Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

For all of Richie’s jokes, Eddie Kaspbrak has seldom ever actually been truly, honest-to-god, angry.

He gets frustrated, of course. He gets annoyed when it’s very clear that it’s the first day on planet Earth for every single person around him; he gets agitated and enraged in traffic, especially during the morning rush and when he’s surrounded by absolute fucking morons on the road. He gets short with some of his coworkers, who seem to view him as a babysitter rather than their supervisor — his go-to line in the office is: “I have four children at home; I don’t need any more, believe me.”

One of the only times that Eddie has gotten close to true anger was many years ago, back when he was thirteen years-old and realized for the very first time how deep his mother’s manipulation went: he can remember it now, one arm in a cast as he raised the orange pill bottle to Sonia’s eye level — these are bullshit, mom! — and stormed out of his house, not looking back once and knowing that he had to go and help his friends. The second time with Sonia had been worse: seeing her hunched over Frankie’s bed days after Frankie had come home from the hospital, trying to open a bottle of liquid Tylenol to feed to her grandson. Another time was more recent, a few months before in Kitty Hawk, when he saw bruises on Frankie’s wrist in the shape of a hand, knowing that someone had grabbed his son hard enough to bruise.

Eddie can’t say if this time is worse than any of the others, but it’s definitely within the top five.

It took everything — quite literally every ounce of self-control that Eddie’s built over the years in his monthly therapy sessions post-Derry — to not storm over to Myra’s apartment the second that Frankie came over to the townhouse in his clothes from the previous day, head hanging and brown eyes dim, refusing to talk about what exactly had happened, only that yes, Myra had kicked him out.

Frankie prefers not to talk about it much; he simply says that there’s not really anything else to say about it, other than he’s done with his mother and wants to focus on their upcoming birthday — and Eddie doesn’t quite know if he can call it emotional maturity or absolute resignation on Frankie’s part, for an almost-sixteen year-old boy to give up on his mother. And on Eddie’s part, there’s an infinite amount of guilt, since-

You should have tried harder, Eddie reminds himself, his voice faltering a bit as he recounts the story now; Richie picks up the rest of the story for him without question, diving into how Darren — Myra’s husband — had been the one to come over, and not Myra herself. Myra apparently hasn’t said a word to Frankie, a fact which Shay relayed to Eddie just hours before, shrugging her shoulders with an annoyed glint in her eyes. You should have done something years ago, before the divorce. It’s all…

Eddie thinks of Ida, Myra’s mother: Eddie, Ida had said last week during the Dinner From Hell, as Richie and Bev have dubbed it, you are Franklin's father. Your responsibility is to him; you and Myra had Franklin many years before anyone else came along. Franklin is right: he did not ask for any of this, or to be involved in you and Myra’s drama. For his sake, you, Myra, and Richard need to grow the hell up.

By the end of the story, Stan and Patty, who only just got into Manhattan that morning, sit on the other end of the table in complete silence. One of the cats jumps into Patty’s lap; Salem curls up on her pants while Patty scratches the tomcat’s chin.

Stan slowly nods, adjusting his glasses before looking at Eddie and going, “Okay. I guess I’ll have to go over there.”

Eddie groans.

“I fucking told you,” Richie says to Eddie, pointing at him and leaning over the table to try and give Stan a high-five; Stanley just stares at Richie’s hand and slowly shakes his head. “Whatever. But see, I told you that-”

“So we’re doing the angry mob thing?” Bev asks, already getting to her feet; Ben tries to put a hand on her elbow to stop her, but lets it fall against his side with a sigh — he knows it’s no use, either. “Because I’ve been holding the hell back-”

“We’re not doing the angry mob,” Eddie tells her sharply.

“I’m not saying an angry mob,” Stan says, taking a moment before slowly going, “I’m just going to leave something in her mailbox, is all.”

“Cat shit?” Richie grins ear to ear. “‘Cus we got loads, man, just give the cats a few hours-”

“That’s so disgusting,” Eddie swats Richie’s bicep.

Stanley makes a face. “No, Richie.”

“She might be able to DNA test the shit or something,” Bill randomly says, raising his brows when Eddie looks at him. “What? Can’t they do that now?”

“With cat shit?” Bev furrows her brows.

“I don’t think she’d have to,” Mike supplies, tapping his finger on his chin. “I mean, putting cat feces in her mailbox right after everything with Frankie, knowing Eddie and Richie have two cats…I don’t think that’s a solid plan.”

“It’s definitely not a solid plan,” Richie ribs back, ignoring Eddie gag — he can’t help it, the topic of animal feces is absolutely disgusting, and even more horrid to think about transporting it anywhere. “Very…liquidy.”

Everyone stares at Richie, unamused.

“Fucking ew, Richie,” Bev says, shaking her head. “Too far.”

“I’m pissed off, Bev! Let me be gross!”

“I’m angry too, but I have some decorum,” Beverly counters, muttering under her breath. “No, we can’t do that, it's too messy. I’m thinking of going down there and cursing her out; nice and easy, to the point.”

“You guys,” Eddie sighs, watching his friends go back and forth. “We-”

“I don’t think Frankie would appreciate us doing that,” Ben, ever the peacemaker and now Eddie’s favorite Loser, points out helpfully. Eddie’s appreciation lasts all of two seconds before Ben goes, “But then again…”

“Guys-”

“Okay, fine, so me, Stan, and Bev go and-” Richie starts, only to be cut off by Bill’s indignant scoff.

“I’d go, too.”

“Myra’s got like an inch of height on you, Big Bill. She’d stomp all over you.”

“I’m Frankie’s favorite uncle.”

Mike actually looks offended, putting a hand on his chest as he stares down at his husband. “I thought I was his favorite.”

“He told me I was,” Ben nearly pouts, only to train his expression into something more adult-like when Eddie looks at him.

“I’m probably not,” Stan admits with a shrug, frowning, and when everyone — sans Eddie — looks at him, he goes, “He got a D on his Geometry test a few weeks back, and when I asked him about it, he told me my career was boring and would be taken over by computers,” Stan looks grave. “It wasn’t a pleasant conversation.”

“Point one for Frankie E. Kaspbrak,” Richie uses his “WWE announcer” voice at that part, snickering a little bit before going, “Man, Frankie’s favorite is whoever will help him cover up anything he doesn’t want me or Eds to know about, none of y’all are special, but- anyways-”

“You guys,” Eddie finally gets their attention; his friends all look at him, watching as he sighs. “You guys, I love you all — you know that. I don’t think any of you know how much it means to me to have you all want to go in and fight for him-”

“For you, too,” Ben murmurs, his brown eyes soft.

Eddie swallows. “But…okay, as much as I fucking love all of you and your ride or die mentality, we can’t just do an angry mob, Stan-”

“I didn’t say an angry mob,” Stan goes, frowning when Richie splutters and looks at him. “I didn’t. Bev said that.”

“You started the whole conversation by saying I’ll go over there — what does that mean if not hey, i’m gonna go over with a pitchfork and torch and-”

“I was going to leave a letter in her mailbox,” Stan says with that completely serious deadpan that they all know and love him for.

Everyone around the table — sans Patty, who snickers behind her hand — just stares at Stanley.

“Okay,” Richie finally tears his eyes away from his best friend. “So any plan going forward is going to be Stan-free.”

“Out of everyone’s idea, at least that’s the least illegal,” Eddie murmurs, shaking his head. “But- okay, no. No, we’re not doing any of that.”

“We’re not?” Richie says, raising his brows. “Eds. If you-”

“I just,” Eddie looks at his husband; there’s a moment where Eddie meets his eyes, hand going under the table to touch Richie’s fidgety palm, and he knows that Richie understands — even if the protective side of him, as massive and overpowering as it can be when Myra is mentioned, doesn’t like it — that he has to let Eddie do this: “Look, I’d love to have you all — well, I guess except for Stan — right there with me, but…this isn’t your fight.”

Although he knows that his friends will go to war for both him and any of his children — which he adores and still, even after the years the Losers Club have become a blended and incredibly chaotic family, doesn’t quite know what he ever did to deserve — Eddie knows deep within his bones that this particular fight is not one that anyone else can fight for him.

His friends want nothing more than to support him; he knows that.

Eddie doesn’t exactly know when this fight will happen — he held off going to Myra’s apartment as soon as possible due to the simple fact that he knew that whatever he had to say on that Saturday morning, seeing his oldest child walking up to the townhouse downtrodden and resigned, would have ended with both he and Myra down in the courtroom once again, just like they were six years before. Myra citing Eddie’s unusual behavior as reason to have custody of Frankie taken away from him almost all the way — she had wanted Eddie to have every other weekend, Eddie remembers.

(“He’s just not stable,” Myra had said years before, back in a too-small office in some Manhattan highrise with their respective lawyers on either side of them. “He came home from that trip in a- in a weird state, and I just- I think he’s going to take our son halfway across the country, where he and that- that man that left us for-”

“Mrs. Kaspbrak,” Eddie’s lawyer had reminded her sharply, “This is about the custody of your son, not the logistics of the divorce. Let’s keep the topic strictly to Frankie, and what’s in his best interests.”

“I’m the only one who’s been considering that,” Myra had snapped, her cold gaze sliding right over to lock onto Eddie’s.)

He doesn’t know when, exactly, only that this is a fight that he needs to do alone, for once.

Richie doesn’t particularly like it; his husband grumbles something under his breath, but before anyone can comment further, the younger kids tottle into the kitchen after hearing all the commotion, and everyone automatically resets their expressions into something more positive.

Hours later, after the older kids have come home from hanging out around the city with a few of Frankie and Shay’s friends, there’s a moment where it’s just Eddie and Richie alone in their room, and Richie goes, “Babe.”

“Hm.”

“I just want to protect you and Frank, you know.”

Eddie lifts his head; Richie’s shirtless — and doing a little wink when Eddie’s eyes trail over his bare skin appreciatively — before he starts changing into another shirt; one of the younger kids, either Rosie or Caleb, but most likely Caleb, had spilled food on Richie’s shirt just minutes before.

“I know that,” Eddie tells him, picking at the comforter. He can hear their friends in the townhouse laughing and talking; the sound is comforting despite the topic at hand. “I know.”

“But…”

“I’m trying to phrase this in the least,” Eddie looks up at the ceiling and gestures vaguely, “You know, the least me and Frankie vs. everyone else way possible.”

“Just say what you mean, Eds.”

“I,” Eddie shuts his eyes. He thinks of the fight between Frankie and Myra at the restaurant; the way Frankie had stared at his mother, wounded, as Myra drilled into him, landing jab after jab in. Eddie felt so fucking useless, powerless; every protest he tried to make against Myra was ignored — both Frankie and Myra were solely focused on each other. “I can’t keep hiding behind you and the Losers anymore. Not this time.”

Richie looks at him, brow raised.

“This is between me and her,” Eddie finally goes, sighing sharply through her nose. “It always has been; I love that you guys want to support me, I really do. Trust me, there’s that, like, really immature part of me that would love to let everyone storm over there and be an angry mob, to- I don’t know. For Frankie to be able to decide where he wants to go, to…”

To be with me all the time, Eddie thinks, and he remembers Myra during the custody hearings, how his ex-wife would constantly bring up the idea of Eddie taking their son and running across the country with him, barring her from ever seeing Frankie again.

Childishly, there were times when the proceedings were messy and when he’d see dozens of notifications from Myra, cursing him out and reminding him how he ruined everything for her and Frankie, where it was all he wanted to do: for the court to rule that Eddie would get sole custody of their son, and Frankie and Eddie could go anywhere they wanted.

To Richie, Eddie thinks now, meeting his husband's eyes for a brief moment before he looks away.

He knows that that’s the part of him that rears its ugly head sometimes — conveniently whenever Myra is involved — and is much crueler than he actually is.

But Eddie isn’t that cruel, and this is the real world: he has always wanted to believe that the best possible outcome for the three of them — Eddie, Myra, and Frankie — was for he and Myra to have fifty-fifty custody of their son.

(But was anything ever going to be fair, Eddie wonders sometimes, when he sees his son arguing with his mother, when Frankie watches the girls talk about something they all did together as a family during Frankie’s week with his mother. From the moment he was born, both Eddie and Myra always knowing that their marriage may not last at all, was Frankie ever destined to have a fair life?)

“I’d do anything for you,” Richie reminds him.

“I know you will,” Eddie murmurs, and subconsciously, he feels his hand going up to rest against his sternum; the rough, scarred skin is still numb even after all these years.

Richie looks at where Eddie’s hand is positioned and turns away.

“I just,” Richie sighs deeply and lowers himself on the bed next to Eddie; they’re not touching, but Richie’s warmth is enough to ease a tiny fraction of Eddie’s nerves. “I know, even if you think I don’t, that in the end, this was always going to be between you ‘n her. I know it’s…like, as much as I want it to be, it’s not my fight.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything, simply watching his husband speak.

“But it’s hard to imagine you going over there and not being there to support you when she starts going in on you,” Not if, but when. “You’re a tough little cookie — don’t give me that look, babe. But you’re strong; I know you can handle yourself. It’s not that, it’s just- you know, as someone who loves you, I can’t fucking stand someone hurting you. I can’t. I had to stomach it for years when we were kids, even if I didn’t get it back then, and now as an adult, it’s like- I love you and Frankie more than anything. I mean, after all the shit we went through, after the clown, I didn’t just get a husband, you know? You gave me a son.”

Eddie feels a fondness for Richie that’s so strong, it threatens to unbalance him completely; he has to grip the comforter to keep from tilting over, staring at his husband’s profile.

“Richie…”

“I know you have to do this on your own,” Richie goes on, sighing. “I hate it, but subconsciously, I know it. But,” Richie shakes his head. “I’m fucking done with her, man. I’m cool with Darren; he’s great, I love that guy. I’m subtly planning on all the ways we can steal him away from her-”

“Rihcie, come on.”

“-she started the immature shit, not me, dude. But her?” Richie shakes his head. “Nah, man. I’m done with her. I’ll be as contained as I can be if I run into her, but I’m done with her.”

Eddie would argue that Richie has always been done with Myra, ever since Derry; Richie and Myra have never gotten along. But Richie’s stubbornness and resolve is oddly comforting.

“I wanted to go over there as soon as she called me,” Eddie goes on, shaking his head. “It took every fucking bit of strength for me not to.”

“Me too.”

“And it’s killing me to just- to have to wait, but…”

“Although I stand by the fact that you’re kinda hot when you’re angry,” Richie cracks a bit of a smile before his expression steels back into anger, “Yeah, I don’t think…you know, when Frank got home, if either of us went over there, it probably would’ve ended in half of Manhattan on fire. I could barely fucking think straight, dude.”

Eddie remembers. The day Frankie came to the townhouse, trudging inside and locking himself in his room, both Eddie and Richie had been milliseconds from going over to that apartment.

Eddie is not someone who enjoys being angry, contrary to what some of his coworkers may think; he doesn’t particularly enjoy it. But it had practically consumed him that day; he had to spend most of the time outside in the fresh air, reminding himself to chill the fuck out.

“I just,” Eddie shrugs. “I don’t know when the right time is, exactly. But like…okay, weird comparison.”

“All for it, babe.”

“It kind of feels like when,” Eddie glances at the door; no shadows underneath it, signifying no wayward kids, “You know, going back to Derry.”

Richie stares at him. “Context.”

“I don’t want to do it at all,” Eddie explains, frowning. “Like, at all. But I have to, and I know I need to face certain things alone.”

“Makes slight sense but,” Richie shivers. “No more clown talk, Eds. I’m already fired up enough; and…” Richie glances down at Eddie’s chest; he knows that Richie, even if he’d try to play it cool later, is remembering Neibolt.

“Don’t go back there,” Eddie murmurs softly, lifting himself up to place a kiss to his husband’s forehead. “Prime real estate up here, huh?”

“Dickhead,” Richie laughs, burying his face in the side of Eddie’s neck. “Just promise me that you’ll stand your ground with her, Eds. And don’t let her get into your head.”

“I won’t.”

“Seriously,” Richie pulls away, frowning at him. “Look, yeah, from an outsider perspective, I can see how there was- you know, everyone did shit wrong, save for Frank. I get it. But you know that everything with you and Myra went downhill long before I so graciously re-entered your life.”

Eddie knows that; of course he does. Of course, of course.

“I know.”

“Good.”

"But," Eddie murmurs; he hears Richie sigh.

"No buts, Eddie."

"But," Eddie goes again, voice sad, "I wish that it never got to be like this."

Richie hums; he presses his jawline against the side of Eddie's head, resting against him. "Yeah."

"But it feels," Eddie can hear the sounds of his friends laughing; there's a voice that sounds like Shay rising above everyone else, before there's another loud fit of laughter that drowns her out. Eddie shuts his eyes. "I just feel like..."

"Don't leave me in suspense."

Eddie has a very hard time discussing this with anyone, even his therapist; he knows he should be able to talk to Richie about it. But it's very difficult, in times like this, with Frankie in the other room surrounded by his blended extended family, and Myra in her apartment somewhere on the other side of Manhattan — Mom's pregnant, by the way — where all Eddie can think about is how unfair all of this is to Frankie, and how, even as Myra and Frankie went at it in public, and then all over again in private, how Eddie was never exactly too shocked that this is how it all ended up.

He feels guilty for thinking it, but once he does, it's difficult for him to stop: he always had a feeling that it would end up this way between Myra and Frankie. And it's not- everyone in his life automatically cites the divorce, and Myra's subsequent dislike of him and Richie as the reason.

But it was before that, Eddie thinks, feeling guilt pierce his heart. Before the divorce. Before...

"I just hate that it ended up this way," Eddie murmurs, because to vent to Richie about this subject in particular — about Myra, over a decade ago, running her hands through her hair and telling Eddie about how difficult their son was on that particular morning, how Frankie refused to go to school and clawed and screeched at Myra when she tried to make him, only for Eddie to go into Frankie's room and simply go, "Get your shoes on before you're late," and then watched as Frankie hopped off his bed, rolling his eyes but finishing getting ready for the day — feels like a betrayal towards Myra.

He doesn't quite understand it, but it's there: he still feels like there is so much he doesn't understand at all about Myra, even though he was married to her for so long. That there's so much left unsaid between the three of them — Eddie, Myra, and Frankie — that, as much as he doesn't want to vocalize it, no one else would ever be able to understand.

