Archive of Our Own

Plush, plump pillows around me shift as I do, my nightgown threatening to spill over my own personal mountain until I prevent it. Try as I might to be comfortable, circumstance disallows it. Nevertheless, I try to still as my husband softly gasps at a soft movement within me, and unrivalled happiness stretches his already-present smile further. My momentary peevishness evaporates as his warm gaze glistens with unshed tears. 

Shirtsleeves rolled up, top button undone, hair dishevelled, he looks as perfect as ever— even if he is bent at an awkward angle over my exposed, protruding belly. The pinard horn attached to his ear slides slowly over navel and curve at his command until it pauses, Renoir locking eyes with mine.

“I hear it, Aline,” he whispers. “I hear it!” 

His excitement temporarily banishes the discomfort of pregnancy and beneath my sternum you, our second child, respond in kind to your father’s voice. 

“He also hears you, my love,” I inform him quietly. My fingers are already cupping the underside of my womb— the closest I’ll get to holding you for many weeks yet. My ankles throb lightly beneath satin sheets. Beneath my nightgown, my breasts ache with a familiarity I now recognise. My back protests for standing at the Canvases for too long now. My body aches and stretches in this, a most natural process, and yet watching my husband’s eyes shine with unshed, joyous tears, I find I cannot find myself to care about the discomfort. “I wish you could hear this, Aline. It is most magical! A hummingbird’s clock, winding up for its first cuckoo.”

My chuckle jostles him from his awkward listening outpost momentarily, earning me a grin and wink. 

“Soon enough, when he is in my arms.”

A small cough interrupts us. Our doctor, a short, well-dressed portly man with a fashionably large moustache draws our attention. “If I may, ma’am, there is a new invention on the market that may allow you to do just that.” He is already reaching into his Gladstone bag — a functional, modern little thing from the British Isles — and draws out a curious device. Double-pronged and floppy, he presents it aloft with pride. 

“It’s a stethoscope, madame! Simply put these earpieces in, hold the discus end to your womb like so,” he gestures to the horn in Renoir’s hand, “and you too can listen.” 

It was almost an excitable sales pitch given his enthusiasm, and yet I could not help but let intrigue and curiosity wash over me. Renoir looks from the…stetho…scope… to me, a question in his eyes. It was my choice, of course. He would always support my choices, your dear father, just as he will yours, little one.

Silently, I hold out a hand for it, the white lace of my sleeve sliding along to elbow. With only mild chagrin do I note that my arm is bare of paint, the inability to stand or stay stool-seated for long periods now limiting my time there. That, and the smell of oils brings a gag to my throat. 

Under the watchful eyes of your now-standing father, the doctor deposits his instrument in my palm. The scope is … cold. Cool. It feels unnatural and invasive as I equip it as instructed, the shape uncomfortable in my ears. Renoir, my darling sentinel, frowns at my purse of displeasure, but I simply carry on, indicating my wellness. 

I was not prepared for the shock of the metal— a gasp leaves me as I drop the circular plate from my hand. 

“Oh-! Begging your pardon, Madame Dessendre. I forgot to warn you that the metal should be warmed a little before use,” he frets, shying away as Renoir turns his intense, unkind gaze the doctor’s way. 

“Ah, yes. Well, please remember for future mothers and patients you are inflicting this on,” I chastise sharply, picking it back up. Now properly warned, I hold it against palm, sketching small circles over and over until the metal no longer feels hostile. Resuming my initial placement, I move it around cautiously in an attempt to hear something. Anything. 

Renoir, my darling husband, crouches now, eye level with your house, watching me intensely for any displeasure. He surely finds it as my mouth pinches  in growing frustration as all I can hear are unpleasant gurgles and low, roaring vacuum. A thump-thump-thump drums in time with my own pulse. “Useless,” I mutter, temper short. 

“Here,” he says, although his voice is muted and muffled. His hand, calloused with creation, rests atop mine and guides my fumbling expedition over my own body. We settle to the bottom-right of my navel and I cannot hear anything until—

Whumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhumpwhump—

The second gasp of this appointment leaves me sharper and more surprised than the first. It disrupts the discovery, breaking my connection to you-!

“Oh!”

The smile on my husband’s face is like the dawn breaking a dark sky. 

“There they are, Aline. Our second child. Healthy and alive.”

Finding your heartbeat is simpler again, and I stare in wonder. This appointment had started with concerns over the baby not moving as much as Clea had, and now I sit in reassured marvel with audible proof that you are well. Cupping my belly once more, I sit in wonder and fascination as your heartbeat fills my senses now from both inside and out. Whether my own heart drums my joy or you innately know, a smile is brought to my lips when a soft pressure meets my fingers. Stroking my thumb over your coin-sized heel, we connect through flesh and womb for a moment. 

Minutes last lifetimes as I listen to your life, vibrant and solid. It is difficult to give the scope back to the doctor, but he promises to bring it to all future appointments. He even gives the name of his manufacturer should we like to procure one for ourselves. Packing away his notes and utensils while I right nightdress and sheets, he addresses us both politely. 

“You've a quiet one this time around, as you know. Likes to hide a little, hence the difficulty finding his heartbeat to begin with, but otherwise seems to be on the road to being a very happy, healthy baby.” There is a slight pause in his words as he searches for the correct thing to say. My hands lay tidily in my lap now (a feat becoming a little more difficult by the day), and his apprehension has me slowly clutching for satin. 

