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12.
April is catharsis and closure. The month truly begins only halfway through, on a day she’s half an hour early for an appointment, a Friday.
For most of the day, time seems to crawl by and Carol has the distinct feeling of being adrift for hours on hours on hours until, with a whir, all the sounds and colours and sensations rush back and the room caves in with a single, steadfast No, I don’t think so.
(That is the closure.)
As it is, the appointment at Ritz ends up a flop and Carol misplaces her beret on the ride to the Plaza afterwards. Yet, by the end of the night, she’ll have sold the Sheraton-style wooden cabinet for twice its worth with a price actually thrown out carelessly hoping the deal will fall through. And that won’t even be the highlight of the evening. No, not even close.
Not when there’s ten twenty-seven at the Oak Room.
A drifting gaze, an urgent ma’am, my sincerest apologies but you need a reserv— and when their eyes meet, the entire month is saved. Everything else that follows is a stream of fragmented sensations.
There is the sturdy wood of the chair drawn from an adjoining table and the texture of Therese’s suit jacket, briefly, brushing past. The muted murmur of voices and nothing else registering but for the singular awareness of Therese, by her side. And afterwards, a fierce we’re going back to my apartment that brooks no room for discussion followed by the actual, solid warmth of Therese pressed up next to her in the back of a taxi. And then streets and lights and people that mingle to a blur until all of a sudden, they’re washed up on sixty-third street.
Carol steps out; the night air crisp and brimming with hope, anticipation.
“Therese—”
“Don’t…”
A sigh. Then, “Don’t take the fifth step. It squeaks.”
Of course.
It’s past eleven now.
Then, there is the room — shelves rearranged, still smelling of paint fumes; where there is no space that Carol can see herself fitting into, in this life that Therese has rebuilt for herself. Still, she can try.
And Carol tries. But sorry is met by a glare, how’ve you really been by pursed lips, and there is only so much Carol can work with when the only reply is stony silence. But when she finally moves to stand, Therese’s hand shoots out abruptly, a white hot flame licking onto her wrist and with so much force that Carol finds herself lurching forward, closer, close enough that when Therese speaks, her words seem to reverberate from within Carol herself.
“I haven’t been to hell and back just for you to ask me how I’ve been. I want us to talk. About actual things. I want you to tell me what you mean.”
Therese’s eyes are liquid fire boring into hers.
And so, Carol talks. Slowly at first and then the words spill out — thoughts and memories and things she’s wanted to say but there never was the right time. It still isn’t — now, but every syllable that slips past her lips makes her feel lighter, and really, is there ever a right time?
Even if there were, Carol doesn’t think she cares much for it. To finding the right time and place and whatever else the world would like to dictate of her. All she needs is for it to be enough, for Therese, please. And in the quiet darkness that isn’t even Friday anymore — after her words have dried up but before Therese tilts her head to the side and kisses her, Carol finally gets her answer: It is in the weight of Therese’s chin resting on her shoulder and the quiet murmur that follows a moment later — “You shouldn’t need forgiveness for loving someone. For trying to.”
Therese’s voice is softer now, gentler, granting her an absolution she isn’t supposed to need, but oh, she does. Need it. So much.
(And that is the catharsis.)
One hundred and seven days after the first day of 1953, along with the coming of spring, the year finally begins anew for Carol.
11.
May is endless summer and stolen kisses in empty alleyways after dinners that stretch on for too damn long. Honestly, it’s hardly Carol’s fault when her gaze drifts to Therese’s wine-stained lips, red and moist and so very kissable, for the tenth time in the past hour.
(“Of course. I heard you, darling.”)
The address given afterwards to the taxi driver is always on sixty-third street, with its bright green walls that have faded somewhat as the paint settles in.
“Green is good. For the eyes, I mean. It’s less straining and reduces visual fatigue,” Therese explains as they curl up in her single bed.
It’s a tight fit — a few more inches to the left and Carol may just about tumble off the side like on the first night. She shifts away anyhow, smiling, because only Therese would give so much thought to something like the colour on the walls. The silence isn’t so much as an extended pause. Carol peppers a trail of kisses starting from the hollow of Therese’s throat, waiting for her to find the right words for whatever that’s still on her mind.