Eddie knows that soon, he'll have to gear up for a fight. Richie and the Losers try to distract him and Frankie with their upcoming birthday — tomorrow will make it two days away, and Eddie can see the excitement in Richie's eyes, how everyone keeps attempting to pretend as if everything is nonchalant and oh, just another birthday, guys, it's not like we're all here in Manhattan for any special reason, no sir! — but it's a feeling that Eddie can't shake: once again, he's reminded of when Mike called him to Derry years before, of speeding all the way to Derry and leaving his wife and son behind.

Of following his friends into Neibolt, no matter how fucking much he did not want to. Staring at the backs of their heads as he hovered there in the doorway; Richie had tried to nudge him with a shoulder and remind him that they were all together again, but it was Stan, surprisingly, who had touched Eddie's hand briefly and, his brown eyes distant, murmured, "We have to do this for them."

Now, nearly six years later, he watches Frankie sitting in the middle of his cousins; Rosie, Ben and Bev's daughter, is on his lap and staring up at her cousin with big brown eyes — the exact same shade as Ben's, Eddie marvels — and trying to show her older cousin how to say water.

"Wa-ter," Rosie says, twisting in Frankie's lap to watch his lips. "Wa-ter."

"Water," Frankie repeats, but with his accent, it always has come out as: wader. "Water."

"Nu-uh," Rosie shakes her head furiously. "Wa-ter."

"I think," Ben says softly, petting his daughter's hair, "that Frankie says it fine, baby."

Frankie nudges his uncle and rolls his eyes. "I don't mind," he says, and then clears his throat. "Wa-da."

Phoebe wrinkles her nose. "That's not even close!"

"Wa-ta?" Frankie grins ear to ear.

"No," Phoebe grabs her brother's hand and puts it on her throat; Eddie's heart aches with fondness. It's the way that Frankie's speech therapist had taught Eddie and Myra how to help Frankie with spoken speech many, many years before. "Wa-ter, with a t, Frankie!"

"I can't understand you," he sighs dramatically, flopping on the couch.

"Water."

The voice is very tiny; despite the mingled conversations, it seems like everything stills as everyone — even the youngest kids, save for one — all look at each other, and then down to the carpet, where Caleb is playing by himself, organizing his blocks.

"Did he just..." Eddie looks at Richie, and then Mike.

"Did you just say something?" Wren asks, dropping onto the carpet next to her youngest brother.

Caleb looks in his sister's general direction and shakes his head, but there's a tiny, coy little grin on his face that looks very much like Patty's. Caleb keeps organizing his blocks, stacking them high; Eddie notices that they’re following a clear color pattern: blue, yellow, green, and then red.

"Yeah, you did," Richie cheers. "He said something! Our boy spoke!"

From what Stan and Patty have told Eddie, Caleb is non-verbal, and when he does speak, it's usually scripting — echolalia, Patty murmured months before, a small smile on her face. He repeats a lot of what he hears, especially if he likes it; one night, he kept telling Stanley and I about a recipe, and we realized he was scripting Ratatouille.

Caleb pays no mind to the way everyone is gawking at him; this is the first time that Eddie has ever heard his nephew’s voice before.

"Are you crying, man?" Eddie asks Stan; Stan is hiding his face.

"No," he murmurs, clearing his throat. "No, I'm not. At all."

"He just," Patty wipes her cheek. "He's never spoken in front of so many people, is all — at home, sure, but any time anyone comes over…,” Patty shakes her head. “Wow.”

Frankie's watching the entire conversation; Eddie relays the parts he might've missed in sign, and then Frankie just nods.

"Water," he repeats; Charlie cheers when she hears the t pronounced as well as Frankie can.

Caleb glances up in Frankie's direction; he nods.

"Wa-ter," Caleb emphasizes; his voice is soft and small, so incredibly reminiscent of the way Stan sounded all those years ago.

Frankie scoots onto the carpet next to his cousin. "My favorite word to learn when I relearned how to talk," he says, and Caleb cocks his head to one side as he listens closely, "was banana."

Eddie remembers; Frankie would repeat it so much, that even though it was exciting to hear his son trying to broaden his oral vocabulary and relearn phonics, it got to be a little tiresome after the first week.

Banana, Frankie would screech, running around their first apartment, banana, banana, banana!

"Talk," Caleb repeats, pointing to Frankie's hands.

"Yeah."

Caleb nods; Eddie's not quite sure what the pair of them are communicating with one another, but Frankie seems to understand.

"Me too, bro," Frankie doesn't high-five or nudge Caleb like he would with anyone else in the family; Caleb doesn't particularly like physical touch. When Stan and Patty had come just that morning, Richie had offered his hand for a high-five, and Caleb just looked at Richie and walked into the apartment, Richie smirking, "A man who knows his boundaries — I respect that."

Stan is still trying to pretend as if he's stone-faced, but Eddie can see that his friend is struggling not to get emotional at the sight of his youngest child — who everyone knows has a difficult time making friends and connecting with other children, although Stan and Patty don't like to go into depth about it — bonding with his cousin so naturally.

For them, Eddie thinks to himself again as he catches Frankie's eye; Frankie just shrugs and watches Caleb build his block structure, reminding Charlie not to disturb Caleb when she goes over to try and get a better look. Always for you.

—

The following day, Eddie goes through the motions at work as he usually does: he sends a few emails and makes idle small-talk with some of his coworkers. He'll be taking the next two days off of work, per Richie's request — you have a shit ton of vacation time, eddie, don't even start — and a little after noon, Eddie sinks into his office chair and counts down the minutes until he's slated to go to lunch.

He hasn't talked to Myra since the weekend; outside of that fucking phone call and a burst of angry texts afterwards, he knew nothing else he had to say would ever get anywhere, especially not over text.

He's been doing a fantastic job of reminding himself that it'll be someday, soon, when he has to face her again; he'll do it without question for Frankie, of course, but Eddie — and this is something that he feels a prickle of embarrassment for, really — has always thought that he'd have something akin to a speech prepared. That he'd face Myra and go on and on about how he's tried to give her grace, that he's tried to make everything as smooth as he possibly could, but that Myra is the one, not Eddie, who's made it all difficult. That she was the one who lashed out against him and Frankie far before either of them did to her; Eddie was the one who wanted fifty/fifty custody. Eddie is the one who's tried to remind Frankie to be kind to his mother, who hasn't encouraged him to speak negatively about her. Eddie is the one who knew, from the moment the custody arrangement was finalized, that he would never be one of those ex-spouses who spent their time with his child talking negatively about his ex-wife. Who would try and twist Frankie against her in any way, shape or form.

This is the part of Eddie that still uses his Google calendar for every single appointment, school event, and major life event, to the point where he had to buy extra storage for both his work and home computers. It's the part of Eddie that still folds his clothes in the exact way he was taught years before by Myra's mother, oddly enough, and refuses to do it any other way. It's the part of Eddie that still researches every menu from a new restaurant that they go to, despite the fact that both his husband and each of his children are much more spontaneous than he is and reminds him that the fun is not always knowing what a place serves, and living to be surprised.

Eddie likes to know what each day will bring; for someone who had a near mid-life crisis, it's still a hard habit to shake.

All of that flies out of the window when, a little bit before Eddie is slated to take his lunch hour, he gets a text message from Myra.

In it, she simply says: Frankie left his clothes in the washer, and they got a mildew-y smell. I had to rewash them twice.

That's all.

In the previous text messages, Eddie can see the back and forth between him and his ex-wife, only days prior: Myra defensive, Eddie angry and his responses short, controlled. Nearly a dozen messages back and forth, the subject at hand Frankie, and how Myra had kicked their son out of her apartment and didn't bother to double-check with Eddie about where Frankie had ended up.

And now, that's what she has to say.

Frankie left his clothes in the washer.

Eddie stares down at his phone for a very, very long time.

Later on, when he recounts this story multiple times over, and over long stretches of time to different people, it'll still be hard for Eddie to articulate why, exactly, that that message is the one that pushed him over the edge. That for all of Eddie's attempts to plan his next move carefully and logically, that that one, simple text is what drives him to decide to take the rest of the day off, telling his receptionist that yes, everything is fine, that he's a little eager to start his mini-birthday vacation, is all. Thank you for the early birthday wishes, and he'll be back in a few days.

Frankie left his clothes in the washer.

Eddie knows that this is a bad idea, of course. He tells himself that he should stop what he's doing and call someone — who, he's not too sure, since he knows that his friends and Richie, no matter how much he loves them, will only fan the flame — and take a moment to reconsider.

He knows that, of course, but yet, there Eddie is, storming up to the elevator of Myra's apartment and brimming with rage. He doesn't even hesitate — for one of the first times in his life — before he knocks on Myra's apartment door.

Vaguely, he knows that it's very likely that she's at work, and that no one will be here to answer the door — but that realization lasts all of two seconds before he hears the door unlatch, and Myra opens the door.

They stare at each other for a few moments, deathly silent.

"What do you want?" Myra finally asks, her face slightly pale; Eddie remembers, with an awkward pang, Frankie's announcement: Mom's pregnant, by the way.

(Despite how fucking angry he is at her, he remembers just yesterday afternoon, sitting next to Patty as he relayed the information to her; Patty had sucked in a breath, shifting in her seat awkwardly.

"What?" Eddie had asked, frowning.

"Just," Patty shrugs, "I just... I mean, she's a year older than you, right?" Eddie nodded. "That must be so stressful for her. I'm not brushing anything off, not at all. Don't misunderstand me. But I was already freaked out enough when I had Caleb at forty; it wasn't easy for Bev to have Rosie at forty-two. Being forty-six and pregnant..." And Patty had trailed off, gaze resigned.)

Myra sways on her feet a little bit, gripping the doorframe. "You know, it wasn't like I was inviting you over or anything-"

"Mildew?" Eddie finally blurts; he feels heat begin to rise up the back of his neck as Myra stares at him, lips pursed.

"Excuse me?"

"That's all you have to say?" Eddie goes on, glaring at his ex-wife. "After- after everything. After... That's what you want to say? That our son- what, left his clothes in the washer?"

"I was-"

"After everything you did, that’s it, Myra?"

"I don't have to listen to this," Myra snarls, knuckles white from how tightly she's gripping the doorframe. "I don't have time for this."

"Make time," Eddie grounds out.

"Who do you think you are?!"

"Frankie's father."

"If you're coming here to- I don't know, to try and intimidate me or something-"

"I'm here to talk about Frankie and what happened Friday night."

"About Frankie." Myra's nostrils flare as she rolls her eyes; whether it's because of the topic being her behavior, or if she's in disbelief that Eddie would actually drive all this way to talk about their son — when of course he is, he has no desire to see Myra outside of anything to do with Frankie — he's not sure, but the tone of her voice combined with her eyeroll does nothing but piss Eddie off even more.

"I've been trying to hold back for all this time," Eddie begins, trying to keep himself from yelling, "I've been holding my tongue-"

"And yet here you are, ambushing me outside of my apartment."

"I'm not ambushing you, Myra!" Eddie says, even though vaguely, he's aware that that's technically what he's doing right now: coming to Myra's apartment unannounced, his only goal in mind to confront her about the other night. Regardless, he continues on: "I just want to understand why. I want to know why you- why it had to be like that, why our son's birthday is the day after tomorrow and you still haven't even called or texted him to- to talk about anything with him, or even just to..."

"Oh, please," Myra shakes her head in disgust. "You got what you always wanted, Eddie."

"Excuse me?" Eddie splutters, eyes wide. "What I always wanted? Do you hear yourself right now?!"

Eddie knows that Myra wants nothing more than to slam the door in his face, to hide away from the world. That she wants to lick her wounds in private, curled in on herself until Frankie comes back over for the next weekend — is that even going to happen, Eddie wonders? or does Myra want him gone longer? — as she waits for him to be the first to break. Myra wants to believe that everything that has happened to her since the divorce is all Eddie's fault: that he's the one who ruined her life.

Maybe Eddie didn't do everything right during the divorce; he could have done many, many things differently. He's not entirely blameless.

But he doesn't want this. He doesn't want Myra to be miserable, for his son to have a fractured relationship with his mother. And he’s not the one who made Myra kick Frankie out, who decided to harbor onto her pain rather than getting help: that was her. All her.

"Frankie told me that he prefers you over me," Even as Myra tries to make her tone sound distant and removed from the topic at hand — one of her defense mechanisms, reserved only for the things that truly hurt her, Eddie remembers — he can see the pain glistening there, the wound raw. "He made it very, very clear how he feels about me," And then Myra's tone splinters as she says: "He told me he hated me."

That comes as a bit of a surprise, although — and this speaks volumes — Eddie can't help but think: well, i guess that's not very shocking at all, and the shame of that realization burns as he watches Myra cross her arms over her chest and retreat into herself.

No matter how angry Frankie has gotten at him in the past — and his son has gotten angry, of course, Frankie has slammed doors in his face and outright ignored him hundreds of times — he has never once told Eddie that he hates him.

Eddie watches as Myra turns away from him, her jaw clenched; the admission hangs in the air between them, the silence that follows uncomfortable, threatening to suffocate Eddie as he sees his ex-wife flinch from the pain of the memory.

"I had nothing to do with any of that, Myra."

"Right, of course," Myra says harshly. "Right, it's all me. Everything is always my fault — you had nothing to do with anything, Eddie. No, you never do."

Eddie furrows his brow. "What are you-?"

"No, it's always everyone else isn't it? It's never your fault — it's everyone else's! It's mine, or your mothers, or- or-"

"You have no idea what the hell you're talking about," Eddie snarls, shoulders stiffening. "You have no idea-"

"Oh, I have no idea?" Myra shoots back; she actually steps out into the hallway, swaying a little in discomfort — Eddie can see her swallow back her bile, her hand covering her mouth for a split second (first trimester nausea, he can't help but notice) — as she trains her eyes on his face. "I have no idea? I was married to you for thirteen years, Eddie."

"I remember."

"And you- you just threw everything away like it didn't even matter," Myra continues, shaking her head. "And I guess from the way you moved on, how you just- the way you turned on me in an instant, none of it ever mattered to you, did it?"

"What does this have to do with our son?" Eddie snaps back, crossing his arms over his chest. Don't let her get into your head, Richie had warned, and Eddie knows he won't do that, he won't let her; Myra doesn't have power over him any longer. But still, he feels something akin to shame building up deep within him as he thinks: she's right, in a way. "I'm not here to talk about you and me, Myra, it doesn't-"

"Of course it matters!" Myra hisses; due to being out in the hallway, she's attempting to keep her voice down to a quiet hiss. “You really don’t see it?”

"Frankie was right," Eddie drawls, shaking his head. "You're so obsessed with being angry at me, with everything that happened, that you can't see what's most important. You can't let yourself focus on Frankie, because you're obsessed with blaming me for everything."

"It's your fault!"

"How is it my fault, Myra?" Eddie snarls back. "How? What the fuck did I do to make you kick our son out of your apartment, huh? What did I do to make you and Frankie argue every time you see each other? What did I do to damage your relationship with him? You're an adult; you should be acting like one!"

"It's easy for you to say! You've always spoiled him! You’ve always sided with him over me, ever since the beginning! You've never been able to understand it, to...," Myra trails off, shaking her head. "You don't see what I see."

"What does that mean?" Eddie asks, taken aback; Myra's voice is distant and resigned, her posture defensive as she turns away from him. "Myra-"

"Leave me alone, Eddie," Myra snaps, looking down at where Eddie's hand — raised towards her a little, out of concern for the way his ex-wife sways on her feet, her skin glistening with sweat. "Just go away. You've already humiliated me and taken almost everything away from me — you got exactly what you wanted."

"I never wanted this," Eddie repeats. "I never wanted any of this, Myra. I don't want you to be miserable, I don't want you to lose our son. I tried everything I could to keep you two together, but you just- you're the one who..."

Why don't you like me? Frankie had asked Myra, and the memory pains Eddie's heart. In what world should a child ever be asking his parent such a question?

"You're loving this right now," Myra rasps after a moment, shaking her head. "You must be, huh?"

"What are you talking about?" Eddie blinks. "What-"

"You get to act like some martyr, like you're the injured little lamb and I'm the horrible, evil ex-wife that kept you locked up and…what was it you told your friends? I hurt you?"

Eddie stares at his ex-wife, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I hurt you? That's what you said, right? How? How did I hurt you?"

"I'm not talking about this with you," Eddie tells her, shaking his head. "I came over here to- I don't fucking know. All I wanted was to know why you kicked Frankie out, why you won't even acknowledge your role in everything, but this?" Eddie does a wide arm gesture to the empty hallway around them, shaking his head. "I'm not doing this, Myra. I'm not discussing that with you."

"Of course you won't," Myra snarls, and then — in a manner which, oddly enough, reminds Eddie so much of their son — glowers at him as she goes: "Because you're pathetic."

Eddie feels the word strike against his heart: pathetic. It's not the first time Myra has called him that, but standing here, in the hallway in front of her apartment, even years later, the hurt still feels fresh.

"You're pathetic and a coward," Myra continues. "You run away when you can't deal with it anymore; that's what you did to Sonia, right?"

"Don't," Eddie hisses weakly. "Don't go there, Myra."

Myra hated Sonia; everyone knew that. But she'll say anything in this moment to burn him. She’ll pretend to defend Eddie’s mother simply because of how angry she is at Eddie. Her anger does not follow logic.

"You run away and hide when things get too difficult," Myra continues. "You've lived your entire life waiting for your mommy to take care of you, and when you couldn't stand to be around her anymore, you cast her aside," Eddie feels heat rise up the back of his neck. Don't let her get under your skin. Don't. "And then when you found a new shiny toy, you abandoned me and your son to go and live out your dream life. And then you just- okay, fine, I could be difficult. We fought. But when have you ever grown a goddamn backbone and just said what you wanted, Eddie? Huh? You let stronger people take care of you, and then when you grow tired of them, you throw them to the side and spend the rest of your life turning everyone against them. I wonder how long it'll be until you do that to your husband — when's his expiration date, Eddie? Huh?"

Eddie has never once, in his entire life, felt the urge to lose his cool completely until now. He thought the moment he stood up to Sonia, both as a teenager and when Frankie was a baby, could never be topped.

This is close, though. This rage, this anger, this urge to cry and scream and explain himself, has never been stronger.

“That’s not true,” Eddie grounds out. “You know that’s not true.”

