Free Love Is the Higher Law by David Levithan Page A

They leave me to myself, which is different from leaving me alone.
    I look over to the south side of the square and see this one woman lighting a candle. She cups her hand over it, even though the rain is now just a drizzle. She leans in with a lighter until the wick takes hold of the flame. Leaving her hand there for a second, sheltering it. Then moving her hand away.
    She’s wearing a raincoat—a formless green raincoat—and it’s still darkish out, so it’s hard for me to tell anything about her, except that she has long, dark hair. She looks once at the candle and the framed photo behind it, then moves on to the next candle. Again, she cups her hand. Again, she flicks her lighter. Again, she waits for the flame to catch.
    I watch her for a minute. It’s like we’re the only two people in the park, and I am afraid that even by watching, I am disturbing her. But then she lights a third candle, and a fourth, and my crying has stopped, and I feel foolish again. But at least it’s the kind of foolish that will get me to do something.
    I stand up from the bench and smooth out my shirt. I walk over and get within ten feet of the woman before I hesitate again. She is so intent on the candles that I’m afraid I will startle her. I look back at her work—the second candle she lit is out again, but the rest are still flickering.
    “Excuse me,” I say.
    She looks surprised. While I’ve been watching her, she hasn’t noticed me at all.
    “Can I help you?” I ask.
    She is not expecting this. I see now she’s about my mother’s age, and her hair is wet enough to make me think she’s been doing this for a while now. All through the night, even.
    “I only have one lighter,” she says apologetically.
    “I could use that,” I say, pointing to the candle she’s just lit.
    “Here.” She reaches over and picks it up. We both look at the photo it was sitting in front of, a man in his fifties. There’s no MISSING or HAVE YOU SEEN ME? or even a name. It’s just a framed photo that somebody left. I can easily imagine it sitting on a mantelpiece or on a desk. Or on top of a casket at a funeral. There are going to be so many funerals at once.
    “I don’t think he’ll mind,” the woman says gently, nodding at the man in the photograph. She reaches the candle over to me, and I take it from her. For a moment, both our hands are on it. She’s watching the flame, willing it to stay alight.
    “Thank you,” I say.
    “It’s nothing,” she tells me. “Thank you.”
    This, I think, is how people survive: Even when horrible things have been done to us, we can still find gratitude in one another.
    I decide to go back to the first candle she lit and move in the opposite direction around the path. Before I do, I look back and observe again how she does it. When she pauses before each one, I look to see if her lips move, if she’s actually saying a prayer. But whatever words she’s thinking are kept to herself, or sent directly to whoever she believes can hear her thoughts, deity or deceased.
    I can’t think of anything to say. I don’t know these people whose candles I am lighting. So instead, as I light each one, I am sure to read the names out loud, if there are names. I am sure to look each photo in the eye, if there’s a photo. I cup my hand over each unlit candle, then raise my own candle to it. They touch, and I leave a small flame. Sometimes it doesn’t last, or it doesn’t work at all. Sometimes I have to wipe off the water that’s pooled in the hollow of the wax. Sometimes I have to backtrack when my candle goes out, and relight it on one of the candles I lit only moments before. Every now and then I look to see how the woman in the green raincoat is doing. Two other people, a couple, have seen us and are now using their own lighter to save more candles. It feels like the right thing to do, even though the light we make doesn’t change what’s happened. We are making our own temporary constellation, and it