*Author's note:* Thank you guys, for continuing to support "Breakable Dogs." I promise an ending is coming, but in the meantime, this story begged to be told. I hope you enjoy it.
Lullaby
August 1999
Gregory would've hated this summer. The heat is unfathomable, and the world is trimmed in plastic rhinestones. Every song on the radio is fluff with chunks of salsa, and Olivia is driving again.
The first thing she does when she gets her license back, after three long years, is disappear.
Blink and you'll miss her lately.
Freedom has a definite taste these days- an ice-cream sweetness, but also its nerve headache. She'll never be fully free...not of a certain four letter C-word, at least.
No, no, not that.
Cole.
Her backseat passenger flaps his chubby little arms. "Mummy's a good driver, isn't she, darling?" Olivia asks, and Trey shakes his head, belly-laughing.
She goes to the bookstore and pushes her giant stroller down the aisles, until she realizes the baby is chewing across a paperback like a corncob. After hiding the evidence, she finally reaches the Self-Help aisle.
Most co-parenting books are about raising a child with your ex-spouse. She digs and digs, but there are none about raising a child with your once-upon-a-fling son-in-law- the grown-up baby you turned your back on and lost- while dating his father.
From that sentence alone, she knows that Gregory is close by, laughing.
She tries to stop being a fussbudget and pulls down The Secret to Co-Parenting Bliss, by Connie Frank, M.A. It's geared towards women and seems a bit New Age in its approach. Make that hippie. She laughs out loud and Trey tugs on the hem of her pants, wanting in on the joke. "Don't worry, darling, I wouldn't subject you to rubbish like this. This woman must be in an institution."
Five minutes later she's still standing in the aisle, her nose in the book.
"Mumma?" Trey says over and over, a little timer that's definitely gone off.
They go, once The Secret to Co-Parenting Bliss is scanned and paid for.
They stop at a few more stores, Olivia's arms lined with bags. They get to her convertible and see Cole approaching on the sidewalk, in a brooding slouch that looks like it's missing something- a cigarette, maybe. It looks like he's just been on an angry run. His T-shirt is dark with sweat, but in certain light it would look like blood. Caitlin has moved out, AJ always has a sudden excuse not to see him, and Olivia...she's just everywhere, like paintings of a dictator.
Madam President is a little distracted by the impression of his body in the wet fabric.
"I just had an interesting talk with Sean," C-Word says.
"Don't you ever open with a 'hello?'"
"Oh, I'm sorry. Salutations, Charlotte," he says with an exaggerated bow, as Trey pounds the stroller tray with laughter. "Is that better?"
"Trust me, the web I'd spin for you would less than flattering."
"Save it. You got your license back, and the first thing you did was take Trey and drive up death-trap Mullholland, by yourself?"
"I wanted to show him the view. It's spectacular."
"He's a baby. What does he care about the Hollywood sign?"
"That image is burned in my dreams. Do you have any appreciation for all the sights you've seen in your life, or were they just a smashing backdrop for your million-dollar jowls?" she says with that one raised eyebrow.
"Oh, nice. You know what else I don't appreciate? Getting an itinerary for my days with him." He pulls Olivia's note from his pocket. "What is this...'a pot of yogurt with lunch?' I have to whip up my own fine artisan yogurt? What do I look like, Emeril fucking Lagasse?"
"No, no," she groans. "The little plastic cups. Yogurt pots, same difference! Don't give me that "This is America' look." (He contemplates his face having a look for that, his browline sunken.) "The things I say are mine, and I'm not changing them for you or anyone."
"OK. Number one, you're crazy. Two, do we really need a language barrier on top of everything else?"
"I'm sorry, what's that? Let me check my Grizzly to English dictionary!"
When she goes to toss her purchases in the car, The Secret to Co-Parenting Bliss falls to the sidewalk.
He crouches to it and stands up slowly, looking down at the book in his hands. He suddenly feels a foot tall. Did he really have to spout off the word fuck in a discussion about yogurt? "Olivia, I..."
"It's nothing. Just a bit of light beach reading."
"But you're trying. You're making a lot more of an effort than I am," he mumbles.
There are no words for a moment, with the exception of Trey's babbling. Cole squints, noticing Olivia is almost glinting in the sun. Flushing red, collecting her breath. Sometimes she looks the same after an argument as after-
He blinks hard.
"Cole, I didn't mean to force you into a schedule when I've been very spontaneous lately myself. It's wonderful having my license back...but Trey...I need to stop pretending his Von Willebrand's doesn't make him so vulnerable. The lightest fender-bender could be disastrous to him, nevermind a horrific-"
"Look, don't think about that." He has a memory of Olivia teetering on the edge of Interstate 5, moaning and clutching their unborn son in her bleeding abdomen. "J-just be careful, OK? That's all I was saying." He hands her the book. "Can I borrow this when you're done?"
"It's geared toward women," she says shortly, tossing it in the passenger side.
"Not surprising. 'Bliss' is kind of an overshoot, don't you think?" He stoops down to Trey and the child's hands shoot out instantly, molding his face, giggling at the stubble that tickles his tiny palms. "Judy feels Daddy's scratchy face, now YOU feel Daddy's scratchy face," Cole smiles, quoting Pat the Bunny.
"That's my favorite book of his."
"Mine too. Short and sweet."
"Exactly."
Well, this is better, isn't it? She's suddenly not sure that kicking him square in his Dechanel jewels is an inevitable task in their journey as co-parents.
Maybe she wondered that too soon.
Father Antonio's elbows are heavy on his desk. He breathes from his steepled hands over his nose, trying to get re-centered. He looks from the young man to the woman. "Never, in all my years...have I heard such petty bickering. Two of my catechism students could share a Pokémon card better."
He's been playing mediator between Cole and Olivia more than offering counsel. The pair exchanges a sheepish glance and Antonio wrings his hands. "OK. I'm just gonna throw something out there, and forgive me for being so blunt. How can two complete strangers tear off each other's clothes- "
(Cole and Olivia look like they could crawl under the desk.)