“Of course it’s true. When have you ever spoken up and asked for what you really wanted? When have you ever stood up for yourself? You just sit there like a pathetic little boy, waiting for people to take care of you! And when I stepped up, you decided to turn your back on me!”

“You want me to stand up for myself?” Eddie snarls. “How’s this: shut the fuck up!”

"Excuse me?" Myra puts a hand over her chest. "What did you just say?”

“You heard me!”

"I-"

"You know what — yeah, fine! Okay, I might be weak and pathetic," You're not; you know you're not. "But you know what? At least I'm not a manipulative hypocrite who wants to tear everyone around me down in order to prove a fucking point. You spent our entire marriage making me feel like- like I wasn't good enough, that I never knew what I wanted. And sure, okay, realistically, I could have spoken up! But when was I supposed to, Myra? Huh? While you were embarrassing me in front of my coworkers by telling them about all of my doctors appointments? When I had to chase you down after we got into an argument, and you spent the next day ignoring me?"

Myra's eyes shine. "Is that all you got? I ignored you a few times because you hurt my feelings?"

"There's tons of stuff!" Eddie snaps back. "I just- you- you're making me so fucking angry right now, I can't think but it happened, and-” Eddie tries to grasp the memories: the moments in he and Myra’s marriage that, at the time, felt like nothing, or that he just chalked up to Myra having a stronger personality than him. But now he understands: she did not treat him well. She might tell herself that she was just caring for him, but Eddie knows this: Myra is someone who needs control, and that is not how a marriage is supposed to work.

"How does any of that justify you cheating on me, Eddie?!"

"It doesn't! I'm just trying to explain, Myra!"

"There is no justification for what you did and how you hurt me, Eddie! None! You cheated on me!"

"Fine! Okay, yes, I'm a cheater! Want me to wear a big fucking sign around my neck and walk around Times Square advertising it?"

Myra crosses her arms over her chest. "I'd love that, actually. I'd love to humiliate you the way you did me."

"I don't know why I'm here," Eddie throws his arms up and lets them slap back down at his sides. "I don't know why I expected this to go any differently with you."

"You know exactly why you came here, Eddie. You came here to feel like a good person and a good father, and to rub it in my face that you took everything from me."

Eddie could walk away; of course he could. He could leave it at this and realize that nothing got accomplished, that Myra will continue to live in her fantasy world: where Eddie is a horrible person who ruined her life, and Myra has no control over anything at all.

But you know what?

"I didn't take Frankie from you," Eddie begins, his voice low. "It's not my fault that you and him haven't ever gotten along. That started long, long before the divorce, and you fucking know it, Myra."

"Stop," Myra raises her finger, pointing it at his chest. "Don't you dare, Edward Kaspbrak."

"Just cut the shit, Myra! Stop pretending!" Eddie roars back. "You've never liked him! What, I spoiled him? And I was the one — me, at work while you were at home with him — who made him not like you? That was all me, pulling the strings and shit behind the scenes? Give me a fucking break!"

"Stop it, Eddie."

"You’ve never liked Frankie, and I don't know why! He's always been a good boy, ever since he was a baby — he's never been a bully, he's never picked on other kids. He almost died, and you still found ways to push him away! How is that fair, Myra? How? You pushed and pushed our son away when all he’s ever wanted was for you like him! He was standing there in front of you, less than a week ago, begging for you to pay attention to him, and you still couldn’t! You have never liked our son!"

"Stop it!" Eddie hears her tears before he sees them; her voice wobbles and Myra raises her hands, grabbing her hair and trembling. "Just stop it!"

For all of the pushing and shoving that Myra did towards him, seeing his ex-wife's red, tear-streaked face does not give him any joy; he stares as Myra buries her face in her hands, trembling.

"Stop saying that! Stop being so- so fucking cruel!"

"You started it," Eddie replies weakly, crossing his arms over his chest. "Myra..."

"I-" Myra lurches forward, putting her hand over her mouth; through tears, his ex-wife turns and bolts into her apartment, her door left wide open as she runs deep into the house.

Later on, when Eddie relays these events — head hanging in shame for how low he went, for speaking on things he didn't know much about, regardless of whether he or Myra started it first — there is no tangible reason that he can provide as to why he followed Myra into her apartment rather than turning around and going back home.

He thinks it's out of a bizarre care for the woman, regardless of how fucking mean she was to him mere seconds before. He can hear her heaving into the toilet, and oddly enough, he thinks of over sixteen years-ago, this very scenario: Myra with morning sickness in her first trimester, head bent into the toilet and sobbing about how disgusting it was, how sick she felt.

Eddie shuts her front door behind him as he goes to the bathroom; funnily enough, he knows exactly where to look as he pads into her and Darren's kitchen to find what he needs: a bottle of water, some anti-nausea medication, and, with a small pang of nostalgia, the ginger candies that Myra used to pop daily when she was pregnant with Frankie.

Eddie grabs these items quietly and goes to her bathroom; being in Myra's apartment is very weird, honestly. She's definitely not a bad decorator, although he's not too sure if it’s her touch or Darren's.

Following the sound of Myra's heaves, Eddie walks towards the bathroom and sees his ex-wife hunched over the toilet seat, tears and snot streaming down her face as her shoulders tremble. Her hair is undone out of its loose bun, her cardigan rolled down to expose her shoulders.

She looks up at him, her eyes glassy; Eddie silently hands her the water bottle and the ginger candy.

She looks at the ginger candy, and back at him; he shrugs.

He doesn't say anything as Myra gets to her feet — she simply stares at him as he offers his hands, wrinkling her nose in distaste but allowing him to help her get to her feet. She brushes her teeth and Eddie waits in her living room, looking around at the simple, grayscale furniture as Myra slowly walks into the room, arms crossed over her chest.

"Go ahead," she croaks. "Laugh it up."

Eddie stares at her.

"Go and tell your husband about all of this," she mutters, her voice hoarse. "I'm sure he'd love to use this in his next special."

“Why do you think the absolute worst of me?" Eddie says. "I know you don't like me-"

"I hate you." Myra's voice is a whisper.

Eddie doesn't say anything. He doesn't move.

"I hate you so much," Myra swallows. "I hate you more than I've ever hated anyone else in my entire life, Eddie. I hate you. I hate how much pain you've caused me; I wish I never met you. I wish you never asked me to marry you," Myra's expression twists as she sniffles, wiping at her face with the back of her hand. She looks....pitiful. "I wish you never got me pregnant. You ruined my entire life, and you made me into this…this monster. I wasn't like this before you met me — I was a good person, and you...you..."

"Myra," Eddie says, his tone flat, "I feel sad for you."

She stares at him, blue eyes round.

"You need help," he tells her simply, shrugging. "You need serious, actual help. You need to talk to someone. I can't- I don't know how else to help you."

"I don't want your help."

"Maybe you don't, but someone needs to give you a fucking wake up call," Eddie goes on, shaking his head. "The saddest fucking thing is that I don't even hate you. I don't like you or how you treated me or our son, but I don't even hate you," Eddie looks away. "Maybe I should. Maybe it'd be easier if I did, but..."

Myra looks away, burying her face into her hands. She lowers herself into the couch; vaguely, Eddie's aware of the fact that there's a hoodie next to her that can only be Frankie's. He watches as his ex-wife reaches for the hoodie and pulls it into her lap, burying her face into the fabric and beginning to rock back and forth.

Eddie has seen many, many things throughout his life — both of this world and not of this world. He’s seen people at their absolute lowest, but he thinks that this moment: seeing Myra sob as she buries her face into Frankie’s hoodie, rocking back and forth as she doubles forward, practically wailing into their son’s hoodie, is one of the saddest, most pitiful things he has ever seen.

"Myra…"

"I don't know why I still feel this way,” Myra sobs; Eddie has to get closer to hear her.

"What?"

"I don't know why I still- why it's..."

"Myra..."

"I want my baby back," Myra wails, practically heaving into the hoodie as she clutches it even closer to her body, as if terrified that Eddie will take it from her.

It's strange how, despite the conversation that just took place, despite Myra's words and the way she's treated him throughout the time he's known her, all Eddie feels is an overwhelming sense of pity for this woman.

He was married to her for a long time. It shouldn't mean anything to Eddie anymore; Myra and his relationship was so toxic, and she clearly hates him. But he can't walk away from her like this; maybe he should. Maybe another person would leave and allow her to sob it out until her current husband comes home. To let Darren deal with his pregnant wife.

But Eddie doesn't leave. He doesn't turn away. He lowers himself onto the seat next to her.

(Although it'll take a long, long time for him to feel this way, Eddie will eventually be glad that he stayed. That he tried.)

"I want him back," Myra says again, her voice high-pitched. "I want my baby boy back, I want...I..."

"Myra-"

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Myra finally lifts her face away from the hoodie, her tear tracks down her face as she stares at Eddie. "I was supposed to be a good mother. I wanted to be a good mother. That's all I ever wanted — do you remember that?"

Eddie does; before Frankie was born, Myra had been so excited to have a baby. A thirty year-old Myra had shown Eddie her positive pregnancy test, smiling and wrapping her arms around Eddie's neck as she kissed him three times in succession, burying her face into his shoulder.

He remembers how she trembled against him, though, hours later as she tried to make her first appointment. Laughing awkwardly as the doctors asked her questions, as her mother and sister came to visit and asked her about their unborn child. All the questions — you’re excited, right? you’re finally going to be a mother, myra, we all thought it was never going to happen! — that seemed to push Myra further and further away into herself.

Had it started then?

"I wanted a baby so badly," Myra runs her hand through her sweaty hair. "And he hates me. He’s never liked me, ever since- ever since..."

"That's not true."

"How would you know?" Myra bristles. "How would you know what it's like to be a mother? You don't know anything."

Eddie remains silent — she has a point.

"I just...I didn't..."

"Myra," Eddie says, taking a deep breath. "You said that I don't see what you see. What does that mean?"

Myra doesn't speak for a while; she holds the hoodie against her chest as she rocks back and forth, shutting her eyes and sniffling.

Finally, she says: "I thought it was going to be so easy. I just...when my sister had her children, she said she loved them as soon as they gave them to her. As soon as they put Renee and Andrew on her chest — that it was so easy for her to know what they needed. She knew that this is what she was meant to do, to have them and be a mom," Eddie sees a self-loathing in her eyes that's so strong, he almost doesn't recognize her. "I just...I didn't..."

Eddie watches her, waiting.

"I didn't feel that," He can feel Myra's shame coming off of her in waves; his ex-wife refuses to look at him, her eyes shut. "I didn't feel like that with...with him. I love him," Myra suddenly turns to stare at him, eyes round. "I love Frankie. I would die for him, I'd do anything for him. I love my son more than anything, Eddie."

"I know that."

"But I wasn't...," Myra shakes her head, forcing it out: "I just- I didn’t…,” Myra looks like she’s going to be sick again; Eddie watches the woman struggle with explaining herself, fear that she clearly has at being this vulnerable, especially in front of him, shining in her glassy blue eyes. “And you and Frankie just…it was different for you. I know it was. I could see it, right when they gave you Frankie: you felt a connection with him right away.”

Eddie did feel a connection with Frankie the moment the nurse handed his newborn son, tiny and pink and perfect, into his arms. It was strong and fierce and a little frightening, but for all of Eddie’s worries of everything — if he was ready for this, if he could do this, if he’d be a good father — the moment he felt Frankie’s warm little body resting in his arms, his baby boy wailing and turning his face towards Eddie’s chest as he held him close, Eddie simply thought: i think i’ve been waiting for you.

Eddie did not believe in love at first sight, or feeling a love so powerful and overwhelming that it consumed you — until he saw Frankie.

But now, as he thinks back, he realizes he was so wrapped up in his newborn son, that he has no idea how Myra felt as she looked over at the pair of them, watching Eddie’s face melt into pure adoration and realizing with a cold, frightening sense of terror that she did not feel the same way.

He shifts in his seat. What else did he miss?

"Myra-"

"And he knew it, too. He could tell, even as a baby, that I just- that I wasn't... He could feel it. I know he could. And the more I tried to get closer to him, the more he pushed me away; it’s like he was punishing me for feeling that way. It’s like he knew I had no idea what I was doing, that I was confused and lost and- and it’s like he just…”

"Myra," Eddie tries again softly. "Myra, I had no-"

"And you were at work all the time," Myra says, glaring at him. "You left me alone with a baby who hated me. He cried all day — I couldn't get him to stop! I would be standing there in our room, begging him to quiet down, and he'd only go to sleep when you held him."

Eddie remembers: late afternoons, coming home from work and hearing Frankie’s cries as he walked down the hallway and towards their apartment. He’d open the door, and Myra would be exhausted, rocking Frankie in her arms and immediately coming over to hand him to Eddie the second he walked through the front door.

And yes, Frankie would eventually quiet when Eddie held him. All Eddie had to do was rock his baby gently in his arms, shushing him while he toed off his shoes and set down his briefcase, and Frankie would babble and quiet down, sometimes taking Eddie’s tie in his mouth, other times staring up at Eddie’s face with a happy smile.

Whenever Eddie had relayed these memories to anyone else, he always saw it as proof of he and Frankie’s connection: that someone had loved Eddie Kaspbrak with their whole heart, and Eddie loved them back just as much.

But now, all Eddie can see is Myra watching Eddie with their son, and wondering how it was so easy for him, and not for her. Why Frankie loved and trusted Eddie, and not her.

“I hate that I felt that way,” Myra says, sobbing. “I hate that my own baby felt like a stranger to me for months after I had him. I was supposed to be a natural mother, just like everyone else was, and I couldn’t get it right. And I know,” Her voice becomes higher pitched and pained as she says: “I know how horrible I am for admitting that. I know it’s wrong and it’s unmotherly and- and I’m terrible, and that it’s not his fault, of course it wasn’t his fault, but I can’t help how I feel, and- and I can’t help that I couldn’t bond with him, that…that I didn’t…”

“Myra, that’s…,” Eddie feels a lump in his throat; as he watches his ex-wife confess this to her, the shame she’s carried around for all these years, even though Eddie knows that it happens, that it was never Myra’s fault for feeling that way after Frankie was born, he feels a strong sense of pity. “Why-?”

"When I die," Myra continues, shaking her head. "There's nothing in Frankie that will resemble me at all. Everyone knows he's your son — everything about him is you. But for all the pain I went through, for all of the sacrifice, there's nothing to connect me to him," She continues, wiping her face. "And now he hates me. I ruined everything, every chance we had to be a mother and son, and now," Eddie watches her touch her stomach. "It's going to happen all over again. I'm going to have another baby at forty-six, and I'm going to fuck everything up again. I'm not meant to be a mother — I couldn't even do that right. I couldn't stay in school to become a nurse, our marriage went to shit, and I can't even bond with my children," She looks down. "I'm the pathetic one."

Eddie has no idea what to say. In every scenario he ever ran through over what he'd say to Myra in this circumstance, he never expected this: for Myra to open up to him for the first time in decades, and to learn...this.

"I had no idea," Eddie finally says, weakly. He should've. He was her husband: a good husband would have seen his wife struggling, and would have helped her.

It doesn't justify anything Myra's done. But there's a deep shame Eddie feels when he realizes that in some ways, she was right: he never spoke up. He ran on autopilot for all those years, and she was suffering. She was trapped within that apartment and her own mind, and Myra — perhaps because of her personality, perhaps because of the judgement she was afraid of receiving from others, like her mother and sister, her friends, and maybe even Eddie himself — kept it locked inside, the shame and guilt slowly morphing into resentment.

"Of course you didn't," Myra barks back. "You were always at work. I had to be the disciplinarian and the bad guy; every time Frankie yelled at me and disrespected me, he'd give you puppy eyes and you'd side with him right away. You never believe me when I told you anything he did; he was the perfect baby, and I was your overbearing wife," Myra swallows. "Neither of you wanted me around. I was trapped in that apartment for years with two people who couldn't care less about me."

"That's not true," Eddie protests, and when Myra looks at him, he frowns. "Myra, I didn't... I don't hate you."

"Why not?" she asks, shrugging. "Shouldn't you?"

Maybe he should. Eddie knows that his friends, his husband, would argue that maybe he should — that perhaps it'd make him feel better, to distance himself from her completely. To go no-contact with Myra, only speaking to her when their son is involved.

But Eddie finds himself thinking back to the first night after he went no-contact with Sonia, back when he caught her hunched over his baby and trying to feed him Tylenol. How Eddie had shook and trembled in their bed, unable to calm himself.

He and Myra were not overly affectionate; they didn't have sex frequently, and their PDA was at an absolute minimum for most married couples. But Myra had turned him onto his side and, very gently, wrapped her arms around him tightly, pulling him against her body as she spooned him. She shushed him and told him to go to sleep, that his shaking was going to keep her awake all night and that they had a long day ahead of them tomorrow.

"Sleep, Eddie," she'd murmured. "You're a good father; you protected our son. Now go to sleep."

This memory contrasts so heavily with the ones where Myra had called him and demanded for him to go to the doctor, reminding him that the freckle she saw on his arm could be dangerous, Eddie, and she wouldn't know what to do with herself if it could be cancerous. Or when she panicked one time when he locked the door behind him one time, telling him that she hated locked doors in the home — she wanted to make sure Eddie and Frankie were okay at any moment.

He's not sure what to feel, exactly. Everything with Myra makes less sense to him the more time passes.

"I don't know," he finally tells her, frowning. "But I don't."

Myra puts her face into her hands again; Eddie watches her rock back and forth.

"I'm sorry," Eddie finally says before he can think twice; his ex-wife looks back at him, shocked. He's even more shocked that he actually said it, but the words begin to flow out of him before he can stop himself: "I'm sorry I didn't notice."

Myra wipes her cheeks. "Well."

There's a long moment of silence between them; Eddie can hear the clock in Myra's apartment ticking. There's a few loud honks from traffic outside, and the sound of a police siren that lingers in front of her complex for a while before they eventually drive off, the sound fading into the distance.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Myra finally whispers; Eddie looks at her, confused.

"What?"

"You could have told me you were gay, you know."

Eddie blinks.

"I'm not homophobic," she says defensively, frowning. "I never was. I didn't- I wasn't...I wasn't angry about that, you know. About you being gay. You could have told me," A beat of silence. "It was a little jarring for me to learn after being married for so many years. I mean, I've always thought I was really good at judging that kind of thing-"

"Myra."

