Chapter Text
He’d said their son would know what to do. Four in the morning, she could see the first glimpses of sun on the horizon, glowstick light over the bay, and the baby had been sleeping so well this past week. No more waking up feeling drained, no more sunrise feeds and afternoon crashes. She could finally sleep, but the baby started crying around midnight, and she couldn’t make him stop. Go from the bedroom to the couch, change of scenery, skin-to-skin, a different blanket, a different position, putting on the air conditioner in December just to have some white noise, but he kept crying, those agonizing wails that made her chest hurt, that made her think he felt a deep pain she couldn’t fathom. But she’d taken him to the hospital once before, had begged to know if her son was alright, and it was just a crying fit, the same kind all babies had. Her son was perfectly fine. So all she could do was hold him, then hold him in a different way, then hold him in a different room, then try putting him down and when he wailed harder picking him back up again. And she’d grown so tired, aching with the exhaustion, that she reached into her bedside table’s drawer, the baby sobbing against her damp shirt, and held the last grey sphere in her hand. For a moment, she thought that she might share his power, might make the sphere glow and change the world with ease, but the sphere stayed dark, and the baby kept crying.
Though she’d always known she would raise her son alone, she hadn’t realized just how alone she would be, how she would have to ask books rather than mothers how to calm the child, how she never had someone to call when she needed to go to a doctor’s appointment without the baby, how the concept of a babysitter felt otherworldly. With her parents gone, she didn’t have family to call, and she’d retreated from their friend groups after Scott died, but even if she hadn’t, she didn’t want to explain her son to them, didn’t want to tell a rehearsed lie, didn’t want to defend the life she had now. What would they think of her, alone in the woods with a baby? Would they call her mad? But they hadn’t been there when her son first started sleeping through the night, just a few nights in a row, and she finally felt rested enough to seize the morning, and she made a real breakfast. A real breakfast, and afterward, she turned on the television and sat on the couch, Friday morning, the baby feeding while she watched the news, but the news made her sad, so she changed channels until she found “The Boys of Summer” on MTV. Don Henley was cute. The sun shone over the lake, blue skies over the trees, the house a perfect temperature, her body and mind finally having a chance to relax. And when she looked down at her son, her sweet, gentle, tiny little son, still in his soft pajamas, still only starting to wake up, she thought that her life was perfect. The pain of it, the loneliness of it, everything was worth it because she could look down at the little boy in her arms, and if he met her gaze, he might even smile back.
But that night, she wanted someone to call. She wanted someone to call so badly that she held in her hand a message that could span galaxies, but she couldn’t make that call. Though her son could, she couldn’t, so she sighed, and the baby kept crying, and she wasn’t sure she would get any sleep tonight. And she didn’t have a way to solve this problem. She hated thinking of her son as a problem at all, but she wanted there to be some specific fix, some quotient that finally let him sleep, and she wasn’t sure such a thing existed. Sometimes, a baby just wants his or her other parent’s arms, one of her books said, and she understood that yearning. She understood what he meant. But she couldn’t give that to him, and as she finished that thought, her eyes brimmed with tears. The one thing she couldn’t give her son. The one thing she couldn’t give herself. And the walls of the cabin seemed to creep closer, her galaxy spanning from this side of the room to the other, and she wanted her husband back. Her husband, and another man. Both of them, as one person, as he had been.
Her son would know what to do. Looking down at him, at his pinched, red face, his mouth torn open in screams, she set the sphere down on his belly. Her son would know what to do. What was she thinking? When he was older, when he understood what he was. Not now. But she held the sphere against him, soothing him there. Someday, she wanted to promise him, but even more, she didn’t want to have that promise to break.
Out the windows, she could see the lake turning bright. Another hour. She wondered if she would get any sleep at all.
