Bliss

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Pauline Wilde didn’t look like a woman in mourning. Unless by widow’s weeds one envisioned a lemon yellow and sky blue broomstick skirt studded with what had to be at least half a quarry’s worth of turquoise and intricately worked Native American silver disks, topped with a ratty, oversized T-shirt proclaiming, in half-faded but still defiant lettering, “Orgasms Aren’t Just for the Young!” Add to that a fiercely pink headscarf barely binding a wild-and-woolly extravaganza of hip-length salt-and-pepper hair and a pair of ancient gardening clogs with roses and kittens hand-stenciled on them in flaking acrylic paint, and you had the very picture of a woman not suffering the loss of her beloved life partner. But then, Serafina thought, that was Pauline—she didn’t believe in catering to societal expectations. Never had, never would.

“Bliss! Helloooooo, Bliss! Over here, kiddo!”

Her aunt’s voice was exactly as it had always been—warm, slightly fruity, like a cross between Julia Child and Jane Goodall, blended with a dash of throaty Kathleen Turner for good measure. Sera smothered a grin at the sight of her impatiently elbowing past the rest of the folks waiting for friends and loved ones at the terminal. Only Pauline ever called her by her ridiculous middle name—a name Pauline herself had gifted her, and which was now echoing through the boarding area to the amusement of the other passengers disembarking from Sera’s flight.

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