"Why didn't you just say that?" Myra asks again, staring at Eddie. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I-"

"Did you think I was going to," Myra looks a little sick; he thinks she might throw up again, and so Eddie reaches over for the water bottle without thinking; she looks at it, and then him, frowning but taking it regardless. "I don't know, do something? Say something?"

Eddie remembers the way Myra looked when he came out to her; he said it as a follow-up after revealing his infidelity to her, and Myra had stared at him, wide-eyed as he said, "That's the reason, Myra. I'm gay."

He never thought that Myra was homophobic, exactly; even whenever one of the Losers has joked about it, Eddie has always come to her defense on that.

"Not exactly," Eddie murmurs. "I just- I mean...well, it wasn't like that conversation was all sunshine and rainbows, Myra."

"You came home after a sudden trip, after you were in the hospital, and told me you wanted a divorce, cheated on me, and that you were gay in the span of less than five minutes," Myra says slowly. "How the hell else was I supposed to respond to that, Eddie?"

Eddie opens his mouth and then closes it; fair point, he supposes.

But this, Eddie has to say: "I didn't know before that trip," Myra glares at him, and he frowns. "I'm serious. I didn't know, or I wasn't being honest with myself. It's not really easy to explain, but- I mean, I wasn't using you, if that's what you're thinking. I wasn't..."

"Well, that makes me feel loads better," Myra mutters with an eye roll.

"Do you want me to explain or not?" Eddie snaps back; she huffs but finally shrugs, allowing it. "You knew my mother, Myra. You remember how she was."

At the mention of Sonia, Myra's eyes darken; she looks away, and Eddie knows that that explanation is enough for now.

"You really didn't know," Myra repeats finally, her voice quiet.

"No."

Eddie thinks she'll leave her questions at that; he almost gets up to leave, until his ex-wife murmurs: "You could have told me about the other stuff years ago, too."

Eddie looks at her, brows raised.

"We could've tried to...," She trails off and sighs. "I mean- sure, the whole gay thing throws out the making the marriage work, but you could have talked to me, Eddie."

"Myra," Eddie says, his voice distant, "If I had told you years ago that I was feeling this way about you, about our marriage — about…you know, about any of that, would you have listened to me?”

Myra opens her mouth; her cheeks are reddish, eyes glassy, but then a look crosses her face, and she closes it again. She turns away from him and looks at her lap.

“I should have said something years ago,” Eddie admits, biting the inside of his cheek before adding, “But it wasn’t like you or I ever figured out how to communicate. You’d get angry, I’d fight back and then shut down, and we both…” He doesn’t need to continue; he knows Myra is picturing the dozens of fights they had over the course of their marriage, just as he is.

Myra wipes her nose. “You still could have told me you were unhappy,” she finally says, her voice quiet. “I didn’t- when we got married…it’s not like I wanted to make you unhappy. I wasn’t sitting in the car on the way to the venue, planning all the ways I was going to trap you,” A brief pause. “None of this turned out how I thought it was going to.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, shrugging. “I didn’t really plan on either of us being so miserable during our marriage, either.”

“Then why did you ask me to marry you?” Comes the next question; he looks at her, frowning. “Why did we get married, Eddie? Why did we let it go on so long?”

For once, Myra is looking to him for answers: she’s begging for him to make her understand.

Because I left my mother’s house, and the thought of being alone terrified me, Eddie thinks, but that doesn’t feel right. Because we’d been dating for awhile and I didn’t have anyone else. You were the closest thing to a friend I had at that point. That still doesn’t feel right.

Maybe it’s both of these things, and everything that Eddie still — even after nearly six years post-divorce — has yet to unpack.

You married your mom, someone had said to him at one point in his life; the thought has always disgusted him, the feeling that he bonded with Myra not out of love or mutual care, but because she felt…familiar.

Myra isn’t Sonia; she never was. Myra hated Sonia, and for all of Myra’s flaws, Eddie does know this, better than anyone, save perhaps Darren: Myra has a chance of changing almost everything if she just tried. Myra is a flawed, damaged woman; Eddie sees this now more than he has ever. Despite the pain, Eddie knows that Myra is not a complete lost cause: she’s just…broken. And where Eddie needed help, was practically begging to have a professional explain to him why his life ended up like this, why he felt trapped within his own mind, Myra has not.

“I don’t know,” Eddie admits finally, looking away. “But it’s for the better that it’s over, I think.”

Myra doesn’t flinch; she just nods slowly, looking away. “I love Darren.”

“That’s good.”

“I thought,” Myra blinks. “I thought that- you know, because we were married for so long- it felt…I mean, I thought it was supposed to be love. Caring for you, it just- it felt natural. It felt like that’s what a marriage should be like.”

Eddie waits for the bite.

“But it’s different with Darren,” Myra finally admits; for once, there is no malice in her tone. There’s no anger or rage behind her eyes: only a tender warmth, reserved solely for her second husband. “You and I were married for thirteen years and had a son together, but when Darren told me he loved me, I realized that it wasn’t like that with you.” She looks at Eddie and then shifts again, closing in on herself — she won’t be any more vulnerable to him, especially not about that.

“I get it,” Eddie finds himself saying, holding up his hand when Myra looks at him. “I mean, that’s fair. I think we both know that neither of us were in love.”

Myra sniffs. “Yeah. I suppose you do get it.”

Eddie watches as Myra touches her stomach; she rubs it absentmindedly, clearly lost in thought.

“How far along are you?” Eddie finds himself asking.

Myra glances at him. “Three and a half months.”

Eddie nods, finding himself glancing over his ex-wife. Despite her emotional distress, she physically seems fine, but Eddie can’t stop himself from thinking of Myra’s age, of the fact that this pregnancy would be considered to be very high risk.

He knows Myra well enough to know that she’s already thinking of that; he supposes that she’s insanely stressed about this pregnancy, both for her and her unborn child’s health, and due to the current situation with Frankie.

“Are you nervous?”

“I’m forty-six years-old,” Myra points out. “The chances of me miscarrying are anywhere from fifty to eighty percent, I’m at extreme risk for gestational diabetes and preeclampsia, and even if everything goes well-”

“It will; don’t say that.”

“-by the time this baby graduates high school, me and Darren will be in our late fifties,” Myra says, her expression darkening as she looks away. “You tell me if I should be nervous, Eddie.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I want this,” Myra tells him; again, her vulnerability about this in particular is jarring, but he can’t push her away. Despite their history and the pain, Eddie has the feeling that there is no one aside from Darren who she has opened up to about this. “And god, Darren is so happy. I want to give him a baby, but…”

If she were anyone else, Eddie would reach over and touch her hand. He’d allow her to rest against his side and cry.

When her stepfather died, Myra had been inconsolable; Eddie does not know much about Myra’s immediate family, outside of what he’s witnessed, but he knows that she was extremely close to the man. He had held her when she cried and wailed and sobbed, and did so without hesitation; he preferred to lick his wounds in private. When Sonia died, he simply went to work like nothing happened.

But everything is different now, and Myra is…Myra. So Eddie simply sits next to her as she finishes crying, offering her a tissue.

Eddie doesn’t feel any better or worse since coming here; he just feels…different. He feels sad for Frankie and, surprisingly, for Myra; there’s a guilt that he feels towards his ex-wife that he hasn’t felt in a long, long time. For the fact that he didn’t notice her pain, that now — more than ever — he realizes that the pair of them could have done it all differently with their oldest child.

Eddie knows that he can’t fix the current state of Frankie and Myra’s relationship, and he knows that there is so much left unsaid between him and his ex-wife.

But Eddie, for all accounts, wants to try. And Myra certainly won’t take the first step.

Despite everything, Eddie finds himself saying, “Listen, Myra…there’s going to be a party for me and Frankie on our birthday — I think it’s going to be big, from the way everyone’s been acting around us lately,” A pause. “You and Darren should come.”

Myra stares at him, eyes widening.

“You should,” Eddie heaves out a sigh. “You should think about it, at least. I know Darren would want to come, and I know your mother probably already invited herself if she’s still in town, but…I think it’d be good for you and Frankie.”

“Frankie won’t want me there.”

“You don’t know that,” Eddie tells her, frowning. “You haven’t even tried to reach out.”

Myra turns away. “I kicked him out of my apartment and said horrible things to him. I’d know I’d never forgive someone, much less my own family, for that.”

“Well, Frankie’s not you,” Eddie reminds her.

“None of your friends will want me there. Your husband won’t want me in your home; they all-”

“The Myra that I knew didn’t give a shit if people hated her,” Eddie tells her, despite the fact that it’s technically not true: Myra has always felt deeply. She holds onto her personal pain and latches onto others as a distraction, and Eddie knows that feeling excluded has always hurt her the most. But, to his ex-wife, he goes: “And I thought you didn’t care what my friends or Richie thought about you.”

“I don’t,” Myra says with a tone that implies very much: yes, i do.

“And it doesn’t even matter anyways,” Eddie continues, “Because you showing up regardless of how everyone else in the room feels about you, even if they hate you, will mean something to Frankie, Myra. You know it will.”

Myra doesn’t say anything for a long moment; she looks down at her lap, fingers twitching.

“Just think about it,” Eddie tells her. “For him. If you really love him-”

“I do.”

“-and if you’re sorry, you’ll go.”

Myra’s voice is quiet: “I’ll think about it.”

There’s nothing else to say; Eddie slowly gets to his feet, giving a last look towards his ex-wife as he begins to head out the door.

“Eddie.”

He stops, turning to look back at her.

“Can you tell Frankie that I’m sorry?” 

“You need to be the one to do that, Myra, not me. You know that.”

Myra pulls her cardigan tighter around her shoulders, and right before Eddie leaves, he swears that he hears her begin to cry again.

—

Eddie tries to relay the story as best he can later on, but even after he finally, finally gets through the bulk of it as Richie sits next to him, oddly resigned and quiet, all Eddie can think is how fucking sad it all is for all of them.

How much he and Myra ignored and pushed away for years, that just kept building and building until it turned into…well, this.

Poor, poor Frankie.

I never asked for this, his son snarled at his mother less than a week before, brown eyes flashing in the dim light of the private room, I never asked to be caught in the middle of your fucked up lives!

“Wow,” is all Richie says, leaning back on their sofa; at the moment, it’s just the pair of them in the room. “Wow.”

“Yeah.”

Richie taps his fingers on his knee; Eddie watches his husband, sees his tension, and finally dares to ask: “What are you thinking?”

Richie shakes his head slowly. “I don’t know, man. It’s all kind of…”

“Yeah.”

For once, neither Eddie and Richie have much to say; in times like these, Eddie’s always found that he and his husband love debriefing scenarios. Eddie loves telling Richie about his coworkers and shit-heads on the street and listening to Richie drone on and on about how annoying they are; Eddie, in turn, finds that Richie thinks it’s amusing to watch him get so fired up over practically nothing, just from little snippets of people Richie has to deal with in the show business.

Neither of them have anything to say about Myra — not this time.

After a moment, Richie turns to him and asks: “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Do…,” Richie wets his lips, glancing away for a moment before asking, “Are you trying to forgive her? Is…is that what’s going on?”

Eddie stares at his husband; Richie is not asking to be mean, and he’s not even passing a judgment: it’s a simple question.

“I don’t know,” Eddie finally says, frowning. “I don’t think it’s about that.”

Richie furrows his brows, and so Eddie goes on: “I don’t know how to explain it. I don’t know if I’m looking for that with her — not because I don’t think I deserve it or because everything is water under the bridge, but… I don’t know. Everything with Frankie is much more important, and even then, I still just…”

“Right.”

“I just don’t know if that’s what I’m looking for with Myra,” Eddie finally murmurs, shrugging. “I don’t want her to apologize to me; I want her to try and mend things with Frankie, if that's what he wants.”

“He might not, Eds. She went too far.”

“I know,” Eddie tells Richie, biting his lip. “I know she did. She knows it, too.”

“So…,” Richie frowns. “Why did you stay? When she started going at you, you stayed and helped her out and talked to her,” He sounds genuinely confused: Richie is a sweet person at heart, and he’s always been giving. But Eddie knows that Richie cannot, for the life of him, extend this kindness to Myra — Richie is an outsider. He loves Eddie and Frankie, and Myra has hurt them: for Richie, although he can understand the nuance, he doesn’t have the emotional weight of the situation that Eddie does. “I just…I’m trying to get it, Eddie. I want to understand.”

“I know you do,” Eddie pauses. “Believe me, I wish I could understand it myself.”

“Yeah.”

“I just,” Eddie picks at the comforter. “I don’t know. Seeing her like that, in her apartment, the things she said about when Frankie was a baby, I think she’s just…sad. And I know I can’t be the one to fix everything — I told her that,” Eddie sighs deeply. “But seeing her cry like that, hearing her talk, I just…I felt sorry for her. Not because she wanted me to, but because it was really, really sad seeing her like that.”

“I get that,” Richie murmurs, frowning, and when Eddie looks at him, he goes: “I do, Eds. I just…I don’t want you and Frank to get burned again, man. Especially not Frankie; he’s a tough kid, but he’s only sixteen. Getting kicked out of her house, having to see the shit she said about him — that’s not fair to him.”

“I know. Believe me, I know.”

“Yeah,” Richie glances to the side. “I think she really needs help, it sounds like. And I’m not even being funny — she genuinely needs to figure her shit out, and stop taking it out on Frankie. And you,” Richie nudges Eddie. “Especially because you’re too nice for your own good.”

Eddie looks at his knees. “I don’t know about that.”

“I do,” Richie goes on. “You’re a sweet ‘lil guy, Eddie-kins.”

“Stop.”

“A sweetheart, a big ‘ole softie-”

“Okay, enough.”

Richie laughs a little, watching Eddie’s profile. “Can I say one last thing, Eds?”

“You do love getting the last word in.”

“You know it,” Richie’s grin slowly fades into something more neutral as he says, softly: “I think you deserve an apology from her too, you know.”

Eddie looks at his husband.

“It might not be what you’re looking for right now, and yeah, Frank’s always going to be the top priority here, but…even if it won’t change anything, I think you still deserve to hear someone tell you that they know they hurt you and that they feel bad about it,” Richie finally says, shrugging.

Eddie doesn’t quite know what to say to that, so he stays quiet for now.

But later on, after their friends come back around and it’s still clear to both Eddie and Frankie that everyone’s trying to keep their excitement at bay, Eddie can’t stop thinking about it all.

Whenever Eddie has thought about the relationship between him and Myra post-divorce, it’s always been full of tension; Eddie knew from the moment he left their apartment all those years ago after Derry that it would never be the same between them — and that wasn’t a bad thing. Despite the heartache and the pain and the anger, Eddie knows that both of them needed the divorce — Eddie needs Richie, and it’s clear that Myra needs Darren.

Eddie has always assumed that their relationship would never change: they’d see each other when it was time to trade weeks with their son, and that was all. Myra would always hate him, and Eddie would always focus on their son and his new life.

“You don’t owe her anything,” someone — Eddie can’t quite remember who — had said to him many years before, and perhaps in many ways, that’s true: after a certain point, walking away from someone is the only option left. It wasn’t like Myra was attempting to fix any of the damage done by their marriage and work things out, as if she was open to understanding why Eddie felt the way he did.

He doesn’t owe her anything, but she’s the mother of his child, and Eddie is far too sentimental and altruistic for his own good: seeing Myra admit, for possibly the first time in her life, that she was suffering from postpartum depression, did not make him feel good. He didn’t look at her and go oh, so that’s why you’re so fucked up! Eddie didn’t think it was funny, nor did it give him a sick sense of relief.

He feels guilty. He was married to her, and neither of them were happy, but Myra had been suffering. He imagines her in their small apartment from when Frankie was a baby, begging their son to stop crying. Wondering what was wrong with her, that she couldn’t bond with this baby that she had wanted so badly.

Eddie doesn’t know if Myra will take the leap and come over; he’s aware that Ida most likely will be coming to the party, since she definitely invited herself. And Eddie knows that Darren will want to try; there’s a fondness Eddie feels when he thinks of the other man, who lost so much but is trying so, so hard for Myra. That strange thought of: well, at least she has someone in her corner.

Eddie’s gaze slides over to Frankie, where his son is sitting on the back porch with Bill, shoulder-to-shoulder with the other man as they talk.

Frankie tried for so long; there’s an insane amount of guilt that Eddie feels when he looks at his oldest, knowing that for how hard he tried, he still managed to do everything wrong when it came to him.

—

The day before their birthday, Richie promptly tells Eddie that he and Frankie need to be out of the house for a few hours, and to go and do something.

“Something preferably not in Manhattan,” Richie tells him, practically scooting Eddie down the hall.

“Dude, are you guys shutting down all of Midtown or something?” Frankie drawls, grinning when Richie huffs and reaching over to shove his stepfather’s shoulder teasingly.

After thirty minutes of back and forth with his husband, somehow Eddie and Frankie are in a car, Frankie constantly pointing at random areas and going, “Make a left here, Dad. Now make a right. Let’s do a U-turn.”

“Can you stop it?” Eddie laughs, batting Frankie’s hands away when his son tries pointing at something out of the driver's side door. “Do you know how dangerous that is, Frankie?”

“Great, you missed that guy wearing no shirt with a six-pack,” Frankie groans.

Without thinking, Eddie quickly looks to his left; in the car next to them is an old woman, and when he looks over to Frankie, his son is laughing, cheeks red as Eddie glares at him.

“Dude, seriously?”

“That’s not funny, Frankie.”

“It is funny.”

Eddie has to pull over in a little while; they have no destination in mind, only knowing that Richie and the Losers want them out of the house and not to come back too soon — Eddie’s barely ever done this before, driving somewhere without a destination in mind, especially out of Manhattan.

After sitting at a gas station and flipping through the map on his car, Frankie just turns to him and goes, “Let’s go to Boston.”

Eddie stares at his son, eyes wide. “Boston? Boston, Massachusetts?”

“No, Boston, Australia,” Frankie rolls his eyes. “Yeah, Dad. Let’s go.”

“That’s a four hour drive, Frank.”

“It’s ten in the morning; we can get there by two, and spend a few hours in the city. Why not?”

“That’s a lot of driving.”

“Let me get behind the wheel then,” Frankie fires back, a challenge in his eyes despite his grin; Frankie’s been adamant about wanting to learn how to start driving, and Eddie knows very well that his son will have to learn eventually, soon, but right as Frankie says that, a loud honk comes from the highway alongside the gas station. 

