Work Text:
Lori had gotten very good at pretending.
She memorized Rick’s hands years ago, before Carl was their son and not just a name she liked. They were strong and rough, but gentle with her. She knew them in her own, much smaller and smoother. She knew them on her face, the pads of his thumbs brushing over the apples of her cheeks in nothing less than reverence. She knew them in her hair, her back against the kitchen counter and his lips on her own. She knew them on the hem of her shirt, her skirt, on the clasp of her bra.
They were rough hands, calloused and prone to cracking in the winter. They held pens and forms and guns and rounds of ammunition. They held pillows and sheets and towels and razors. They held Carl and Carl’s backpack and Carl’s favorite plastic dinosaur and tousled Carl’s hair. They held Lori’s hands and Lori’s jacket and Lori’s glasses she hated to wear and ran through Lori’s hair. They held the book Shane left in the kitchen after he’d come over for dinner and Shane’s pocket-knife and clasped Shane’s hand in greeting. There were callouses on the ball, dry spots on the knuckles, peeling bits of skin around the nails.
The little details make it hard for Lori to pretend that Shane’s hands are Rick’s. The callouses are all wrong and Shane’s hands don’t get dry. They aren’t soft with Lori, they are just as rough as with everything else. They don’t run through her hair, they pull. They don't hold hers and they don’t touch her face. His eyes don't look at her with reverence, but something primal, territorial. When Lori closes her eyes (she often refuses to open them), it isn't easy to convince herself that this is not Shane touching her, but her husband. But she manages.
She manages because Shane’s hands hold Carl and they hold Carl’s backpack and Carl’s favorite plastic dinosaur and tousle Carl’s hair. They hold Lori’s jacket and Lori’s glasses that she refused to get rid of. They hold Shane’s pocket-knife and Shane’s book. They know the hem of Lori’s shirt and the button on her jeans and the clasp on her bra. They held Rick’s old hunting knife that never saw any use, and they handed that knife to Lori.
“Y’need to protect yourself,” though he knew she would never use it. It was a memento of her husband, though Shane was trying to take his place.
Yes, Lori had gotten very good at pretending by the time Rick had stepped out of that truck and Carl had run to his father as fast as his still-short legs would carry him. By the time she had watched Rick collapse in tears with his son in his arms and rose only to gather his wife into them as well, Lori hadn't realized how good she had gotten at pretending. In the midst of the overwhelming relief of having her husband back, guilt sat like an elephant in her stomach. Rick was not a stupid man. He would catch on, even if she never said a word. Even if Shane never did.
She lingers when she slides Rick’s wedding ring back into the indention on his finger. They’d taken it off when he was in the hospital, and it had never been out of her reach since. Her thumb swipes over the stubborn remnants of a fading callous, the pads of her fingers slide over the dry spots on Rick’s knuckles. Lori feels like she’s home when Rick’s hand touches her face, his thumb passes familiarly over her cheek.
She wonders how she ever pretended at all.