“I am none too happy with baby’s presentation at the moment,” he finally gets out. “There’s still time for him to settle nice and merry for a straightforward delivery, so I don’t think intervention at this stage is required. I’d prefer to see if nature will take its course. However, if baby doesn’t settle, then we may need to be prepared for it being delivered back-to-back.”

Renoir, my husband, my guardian, my devoted friend, glances to me first with a worried question in his eyes. I answer for us.  “And what does that mean, Doctor? Clea was a straightforward delivery — a surprise to us both given how acrobatic she was in gestation.”

“Well,” the doctor starts, drawing a deep breath as if about to lecture. “It- well. Basically, madame et monsieur, it means that we’re going to have to be prepared to be more delicate with delivery. It also means,” he continues with a sympathetic wince in my direction, “that labour could be decidedly more, ah, uncomfortable than you experienced previously.” 

For the next several minutes, your father slowly hounds the doctor with question-upon-question. The doctor’s explanation continues with a comprehensible, intelligent description of the various complications and difficulties, as well as advice to aim to preventing such a thing occurring. My knuckles are as white as the satin scrunching beneath my fingers. Unamused with pessimism, I interrupt the interrogation. “I see. Thank you, Doctor. That will be all.”

His jaw snaps shut— an altogether comical image as  his walrus moustache jostles from end-to-end with the motion — and he clears his throat. Heeding his dismissal, the doctor bows, dons his hat, and shuffles out Renoir crowds him out of the sanctuary of our bedroom and closes the door. 

“Aline-” he starts from the other end of the room. 

“Renoir,” I warn in response. “I am fine. I have birthed before, I will do so again. It is going to happen regardless and worrying about it now will accomplish nothing.” I place a hand atop the summit of my pregnancy. “We will simply meet it come the time.” 

Saying nothing, soft footfalls cross the room until there is a depression in the bed. Sitting beside me, an arm shields me over my shoulders and a kiss is pressed into my hair. 

“You are a remarkable woman, Aline Dessendre.”

I silently smile at the compliment and lean into him. “And I do so enjoy hearing it, my love.” 

Feeling safe, my hand runs over the global curve of my abdomen, pausing where the stethoscope had come to rest. “I think I would like one of those stethoscopes. It soothes me.” 

As before, a large, familiar hand covers my own.  “I’ll have one here by tomorrow.” Beneath the touch of your parents, you shift as if sighing below. Beyond the walls of our home and estate, Paris continues with its own thrum of life. 

“It was a little like a hummingbird,” I acknowledge thoughtfully, recalling how Renoir described it. “A beautiful little, hardworking drumbeat. Too fast to be a metronome — not that I could play anything I can compose right now,” I grumble, wearily, stealing a glance at the growing bump before me. Already bigger than Clea ever was, if quieter. My souring mood is brief and momentary as a fond chuckle shifts us both. 

“You can still touch the keys, my dear. You are not yet out of reach of music.” His pause is almost convincing as reassurance before, “give it a few more weeks, however, and the foot pedals might be a problem-”

His laugh fills the room as a pillow meets his face. Beneath silk and skin, you also shuffle as if laughing with your father. I have a feeling you both will be a deadly pair together. 

“Aline.” The name cracks in his throat and breaks on the space between us. My back is ramrod straight, the skirt fisted into my lap-sitting hands long crumpled and messed. The bench beneath us is hard and uncaring. A window shattered unkindly invites in the biting breeze of this grey day. 

“Aline, my love—” he speaks again. “Please,” he pleads. “It’s been weeks.”

I know exactly how long it has been. 

“I just— you need to talk to someone,” he repeats. Again. Incessantly. “It doesn’t have to be me. It doesn’t have to be the family. I- It just-”

This is nothing new. Nothing he says heals or mends. How can he, one who used to be so in tune with my own soul, not hear the absence of my heartbeat? Connected here by cold metal, I feel his warmth. His once-strong, breaking presence. His words wash over me with less notice than the wind invading this space. How does he not hear the emptiness within me? No pulse hums within me and nor will it ever again. There is no talking out of this.

How does he not realise I also died weeks ago when you did, and my body has yet to catch up?

“This cannot go on, Aline. It’s not fair to—”

I do not stay to hear who it is unfair to. Nothing was fair about it. Nothing. 

Nothing.

A broken pottery shard tears at the hem of my dress as I vacate what should have been my sanctum. I care not. The shrivelled petals part as I do. The wilted stems bow their heads low in an extension of my being. I care not. What are material things to someone no longer alive?

You sit snugly on my hip, gesticulating wildly with a story only you understand. Your round cheeks are flushed with excitement, blue eyes alight and crescent-shaped. The string of words aimed my way are multitudinous and varied, clearly of some great import indeed. You have much to say on the subject and I am nothing if not your captive audience. 

Hands, fat and wild, hit my face and necklace in uncontrolled movements and I laugh each time. Securely supporting your small frame  with one arm and hand, my other comes up to move dark curls from your face. It is a fruitless effort as they fall once more, but you don’t mind the motion so I do it again, enjoying the softness, the smell. Little fingers catch at my bottom lip in their expressive travels and I catch your hand softly. Giving it a kiss, I gently hold it between our chests. Your giggle is bubbly and happy, a bright light in my day.