Eddie points to where someone keeps weaving in between lanes at eighty miles an hour, minimum, and looks back at his son. “Really, Frank?”

Frankie blinks, watching the scene unfold and rolling his eyes. “Whatever.”

“Boston’s far, and it’s-”

“Dad,” Frankie says, leaning against the Escalade as he stands at Eddie’s side, turning to face him. “Can we just hang out for once? Just me and you, on a spur of the moment trip?”

Eddie blinks, looking up at his son’s face. It’s jarring to have to look up at his baby; Frankie’s six feet tall now, and his growth spurt is showing no signs of stopping — Frankie’s pediatrician thinks that he will end up taller than Richie.

“We always hang out,” Eddie says.

Frankie furrows his brows. “Not one on one, not…you know, just you and me, like, on a trip or for more than an hour or two,” he counters, and Eddie knows he’s right: with three other children in the house and Richie, Frankie and Eddie haven’t spent hours alone since…well, Richie moved to Manhattan.

Between the divorce and Richie moving in, it’d been the two of them — just Eddie and Frankie.

“Nevermind,” Frankie mutters when he sees Eddie’s pause. “Forget it.”

Eddie shakes his head and touches his son’s elbow to get his attention, “Okay. Fine. Let’s go.”

Frankie’s brows shoot up to his hairline. “Really?”

“It’s far, and I will not be stopping at every rest area so you can stretch your legs, Frankie,” Eddie warns him. “But…okay. Let’s go to Boston,” He takes out the gas pump, watching as his son practically runs to the passenger side door and jumps inside.

—

The only spur of the moment trips that Eddie has taken to other states was back when Mike called him to Derry, and right after he told Myra he was leaving her; Eddie had gone to L.A. to be with Richie for two days, craving his then-boyfriend’s comfort as Eddie realized that his life would never be the same — and that was a good thing, Richie had told him, but it was so, incredibly difficult, especially for those first few weeks.

Frankie seems excited for the first time in…well, in months; Frankie’s been a little distant this year, starting from the trip they all took to Kitty Hawk back in January, when Frankie had gotten lost in the woods with Ben’s dog, Roscoe. His son has been a little more withdrawn than his normal loud, talkative self, and both Eddie and Richie have been concerned for him; Frankie still does decently in school, and he has friends and people for him to talk to, but Eddie has been worried about his oldest.

But now, for the first time since January, the light that Eddie knows and loves has returned to his son’s eyes; as they leave New York and drive up towards Massachusetts, Frankie talks for a long time — about school, about his friends, about nothing and everything.

It’s a little difficult for Eddie to respond and catch everything Frankie’s saying — that’s the one downside to talking in the car, since he can’t focus on Frankie’s signs all the time while he’s driving — he finds himself smiling and nodding along to his son, watching Frankie’s smile and exaggerated signs.

“I can’t believe you said yes,” Frankie repeats as they finally reach Massachusetts; they’re less than an hour from Boston now, much quicker than their GPS had calculated at the beginning of their trip: Eddie is a safe driver, but living in Manhattan has made him a much quicker and more aggressive driver than most. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”

“I’m not that much of a stick in the mud,” Eddie replies.

“You are,” Frankie fires back, but then something fond graces his features as he goes, “I just…you know, I missed spending time with you.”

Eddie’s heart aches. Due to how busy their life has become in recent years, between Eddie getting remarried, adding onto their family, and spending time with the Losers, he realizes he’s let the one-on-one time with his oldest fall onto the backburner, even though it’s been unintentional.

“I missed spending time with you, too,” Eddie tells him; Frankie looks at him once they reach a stoplight, just outside of Boston.

His son’s eyes trace his face, as if gauging his sincerity, but after a moment, his son smiles at him, the dimples that Eddie’s always adored showing on his cheeks for the first time in months as Frankie nods.

—

They have no itinerary and no goal other than to kill time in Boston while Richie and the Losers do…well, whatever.

But walking side by side, Frankie and Eddie go through Boston; while it’s not as walkable as Manhattan, obviously, they still use the subway system and are able to sightsee in their limited time. Frankie tells him about Newbury Street and how a lot of his friends say it’s a great shopping area, and of course, Frankie manages to get Eddie to buy him some early birthday presents, even though Eddie always follows up each purchase with, “So where’s my present, huh?”

And every time, Frankie will hook his arm around Eddie’s neck and go, “That’s me, Dad. Spending quality time with your only son.”

And honestly, that in itself is the best birthday present that Eddie can think of for his forty-fifth birthday: spending time with Frankie in a different state, walking through Boston and spending one-on-one time together.

They go to the New England Aquarium later despite it being a little over an hour before closing time; the pair of them walk up the spiral pathway that leads up to the very top of the Great Ocean Tank, Frankie practically bouncing up and down next to him when they see a green sea turtle breaching the surface in front of them, only to train his expression into something more neutral and going, “Cool turtle.”

“You look just like them,” Frankie teases a little while later when they stop in front of the penguin exhibit, laughing when Eddie glares at him. “You do! They’re tiny and loud, just like you,” And then, giving Eddie a wink and a nudge, goes, “And I’ve heard they’re really gay, too, so.”

“You,” Eddie goes, giving Frankie a playful shove as his son cackles, “Are so- you’re a little shit, you know that?”

“Oh, I know.”

“It’s like you live to make fun of me.”

“It’s my favorite way to pass the time.”

“And you just,” Eddie rolls his eyes, ducking a shove from Frankie and then pushing his son back; the pair of them roughhouse for a second before Eddie wraps his arms around his son and pulls him close, hugging him.

Frankie stiffens for a moment; whether it’s because they were just play-fighting and he’s unsure if Eddie will try to unbalance him, or if — and this causes Eddie to hold his son tighter, a sudden panic gripping him — it’s for some other reason, he’s not sure.

But slowly, Frankie lifts his arms and hugs Eddie back tightly, burying his face into the side of Eddie’s neck.

“I love you,” Eddie signs as Frankie pulls away, eyes a little damp. “You know that, right?”

Frankie nods.

“You’re a good boy,” Eddie tells him firmly. “And between you and me, this is the best birthday present I could have asked for this year. Thank you for forcing me to drive all this way and deal with those idiots on the road-”

“Maybe you’re the crazy driver, ever think of that?”

“-and I love you. So much, Frankie.”

Frankie wipes at his eye with his sleeve; he’s not crying, but he nods, swallowing thickly.

“Love you too, Dad.”

—

It starts raining hard as they leave the aquarium, and by the time they eventually get back to the car, Eddie realizes that, with the heavy rain and traffic, it’ll be closer to midnight by the time they reach Manhattan — and it’s not like Eddie is too eager to be driving through the storm like this.

“So let’s just get a motel,” Frankie replies easily, shrugging. “Just for the night.”

“Frankie-”

“Dude, live a little, okay? And ‘sides, would you rather us get into a terrible car wreck-”

“Don’t joke about that.”

“-or go to a motel for literally one single night?”

Frankie has a point, and so Eddie finds one of the only motels outside of Boston with an available room; the room has only one bed — thankfully a king, since Eddie knows Frankie kicks in his sleep, and with his longer limbs, Eddie wants to get some sleep before they go back — and even though they didn’t pack anything since they weren’t intending to stay overnight, they find a Walmart ten minutes away and grab some cheap pajamas for the night.

“I know I didn’t buy this,” Eddie drawls, holding up a Hello Kitty graphic shirt.

“I thought you did,” Frankie replies with a smirk, clad in a Pokemon tee. “You love her, right?”

Eddie rolls his eyes but wears the shirt regardless; he flips his son off when Frankie takes a picture.

“You’d kill me for doing that to you, man.”

“Well, I’m the father and you’re the child. I’m allowed to flip you the bird when you’re getting on my nerves.”

“Treating me like this the day before I turn sixteen, man. Wow.”

While they’re both tired from the day they spent in Boston, Eddie takes a quick call from Richie to say goodnight to the twins and Shay and to talk to his husband about their day; Frankie interjects a few times to say his piece, smiling over Eddie’s shoulder and waving at his sisters and stepfather.

By the time Eddie finishes the call, Frankie’s scrolling on his phone; when Frankie sees Eddie looking at him, he glances at the clock — a little after eleven pm — and back at Eddie.

“So,” Eddie goes, rolling onto his side.

“So.”

Neither of them say anything for a little while; Frankie picks at the covers before glancing up at Eddie and going, “You got into a fight with Mom yesterday.”

Eddie’s been expecting this: nothing stays a secret for very long in their family, and Eddie was always going to bring it up in some way to Frankie, especially considering the open invitation to the party tomorrow.

“I don’t know if it was really a fight,” Eddie pauses. “It started off like that, but…yeah, I guess so.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

Eddie locks eyes with his son. “Yes, I did.”

“I don’t want you to-”

“I don’t care what you want this time,” Eddie tells him, not unkindly. “I had to wait until…you know, until I calmed down, but if you think for a second that I was just going to smile in your mother’s face the next time I saw her to keep the peace, then you’re not as perceptive as you think you are, Frank.”

Frankie stares at him for a few moments, before nodding, cheek mashed against the pillow.

“Was it bad?”

Eddie blinks.

“The fight,” Frankie continues. “Was it bad?”

There’s no point in lying: “Yeah. At first it was. Your mother has a habit of saying anything to hurt someone, just to prove a point,” Eddie winces. “It’s not fun being on the receiving end.”

“I do that, too,” Frankie murmurs, signing so quickly and half-heartedly that Eddie almost misses it.

Unfortunately, that’s true; Eddie’s also been on the receiving end of it with his son. While Eddie has always found that Myra and Frankie share many personality traits — and not all of those are bad, not at all — one of the traits that Eddie is least fond of is that one: the desire to get the last word in, no matter the cost.

“Sometimes,” Eddie agrees. “But you feel bad about it. You apologize and understand that it’s something you need to fix.”

“I hate when I do that, though,” Frankie continues. “I think that’s why Mom and I fight all the time. We both want to hurt each other.”

Hearing his son say that about his mother breaks Eddie’s heart.

“I-”

“I just,” Frankie continues, and Eddie forces himself to remain quiet: he’s very aware that Frankie is about to open up to him about Myra, in a way that he hasn’t done in weeks. And even if Eddie knows he’s made mistake after mistake with his son, he won’t make this one — cutting him off and talking over him, when all Frankie needs to do is vent. “I wish she was different, you know? She could be a really cool person if she just tried. Like, when she’s in a good mood, she’s really funny, and I know…I mean, I know she loves me. She doesn’t think I know that, but even now, after everything, I know she does.

"But," Frankie shuts his eyes for a brief moment. Eddie watches the side of his son's mouth twitch, how Frankie seems to heavily consider his next words before signing, "It's like we can't ever be on the same page. I tell her something, and she thinks I'm saying the exact opposite. And I hate the fact that like, doing this, going on a random trip and everything —she'd never want to be this close to me. That she doesn't," Hurt flickers in Frankie's eyes, "like me."

"Frank," Eddie reaches over to touch his son's shoulder; he can see the decades-long pain begin to build all over again in his child, as his son lays inches away from him and tells him that he thinks his mother does not like him.

Why don't you like me? Eddie can't tell if the voice he hears is Myra or Frankie's: both of them wondering the exact same thing about one another, and neither of them knowing how to reach each other, how to ask for what they really need — and it's not Frankie's responsibility as the child. Eddie knows that.

But, despite the anger that resurfaces as Myra looked at him yesterday, calling him pathetic, telling him she hated him and that he ruined her life, Eddie sees a much younger Myra in his mind's eye, sobbing into her hands as she sat alone in their first apartment, trapped in their old bedroom while she tried to make sense of her emotions post-partum. Watching Frankie and Eddie share a birthday, their appearance, and so many similarities.

There's nothing in Frankie that resembles me, Myra had sobbed. I'm going to fail all over again.

Eddie has many options at this moment, he realizes. He can tell Frankie that no, his mother loves him, and that it's just a rough patch: to extend her some kindness, see if she comes tomorrow. And to try again, even if Frankie doesn't want to, to give Myra another chance (after so, so many of them have gone south). Or, he can nod along and tell Frankie that yeah, his mother has a temper. That Eddie's been burnt by her many times before, and that he's given up on her — they can give up together, and Frankie can wait until he turns eighteen and decide how he wants to go about their relationship from that point on.

Or. Or.

"I'm sorry."

Frankie looks up at Eddie and nods, nose pressing into the pillow as he quickly signs, "Yeah."

"Frank."

Frankie blinks.

"I don't think either your mother and I knew exactly what to expect when you were born. Your mother spent so much time preparing the nursery and the apartment for you; she was the one who bought all of the baby blankets and had them embroidered with your name," A memory, Myra's bright smile, flashes in his mind: "She was the one who insisted on using Frankie instead of Frank; I was the one who called you Frank all the time, after my father, but your mother just kept saying that you needed a nickname that was going to be more you."

Frankie frowns. "I didn't know that."

"When you were born, I fell in love with you the moment that I saw you — I knew that no matter what my life was like before, no matter what my mother taught me and how I was raised, I would do everything I could to keep you safe. That we weren't just going to have the same birthday," A little shyly, Eddie goes: "That we'd be best friends."

Frankie ducks his head and signs something; Eddie thinks he sees it, his heart aching with fondness, but when he motions for Frankie to repeat it, Frankie goes: "You still are my first best friend. When you're not pissing me off."

Eddie laughs and touches his son's elbow; Frankie allows it, watching Eddie speak:

"I was so happy to finally meet you, for you to be born."

"And Mom wasn't?"

"Do you remember when your aunt talked to you a little bit about how hard it was for her to adjust after Rosie was born?"

Beverly has only shared the bare bones about it with them; Eddie has always had the impression that her postpartum was much, much more severe than anyone, except Ben, will ever know.

Frankie nods. "Yeah. She had postpartum depression," He looks down. "I guess you're trying to say that Mom did, too. That it's not her fault, that...you know, I need to be understanding, and- okay, Dad. I get it. I figured she had postpartum depression. But that doesn't mean-"

"If you stop interrupting me, I could explain it to you."

Frankie narrows his eyes, but allows Eddie to speak.

"When I saw your mother yesterday, we fought. It was pretty bad at first; we both said things to each other that crossed a line," Eddie feels shame as he goes: "I brought up when you were a baby, and how everything turned out between you two now."

Frankie frowns.

"I was at work all the time when you were little; when I was home, I focused on you. Your mother was the one who stayed at home with you until you went to kindergarten; she left the job she had before, working at a pediatrician's office, to focus on raising you — she wanted to, she didn't want to go back to work or let you stay in daycare until then — and I was at work most of the time. And...and I think there were so many things that now, knowing the things I do and after so much time has passed, I realize I should've noticed back then. That I should've done more for her."

"Dad-"

"I'm not trying to tell you how to feel about your mother; at the end of the day, nothing that happened back then excuses how she treated you the other night. I think, even if she were to beg you to forgive her, even if I'm telling you to give her another chance, you are your own person who knows what you need to do — no matter who it hurts, you're the one who has to choose.

"But I think...when I put everything together from start to finish, it's no wonder it all happened this way," Eddie frowns, shutting his eyes. "And it could've been avoided, had I just...noticed more. If I’d gotten off of auto-pilot and helped her."

"You guys had a shitty relationship, Dad. You can't blame yourself and pretend that it's all you, or that you're the one who needs to apologize when Mom made her own decisions. She's a grown ass woman; even if — if — I pretended that shit was cool between me and her, what about you?"

"I can live the rest of my life never getting closure with your mother if it means you'll get that closure with her."

Frankie stares at him, eyes shining.

"I think that's what I've been trying to say this whole time, what...what I was trying to tell Richie. At the end of the day, your mother and I hurt each other; maybe it was worse on her end, maybe I started it by being withdrawn towards her. I don't know, maybe it cancels out, or maybe it doesn't actually matter. I don't care about any of it, because I want you to have the closure you're looking for. I want you to live your life and in ten or twenty years from now, when you decide to give me grandchildren, you're able to look back and know that you did what you were supposed to do. That you live your life without any regrets. And that might mean you make a choice that could hurt me or your mother, but even if that happens, as long as you have no regrets…”

"Do you still have regrets, Dad?"

Eddie shuts his eyes; he feels his son touch his elbow, trying to comfort him.

"You have no idea. I have more regrets than you ever will, Frankie, and...I mean, I've tried to make my peace with most of them," He looks towards his oldest, his baby boy, and goes: "But the one thing I know I'd regret more than anything is knowing that I didn't give you the tools you need to figure out how to break the pattern — your mother and I both have done so many things we regret, and I know she'd say the same thing: you have to be your own person, Frank."

"I know."

After a while, Frankie looks at him and goes, "I still love her. I do. I mean, I'm going to have a little sibling, and- and I don't want to not know them, you know? What if I finally get a brother? I mean, it's cool having sisters, but I really want a brother, too," Frankie looks torn. "And I like Darren a lot, too; he's really cool, and I want to see him and Mom have that second chance. I just wish Mom didn't say all of that to me. I wish she called me after she kicked me out and told me to come back home," Frankie's expression fractures. "I just wish she tried to prove me wrong, just once."

"I know, kiddo," Eddie brushes his son's hair back from his forehead. "I know."

Eddie lets his son breathe heavily into the pillow to calm himself, before finally going: "I asked her to come to our party tomorrow, you know."

Frankie blinks.

"I should've asked for your permission first, I know, but...I did ask her. I told her she needed to come, not just for you, but for herself," Eddie sighs. "I don't know for sure, Frank. But I told her that she needed to try."

"She probably won't come," Frankie shrugs. "Grandma told me she was coming — like, she just invited herself, but, you know, figures — and I texted Darren about it, but Mom probably won't. She'll just convince herself it's a bad idea and give up, like usual."

"She might surprise you," Eddie says, although he thinks he's trying to convince himself. "She might show up."

"Yeah. Might."

The clock ticks closer to midnight; once it strikes, it'll officially be their birthday.

A long stretch of time passes before: "Dad?"

"Mm."

"Wren was saying how, after she graduates, Stan wants to take her on this father-daughter trip somewhere, anywhere she wants," Frankie says. "She wants to go to Japan, I think, but it got me thinking....after I graduate high school, can we do that? Just me and you," Frankie shifts under the covers. "I mean, I have the acting stuff with Richie, and he says that we'll go back to L.A. soon with Shay, probably, but," He looks shy. "I want to do a trip with just me and you somewhere far away. After I graduate, just the two of us."

