"What is going on?" Charlotte demands, jumping to her feet. She sways for a moment, until regaining her balance.
"Eat your breakfast." Delphine urges, placing a bowl of oatmeal cooked with frozen fruit in front of her.
"Cosima left!" Charlotte exclaims loudly. "How are you so calm?!"
"For a night, or two. She'll be back." Delphine tries to reassure the child. "Eat your breakfast, Charlotte. We are going to be late." Some Leda traits, Delphine knew well, were trickier to live with than others. Though Charlotte's impulsivity wasn't nearly as bad as Cosima's.
"Who is going to take me to swimming lessons after school?" Charlotte glances around for the clock.
"I will." Delphine reiterates. It was typically Cosima's task, but she was happy to fill in.
She manages to rush Charlotte out the door to school, just in time to join the subway rush hour to campus for her office hours.
Delphine grades papers, trying to think about everything and anything else. Hoping desperately that Elise the pregnant grad student does not waddle down her office hallway today. She doesn't think she can take it. The jealousy she constantly feels looking at the younger woman was… inappropriate.
Delphine sighs, thinking back to the early morning, to Cosima moving in her, smiling and groaning in the dark. She'd chosen to indulge fantasy rather than chase orgasm, maybe it had been a mistake. She could have just let Cosima get her off. Just had a 'normal' encounter.
She rushes from the university to the alternative elementary school where they have Charlotte enrolled. Delphine watches for a moment, Charlotte gesturing and talking with what she assumes are new friends, despite her limping gait reminding her so much of Cosima a moment.
"Charlotte." Delphine calls out, waving the girl over.
"Who's that?" One of the other girls asks, "that's not your mom."
Charlotte lets out a sigh, "Cosima is my big sister, not my mom. That's Delphine, Cosima's wife."
"Your sister has a wife?" Another child perks up, curiosity, Delphine assumes. Perhaps Charlotte hasn't given them the edited 'school-approved' version of their family structure yet. All they'd ever told any schools, was that they had custody of Cosima's little sister. It hadn't been a problem. Other than occasionally schools wondering who the heck she was, while Cosima, waltzed right in, and was often accidentally called 'mom'.
She waves her over again. "Charlotte, we're going to be late."
"I gotta go." Charlotte excuses herself, "Bye!"
"Do you like the school?" Delphine asks when they've gotten just far enough away.
"I think so." Charlotte responds thoughtfully. "Not a good year to change schools though. These kids, they've all known each other for ages."
"I'm sorry." Delphine apologizes, "the other school was too far."
"I know." Charlotte nods, "you warned me before the move that might happen."
"I have your swim bag." Delphine holds it up, she reaches for Charlotte when they cross the street before thinking better of it. Charlotte was 12, of course she wouldn't want to be babied.
"Can we get takeout for dinner?"
Delphine nods, "we'll pick up something. And then, we'll watch a netflix movie?"
"OK." Charlotte seems to want to let this go for now.
Charlotte gets into the pool shortly after arriving, it had been her idea initially. Enrolling Charlotte in swim classes, a low impact exercise that could help to further the strength in both her legs. But the child took to it pretty well.
She glances around, she sees several teenagers who are no doubt competitive swimmers, and what looks like a mom and tot swim class breaking up. The tiny little faces, the wet hair, the frazzled tired parents. Delphine cannot help but smile at them. The image comes easily to her mind, she and Cosima, taking their baby. A child that would in all likelihood, never exist. But the fantasy remains.
Baby fever. The term seems silly, but Delphine supposes it was becoming more and more accurate. It had hit her for the first time with Cosima a little over two years ago, and it was only getting worse.
She heads straight for Sarah's, via public transit. Somehow she manages to avoid talking about why she's wanting to stay in the guest room until she's at the door.
"Hey." She knocks
"Kira's at school." Sarah informs her, "come in, it's fine." She drops her stuff near the door and follows Sarah to sit on the couch.
"Things got… hard." Cosima explains, "but it's just for two nights. I want to be back home on Sunday."