“Careful, my son. You don’t want to hurt anyone with your wild stories, now.” 

Ice-fresh eyes gaze up at me with love uncountable, and a grin reveals a few small, white teeth. How Renoir and I made something so perfect is beyond me and yet here you sit.

This moment is for us, my son. Our hands in the other’s, connecting our heartbeats through the layers of our clothes. I don’t know if you also feel  the specialness of this moment, but it stretches for a time unknown as we gaze at one another in silence and contentment. You sigh once more, head tipping a moment to rest against my shoulder as you watch our hands. I could not name a moment more perfect than this. 

The syllables that mean my name leaves your lips once with contentment. Mah-muh. Satisfaction and rightness floods me from my core outwards until I am enveloped with waves of love— and the moment breaks when soft paws pad into the room. You throw yourself upright and point to the old dog with excited urgency, saying my name over and over again between giggles. Time resumes with your unintelligible tale, now about Monoco ("Mu-co") who is equally enthused to be here, tail wagging as he joins us.

I find I cannot mind the spell being broken, as you are happily thumping between us, pointing and giggling, and my world is complete. 

The smell of smoke will never leave these harsh walls. The tragedy and horror of it all is now baked into the very foundations of this house. Centuries will pass, this manor long crumbled, and the singular bricks and frames remaining will still carry the screams and wails of that horrific day. 

My bed has long been cold with my absence. The dining room has not hosted a meal in months. Fires are forbidden in the hearths. This house died with you, Verso. 

I remain for having nowhere else to go. The world moves on. The times continue. But why should it when-  when you’re-

Night is almost indistinguishable from the days now. The difference is my visitors during the sun hours. Renoir, pleading, watching, hovering, fussing. Clea— demanding, shouting, screaming, condemning, accusing. 

Alicia… Renoir tells me her healing is going as well as can be. It has been some time since her pained screams echoed these empty halls. I assume he must be right. 

Your feet don’t touch the ground while seated on the piano stool and I find it most endearing. Eventually you will sit proud at these keys, but not yet. For now, little knees poke out from shorts, and shoes sway as you focus on keeping in time. 

Your father was the first to notice your long fingers, in the first hour after your birth. “Pianist’s hands, Aline. A student of your own,” he had whispered to me proudly, pressing another kiss to my temple. 

He was right. You had taken to the instrument as I had, enjoying the melodies from crib and basket, until you could sit and reach them on your own. 

Working through an arpeggio back and forth, I step behind you in time walking the width of the piano with each scale. Encouragement and correction leave my lips as you work, warming up to something more difficult. 

Placed above you, swinging to its own measured beat, the metronome tick-tick-ticks. 

Fingers, not yet full-length, slip and a childish grumble sounds in this space. The echo of the last ill-played key fades into silence. 

With a frustrated sigh, you apologise, head bowed low and shameful over the piano. “Sorry, Maman.”

The Guild Leader in me wishes to softly chastise, to instruct to go again. To tell him to pay better attention and question his practise time outside of my own lessons. 

The mother in me halts this, and sees my child upset. 

Lips pursed in this momentary battle of identities, I release the strife with a sigh and place a hand on your small shoulder. As if by instinct, your head dips my way, but does not touch.

“What troubles you about this?”

I wash as you fight your own battle internally, wondering what will get you in the least amount of trouble to answer with, wondering if you should admit to skipping practise as I suspect. Unlike your older sister, who locks it all down and refuses to give anything away, your face paints a picture of your many calculations. Lip curling and mouth twisting, you glare at the keys. 

“It’s that,” you eventually say, shyly pointing up to the metronome still ticking. Once more my mouth pouts with doubt, but I do not speak it. “It’s too loud for me. Throws me off.” 

I wait for perhaps a moment too long to respond as you glance up at me worriedly, before I simply reach across and stop the instrument. It comes to rest, pointing upwards perfectly towards the heavens. 

“Very well, carry on without it and let us hear improvement.”

Releasing a nervous breath, you nod, and continue as told. There is no improvement as once more you slip early. Oh, my son. I do wish you would own your mistakes and misgivings. But that is a conversation for elsewhere. I have little time left before I must leave for an appointment and can only spare the here-and-now for this. 

After failing to fully complete a satisfactory arpeggio, my hand pauses you and you flinch at the touch awaiting chastisement. Standing guard behind you, I rest two hands to sit atop your chest. One-two-three-four-one-two-three-four, I pat lightly. Your shoulders relax, releasing tension, your curls shifting as your head bobs lightly in time.

“Try now. Feel the tempo with me instead.”

And try you do. Against the timed beat of my hands, your heart and hands sound in tandem until fingers are flying confidently across the waiting keys. The confidence in you visibly grows as posture straightens, chin lifts, and cheeks round with a growing smile. 

Music is within your heart as it meets the tap-tap-tap-tap of my hand and for this moment I relish in our connection through climbing highs and falling notes. 

My feet walk silent as I haunt my own house. Night dreams on beyond the glass of repaired windows, and I avoid the childrens’ wing. 