“Also, I think… in a way, it reminded me of you. Green,” Therese finally says.
The words seem to amplify themselves in the tiny box of a room and Carol freezes, hardly daring to breathe; not wanting to break the moment and wanting, so very desperately, to hear more of Therese’s thoughts — honest and unfiltered.
“Sometimes there’s just… a colour, you know?” Therese continues. “Even when it isn’t supposed to have one. A smell or feeling or just — I know it sounds—“
No, not silly. Not ridiculous at all. Never.
“No, I know.”
Therese looks down, meeting her gaze. “You see colours in things too?”
Her lips curl up into a smile again. “I do now,” Carol says.
And it’s the truth — May is bright, brilliant, the entire spectrum of colours set ablaze.
10.
June is the lingering taste of tomatoes and a nameless face from those four months at the start of the year coming back to haunt her.
Every night, she walks down an endless maze of corridors trying to leave the psychiatric ward at Saddlebrook Institute; to leave the flickering images on peeling walls; to leave — him. But with a stretched Cheshire smile and manic glint in his eyes, he's always there, in her dreams. And Therese is gone.
But when she snaps awake, Therese is once again solid and real and right by her side. Carol could just about sob in relief. The green box of a room that registers next is just as comforting. Carol even has a key now — something cold and metallic thrust into her hands the first week of June. In her palms, it had felt warm and alive, beating with a tiny heartbeat. She’d stared at it for a long moment. Beside her, Therese went back to thumbing through the pages of the play she was reading and nothing more was said.
Slowly, surely, the distance is dwindling.
Therese tells her about Dannie McElroy, how he’d encouraged her to apply for the job at Times and the way he seems to know everything from physics to the role of high contrast lighting in contemporary films. Carol has even seen him once before, at a party Therese insisted she come along to. For all that Dannie supposedly knows, he’d stumbled over her name Mrs…uh, Aird like he’d never before spoken to a woman over thirty.
Then, there is Genevieve Cantrell, a name thrown out casually yet Carol hears in it a whole story. But she does not press. Another time, Carol tells herself. In the future, when Therese trusts her enough to hand over not just a key but her entire heart (and that day will come soon, soon, soon).
There’s also Alec Johnson, whose mix up at the office nearly has a gigantic printout of a black labrador on the front page instead of the new Hungarian prime minister. The most absurd thing, Therese tells her with a dimpled grin, is that the first thing that’d crossed her mind was how much printing ink they’d be wasting rather than the potential defamation suit. Then, she laughs, and anything at all seems possible.
That is how, midway through the month and reckless after a few drinks, Carol finds herself flinging out the question —
“There’s a trip I have to make. Next week, to D.C.. Would you like to…?”
Therese looks away and takes a long sip of whiskey. Carol reads the answer out of her long before she replies.
“I’m…not ready. So soon after,” Therese eventually says.
“Of course.”
“But soon.” Therese turns back, meeting her gaze. “Will you…?”
More than anything else, Therese’s apprehension hurts.
“Therese,” Carol huffs. “Of course I’ll wait.”
9.
July is questions. Implied, half-joking, missing all but the rising inflection at the end; then, finally, at three in the morning, tangled up in each other with sweat cooling off her body and heart still racing, plainly, “would you like to live with me?”
The silence should be only too telling. But she’s never claimed to not be a fool. Carol asks, again — stupidly, recklessly, hopefully.
“I don’t need you to survive,” Therese finally tells her in one of their late night conversations. The month is already almost over. Her tone is matter-of-fact, empty of any intent to wound. That makes it worse.
“I don’t need you to live. I don’t think anyone should have that burden,” she says, and Carol is struck once again by how much Therese has matured in their time apart. “If I move in, I want to be… sure. Not because I don’t love you. I just want to know that it won’t be the same — as before. I mean, not that anything will—“
“You don’t have to. Right now,” Carol blurts out. In the dark, she can’t see Therese’s expression; only the gravity in her tone and the weight of her words, and a moment later, the sensation of Therese’s hand brushing past her lips. Then, all at once, there’s a sharp, stinging pain as Therese pinches her cheek, hard.
“You’re so impatient sometimes, you know that?”
Carol blinks into the darkness, too startled to even react.