She woke to the sound of knocking. Was there a woodpecker on the house again? Scott had sworn they wouldn’t have a pecker problem here, but no, she’d killed two of them so far this month, and they were only a week into December. And if ignoring the pecker meant getting more sleep, then she wouldn’t mind today’s holes. Looking at her bedside clock, loud analog numbers, she saw it was ten in the morning, but she felt as if she’d only fallen asleep minutes ago, her son next to her in bed. She knew better than to sleep next to him, so many ways for him to choke, so much fear that she would hurt him without knowing, but she could barely remember five in the morning, couldn’t remember either of them falling asleep, the last bit she could recall being the two of them in bed, him crying on her chest, her crying too. But his little chest rose and fell, fast asleep, finally asleep, and she sighed, burrowed deeper into the bed. Eyes half-open, she watched him sleep, his small breaths so grounding. Her one remnant, with his little arms splayed as if feigning innocence, his footie pajamas covered in dinosaurs, tufts of blonde hair on his head. At least there would be someone else in this world who understood what she knew. At least someone else would love the man she had loved as much as she did. At least someone else would remember that man, even if only faintly.
As she closed her eyes, the knocking returned, and no, that wasn’t a woodpecker. Someone was at the door. What day was it? She wasn’t expecting anyone, but she never expected anyone. Maybe one of the other teachers she worked with? They’d been skeptical of her before they all left for the summer, not understanding why she would need maternity leave, not knowing how she would’ve gotten pregnant, but at least they hadn’t told her what they’d been thinking. At least they’d forced her to guess. Or maybe it was some of her friends from before Scott died, just dropping by because they were in town and wondered how she was doing. But she didn’t want to talk to them. She didn’t want to talk to anyone. She wanted to sleep.
Would they go away if no one came to the door? But the knocking persisted, so she sighed, started slowly getting out of bed. If she jostled her son, this could all quickly go south, but he never woke as she took a bathrobe from her closet and tried to make herself look presentable. She knew better than to think she could wash off the pallor of having a four-month-old, but still, she didn’t want this annoying visitor to think she was a slob. No, she just hadn’t slept last night, so she would need to push the laundry to next week, her next great meal to the week after. If she’d had a spare set of hands, she would’ve made sure all the chores were done, but she only had two arms, and her son was in those most of the time. The books said to sleep when the baby slept, but she’d run out of clean underwear two days ago, and she was started to get desperate, and the cycle repeated again, and-
If she didn’t stop the thoughts there, she would stay upset for the rest of the day, and there was no use for that feeling, so she pushed the thoughts away, took the baby monitor from her bedside table, and headed toward the front door, ready to turn away whoever was there. She wanted to go back to sleep. She wanted breakfast. And with her hand hovering over the doorhandle, she glanced back at the bedroom, door left open, trying to see her son, and maybe she should move him to the living room. Could she do it? She thought she could walk softly enough that he wouldn’t wake up, and though she knew what a risk it would be to move him, she craned her neck and thought having him out of sight would be a bad idea. Because he wasn’t quite human? Because he was her child, and no matter how much she longed for a babysitter, for someone who could help her, she knew that a day away from him - maybe just an hour - would make her feel strangely empty, anxious and worrying, thinking that something would go wrong if he wasn’t within her sight at all times. Maybe she could-
The knocking came again, so she huffed, tore the door open, and demanded, “What do you want?”
And he looked the same, as if no time had passed, as if all he’d done was take a shower and wash his clothes. Solar glare, snow on the ground, the lake starting to ice over, he stood before her in stark contrast, red in a sea of white and pale blue, like a bloodstain on bedsheets. The same quiet, asking eyes. The same soft face that struggled to find the proper way to convey emotion.
He wasn’t wearing a coat. The sleeplessness must’ve gotten to her. She needed to shut the door. She needed-
As he reached out to touch her face, she wanted to close her eyes, wanted to give in, but no, she couldn’t be sure that this was real, and she needed proof. She needed him to choose whether or not he would be here now. She needed him to stay as a dream or as a person, not something in-between. And his fingers on her cheek, and his hand felt warm, felt real, and she had to remind herself to breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Her mind might play tricks on her, elaborate tricks, but she didn’t think her mind could play this elaborate a trick.
Her gaze intent on his, she swallowed, asked, “Are you real?”