The scaffolding is minimal now, damage long-since painted over. It is as skeletal and hollow as I feel, as I pass under constructed arches. I walk over glass and wish it would crumble beneath me. I climb solid stairs and demand that they break with each step. Leaves remain unswept as I float over them, a spectre in my own glasshouse. 

It takes more effort than I care to acknowledge to lift a vase and throw it, and the explosion of glass scratches a momentary satisfaction within me. Spikes tear and slice as I crawl through the jagged wound. A slipper falls off. My dress shirt frays and splits.  Blood spouts into small rivulets down my arms, legs, hands, cheeks and all the tears sting with exposure to the midnight winds. 

I barely feel it.

Stepping up onto the parapet was not even a conscious decision. My feet plant on hard architecture and I look to the sky in askance. The clouds obscure, and what few stars shoulder their way through look down apathetically. The lights of Paris warmly respond and I spit in fury. 

How dare the world continue when mine has shattered. How dare the sky twinkle with life when his no longer occupies this world. How dare the city beyond laugh and celebrate, carrying on with their pitiful lives. How DARE the grief I hold not envelope everyone in my misery! It isn’t right. None of it is RIGHT!

Give him back! 

(I need him back)

Give him back! 

(I want you back)

GIVE HIM BACK!!

(You need to be here )

GIVE-

(You need to be here!)

HIM—

(Please!)

“Aline!” 

Arms roughly pull me back, crumbling us both into an inelegant heap. 

“NO!”

I fight. I claw. I thrash and kick and scream and shout and yell and scratch and — 

“I know,” he says, subduing me with aggravating ease. He holds both my wrists in a single hand, the other pinning me to him. “I know, my love.” 

His coos and soothing words infuriate me and I weakly shove at him. 

“No!” My head catches his face, warmth bursting from his nose at the contact. Still he holds me fast, the bastard. “Let me g-!”

“I KNOW!” He roars over me, swaddling me with strength and power. “You are not the only one grieving our son, Aline!”

The words strike me harder than any palm could, stilling me into shock. 

“I know, love,” he whispers. 

“No ,” I croak at him, jerking beneath his restraint. 

“Aline… please,” he cries softly, grip loosening. “I know-”

“How! HOW can you know?” I push against his chest and he lets the distance span between us. His arms rest around me in this uncomfortable akimbo and he regards me with a tiredness I have not seen before. “How can you know, Renoir?” I spit. “Do you know what it is to carry them beneath my breast? To feel each movement? Each kick and spasm? Each hiccough and dream? Do you know what it is to share my lifeforce with them? To give every part of my body to creating him?” My voice stutters, unused now to such lengthy periods of speech. Throwing myself from him, I stand, stumbling with imbalance and overestimation. He peers up at me, shadows deeper on his face than they ever have been. 

“How,” I drawl cruelly, pointing at him with accusation. “Can you possibly know what it is to endure the discomfort, the pain, the sleeplessness and fatigue? To be irrevocably, physically changed by our child? To carry him for months before his first breath? To protect him for all that time?” I incriminate, scornful and hating. Each word a glass shard. Each lip curl a blade aimed one way: his. “How can you possibly feel what I feel? How can you possibly know what it is to lose something I made with my entire being? 

“You do not know, Renoir,” I pronounce, scathing and scornful. “So do not presume to lecture me. Do not presume to step on me or stand in my way. I have lost my heart! One that beat with mine, below mine! And nothing-” I throw my arm to the wider world in damning denouncement. “Nothing will fix that or make it better!”

I point down at him, this thin silhouette of a man. “Leave me to grieve, Renoir. Let it swallow me whole for I am a shade now, and I don’t wish to exist without him.”

Shoulders, once strong and broad, slump, the fight blown out of him. 

“I can’t do that, Aline,” he mutters after me. “I swore an oath to protect you when we wed, and I’ll do that until my last breath.” My black look is met with love, and sorrow. “Even if it means protecting you from yourself.” Exhausted eyes flicker to the exposed ledge behind me, his silence speaking knowing volumes.

How dare he intrude on me. How dare he presume what’s best! It should infuriate me. It should fill me with anger and rage and- and fury-!

But I feel nothing. No secret hope that he’ll save me. No quiet, timid whisper of love. No raised hackles or righteous indignation as his dismissal of my demands. 

Just… nothing. Emptiness. 

A void. 

A void where once your essence and happiness rested within me, cradled and safe.

In the quiet of the dark night we regard each other, two souls no longer in tandem or step. 

Just two people living in the same, scarred and broken house. 

I straighten, looking down at him, pathetic and small. “Do as you will, Renoir. I care not. I will seek my peace elsewhere.”

He flinches but lets me leave. Remaining seated, I walk past and back into the house, turning my back on him and his threatening promises of protection. 

My blouse is soaked through with his sweat but I ignore it in favour of holding the compress to your fevered head. Your father watches on, a sleeping bundle that is our youngest held to his chest. Clea, dressed in her night clothes, unable to sleep, sits worriedly at the bottom of the bed. She is scared for you, old enough to understand that this is a frightful time. Noco rests his scruffy jaw on her lap, and her hand pets him idly as she watches you with a deep frown knitting her serious brows together. 

