Chapter Text
Elliot felt his heart losing a beat. He heard her words, damn straight he did, but that didn’t do the slightest to prevent the somersault he felt in his stomach. He started the coffee maker, allowing himself, only for a moment, the distraction to wonder when was the last time this had happened to him. He couldn’t remember.
“You can’t be serious.”
“What if I am?” she said hesitantly after a second, curling and uncurling her fingers around her mug.
“This is nonsense. And where is it coming from anyway?” He started pacing around the kitchen, stopping every other second to stare at the coffee machine impatiently. Yet, he knew all too well that she could see his hurt, poorly masked behind his ever-growing irritation.
“Elliot, sit down. Let’s talk about this for once, it’s been years, don’t you think it’s overdue?”
“Precisely. It’s been years, Kath. Ten, if we’re counting.” Despite his exasperation, he accepted that his walking back and forth would scarcely help the coffee get ready faster and took a seat next to her. “I thought we’d let the bygones be bygones.”
“And we have! But this is a good opportunity to settle this. I know it’s been eating you alive all this time and I can’t do anything to help you out. I want you to be happy. I want us both to be happy. Clock’s ticking and we’re not getting any younger. And we deserve happiness, we deserve to live the way we should be living.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” It was in vain, since he knew she saw right through his endeavour to deflect. He sighed, not for the first time in the past few minutes, because he needed whatever courage he could muster to utter his next words. “Why would you want to see Olivia now?” he asked softly. The name sounded foreign coming from his lips, similar to a voice that has fallen into disuse for too long, coming out dry and scratchy. He could almost taste the distinct metallic taste that her name would leave on his tongue if speaking some certain words could make your mouth bleed. Which was a joke really, given that the same name frequented his thoughts more than he could afford to admit, and certainly much more than it was spoken out loud. And yet, it wasn’t the same, because how could it be? When he held the name under lock and key in the depths of his mind, nestled and safe and secret, he could pretend it remained something entirely his. Once it was out there though, spoken and exposed and out of his control, then it was too painful to behold or to relate to as it became too real, too raw.
“Because it’s the perfect occasion to celebrate her. She made Captain, did you know?” Elliot froze in place, but his wife’s smile while talking about Olivia, his Olivia, his indomitable, fearless ex-partner who had moved up the ranks, reached him and warmed him up too. She was also proud of her, he could tell. “Det. Tutuola called yesterday night while you were out. They’re paying tribute to her work in SVU, giving her an award, something about NYPD Women in Law Enforcement. I told him you would call him back when you had the chance. He thinks that you should be there… And so do I.” He took a moment to digest the news. After a decade of questions that were never asked and so left unanswered, this was a bit overwhelming. Fin called? How on earth did he know where to find them? Although he shouldn't be surprised, Fin was Fin, he just knew things.
“Wow… Olivia, a Captain? Of course I didn’t know, how would I? Although… I’ve always known she had it in her”, he added with a smile.
Kathy hummed in agreement and gave him a minute to let his mind wander to Olivia before she got his attention again. She had the urge to laugh at herself for this, because it had been a long while since she had found herself in the same situation. Some would even say that back then it had become a nasty habit neither of them could shake off. So she stood, poured some hot coffee in a fresh mug and laid it on the table before him gently, putting her slender arms on his shoulders from behind.
“You should be there, Elliot. It’s been a while, but… you’ve been a part of this long course. You were there to witness the first steps of her career, to guide her, to work with her… Your place is in that room when she gets her award.”
Elliot put her hand over her arm and pulled her closer. He knew what Kathy was saying was only half-true but he tried to imagine Olivia the Captain; her commanding presence, now more than ever before, the calm aura and the assertiveness she would exude every time she spoke, walked, lay her eyes on him… But it was too much. He really shouldn’t go there.
“Kathy… I missed all of this. And it was my choice, my doing. I can’t show up and congratulate or celebrate her for something I wasn’t aware of five minutes ago, something I learned by chance because Fin was kind enough to let us know. And why now anyway? Point is… I think I gave up my place in that room a long time ago.” The last sentence tore him apart but lying was of no use. Perhaps it was preferable to accept the hard reality than to cross an ocean to find himself across her and then be left the way he had left her—or worse. He had earned that much.
“Don’t say that. I feel it was my choice and my doing as much as it was yours. We needed a fresh start, it was a decision we made together, remember? It’s high time you stopped beating yourself up about it.”
He shook his head, in shame? in sorrow? It took too much effort to figure it out, and it was too early for that. He sneaked a look at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall, which hardly showed 7am. He couldn’t argue and he couldn’t deal with all this now, so he took a sip of the hot liquid from his mug, trying to collect his thoughts.
