, and Gizmo grins.

"Definitely genetic," she agrees. "The stubborn part, anyway."

Chris shifts in his corner, clearly moved despite his ongoing internal struggles. "That's... that's beautiful. What you built together."

"Families come in all shapes," Eileen says firmly, her flight attendant directness cutting through any potential awkwardness. "Blood, choice, or both. Love is love."

Marcus raises his whiskey slightly. "To mothers who see their children. All kinds of mothers, all kinds of children."

"Amen to that," Miranda says softly, understanding the weight of choosing to mother with intention.

Mary shifts uncomfortably, and I remember she's still here, still part of this equation. "Thank you," I tell her again. "For bringing her. For... for letting this happen."

"She's eighteen," Mary says with a slight shrug. "She makes her own decisions now. Today seemed like the right dayI was just sure you were going to tell me to go away. . "

"Nah. Why? There is no inclusion in that. None of the things I teach all the others in this room would matter if I didn’t INCLUDE. It’s the best day. Really…..The best day," I correct, and I mean it. This birthday, which started with me dreading the reminder of another year older.

"Are you staying for dinner?" I ask Gizmo, hopeful but trying not to pressure.

"Actually," Gizmo says, glancing at Mary, "I was hoping I could stay the night. If that's okay. Catch up properly. Maybe hear some of those Helen stories you used to tell me."

My heart stops completely. "You want to stay?"

"I want to stay," she confirms. "I want to meet everyone properly. I want to hear about what you've been building here. And..." She grins. "I want to help Phoenix figure out their major. Psychology can be really helpful for understanding yourself."

Phoenix makes a sound like a deflating balloon. "Oh my god, you're staying. Wendy's daughter is staying and she's going to help me with college shit."

"If you want," Gizmo says gently. "No pressure. But sometimes having someone who gets the academic side of identity development can be useful."

Sarah, ever the stoic, looks thoughtful. "You know what you're getting into with this bunch?"

"I think so," Gizmo says, looking around the room with that analytical gaze I know so well. "I think I'm getting into exactly what I've been missing."

Julie wipes at her eyes again. "That girl's got sense. And heart. Good combination."

"There's always room," I say, voice steady for the first time since she walked in. "There's always room at our table."

(Continued……)

"We are not going in circles, we are going upwards. The path is a spiral; we have already climbed many steps." - Hermann Hesse

Like Helen's love and that defiant Yule tree, some things refuse to die simply because others decide they should. We spiral upward, carrying our ghosts and our gifts, each revolution bringing us closer to who we were always meant to be. And sometimes, if we're very lucky, the climb brings us back to the people we love, changed but not broken, ready to build something beautiful from the pieces of what came before.