It’s been hours of thrashing and muffled, fevered nonsense. Dawn broke an hour ago. The doctor sits quietly nearby, checking his watch compulsively every few minutes. A servant replaces the bowl of water with ice-cold for the fourth time this night. The bedsheets, my skirts, and the floor is wet with a well-travelled dripping path now, but it doesn’t matter. You just need to make it through tonight. It just needs to break-

Your handsome face, beginning to lengthen as you approach the threshold of adolescence, pinches in pain and discomfort. Cheeks are flaming-red, scorching to the touch. Nothing contagious, we’re told, but concerning all the same. It’s all on him, we’re told. I refuse to accept that, I snap. I will fight this with you, my son. My back aches with being perched at the head of this bedside all night, but I will not leave you. My shoes were long kicked off, decorum lost in favour of comfort. Let the servants see my stockinged feet, I will dismiss anyone that fusses. 

Even at thirteen years old you still cradle and fit in my arm perfectly. The warmth roils off of you in awful waves and my neck sticks with its own sweat. My hair clings to my skin and occasionally the compress wipes at my face in brief relief. 

Oh, my little Verso, how you suffer. How you writhe and whimper. How weakly you clutch your little Esquie. How briefly you calm and sigh as I press to your temple, encouraging you to fight this. 

My hand rests on your chest as it works hard, heaving and panting in its battles. Your own nightshirt is drowned in sweat, evidence of your nocturnal struggling. Beneath my palm, your heart beats a wartime beat— hard, fast, urgent, and spurring. Surely the body cannot contain such pounding rhythms? Surely it will break free of your ribs? 

My own heart bangs in step with yours, the anxiety and fears of the night frightening me like nothing I’ve experienced. 

Is this what it is to have a child? To have your heart out walking open, and exposed to the world ripe for attack from fever and chill? Could I not shut you away, protect you from anything that threatens ill-tidings and harm? If only the Canvases could be maintained indefinitely. Perhaps it would have been safer there for you. 

Renoir would tell me that they must be free to grow and fly, to explore and learn, should I express this. But how can you if the nature and the world conspires to steal you from me like so?

Oh, my beautiful son. You hack and cough again, the jerking motion thrusting my hand up and off and I feel that momentary tactical connection break. It scares me to be separated so, the chasm larger than the inch or two my hand hovers above your restless body. I scramble to clutch and reach for you again, earning a small sound from Clea, and a reaching, panicked hand from my husband—

And then you sigh, Verso. Your pinched look slowly relaxes. Your chest slows and slows until a less rapid pace sets the beat of this awful, awful march. My heart slows with you until we both live in unison once more.

The doctor is in our space now, checking wrist and throat, listening to chest and mouth, but I do not move. I hold you dearly and watch on as the angry colour drains from your face in a soft cascade. Pale and white eventually replace the striking red, and your mouth parts in soft sighs as raging fever breaks to make way for slumber. 

It is only once the doctor declares us in the clear that a sob wrenches its way from my throat, and I bury my face in your damp hair. 

Grunting with unladylike effort, I pull the heavy sheet and it falls to the floor without ceremony or care. 

The Canvas looms, unaffected and unbothered by all that has transpired in the last few months. Chroma swirls lazily, as oil-on-water it dances. 

This is… was your Canvas.  

I remember the day we picked the frame. You were so animated and joy-filled, almost bouncing with excitement as you spoke of Gestrals and playing in the snow and Maman the trains can go everywhere, you’ll see!

My fingers trace along the gilded designs, falling and rising with soft trenches and peaks that set the border to this window. 

It’s all I have left of you. 

It’s all that is left of you. 

Your pillows no longer retain the scent of your cologne. Your suits are dried with must and disuse. The piano keys sit cold and untouched, your- our music no longer filling the halls. Your desk has been tidied of unfinished sketches and notes. A secret drawer compartment revealed a journal of musical compositions and grand ideas— ones that you’ll never get to complete or perform. 

“I wish to study at the Conservatory, Maman. I - I have always preferred music to painting-”

“Absolutely not. That is a hobby, Verso. A fleeting fancy and amusement at best. It will not do to have a child of mine align with the Musician’s League. We will look weak.”

My fingers slip in anguish and come to rest on the Canvas proper, paper in name only. My tips hover beneath its horizon, ripples dancing out from where they made contact.

I have avoided this Canvas for months, now. When the silence of the house was too much, when your absence too loud and unforgiving, I extracted to my own Canvases. My own worlds. 

For all the crowds and people and life I had Painted within them, I had never felt more lonely or beyond anyone. 

Renoir still found me, still ushered me out. It’s been nearly two days, my love. Come eat, please. Or our daughters need their mother, Aline. I need my wife.

I am barely a mother now with no son and half a daughter. I am a fragment of a wife, unable to seek comfort in my own overbearing husband. I am no longer a human, for no life emanates from me. I do not feel hunger. Days to you are grey weeks to me. I am no longer a Paintress, for no brush has touched my fingers since you left me. 

Warnings, weak and faint, echo as I stand here. They are in my own voice, directed to someone else, to your father. I know them well, for I lectured those warnings passionately and genuinely. 

The me of the past did not know the weight of a shattered heart, did not understand that some pain cannot be erased or consoled. I was blessedly naïve in my ignorance then. How I wish I could go back to that time. Instead I stand here now, before the siren’s call that is your last Canvas. Louder and louder it has become as longer and lengthier time has passed. 

And yet, for all the time that has moved since your death, I remain unhealing, more broken.