“What I’m trying to say is that if I move in, I won’t ever want to leave. But I think…” Therese pauses, breathing deeply in a way that reminds Carol of a diver preparing to jump off a springboard; then, she says, “I mean, I am. Ready. I choose you, Carol. I’m ready — to go home now.”
Carol inhales sharply. It makes sense now — the deep breath that Therese just took. All the air in the room seems to have evaporated and she feels breathless and lightheaded.
“Of course,” she whispers, not caring how her voice cracks midway through.
The question then becomes how to pack up an entire apartment in a single day and does she even still remember what the address on Madison is?
8.
August is entirely too hard to grasp onto.
“I hate it,” Therese declares.
Three weeks since shifting in, two weeks into August, and Therese has so much work that she’s even started bringing some home. Carol can’t claim to being even a quarter as conscientious and frankly, she doesn’t exactly care to be. And so, while Therese sorts through stacks of photographs in the living room, she usually flips through any old magazine on the sofa just behind, revelling in the companionable silence.
“Take a break, silly. You’ve been at that the whole afternoon.”
Carol looks up when she doesn’t get a reply.
There’s a stiffness to Therese’s frame that she can tell has nothing to do with the drudgery of work and alarm bells start ringing in Carol’s head. Flinging the magazine onto the seat behind, she shifts to the edge of the sofa and peers over Therese’s shoulder. It takes one look at the photograph crumpled in Therese’s hands for Carol to understand at once.
“Well, aren’t you just a romantic at heart,” she says — lightly, but her attempt at levity isn’t appreciated the least.
Therese glares up at her, looking offended, even angry. Yet, alongside the reproach, her eyes seem to carry a silent plea. Will you…?
Of course.
Carol lowers herself to the floor immediately and gathers her into her arms. For a long moment, Therese remains rigid against her, but then the stiff tension melts away and Therese sink her entire weight into the embrace.
“I just— I wish…” Therese shakes her head. “God, I don’t even know what I’m saying.”
The photograph flutters out of her hands, onto the floor.
The Kiss. Carol remembers seeing it while flipping through the latest issue of Life. Almost a decade now, this time of the year too. A kiss right in the middle of Time Square, celebrating the end of the war — brazen and unrestrained and entirely romantic in its cavalier nature. In the photo, the sailor’s dark uniform is a stark contrast against the lady’s white dress. Forming the exact polarity, Carol supposes, that defines a proper relationship in the eyes of society at large.
And mostly, Carol doesn’t give half a damn what anyone else should think of her — who she wants by her side, always, or how she plans to spend the rest of her life. Even so, there are those moments when she just craves to kiss that smudge of sauce on the corner of Therese’s lips while they’re having a meal outside. Or a tingle in the tips of her fingers, wanting to clasps Therese’s hand in hers while they’re walking down the street.
But what is there to say? Therese isn’t asking for a solution, and she has none to give.
All that comes to mind is to draw Therese closer to her, and in the privacy of their apartment where law and propriety and the opinions of the well-meaning, God-fearing public be damned, Carol does just that.
7.
September is settling into routines and an overabundance of salt.
Chiefly, there is the alarm at seven sharp every day of the hellish workweek — and that is just the start. For all the praises the realtor had sung about that steal of an eighth-floor unit on Madison Avenue, he’d conveniently forgotten to mention the goddamned fucking pipes. How they rattle and groan when the shower in the ensuite is turned on like some sick joke of a monkey-led ensemble bent on shattering the last of Carol’s hope for an undisturbed morning.
Yet somehow, their first fight is wholly unrelated to those extra minutes of sleep Carol misses each morning, or Therese having to reach over her and fumble for the light switch in the middle of the night when Carol inevitably forgets to turn off her bedside lamp — again.
In fact, it’s almost laughable.
“Why haven’t you said anything before?” Therese demands.
“Because there’s actually nothing at all to say.” Carol says, trying to keep her voice even. Really, she most definitely does not possess the mental acuity necessary to manoeuvre out of what looks to be a brewing argument before even nine in the morning. There is only the hope that coffee will tide her over.
She reaches for her cup but, quicker yet, Therese had snatched it away.
“Like hell you’re drinking that!”
“Therese!” Carol exclaims, shock more than outrage.“You’ve got something coming if you think I’m going to work without my coffee.”