"Right… so what did Delphine do?" Sarah asks, drumming her fingers on her leg.
"Before or after she started fantasizing during sex that I could get her pregnant?" Cosima responds with a grimace.
Sarah's laughter was not the response she was expecting. Her sister howls with laughter, body jerking awkwardly on the couch.
"Shit." Sarah continues to giggle. "So Delphine wants a kid?"
"Yeah."
"And you… you really don't."
"That about sums it up. You know, we've been through this. I'm not maternal."
"I know…" Sarah tries to quell her laughter slightly, "last time we were at Alison's, when Arthur ran up to you and reached his arms up, you just stared."
"How was I supposed to know he wanted me to pick him up?" Cosima exclaims. "I don't know anything about babies. And even when they try to talk I don't understand what the heck they're saying."
"This," Sarah laughs again demonstrating with her own arms, "is classic toddler for pick me up."
"Kira used to do that too, huh?" Cosima surmises.
"Kira. Yup. Gemma too, I'm sure. But you'll have to ask Alison." Sarah sprawls back on her couch.
Cosima sighs, stretching her arms up above her head. "I mean, I know that I am a good auntie with Kira, but she was what? Eight when I met her?"
"Something like that." Sarah nods. "So, don't have kids. Easy."
"But then," Cosima throws her arms up in frustration. "Delphine won't have them, and she wants them. I am not sure what the appeal is with babies."
"Small. Cute. Tiny feet." Sarah shrugs and smiles, "I could dig out pictures of Kira at that age. There's one S took of the two of us right after I had her. God, she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen."
"So you're exhausted, drugged up and sweaty?" Cosima posits a theory.
"Sort of." Sarah shrugs, "I had gas and air, with midwives in the hospital. You know, we were from London, that was the normal there. And the norm to S, so I tried that first. It went well… I think."
"But… you wanted a baby?"
Sarah stands, pacing towards the kitchen, "Not until I was already pregnant."
"But what if I say, yeah Delphine, I really love you, so go on and get knocked up and then it just never changes? What if I never love the kid? Or can't bond with it? I don't like babies." Cosima reiterates.
"Do you really think that?" Sarah asks thoughtfully, "Do you think you'd need biology to bond with your kid?"
"Dude… you didn't have to look in my parents' eyes when I broke the news that I wasn't really theirs. I literally crushed their souls." Cosima shudders, "do you have any beer?"
"Yeah." Sarah wanders to the fridge, plucking out two cans before coming back and handing one to her.
She opens the can, some new Canadian craft brewery that Sarah was getting into these days. The beer, at least, was decent.
"How are you? Things going okay?"
"Yeah. Still tending bar. Still taking college courses." Sarah shrugs. "Makes Kira proud of me, but I have no idea what I am doing."
"None of us do." Cosima take a swig from the can. "Still want to open a bar?"
"Yes. I know a good bar. And … with any luck, Felix will back me, and Alison will back me, and as soon as Kira is in highschool, I'm doing it." Sarah grins. "And stupid rich kids will pay out the nose for craft beer on tap. And we'll have good music. Maybe I should make craft beer, I could probably make a shit ton of money off rich idiots."
"When she's old enough to stay home alone, you mean." Cosima sighs, "isn't she old enough now?"
"Kind of." Sarah agrees. "So back to you and Delphine. Do you dislike little kids? Do you just not want any? Or are you scared?"
"I am not even sure anymore." Cosima sighs. "You know, before we even thought about getting married Delphine brought up having a kid. I said no, I don't want any. She agreed. That should have been the end of it."
"Except you're forgetting what Delphine will do for you. What we've seen her do... " Sarah trails of. "She probably thought she'd get over it."
"Dude, I was reluctant to take in Charlotte! She asked us twice before Delphine said yes, and told me I was running out of excuses and should take on my sister. But Charlotte was already ten. Like, we hit up science centres and museums, we took her to Disney World, and France. Like… we have fun. And Charlotte is a cool kid. Still loves geology. Her rock collection is getting a bit bigger than we'd like though." Cosima breaks off in laugh. "I got her this geode last Christmas and it's… it's getting scary in her room."