The Canvas stands before me, a towering monolith containing the very last piece of you in this cruel, unforgiving, wretched world. I watch as it swirls and shifts, like fish playing and encouraging beneath the surface. 

Your Painting always was more playful than mine. Where yours was inviting and merry, mine are more precise, and proper and realistic. ‘A true likeness’, mine are oft-called. Even Clea’s Painting is more deliberate and exact, each Stroke calculated, each design intended. 

But no, my Verso, you were a kind and joyous soul and it’s no decision at all to push further in and succumb to that tempting invitation finally. 

“Mother, may I have the utmost pleasure of having a dance?”

Turning from where I admired the small orchestra, I laugh lightly at the grown man before me. Bowing low at the waist with a single hand held out towards me, you grin up at me mischievously. 

My hand swats at your arm lightly in faux-irritation before sliding into yours. Delighted at my acceptance, you stand to full height and now tower over me to assume a waltzing stance. “You are as rakish as your father was at that age,” I accuse without bite and you laugh, a perfect smile cutting across your beautiful face. 

“If that is true then I would be incredibly lucky to find someone even half as talented and pretty as you, Maman.” Even well into your twenties, your charm and humour is more dangerous than ever, a gilded weapon brandished with your silver tongue, but I find myself immune, as you are well aware. 

I scoff at the compliment, allowing you to lead as the music starts up once more. We step in practised time, a dance we have been practising since you were a boy in shorts. “Incorrigible,” I tut, earning more childlike amusement as you guide us through crowds of guests and friends.  “Yes, your father was quite the charmer when he courted me. You could learn a thing or two, you know.”

“If father has anything to teach me in that area,” comes your easy reply, effortlessly pirouetting us around a pair that had imbibed a bit too much, “then I’ll eat his top hat.” A wink is thrown my way and I shake my head fondly at you, you terrible child. “Besides! I’ll note he is not dancing with you, whereas I, a most dutiful son, am. That makes me the much finer gentleman,” comes your proud declaration and conclusion, smirking in a way that was all too charming, as well you know. 

“Your father is dancing with your sister, as it is her birthday and not mine,” I nod across the hall to where we both spy Renoir and Alicia dancing and laughing between them. “He and I will reunite on the floor later for our song, as always.” I watch between spins and turns as my husband travels his youngest around the floor, both elegant in their waltz, but also in some competition to trip the other up. “He never leaves me on my own for too long,” I state proudly. 

Biting back a no-doubt witty comeback, your scruffed cheek scrapes mine as you press a kiss to it. “You two are disgustingly happy, and I love you both for it.” 

Beaming, for he is correct, I raise my chin in unashamed acknowledgement. The music begins to wind down and thus do our steps. “Indeed. But don’t think all this charm and charisma will get you out of trouble of stealing from the kitchens, my son. The cook has complained to me twice already of you and your younger sister prematurely helping yourselves before and during the party.” The music comes to its expected rest and we pause, catching our breath a little. 

“Ah, what is that? I cannot hear you for the music is still ringing in my ears!” comes your ridiculous response as you kiss my hand. “Thank you for the dance, Maman. A pleasure, as always!” 

As an age-old habit, I pat your chest. Even through the layers of your finely tailored suit, I can feel the life thrumming as you had came alive to the music of the party. As always, it beats in time with my own as we fell in step to the time of the string orchestra. 

“And you, my son. Now go spend time with your sister, she does so love your antics and it is her birthday, after all. ”

I cannot contain the smile that threatens when you look dramatically aghast at my accusation. 

“‘Antics’? Why mother, I have never 'anticked' in my life! What a thing to say to me, your favourite son!”

“My only son,” I chime in, a rehearsed script. 

“To be thusly accused, baselessly and with such venom? Oh, I shall never recover—” 

I push at your suit lightly, my cheeks aching from trying to withhold my amusement. “I am sure you will survive. You have recovered from worse hits to your ego.”

Stepping back, two hands over your heart in dramatic hurt. “And so the lady dismisses me, with such a wound as I will never heal.” 

“Your sister is over there, Verso” I point. 

“Disowned and dejected, I will take my leave!” 

“Mmhmm.” 

“Farewell, fair Mother mine. I hope when next we meet you think better of me,” you cry in drama, walking backwards and bowing. People part around you, laughing and confused. I give in and gift you an earned laugh. You always were good at raising spirits and amusement. “Utterly incorrigible,” I utter your way as you blow me a final kiss and spin to make way to your sister. 

“Is our son being a menace again?” Renoir’s arm curls around my shoulders, its natural resting place, as he unites with me. I lean into his frame, a motion more instinctive than breathing to me now. 

“When is he not?” 

We watch on as your charm and mirth is now focused towards Alicia, who delights in her brother's attention as always. Her cheeks are flushed with fun and youth, eyes bright with the vibrancy of the day. You lead her to the grand, sitting with exaggerated flourish and imaginary coattails, and trill a small ditty to test its tune. Years ago your feet did not touch the ground. Now you have to push the stool back a little to seat comfortably. Where did that time all go?

A crowd of Alicia’s friends gather around, alert that you have taken to the instrument, and we watch on with parental pride. Even Clea peers up from her friends in the corner of the hall, hearing her brother take to the keys. A new song plays, its composition light, and fun. 

