Annie finally did appear,  unfazed that both members of her family had just disappeared from view in one on the largest museums in the country.Joshua nodded sheepishly.

“Well?” she said, “Are we going in?”

The three of them made their way into the LGBT Exhibit which spanned a huge gallery on the lower floor of the National Museum of American History.  Annie worked as a collections manger for Pennsylvania’s Queer Archives and she had recently donated some old rainbow flags from the early nineties.  The national exhibit started with Stonewall in 1969 and ended with the overturning of the Defense of Marriage Act in 2020 and the enactment of the Marriage Equality bill soon after.  Huge blown up pictures of famous LGBT people lined the walls and there were rows of display cases holding artifacts from the 19th century on.  There was even an interactive hologram hall where with a wave of your hand  you could actually watch the protests and feel like you were there.

“After this we’re going to Air and Space right? Joshua said for the hundredth time since they arrived in Washington.

“Yes Joshua!” Emily tried to be patient.  It hadn’t been easy for him, the beginning of his short life.  Angie had shown up on the doorstep of Pula’s after disappearing  for a few years with him in tow.  That was in 2021 and Joshua had been a month old.  Angie had chosen every self destructive path in her life  and was paying the consequences dearly.  Thrown away by her family once they realized she would not change- she became addicted to meth and by the time she realized she was pregnant she was about to go into delivery.  Emily took them both in and set them up in her old room behind Paul’s office.  She quickly realized  Angie was no where near ready to get sober or raise Joshua, so Emily wound up bringing him home to Annie, who did not bat an eye, but just folded him into her arms.   Angie left one night to get high, and never came back.  They pulled her lifeless body out of the Paulenskill River two weeks later, cause of death-suicide by drowning.  Emily had fought with the Medical Examiner over that one.  Homophobia, she said, it should read  neglect, or prejudice or death by hate.  Angie’s parents never claimed the body.  Emily had taken care of everything herself.  They hadn’t even put up a  fight when Annie and Emily filed for full custody of Joshua.  It was if they had neatly sliced and severed Angie out of their lives completely.

“Where’s your flags?” she asked Annie.

‘Dunno, we’ll have to keep our eyes peeled.”

The two of them held hands as Joshua darted ahead then back then ahead of them again.

As they turned the corner of the hall, they were greeted with a huge globe hanging from the ceiling, lit up with every flag in the world.

The three of them stopped and stared.

“Is that the-” Annie started.

“WHOF globe!” Emily finished.  “Oh my God!  Remember Face Book?”

Annie laughed, “Sort of.” “What’s Face Book?” Asked Joshua.

“Oh it was On-line…” she gazed at Joshua’s confused face, “I mean in the “cloud”.  You could go and get help if you were…” she trailed off as Joshua looked more confused, “Well, it was a different time you see…not everyone was “out”.

“What’s “out”? Out where?  Outside?” Joshua asked.

Annie burst into laughter.  Emily did too.  Well, we’ve come a long way.  Emily thought.

Joshua certainly knew that his mom, Emily, was gay and that her wife was too, but today there was no more slang like “out”, no more codes, no more secrets, no more prejudice.  Well OK, there was still some prejudice, but all the changes in the law had made  the LBGT community so mainstream, so accepted it was rare to hear of a hate crime these days and if you did it was met with shock and disgust, not the shrugging of shoulders like so many years ago.

“Well a decade ago Annie and me would not have been able to get married.”

“Oh yeah, I think we’re learning that in social studies this month.”  Joshua said.

Emily and Annie gave each other knowing glances.  Joshua’s generation would be the first to study a piece of American history that was usually swept under the rug. The typical history book in public school today had added the LGBT story to it’s chapter on the civil rights movement.  They knew he’d have a lot of questions for them come September.  Especially after learning how hard it had been at one point to even walk down the street holding hands.

Joshua darted ahead of them again, not ready for a lecture and found an interactive screen.  He waved his fingers in front of it.

“Look mom! Photos!”  Joshua waved his hand across the huge screen quickly and face after face zoomed by.

Emily caught his arm, “Whoa, hold on, not so fast!”

Annie caught up, “Ohhh, WHOF photos!  They were always my favorite!”

Emily gave her hand a sqeeze, “I thought you only “sort of” remembered Face Book.”

“Yeah I know, but WHOF photos made a difference in my life…”

Emily nodded and slowly waved her hand in the air and three of them stood in silence as photo after photo glided by.

“Why were WHOF photos so important?” Joshua asked.

‘Mm, well, because it reminded us we’re all equal when it comes to  love…” Emily trailed off as she remembered her teenage self, so scared, scrolling through the photos just to numb the pain.

“Did you guys ever send one in?”  Joshua asked.

“Yeah, I think we did, when we got married…when was that again?  2020?”  Emily answered.

“Er, I believe the date was March 17, 2020.  You thought it was a “lucky” day as I recall.”  Annie gently remonstrated.

“Well it was!” Emily kissed her softly on the mouth, “It was the second luckiest day of my life.”

“What!”  Annie pretended mock surprise, it was a game they had played before, “What was the first?”

“Me!” Joshua piped up, “Now can you cut it out?  I want to find you guys on here.”

“Find 2020!” he said in a loud voice in front of the screen.

“Oh geez…” Emily muttered as millions of photos began cropping up. “There has to be an easier way…find ‘wedding of Emily and Annie Keenan’.” she said loudly.

Immediately their wedding photo popped up on the screen.  It was taken by Paul.  He caught them just as they had mushed cake all over each others faces. They were so…happy.

“Whenever I do that you guys freak out.” Joshua joked.

Annie sighed, “Oh Paul…”  Paul had died the year after they got married, leaving the funeral home to Emily.

Emily felt a surge of sadness and she needed to face it.

“Find Angela Soto.” she told the screen

The screen blinked and then like an apparition, a seventeen year old Angie appeared. Her arms hanging around the neck of a twenty-one year old Emily.

Annie’s hand went to her mouth in surprise, “Wow,” she whispered, “So young!”

Emily put her arm around Joshua’s shoulders, “Do you know who that is Josh?”

His hand reached for hers, something he hadn’t done in a while.  “My birth mom?”  He had no memory of her and Emily had no pictures, except this one.  The one that she and Angie had sent into WHOF when they were dating, before Angie’s parents found out and sent her away-again.  In the photo, Angie  looked full of life and hopeful.  Not ravaged by other people trying to make her into something she was not.