"- but fast forward two-and-a-half years...and the very same people who've been through so much tragedy together, who have a beautiful son are struggling to coexist in the same room?"
They have nothing to say for themselves.
"So your lives didn't turn out exactly the way you conspired- operative word conspired. Trey doesn't care about that. Your limelight is over. It's his turn. Am I right?"
They nod.
"Let's say you found yourselves in quicksand together, right at this very second. Bam. Sinking. Losing ground. What do you do?"
Cole snickers after a moment. "Olivia would be like, "It's not quicksand, it's a lickety-quagmire!" he squawks in an high-pitched English voice.
"Yes, well, I can't decide if you would try to punch its lights out or get its phone number."
"Time out," Antonio says. "Take each other's hand."
Mumbled protests of "But-I?/Seriously?/What?"
"You've done a lot worse. Now," Antonio says sternly.
They do as they're told, as if instructed by a burning bush.
"A little different, isn't it? What would you do, Olivia?"
Cole shrugs a little, a tide crash in the air as he waits for her response. The separation blurs between one pulse and another. She feels the same grip in his hand as the day she tried to kiss a bottle of champagne and sleeping pills. "Keep your chin up, any way I could," she says softly.
"Talk about Trey," Cole says, clearing his throat. "Tell you everything's gonna be alright."
He's told her that when things were the furthest from alright, but somehow she always believes it. She feels his thumb dusting her knuckles, but whether this is conscious or not, she can't tell.
"That's better," Antonio says. "Why not conduct yourselves that way all the time, like your lives depend on it? Trey's does. Learn to suppress your own egos. Pray for one another. Either of you could do this alone...but you don't have to."
Cole wonders why they come here and run the risk of the roof falling down on them. OK, they do have a great deal of respect for Antonio, and he doesn't charge a co-pay. They are typical Catholics, really- crawling back for occasional advice and Sacraments, never seen at Mass in between. Cole looks up and waits for the lightning bolt. He doesn't think the message could get any clearer that God is displeased with him, after Caitlin hemorrhaged their child under His roof.
"As co-parents, our interactions are short. Our meetings involve an exchange of the child, a few muttered instructions. One day, instead of parting ways, follow them. You will learn a lot seeing your child's father in action when he doesn't know you're watching."
"Is it any wonder why your husband divorced you, you dingbat?" Olivia thinks aloud to the book.
Later she finds herself ducking behind the lifeguard tower, watching Cole and their pudgy flesh and blood. She doesn't remember if he put sunscreen on the baby, or what he fed him. She doesn't even get upset when Cole dunks him in the water. She is only swept away by the fact that nothing, nothing at all turns his head from the child's gaze. The pier could tumble down like Lincoln Logs and he wouldn't notice. Not even all the scantily clad women who keep hovering around- dazzled by the attractive young father- are a blip on his radar. "Bloody little tarts...that's right, keep walking," she whispers. "Stay away from him."
She backs against the lifeguard tower, the surge in her veins startling her. She feels drunk on salt air, her heart pounding like a bear's. She closes her eyes and sees water beading on Cole's chest, the baby's tiny hands eclipsed by his father's muscles. Stay away from Trey, she meant, of course. Stay away from him.
Olivia sinks down a bit in the tub, the water infused with a few drops of calming lavender oil. The bubbles graze her chin as she reads the book. "Eliminate the negative term 'ex' from your vocabulary. Instead, think of your child's father as Cernunnos, the horned god of fertility. Think of his strength, and the way your silent instincts told you he was an ideal mate to procreate with. He chose you for this purpose, too, deep in his own animal psyche. Remember the wild explosion of his gift that your aching womb graciously accepted."
Olivia covers her mouth and takes off her fogged reading glasses. Leave it to me to find an erotic parenting book. Fine, shed some positive light on the man you're stuck with for life, but strolling down memory lane about the sex? Disgusting!
It seems that way for about three seconds, until her complete ownership of those memories strikes her. No one ever asked for them back- they are a part of her story, however disastrous. Let the others bear the burden of blocking out the image of Cole and Olivia, naked and feasting on each other.
Doesn't she have enough to...think about?
Apparently not.
Her toes are rigid against the tub wall. Olivia, no. She drops the book to the floor, in utter disbelief of her own whim. You'll never be able to look him in the eye tomorrow! All of the blood fueling her rational thoughts has migrated elsewhere. Her hand slips beneath the frothing water...lavishing Self-Help on the chaos between her legs. She finds details she thought could only be retrieved through hypnosis...a face-hold, the flick of a tongue. She knows her own body by heart, but the circles she traces only seem like a reenactment of another's. She feels like Pandora, and there's no turning back now.
The bathroom door opens just as she's feeling on the verge. "A, J!" she gasps, water splashing everywhere as she flails upright. "Haven't you ever heard of knocking?"
He stands there, paralyzed with delight. "When Rose divulges that you've drawn a bath? Not a hope. Calgon take me away, en effet...I'm speechless. No wonder you needed stronger glasses- at this rate, you're apt to go blind."
"Go ahead, laugh," she grumbles, folding her arms over her breasts. "Have a ball, why don't you?"
"Oh, I plan to," AJ says darkly, unbuttoning his shirt. "You are resplendent. No need to put the genie back in the bottle. I want you to live out that fantasy you were having. Every last part. Brazen. Unashamed."
Of course she's ashamed.
But her lust survives when he dries her off and carries her to bed. She bears down hard, as always, trying to remember the lovers they were as young and lithe creatures in the backseat of AJ's Imperial. What made her bite her nails to the quick before their encounters, what made her want to run away with him? She can't remember those nights, but his warmth and obeisance always touches her heart. What they share these twenty five years later is more than many have ever hoped for. Certainly more than someone like Annie could ever hope for.
Despite their abundance, she can't help remembering the very different way he once kissed Francesca Vargas.
AJ's pillow talk always starts the moment they finish, like he's been holding it in since the coming attractions. "I want to take you away for your birthday," he pants, "to Bali. You, me and Trey- it will be soul-cleansing. You need a vacation from Cole."
