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Tender is the night
Lying by your side
Tender is the touch
Of someone that you love too much
Tender is the day
The demons go away
She tells him right away. There’s no point in delaying the inevitable - he’d eventually ask about it, and she figures he’s been through quite enough.
She wonders, of course, if she should wait, wait until Joy’s stronger, she’s stronger, wait until they’re discharged, wait, wait, wait. She’d like to wait forever, really, but knows she can’t.
His reaction is parsed, silent, hands are clutched, tears are blinked away, feet are tapped. He doesn’t yell at her, doesn’t say anything, knows there’s nothing that can be said. He leaves and doesn’t tell her where he’s going.
It’s like losing everything all at once and replacing grief with more grief and worry with listlessness, like going out without an umbrella and not getting stuck in the rain, but being hosed down by a deranged schoolyard gardener.
She feels him everywhere, his presence, his absence, feels him as Otis helps her walk around the cold hallways, feels him as she breastfeeds the tiny child - the one that is somehow, by some cruel fucking twist of fate, not his - feels him as she drowns in an ocean of the deepest sorrow and the most unbridled happiness.
Her lungs are filling, filling, filled.
Lord I need to find
Someone who can heal my mind
Come on, come on, come on
Get through it
Come on, come on, come on
Love's the greatest thing
He goes back to the house - her house - drinks himself silly in his private pity party in the stupid treehouse he built, curses gods he doesn’t believe in, cries until his eyes hurt and his ears ring, wonders why the fuck he’d asked for that paternity test.
He’d rather not know.
He’d rather wonder forever and live without the certainty of that loss, questioning but never knowing for sure, convincing himself however many times he needed to.
He’s certain he’d be much happier.
He tells Ola and she asks questions he can’t answer, has feelings he can’t understand or categorize, he watches her pack and go somewhere, holds her tight and is held back.
He’s rooted in place.
He sleeps in the bed they shared (share?), cries into the pillow that still smells like her hair, picks up loose change then scatters it again. Otis comes home, they don’t talk. Otis leaves, they don’t speak.
He’s drowning in a different ocean.
Come on, come on, come on
Get through it
Come on, come on, come on
Love's the greatest thing
That we have
She watches Joy grow, ounce by ounce, hair by hair, her tiny body growing less tiny with each passing day. They’ve been in the hospital for two weeks and she feels older, wearier, more tired with every step and change.
She knows he visits, because of course he leaves things behind, bits of himself: receipts, handkerchiefs, a jacket. She knows he visits, because she knows the man he is.
I'm waiting for that feeling
I'm waiting for that feeling
Waiting for that feeling to come
Oh my baby
Oh my baby
Oh why
Oh my
Oh my baby
Oh my baby
Oh why
Oh my
He comes by every night, just as dinner is being served to the patients he wants to avoid. He watches her closely, memorizes every tiny detail of her, the tiny mole on her left knee, the wispy hairs on her soft head that somehow look just like his, the up and down movement of her chest, a constant reminder of how alive she is.
He holds his finger up to her outstretched palm, holds his breath until she grasps it, strong and sure, telling him that yes, she’s right there, all of her, urging him to make a decision, to choose, to be as certain of this life as she is.
He stares for hours on end, always until he’s shooed out by an impatient but kindly nurse who reminds him, over and over, of the visitation times, that he can spend the night with his partner, right across the hall, and come back in the morning, that she’s well, growing, being cared for.
He leaves every night, holding his breath as he walks past Jean’s room.
Tender is the ghost
The ghost I love the most
Hiding from the sun
Waiting for the night to come
Tender is my heart
I'm screwing up my life
Lord I need to find
Someone who can heal my mind
She heals slowly, her body struggling with everything from cicatrization to digestion to breastfeeding. She feels acutely aware of her age every night she doesn’t spend at home, every time Otis suggests that she “take it easy”, every time one of other mums walks past her in one of the hallways, always faster, always so much louder.
Her body betrays her almost as much as her heart does, everything hurts so much all the time and she’s just so tired. She misses him with every bit of her body, aches for him, hurts in ways no amount of acetaminophen could possibly aid. Joy sustains her, Otis does too, she feels complete.
She desperately wants him all the same.
Come on, come on, come on
Get through it
Come on, come on, come on
Love's the greatest thing
Come on, come on, come on
Get through it
Come on, come on, come on
Love's the greatest thing
That we have
He lies alone and wonders if there was ever much of a choice, regardless of what DNA may say, in his future. Some part of him wants to believe whatever supposed choice he makes is a just and understandable one, of course, no-one would judge him for leaving or staying.
It’s ridiculous, really, that he entertained for even a second the idea that he had any choice or agency when it came to Jean Milburn, as if she didn’t completely own the entirety of his soul.
As if his happiness wasn’t wholly dependent on her and hers.
I'm waiting for that feeling
I'm waiting for that feeling
Waiting for that feeling to come
Oh my baby
Oh my baby
Oh why
Oh my
Oh my baby
Oh my baby
Oh why
Oh my
He’s quiet as he walks into the room, quiet as he watches them, quiet as his gaze moves from her face to Joy’s, to the pile of papers next to her bed.
She watches him rifle through her mail, her bills, her cards, to get to the thick envelope that made her hate DNA tests almost as much as formerly unidentified serial killers whose nieces got 23andMes done.
He holds it up to her, inches away from her face, grabs it by the edges and carefully rips it into ribbons, the strips falling slowly to his feet, one by one, as the answer to a question no-one should’ve asked vanishes into nothingness, into exactly what it should mean in the first place.
“Betydelselös.” he whispers, reaching for the baby.
She settles Joy into his waiting arms, heart fluttering, soul tired, asking herself so many questions she couldn’t possibly answer, praying that her luck lasts, that she gets to see this many times, all the time, that she gets to keep this.
All of it.
Come on, come on, come on
Get through it
Come on, come on, come on
Love's the greatest thing
Come on, come on, come on
Get through it
Come on, come on, come on
Love's the greatest thing
That we have
I'm waiting for that feeling
I'm waiting for that feeling
Waiting for that feeling to come
They’re released three days later, together, Joy deemed big enough and Jean strong enough. Jakob picks them up and silently loads everything into the car, buckles Joy in, opens the door for her.
She keeps her eyes on his neck, her breath baited, her bones vibrating with every turn, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to yell, cry, say something, whatever it is. She locks eyes with him through the rear view mirror and he doesn’t look away until he absolutely has to.
“We’re home.” he says.
Oh my baby
Oh my baby
Oh why
Oh my
Oh my baby
Oh my baby
Oh why
Oh my