But Therese pushes away from the table and a moment later, the coffee is emptied with a flourish. “How often?” she demands, dropping the cup into the sink and whirling back.
Carol sighs. “Just today.”
Therese narrows her eyes, glaring fixedly at her and after a beat, Carol grudgingly corrects herself — “Just twice this week.”
“This week?” Therese repeats, almost choking on the words. “Does that mean…”
…that it’s been almost two months since moving in and more often than not, for Carol, mornings have started with a cup of generously salted coffee?
(Yes.)
“It’s not that terrible,” Carol says, standing and moving closer. Even now, she can’t help the small quirk in her lips at the wide-eyed alarm on Therese’s face. But Therese is furious.
“Don’t do that,” she snaps, twisting away from Carol’s grasp. “You’d have just…drank it all down, if I hadn’t accidentally—… no, you have been doing that the past god-knows-how-many…”
It’s just a teaspoon of salt and the grin that lights up Therese’s face when Carol takes her first sip is sweetness enough to chase away the bizarre taste. But this has nothing to do with a misplaced salt label or any white lies she might’ve said about her morning coffee, Carol realises.
She reaches out again, succeeding this time, with a hand placed gingerly on Therese’s shoulder; and the words tear themselves out of Therese suddenly, harsh and abrupt.
“Do you have any idea — the salt, the amount of sodium…? Do you even— high blood pressure — you can’t be that stupid. It does horrible things to your heart and people die damn it. You already smoke, so goddamned much, and I just…”
She breaks off, breathing heavily and Carol finds herself entirely at a loss.
There is the initial impulse to brush the words aside, to call Therese a liar because she so clearly enjoys it in the way she stares — at the trail of smoke, at the cigarette hanging off the edge of Carol’s mouth, at her lips. Lips that, more often than not, Therese leans forward to taste, hungrily, and Carol is only too happy to oblige.
It's so much easier to laugh it away when the actual issue is something that’s yet again well beyond either of their control. But Carol stamps it out.
“I’m here now, Therese,” she says instead. “I’m fine.”
Therese looks up; an expression that's young and vulnerable and so very helpless, hanging onto her every word.
“Again. Say it.”
So, Carol does.
“We’re fine,” she promises, at once; and Carol says it, again and again and again and hopes that the universe and all the futures she’s imagined for herself and Therese are listening as well.
6.
October is sleepless nights and the smirk she tries to keep off her face (but fails to, mostly).
There are horror movie reruns every other day that Therese’s curiosity demands they watch even if it scares her witless. Then, whenever Abby drops by, there are the sharp nudges Carol has to dispense when Abby takes too much delight recounting questionable first-hand encounters with the supernatural but Therese just can’t seem to stop listening once the story’s started.
“It’s that imagination of yours, that mind — always whirring about,” Carol tells her, tapping Therese on the forehead.The entire week after watching House of Wax in 3D has Carol putting down whatever she’s doing to turn the lights on before Therese dares to venture into any room. Carol obliges most willingly, of course, gracious enough even with the follow-up offer of staying behind after she flips the switch in the bathroom for Therese. She can't even pretend to hide her smirk anymore.
Yet, it’s Carol’s own imagination that jolts her awake almost every night of the month, up to the last week, the very last day. Her nightmares are back.
Eyes fly open; a sharp gasp, and the night air rushes back into her lungs — colder now this time of the year. In the dark, everything seems to press closer. But when Carol moves to get out of bed, the pressure on her shoulders has nothing to do with the nightmare looming at the edge of reality.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Therese asks, voice still edged in sleep. She slides her hands down to wrap around Carol’s waist. Then, a kiss is pressed into the spot where shoulders meet the neck. Carol slumps back. Her sigh is long and drawn-out.
No, she doesn’t want to talk about it. She’s had to live in it, live through it. She just wants it gone.
“I know, I know,” Therese whispers, seeming to hear in her sigh everything that Carol does not say. Then, Therese shifts back and tugs at her until Carol finds herself leaning against the headboard.
“They’re just…words,” she says. But eyes shut, head resting on Therese’s shoulder and her mind just. Won’t. Stop. The only connection tethering her to reality is Therese’s left hand in her right, and their intertwined fingers.