She flips onto her bare stomach, shivering. Sometimes his name feels like a draft. "...oh...that would be wonderful, darling, but...I'll always need a vacation from him. Besides, you know he'll get all up in arms about it. I'll have to listen to so many lectures. Keep Trey in mosquito netting, Olivia," she says in a deep American voice, "don't let him fall in the holy water at the temple!"
"Sweetheart, I already told him and he had no qualms. He said he can picture you on a moped, covered in monkeys."
A laugh escapes her that plays every rib like ivories. "He's such a fool." The visual stays in her mind and she snorts periodically. She supposes Cole could've meant an out-of-control moped with vicious monkeys...but after the session with Father Antonio, she knows it's a peace offering. It's such a happy picture, the sting in her eyes surprises her.
"Yes, a fool for not focusing that wild imagination on getting Caitlin back home."
"They've been having little meetings here and there. The last one ended with a frantic call from me about Trey's medicine. I felt awful, but...I couldn't help it. Caitlin said that listening to us get into it reminds her of...her father and me."
"Well, that's...that's just plain silly." He stares upwards, the long, silent exchange between him and the light fixture speaking volumes.
After AJ is asleep, Olivia pulls out her book and reads until the words carry her away. "You are forever bonded with Cernunnos. It is very difficult to spend eternity with someone we do not touch. It's inhuman. If you don't believe that physical contact will increase harmony, I encourage you to just give it a try. I promise you will feel more happy, more inspired to soldier on. To share your child is to pass your heart between each other, not sever it in half."
Cole is going to eat Trey. At least, that's what he keeps threatening to do, in a Muppety voice. He stands nose to nose with the boy in his modest condo.
Trey wears his mother's eyes like oversized glasses; he needs to grow into their luster.
There were so many times that Cole wept for Olivia's stillborn baby. Just the memory of the fetus answering the pressure of his hand would leave him cowering in the bathroom. He cried in his bed, or even at the Deschanel gravesite where his own infant body was thought to be buried. Knowing that Trey is the stillborn is downright baffling, but also the end of a closely-guarded nightmare. The truth sends so many different emotions into a frenzy, sometimes he can't bear it.
The baby- from all his constant nuzzling- smells like Olivia. It's not really a perfume, or lotion...it's hard to describe. Birthdays, he decides, not exactly sure how that can be summed up in a smell. It hits him like an asthma medicine he never knew he needed. He kisses the child's head and feels the strange double joy in this.
Guilt bites him. He gives Trey a bath to erase the smell. He reaches into the bathwater to unstop the tub, and realizes the nectar is all the way up his arm. He washes to his elbows. Still, the smell. He irrigates his nose with the neti pot AJ gave him for Father's Day. ("May you follow in my Old World footsteps of impeccable health.")
That seems to have done it. After all that, when the smell is completely gone, he yawns in withdrawal. He tries to detect it in the couch, the towels. Nothing.
He lies in his empty bed. Somewhere, Father Antonio is praying for them, and their prayer is a cracked bead on an otherwise normal Rosary. He wants to pray for Olivia like the priest told him to do...but he folds his hands, remembers what she smells like, and falls asleep.
Sometimes when she visits his dreams, she's drunk and covered in diamonds. Sometimes she's laboring with their son in Annie's clutches; he's a ghost unable to intervene, his shaking hands going right through them.
In this dream, she prowls the length of his bed on her hands and knees, as he once did to her...only this is a carefree Sunday morning with a crystal sunrise. He can smell frying eggs and coffee. She promises she won't wake the baby, but he will. He accepts the challenge, but promises that she'll lose. She laces her hands in his, bucking her hips slowly and tortuously as his thumbs caress the soft pink weakness of her armor. He gasps at the pressure when she leans down for a kiss. She deepens the angle as she towers over him, her head thrown back into the sun.
He sits up in bed with a start, kneading his eyes and forehead. "You've got to be kidding," he mutters. No...there's physical proof of his dream under his pajama bottoms, and he hates to think of relieving himself of it. Much too humiliating. So, he thinks of all the typical things men do to erase sex from their minds- baseball, politics...Olivia and AJ. Olivia and Gregory. Olivia and Del. Olivia and caterer, tennis instructor, chauffeur.
He lies there angry, his ache low, relentless, unchanging. He shudders deeply at the assault on his rib cage from the inside. It's the strangest kind of arousal he's ever known. It's almost has undertones of...homesickness.
Olivia and Sunday morning.
He takes care of it.
He returns Trey the next afternoon. Their dull morning razors felt like they'd shared them. Their toothbrushes seemed already wet. They stumble around as if last night's fantasies are written on their flesh.
"What do uh," he begins, studying the ice water pitcher on the bar cart. He wants to bury his face in it. "Do you have, like...planned. Today."
"What do you mean? I thought you were coming. W-with me- along. He has a doctor's appointment. Tyus wants to discuss where his treatment is going."
He sighs into his hands. "The appointment! Olivia, I swear I didn't forget, just temporarily. It wasn't for lack of caring, I swear I'm gonna be there, okay? I swear."
She throws her hands up. "God help the liver of anyone who takes a drink every time you swear something, Cole. Goodness, I understand. I haven't wanted to think about it either. He's such a happy boy...it's hard to be reminded of his condition." The doorbell rings, a welcome distraction. "I'll get it, Rose!" she calls out.
She comes back in with a package and cuts it open with a car key, gazing at the contents. "Oh, AJ, you didn't. It's striking," she smiles. She holds the green floral fabric to her body and sees a look on him that could register on the Richter. "It's...batik from Indonesia. When in Bali, do as the Balinese, you know."
"It looks...clingy," he says, his lips kneading. She thinks about trying it on, but his eyes are heavy reminders that the fitting room is wide open in his mind. Her eyes swell with a deep indigo and only thrust it carelessly wider.
Oh God, she shudders, tossing the batik back in the box. The house is a sauna and she paces to stir up cooler air. What am I doing? Damn you, Connie Frank!