And the question made her blush, what a stupid question. He brushed his thumb over her lips, and from the way he looked at her, she felt she might crumble beneath his gaze, might fall to pieces in the entryway and need him to put her back together again.
“Please, tell me if this is real,” she said, and he leaned forward with an answer, kissing her across the doorstep, hand on her cheek, Chuck Taylors stuck in the snow. He kissed the way she remembered, cautiously but with commitment, the way she kissed when she was a teenager, the way she kissed on a first date. But she felt something deeper too, a passion beyond a first date, a sense that there was no other choice but to kiss her, and he wanted to kiss her. He needed to kiss her, and he wanted to kiss her, so he kissed her, and she closed her eyes, her muscles starting to relax, her body remembering him. Remembering all of him. Remembering how he could touch her once and make her feel as if time had stopped.
“I’m real,” he said, voice raspy, the timbre giving her goosebumps.
She didn’t know what to say, and she didn’t want to open her eyes yet, too overwhelmed to see, so she pushed forward and wrapped her arms around him, feeling how solid he was against her. How real. The same body she remembered, the same clothes, the same man. The man she’d never thought she would see again.
He brought his arms around her, his palm holding the back of her head, keeping her close, and for the first time in months, she didn’t have any thoughts on her mind.
She didn’t want him to know that she was crying, so eventually, she ushered him in, insisted that he must be so cold, how long had he been out there? Here, come in, she still had Scott’s clothes in the closet, old, worn sweaters and flannel-lined jeans. She could find him something. Did he understand that feeling, being cold? Yes, he did, in his hands and feet, but he stopped her before she could frantically run off, his hand in hers, his eyes so serious.
“Where is he?” he asked, and her chest started to ache.
In her haste, she forgot that she hadn’t wanted to wake the baby, so she brought her husband - she would only ever think of him that way, even though he wasn’t Scott - into the bedroom, lifted the baby into her arms so that he could see. The warm morning light, her son in her arms, and he loomed above them, staring down, his face unreadable as always. What do you call him? he asked, and for a moment, she thought he might be angry. She thought that he might find her inadequate, or that he thought this child might be someone else’s, or that he might want to return to his star and never come back, but she pushed those thoughts aside. Jack, she said, after my father. And he nodded down at the baby, then repeated Jack, after my father.
Of course, the baby started to fuss, and at the edges of her vision, she saw a blur. She’d forgotten how tired she was, and now, with those first whimpers that would inevitably turn into screams, she tensed, not knowing what to do. In her imagination, the baby had always been quiet while this happened, while his father met him and reached out to hold him and deemed him perfect, ten fingers and ten toes, button nose, bright eyes. She hadn’t imagined him looking so somber, hadn’t imagined the baby crying the whole time. She hadn’t expected to be afraid.
“I want to hold him,” he said, and she nodded, yes, of course. Of course he wanted to hold Jack, and of course she wanted to let him hold the baby. But there would never be another time when he first held the baby, and she wished she’d put on something nicer. She wished she’d had a good night’s rest, and she wished he had been here longer, long enough for her to feel comfortable teaching him how to hold a baby, long enough that she’d started to believe he was real.
And she wanted Jack to stop crying, but she knew it was no use, so gently, she held the baby out to him, telling him to support the baby’s head, telling him to hold the baby the way she had, soft against her chest, tucked in and safe. She could trust him to be gentle. She knew he didn’t mean any harm. And he held Jack in his arms, the baby so small in comparison to him, tiny patterned pajamas next to red flannel. Years ago, she’d pictured this scene, the man before her a different one but the picture so much the same, Scott and a baby. He would’ve made a great father. Though she’d mourned not being able to conceive, she’d almost mourned that he would never be a father more, for that felt like a waste of a good man, someone who would keep a child safe. Then, this man, the picture almost the same but not quite, the two of them tucked away and kept far from the rest of the world. She craved a world that began and ended within the walls of her home, and for that world to feel full, whole, perfect and vast, a kingdom of her own. While she was pregnant, she would come home from work, from the grocery store, from wherever, and she felt the weight of others not understanding. Her husband had died, so why was she pregnant now? What had she done? And she wanted to make her world so small that she would never need to explain herself, but making her world smaller became a challenge when she wanted that world to include her home by the lake and a distant star and nothing else. She didn’t want to be lonely, but that thought felt more like a message than a thought. I don’t want to be lonely, she thought, as if he could hear her, so could you please come back?