“Suppose… I’m not saying we will, but let’s suppose for a second… that we go all the way there, Kath. What would ever keep Olivia from walking away without casting a second look in our way? For fuck’s sake, why would she care to acknowledge our presence, not to mention talk to us?”
She nuzzled his cheek to give him some comfort, because he needed it, it was that much apparent.
“Because she’s missed you. She’s missed you as much as you’ve missed her, that’s why.”
Elliot felt his eyes brimming with tears but he managed to compose himself. He had missed her, he did miss her. So much. And he wished Kathy had never known that, because it was never his intention to hurt her after everything she had been put through during their thirty-something-year marriage.
“Even if… Even if that happened and we went there and we met her, I’d never know what the hell to say to her... I’m not even sure there are words to address her after leaving like that. It’s so shameful, you know?”
“Well, in that event… we could try to figure something out together.” She paused, turned around so as to look at his face and sat in his lap to caress his cheek. “As I said before, I want to help you, Elliot, in any way that I can.” She kissed him softly to seal her promise and he felt he was unworthy of sharing the same air she breathed.
“I don’t-”
“What if”, she cut him off to appease him, “we put it all on the table? No judgement, no fighting, just the two of us being honest with each other and with ourselves. Try to consider what you would tell her, see if it is good enough, hmm?”
“Like rehearsing every scenario, every single way in which the whole thing blows up?”
She smiled at him.
“If that’s what you want, sure, we’ll rehearse. Or, you could try to… write it all down in a piece of paper.”
“Like a letter, then.”
She laughed at this and her small laugh was soothing to his nerves.
“Who on earth still writes letters in the twenty-first century? You sound like a sixty-year-old man now. Oh, wait…”
Elliot couldn’t help but laugh with her.
“Well, to be fair, I’m on the wrong side of fifty…”
“…which is an understatement…”
“Hey, hey… I’m not sixty yet! And when I get there, you’ll be, what? Fifty-…”
“If you finish that sentence, I’ll not take any responsibility for the reason you won’t live to be sixty, you know.”
They stayed like this for a minute, laughing softly and enjoying that intimacy that ripens only with long years spent side by side, until they sobered up.
“Whatever you want to call it, the point I was trying to make is that… sometimes it might be easier to write your troubles down rather than speak about them. It’s less spontaneous and more calculated. I know it helps me, at least.”
“Yeah? You write letters? To whom?” He tried to tease her.
“It’s not necessary to address them to somebody, El. Sometimes venting it all out as you write is all that matters, all you need to do to keep it together.” She slowed down at the last sentence, easing the heavy blow that she knew would strike him. Because how many letters might Kathy have written for him, to him, that he never got to read? If that wasn’t a loaded question. Maybe he wasn’t looking forward to getting an answer to it too, and that’s why she continued. “So, you could try that out, and decide later if you want to hand it or tear it to pieces. It’s always your call.”
“I don’t know, Kathy. I really don’t.”
They heard commotion from Eli’s bedroom, which could only mean that their son was up and would soon be grumbling about having overslept and not having enough time to make some ricotta pancakes. Milk and cereals would have to make do today.
“Don’t say yes. But don’t say no, either. Think about it and whatever you decide, I’ll be here and we can talk about it later, alright?” After he nodded, she gave him another peck and stood up swiftly to set the milk, a box of cereal and a bowl on the table for Eli.
⋇⋆✦⋆⋇
He had been staring at the imposing building taking up most of his balcony view, standing tall and unyielding with its symmetrical windows and its intricately carved columns at the bottom forming small arches that stretched out along the entire front side of the structure. He goggled at the people walking by, most of them tourists who stopped for a few minutes to snap a couple of pictures and admire the architecture. It seemed incomprehensible to him how the street below—like Rome herself—buzzed with life whereas he was drowning in his thoughts, his world having stopped the moment he had had that conversation with Kathy earlier that morning; the moment he dared to imagine a reality wherein he returned to Liv and heard her voice again. He couldn’t fathom how it had been hours since then and yet his mind hadn’t been able to process a single second forward.
A soft breeze grazed his skin signaling that spring was almost within reach now. It was nice out here, all things considered. He looked down at the white sheet of paper. The rustling sound caused by the soft wind was the only thing he could hear, save for the faint voices coming from below. He felt ridiculous and started to click his pen just to keep his hand occupied as he hadn’t got himself to write anything beyond the first two words.
Dear Liv
Did it ever occur to her how dear she was to him? How the distance, be it temporal or geographical, scarcely abated how much he had cared for her, deeply and always? Would this trite way of opening his goddamn joke of a letter ever be able to convey that to her? And if it did, would she believe him? Would she see past his scribblings to understand how sorry, how guilty, how stupid he felt when it came to her and the way he screwed it all up with his ethical principles and his moral code and the choices he made to abide by them?
