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They’re holding each other, on the couch, like they do every night, after dinner. It’s like a ritual, for them. Because Jamie loves routine, and Dani does too, as long as they’re together. The au pair tries to enjoy the peaceful company of her wife, but the darkness in the back of her mind is stirring. They’ve been together for eleven years, and married for two.
Dani has to say something. She’s been thinking about it for weeks, but she still doesn’t know how to phrase it. She’s been losing sleep, trying to come up with a way to express what she wants to say without hurting Jamie, but now she understands that there is no way of doing it. Jamie will be hurt, as much as she is, and it’s inevitable.
Jamie lays her head on Dani’s shoulder, and has her eyes closed. She’s breathing peacefully.
“Jamie” Dani finally finds the courage to say. Her voice breaks in the middle of the word. It sounds so loud and so silent at the same time.
‘Mmmh ?’ Jamie hums, without opening her eyes. She once told Dani that this is her favorite moment of the day, because she feels safe. Dani knows how hard it has been for the gardener to finally feel comfortable in vulnerability, and she’s glad that she did. But now, she has to break that peace. She’s thought about it a lot, and she believes this is the best moment to say it. Though she has no clue how Jamie will react.
‘I need to talk to you’, the au pair says. She can already feel her eyes filling with tears. She tries to fight them.
Jamie straightens up and frowns, looks at Dani and takes her hand.
‘What is it ?’
Dani knows what she’s going to say. She just doesn’t know how, but now she can’t go back anymore.
‘Jamie… she’s waking up.’
Silence.
They both know who “she” is. She doesn’t really have a name, after all. She's been with them for so many years, that faceless, nameless presence. The Beast in the jungle. Jamie rubs small circles on Dani’s hands, because that’s what she always does to comfort her. Dani can’t stand to look at her anymore, and she closes her eyes to avoid her worried gaze.
‘And one day… I’ll have to go’.
Jamie sighs. She knew this conversation was coming, but just as Dani, she wanted to push it back for as long as possible.
‘Don’t say that, Dani. We don’t know that yet.’
Dani knew this would be as hard to hear for Jamie as it is for her to say. Her voice is shaking as she answers.
‘I do. I know it… and I can’t ignore it. It’s true’. She sobs quietly.
Jamie takes her in her arms, and lets her bury her face in her neck. Dani pulls back after a few moments, and silently asks her wife to settle back with her on the couch.
‘Hey, ‘the gardener whispers, cupping her face’, Poppins. One day at a time.’
Dani can see the tears forming in Jamie’s eyes, and it makes it even harder for her to not burst out crying.
‘I know, I know… but at one point, there will be no more days.’
Jamie shakes her head, letting tears roll down her cheeks.
‘Don’t say that’.
Dani feels the Beast stirring, and with it, a tiny bit of anger forming. She tries to suppress it, because it’s not her.
‘Jamie… don’t make things harder. Please.’ She realizes a second too late how harsh she sounds. But the gardener doesn’t react, because she understands. She just stares at her and caresses her face, waiting for Dani to continue.
‘One day… I won’t be able to fight her anymore. And I know. One day at a time, and we'll enjoy every single day we have left. But I need to have this conversation with you. Just once.’ She’s full on crying, now.
Jamie silently nods, and presses her forehead to Dani’s.
‘It’s okay. It’s okay.’ She murmurs in an attempt to calm her wife down.
It takes Dani a few seconds to speak again. Her voice is now just a whisper.
‘I’m gonna die, Jamie.’ She wasn’t planning on saying it like that. On using this word, but she feels she has to, because it makes it real. Jamie even told her so, one night at the manor, so many years earlier that it feels like a lifetime ago. But she remembers her words clear as water. “You don’t decide who lives and who doesn’t. I’m sorry, Dani but you don’t. Humans are organic. It’s a fact. We’re meant to die”.
She hears Jamie hold back a sob.
‘I’m gonna die, and you’ll live.’
She believes she hears a “no”, but it’s so quiet that she might have imagined it.
‘You have to. Please. For me… I love you. I love every second spent with you more than anything. I always will.’
She feels a deep ache in her heart. This is the first time she’s used the word always. She’s been careful, ever since they met, not to promise her forever, because she knows she can’t give it to her. But she also knows that their love will last. This is the only thing she knows for sure.
Jamie stays silent, her hands on each side of Dani’s face, her eyes closed. Her breath is trembling. ‘I love you’ she whispers, and she sounds desperate. As if this declaration could make Dani stay. But they both know it will simply make it harder for her to leave.
‘I love you too. And one day, you’ll have to go on without me.’
‘How could I ?’
And Dani thinks of something Jamie has said, eleven years ago. ‘That’s where its beauty lies, you know. In the mortality of the thing.’