“I don’t think you get to decide that,” Therese says, a hand to her cheek in a gentle caress. “When…before. Even when I said I told myself otherwise, there was a part of me that…I guess, never gave up. Hoping. And waiting too, for a perpetual sunrise.”
Months have passed now, but the tendrils of guilt that reach out are only all-too familiar.
“I know… that was hardly enough.”
“No it wasn’t,” Therese agrees, but after a beat, adds, “It shouldn’t be enough or this wouldn’t be what it is.”
“And what’s this?”
The question is a faint whisper that exhaustion has reduced Carol’s voice to and the thumb tracing soothing circles on Carol’s cheek pauses as Therese thinks of a reply.
Finally, she says, “I used to think…a white flower. Pale and delicate. Submerged in water but you still see it — the way it dances when there’s ripples on the surface. How it’s shimmers even in the dark. But I could never imagine touching it, or even coming close to. And that’s not true anymore, I don’t think.”
A lovely image, she thinks, but like Therese said it’s still not quite right. But Carol figures that’s as good an answer as any other and they sit in a comfortable silence. Eventually, with Therese holding her and to the steady rhythm of Therese’s breathing, she falls asleep.
Just like that, October is gone.
5.
November is Junior Photo Editor emblazoned on a name card.
It’s just shy of ten months since Therese started work at the Times but the promotion is entirely well-deserved. But that also makes her all the more busy. So busy, so sleep-deprived even, that despite insisting on a proper celebration over the weekend, Therese falls asleep before Carol can strip her down. The situation is simply too absurd for Carol to even begin to feel affronted.
Thankfully, it gets better the second-half of the month.
Three weeks into November, Therese finally gets back in time for a shared dinner on a Friday.
“One street away and we haven’t even been there. Not once,” she says, clinking her fork onto the the plate for emphasis. No context is given.
“Been where?” Carol prompts after a minute. Looking up, she finds Therese staring vacantly out of the window, looking like she hasn’t even heard her words.
But then, the fork is half-thrown onto the plate and Therese turns back to her excitedly. “We’re going to Central Park tomorrow,” she declares.
Carol blinks. “We are?”
Therese gives an emphatic nod. “I’m tired of all these photos of landscape and scenery and places in general. They just look so lifeless and dull. And there’s all these random people who just don’t fit in. I want you. I want photos of you. I want to be the one taking them.”
Her enthusiasm is contagious and a smile tugs at Carol’s lips.
“I suppose I would make a terrible muse to refuse the offer,” Carol says, pretending to think hard for a decision that hardly requires much thought at all.
Therese grins.“Let’s go at ten.”
This time, her wary look is a genuine one.
“Okay, ten thirty? Ten for— Fine. Eleven?”
Pursed lips and silence.
“Carol.”
The impasse lasts for all but thirty seconds before, with a sigh, comes a grudging, “Oh, alright.”
Is there anything at all that Therese cannot convince her to agree to?
(Having omelettes, maybe.)
(Just maybe)
They end up setting off at eleven forty the next day.
4.
What December is (was):
- extended lunches and elaborate dinners
- too much champagne and still reaching out for another glass yet
- trying to sound interested in the newest potpie recipe
- a season of misery
But everything that was December, it no longer is.
Finally, ten years overdue but definitely not too late, this year is different. Yet, her edginess hangs on, a fly buzzing in her ear that Carol can’t seem to swat away.
“She’s not going to mind if the wrapper isn’t symmetrical, Carol,” Therese tells her, amused.
The entire day, she wraps and rewraps the puzzle set and stack of books. Rindy’s Christmas presents. But every single time, it just doesn’t look right. It crumples around the edges and creases at odd places. And the paper looks too dull — she knew she should’ve gotten that other shade of red instead goddamnit.
Her response is an annoyed don’t tell me what she’ll mind or not.
Carol regrets the words immediately but the apology hangs on her lips, refusing to fall out. Therese stays up with her till three in the morning anyway. She sits close by, quiet company mostly. But also, when Carol reaches out for the bottle of whiskey yet again, Therese sits forward, distracting her with an unexpected kiss and suddenly the bottle is well out of her reach. Not even the harassed glare and irritable mutterings Carol directs at her moves Therese to hand the whiskey over.