He sighed in frustration and put the pen down with an unneeded force that sent it off the small table. He took the paper sheet and crumpled it hurriedly into a small ball, anything to make the words disappear from his sight and the constant rustling sound to stop. He couldn’t do this. He lacked the courage and the strength for it, so he went back into the apartment, headed towards the kitchen, and threw the paper ball into the bin. He was so lost in himself that at first, he didn’t notice Kathy carrying some bags from the store.
“There you are. Was wondering whether you were out. How is it going?”
“I, um… I gave it a thought, Kath. Even tried to write something actually.”
“I figured. So, how is it going?” She repeated, helping herself to a glass of water.
“Well… Not good. I don’t think I can do it. It’s like everything I think of writing down is out of place, you know?”
She looked at him thoughtfully for a second.
“Look, Elliot, it’s no easy task. You used to be attached to the hip, and as you say, it’s been a long while that you haven’t spoken to each other, so it’s normal to feel out of sorts, not knowing how to address her and all.” He avoided her eyes at that because, hell, the addressing her part of the letter was the only thing he had figured out—or had he?
He swallowed the lump in his throat and agreed anyway.
“Exactly. It’s been ten years that we haven’t exchanged a word and I didn’t even give her the chance to say goodbye before that. It’s too complicated.”
“Well, you can always quit trying and forget all about it, as if I never said anything to you, alright? Head to New York, see the kids, testify to that trial and get it over with, then come back here and continue with our life. We can do that, if that’s what you really want and what will make you happier in the long run.”
“It’s not a matter of what I want though, it’s a matter of what I can or can’t do. And I don’t think I can write a letter to…”
“To Olivia.”
“To Olivia, yeah.”
“You can’t even say her name without feeling miserable.”
He gave out a small snort.
“What do you want me to say to that?”
She let the silence stretch between them for a few seconds, as if debating whether she should go for full honesty or go soft instead so as to save them both from facing some hard truths that had been hovering around them since forever.
“I want you to admit it, just for this once. You miss her and I understand it, I really do. It’s been so long and we’re so far away, and yet you can’t be happy while the situation is like this and neither of you has your closure. Please, just… just admit it, Elliot. Admit it, because I’m tired.”
And so was he. Her tone was more pleading than it was accusatory, and he rubbed his eyes in defeat.
“All I ever wanted was for us to be happy.”
“Was that a yes? Because you’re… missing the fact, or maybe you’re ignoring it, that we can’t be fully happy while one of us isn’t. I frankly don’t know which of the two it is anymore.” Without meaning to, they got into a staring contest, striving to extract all the answers each wanted from the other—if he cracked, how much would he yield to her, and if he yielded, how much was she ready to hear? And Kathy seemed determined to win this contest, even if it meant taking things to their long-anticipated bitter end. “Are you happy, Elliot?”
“That’s a complicated question, Kathy. It’s just all so complicated.”
“Since when do you sound like a broken record?” she took his hand and smiled, but her eyes were filled with sadness. “I never told you this, but back in the day when you needed to be at work until god only knows what time… whenever you brought her up to me, it used to scare me shitless. Not only because I felt I was losing you to her. It wasn’t a rivalry or anything of the sort that scared me. It was that you were so… transfixed on her, like she was someone you needed to protect in the same way you needed the air to breathe, and all that… all that without anything ever happening between you two. Because I know you’d never betray me like that. You let her become a part of you, gave so much of yourself to her, that left me wondering what more you could give her if you started an affair with her. I’m not sure if that makes any sense. In any case, we had to get away from everything, get away from her too, for me to realise that it was your silence that should terrify me instead, and not all the times you had mentioned her. Because ever since you turned mute and blind and deaf on her, I immediately stopped knowing and understanding what was going on your mind, or your heart. You didn’t mean it that way, but your silence kept me in the dark too, Elliot. So please, talk to me about her. Talk to me about Olivia again”, he tried to hide his flinch at the mention of the name but it wouldn’t get past her. “I know it hurts you but I’m here to share your pain, if you let me.”
Elliot was shaking his head in disbelief at the openness and the rawness and the frankness in the words of the woman he had been calling wife for the last thirty-seven years and counting.
“Son of a bitch”, he mumbled.
“What?”
“I said I’m a son of a bitch. Don’t deserve you, or any of this. How the fuck did we get here?” he banged the kitchen counter with his fist, but she didn’t cower for a split second.
“Elliot, look at me. If there were any good friends around for you, maybe I wouldn’t push this. But it seems you’re stuck with me. I’m your best friend and have been for a while. So please speak to me.”
“You sure you wanna do this then?”
“I need this as much as you do. And Eli’s going to be late because he’s got a study group session.”
He nodded and without saying another word, they started putting away the groceries together.