She can't go to Bali like this. She needs the trip to be a cleanse. Completely. Of everything. "Cole, I've been meaning to tell you, I'm not sure it's such a good idea to bring the baby out of the country. You can keep him for that whole week if you'd like." My poor little darling. Reduced to a constant reminder of...weakness.
"Really? I'd love it, but...I mean, don't feel like you have to. I know you love to take him sight-seeing."
"You had a point the other day- he's oblivious. He'll probably think the towers of the Mother Temple are crinkle-cut chips."
He smiles. "I guess Father Antonio would be proud of us. We're both getting a different perspective all of a sudden. How is that book you've been reading?"
In an alternate horror universe, Olivia spills all. Well, it tells you to physically molest your child's father, spy on him, call him a god, have flashbacks of the conception, and when I reflected on all this, I probably would've drowned in the tub if AJ hadn't shown up.
"Hm? Erhm! It has...perculiar theories." She coughs. "It's not really touching on- s-striking a chord. With me. Which it's not. We'd better get going to the appointment." She paces a little more until she stops abruptly, her nerves getting the better of her for a different reason. "Cole..." she lays across the silence, aching and defeated.
"Yeah...?" He can feel two distinct points of pain, and realizes it's where her eyes are falling on him.
It is very difficult to spend eternity with someone we do not touch, Connie Frank's words burn in her head.
"I'm scared about what Tyus will say, I..." Her arms rise at her sides, unfurling. A pointed tooth sinks into his tongue. He shakes himself from outside his body as he realizes she's asking- however tentatively- to be held.
"It'll be alright," whispers a voice that sounds like his own. "Promise you that."
Her arms encircle him, his lungs working silently harder under the tightness of her grasp. She doesn't know her own strength. He remembers the last time she crushed him- beside the empty crib, her head echoing with the stillborn's cries. She rubs the base of his skull, knowing he's tilting his head ever so slightly to guide her to sweet spots. Blood thunders. They feel the quicksand all around them in the face of the appointment...and they don't struggle.
Trey is watching them from his play pen, pointing. "Dat." He takes his stuffed bear and kisses it.
"I-I'm sorry, this is confusing him," Olivia blurts out, pulling away and lifting the baby into her arms. "Mummy and Daddy don't do that, darling, no. Only with Gampy and Cay," she says, the boy's names for AJ and Caitlin.
"I'll just take him and meet you at Tyus's," Cole says, his presence lingering close as he clutches the child and hurries for the door.
"Wait..." she says, but he doesn't hear her. The door closes. "Damn that book," she thinks out loud, knowing full well she can never put it down.
They drive in their separate cars, the pavement baking underneath them. They flip through the radio channels, finding no mercy. Sensual Latin beats. I would give my world to lift you up. A boy band who wants it that way. The both quickly choose silence.
Jude, the interim manager of the Liberty Corporation, leans over the table at the Deep. "Caitlin, you're a third wheel, and let me tell you...a tricyle doesn't suit you."
Caitlin sighs. They've talked a lot about this subject. "I know..." She feels like the young girl in Labyrinth who wished for goblins to take her little brother away. "Did I ever tell you where he met her?" Jude shakes his head. "It was in our special place. Our sanctuary. When I go in that grotto now, it just feels like a dive bar."
"I know it's hard to face, but nothing is ever going to be sacred again. The guy is otherwise engaged, and always will be. Baby mama drama. He'll always answer that phone when she calls...and everytime, this gorgeous smile will fade a little more," he says, holding her cheek and caressing it with his smooth thumb. "You don't deserve a Jerry Springer life. Step-mother to your brother? That's straight out of Kentucky. You, on the other hand, are pure class."
She smiles, the calm gesture veiling a swarm of hormones. She's only twenty-two years old. "My dad never missed a chance to remind me of that."
"Do you think your dad would've liked me?"
He's found the million dollar question before their salads even reach the table. "I know it. You're such a good listener...but I'm tired of talking."
So begins their affair.
They end up in the bathroom, pawing and kissing and digging fingers in each other's hair. She wishes she had a tongue ring, wanting to drag the silver orb down his body. Judas Cavanaugh. A whole, unbroken, undivided man.
They begin to move together on the edge of the sink- no candles, flowers or music. Caitlin relishes the lack of trimmings, but sex itself hasn't felt the same in years. There's something about being penetrated that always makes her think of her miscarriage, as if something physically broke in and robbed her. She clenches up, but Jude only gasps at his tight fit. She tries to block out everything but pleasure, but it's difficult when someone is storming the gates of your barrenness.
Olivia and Cole sit in Tyus's office after the nurse sequesters the baby in the lab for his monthly shots. "This is where things get tricky," Tyus says. "I'm pleased with Trey's stability, I truly am. This is the longest he's been able to go without a transfusion...but I think this stretch is running out, for good."
"Oh, no," Olivia trembles.
"A very new Von Willebrand's med could be just what we need to hit the disease aggressively. At the same time, I want to proceed with caution. The side effects could be tough on a toddler...but he'll a lot better off in the long run. We have to think about ten, twenty years down the line, as difficult as that may be. If we don't try this drug, I'm afraid his life will be an endless series of transfusions...and they'll become more frequent as he grows."
Cole's eyes dart to Olivia's as she tries to crush her need to cry. "What are the side effects?" he asks Tyus without looking at him.
"There have been vision problems, headaches, auto-immune triggers...and that's just what's known at this time. I need both of you to seriously weigh the risks and benefits." He gets a page. "Please excuse me, I'll be right back."
The sound of the door closing makes the slow trickle begin that Olivia has tried so hard to blink back. "God...either way we're putting him through hell," she sniffs. "This stupid disease probably comes from my side. The English, now there's a healthy lot. Ale in our veins and mutton for brains. I just made that up, do you like it?"
He takes her hand on the armrest. "I'm not gonna sit here and listen to you blame yourself for this. It's not helping. We need to focus on the future. Definitely not ancient history, and not even the present. I think we should try the new treatment."
