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Realization comes in a flash. Either as a freight train that had only been noticed seconds before the strike, or as the Polaroid C.C’s father used to take with him whenever they’d spend time at their vacation house. Always dangling from his neck, impossible for her to reach, to touch — gorgeous lenses she wasn't able to see through — but close enough to tease .
Realization comes with a fright. Either because it all happened too fast, and she has never learned to digest things this quick — for all the time she's ever been given was only enough to plaster a smile across her face and sweeten her tone — or because this was the sort of thing she had no real control over — as expected with the fright, realization could pry its way to her insides; claws and teeth and mangled flesh; realization could ruin her, and she'd be nothing but helpless against it.
[Because, of course] realization also comes with her husband — his bare skin on her back and the ghost of his fingertips on her hips; his breath on her neck and his death-grip onto her tortured, shredded heart; his zingers at breakfast and his fantastic (and overwhelmingly silent) tales about love, and how he'd travel through space to find the right starts, to find the right shapes, to sew together the right constellation just to let her know she's loved ( ‘and the whole damn universe should know that, Babcock’ ). With her daughter — her chubby cheeks and her dirty blonde hair; her lazuli eyes and her tiny hands ( tiny fingertips, tiny fingerprints, tiny fingernails) ; her sweet voice and infectious giggle; her need for contact and affection , and an innocence that lead her right onto her mother's waiting arms without a second thought. With Maxwell and Fran and their loud-and-messy family — the shared space they learned to enjoy and celebrate; the holidays and Sunday afternoons, and every other night when Grace decided her father was a tyrant, so he ran to Babcock's front porch. With the part of her that never dared to dream about it — for she would never be fit for it; for her arms, her chest, her soul had always been too hollow to nest any sort of goodness or beauty. With the part of her that, right this instant, is being torn — she can't believe it.
Laying on her living room’s carpet, knees high and cheeks flustered; a 10-month-old daughter sitting on her belly, holding tight onto the fingers she had offered her as she leans back on her thighs; a husband, crouching down onto their left, holding a camera as he steals their daughter attention — his heart, beating loud and proud at the sight of them.
She can't believe it.
Having her little girl — beautiful, sweet Jillian — lean forward to grip onto her shirt as she tries to maneuver herself onto a different position, probably thinking to reach her dad— tongue trapped between her two front teeth as she smiles much like her mother.
Like me.
I'm her mother.
She's mine.
And — oh, sweet, ever greedy realization! — it shakes every single bone within her, and it starts to form knots from her esophagus to the very back of her throat, close to where most of her hurt goes to find some rest, a few inches from her hyoid bone. It keeps her breath short and acidic; it makes her heart squeeze itself between her lungs; it makes her remember all the tiredness she has been collecting in the marrow of her bones.
Forty years old.
A husband and a daughter.
White picket fence down in California.
Oh, Lord–
The flash from her husband's camera snaps in the corner of her eye — the exact moment she feels herself spill, if only for a bit. She hears a faint click, covered by a string of giggles and chuckles and 12-feet-deep into the ocean of her own mind. The sun is setting outside; the wind’s still blowing; cars are honking in the distance. C.C is able to hear her husband talking to their daughter — to her — and she's able to feel her own mouth moving. Answering. Replying. Engaging. Smiling.
She's able to catch a glimpse of the border, the visible limit between the paved streets where certain aches and bruises and memories have been frozen for years, and the abyss — the dark pit of nothingness she'd dive into every now and then, swearing she had touched the bottom, swearing she didn't jump just for the thrill of falling. She's able to take a deep breath — count every curve of that spiral — and look above her shoulder.
How his eyes shine with unadulterated devotion when their little girl makes a grabby hand at him — how quickly he lets go of his beloved camera to find himself laying by her side. Legs stretched out and hands ready for the moment, Jillian decides to test free-falling on him — something she has been awfully fond of.
How well they fit together, even with something as simple as the touch of their shoulders and the synchrony between breaths.
(‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’
‘Is that part of the questionnaire?’
‘Yes, Miss Chastity.’
‘I’ve told you, just C.C is fine, Martha.’)
That is, until she holds onto hers, keeping all the oxygen hidden within her ribcage, disrupting the holy painting of happiness she never thought she'd ever be lucky enough to deserve.
(She thinks of a gazillion answers. The extensive speeches her mother had delivered to her so dramatically in the rare occasions she insisted on being the one to dress her or — worse — do her hair. She thinks of the few times she was able to enjoy her time with her father — when he wasn't asking her to not tell her mother about the newest maid, or angrily cursing at a letter he had just opened. She thinks of dreams she was never able to remember entirely, and she thinks about the bright colors she could taste even days after it.)
