-1#She waits she's good at that about as good as she is at being a cheery housewife, but better then she is at being pregnant. Everything is okay though; she won't despair. If only because he'll be back with his laughing hands and his loving lips and the joy of his hips. She sighs brown hair a soft curtain between her and the brilliance of the sunlit window. She smiles. He loves her, has loved her almost nightly for three months now. And it's so much more delicious because it's their very own secret. The tentative smile dies; he doesn't want a child. She spends the night picking idly at a dish cloth.
She sits barefoot and untidy on the sofa. She's tired and sore and hot. Her temperature has gone haywire and she's sick almost as much as she's hungry which is always. She's almost relieved he hasn't come back as she believes herself completely unattractive. However, she has seen the stares from males - appreciative stares in this strange time before her belly begins to balloon. And she's three months now- 12 wks out of 36. She'll begin to show soon; she needs to shore up supplies before it becomes apparent.
He is kind, but his hands smile more than they laugh and his lips are shy and his hips are a heat that does not warm; but his eyes are kind and his arms adore and he whispers love into the wilderness of her hair. She thinks it's his scent that makes her think she can love him despite the wrongness of his hair color and the wrongness of his eye color and his general inability to look like Him. In the womblike darkness of her room all that matters are his warm hands on her softly rounding belly.
She can eat nothing, so she watches the rain instead and considers the benefits of bleach and carving knifes and sleeping pills. The silver outside her window is entrancing as it leaches her of color leaving a heartless fey with its changeling babe. Carefully she keeps hands and awareness from touching the fleshy mound of him. She sighs and tells herself: I love my baby. She loves her baby too much to let him be cursed by herself, but she's too far along for the doctor to take him away. The room feels too small now, the furnishings too worn instead of cozy and charming. How will she raise a boy by herself? The table presses against her belly so hard maybe she can… She unravels the edge of the table cloth and waits for hope and maybe aid.
It hurt… to be so alone, and they all smiled to see her so happy so happy she cries. His hair is black - like hers. Eventually they leave her alone with the child that ruined everything. She watches the clock until another nurse comes for the baby's first feeding. He turns away from her prompting a burst of hysterical laughter. She pays the nurse's concern no mind determine to get him to nurse. The nurse tries to help, but he just won't take. After the nurse leaves for a bottle she cries. He seems to like the saltiness so she only cries when she's feeding. She never feeds except when she's alone.
The house seems colder now. She sits on the floor trying not to breathe too hard. He's being so quiet now she could pretend he's asleep and if he's asleep she doesn't want to wake him. He's such a nervous child. She blinks with the quick thread of pain. She's pulled her stitches again. Still grips her finger tightly in his little fist; so tight - a death grip. He is still warm and soft and she is waiting for him to move again. Her eyes focus on his face and his little blue lips skittering away from the dark, purple hand print covering his little neck. In her head she sighs wishing she would just stop screaming. Her head is already pounding despite all the aspirin she dry-swallowed earlier. The same part of her that truly doesn't care is waiting impatiently for the knocking to become banging to become hands taking the small, blue baby away.
Her trial is a month's time away. They think she's crazy, but they don't have proof she didn't mean to. Besides which she's young, really, really young and still lovely. The walls of her quiet cell are a blinding white and a black line of ants moves across it. They trace the characters of her Lover's name. It's her one concession to actual feelings. She hoards sugar to lure them and uses blood when there isn't anything else. The prison keepers make a point of cleaning out her cell on a weekly basis. They tell her this doesn't look good on her record - that it'll keep her away from the baby. She doesn't really care, except she wants her baby now. She misses her baby and his father, although which one she can't remember any longer. She picks at her cuticles. They cut her hair a while ago even so is still very pretty and very young. Sadly there are only women here and they are jealous.
The wooden seat is uncomfortable and she has been sitting in it for a long time listening to something she couldn't care less about. She wants to fidget, but she has to behave, they won't trust her anymore if she manages to f this up too. The doctor has spoken already not so discreetly studying her and wanting so clearly to be mad. Guess he didn't expect to see a girl barely older then his daughter staring back at him. The baby is okay, but his voice box is damaged. They aren't sure what that means for his development. Maybe he won't be able to talk; maybe he'll sound like a chronic smoker. She still loves him anyway. They have let her hold him for this meeting and she wants nothing more then to pinch him, except maybe to hug him, squeeze him until he stops looking at her so lovingly. But she's tired and they're looking. She shifts him as he begins to fuss, he's hungry but she doesn't feel like crying. He'll need a bottle.