It’s to good discretion too. With what she’s managed to drink, Carol already feels a dull throb pressing against her temples the next morning. She stands at the tall windows by the living room, cup of coffee steaming in her hands and looking out at the empty street below, with no idea what she’s doing up this early either.
Anticipation, perhaps — Christmas coming in ten days, but Rindy will be here earlier, on the twenty-second. That’s the most Harge is willing to relent to but Carol would willingly grasp onto anything for the first glimpse of her precious girl since…what now, early March?
A rustle from behind has Carol looking back inside.
For all the late nights Therese has been having, she retains a bounce in her step. It’s almost mind-boggling. Three more steps and she’s is right in front of Carol. Therese rises up on her tiptoes and gives her a peck on the lips as she usually does each morning. But leaning back afterwards, Therese looks almost annoyed.
“Am I intruding on your early morning solitude?” Carol asks, only half-teasing. It doesn’t seem entirely inconceivable for Therese to feel territorial about her time alone before workday busyness.
But instead of answering, Therese leans back in and wraps her in a loose embrace, letting out a contented sigh.
The cup of coffee in Carol’s hands is just about starting to cool when Therese steps away, an expression of utmost seriousness. A long moment passes and Carol gazes back, bemused and with growing alarm until , in a grim tone, Therese tells her, “Don’t you dare leave our bed again before I give you your morning kiss.”
Then Carol is laughing.
3.
The last few days of 1953 are quiet. On a whim, Carol mentions the idea of a road trip. Of course, Therese is clearly too busy, too involved in work to take any time away and Carol doesn’t actually care about the where so much as who she’ll be spending her time with. Still, they toy with the idea just for the hell of it.
The Sunday before New Years, they curl up on the sofa in the living room and Carol paints a picture against the canvas of the night — strolling down unfamiliar streets; exploring dusty old shops tucked away in side-alleys; maybe even stumbling onto another circus and this time, they’ll watch the full trapeze act instead of sneaking off midway.
Therese even brings back a map from the office the next day. They trace out various routes — from thirty minute drives to day long car rides. The orange marker they use turns New York into a tiny sun and every road trip they won’t be making crooked rays of light scattering out. But truly, Carol does not care as where they’ll be on New Years as long as Therese is by her side.
And with the year drawing to a close, everything seems to be finally catching up on them — the exhaustion is crippling. She even catches Therese dozing off in the shower, twice, still standing upright.
Yet somehow, December 31 is spent at a party.
A friend of a friend of a friend of a colleague, Therese tells her. But coincidentally Dannie will be there before flying off to Europe for half a year the next day and she hasn’t managed to see him in three months. Of course, Therese is just as adamant about spending it her and that’s how Carol finds herself crushed amidst a loud, excitable, young crowd in a balcony that can hardly fit five people, let alone fifteen, on the very last day of 1953.
Somewhere along the night, someone waves a bottle of beer that’s almost empty but not quite and Carol ends up greeting the new year with a stain on her blouse. Yet, the only regret is at the stroke of midnight when fireworks ignite the cloudy night like paint on frosted glass.
“Happy new year, my darling,” she says, pressing closer to Therese, and that’s the most she can do.
But Therese beams back at her. Then, gaze dropping to the smudge on her lapel, she mutters, “Sorry about that.”
Therese reaches out, trying to wipe it off, and her expression — brows stitched in concentration and biting her bottom lip, is so endearingly familiar Carol’s mood lifts immediately.
In any case, are there are not so, so many things to be thankful for? So many reasons to celebrate the year that’s passed and the new one that’s just came to be. Why she shouldn’t be able to find herself in the balcony of some fifth-floor apartment unit somewhere in Greenwich Village with a crowd that’s mostly a decade junior on new year’s eve. Or rather why Therese shouldn’t be here, after all this time, after everything that has happened, still, by her side.
And yet.
A rush of elation sparks fire through Carol’s veins. She leans over to Therese and whispers, “Make it up to me later. At home.”
January — no, the entire year, is filled with possibilities.
2.
February is still too damn cold and the pipes are singing. Seven-ten each morning and the bedroom walls shake with the fury of an entire building caving in and falling apart.
That’s it.
That’s all the sleep she’ll be getting.
