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It’s a day made for creation. Rain is pattering against the conservatory and kitchen windows and his pot of tea turned out perfectly. Warm, indignant breath rushes through Joey’s nostrils as he looks at the tray sitting on the counter. How is he supposed to get it to the chaise lounge with a broken arm?
He takes everything in piece by piece, filling up the cup and leaving the pot by the hob. His tea towel lies across a small plate of cakes like a spotless dove. It’s cruel, staring at the piano when he can’t play it properly, but everywhere else in the house seems cold and lonely.
The emerald velvet cradles his aching head and he focuses on the rain, screwing his eyes shut tight as his mother’s tolerance. It’s silly, his injury. He had been running after Aimée who was running after Kal and he tripped over his own feet and landed squarely on his arm, cracking the radius nearly in half.
Henry had handled it with serenity, getting Kal into the house and Aimée into her carseat. “It’s alright, poppet. We just need to get da to urgent care. He’ll be right as rain before you know it.”
Aimée had been more distressed than either of her fathers and Joey would have turned around in his seat to assuage her worry if it didn’t feel like his right arm was on fire.
They were home by early evening, Joey’s forearm and wrist in a white cast. Henry had eyed him strangely when he made the choice. “I figured Aimée can color it in.” He had touched it then, feeling the rough texture and wondering how many spanners it would throw into his daily life.
Henry had pressed a kiss to his hairline as his seatbelt buckle snapped into place. “That’s very generous of you, peacock.”
He opens his eyes. The ceiling is hazy with rain. It had picked up since he laid down. Joey throws his unbroken arm across his forehead and sighs, sniffs, tries to occupy his mind with anything other than the desire to create.
The tea is nearly cold by the time he remembers it but he drinks it anyway. The cakes are too sweet but he eats each one with put upon relish. He hates when he gets like this. He’s in a beautiful house on the edge of Hampstead Heath and his husband and their miraculous daughter will be home soon. A broken arm is paltry.
Pushing himself up, he takes a seat on the piano bench. It feels good to dance his fingers over the keys. He closes his eyes and imagines the rain on the windows is an accompanying instrument. His mellow hums tease out a melody and soon the ache in his right arm is forgotten against the movement of his left.
He pulls his hand away from the keys as if waiting for the applause to break at a live performance but he is only greeted by the click of the front door.
“Oof, bear.” The door snicks shut. “Excuse me, miss. Yes, there we are.”
Joey smiles, music forgotten. Family life suits Henry like nothing else ever has but Aimée and Kal have a tendency to overwhelm him when he lets them. Aimée’s chattering falls in between her papa’s baritone. There is no song Joey loves more.
“Coat, please. Thank you. Shall we go find da now?”
Kal finds him first although Joey sees Henry pass into the kitchen, Aimée at his heels. The akita noses at his thigh before resting his massive head on the cool wood of the bench. Joey rubs his fingers between his ears. “Hello. Rain cut your adventure short?”
“It sure did.” Henry’s voice is nearly lost in a boom of thunder. Aimée makes a startled sound and hugs his leg. “It’s alright, poppet,” he says gently, hand coming down to cup the back of her curly-haired head. “It’s just the clouds having a row.”
Joey grins. Henry comes up with explanations for everything, even if few are accurate. “I hope you didn’t get too soaked.”
“No. I checked the weather and dressed the kiddo accordingly.” Henry shoos Kal away so he can lift Aimée onto the bench. She’s in blue jeans and a top Madeleine sewed out of a vintage dress that had worn too thin. She fits into the space afforded by Joey’s lifted arm. “Hello,” he says softly, still in awe of this tiny creature that has welded their lives together.
“Da,” she says, chubby fingers playing with his necklaces. Her long, dark lashes sweep over her blue eyes.
“How are you?” Henry leans in to press a kiss to his hair. His aftershave it mixed with petrichor. Joey breathes it in, deep and reviving. He lifts his arm with an annoyed sigh. “You’re handling it well then.”
“As well as when you tore your hamstring.”
Henry presses his lips into a blade-thin line. His own injury had made for a tedious Christmas and new year. Joey never lets him forget it.
“I know it’s frustrating.” He passes his fingers over the fading greens and purples of Aimée’s masterpiece. Aimée touches too, gurgling and cooing. Henry’s eyes slip shut as he presses his lips to her wild curls.
Joey sweeps Aimée up, her bottom cradled on his forearm. Kal’s nails tap out a tattoo into the kitchen. As Henry makes more tea, the storm crests in a maelstrom of rain, wind, and lightning. Joey takes Aimée into the formal reception room. It’s cool and dark but the shutters are closed and he’s able to keep her calm.
Henry sets the tray down and works on getting the fire going. “Thank you, darling.”
Henry looks back at them with a smile. “Good thing we just had this cleaned or we’d all have to huddle under a blanket for warmth.”
“It’s not like we don’t have heating, Henry William.”
Properly chastised, Henry joins them for tea and cocoa.
Aimée is always a bubble of energy but even she must succumb to the day’s excitement and doze until she’s pressed tight to her da’s side.