"You'd really want to be with me for that long without Richie there as a buffer?" Eddie teases.

"Yeah."

"Where would you wanna go?"

"Europe," Frankie answers easily. "I wanna go across Europe, like- you know, like a backpacking thing."

Eddie wrinkles his nose. "A backpacking trip?"

"You know, staying in hostels and going wherever we want, when we want. Just the two of us."

"Can you picture me in a hostel?"

"Sure. I'd force you."

"You'd really want to do that?" Eddie asks, blinking. "Travel across Europe with me?"

Frankie nods. "We can go to Poland together, to see where the Kaspbrak's came from — we're not really in touch with our Polish side at all."

"Not very much, no."

"And I think Aunt Patty's family is from there, too; I think it'd be nice if we could...you know, if we could pay our respects to her and Uncle Stan's family back in Europe, and visit some of the Holocaust memorials. I think they'd like it if we did that."

Eddie's heart aches with fondness; his son is so incredibly kind. "I think they would, too. I'd like to do that."

"And maybe Italy and Switzerland, too."

"All over, huh?"

"Yeah. All over."

"Okay," Eddie nods. "Let's do it."

"Really?" Frankie's eyes light up, a smile on his face.

"Really really," Eddie laughs. "Yeah. Let's plan it, Frank; we have plenty of time to save up for it."

"Okay," Frankie grins, nestling into his covers. "Yeah. After I graduate."

"Question."

"Yeah?"

"Do you know what you want to go to school for?"

Frankie rolls on his back, shrugging. "I dunno. I was," He glances away. "Okay, don't laugh at me. I've only told a few of my friends this; not even Shay knows."

Eddie leans forward, eager.

"I think I want to do something with kids," Frankie reveals, picking at the cover when he's done signing.

"With kids?"

"Yeah. I like kids a lot, actually. I mean, they can be kind of annoying, but...," Frankie shrugs again. "I'd either want to do something educational, or- you know, maybe...maybe be a pediatrician or something."

Eddie's heart lurches; Frankie's never told him this before, but the thought of it makes complete sense: Frankie is a natural with children, much more than Eddie feels like he is himself — he gets along fantastically with his younger siblings and cousins. He's patient and understanding, and all the kids adore Frankie — Frankie’s often been the favorite teenager in the house, due to how playful and kind he is towards the children. Eddie has rarely seen Frankie truly raise his temper with them, unlike how he can with the adults.

"I had no idea," Eddie tells his son, staring in awe.

Frankie looks shy. "I guess...when I see Caleb, or I think about myself when I was his age — even if our situations aren't exactly the same — I'd like to be able to help. I remember how scared I'd get at the doctors when I couldn't understand what was going on, and how nice it was to have someone like Mrs. Hall talk to me and help me feel more comfortable, and I'd want to do that," Frankie ducks his head. "That's probably dumb, huh?"

"I think that's amazing," Eddie tells him honestly. "I think that's exactly what you were meant to do, Frank."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I think that's the perfect career for you," Eddie breathes. "Not acting, huh?"

"Not full-time. I like doing it with Richie, and I'd love to keep doing it, but...I don't know if it's going to be all I do. Maybe I won't actually be a doctor or a teacher or anything, but...yeah, I don't know."

"I say go for it," Eddie murmurs. "You'd be amazing."

Frankie shrugs, still smiling; he nestles into the covers. "I just think it'd be kinda cool, I guess."

"I think you'd be great at it."

"Thanks."

"I had a really great time with you today," Eddie tells his son, smirking when Frankie pretends to look shocked. "I'm serious, Frank. I'm glad you forced me to do this; even if the weather is horrible, and-"

"Ever so positive, Dad."

"-I love spending time with you," Eddie murmurs softly, and then, with an ache in his chest, goes, "I'm sorry that it hasn't been just the two of us in awhile."

"It's okay," Frankie says. "I love Richie and my sisters, I do. But like- don't...don't take this the wrong way."

"I'm listening."

"I liked it when it was me and you for a little bit," Frankie hesitates. "After the divorce, before Richie lived here. I really wanted Richie to move in with us, yeah, but....when it was just me and you, it was really fun."

Eddie has always thought that Frankie didn't look back on that time period with any lingering fondness — it was right after Eddie and Myra told him they were getting a divorce, and between finding a new apartment for himself, adjusting to a new relationship, and dealing with the fallout of the emotional turmoil with everything to do with Myra, he didn't quite think Frankie missed it.

"Really?" Eddie can't help but ask.

Frankie nods slowly; he's getting sleepy, Eddie realizes. His lip starts to pout as he yawns, hiding it behind a fist. "It was nice, when it was you and me. I liked when we'd run errands to go and pick out new furniture for my room or...you know, when we'd go and grab dinner together," A pause. "I guess I just felt like I was actually starting to get to know you."

Eddie watches his son start to fall asleep, and he realizes that there's a part of him that feels nostalgia for that time period as well: when it was just the two of them, just Eddie and Frankie.

It's not that Eddie would trade the life he has with Richie and their daughters — not for an instant.

But for a little while, the only person that Eddie had to answer to was his son. He felt like, for the first time, he was starting to come into himself — at forty years-old — and was letting his son in, little by little.

Frankie finally falls asleep; right when Eddie hears his breathing even out, the clock strikes midnight.

"Happy birthday," Eddie murmurs to his son, reaching over to pull the cover over Frankie's broad shoulder.

—

"-so actually, you know, take your time, dude," Richie had told him that morning, when Eddie gave his husband a call to check-in. "Take all the time you guys need to get here — not after six, though, make sure it's before then."

As soon as Eddie hung up the phone, Frankie waited for Eddie to recap the conversation and went, "He's so weird."

"I know."

"You married him, though."

"I did," Eddie can't help but smile, noticing Frankie watching his profile; when he looks at his son, he furrows his brows. "What?"

"Nothing," Frankie says with a shrug. "Just...you know, I'm glad you married Richie."

"I'm happy you guys get along so well."

"Yeah. I was kinda...I mean, I thought he was funny when we first met, but I was a little cautious of him for a bit."

Eddie looks at his son; Frankie is pushing his pancakes around with his fork, making sure they're thoroughly soaked with butter and syrup before putting it in his mouth.

"Cautious?"

Frankie shrugs. "After everything with Mom...I guess I just," He frowns. "I dunno. I wanted to make sure he was who he said he was."

He thinks of Frankie at eleven, meeting Richie for the first time: they had gotten along instantly, but he supposes Frankie had been cautious at first. There were times where Eddie wondered if it was due to Richie being another man, or if he had a hard time adjusting to the divorce, but this information, although it makes sense, still is a little hard for him to wrap his head around.

"You didn't have to worry," Eddie tells him, not unkindly. "I can take care of myself, Frank, you know that."

When Frankie looks at him, his son seems slightly skeptical; despite how much Eddie wishes he didn't see it, it's an expression that reminds Eddie not of Myra, but of Sonia: are you sure, eddie-bear?

"I wouldn't have brought Richie around if I didn't trust him," Eddie continues, shaking away the flash discomfort. "Promise."

"Yeah," Frankie shrugs. "But sometimes you can be kind of...too trusting.”

"You don't have to protect me, Frank. That's not your job," That's part of why everything got so messed up in the first place, he can't help but think, but to his son, he carries on: "Your job is to be a teenager, Frankie."

Frankie's gaze lingers on him for a long time; his son has an uncanny ability to lock you into place with his gaze, even if it's unintentional.

"Sure," is all Frankie says, gesturing to Eddie's plate. "Eat your pancakes, Dad. And hey — happy birthday to you, too."

—

When they finally get back to the townhouse, it's after four pm and both Eddie and Frankie stop in their tracks when they see that the stoop of the townhouse is decorated.

"He didn't," Frankie groans, dragging his hands down his face.

"Oh, he did," Eddie breathes; Richie knows that both Eddie and Frankie hate public displays on their birthday like this — every time they've gone out to eat, both of them have had to practically tackle Richie to the ground whenever he's tried to tell the wait staff that it wasn't just one, but two birthday's at their table. "I'm gonna kill him."

Richie went all out: balloon animals, a massive banner over their door. A few people walking past stop by to stare at it.

As Eddie looks down the street, he could swear he recognizes a few cars parked for the street parking; he groans, although he can't hide the smile on his face when he gets a little closer, knowing that his husband, daughters, and friends went all out for the pair of them.

"I have a feeling," Frankie mutters as he steps to Eddie's side, staring warily at the front door, "that it's going to be crazy."

"Your father organized this, so...yeah."

"Ugh."

Eddie takes a step forward; Frankie hovers back, shaking his head when Eddie looks back.

"You first, man."

"Oh no," Eddie shakes his head and walks over, grabbing Frankie's wrist. "We're going in together."

"I'm right behind you, Dad, I swear."

"No," Eddie pulls his son up to his side, even though Frankie sags and groans. "At the same time."

"Fine," Frankie grunts, and then Eddie does the countdown — one, two, three...

On three, as Eddie opens the front door, Frankie pushes him inside first and tries to close it behind him; Eddie barely registers the darkness of his living room as he whirls around and grabs the sleeve of Frankie's hoodie, tugging his teenage son inside of the living room.

The lights snap on, and as they both guessed: "SURPRISE!"

"A surprise party," Frankie drawls next to Eddie, trying to wrestle out of his arms. "Had no idea." But there's a flush on the teenager's face as he says it, the boy barely able to contain his grin as he turns to face his friends and family.

It's not just the Losers: Eddie sees most of Frankie's friends; Mags and Went, of course. Eddie's aunt, Sara, who is practically vibrating with excitement at being here again. Myra's mother, even, who practically shoos Richie away when he tries photobombing the picture of Eddie and Frankie at the front door.

Pretty much everyone that they could have asked for is here; Frankie goes to his friends in an instant, rolling his eyes when Alex tugs him down and gives him a noogie, and — although he'd deny it, of course, despite how much Eddie imagines Shay and Wren will tease him for it later — rights himself and runs his hand through his hair to tame it as Margo comes up, a ginger-haired girl at her side as she bids Frankie a happy birthday.

"I can't believe you guys came," Eddie says as Mags and Went rush forward; he lets his in-laws wrap him into a hug, feeling a rush of affection when Mags presses a kiss to his cheek and hugs him close. When Mags lets him go, Eddie sees his aunt coming forward. "Sara, you-"

Sara practically knocks him onto his ass as she hugs him; Eddie oofs ungracefully, wincing when he feels the short woman hug him tightly.

"Mags," he croaks to his mother-in-law, "Help."

"Okay, let the boy breathe," Mags laughs, actually prying Sara off of him.

While everyone greets them, Eddie accepts hugs and happy birthday wishes from the Losers, his nieces and nephews, even some of Frankie's friends — Oliver going Mr. K! and practically shoving himself against Eddie's side.

And Eddie notices, while Richie literally picks Frankie off of the ground — Ben having to go and spot him, hands hovered behind the small of Richie's back as he laughs, shaking his head fondly — the way that Frankie, through fits of laughter and while trying to twist out of Richie's grip, lets his gaze sweep across the room, at all of the gathered guests.

Eddie watches as his son clenches his jaw, meeting Eddie's eyes for a brief second before looking away; Myra isn't among them.

—

"Okay, this boa is a bit much," Eddie's telling Bill a little while later, groaning when Bev comes over to adjust the massive feathery rainbow boa even tighter around Eddie's neck. "Seriously?"

"You look prideful," Shay says with a grin, giving him a massive thumbs up. "Oh, wait — Wren, we forgot the hat!"

"Hell no," Eddie hisses, ducking when Wren manifests out of literally nowhere with a big birthday hat — a fluffy, once again rainbow, pompom at the top. "Wren, get that away from me."

"You're my favorite gay uncle," Wren teases, ignoring Richie's hey!

"At least she didn't say bisexual," Bill murmurs to Eddie, and Wren fixes her uncle with a stare that's one-hundred percent a mirror of her father.

"You're the reason my last essay got a C, Uncle Bill," Wren tells him, slapping Eddie's hands away when he tries to cover his head away from her. "Ugh, Uncle Ben, put Uncle Eddie in a full nelson or something so I can get this on him."

"I wish your uncle would put me in a full nelson," Richie grins, winking at Ben; Ben just shrugs, happily enjoying his apple juice.

(Rosie had insisted that her and her father matched; even now, the little girl waves her apple juice box towards him, laughing when Ben lowers his to tap the boxes against each other in a toast.)

"This family," Ida randomly says, sitting ramrod straight in the chair next to Patty; apparently, the two of them have hit it off rather well, much to no one's surprise, "is the polar opposite of mine."

"In a good way or bad way, Mrs. Nelson?" Shay grins from the floor, although Eddie can see the layer of defensiveness in his daughter's tone.

"An interesting way," Ida comments, and there's a brief moment where she allows her gaze to sweep across everyone before she settles and smiles. "I haven't even had my first drink yet, and I'm terribly amused."

Wren finally gets the hat onto Eddie's head, laughing when Eddie squeaks as she lets the birthday cone slap on top of his head. "There you go, perfect."

"I still don't know how these things work," Frankie's friend, Alex, goes as he holds the mini confetti cannon in his hand, twisting it around and squinting as he brings it up to his eye.

"Are you crazy?!" Eddie reaches over and grabs it from him, shaking his head. "How many times have I had to save you over the past nine years, Alex?"

"Mr. K, you're the sole reason I'm alive and in one piece," Alex replies with a grin.

"You should've seen him trying to help us blow up the balloons," Shay says with a tsk. "We were supposed to have a big balloon arch in the hallway, except he kept popping them-"

"That wasn't me! That was the twins!"

"You're blaming a pair of five-year-olds?" Frankie teases with a smirk once Oliver translates; Alex stares at him.

"They kept popping them on purpose to freak me out!"

"Was not!" Phoebe says from Went's lap.

"Was too!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

"We had to stop halfway during production anyways," Richie cuts in with a laugh, jerking his head to where Caleb sits a little ways from everyone else next to Quinn, engrossed in something he's watching on his iPad.

Stan winces. "I told you he didn't like them being blown up in front of him."

“He runs a very strict program.”

"So," Sara says next to Eddie, adjusting in her seat as she leans towards him. "Forty-five and sixteen. Big birthdays, right?"

"I guess," Frankie shrugs, wincing when his friend, Lily, blows a balled up straw into his face. "Dude, would you cut it out?"

"Nah."

"How was Boston? Exciting, right?" Sara asks.

"It was nice," Eddie murmurs, sharing a glance with Frankie. "We walked around Newbury Street, went to the New England Aquarium..."

"Saw some penguins," Frankie adds.

"I heard penguins are totally gay," Frankie's friend, Travis, replies from the couch, smirking when Frankie hits his knee. "What? I swear there's a whole kids book about two male birds raising an egg or something."

"And Tango Makes Three," Both Eddie and Richie say at the same time; they glance at each other and snort.

"And this is what I simply don't understand," Ida murmurs, shaking her head as she looks towards Mags. "Homosexuality exists in so many species, after all. And every gay man I've ever met has been so lovely."

After a brief moment of silence, Richie goes, "Your heart's in the right place, Ida."

"It always has been," Ida says, deathly serious at first until she smirks.

Overall, the party is fun; they haven't had cake yet — although Eddie stole a peek of it in the kitchen before being ushered out of the room by Mike, and can see it's fucking massive — but Frankie is surrounded by his friends and family, and everyone is having a good time: it's not nearly as awkward as Eddie had feared for Ida to be here with the Losers and Mags and Went, and Frankie seems to enjoy having his grandmother here. Every now and then, he'll scoot over to sit next to her legs from where she's sitting on the couch, leaning against her and ducking his head when she affectionately pats his head.

It's a fun party; definitely the most lively that Eddie's had in years. For the past sixteen years, most of Eddie's birthday parties were child-themed — not that he minded, of course. Frankie's birthday took priority for him: Eddie was content to allow himself to be in the background as his father, to have children's parties and to only have a few of Myra's family members come as adult guests.

And even though this isn't an adult party, exactly, it's still fun; they can finally drink and let loose a little, the Losers entertaining themselves and falling into an easy dynamic with Frankie's friends and Ida — Ida, in particular, seems to adore Mike and Patty, talking animatedly with the pair of them about bridge, of all things.

A little while later, though, Isaac comes into the living room, crossing the threshold of the living room and, in a manner far too serious than the situation warrants, murmurs, "Mr. Kaspbrak, you have new guests at the door."

Eddie blinks. "Oh, uh- okay. Thanks, Isaac."

Isaac actually follows Eddie to the door; he glances back at Frankie's friend, nodding towards the living room. "You can go. I'll be okay."

"I don't know," Isaac murmurs, nodding towards the shut door. "I think you might need some backup, perhaps. Frankie certainly might."

After telling Frankie's friend to go back to the party, Eddie opens the front door to the townhouse and stills when he sees Myra and Darren on the other side.

Darren is all smiles, of course; if it was just him, Eddie would step aside immediately and lead Myra's husband into the house, no questions asked.

He just didn't expect to actually see Myra here, after all. He and Frankie both assumed she wouldn't come.

"Myra," Eddie says breathlessly, and then, glancing towards Darren, smiles, "Hi, Darren."

"Hi, Eddie," Darren smiles, glancing at Myra before quickly stepping forward to pull Eddie into a hug; Eddie returns it, unable to stop himself from thinking of the absurdity of the situation: how he and Myra's husband get along so well. If it wasn’t for the Myra-shaped shadow looming over them, Eddie thinks that he, Darren, and Richie would be really great friends. "Happy birthday."

"Thank you," And when Darren steps back, Eddie slides his gaze over to Myra.

Myra has her arms crossed over her chest; with a long, black coat over her clothes, his ex-wife looks uncomfortable on the stoop of the townhouse, refusing to meet Eddie's eyes for a moment as she shuffles her feet.

"You came," Eddie finally says to her, blinking.

"I'm here," Myra murmurs, biting her lip before looking at Eddie and away again; she's extremely uncomfortable, he realizes. Much more than Eddie had thought she'd be — he doesn't know why he thought, if she were to come over here, she'd have her head held high and her nose in the air, wasting no time to come into his home and head over to Frankie.

