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“That’s why, my love, I give you nothing. In any case I can’t give you my heart, which has belonged to you since I’ve known you, nor my gaze, which has belonged to you since I first saw you, nor my breath, which has belonged to you since the day I first breathed upon your mouth, nor my soul, which has belonged to you since the day you deigned to take it. I give you nothing, because everything belongs to you.”
— Juliette Drouet, from a letter to Victor Hugo written c. July 1834
Tom traipses through the corridor towards their bedroom where he can already hear Shiv fussing about in the cabinet, always in motion, as she tended to be. It was a Roy thing, really, all of them were always on the verge of some action if not in the throes of it, all the time. A constant motion, a rush, an ongoing-ness that defines them, maybe even makes them what they are.
In true Wambsgans fashion, however, Tom was almost slow to a fault, an over thinker to the bone— never the actor, always the playwright. If they were always in motion, Tom always had his eyes set on a plan, a forward motion that was accounted for, prepared for, idealized, even. In that moment, it was getting them piping hot mugs of sleepy time tea, as he had foreseen since many hours prior when he finally had a cup of coffee too many. It was a simple plan, yes, but it was acted upon, all the way to the finish line.
When he walked through the door to find Shiv still in her tracks, a trail of garbage around her, and a thin white plastic thing-y on her hand that looked all too much like a pregnancy test, he almost felt too weak to take another step. “Shiv?” he proposed, breaking her reverie softly with the way only he ever said her name. Shiv, a stretch of the i making it linger on air. Sheev?
“Oh—” she barely replied, eyes stuck to the plastic contraption as if it were of the utmost importance, not even a blink would do.
“What’s that, Shiv?” He was suddenly aware of the heat seeping uncomfortably into the palm of his hands, a growing desire to wipe them somewhere overtaking him but as if taking her cue, he found himself stuck where he was. “Uh. Is that a…?”
“Pregnancy test? Yes.” She always spoke matter-of-factly when it counted, when she didn’t trust herself to say things in a way that wouldn’t implicate her personally. It almost stung him, faintly, how she paused after reiterating his implicit question as if it was stupid, though he had bigger ones to ask, too many to care.
“Positive or…?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?” They say that all things in life have a little bit of gravity attached to them— love, included. You meet it somewhere and then you’re forever attached to it, thread linking the love to the beloved, curling into knots, stretching beneath the ocean and above mountains, tightening every day a little more until you find yourself hand to hand with that to whom you’re a devotee. When the idea of a baby, their baby, her baby appeared in his mind so clearly… Tom never felt so, so sure of where gravity forever tied him to.
Or so overjoyed.
He set the mugs down on the dresser softly, way slower than he thought he ever could with such a rise starting in the deep of his heart, a wave coursing warmth through to his fingertips hot enough to rival their tea. He turned to her, reaching for her quicker than even he could anticipate, his hands settling heavy on her as he enveloped her in an embrace. Lifting her to his face height so he could press a strong kiss on her cheeks as he twirled them around in effusive celebration.
“Shiv, this is great!” he laughed and in his warmth, she, too, came undone a little bit. Just enough to smile into his next kiss, smile pressed against smile in a toothy funny way that almost hurt.
Shiv always came undone a little under Tom’s glee and it’s persistent duress, it’s everlasting nature. Where Shiv’s world was a constant flux of change, a want for more that swallowed the world raw and made her throat hurt. It made her feel unheard of, incomprehensible for wanting stability where growth was possible. Despite the fact that growth is shaky ground upon which no flowers grow. Which is good, really, because Shiv is no flower, nothing soft to her but her skin. Everything else is hardened, cold and steel.
Everything soft can be stomped down, can be hurt and bleed. Shiv can’t. Won’t. Couldn’t. She hadn’t realized until the coldness that had sat pressingly deep inside her stomach melted under Tom’s embrace that she was bracing for impact.
Tom’s love was a heaviness that settled him heavy upon the earth where Shiv roamed. Every which way she went, his gravity pulled him there. It was almost tortuous at times, especially when she didn’t want him to tag along her (always). Shiv was a determined individualist, born and bred for success, which is often a lonely task.
Not that she enjoyed the loneliness, but it was more so a fate than a choice sometimes— hearts get broken all the time around her and not everybody is a masochist.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah!” He assured her, so sure of it already.
“Yeah!” she laughed, her youth showing in the panicky undertones of her lilt. He hugged her harder, protectively, lifting her off her feet in his glee, which made her press her head against the corner where his chest meets his neck and his shoulder, that perfect crook where she can allow herself to rest if she dares.
And that night she does.
*
Come morning, she will find a way to keep things where they’ve always been and should be. She knows he wouldn’t blame her, even if he’s so excited for it, even if she can already feel a fluttering inside (a hallucination, surely, but so vivid it pains her to even think about it.) When they lay, at last, she knows that he will dream of them with a little one to name and hold and dote over. Which almost breaks her heart, but she’s no masochist; she sleeps rigid, with fists on her sides like usual, jerking in her turbulent dreams, pushing everything away. Dreading the day he will hate her for all of it.
Every little thing about it.
And she won’t dare fight him, because she knows, she knows—everybody knows.