If you read my other stuff, you know that I usually don't work at this speed (sorry). This is coming to me faster than anything I've done before, but I don't know if that speed will continue or not. I never know. I'm dealing with what actually happened that night very slowly because...well I'll be honest, I don't even really know right now. Stick with me. Hope you like this! PS: To the anon who mentioned Alex, you are genius!
"Daddy, why is we on da floor in here?" Bellie stirred me from a restless sleep. The baby had been up every hour last night, just about.
"Because Tenley didn't want to sleep in my room, so I carried you in here." I yawned and groaned, rolling over.
"Oh yeah. I don't likes dat room eder, dad. I don't."
"OK, Bellie, can you go back to sleep now? It's Sunday. We sleep late, today." It was only seven.
I heard something about getting dressed and "bekfast," and felt two small kisses on each one of my cheeks before I drifted back to sleep, only semi-unwillingly. My tired, hazy mind knew what they were going to do, but thought it would be harmless. Even before I realized anything was wrong, I'd stand in the kitchen on Sundays sometimes, and watch them get cereal, with a smile on my face. My big girls.
A sudden, distant crash woke me up completely. I raced downstairs as fast as I could. "Fuck," I whispered, taking them two at a time. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." I should've known better. I should be doing better.
Bellie and Tenley stood frozen in the kitchen, in hysterics as they looked down at a broken glass. Then up at each other. Then down at the glass again, crying harder. It was too soon for me to have let this happen.
"Alright, it's alright, daddy's here girls. Come on." I scooped both of them up in my arms as they cried, kissing them. "It's alright. I'm here. I'm sorry. Daddy's so sorry."
When we began heading upstairs, Tenley went absolutely berserk, and Bellie followed her lead. "NO GO DARE, NO GO IN DARE, PEASE WE DON'T GO DARE!"
"NO GO DARE DAD. WE SORRY. NO GO DARE PEASE, DAD! WE BE GOOD."
"Look at me, Tenley Justine. We are not going in there. Daddy's not mad," but I was furious, with myself. "Do you understand, Arabella, we're not going into my room. We're going in to Tee's room and then yours. We're going to get dressed."
For me, this nightmare started when I heard the fear in my oldest daughter's voice on the phone. My girls' nightmare started a few hours before, from what I could guess, when Tenley dropped a glass plate on the kitchen floor, shattering it to pieces. What kind of father was I, to even let it be a possibility they could live any part of this again? And two days later, at that.
"I MAKE PEE PEE!" Tenley screamed, head in my chest.
"I know, you both did. That's Ok, it was an accident. It was just an accident. Shhh!" They'd wet themselves from terror, probably as soon as the glass hit the floor.
Upstairs in Tenley's room, I held them both in my lap, desperately trying to calm them down. "Shhh! It's Ok, girls. It was just an accident. Shhh…hey we gotta go wake the babies up, soon, are you gonna help dad?"
This seemed to calm them both, as they sniffled and nodded their heads. "Ok, well we have to be all dressed and ready when we do it, right?" They nodded again, quietly. "Alright, so lets stop crying and get ready. Forget about that stupid cup," I made a funny voice as I said it, and waved it away with my hand.
"Stupid cup." Tenley gigged as I tickled her neck.
"Stupid, stupid stupid." Arabella agreed.
"Yeah. Hey Bellie, you have to get in the shower, real quick to wash your body because of the accident, Ok?" She was fully potty trained, except in times when her dad allowed her to be terrorized, as could be expected. Tenley was on her way, still covered at night.
I was expecting a fight, but I didn't get one. All I got was more tears. "I so-ree, dad. I don't mean it happened…"
"I know, sweet girl that's OK. It's just, we all have to be clean for when we go out for waffles." That brought the smiles back. Waffles and grocery shopping, that was on the itinerary today. The baby cried over the monitor reminding me we had a long way to go before the waffles.
By 9:30, after a few more minor meltdowns, we were all ready to go. Everyone was packed in the van, car seats and all, and pretty pumped for waffles. It had been a long morning already. My phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Hey man, sorry it's so early on a Sunday."
"It's really not that early Alex, what's up?"
"I just…it's none of my…but, listen Mer told me about April being in…and Tenley and…I just thought, well…If you don't want to treat your kid at Grey-Sloan, my practice has a really good child psychiatrist…I just…."
"Thanks, really…" I jumped into the driver's seat.
"Put CD on, daddy!"
"Shhh daddy's on the phone….Sorry, I….the kids, we had a rough morning and, but anyway, we were talking about having them come to you anyway, before… so, yeah…maybe I'll…"
"Don't think it's a business thing, Jackson, please. I just…it's one thing to treat your kid there when she breaks her arm, a whole other when…"
"Yeah, yeah, I know. I mean, why else would you know if not for the Grey-Sloan gossip mill?" Alex Karev and I were friends. As much as I was friends with anyone. We lived together when the house was Meredith's of course, and then for a little while before April and I started hooking up. When he left Grey-Sloan for private practice, we started going out for beers every once in awhile. It worked because we both didn't talk much. We came from families that handled their business before anyone had anything to talk about. Our friendship worked because we met sometimes to watch the game at Joe's and grumble about not understanding women on commercial breaks. We never asked questions.