"No," she snaps. "You heard him, it's too new. I'm not going to let Trey be s-some guinea pig and suffer from all the things they don't even know about yet! I'll continue the transfusions, I don't care. I'll give him plasma until I have none left!"
He takes her face in his hand and her eyes close reflexively. "I see what that does to you every time. I hate it. You have to think of yourself, too."
"I don't want to!" She sinks to her knees under his chair, broken and wet-faced. He drops down too, cradling her head in the hollow of his chest. "I don't want to look in his eyes if he suffers," she creaks. "That look of 'Mummy, why?' Because I know what's best? Is that my answer? Like hell I know what's best."
"I don't want to hurt him either," Cole says, his voice crumbling. Olivia has never heard him speak through a torrent in his eyes and throat. "I love him so much, so much I swear it's gonna kill me one of these days. God, I love him."
Olivia wants to thank him for that. So much. She clings to his shirt. They are in this treacherous journey together, and he's the only one who understands. She hates the way she's about to show him...but the thought begins to feel as involuntary as another breath.
She would pull him against her lips, but he's already there- a quiet explosion of mutuality. He could cry out with how much he's wanted this, but the hushed ecstasy he loses into Olivia's mouth could knock all of Tyus's degrees off the wall. She feels his thumbs making dimples on her own cheeks. She tastes like birthdays and salted after-shave from his tears on her face. His fingertips burn at the discovery of the hard points of her breasts, her deep gasp at his touch leaving him without a hope of stopping.
The parents stumble into Tyus's supply closet, trying to ignore the bright red biohazard container, the sharp instruments. He presses her against the wall as his other hand tortures her nipple. Names are chanted in such an ancient way, you'd never guess they didn't know them when the baby was conceived. She unbuttons his shirt, suckling his chest as his heart quakes against her lips. He falls to his knees to kiss her stomach, something he longed to do when she bloomed with Trey. His stubbled mouth trails up to nettle each breast, and names are exchanged again like prayers. She struggles with his belt, her eyes oceans of intent as he pulls down her skirt. This is where he pauses, she remembers. This is when he becomes the most tender, his hand sliding between them to punctuate his movements. There's so much happening at once, but so carefully. His warm breath sating her gasps, his rhythm inside her, his classical strumming. The thrill and tragedy of his short existence is that this is the most passionate moment of his life, but he knows, knows she'll hate herself for it.
They balance there, slumped in the white light of a release muted by kisses. Speechlessness, besides the strange language of panting on each other. As if this wasn't the most difficult moment already...it's right then they hear the office door open, and the bell of their son's voice in the thin space between them.
Olivia mouths a curse, scrambling to button Cole's shirt as he fixes her up. They dab each other miserably with rubbing alcohol, an Irish shower of sorts. She lingers on the junction of his neck and earlobe, the softest part of him, then turns away in a huff towards the closet door.
Then it's time to make the walk of shame back to their chairs. If they could put bags over their heads, they would. Trey is in the doctor's arms and squeals when he sees them appear, like they just popped out of a Jack-in-the-Box. He covers his little eyes and peeks through his hands.
Tyus Robinson wasn't born yesterday, but his compassionate expression doesn't change. Seven years in medical school, and you still find out something new every day about human frailty. Olivia's hair is cowlicked, Cole's shirt is buttoned asymmetrically, and they both look as guilty as someone who ran over their neighbor's dog. Note to self: re-sterilize everything.
Olivia's lie is rapid-fire. "Doctor, I'm sorry- we could hear the people in the next room and we wanted more privacy to discuss things."
"It's no problem," Tyus says. "I don't expect you to come to a decision today, by the way. Please take your time."
"We have decided," Olivia says. "We want him to take the medication."
The walk to the car with Trey is an interminable one.
She feels like she's underwater- thrashing, helpless, overtaken. She is clomping just ahead of him, unsteady on her legs, the baby tugging on her earring.
"Olivia..." It's the first time he's said her name since the closet, and she blenches. "Thank you...for making it our decision."
"Cole, don't you ever tire of the constant motion of your mouth? I think those giant divots in your cheeks are the muscles buckling from overuse."
"All I said was-"
"Will you please just learn to appreciate an occasion for silence? Believe me, this is one."
"H'okay," he sighs softly. "I see where this is going. We're just going to act like it never happened."
"Oh, that. How could I?" She straps Trey in his carseat and shuts his door, turning back to Cole. "It was the stuff of legends," she says, her eyes ice blue with sarcasm. "How does it go again? When the Santa Ana wind kicks up, the first married man who shags you next to diabetic hosiery is the one you're destined to die of embarrassment with? Doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?"
He can't exactly argue with that. He's too tired. "It was crazy and reckless and...us, Olivia. It was us."
She turns her back to him again. "There's only us three, Cole, not us two. All of this reminds me so much of Sean's surgery. It pushed Gregory and me into each other's arms...watching our child struggle. It's just a catalyst."
"You know what the catalyst was for me? Reality. Raw, broken, bruised up and mine for the taking. Everything in my life has always been an illusion. Everything. I saw this movie not long ago called The Truman Show. God...I sat there with tears running down my face, because that was me. My childhood was a set. I'm not even sure I ever went to Europe, or if that was a soundstage, too. My baby was made of polyurethane. It had a tag sewn on it," he shudders.
"Cole..." she offers him, truly smothered by his words.
"I could blame you for a lot of my big hoax of a life, Olivia. I tried so many times...but every time I turn my back on you, I miss you. I miss this...whatever it is. I can let myself go with you. I can breathe with you. It's always been that way, no matter how far I've tried to run from it."
"...It has?...I-I mean...Cole, I...I can't look you in the eye and say I'll never think about Tyus's closet again..." He never expected the words "Tyus's closet" to have that sort of connotation in a million years, to reduce him to smithereens. "...but we can't fall into a...physical oblivion every time we hit a rough spot in parenting. Your marriage is hanging by a thread as it is, and I know you love your father dearly. We can make this work without failing everyone around us."
"It wasn't oblivion...and they'll never be happy with this situation, no matter what we do. Don't you think they understand where the tension between us comes from?"
"Weakness."