She can feel her pursuers following. However she's learned to nearly always ignore her feelings. She has learned to smile and chatter and nurse Ash without weeping. That old girl is deader then the man she almost loved. This new one is so much greater then that relic. She wants to rename herself Phoenix, but it hasn't been long enough. She hasn't grown enough so she calls him Ash instead and herself Lillian. The road is dusty and soft and worn. Ash is sleeping and she is waiting for another ride to another town. This one isn't right.
This is the village they told her about. It's small, but its friendly and no one knows her here. Her hair is impossible overlong and too thick. She stands in the dust with the light in her eyes looking like someone's tired Madonna. Ash is fussy and wants to nurse, but her eyes are dry and so are his bottles. She shifts the child sticking her finger in his mouth. Her second man gave her a key and it's warm, smooth length in her hand makes her smile. He loved her not just her body or the way her eyes adored him and her hands worshiped him. Sadly she could not love him deeply, because she has never loved anyone deeply only possessively, clingingly, hopelessly in absences. Her black-haired baby rides her hip as she picks up her bag. Ash's hand is in her hair and his breath is in her ear. He loves her.
She waits for questions; this is not a large town or even a large village. It is a town populated by the old and their grandchildren so surely there has been gossip. She has been in this house for a month this Thursday. It is clean and open and hers. The furniture was already in place as though this house was always meant for her. She remembers him talking about such a thing, but she didn't believe - not surprising considering what her naiveté led to before. There is an opened letter in the chest of drawers that says all the things she hadn't believed before. She stands before it now trying to see the happiness she feels. She strokes the planes of it smiling because it is her favorite: cherry wood. She can't believe he actually remembered. He meant to come back, he always meant to. She stops smiling. He is still not the Lover who abandoned her, but if they ask she will call him her husband and Ash's father. Strangely enough he looks just like him. Her shirt is stained with new blood. She opens the top drawer looking for more bandages. She is always buying bandages.
Ash is four and only one person has ever asked, the rest are kind or maybe they just don't have time to care. No, they don't ask because they are kind, but he is kinder still. He is like a grandfather for Ash teaching him and carrying him around. He is her father figure and he doesn't mind the lines and the bandages. He has scars of his own that make him shiver when she traces them. Another secret and a better one. She is safe and happy surround by trees - Ash and Oak.
Oak has his own real grandchildren. They are here now that both their parents are dead. Some accident of fire she didn't care enough about to learn. She hears them sometimes - a little boy and an older girl, but she doesn't bother them. And then one day Ash brings Gray home and Gary could be Him. She nearly scalds herself in shock, but quickly plasters a smile on her face knowing his temperament is that of his father. That night she suggests a sleep over. She listens to their giggles and rough-housing until they sleep. She watches them studying their facial structure and coloring, looking for all the similarities all the differences. The next week she takes Ash over to sleep, being nosy for the first time in a long time. Walking the halls she has made a point of avoiding she sees the Picture. She apologizes and cleans up the glass and carefully leaves with the picture. His wife was very pretty, as pretty as she has ever been. She buys more bandages, and a sharper knife.
Ash is only half a year younger so it's like steps and Gary could be Ash's brother. Is his brother and that's why it is a secret turned to wormwood in her mouth. Her bedtime kisses begin to taste of liquor and mint. She cuts her hair again refusing to be weighed down. The next day she regrets it when Gary says he likes it long, at least he likes her pretty little sundress. From then on she only wears sundresses which are fine 'because it's never cold here. Flimsy sundresses that highlight her figure and she counts. 5 ½, 6. 8 ½, 9. 11 ½, 12. And one day the wind gets the better of her dress and hair. She is only 29.
He's too young to marvel at the lines when everything is so unfamiliar. She can barely restrain herself to the part of reluctant girl. The clothes can't fall off anywhere near fast enough. It's his first time and he's nothing like his father, but she can fee it and she is only 29. He lies on her chest sleeping for a moment, before he is at her again. She had forgotten the resiliency of the very young. The photo of Ash she keeps by the bed is on the floor. Stroking the little boy's hair she tells herself its all okay. He and Ash haven't spoken for years already - so it does no harm. And history won't repeat it's self. If she wants to leave she will and vise versa.
Her jaw is sore and the bruise along it is dark and ugly. She will ignore it for now. She will wait for the bruising to lessen and then if her jaw still feels broken and bulky she will see a doctor. An ice pack lies on the table water running off it onto her pretty hardwood table. Her finger draw circles in the condensation with her head half-cocked to listen. She isn't waiting for him to come back, she is just waiting… The door slams shut. She is waiting for to leave. He will come back, sooner or later. Then all she has to do is lock the door and wait for him to leave. The thunder rattles the windows and causes the dark blue umbrella to fall over. She blinks it's raining hard and soon he'll be soaked- just like he intended, that way it won't look like he's crying. She doesn't have such an easy excuse. She loves him better in absence, and surely one day he'll forgive her.