Work Text:
“How can I trust you?”
Frankie never said the words, after finding out about the gun. But Grace almost wishes she had. Anything would’ve been better than two hours of ‘She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain’. Better than the vanishing act.
The house was quiet without Frankie, Grace realized as she finished pouring her martini before wandering towards the living room, very pointedly not looking at the chair in which Frankie’s….thing, dummy, whatever, had been sitting when she’d shot it. For once, no one was rhapsodizing about Judy Chicago’s vagina ceramics, which, really, she did not need to hear more about. Or singing, or humming, or Tibetan throat singing. Just…silence. The waves breaching onto the sand before slinking back into the dark ocean.
Trust, she reminded herself. That’s what this came down to. As she settled onto the sofa, pausing to dig out the TV remote, which Frankie must’ve lost down the cushions and forgotten about, she tried to think of the last person she’d trusted completely.
Not her kids. Between the unsubtle hints about putting her in a home and that weird, alpha dog rivalry that existed with Brianna, there wasn’t absolute trust there. Not on either side, actually. It was a little sad to consider; her kids probably didn’t trust her.
Her parents? No. They weren’t awful, or even actively unpleasant, but her mother was distant, her father no closer, neither comfortable with discussing emotions with their young daughter, especially when she started having feelings they couldn’t or wouldn’t understand.
Robert gave her pause. No trust at the end, of course. Some part of her had known that something was going on with him. But how could she marry a man she didn’t trust? Then again, even at the beginning, she’d held back. She trusted him not to hit her, to keep a roof over their heads. Her feelings, though, were still hers alone.
Feelings were dangerous things. Grace realized this around age twelve, when she became addicted to the smiles of her friend Mindy, and longed to taste that smile for herself. When she’d worked up the nerve, one day, and Mindy had shoved her away and screamed ugly words at her. Something died inside her. But instead of mourning that thing, she’d buried it in a shallow grave, and told herself that feelings were breadcrumbs on the forest floor; tempting, but leading to certain doom. To be strong was to resist them.
So it shouldn’t have mattered that when she thought of 'trust’, it was Frankie’s face she pictured. That some days she longed to taste her smile. No, this throb of wanting, aching loneliness was just another feeling. The sort of feeling that led to screaming and ugly, ugly words. But with enough vodka, reminders of how Frankie was wrong and Grace right, and some time, she could make it go away. She’d done it before. All her life. She was a goddamn fucking expert.
Grace took another drink. Alone. Feeling nothing. Strong.