"No. When I see you cry, I feel anything but weak. I need to build you up. To give you happiness. Whatever it takes. Whatever I break in the process. I have to," he says, the soft timber of his voice maddening.
She's suddenly outside herself, grasping her heart. "...sometimes my happiness is as terribly simple as...a moped covered in monkeys."
His face is flushed with the answered hope that AJ would tell her, and that it mattered. "I know you, Olivia."
She looks away into the car and Trey is sleeping. She gazes at the child's face nestled between their reflection. Dat, he'd said back home as he pointed at them and kissed the bear.
"You'd better get him home..." Cole says. He opens Olivia's car door and gestures inside.
She sits in the driver's seat, looking away from him as she brushes past. "Cole...all we have to do is be civil. That's it. Civil. It's a rather neutral ground. It's somewhere between brawling Jerry Springer guests and the content of an unmarked tape in someone's drawer."
"How far back in the drawer?"
She slams her door. He taps on the window and she lowers it a bit.
"I'm sorry," he sighs.
"No, you're not. God, I don't know how Trey can sleep through all this insanity."
"I guess when it's all you know, it just sounds like a lullaby. Can you try not to run over my feet when you're driving away?"
She sighs. "...I wouldn't do that to Trey's dancing stilts."
"I'm lucky he loves to dance."
"Only with you, Cole. He...always answered your touch on my belly with a step-ball-change or two. You just bring it out of him somehow."
His tortured face looks the same way it did all the times his shaking hand fumbled to their rounded secret. "I wonder who brings it out of me."
She sees so many moments in his eyes, ones that no one knows about but her. She never really thinks of him as a young man, because when his eyes are on her, they shine with a wisdom far beyond his years. Beyond anyone's, maybe. "Cole, if it weren't for Trey, there would be nothing between us."
"Well...there wouldn't exactly be an ocean between us, either."
He watches her car get Matchbox sized as she drives away. She watches him shrink into a toy solider as he disappears in the side view mirror. She remembers Antonio's quicksand bit and imagines his face if she'd answered ravish each other in it.
Olivia goes home and returns to her bath.
This time, an ice cold one. Complete with ice cubes.
She sinks down low, chattering to her marrow. "The t-tamest of punishments for what you've done...to AJ, to your daughter..."
She can't say to Trey. He's going to be okay, and perhaps she can credit Tyus's closet for that more than she wants to admit. Cole let her in so deeply in that small space, his fervor to give Trey the medicine became her own.
She...trusts him.
She looks down and sees red whisker marks on her breast. She remembers arching into him for more of the sweet sting, and more. It hits her they were in there much longer than she realized. Long enough that it was much more than numbing pain...long enough that it was just living.
Adultery would never be beautiful, but it was something so darkly personal, you held it in a place even deeper than the heart. It was down in the thick, ugly bones of your spine, keeping you from falling apart.
She forgets that she's freezing, and says his name like a lover. "Oh, Cole." Trey might have stuck them together, but they are the glue.
Cole goes home and showers like a Lifetime movie. Her fragrance, her phantom pressure, the animal weight of her in his arms...all spirited away from his wet skin and replaced with scars.
One of Trey's books is on his bedroom floor, and the words echo in his head. And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.
He tries to sleep. His pillow has no cool side. The hardest thing is to exhale, to push out all the weight inside him. Olivia's soft plea of his name punishes his ribs. He lies in hiccups, his diaphragm jerking him awake every time he feels close to slumber. The water-logged heart inside him is floating upside down like the Neptune, imploding.
Lover will always be the first card he drew with Olivia, always trumping all. He'll never be able to comfort her without kissing her, or grieve with her without sinking to her breast. He'll never be able to watch Trey succeed without rejoicing in her bed.
She was right. He's never appreciated any of the sights he's seen in his life, because he didn't feel them. He's been to Bali before, and he can only imagine how much different it is with Olivia in the foreground.
A hiccup slices through his held breath. When she goes to the island, she'll do something impulsive, like marry AJ in a Hindu ceremony. Take the Seven Steps. He can see his father beaming as she walks to him in the floral dress that Cole longed to vanish under until she cried out.
He presses his face in his arms. He does love his father. It was terrifying when it hit him the first time. He was watching AJ cross a busy street and held him in his eyes until he reached the opposite side, like he had complete control over his safety. A kid playing an Atari game his world depended on.
It's an undeniable fact that nobody tries to recreate the past with her quite like AJ.
The birthday scent didn't wash away, he realizes. He holds his breath as if he can jar it up and preserve it in his body, until another hiccup.
Still unable to sleep, he puts his wedding video into the VCR.
You always notice things you never did before with each viewing. Nobody knows how to dance to save their lives. Annie blinked fifteen times when she addressed the camera and wished the happy couple well. Bitch. He decides he'll never question Antonio's unwavering faith again, after believing in all this.
Olivia's false labor also made the video cut...the one dose of reality. His gray vest began to match his skin as he sprinted for the moaning woman, her dress the color of blood oranges. He guarded her until the circle of people tightened around her so much, he was completely outside it. He stood on his toes to see in, like a child.
There's a knock at the door, at 2 a.m, startling him out of his panic from a year ago and into another one. He stumbles off the couch. "Who is it?" he offers into the thick silence.
The voice behind the door laughs. "INTERPOL," she calls out in a deep voice.
"Caitlin...?" He opens the door to a vision of her he's never seen before, slumped against the frame with a bottle of Absolut in her hand. He can smell cologne wafting in his direction, stronger than the alcohol.
"Do you know why I won't suck it up an' divorce you?" she slurs, ignoring his horror. "Get ready for this one. You...are the cause of every undignified, humiliating moment of my life...but you're the only link I have to my baby," she says, tears welling.
He pulls her into the house and shuts the door. "Caitlin, no," he sighs, holding her face.
"I always heard that babies happen when two people love each other so much, it spills over into another soul. How does it feel to have a kid who was born because two people fucked?" she asks, swatting him away and taking a gulp from the bottle.