She doesn't want to be here, Eddie realizes, but here she is: for Frankie, and for Frankie only.

"Myra-"

Eddie hears footsteps; he turns to see Frankie standing just feet behind him, now adorned in a matching party hat and — oh, the irony — and rainbow boa.

Frankie stares over Eddie's shoulder, eyes locked onto his mother; when Eddie steals a glance back, Myra is looking back at Frankie, her expression unreadable.

Frankie pads forward slowly, moving past Eddie and standing in the doorway.

"You're here."

Myra nods.

"I didn't think you'd show up," Frankie admits; he seems taken aback still, arms crossed over his chest as he looks at his mother.

Myra hesitates; Eddie can see his ex-wife having to hold herself back from making a quip back — it's an instinct for her, Eddie knows, to bark back when she feels like someone is snapping at her.

"I wanted to be here," Myra finally says, and then, after a moment, adds: "For you."

Frankie doesn't say anything for a moment; Eddie is unsure of what he'll do. He can't fault Frankie if he were to beckon Darren inside and tell his mother to go back to her apartment, and he knows he'll dive in without a moment of hesitation to protect Frankie if it all goes south again.

But after a pause that stretches on so long it teeters on the edge of being tortuous, Frankie steps to the side.

Myra looks at him, startled; she must've expected their son to close the door in her face. To refuse another chance.

It's not Eddie's place to decide for Frankie if Myra deserves another one or not; he knows, though, that if Myra ruins this chance, if she burns Frankie again, it will be too much for their son to bear. This is the closest Frankie has ever come to giving up on someone completely: it is not in Frankie's nature by any means to do so, but Myra pushed him a little too far.

Myra takes a step inside; she keeps glancing Frankie's away, as if expecting their son to change his mind. To tell her to fuck off, to bark at her to go away. But Frankie doesn't; he simply watches as Myra passes, giving Darren a little smile and squeezing his stepfather’s elbow. Eddie thinks he sees Frankie mouth thank you; Darren just nods and gives Frankie’s shoulder a pat, moving behind Myra to put his hand on the small of her back and help her inside.

As his son watches his mother enter the townhouse, Eddie wishes he could be inside Frankie’s head right now.

This is the first time that Myra has been in their home, well...ever. She's only come as far as the stoop before. Eddie can see how her eyes rake across everything, analyzing every piece of furniture.

Despite the fact that it's very clear that everyone was alerted by Isaac who was at the door, everyone tries their absolute best to pretend not to notice as Myra enters the room; there's an awkward silence as Myra and Darren comes in, and Eddie can see from the way Myra's shoulders stiffen, how she stares around the room, that she's seconds from fleeing. That the urge to protect herself and hide away is threatening to overpower her.

Richie breaks the silence by getting to his feet and going over to Darren, giving him a high-five and tugging him into a quick hug. "My step-boyfriend's here!"

"I'm still not too sure what that means," Darren laughs easily, wrapping his arm around Richie to return the hug.

Myra hesitates for a moment before going to Ida’s side; Eddie watches as Myra settles next to her mother, not saying anything. Ida reaches over to clasp her hands over Myra’s, and Eddie can see the older woman murmur something to her daughter; he can’t see what it is, exactly, but he thinks Ida might have said: i knew you could do it.

Unsurprisingly, Darren immediately hits it off with the Losers in his first time meeting them — particularly with Stan, of course, to no one’s shock. The pair of them instantly begin discussing something (Eddie assumes it isn’t particularly exciting from the way Richie pretends to snore next to them, sagging against Stanley) but Darren seems excited to be here, which is a good thing, at least.

“You okay?” Eddie hears Bev murmur; she has her hand on his leg, green-blue eyes flicking over to Myra for a second before settling back on Eddie.

“I’m fine,” Eddie murmurs, watching as Frankie, in a semi-circle and talking with his friends and cousins, glances behind him back at his mother, and gives her a little wave. “If he’s okay, then I’m okay.”

Bev squeezes Eddie’s thigh; she glances back towards Myra and then nods, seemingly satisfied with that answer for the moment: it’s about Frankie, after all.

“We were thinking of going all out and doing an Eddie-Frankie trivia section,” Richie tells Eddie a little while later, settling down next to him; he leans close and mutters, “Also, Darren and Stan talking is like watching the two most boring worlds collide. I almost passed out over there.”

“A trivia?” Eddie asks, laughing. “You’re joking.”

“I’d win,” Oliver proclaims. “I’ve been to like twenty of these parties.”

“I’d definitely win,” Richie counters, reaching over with his shoe to nudge Frankie’s best friend; Oliver cackles and pushes him off. “I mean, hello: number one fan here.”

“I’d do fairly well on the Frankie section,” Isaac murmurs, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “I’m not too sure about Mr. Kaspbrak, but I can use my better judgement to guess.”

“I’d fail on purpose,” Shay laughs, leaning against Frankie. “Just to prove a point.”

“I’d probably win both sections,” Bill inputs.

“Okay, enough,” Eddie laughs; Frankie practically cringes.

“What would the questions even be?”

“Favorite color,” Stan starts.

“Eddie’s is pink, Frankie’s is green,” Richie says immediately.

“Neon green,” Oliver corrects. “Like Xbox green.”

“Favorite animal?”

“Eddie likes penguins, Frankie likes platypus-”

“Not anymore,” Frankie cuts in, shrugging when his stepfather looks hurt. “Sorry, Richie.”

“Don’t you like sharks now?” Mike asks, humming thoughtfully.

“Cats,” Margo speaks up, flushing when Frankie looks at her. “Cats, right?”

Frankie meets her eyes and ducks his head bashfully. “Yeah.”

“Traitor,” Richie mouths to Frankie.

“Alright,” Eddie laughs. “Enough.”

“Last one: favorite movie.”

“Eddie’s is easy,” Bill rolls his eyes. “Titanic, right?”

Eddie rolls his eyes, muttering something under his breath.

“And Frankie- you like Avatar, right?”

Frankie shakes his head.

“No, I think it’s Scott Pilgrim.”

“Close, but no.”

“Finding Nemo.”

The answer comes from across the room; Myra seems shocked that she even said it, but once Frankie realizes it was his mother who spoke, his son looks at her, eyes wide.

“At least,” Myra replies awkwardly, glancing into her cup. “That’s what it was when you were a kid.”

Frankie nods slowly. “Yeah. It still is.”

Both Frankie and Myra lock eyes; Myra just gives the tiniest of nods, her cheeks a little flushed as she glances away, and Frankie clears his throat and picks at his shoelaces to have something to preoccupy himself with.

After a moment, Richie goes, “Wait, how is Finding Nemo close to Scott Pilgrim?”

—

When it’s almost time for cake and presents and, in Richie’s words, the grand presentation, Beverly finds him in the backyard.

“You okay?” Bev asks, coming to settle next to him.

“Yeah,” Eddie murmurs, nodding towards the house. “I just wanted a second away,” He touches the boa, sneezing when the feathers touch his nose, “And I needed to escape before Wren convinces Phoebe and Charlie to start putting stickers on me again.”

“Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” Bev jokes, nudging him with her shoulder; the pair of them settle on the steps leading down to their small backyard, Bev leaning against his side. “So.”

“So.”

“Myra actually came.”

“I was pretty shocked, too.”

“She’s…,” Bev shrugs. “I mean, she’s not exactly comfortable. I think she was about to lose her mind when your aunt started to talk to her.”

“Sara comes on very strong.”

“But,” Bev continues, and Eddie watches his friend’s profile: Beverly sighs, looking out into the dark backyard as she finally murmurs, “It must be really weird.”

“You have no idea.”

Bev leans against him; when her head drops onto his shoulder, he immediately melts, wrapping his arm around his friend and tugging her closer to his side.

“Eddie.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re being the bigger person. You always have been.”

“Yeah.”

He can feel Beverly’s eyes on him; he turns to look at her, brows raised. His friend’s eyes are full of compassion and love as she goes, “You know that out of everyone, you can tell me anything, Eddie. You and I are sworn to our no judgement rule: you know that.”

And they are: no matter how much Eddie loves and trusts the rest of the Losers, Beverly is the only one who understands everything.

He’s only told Richie the bear bones of what he learned when he talked to Myra the day before yesterday, and even then, he felt that he couldn’t go into as much depth with his husband as he wanted to — and it’s not because he doesn’t trust Richie, but, and he feels horrible for saying this, he isn’t sure if Richie will understand.

So, to Bev, he goes: “Myra told me a lot about when Frankie was a newborn, and how hard it was for her. I mean, it started off as a big fight, but then…”

“Okay.”

“And I guess I just,” Eddie shuts his eyes. “I feel really shitty, Bev. I feel shitty hearing all of that and knowing that I didn’t do more for either of them — for her or for Frankie.”

“Eddie.”

“It must’ve been… I mean, I should’ve…”

Beverly silently traces patterns on the sleeve of Eddie’s sweater; he lets his friend rest against his side, breathing evenly next to him.

“I had really bad postpartum, too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I…,” Bev swallows. “I’ve never told anyone this — only Ben knows. But after Rosie was born, I was so stressed out. I almost had Ben rehome Roscoe because I was terrified of him, that he’d hurt my baby, that he’d attack me — even though this is my dog we’re talking about, the dog who slept next to me on the nights when Ben had to be away for a few days on a business trip and who I trained to sit against the back of my legs when I got gas at night. Who let me cry into his fur and sat with me in the bathroom for hours. I was terrified of him,” Bev hesitates, “And of Ben.”

Eddie turns to look at Beverly, brows raised.

“I’d have daydreams — and they felt so real Eddie, it felt like an actual vision, I swear on my life — where I could see Ben taking our daughter and leaving her in the woods behind our home. He was giving her a bath one time, and I had to watch him the entire time because I’d convinced myself he might drown her if I turned away for even a second. I screamed at him one time when I saw him coming around the corner because I thought — just for a second — that he was my father, coming to take my baby girl.”

“Bev…”

“It took me months to feel normal again, and it took me a little longer to look at Rosie and realize that she was my baby and not some kid I was taking care of. I didn’t- I mean, I loved her, of course. But I wasn’t in love with motherhood at first; sometimes I still feel that way, but those first few months? It was terrible,” Bev laughs bitterly. “I don’t regret having her, not for a moment. I’d die for her, and I always knew that with Ben, I could do it, but I’d only have one, and I only wanted a daughter.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“And Ben’s- I mean, he’s so fucking sweet. He was there every step of the way, even when I’d sleep in our guest room because I felt so ashamed of my emotions, punishing myself for how I felt, even though I knew it was never his fault, or Rosie’s, either,” Bev swallows; she’s not crying, but he can see her nose twitch, and thinks that she might be close. “It took me a very long time to realize it wasn’t mine, either.”

“I had no idea.”

“I say this with an infinite amount of love,” Beverly murmurs, “But you guys are…well, you’re guys. Being pregnant and giving birth can either be some of your fondest memories or it can be a nightmare — for me, it was both. I’d do everything all over again for Rosie; that’s my baby. But I think,” Bev hesitates, “And I never thought I’d say this, but knowing that about Myra…I just feel like I understand her a little better, at least on that. I think that, where me and Patty got help and reached out, she didn’t. I don’t think it’s all on you, Eddie; I think she felt that she had to hide these things from you in the same way you couldn’t tell her about…you know, about a lot of the things with your mother — you couldn’t let yourself be vulnerable. And maybe for different reasons; Myra made it difficult for you to trust her with those secrets, and maybe Myra thought that you’d think less of her as her husband and the mother of your son if you knew she felt that way. From what you said, it seems like she still hasn’t come to terms with the fact that she went through something fucked up but…well, normal.

“I’m not trying to preach to you or anything, I swear. But no one ever talks about that aspect of giving birth and postpartum; I’ve always heard about baby blues, but the rage I felt afterwards, feeling like I was always on guard and stressed for Rosie’s safety, while also adjusting to Rosie being alive and depending on me for the rest of her life — it’s stressful. And there’s so much shame surrounding it; no one talks about it, because admitting that so many mothers don’t fall in love with their baby right away, fuck, some of the women I’ve become friends with have told me they even hated their newborns at first, there’s so much stigma around it. And knowing the bits of Myra that I do, seeing her and her mother, even though I actually like her mother, weirdly enough, I think I get it — not that she’d want to hear it from me. I think she feels a lot of shame and guilt, and she probably thought you’d think less of her as a mother if she let you in.”

Eddie just stares at her.

“I don’t know. I’m probably talking out of my ass.”

“I think you just explained everything better than I ever could,” Eddie murmurs, settling back. “What the hell, Bev.”

“I charge by the hour, love,” She smiles, and then, dropping her tone into something more serious, adds, “But what she went through back then, and what’s going on now — maybe those things, in context, are related, but it’s not Frankie’s fault. I mean, I obviously don’t know for certain what she went through; she only told you the bare bones, obviously. It wasn’t her fault for feeling that way when he was a newborn, but it wasn’t Frankie’s fault, either.”

“I know.”

“You need to understand that, Eddie. Frankie didn’t ask to be here; you didn’t ask for your mother to be, well, your mother, and Frankie didn’t ask to be involved in all of this. He’s a fucking amazing kid, but no matter how Myra felt, it doesn’t cancel out the past few years.”

“Yeah.”

Bev leans back, looking up at the night sky. In Manhattan, there are no stars to be seen — just helicopters.

“I kind of envy you, though,” Bev randomly murmurs; Eddie looks at her, shocked. “We all say that Frankie is emotionally intelligent, and he is, but you’re showing a fucking insane amount of restraint around her, Eds. I wouldn’t know what to do if I were you.”

Eddie frowns. “It’s not the same,” he tells her.

“I know. I’m not comparing them, I just…sometimes, I feel like none of us have it figured out, you know? I mean, we’re all trying; we all have kids now — I mean, Bill and Mike are going to adopt any day now, I think — and we’re reaching our mid-forties, but I feel like sometimes, I still have no idea what to make of everything that happened a few years ago.”

“I know the feeling.”

“And then, with Rosie,” Bev continues, looking at him. “I think to myself: how am I gonna tell her? Do I want to? I’ll have to tell her about my father one day, far in the future, because she needs to know. It’s important for her to know those things, even if I wish she didn’t have to, but,” And Bev’s eyes burn with rage, a rage that Eddie understands well; he touches her hand, “She has to know. But the clown? How am I going to tell her about that?” Beverly shakes her head, letting her face press into Eddie’s shoulder. “When you saw that drawing that Frankie made, I didn’t get why you and Stan were so adamant about not saying anything to the kids until they’re older. But now that I have Rosie, and the more time that goes by, I get it. I know they have the right to know, but…”

“Believe me,” Eddie murmurs, swallowing, “I know.”

They’re both quiet; Eddie lets Beverly sag against him, running his hand over her side comfortingly.

—

Their cake is massive — it practically takes up the entire counter top, but this year, it was made special: half lemon raspberry for Eddie, and half cheesecake for Frankie.

“Dude, I love this flavor,” Alex says as he grabs the lemon raspberry half, pumping his fist. “I think about it like, year-round.”

“Only you,” Frankie jabs back with a grin, but he turns to look at Eddie, birthday hat on top of his head and feather boa around his neck, leaning into Eddie’s side as pretty much everyone takes a minimum of twenty photos each.

“Oh, wait,” Ida says, walking over to Eddie’s side. “I had to bring this; I thought it was perfect.”

She hands Eddie a photo; in it, Eddie sees himself, fifteen years younger, holding his one year-old son in his arms as Eddie celebrated his thirtieth birthday, Frankie his first. Eddie doesn’t have a ridiculous party hat or feather boa on in this one, no, but, as Patty comes over to show her his phone, placing the photos side by side, Eddie has to swallow back a sudden wave of emotion, tears threatening to spill over as he looks at the photos.

In one, Frankie is a baby, not old enough to stand yet, and snuggled in Eddie’s arms. And in the one from seconds ago, he’s taller than Eddie.

His baby. His perfect, wonderful, baby boy.

Eddie sniffs, doing his best to maintain his composure.

“Aw, man,” Frankie sighs, glancing at him. “You’re not gonna…?”

“You’re just,” While everyone is eating and chatting amongst each other, it doesn’t seem like anyone pays them much mind, “You’re growing up so fast.”

Frankie frowns. “It doesn’t feel fast to me.”

But it is to Eddie; it truly feels like just yesterday Frankie was running around the apartment, squealing as Eddie followed after him and tried to wrangle his baby back into his room for bed, where Myra would be waiting with a storybook in hand — Goodnight Moon, Frankie’s favorite.

From across the room, where Myra is still standing next to Darren — as she’s been almost all night, save for the times when Darren became preoccupied with talking with one of the Losers — Eddie can see his ex-wife glance at their son, and then to Eddie, her eyes slightly glassy. He wonders if she’s thinking the same thing as Eddie: that Frankie is growing up before their eyes.

And she doesn’t want to miss it, Eddie thinks before he can stop himself, both he and Myra looking away from one another at the same time.

—

Right before presents are about to start, Eddie exits the guest bathroom and runs into Myra.

His ex-wife does a fantastic job at pretending as if she wasn’t just analyzing every inch of the wallspace; she straightens her shoulders and crosses her arms over her chest as she goes, “I was waiting for the bathroom,” Gesturing towards her stomach, she adds, “Pregnant and all.”

“I mean, you’re free to look around,” Eddie replies with a simple shrug. “Frankie invited you in, after all.”

Myra purses her lips and looks away.

There’s a long, awkward moment of silence; his ex-wife glances at some of the photos in the hallway, stopping on one in particular: when Eddie moves over to see, he notices that it’s a picture of Frankie from when he was about three or four, splayed out in the grass on central park with a massive, toothy grin on his face.

“I love this picture,” Myra suddenly says; her voice is so quiet, he doesn’t know if she meant to say it in the first place. She glances at Eddie and then goes, “I haven’t seen it in a while.”

In the process of divorcing, that’s happened; many pictures of Frankie have been split between them, and since Eddie and Myra haven’t been on good terms, it’s not as if they’ve been able to go through and make copies for one another.

Myra reaches up and touches it; Frankie’s eyes are almost fully closed from how hard he’s smiling, his hair curlier than it is now. His ex-wife wipes at her face with the back of her hand; when she catches Eddie staring, she looks away and mumbles, “Horomones.”

Eddie takes the photo off the wall and eases open the frame, taking it out and handing it to her.