She rested her head against his shoulder, looking down at her son, their son. His body felt warm alongside hers. Her mind had never played tricks this elaborate before. And to her surprise, Jack stopped crying, turned so quiet that she worried something might be wrong, but no, the baby stared wide-eyed up at his father, and she thought of how sometimes babies would cry until the correct parent held them. She thought of how grey spheres could grant wishes. She thought of being carried away from burning wreckage, bullet holes through her clothes, no scar left behind. She thought of how Jack would know what to do, but she hadn’t realized her son would know what to do so soon.
“You need to sleep,” he said, fingertips brushing the top of Jack’s head, and for a moment, she didn’t realize that he was speaking to her, not to the baby. But she could see Jack’s eyelids growing heavy as well, blinking slowly, fighting to stay awake, and she thought that maybe the statement could apply to both of them. Maybe they could sleep at the same time, and for once, she wouldn’t need a monitor with a loud alarm, wouldn’t wake to crying, would be able to sleep knowing that a person, not a gadget, was making sure her son was safe.
She sighed against him.
“I barely slept last night,” she admitted, but he probably already knew that.
“You should sleep,” he said, but his gaze stuck on the baby, his hands so gentle. She’d never understood how he could be that gentle.
Shaking her head against his shoulder, she said, “You can’t handle him on your own.”
“I’ve studied your species,” he said, speaking more quietly. For whatever he knew about her species, he knew better than to speak loudly around an almost-sleeping baby. “I understand your life cycles.”
“Yeah, well, book smarts aren’t everything,” she said, laughing against him.
“Define book smarts.”
“Things you learn,” she said, closing her eyes. “Things you know because you learned about them, not because you’ve experienced them.”
“I am experiencing them now.”
“It’s alright,” she gave. “I can stay awake.”
His body felt so warm against hers. She’d forgotten these feelings, had forgotten how serene it felt to curl up with another person, let her breaths match in time with his, and she didn’t mind the cold days anymore, for she could come home to him, and he would keep her warm. Waking up midway through the night, and she could get up and find a sweatshirt to put on, but no, she would pull him closer instead, and he would keep her warm. Despite the time that had passed, she could wrap her arm around his back and void that time, no days since they had last seen each other, and they could pick up where they’d left off. She could teach him how to bake apple pie. She could sleep next to him in a real bed. She could climb with him to the top of a mountain, then show him that this was what her planet looked like from the kind of afar that mattered. She could play records for him, then teach him how to dance.
“Will you be here when I wake up?” she asked, voice quiet, as if she were telling a secret.
In a way, she didn’t care what his answer was, for the hope was enough. The sweet salvation, the few moments in which she didn’t feel lonely, all of that was enough, and if he turned out to be a figment of her imagination, she didn’t think she would mind. Of course, she would wish he had been real, but she would have that dream to remember, would have those few moments of feeling whole again to keep her going. And if she only had three days again, she knew that she could make the most. And if she had more than that, she thought she might be the luckiest person in the world.
“Yes,” he said, and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could stay awake.
“When will you leave?”
“I won’t,” he said, so she knew she must be making all of this up.
“But you’ll be here when I wake up.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” She forced her eyes open, stretched out. Pregnancy had messed with her back; if she didn’t sleep horizontally, she would be crooked for days. “Yeah, okay.”
Her side of the bed was still unmade. She only slept on one side, baby monitor on the bedside table, glass of water next to her morning pills, a book for when Jack nursed in the evening. Scott’s side of the bed had been empty for a long time. Climbing under the covers, looking over at the other side of the bed, she saw his flannel shirt, his ruffled blonde hair, his arms strong and relaxed, holding their son. Their son, not just hers. Not just hers anymore.
She closed her eyes and hoped it wasn’t a dream.