"Stop." He rips the vodka from her hands. "Stop it! You know this won't change anything. You know first hand, from watching-!" He catches himself, but she knows the end of the sentence...vodka clear.
"...it always goes back to the mother of your child, doesn't it?"
It does, really...all the way back to the hospital when he was born. Inescapably. "...cait..."
"And there she is again. You never call me Cait. God, it's like she's passed out on your fucking larynx."
"I'm sorry," he winces in defeat. "It's not to hurt you."
"But this will hurt," she says, her blue eyes blazing. "She wishes she was raising Trey with Daddy."
"Does vodka turn you into Annie?" he shivers. "You know what? Olivia and I might be the craziest parents in the world, but at least we shared our pain when she lost Trey. We grew from it. I wasn't a part of losing Little D. You shut me out and pretended it never happened."
"When was I going to tell you? When you were running off to check on Gregory Junior? Her baby was always this great mystery you had to crack. You couldn't let it go, and look where it got you. Fighting, chaos, shuffling Trey around. Your life is hell."
"You're one to talk right now," he says, pouring the vodka down the sink.
"Like mother, like daughter. At least no one gets to inherit my qualities. When I'm gone, that's it. There's nothing left. No legacy. No gift to the world."
"Trey meant all that to you when you thought he came from a stranger!"
"I never had to think about that. All anyone ever said was how much he looked like you...with my eyes. I thought it was some kind of miracle, until I stopped believing in them," she trembles.
"I...I know you see him differently now. I know. But please...just love him. I want you in his life. He can be your legacy, Caitlin. He can look up to his sister."
"Don't say that. I hate it. It makes you sound like my stepfather!" she glowers. "You know what I think, Cole? You grew up with no family and no compass. You would've followed anyone around with your offspring stuck in her, like a lost dog."
"I'm always lost, Caitlin...but I'm no dog," he says. It's too little, too late for this whole discussion. It's the furthest thing from understanding each other. He yanks the pull-out couch from its cushioned confines. "I'll make this bed up for you. You're staying here."
"I don't think so."
"I'm still your husband," he says.
The wedding tape rewound itself and has started again. Staring straight into the screen, Olivia's daughter slumps down on the hard, unmade mattress. She watches her plastered-on smile, her hands protecting her padded stomach from anyone so much as brushing against her. Amazing, the kind of absolute mental breakdown you can pass off as wedding day jitters.
"Why were you watching this?" she asks.
"It always helps me when I can't sleep. Not because it's boring," he answers the look she gives him. "Just the opposite, really. All the emotions wear me out."
"Look at me clutching my purse like a freak. I wouldn't let anyone hold it. The clasp was broken and it had tampons and Xanax in it."
Cole sighs, sitting down slowly on the fold-out. Great. A drunken Pop-Up Video commentary. "Caitlin...we should've been grieving that day," he says. "About everything. The affair, the infertility. Everything."
"If I had told you I couldn't have children...you would've followed that up with I got your mother pregnant? Only if hell froze over, Cole."
He knows how hypocritical they are, Cole holding another encounter with Olivia tightly in his chest, Cait covered in the manly musk of the Liberty boardroom. He still can't let it leave his lips. It belongs to him.
"Don't break the nest tonight, you two lovebirds!" Bette addresses the camera on screen.
They sit there watching the video in absolute silence. They crack a smile once and a while, but only the way people do watching the wedding of two strangers.
They want to understand what a marriage is. For her, growing up Richards, the definition changed by the day, the hour, the minute. For a man raised by the Lady in Black, it means being unable to let go of what's dead.
When he wakes up on the fold out couch, Caitlin is gone, and all he has is a terrible crick in his neck.
He feels like a child who doesn't know how to play the harmonica and just breathes through it, chugging the same two chords in and out.
He's never been more at a loss.
He makes a mumbled phone call.
The brick building still has the facade of a family home, but the inside has been transformed into a deeply perfumed storefront. Something about it still echoes with the presence of little children. "My one o'clock appointment is here," Cole hears Madame Carmen say. Ricardo turns around and does a double take, making the most screwed-up face he's ever seen the detective wear.
"You're her one o'clock?" Ricardo snorts.
Cole nods.
"Is this some kinda...August Fool's joke?"
Cole shakes his head.
"You feelin' alright?"
"Ay yi yi, Ricardo, enough with the interrogation!"
"Keep an eye on anything shiny, Mama. Something is rotten in Denmark," Ricardo sighs, and leaves.
"You're not alright, are you?" Carmen frowns, her brown eyes reaching out to his. "Te sientes todo y nada."
"Si," he answers, taken back to Madrid, and intrigued by the sudden drafty window into his chest. He feels everything and nothing.
"Come and sit down, child," she says. "I didn't catch your name over the phone."
"Cole."
English names bring no joy to the mouth. Mark. Meg. Tim. They're like stumps. "Col? Is that short for something?"
"No. Short on something, maybe."
"I take it from Ricardo's reaction that you've never seen a psychic?"
"Well...I saw one, once," he says, shrugging. "You know. She obviously couldn't see the future if she thought I'd still be lying next to her in the morning. She was pretty mad. Said I was going to die at twenty two. What do you know? Still here."
"The death I see is more often a beginning, Col." She deals the cards, meditating over them. She finally looks up, putting her hand to her heart. "Dios mio...you brought someone with you."
"Someone?"
"There is a man in the corner of this room. One pointed finger to his face, like Socrates."
Cole shivers deeply. Knowing the way Gregory was crushes any disbelief in the paranormal. "God...he just can't stop checking up on me, even dead."
She shakes her head. "Spirits have better things to do than 'check up.' Sometimes they just get confused. He thinks he's your lawyer."
Cole tries to tear his frozen eyes from the corner of the room, feeling a distinct rise in the temperature.
"Don't worry, he's gone. I guess the court is in recess."
"Why would he want to defend me?"
"Because you stop at nothing for your family," she simply says, and deals another card.
His heart spurts in his chest.
"I see just one child for you, and he is everything. I see none in your future. You only want one woman's children, and she can bare no more." She closes her eyes. "Such a presence. She comes to me all in white," the prophet says, "but she is no angel."