“What are you doing?” she asks, frowning.

“I have a lot of photos of him,” Eddie admits with a shrug. “Just take it.”

Myra takes the photo from Eddie’s hands and looks at it; she presses it to her chest, close to her heart.

Both of them jolt when someone enters the hallway; it’s Ben, taking a moment to give Eddie a meaningful look — everything okay? — and after Eddie gives a subtle nod, goes, “Sorry. I just had to use the bathroom, but-”

“Oh,” Myra steps back.

“No, no, you can go,” Ben tells her, gesturing towards the door.

“It’s fine.”

“I really wouldn’t feel right cutting in front of you,” Ben tells her.

Myra nods and starts to move forward; as she eases into the doorway, Eddie sees her stumble a little, and both he and Ben instinctively reach out to right her.

Myra stares at the pair of them, expression akin to alarm — as if she thought they were going to let her fall — before closing the door behind her.

To give her privacy, Eddie and Ben move down the hall; Ben touches his shoulder.

“Having a good party?”

Eddie nods, leaning into his friend’s side; Ben wraps his arm around him comfortingly, easily.

“Thanks for coming,” Eddie murmurs. “All of you.”

“As if any of us would miss this,” Ben smiles, leaning down to rest his chin on Eddie’s head. “Mrs. Nelson keeps trying to get me to expand on her lakehouse. She’s very persistent.”

“Oh, you have no idea.”

As the pair of them reenter the house, amongst the groups of people talking, Eddie sees Darren and Shay sitting with Mike, the three of them deep in conversation.

“Frankie’s told me about it,” Shay murmurs, deathly serious; her eyes are sad as she smiles at Darren, giving him a shrug. “But…you know, I lost my parents in a similar way, too. Car accident.”

Darren frowns. “I’m so sorry. That’s horrible.”

“Yeah, but,” Shay peeks over at Eddie, ducking her head bashfully as she smiles, “I mean, Eddie and Richie have really become good dads to me, so…”

Shay rarely has ever directly called Eddie or Richie Dad yet; both of them have understood and respected it, reminding her that it’s fine if she uses their first names and that there’s never been any pressure. But seeing her, the girl that he and Richie adopted at thirteen, giving Eddie a meaningful smile as she beckons him over, melts his heart.

He goes over to give her a small hug, groaning when she digs her fingers in his ribs to tickle him.

“Well,” Darren smiles brightly, “I’m happy that you have that, then. Frankie talks about you a lot.”

“Really,” Shay grins, putting her hands on her knees and leaning forward.

“He’s very fond of you.”

“Well, you’re not too bad yourself,” Shay says, reaching over to nudge Darren’s shoulder.

Myra’s husband laughs, and there’s a sad pang in his chest as Eddie wishes, more than anything, that it could be this easy all the time: that it wasn’t so fractured between his son’s mother and the rest of his family.

—

Ida, Darren, and Myra leave shortly before presents; Ida is tired and wants to go back to rest — and not-so-subtly leaves Frankie a bit of money, to which his son grins and wraps his grandmother in a massive hug for — and Eddie gets the impression that Myra has reached her limit.

“You did a wonderful job,” Ida murmurs before she leaves, sweeping her gaze over to where the rest of the party is still underway.

“Well, Richie planned it,” Eddie admits with a shrug.

“I wasn’t talking about the party, dear,” Ida tells him, reaching over to squeeze his elbow.

Eddie swallows the lump in his throat and nods, allowing his ex-mother-in-law to hug him; when she does, she murmurs, “Please remember what I said about Franklin: you are responsible for him as his father. You can’t lose sight of that.”

Eddie nods as he steps back, watching Ida tug her coat around her.

“Darren,” Ida extends an elbow; Eddie almost laughs as he watches Darren rush to her side to help the old woman down the steps. “Now, you and Myra should really consider this part of Manhattan for the baby; you see the trees around here? Myra doesn’t listen to me about that sort of thing, but…”

Eddie’s about to go back inside, but right before he does, he sees Frankie walk down the sidewalk to where Myra is waiting.

Eddie hates to eavesdrop; he really does, no matter what Richie might say. But still, he can’t help himself as he lingers just out of eyesight to listen.

“Thank you for coming,” he hears Frankie say. “I hope it wasn’t too much.”

“Everyone is very high-energy,” Myra replies after a beat of silence. “Your cousins seem nice. And your sisters are sweet; one of the twins kept asking me when you were going to get a girlfriend.”

“Ugh.”

There’s another stretch of silence; Eddie can see both Frankie and Myra looking away from each other, both of them clearly uncomfortable, and not just from the November chill.

Myra looks over at Frankie; Eddie can see her looking up at their son, her lips slightly parted — he wonders what she’s thinking. What she’s going to say, if she’ll apologize.

Finally, after what feels like minutes, Myra goes, “Your hair is getting long.”

Frankie looks at his mother; Eddie watches his son stare at his mother’s face, searching.

“Yeah,” Frankie finally says, clearly unimpressed. “Sure.”

Frankie waves and turns to start to leave — myra, come the fuck on! — and Eddie watches as Myra’s eyes widen a little.

“Frankie, wait.”

Frankie thankfully isn’t too far that his cochlear’s don’t pick it up; his son stops in his tracks, taking a few deep breaths before he turns to look at his mother.

“I…,” Myra begins, her hand still poised towards their son. “Frankie…”

“Yeah?”

“I,” Myra shuts her eyes. “Can we…on Sunday, when… We should get lunch together, to…you know, to celebrate.”

“My birthday is today.”

“I know, but- but we can…just the two of us,” Myra hovers, her hand still outstretched towards Frankie. “If you want to.”

Frankie stares at his mother. “I’m allowed back on Sunday?”

“Yes,” Myra bobs her head. “Of course you are, Frankie, of course. If- you…if…”

“I mean, that’s the court order,” Frankie goes, shrugging his shoulders. “So.”

Eddie watches as Myra stares at their son, searching his expression, before she nods and steps back.

“I’ll see you on Sunday then, Mom.”

“On Sunday.”

“Um,” Frankie hesitates just before he turns, glancing at his mother. “Isaac was telling me about how…you know, for someone your age, this pregnancy is pretty high risk. That you could get really sick, and the baby…”

Myra touches her stomach.

“You’re taking care of yourself, right? Going to the doctors and everything?"

“Of course I am. You can ask Darren — I go for pretty much everything; I’m on a first name basis at this point.”

Frankie nods. “Okay. Do you know what…?”

“Not yet. In a few weeks, we’ll know.”

“Okay,” Frankie repeats. “I’ll see you on Sunday, Mom. I hope you had an okay time.”

“I did. I’ll see you Sunday.”

Frankie finally turns to leave, and Eddie watches as Myra stares after him, not moving from her spot on the sidewalk. A cold wind whips across the sidewalk, and Eddie watches as Myra pulls her coat tighter over her shoulders, watching as their son ascends up the porch steps and back into the townhouse, before Myra slowly turns and walks to where her mother and husband are waiting.

—

As expected, everyone went all out for presents; Eddie rolls his eyes at quite a few of the gag gifts his friends got him, becoming emotional at the ones his children,  nieces, and nephews got him.

Eddie watches, glancing towards Richie, as Frankie opens one of the ones from the pair of them; Eddie had tossed and turned about this one all night, until Richie had finally went, “Eds. He’s sixteen. With you ‘n me teaching him, he’ll be fine; let him have his independence.”

Frankie stares at the piece of paper for a little while, not understanding, until Travis peeks at it and goes, “Dude! A fucking car?”

Frankie looks up at Richie, and then Eddie, not comprehending; as he starts to understand, his eyes widen.

“You are going to take every single class I tell you to,” Eddie cautions his son. “And that car is pending on you getting good grades and keeping out of trouble, and-”

“Thank you!” Frankie’s voice is high-pitched; he leaps from his spot on the couch and tackles Eddie in a hug, even though Eddie oofs when they both fall onto the floor, falling right onto his back. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Okay, you’re not as tiny as you used to be,” Eddie wheezes, patting his son’s back.

Frankie releases him and crawls over to hug Richie, mashing his face into Richie’s chest. “Thank you, thank you!”

“I’m trading parents right now,” Wren says, even though she has her arms draped around Stan’s neck. “Where’s my car, huh?”

“Waiting for that grade in Calculus to pick back up,” Stan reminds his daughter, smirking when Wren groans and shoves their cheeks together — even if Eddie can see his friend wince when Wren touches his facial scars, although subconscious on both their parts.

“And you have to help with chores,” Bev calls out, snapping her fingers when Frankie groans. “Yep, them’s the rules.”

“Why are you making rules?”

“And you have to pick us up from the airport when we visit,” Mike adds, high-fiving Bev.

But, as Eddie watches his son show off the car to his friends — nothing official yet, but once again contingent on Frankie following through with the terms, which both Eddie and Richie know he will — he doesn’t think he’s ever seen his son look happier.

—

The party winds down and guests start to leave; Sara, Mags, and Went are tired from the eventful night, even though Sara keeps mentioning that she’ll party all night if she has to — which, knowing her, Eddie finds likely.

As Frankie’s friends start to leave and the Losers insist on starting cleaning up, Eddie once again finds himself eavesdropping — with Mike this time, who hovers over Eddie’s shoulder — as Frankie waves bye to his friends as they begin to leave, with Margo waiting last.

“I told my parents I was spending the night at Lily’s,” Margo says, ducking her face when Frankie smirks.

“Livin’ life on the edge, I see,” Frankie teases. “I’m a bad influence.”

“Please, you had to beg your cousin to stop beating you at Smash Bros. earlier.”

“Caleb’s weirdly good at video games for a three year-old; you saw.”

After a moment, Frankie pushes one of the streamers with his shoe; Margo hugs her arms around herself as she sways side to side, biting her bottom lip.

“Mike,” Eddie whispers when he feels Mike’s elbow digging into his back. “C’mon.”

“Here,” Margo goes, digging into her tote bag and pulling out a present, wrapped in bright paper.

“Oh,” Frankie smiles. “You didn’t have to-”

“I want to. I just,” As Frankie begins to open it, Margo looks worried, “It’s okay if you don’t like it, I…I mean, I get if…”

When Frankie opens it, it’s a book; Eddie can see that it looks a little worn.

“A book,” Frankie murmurs, tilting his head when he reads the title. “Pride and Prejudice.”

“I think you’d really like it; it’s the copy I’ve had for a while now, since I reread it a lot, and um…”

As Frankie opens the book, Eddie watches as he thumbs through the pages, looking at the book and then back up at Margo.

“It’s annotated,” Margo goes, and then after a moment, “I put notes in it whenever I reread it.”

“Margo-”

“Maybe,” A beat of silence. “When…after you read it, when you put notes in it, you can show me and then…,” Margo’s cheeks are red now. “It’s stupid, sorry. It’s not- I mean, your dad got you a great gift, so-”

Frankie steps forward and hugs her; Eddie watches as the short girl stiffens for a moment before returning it, stepping back and hiding her face behind her hand.

“Thank you,” Frankie tells her. “Are you sure, though? This is your copy.”

“Yeah,” Margo reaches over to open the book to the inside cover, pushing it towards Frankie’s face.

Eddie wants to turn away, to respect his son’s privacy, but he can’t help it: he’s never seen Frankie look like this around a girl before.

Frankie reads what Eddie can only assume is a personal message to him from Margo, and nods, looking at the girl and smiling.

“Thanks,” he says genuinely. “I love it.”

Margo’s cheeks are still red, the girl shuffling his feet; Eddie’s always heard Shay, Wren, and Quinn lightly tease Frankie about it, but now it’s evident to Eddie: Margo has a massive, massive crush on Frankie.

For a split second, Eddie sees himself and Richie, around the age of Frankie and Margo: Richie giving him one of his old shirts before Sonia packed Eddie up and left Derry.

“This is so cute,” a new voice whispers; Patty, who has her hand over her mouth, eyes glistening. “Oh, she really likes him.”

“Bye,” Margo waves, hiding her face behind the sleeve of the sweater that she’s wearing — one that Eddie recognizes as being Frankie’s.

“Bye,” Frankie waves back, leaning down to give her a quick hug back; he waits for Margo to get through the front door, when a flash of ginger hair runs towards him.

“See ya, Frankenteen,” Lily laughs, reaching up to give him a high-five. “You like your present, right?”

Frankie rolls down his sleeve; Lily made him a beaded friendship bracelet, which Frankie instantly put on and proudly showed off the whole night.

“See you, Lily,” Frankie gives her a quick sidehug.

Frankie leaves the front door, most likely to go and help the rest of the Losers finish putting things away; right before Eddie, Mike, and Patty leave, Eddie sees Lily peek back into the house after Frankie, and towards Margo.

“Did you tell him?” He hears Lily whisper frantically to the other girl.

“I told you, he doesn’t like me like that,” Margo whispers back. “I’m not his type.”

“Yes, you are,” Lily says back instantly. “You’re pretty and smart and sweet and he totally has a thing for you — he lent you his sweater, dude.”

“We’re just friends,” Margo tells her friend, linking arms with Lily as the girls shut the door behind them to go back to Lily’s house.

As Eddie finally goes back into the living room, swearing Mike and Patty to secrecy, he sees Frankie looking through the paperback that Margo gave him, a soft smile on his face as he reads some of her notes  — he definitely likes her, Eddie thinks.

—

Richie’s teased a main event all night, but it’s after everyone — sans the Losers, of course — leave that Eddie and Frankie see what it is: a bunch of home movies.

“Oh, no,” Frankie groans. “Not this.”

“To celebrate these two,” Richie says, pretending to hit a spoon on an imaginary glass; after a moment, Richie pauses and, suddenly becoming shy, goes, “My two favorite guys ever; I just- look, don’t give me that look, you two. I love you both very much, and…”

“Daddy, don’t cry,” Phoebe yawns, reaching out towards her father.

“I’m not crying,” Richie says as he wipes his face. “Whatever, just put on the videos, man. And you two better freaking appreciate this: y’all don’t know how hard it was to find these, convert them into something we can play on the tv, and figure out how to get it to play on the tv — it took us like eighty hours, and we almost lost Bill in the process.”

“You all yelled at me,” Bill says, shaking his head.

“Because you-” Richie takes a breath. “Happy place, Richie, happy place.”

“Damn,” Frankie says to Eddie. “What happened when we were in Boston?”

“A terrible, miserable, incredible bonding experience,” Shay flops on Eddie’s other side, leaning against him. “I think that’s the closest that everyone got to an all out war.”

Richie starts the videos: and, of course, they’re videos from Frankie’s childhood — fitting, since there are many times where Eddie has had to realize that his life truly started when Frankie’s did.

“And there’s Frankie,” Eddie hears himself, sixteen years younger, say as he hovers the camera over Frankie’s crib.

Frankie, clad in his onesie, twists and gurgles, a massive toothless smile on his face as he sees Eddie there; the baby reaches a little fist up towards him.

“I guess you missed me, huh?” Eddie must’ve been at work, perhaps — Myra’s words coming back to haunt him for a split second — but then his younger self continues: “I missed you too, so much!”

In the next video, Frankie is a little older; he has hair now, dark and curly, and keeps making a face as he twists away from Eddie while Eddie is trying to put his socks on.

“Can you sit still?”

“No!” Frankie — probably two here — screams, rolling onto his belly. “Go away!”

“And he still does that now,” Richie laughs; reaching over to pat Frankie’s head. “Still just as stubborn, huh?”

In the video, Eddie sighs. “Frankie-”

“Go!”

“That was your favorite word,” Eddie quickly signs to his son, laughing when Frankie rolls his eyes. “What? It was.”

In the next video, Eddie’s on a playground with Frankie; Eddie is right behind him as his son, probably about three or four, crawls towards the slide fast.

“Okay, Frankie, slow down,” Eddie says, trying to reach towards him with his free hand. “You’re gonna-”

Frankie immediately gets to his feet, and runs head first into the lip of the slide; it’s a loud conk!, his son falling right onto his ass.

While most kids that age would have cried and screamed at hitting their head, in the video, Frankie just looks up at Eddie — who, behind the camera, is going oh my god, are you okay!? — and gets back up on his feet, laughing as he goes down the slide.

That pretty much summarizes Frankie, Eddie thinks.

There’s more: Frankie and Eddie at their birthday parties, always side by side. Frankie sitting on Eddie’s shoulders while they walk around Central Park. Frankie grabbing Eddie’s hand and leading him towards a petting zoo, tugging at his father when Eddie groans at being near the animals.

But one of Eddie’s favorites, he thinks, is one towards the end: it’s when Frankie was fitted for cochlear implant.

Frankie needed time to adjust; in the video, he’s four years-old, two or three weeks after the surgery, and this appointment was the one in which his audiologist would activate the processor for Frankie to begin to hear sounds again.

Coincidentally, this is the only video that features Myra heavily.

“Okay,” the audiologist says. “I’m going to turn it on; when you speak, he’s going to be able to hear you. I know you two are excited, but take it slow.”

Eddie and Myra had been excited; Eddie can see himself next to his ex-wife, his eyes trained on Frankie’s face.

The audiologist turned on the processor; Myra had been the first to speak:

“Frankie?”

Four year-old Frankie snapped his head towards his mother, eyes a little wide; a smile broke across his face as he saw her, touching where the shaved part of his head was, where the processor sat against his skull.

“Hi, baby,” Myra gushed, reaching towards him. “Do you hear Mommy?”

Frankie nodded frantically and ran over, crashing into Myra’s arms.

“What about Daddy?” Eddie asked, subtly wiping at his eyes.

Frankie twisted his face up and laughed, reaching towards Eddie.

The next video starts; thank goodness. Eddie’s trying to keep it together so, so hard, but in this last one, he watches as Frankie, maybe seven or eight and covered in mud, stands up and faces Eddie.

“No,” Eddie signs at his son. “Stop it.”

Frankie ran full-speed at him, arms open; Frankie crashed into his chest, giggling as his dirty clothes got onto Eddie’s clean ones.

In the video, Eddie watches himself freeze for a moment, and Eddie knows that it was not from the dirty clothes or Frankie’s spit and snot getting onto him — it was a moment where Eddie didn’t quite know what to do with the affection his son was showing him; how could he? It was never modeled to him, after all.

But Eddie sees himself unstiffen, softening and wrapping his arms around his son, hugging him close — he got past the dirt and grime for Frankie, and only because of him, just as he does everything else.