Someone Will Remember Us | Diana Barry & Anne Shirley

Chapter One | Aunt Josephine

Diana watched as Cole held Anne's hand, spinning her under his arm like a spinning top. Sharing a laughter, they were dancing around the room, happily talking about the party. Diana simply couldn't get her head around it. What was there to laugh about? She was still thinking about that woman in the top hat, who had raised her glass to Aunt Josephine and Aunt Gertrude, and how she had announced them as "her romantic ideal". Romantic ideal. Diana didn't believe what she had heard, she couldn't, so she made sure to ask Anne what that woman had meant. Expecting denial, she was surprised by Anne's words:
"Oh, well, they were in love!" Anne had exclaimed excitedly, like it was as sure as the sun were to rise at dawn. Her words still echoed in Diana's mind. Her Aunt Josephine, in love with Gertrude? She had known both of them forever, how could Diana have missed that?
Looking back, she now noticed so many obvious things that suddenly made sense. How could she had been so oblivious?

"Oh, and Diana," Anne sat down beside Diana in their shared bed. "Cécile Chaminade." She continued, as her eyes glowed with excitement. "Did she inspire you to play and play and play some more?" Anne chuckled.
Diana sat, her legs close to her stomach, with her flower crown resting below her knees, and thought back to the breathtaking performance. How Cécile's hands had flown over the piano, like it was a part of her, and how the music had echoed over the halls and into Diana's very soul. It had reached every corner of her mind, of her body, making her want to smile and cry at the same time.
But the conversation that followed, when Chaminade had asked if Diana aspired to continue with her piano, of course she had replied that she might if her husband were to agree. Aunt Josephine and Cécile Chaminade had smiled, almost laughed, and told her that she could be more than a wife, more than someone's husband. But how, Diana asked herself. How could they so easily see the future like it was made of different paths? Diana had only ever seen one path before her; how she was to marry a man and give him children. That was her very purpose in this life, the very thing she had always seen others being, and herself supposed to become. A wife.
Truth to be told, Diana wasn't too fond with the picture. She felt that something was terribly wrong with it. Although, it had never seemed possible to have another option and therefore she had never questioned it. But now, after this party, filled with a variety of people and personalities, and the new discovers she had made about her Aunt Josephine, there seemed to be so many options.
Too many.
This scared Diana. Feelings that she in an early age had realised were wrong, she could now feel ticklish the surface just beneath her skin. It felt as if they were suddenly glowing through her skin, so if someone were to look at her, they would see. But they couldn't, they simply couldn't! No one could know, ever! Diana had always told herself to shut them down, lock them in. No one would suspect their bare existence. It was easier that way.

At this party, after being mirrored in so many people, not only living openly but doing it proud, it was like a seed had been planted in Diana's mind. And she couldn't seem to make it stop growing.
Before, it had seemed impossible. The impossible was easier not to wish for. When it now had showed itself to not be impossible, but indeed possible, she found herself asking if it maybe wasn't so bad after all? What a mad thought! Diana was confused, she couldn't store her thoughts. She needed to hear it, that it was wrong, so she knew that she had to shut it down. All of it.

"Aunt Josephine kept her lifestyle a secret. My parents certainly didn't know." Diana couldn't bear to think of what they would say, if they were to know about Aunt Josephine, or about her.
She turned to face Anne. "That... must mean it's wrong." She said confidently.
Anne fell silent for a moment, which made Diana nervous because Anne rarely did run out of words. Then, she grabbed a book from the nightstand, and read out loud:

"To my Gertrude.
Someone will remember us, I say,
even in another time.
Forever, you have my heart.
Jo"

"Two women could never have children," Diana tried desperately. "It doesn't make sense!"
These words had travelled Diana's mind for as long as she had dared to think of something else than to marry a man. Like a mantra, to chase her thoughts away.
Anne seemed disturbed. "How can you say that when such beautiful words were written from one to another?"
"It's unnatural, Anne!" Diana nearly shouted, starting to feel afraid. Afraid of Anne to agree, afraid of her to disagree. Diana didn't know what she wanted.
Suddenly, Cole spoke: "If your aunt lived her life feeling something was wrong with her, that she was... broken, defective, or unnatural..." He paused, and Diana almost felt like she saw something new in Cole's brown eyes, something terrible and dark. Like pain. "Then one day," he continued, "She met someone that made her realize that that wasn't true, there was nothing wrong with her and she was... fine!" Cole locked eyes with Diana, and she almost felt ashamed, like she had insulted him. "Shouldn't we be happy for her?" Cole fell silent.
"I think it's spectacular." Anne declared her opinion, as always. Diana's sight fell and stuck on Anne. Her whole freckled face cracked up in a wide smile, and her great blue eyes shone like an endless ocean. Anne turned around, her fiery red hair following the movement. Their eyes met.

Diana wanted Anne's and Cole's words to be true, she wanted to believe her friends. But it was hard to believe something, that Diana had lived her whole life thinking - being told - was wrong. Anne was the first person Diana ever had  known to question things that simply just were the way they were. That just made it all harder, coming from Anne. Could it be so wrong then, Diana dared to question. If Anne, the very girl who made Diana question this whole wife-husband picture, think it's not a problem: then what is the problem?
"There's so much more possibility." Anne finally said, and with a chuckle she looked at Cole who smiled as well.