Lucky enough to retain, to hold.
(‘Mother once said I should be amenable like Daphne. I don’t know what that means, but does it count?
‘No, Miss Claire, I’m afraid not. I think you should think about yourself to answer this. What’s something that would make you happy in the future?’)
“C.C.” She hears, along with a soft nudge on her side; her sight takes a second too long to focus onto her husband’s pacific orbs. He’s laying on his side, his right arm supporting his head as the left arm is securely placed onto Jil’s back — the little girl seems too entertained with her own toes to look at either of them, but she remains close . “Did you hear what I said?”
The blonde shakes her head almost imperceptibly. “Sorry, I’m–”
“Tired from work, I suppose.” Niles fills in for her. He’s well aware that it’s only the beginning of the week, and these days tend to take a bigger toll on her than she’ll ever be willing to admit. “I asked if you’d like to take a walk by the beach with us.” Just as he finishes his sentence, a bark is heard from the hall. “ And Chester.”
She smiles tightly at him, mirroring his position and blinking tiredly, her hand already moving on its own — caressing her daughter's soft hair before letting it fall above his, on the child’s back. “I thought you said Chester wouldn’t step on sand for another week after you gave him a bath yesterday.”
“I’m a weak man.” He announces dramatically. “I could not torture my own son with solitude while we’re all in our joyful family walk.”
She rolls her eyes affectionately, tracing each of his knuckles until he opens his palm. Her fingers slowly find their way between his, entwining — connecting — them. “You think you’re so funny, don’t you?”
“Isn’t that why you married me?”
“Our marriage is a mutual benefit situation, no feelings involved, Bell Boy.” She can feel his wedding band on her skin. It’s pure gold in a simple design. It’s warm and soft and… it’s him .
“Oh, right. You get a clean house and incredible meals, and what do I get?” Warm and soft and hers.
As if on cue, Jillian looks up. Her precious eyes flickering between Momma and Dadda as she seems to decide which one she wants for now.
(It seems to be a hard choice for her, and as her brows crease in a way much too similar to Niles’, her parents gratefully make a choice for her: she can have both .)
Niles and C.C lean forward — although some comfort is sacrificed during the process; their backs are certainly not young enough to allow certain curvatures and positions — and they offer no mercy when they kiss the infant’s cheek soundly, causing her to squeal and giggle.
(‘... What’s something that would make you happy in the future?’)
“So, you're going?”
(‘I can’t answer that now, Martha, I’m not in the future yet.’ She giggles, as if her tutor’s question had been silly. ‘I’ll know when I get there.’)
“We'll go.”
“Chestity, sit still, dear.” Her mother says as one of her hands press on her lower back to fix her posture. The other, tangled in the child’s locks, shows her lack of practice. Care. “You must be flawless for this dinner. It’s very important for your father, and your sister.”
The girl, barely six-years-old, suppresses a grimace when Barbara’s hand tugs a bit too hard on a lock of hair. “Of course, Mother.”
“And you must behave.”
“Of course, Mother.”
“No entertaining your brother’s behavior.”
“Of course, Mother.”
“And if anyone asks you anything…”
“I’ve practiced the answers from that paper you wrote for me with Martha. And I should always smile and nod.”
“That’s correct.” Barbara nods, a twisted smile turning the corners of her mouth up. She pats C.C’s shoulder. “Good girls know to keep their mouths shut. And I assume you’ve learned from the last time you asked foolish questions.”
C.C doesn’t know what her mother means by ‘foolish’ — from what she recalls, she was plainly curious, not trying to be rude as B.B later pointed out — but she nods, either way.
“You are a good girl, aren’t you, Chastity?”
She also is unable to tell if the echo in her head is real — a physical response to the large room they're in — or simply a projection for the back of her mind. Nonetheless, she replies, “I want to be, Mother. I really do.”
“Excellent.”
Her fingers leave a trail of rough touches on C.C’s scalp, fairy knots all around the hair bow she places on the back of her daughter’s head.
“One day, my dear, you will. I’ll make sure of it.”
She allows herself to close her eyes for a few seconds, posture failing as the luminosity of her memories fade like a dying flame, slowly overtaken by the candle’s wax.
The air is much softer here.
