Kim desperately wanted to ask her a question, but she was too interested in hearing the rest of the story. The question could wait.

“So we didn’t talk at all for a couple of weeks and then some firefighters were brought into the ER and one of them says that Sandy is missing,” Kerry stopped, remembering the feeling. Tears had started forming, but she fought them back. Kim noticed but didn’t say anything. “We got word that they were all okay and I went looking for her. I just wanted to see her and I found her outside of a bar where the firefighters hang out after a rough day. We talked, we kissed, we stood on that street holding each other for a long time.”

Kerry had to stop again. She missed the feeling of Sandy’s arms around her. Was that ever going to stop?

Kim reached over and took Kerry’s hand. “Kerry, did something happen to her?

Kerry continued as if she hadn’t ever stopped and Kim hadn’t spoken.

“After that I stopped hiding. I had already lost you because of that and I almost lost her. I couldn’t do it anymore. A few months later we moved in together and started talking about having a family. I got pregnant, but miscarried.” Kerry stopped to reach into her purse and pulled out some pictures. “After some arm-twisting she agreed to try and we had Henry.”

Kerry handed Kim a picture of her son.

“Kerry, he’s so cute.”

“That’s Sandy,” Kerry said handing her a picture of the three of them. She waited a few seconds while Kim looked at the photograph. “She was killed in a fire about a month after that was taken.”

Kim held the pictures, but looked at Kerry, horrified by what she had just heard.

“Oh Kerry, I’m so sorry.” She had been a psychiatrist for more than ten years, but couldn’t think of what would be the right thing to say to her companion.

“That was almost two years ago.”

And then their food came and they ate quietly for a few moments before Kerry asked the question that she had been holding in all day. “You haven’t told me, what brings you to Chicago?”