"So… you can handle an older kid fine, clearly." Sarah continues, "so could you have another one?"
"It'd be a tiny screaming baby." Cosima grimaces. "It'd emerge from Delphine, and scream, and poop. And I wouldn't have a clue what the kid wanted until it learned how to talk. And they're so small. How do you not hurt them?"
"Kira wanted to be fed, and held. That was it for a few months." Sarah summarizes.
"But I am Charlotte's sister. I mean, Delphine and I are her guardians, and I guess we're sort of like her parents now. But I'm not her mom."
"But you're raising her. Doing the best you can." Sarah argues, "parenting."
"I'm late getting her to swimming class almost every week." Cosima admits, "Charlotte is getting the Leda attitude, I've yelled at her a few times. But honestly? I was way worse at her age. I think Delphine is a good influence on her. She's much better than us at keeping a cooler head."
"I wouldn't worry about it Cos," Sarah soothes her. "It's pretty clear that Delphine would do just about anything for you. You don't want a kid? Delphine's not going to push for it. Just let this blow over."
"That's definitely the easier option." Cosima agrees. "For me."
"Then you can do that. Or… you can try to make your wife happy, and let Delphine have her way on this one. Infancy doesn't last forever." Sarah shrugs. "And I think you'd be fine with an older kid."
"Yeah... " Cosima sighs. "It's just not an easy call. At all."
"If it were, you wouldn't be taking it seriously." Sarah offers wisely. "Come up. Let's get some food started or something. Kira will be home in an hour with Felix, and I might as well try to have something for them. We can't live off pizza."
"True." Cosima nods, trying to put the conversation behind her.
Cosima arrives home late Sunday night. But it looks the same, she feels the same coming home, hearing Delphine's voice greeting her. The same smell of their home. She's not sure what she was expecting,
"How was the weekend?" Cosima looks from Charlotte, lost in a book on the couch to Delphine doing marking at the kitchen table.
"Fine." Charlotte answers.
"Just fine?"
"It was good." Delphine replies. "Charlotte and I took a bike ride yesterday, stopped at a café, got some things done around the house."
"Shit… the guest room." Cosima remembers in a brief twinge of regret. "Sorry, I was supposed to do that this weekend."
"Why don't you go take a look at it?" Delphine suggests. Charlotte merely giggles into her book, before returning to the semi-silent treatment she was giving her.
"I'm tired." Cosima complains.
"Sarah wore you out?"
"And Kira. And Felix was there this weekend… it was… kind of crazy." Cosima glosses over the details. Some things, were better left unsaid.
"Are you hungover?" Delphine scrutinizes her briefly.
Cosima smirks, tilting her head. "Maybe a little."
She reaches the second floor, and for a moment looks longingly at the stairs up to the converted attic, their master suite. All she wants to do is collapse next to Delphine. Have some semblance of normal before the fights resume.
Instead she sighs, obeying Delphine's insistent gesturing towards the door to the guest room.
She flicks on the light, peering inside. Blinking several times to be sure of what she's seeing.
"It's done. " Cosima remarks in shock.. The guest room's walls are now a light grey. The boxes cleared out, and everything put away, minus the tape on the baseboards.
"And the furniture is ordered." Delphine adds, "Queen sized bed, night tables, small chest of drawers. "
"I love you. " Cosima finishes simply.
"Charlotte helped." Delphine smiles, "she's actually quite good with a paint roller."
"You guys did a great job." A sense of relief floods over her, this fight, Cosima thinks happily, is over.
"And you didn't even have to paint." Charlotte shouts up the stairs as she thumps her way up.
"No, thank you so much." Cosima leans in for a quick kiss, before moving to gather her little sister into her arms. "It's a great surprise."
"It should be ready for visitors by next month." Delphine smiles again, "I know your parents said October."
"October… could be November knowing them. But thank you." Cosima repeats, "this means a lot to me."
"I know, mon amour," Delphine drops her voice lower, "I know."