Her senses are alive and allowed to run wild — and she feels it. (There’s the smell of saffron and cardamom surrounding her; the softness of her bedsheets underneath her skin; the soft midnight breeze entering the room and caressing her face. The feather-light touches of her husband’s fingers on hers – tracing the outlines of each one as if to memorize the details, the bits that make her so marvelously her. The murmur that comes from his chest and reaches her spine before her ear — the words she has needed to hear long before he learned they only felt right when coming from his mouth. The other hand he keeps on her hair, so gentle and patient, so caring and rare.)
She feels golden — as the stars hanging above their daughter’s crib, and that necklace he had given her last Christmas, the one that says, ‘my lucky charm’ . She feels indigo blue — from the pillow covers, and their bedroom walls in the late hours of the night. She feels blazing burgundy — the flush of her own cheeks when Niles moves their hands to her thigh, resting on bare skin and drawing the same endless shapes over and over again; the unadulterated amount of love she finds when he says her name in her ear, and she turns back to look up at him.
“Are you alright, dumplin’ ?”
“Mhm?” She hums, completely disoriented by his touch.
He smiles, as he always does in moments like this. It took a while for C.C to realize that he didn’t take it lightly that she trusted him enough to be this vulnerable. To let him in. To allow him to make her weak.
“You’ve been quiet since we went to the beach. Even more now that we’re back. Are you okay?” The hand, previously distracted by her hair, moves to her face. There’s a tint of hesitation in his eyes when his thumb first touches her cheek in an imperceptible caress. She doesn’t know how to describe what this is.
“I’m alright, lover.” Her voice comes in a whisper, and she leans on his palm.
Niles makes an exaggerated pout. “Is the lack of a full moon affecting your powers, witch?”
His eyes are glowing when she opens her mouth, but, unfortunately, no good reply comes to mind. She knows he’s just testing waters, trying to reach the roots of whatever’s wrong tonight. She knows humor has always been a good default for them — it has always worked. Even back at the start when they went a little too far, and C.C would have to go home and pluck out every barb and every offensive joke out of her skin like porcupine quills. Even decades later, as time caught up to them and the bickering only got more and more aggressive personal delightful. It was simple. It didn’t take much. It should work.
But when his words fall flat onto the mattress, his facial expression shifts — she can even sense the moment his whole thoracic cavity admitted a new rhythm, a new pattern.
“Do you want to talk about work?”
Niles tries something else. C.C shakes her head.
“Tell me about your day.” She says instead.
“Okay,” he leans forward, leaving a kiss on her forehead. “The twins are positively intrigued by Jillian. Although Jillian doesn’t care about anyone else when Miss Grace is in the room.”
And he tells her.
He tells her about preparing lunch with their child on his hip, and he tells her about wanting to call her throughout the day to tell her foolish things like a prolonged beam or a contained food war that might or might not have broke out after he tried to feed her with plain mushed potatoes and cooked beetroot. He tells her about Fran — Mrs. Sheffield — dancing barefoot in the living room with little Eve in her arms, and he describes the exact moment he thought, ‘why not join her?’ .
He makes her grin at his own way of phrasing — how he recounts his actions, his thoughts, his feelings. He makes her heart soar when he reminds her, for the nth time, that the best part of his day was to come back home to find her — tired and drained and standing in the threshold looking at his absent pair of shoes; a dense mist disappearing from her eyes when she saw their daughter trying to catapult herself from her father’s arms into hers.
For that moment, right then, she forgot the forlornness that had been haunting her for years.
“It’s always good to come home to you .” As if predicting which paths her mind could be leading her to, he tightens his arms around her, bringing her impossibly closer. “Now, do you want to talk about what has been bothering you?”
For a second or two, right now , with his ocean eyes pouring out affection all over her silhouette, she isn’t sure she’d be able to explain. She doesn’t know if any of her emotions make sense or, worse, if they’re reasonable enough to save her from the embarrassment.
It takes a minute — or maybe three — for her to open her mouth. “I’m not the best at explaining this sort of thing, you know that.”
“Try. Please? ”
She moves her hand from under his — only now noticing he’s still touching her thigh. Palms up and intertwined fingers, she now rests their joined hands on top of his thigh.
(It’s hard . To form words in her throat and trust her tongue to select the right ones; to prepare her mouth for the taste of it — as unnatural as the truth has always tasted to her — and will herself to not try to bite off half of a sentence in an attempt to preserve her dignity.