“I do believe this is his gift to her,” Renoir tells me. “He’s been writing and practising in secret for three months now.” 

“Indeed? Then it is good to see that it is well received,” I note as Alicia, her hair red and fiery and easy to find, sways and dances in happiness at you and your personalised music. Listening over the laugh and cheers, I find the piece suits her perfectly. Quiet, but full of colour and small joy.

“Quite. I think we’ve done all right with our children, my love. Look how they are celebrated. So many in attendance and not all clamouring for our attention for once.”

My mouth twists as I bit my tongue to denounce the presence of some of Alicia's Writer friends... but she is happy, and today is not a day to argue again over it. 

I sigh in contentment, resting my head back on my husband’s shoulder. “Yes. I think we’ve done rather well too, my love.”

The train is lonely. It is filled with humans and gestrals and Grandis-that-barely-fit, and I am alone. 

I am above the clouds, admiring the sky-cities of the Grandis. 

I am amongst the forest, ignoring waving gestral children. 

I am pulling into the train station once again and the train empties. 

Like clockwork it departs, and round I go again. 

~ ~ ~

The water laps at my feet and the sun changes to the moon to the sun once more. The sand is firm and depressed from how long I have sat still, my boots long washed away to parts unknown. 

~ ~ ~

The meadow rivers trickle with wonderful colour and pleasantness. The grass is soft and welcoming beneath my steps. The yellow trees rain soft petals upon me, and you are dead. 

Never again will you walk the tribe villages of your beloved gestrals. Never again will you look up at me with pride in your blue eyes, telling me of your latest creation. Not ever will I dance with you in my arms and never again will I kiss your cheek and chide you fondly for his jokes. 

Never will I behold you again for my son, my Verso, is dead. 

~ ~ ~

I walk paths we haven’t walked in years. I pass grand environments and secret hideaways long abandoned by us, now overgrown and changéd. 

We stopped playing here. Responsibility and maturity left for little desire and time to play. It wasn’t proper anymore, I told myself. You had to focus on studies, on your skills and manners. How else were you to be a Painter? How else was I to prepare you to be a man in society?  This was all well and good, I had told you, but this was child’s play. You were growing up now. Time to - time to focus on more important matters, I had insisted. 

Time to stop playing make believe, I had ordered.

Oh, how wrong I had been. 

~ ~ ~

Here is where we swam as a family of four in the pond. There is where we had a picnic in the mountains. Beyond is the impossible heights we had flown to with his rock-eating toy, Esquie. 

Here is where you held Alicia’s tiny hands and guided her to walk her first steps on indigo grass. 

Here is where you and Clea painted a meadow so idyllic and peaceful that I did not wish to leave. 

Here is where you fell in snow, making an angel as you stretched and dance in the purity of the mountain. 

Here is where you told me that no Gestral truly dies, just comes back a little different. Just like how you and Papa explained Noco and Monoco to me as a boy.

Did I really… dismiss all of this? 

My throat is hoarse with smoke and denials.

My fingers bleed with peeling scabs and scratches from at charred wood. 

My body aches where I shoulder and force my way past officials and pompiers and sappers. All try to stop me, none succeed. 

My boots slip on black debris and soot-covered floors. 

My eyes sting with burnt air and choking disbelief. 

My knees and skirts shred as I land on broken window glass by your side.

The sheet covering you is too white, too clean for this charred environment. Handprints pollute it, charcoal-tainted and ash-smudged, when I pull it back to reveal—

There are no words for the sound that leaves Aline Dessendre’s body, only that the scorched skeleton of the Dessnedre manor absorbs every reverberation, every shrill and cry, and never forgets it.

We painted our house in your Canvas, Verso. I asked why, once, and you said so you could show your creations where you lived. A harmless request that I fulfilled with ease. It was pleasant even, painting our home and its intricacies and details. You politely asked that I include your trainset, your piano, and Esquire to show your bigger Esquie. 

It was sweet. 

Standing here now, it seems like a monument to a happier, unassuming time. One without grief or demand or responsibility. 

I hate it. 

I hate it.

I hate it.

I…hate… it.

I— 

I--

....

I leave it.

Alicia’s weak moans and cries agitate as she looks beneath a covering fringe. 

“..’m… s..’o—rry” she whines and I feel — nothing. I feel nothing. My youngest, maimed and curled in on what is left of herself, apologises and I cannot stand it. She shouldn’t be apologising. It achieves nothing. It accomplishes nothing. It changes nothing Her timidity and smallness shrinks her further than it ever did and I cannot tolerate it. 

I cannot fix her. She cannot be fixed. The words she should hear are so far removed from myself that I flinch at the lack of it. I am not her mother. She is not my daughter, not as she once was. 

I try. I give her time, and this space, to speak to me. I try to withstand her and the pain and loss now a permanent reminder on her once-flawless face. I try to be a person for her, to let her say what she needs but every forced, stuttered, stumbled half-word that brokenly cracks between us reminds me further that I am not a mother anymore. 

Eventually it is too much and I cut her off, fleeing as if though your name, bastardised and half-spoken as it was from her throat, is now a blasphemous curse that I cannot bear to hear.

I drown out her distressed ‘muh-m-mmuh!’ with harried steps and flee to the comfort of your Canvas. 