He realizes she isn't talking about Caitlin. She watches the astonishment unfold in his dark eyes, flecks of gold in them. "No other woman has ever given you so much pain...or shelter. You will watch her grow old, but you will feel the same age. When her mind wears down, she will call you by a name you hate, but you will not forsake her...because you'll understand. You will feed her like a child. You will be beside her when she breathes her last."
She can see the old Deschanel across the table in her mind, his face painted over with age. The same gold-flecked brown eyes are sunken in his skin, his dimples drawn low. He rubs his forehead. Puffs out a loaded sigh.
"Have I outshined your one-night psychic yet?"
"You have no idea."
"You knew I would see this woman in my reading. That is truly why you came. You want her place in you acknowledged without judgement. This is impossible outside these walls."
You could knock him down with a light breeze. "What the hell am I gonna do?"
"You will never tame her, but the journey is worth everything she can throw at you, Colito. It's the greatest adventure of your life."
Caitlin knew this doctor's office was different the moment she saw oven mitts over the cold stirrups. Dr. Giordano looks at her without the grimness she's come to know so well. "Caitlin," she says, "This has never been a question of fertility. Your eggs are perfectly viable. We just need to reconstruct your uterus into a safe vessel to carry the egg to term. There's a new procedure to remove the scarring, and treat it with a protein that'll heal it from within. I'm so confident we can beat this."
The young woman's tears bring tears to the doctor's eyes too. "I hope so. I hit a low place the other day, so low. Piss drunk and hopeless."
"No more of that, okay? We're on a road to healing, you and me. The end of the shame, the guilt, and feeling broken. Your husband will be happy, right?"
"Happy for me," Caitlin says, black mascara flooding her fingertips. She feels like a thief being printed, but the stolen jewel is her life.
Olivia's fifteenth 29th birthday falls on a Saturday, the day before her plane leaves. Tomorrow she will leave Trey with Cole as she's Bali-bound, the first time she's ever surrendered the child for more than a night. She glances at herself in the foyer mirror. Look at you. As easy-going as Connie Frank all of a sudden, she sighs.
Maybe self-help has little to do with the self at all. Maybe it's about losing yourself.
The doorbell rings. When she answers, she can barely see Cole behind the tulips in his arms. "Happy birthday," he says, a tired phrase he somehow gives a spark.
"How did you know I'm part Dutch?" she asks softly, touching the petals in reminiscence of her mother.
"'Well, you always wear clogs, and whenever Trey falls flat on his butt, he says bippy."
She laughs. "They're wonderful...thank you." She twists around the tulips to give him a kiss on the cheek, but in trying not to crush the flowers it lands on his neck.
You can feel the width of a person's grin through their neck, she realizes.
He puts the flowers down on the coffee table, and places a wrapped box beside it. "Oh, you didn't have to. The flowers are more than enough, really."
"C'mon. Something you're gonna forget to water is never enough. Go on, open it."
He waits for her signature gasp when she opens it, and it comes like clockwork. It's a framed photo of a moment she never realized his wedding photographer caught. Trey had just kicked Cole firmly during their dance, and he and Olivia were both smiling down at her belly. Through someone else's eyes, it was a purely innocent moment of humanity. "Oh..." she sighs. "Look at those smiles."
"I-I don't expect you to...put it on display, Olivia, I really don't. I just wanted you to have it, because...it's the only portrait of all of us there's ever going to be. I guess I'm really asking you to just...save it for when he understands."
She puts a fist to her heart, trying to make a sob die in her chest. The picture becomes blurry as her flooding eyes take over. "No. No, I won't stash it away like it's shameful. He understands more than we know." She lifts Trey from his playpen and his stubby fingers smudge the glass immediately. "Look, darling, look. It's Mummy, Daddy and Trey. You said 'Here I am, Daddy, here I am,'" she sniffs. She can see his pride and pain sharply in the corner of her eye. "Thank you, Cole. It's the most honest thing anyone's ever given me."
She sets the picture down on the coffee table and goes to give him a hug. This time, the child pressed between them is twenty pounds, and his fists and feet are like sledgehammers. Still, this image has come to define them.
Nobody wants to have a baby with the person they meet at rock bottom, but sometimes the baby chooses you because you can handle it.
The squirming bundle of milk begins to blur the beginning and end of their bodies, but their lips meet in absolute clarity.
He knows Olivia would knock him down and step over his body if Gregory walked through that front door, and whisk Trey into his seaweed-covered arms.
He kisses her anyway. La aventura, he remembers. A fairy tale ended in the middle, but an adventure was to the death. She has never felt him explore her mouth so slowly, as if this was the quintessential lover's kiss the French intended. It's a kiss that would let her breathe underwater. A kiss that would create a new life...if kisses alone could.
I'll love you for as long as you can stand me, his eyes whisper. Then he just walks to the liquor cart and nonchalantly pours himself an ice water.
"Abbondanza!" AJ exclaims, as he bursts in with armfuls of gifts. "Stand back, Olivia, we're going to party like it's 1999, because by God it is."
Olivia stands there with her fingers on her lips and Trey in one arm. "...What?..."
"Are you alright?" AJ chuckles. "You look like you're going to start bemoaning your age again- I won't hear of it."
"No, darling, I...I just have this startling feeling that a mother gets every now and then...that she forgives herself."
As everyone else arrives, no one notices the photo of Cole and Olivia on the coffee table. Except for Father Antonio. He kneels to it, the frozen moment jumping right out of the glass. He makes the sign of the cross and gives a quiet consecration. "Oh Lord, protect this family from all evils and misfortunes, but grant that they may be ever resigned to Thy divine will, even in the sorrows it shall please Thee to bring them."
The looks that Cole and Olivia give each other across the room are undetectable by others. Maybe there's something innocent about the way their eyes meet, something pure and classic and timeless. Like babies, sometimes they believe that when something is covered up, it doesn't exist anymore. But when it's unveiled, how thrilled they are to see it.
THE END