Covers flung aside, Carol rises out of bed. The shower is running in the ensuite and when she pushes the door open, a cloud of steam greets her in the face. There are five steps between where she stands by the door and Therese, a hazy outline behind the shower curtain. Therese hums a light, sunny tune entirely oblivious to her presence; Carol has vengeance on her mind.
Because honestly, she has to be doing it on purpose. (One foot forward, then the other) There’s no way in hell the entire — (another step) — safari would have — (and another) — relocated to their — (one more now and—
Carol flinches.
A sudden movement sends a surge of water in her direction, dousing right through her silk robe. A second later, Therese appears from behind the partition, laughing, in her eyes and snatched from her chest.
“Goddamnit, Therese!”
Therese doubles over, laughing harder, with Don’t think I don’t know what you were doing choked out between breaths.
“I wasn’t—“ she begins indignantly.
“Just. Save it,” Therese says, reaching out and tugging the sash off her robe. “Get in before you freeze.”
Well. If words aren’t working…
In one swift motion, the robe is discarded onto the floor and Carol lunges forward, wholly intent on kissing the smugness off Therese’s face. (And of course, just as wholly overlooking the marble floor made even more slippery by the puddles of water from Therese’s shower.)
There’s a sudden, horrible realisation that she’s most definitely going to lose her balance — teetering unsteadily at the odd angle her feet have somehow rearranged themselves to and really, Carol might just as well shut her eyes because the only way this can possibly end is face-first on the tiled floor and an embarrassing story to end all stories not to mention—
And then Therese’s arms wrap around her, steadying her, and the ground rights itself under Carol's feet.
Carol exhales heavily — relief and embarrassment; already, Therese has started cracking up again.
Good God, she’s never going to live this one down.
1.
Anticipation.
March is anticipation. Of what, Carol cannot seem to put a finger on. In the second-last week, she thinks she’s finally figured out why.
“How did you know?” she asks. On the twenty-first, Therese greets her with not just a morning kiss and coffee but an entire breakfast in bed delivered alongside a meaningful look.
“Abby mentioned it last week,” Therese informs her.
Carol glances up sharply. “Therese, I genuinely forgot—“
Therese laughs. “I’m not going to be annoyed, Carol. It’s your birthday. You get to make all the rules and everything." She reaches out, hands framing either side of Carol's face, before continuing, "But, fair warning: tomorrow… I may or may not be turning off the hot water when you’re in the shower.”
Her voice carries nothing but a pinch of exasperation and Carol feels so very ridiculous all at once. Just as exasperated at herself as Therese seems to be with her. The feeling wells up and with a violent tug, she has Therese tumbling forward into her with a high-pitched yelp. But after a well-placed jab just under her ribs that pull out an equally surprised admonishment of Therese from her, their lips meet in a slow, languid kiss.
And yet, it lingers — an anxious readiness, waiting for something she has no idea what or why and the feeling stays, in the back of her mind, refusing to leave and distracting her until finally,
0.
at long last, April again. A full circle.
At the end of the second week, Therese crosses something off in her planner and declares, “That’s a year.”
There’s a moment of silent appraisal as Carol considers her from the other end of the sofa. Overly pale visage and half-moons under her eyes. And didn’t Carol hear a sneeze in the morning? But Therese shoots her a look — almost impatience, and realisation sinks in.
April 17.
“One year,” Carol murmurs.
Therese looks back at her journal and continues scribbling in it. Carol strains to hear but can’t seem to tell if there’s actually a trace of sullenness in the silence. She slides a foot up Therese’s calf, wriggling her toes on the inside of her thigh and after a few beats Therese finally peers up, looking exasperated.
“Carol. You don’t even remember putting the casserole in the oven and that’s just thirty minutes.”
It’s true. They’d just had to smoke the oven out on Tuesday — again.
“So…a bouquet of roses or those liquored truffles you like from the shop in Queens?” Carol asks, sheepish, but still trying for a winning smile. (It probably turns out more as a grimace and Therese gives an unimpressed snort.)
Then, shutting her planner with a yawn, Therese stands up. Then, turning to her, she extends both hands, saying, “Right now, I just want to go to bed. You should too. Sleep — or at least, try to.”