The people of Lumiére, our not-Paris in this place, go about their lives. The ladies bow politely at me in gowns a little out of fashion now. The men tip their hats to me, manners baked into their personalities at my own request years ago. Children run and play, slipping in and out of hooped skirts and coat tails. 

The fountain I sit at is grand and opulent, a gathering point for all who live here. A Grandis tells great stories to a small crowd. Two gestrals play-fight as families watch on, cheering and jeering. Dogs bark. Sellers cry their wares and prices. A train sounds its arrival in the beautiful station we would sit in together. 

It is tolerable because we designed it. 

It is tolerable because it is make-believe…

It is tolerable because I can breathe ... just a little, just a fraction. 

"You haven't even visited his grave, Aline." 

Once, I would have scolded my eldest for her blatant and angry disrespect. Once I would have rounded on her with the indomitable presence earned as being her Mother and Head of the Painters' Guild. Once, I would have met her eye-to-eye until she eventually, and reluctantly, cowed first. 

Now I cannot even look up to where she looms over me. I sit silent, looking out of the window beside which I perch. Rain falls miserably, a bleak impression of my own grey, unfeeling mood. 

Silence stretches between us as I do not acknowledge her truthful accusation. What would I say to a grave? What comfort can a tombstone grants me? You were taller than me now, Verso. It would feel wrong to stand over you once more. 

But Clea does not understand, or does not care to. She stands, an accusing sentinel, arms crossed and face livid. 

"You're pathetic," she spits, before spinning and leaving, angry steps heralding her departure. 

No. She does not understand and I pray to whatever terrible force ruling this universe that she never will. 

The brush is alien in my hand as I stand in the foyer. The manor is silent in a way that is tolerable here in your world. Renoir does not haunt my steps. Alicia’s shadows do not shy away as I approach. Clea’s anger does not hound me as a thundercloud. 

I can almost imagine that you are elsewhere, playing. Still alive, just out of sight. 

I have not Painted in a long time. Inspiration was shunned, motivation abandoning. But now I look around and I can hear your laughs, feel the pounding of your shoes as you run up the corridor. I can smell your cologne and hair oil, and see the unrestrained amusement in your eyes. 

We had so much more to do, my son. You robbed us both of that. Of future dances, of more laughs. I never got to see you grow older, or tease you about greying. I never will see you happy with a partner of your choice. Never more will we take turns at the piano, making your sisters and father laugh or cry with our music. Never will we argue and never can I teach you anything more. Never will...be exactly that now. Never will just be 'never again'. 

But I can fix that. I can change that. I can -- I can get close once more. I am celebrated and lauded for my ability to recreate reality. I am talented and good enough. I made you once, I can make you again. 

My hand does not fight me as I lift the brush to air and essence as I feared it would. Bringing it down in a stroke, I envision your height, your breadth. Your pianist fingers and distinct nose. I curl my gesture as your hair did, and cut across the space as your smile would. 

I conduct my own artistic orchestra as together each note and motion culminates into something comprehensible. Something soon tangible. Something… familiar… and solid. 

An instinct in me stutters to the forefront, a talent unbudding from a long, buried slumber. I Paint again and soon broad strokes and flourishes tighten into detailed flicks and deliberate curves. Chroma bubbles at my feet before sparking into water-like swirls around us and I direct each piece and amount to its final destination. I recall the playful dance of your Canvas front, the humour with which you injected into each conversation. Memories of imagination-filled times and laughs, of frustrated sorrows and tears. Of hidden truths and dampened wishes overlooked… of my child who became a man who became a ghost and buried me with him. 

This house should never be silent. Should never be without your music or personality. This house is my reprieve in this world and as I Paint and Paint and Paint, I feel the stirring of something not felt in time immeasurable. 

Before me stands a still mannequin, its silhouette shaped as you were when we last danced, clothed in a suit not dust-ridden or soot-choked, eyes shut as if slumbering, and realer to me than anything outside of this frame. 

Weak from exertion, mourning and sorrow having sapped most of my life, I stumble with breathlessness at having spent more of myself in this space than since I can recall. I do not make contact with the polished ground, however, as with a cry of ‘Maman!’ he catches my wrist and shoulder, pulling me to him in protective custody. 

He is not you, my darling son. He is a facsimile and likeness in name only…

But as I pull back and he looks at me with concern and love that I recognise as only a mother could… I feel my heart beat once more again. It is a violent, wrenching wound, but it is felt. For the first time in so long... I am feeling. 

“Verso,” I whisper in baptism. My hand rests on his chest and there, just beneath my gold-tipped fingers, is the unmistakable missing rhythm in my life

“Are you well, Maman?” he asks, worry and fear in his voice. Dark brows frown as ice-fresh eyes look me over with the worry of a child. Your voice, as I remember it, now borrowed here in this living portrait. 

“Yes, my son,” I say, patting his vest. “Yes, I am well now,” I lie, smiling up at him. “All is going to be fine from now on,” I pretend and just for now, just for here… it is enough.

I have nothing and no one else for my son has died and you selfishly ripped and tore my heart from my breast when you did.  

At least now I have a patch to cover it, and he smiles down brightly at me where you no longer will. 

He will be enough. It has to be for I will fully fracture and break if he's not. 

Yes. This will be enough.

It has to be. 

It must. 

It must.