It’s complicated to tell the man she shares more than half of her being — the one that, she now swears, is the love of her life — that sometimes she can’t help but doubt the veracity of them . The tenderness of his affections, and all the goodness his presence has brought to her. The Californian house she has learned to appreciate — white picked fence, neighbors and even the ocean breeze. The easiness of their routine — how natural and automatic it feels to wake up in his arms, and walk around town smelling like him. And the daughter they made together — their little miracle …
How could this not be a dream? A symptom of her days at the Place? A consequence of all that electricity running wild inside her skull?
At any moment, she suspects, she’ll open her eyes to find herself still sitting in front of that old vanity, back at the Babcock mansion, while her mother tries to teach her how to be a good girl. Tries to convince her she’d never want anything more than to be the best girl.)
“You gave me a home,” her voice is quiet, almost contained. “Sometimes I feel like a child all over again, Niles. Looking at you… her … I– This is my very first time at this. I have no idea what to do with all of it, and it’s not like I can go ask for instructions from someone else.”
He frowns, but he’s still holding her, and C.C is immensely grateful that he doesn’t disturb their current positions for the sake of the conversation. “Dear, is this about parenthood? Because I’ve told you before, you’re doing spectacular, dumplin’.”
She hums a ‘no’, eyes darting to their hands. “I mean being happy. I was never happy before.” Her thoughts hit a tangent as she inhales — exhales . She is glad to be where she is, having him so close. If anything goes south, in whatever catastrophic sense of it, C.C knows he’ll be there, eager and ready to make her whole again. Reach out for the pieces of her; pick them up; tell them apart as if they were his own. Build her back up. “Whenever I thought about it, it never looked anything like this.”
Niles kisses her scalp, breathing in the smell of her avocado shampoo. “And what did it look like?”
She shrugs. “At first, it was whatever my Mother wished it to be. Then, I started dreaming of the complete opposite to spite her. And after that…”
“After that…?”
“I was thrown out of balance. I met Sara and Maxwell. And you.”
There’s a moment of silence — both of them recall their own version of their very first interaction; it sounds so different now to their own ears. It stretches like the famous 60 seconds of insurmountable grief.
“Y’know, when I was much younger, I convinced myself I’d only know what I wanted to be in the future when I got there. Like, I’d simply wake up one day, and I’d be so sure I did everything right, and so proud of myself for getting there… I’d forgive myself for the time I had to wait for it.” Realization. I would have a realization. And I’d look around me and just know I’ve found someplace to fit; to be. “I think I've finally gotten it. We ’ve finally gotten it.”
Laying on his chest — safe from the outside world — she hears the soft ballad of his heart beating against his breastbone, and she feels his hands moving from her head to her hips. His other hand, taking hers to his mouth so he can kiss her knuckles. Her palms, too.
I look around me, and I just know — I’ve found a place just for me; between his arms, that’s where I fit; that’s where I should be.
Niles licks his lips — lyrical serenades dancing on his teeth, ready to be delivered with that tone he uses when he’s trying to convince her she deserves to be worshiped. “ Babs –”
But he’s cut short by the baby monitor on the nightstand — soft mumbling noises that end up in tiny whimpers.
“Your daughter has the best timing, truly.” C.C says.
He leans forward, joining his forehead to her temple.
“Indeed.”
And they both smile when he kisses the side of her head. When he takes a little too long inhaling her scent, again.
A home.
This is mine, isn’t it?
“I’ll go.” He doesn’t move.
“You went every time last night. I can go, lover.”
She takes a deep breath, trying to get rid of his arms and his tantalizing warmth when he pulls her back into his chest. Holds her a bit too tight for a moment — making sure everything is in its place when she gets up. Kisses her mouth — the tip of her nose, her chin, her right eyebrow, her cheek, her forehead.
“Do you think you’ve always needed an infant crying for you a few rooms away?” He jokes, voice light and sugary. (Tempting her to answer his rhetoric. Tempting her to admit that the implication of being wanted is great, so yeah. Yeah, maybe this is all I’ve ever needed. )
“Well, I have to admit, it is tiring to have a husband that behaves in such a way when I leave him alone for more than five minutes. He’s so needy.” A mischievous laugh widens her smile, tongue trapped between her teeth to keep in the sound.
“I’m certain you played a part in such behavior. You must have him under one of your spells, witch.”
“You think?”
“Absolutely. He’s bewitched .”
Niles kisses the corners of her mouth. Jillian’s whimpers turn into actual cries.
He tries to move from behind her to go first, but she’s up before he realizes. “I’ll go this time, but then it’s on you.”
“Are you sure?”
She simply nods, and, just as she reaches the door, he says her name.
“Mhm?”
Her husband offers her a 400 lux beam. “I’m proud of you, too, C.C. Very much .”