Try. Because Rindy is will be here again tomorrow for the second time this month. And Carol has Dr Seuss to thank for that. Therese too, for helping to pick out If I Ran the Zoo for Rindy last month. Since then, a visit to the zoo has become an utmost necessity and just as importantly, mommy must be there too pretty please.
Therese flutters her fingers impatiently and Carol slips her hands into Therese’s, letting herself be pulled up from the sofa.
They’re halfway down the hallway before Therese adds, “And by the way, it’s neither. Let’s just stay in on Sunday and…sleep.”
Well, if the entire weekend isn't just shaping up nicely.
Carol chuckles.
But in typical April fashion, rain is falling down in sheets from first light the next day. On top of that, there’s Therese, stirring awake bleary-eyed and with a voice like cracked gravel. (So, that had been a sneeze Carol had heard yesterday.)
“Wake m’up when we’ve to go,” Therese mumbles, clearly failing to notice the rain drumming heavily against the windowpanes. She drops her head back onto the pillow, out like a light again. And yet, fifteen minutes after Rindy arrives, Therese is up and out from the bedroom, blanket tucked around her like a makeshift cape.
Aunt Ta-reeeeez.
Just over four months since a proper introduction and already, Therese has won over Rindy’s heart with the bright winking contraption of her camera flash. Dimples too, probably, Carol suspects.
Then, there are the pretty, colourful pictures that Therese painstakingly works on for whole afternoons over weekends. Timer and fixer trays scattered all over the guest bathroom and the water that absolutely cannot be heated a degree higher or lower than she’s requested. She tints them — photographs taken every single time Rindy’s visits, into purples and pinks and a yellowish-orange that reminds Carol of a dandelion in summer. And just before Rindy leaves, the photographs, tied together with a ribbon and bow, are entrusted to her
“Hi, Rindy,” Therese says, with a shy expression Carol doesn’t think she’s seen cross Therese’s face in months now. An arm angled outwards outwards, Rindy is welcomed into the safe cocoon of her makeshift cape.
“Did you ask San-ta yet? When he’s coming back. I miss him.”
And of course, there’s the matter of Therese being one of the elves who’d worked at Santa’s workshop last Christmas.
Therese chuckles. “He’s still busy making you a new train, Rindy.”
Carol watches them — watches as Therese glances back at her with a wink then ushers Rindy to the living room. She watches and forgets what she’s even doing kneeling on the floor by the hallway entrance and why a voice in her head is trying to convince her that Scrambled Eggs Super! is clearly an excellent book to reread and just as fun as going to the zoo until a shrill voice calls out.
“Mommy. Mommy!”
With a shake of her head to disperse her scattered thoughts, Carol stands up and walks over, finding them snuggled up on the sofa.
“We want food,” Rindy pipes up. Just in time, Therese’s belly grumbles, loudly and the last of the fog in Carol’s mind disappears with the sound Rindy’s delighted giggle and Therese’s sheepish well…um, yes. ‘We’.
“Let’s see what I can do,” she says, and everything up to the ache in her jaw she has from smiling just feels so real and present.
But fifteen minutes later and a tray of chicken noodle soup scrapped up to the best of her ability, Carol comes back to find them both fast asleep — entirely oblivious to the rain pouring from the eaves and that one window with a loose hinge that squeaks and rattles in the wind.
It was yet another thing Carol had never bothered to check before signing off the lease but Therese stopped her when she’d suggested getting it fixed.
“I like it,” Therese had remarked. “It’s something only you’d forget and I love that. I love our home.”
Our home.
Home.
Tomorrow, Rindy will be snatched out her life again. She’s got kindergarten and the beagle daddy brought home last year and now even colour television too, delivered right after Christmas. How exactly does Carol expect to contend with all that? And the day after, Therese will probably bundle herself up in too many layers and wave off the suggestion to taking a day off work. Carol herself too, she’ll have to be up at goddamned seven forty-five latest and suppress the urge to roll her eyes every time someone drops by the furniture house with an okay, but honestly, what’s the best price?
But on April 17 1954, Carol sits on the hardwood floor next to the sofa where her two darlings are fast asleep. The bowls of soup cool on the coffee table yet she can’t bear waking either Therese or Rindy; instead, she closes her eyes and thinks that finally, finally,
she is home.
