Work Text:
There is a fine line between want and need. Desire and greed. Needing and wanting. Wanting and needing. Desperation. Needing to get what you never got, wanting it even more. Is it about a profound desire for - connection? Is it about how much we don’t know. How much we can’t say, mustn’t say, don’t want to say. It is about how unfamiliar even the most familiar can become sometimes. All the time. Recently.
It is about holding your breath. Holding your breath until you are blue in the face. Holding your breath to threaten, to dare, to say “if you do not give me my own way, give me what I want, then I will stop breathing.” But when what you want is impossible to have, what then? It is about holding back. Withholding. It is about being stuck in a situation that you scarce imagined that you would find yourself in. it is about panic. It is about realising you are drowning. Something has to give. It is about falling apart. Something has to fracture. Something has to puncture to relieve the pressure.
It is about one Thursday afternoon, your heart so heavy in your chest that you cannot stand up straight. You cannot go home. The empty house that you inhabit that just does not feel quite right since she went, left, died. You cannot go to the bar. The quiet solace that you find at the bottom of a glass can be no more. You made impossible promises that despite everything that went terribly, horribly, sickeningly wrong that day you intend to a least try and keep. Hot tea to send you off to sleep. Paracetamol to dull the ache in your head. But no painkiller can help when it is your bone marrow that hurts. So, you borrow keys to a dreary little apartment by the river, notice the trace of surprise in her eyes as you ask. Ask of her again. And again. And again. These past few months. Take and take and give nothing in return. You’ve never been so selfish. But a lot of things have changed.
It is about the door already being unlocked, the sound of the washing machine spinning. Dr Martens lined up on the mat in the hall. Warning signs. Approach with caution. Fight or flight. A break in the solitude. It is about popping your head around the living room door. Making eye contact with the stranger on the sofa. Headphones in ears. Blonde hair falling in waves. Feet on the coffee table and mug in hand. If she were your daughter…. But she isn’t. “Charlotte.”
It is about eyes that then shift sideways, just like her mothers. Flit around the room. Floor to ceiling. TV to door. To phone. To feet. Settle on you finally. “Dad’s washer is broke,” she says “didn’t expect anyone to be here.” There is no wine. Charlotte checked. What a terribly good soldier Major Wolfe is. It is about sitting across from your lover’s child. Lover. Loving. Not much of that happening recently. Looking into deep brown eyes, listening, learning. What kind of mother was Bernie Wolfe to a child anyway?
It is about reminiscing. A good one apparently. When she was there. Frequently hard. Tough love. Peppered with plenty of guidance. Firm but fair. Always fair. Bernie Wolfe is good at holding things together. Fixing things. But we knew that already. Good at negotiating. With patients, teachers, scoring extra parents evenings when she’d been too knee deep in the Afghan desert to attend the first time around. Good at making hot cocoa. Good at making up bedtime stories. Good at sending birthday gifts. Arriving on time. From the other side of the world. Makes the best Halloween costumes. Good at listening. Endless listening. Good at knowing when to step back, drop the reins. Good at hugging. Oh so good at hugging. Not so good at saying what she wants. What she feels. But so very good at repairing fractures.
It is about Serena Campbell learning what it is to be a mother without a child.