“Let me take care of this,” Henry picks up the tea tray, “and I’ll come get her. You can head on up if you like.”
“It’s alright.” Joey can feel her breaths puffing against his shirt. “I’ll stay here until you get back. She’s going to fall over when I get up.”
Henry’s expression is hidden by the shadows still clinging to the room. “Back in a minute.”
Joey can hear Kal shaking himself off in the kitchen and the kitchen faucet running. Henry takes his time washing everything as if sensing that his husband needs a breather between time with their daughter and the rituals of bedtime.
When he comes back in, he scoops Aimée up like the treasure she is. Her curls spill across his shoulder as she presses her face against the warmth of his neck. Joey and Kal follow him up, shutting off the lights and checking that the doors are locked on the way.
Aimée’s room is done up in light blue, a muslin canopy falling around her bed from the loop hanging from the ceiling. Once she’s set down on the rainbow sheets, Henry brushes her hair out of her eyes and kisses her forehead. “Good night, my dove.” He tugs off her jeans and pulls the coverlet over her small body.
Joey finds kneeling hard because he only has the one hand to push himself back up. He looks down at Aimée with a fullness in his heart that only looking at Henry can compare to. “Good night, my dearest heart.”
Their bedroom is a short walk down the hall and Henry heads into the bathroom to take care of his needs before ushering Joey in for a shower.
“What’s going on, love? You’ve been off the last few days.” Henry has a plastic bag and a large elastic band. His face has been scrubbed clean and Joey can smell the mint of his toothpaste.
Joey rubs his hand over his hair. It really does need a wash. He can almost feel the oils slicking his palm. “I feel useless, have for weeks.”
“Your arm is broken,” Henry points out with a huff of something approaching laughter. He finishes tightening the bag around the cast. Most people would hold their arm out of the shower cubicle but Joey had almost soaked the cast beyond saving the morning after it was put on. It’s easier this way, he decided.
“I am aware.” He doesn’t snap at Henry but comes close. Since the injury, Joey’s felt… adrift. He can’t play anything. He can’t write. He tried with his left hand but it was an illegible mess. Typing things on his phone feels sterile. “Darling. I don’t feel like myself when I’m not making things.”
Since Aimée was born, both men’s careers had slowed. Starting a family had been a challenge for them; sacrifices had been made, more on Henry’s part since Joey can make music at home. They are more than comfortable financially. Joey wants for nothing.
“Ah. I see. You think you’re nothing more than a house husband when you aren’t acting or making music. Is that close?”
Joey sighs as the water turns on, a steamy cascade that clouds his vision. Thunder rumbles in the distance, the storm finally moving away. “I guess? You know how I get in my own head when left idle.”
Henry does. He has the same problem although most of his career he’s been too busy to have many moments like that. Tearing his hamstring was the first time since he and Joey had gotten together where he’d really gotten into his own head about being useless, even more so than the pandemic.
Joey steps under the water and tilts his head back, shaking his hair out to wet it before stirring the strands with his fingers to thoroughly douse the oily mop.
“For what it’s worth,” Henry says from the vanity, where he’s been looking at himself in the mirror, “I don’t see anything wrong with being a house husband. Aimée is lucky to have you around so much. On the drive home, she sang The Da Song.”
Joey smiles into the heat of the water. The Da Song consists of her saying “Da!” over and over with the infectious joy only children truly possess.
He washes his hair and face, experiencing how annoying having only one functional hand is. Henry waits with an open towel. Once it’s around Joey’s waist, he takes another to soak up the water from his hair. “Can I get this hands on service every time I shower or is that an additional charge?”
Henry presses his lips to Joey’s shoulder. “Oh, it’s definitely going to cost you, pet.”
Joey reaches up to tuck his fingers into Henry’s curls. They’ve dried from the rain into tight spirals that remind Joey of their daughter’s.
“Didn’t Hemingway say something about things breaking and being stronger at those broken spots?”
Henry thinks for a moment. Joey knows Hemingway has never been within Henry’s wheelhouse. 20th century American literature hasn’t been his own cup of tea either. Joey isn’t even sure where the thought came from.
“I don’t know,” Henry decides, “but that sounds right.” He trails his hands over their daughter’s masterpiece, marker swirls having bled into each other from Joey’s first shower since the break. “You’ll come back better than ever. You always do.”
Joey believes him. Henry is the only person other than Madeleine he trusts completely. When Henry speaks to him, he only ever feels calm, like when his head is pillowed on his best friend’s breast as she strokes his hair and sings only for him.
Henry loosens the elastic and pulls off the bag, draping it across the sink to dry. “It’s been a long day, famous poet. Let’s get into bed, get some sleep. Aimée will be up before we know it.”
As Joey slips beneath the covers, Henry cracks open the window across from their bed to let in the cool, rainy air. The moonlight creeping in gilds his strong body as he lifts the duvet and climbs into bed.
Henry’s kiss is sweet, all soft lips and lapping tongue. Joey lets his fingers play along his husband's scalp like it’s a row of keys, begging to be teased into song.