Very Young Love

This is post 13 of Section V. To begin at the beginning, go here. Section II begins here. Section III begins here. Section IV begins here, and Section V begins here.

At dinner that night she interrupted Gwen’s rather strained monologue about the PFLAG table they were planning for the pre-parade festival to say, “I’m gonna marry Steve when I grow up.” There was a shocked silence. It was the longest sentence they had ever heard her utter on a non-electronic subject.
After that, Lizzy and Stephen got into the habit of playing different kinds of music for each other and reacting to them. When she began to tire of that, Stephen introduced her to musical chairs, (a game she had never played before), but with the twist that one had to dance around the chairs, following a leader who decided what sort of dance was appropriate for what music. This game went best with more than two players, but by this time Gwen was positively jealous of all the fun Stephen seemed to be having with her grandchild, and Bennett therefore had no choice but to participate. Surprisingly, he was a resounding success at the game, as his moves tended to be the most ridiculously ungainly; and although he did not admit it, he rather enjoyed his newfound popularity.
On the day of the Gay Pride Festival and Parade, however, Lizzy immediately noticed that Grandma was not there to participate in their interpretive rendition of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. It was Stephen who made the mistake of telling her that Grandma had gone to a parade. Grateful though he was toward the lad, Bennett could have strangled him.

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