"Sorry. I…I waited a day, I…"
"I appreciate it, I do, man."
"Yeah no problem. Oh and Jo wanted me to tell you that if you need anything, we're around. You know my hours aren't as crazy over there and she's nesting but…she'd love to have some practice if…"
Suddenly, I had an idea. "Hey Alex? Are you home today? I just, we're going to get waffles but I just, I just need to go to the supermarket for an hour afterwards and if you could just…If you could meet me at the diner, and take them, just an hour. I'll buy you breakfast." It just sort of came out. I didn't ask people for favors, but then I started thinking of the potential fits that could be had in the middle of the candy aisle and figured I'd give it a shot. Just an hour.
"Oh uhh…all four?" And there it was. The problem with babysitting the Averys. It had been this way for about a year and a half now, ever since Braelyn was born. My wife and I, well April, lately I guess, were raising very kind, loving, respectful little girls. But they were all still very young, and I was quickly learning, a handful, even when they weren't trying to be.
"I can…I can take the baby if…"
"Jackson, of course we'll take them. All four of them. For as long as you need. Sorry my husband is being an asswipe."
I chuckled at Jo, but then realized the gravity of what I was asking. "Jo, you're seven months pregnant. He's right, I shouldn'tve…"
"All that means is I need all the practice I can get. And I will take you up on those waffles. He had the phone on speaker."
"We had a rough morning Jo, are you sure…."
"Jackson, please stop making excuses to take help. Do me a favor, pack a toy bag. Can you pack a toy bag and a diaper bag? And just stay out. Or go to the store and then come here and have a beer Jackson. Have a beer."
"Alex isn't drinking…"
"Today, he is and he's going to love you for it. Pack the bags. Goodbye."
"Alright, divas. Who wants to go meet Aunt Jo and Uncle Alex for waffles?" Thankfully, they seemed excited. "And then you're gonna go play with them while daddy runs an errand. So, we have to all go pick out two toys each, can we go do that as fast as we can?"
"Yeah."
"Fast."
"Yeah, fast Brae Brae, or else daddy doesn't know if he can make it to the waffles."
"But I want waffles dad."
"Yeah me too, lovie, so hurry…"
Somehow, we got to the diner, all of us, in five whole pieces. Jo helped me make a grocery list on a napkin. The girls loved it, because it was silly to write on a napkin. And because they each got to pick a snack. Bellie tried to sneak soda in there, but I shut that down real quick.
Alex was so good with the girls; they didn't even notice the swap of keys in the parking lot. They danced right into their car seats for us, and were laughing so much they didn't even care that I wasn't the one to jump in the driver's seat. Jo had to shoo me away. It was harder for me than it was for them.
I was searching the grocery shelves, looking for all the mommy-approved meals Jo had detailed for me, side dishes and all. Her baby girl wasn't born yet, but she was a mommy, and she knew better than me, for sure.
I was trying to decide whether I had the energy to cook fresh peas over frozen ones when my phone rang. Thinking it was Alex or Jo with a question about the girls, I picked up without checking the screen.
"Hello?"
"I miss you." I dropped a bag of peas and watched them fall to the ground. In my mind, their crash sounded like the glass that broke this morning. Her.
I took a deep breath and swallowed hard. "I miss you."
"Are you still in love with me?"
"Yes. Very much."
"Do you want to cheat on me?"
"NO! No! Why are you…"
"How come you haven't visited me?"
"April…"
"Did I hurt my babies?"
I fell back against the shelf opposite the freezer. The casualness of her tone didn't erase the weight of her question. I hung up on her, because there was no right answer to that question. I hung up on my wife, wiped the tears from my eyes and stood up in the middle of aisle five.
My phone rang again. Dr. Craven. "Jackson, you shouldn't hang up on her like that."
"Dr. Craven, why is she calling me?"
"She is not in prison. She is lucid, she has been. She misses you."
"Great. She's lucid so it's totally fine for her to ask complicated questions, probably unsupervised. What if I answered her? What if I didn't hang up and then…"
"Jackson, she can't hurt herself here, you know that."
"Do I? Do I really?"
"Yes. I think you do. She misses you. You need to be here for her, too."
"It's been a day. One full day. And I had to work. And take care of my children."
"She hasn't seen your face. She needs to see your face. I know we said Monday, but I think you should come in, today."
I sighed, trying to think of an excuse, but I couldn't. My children weren't with me. Jo had begged me to stay out for longer than an hour. I should go see my wife.
"Let me check with my friends. I'm only supposed to be out for an hour. Thankfully they weren't here when…"
"Jackson, just call me when you're on your way."
In the store parking lot, I dialed Jo. As expected, she was fine with keeping the girls for as long as I needed. Even though I was expecting her answer, I felt my stomach drop when she said it. I was officially going to visit April.
"Can I talk to the girls?"
"Let me see, their in the middle of a hair appointment, but maybe they'll stop putting bows in Alex's hair to talk to their dad…"
"Dad! Uncle Alex braided our hair an now we doin' his wit lotta bows an' he look funny." Bellie laughed.
"Glad your having fun, diva, where's Tee?"
"She puttin' listick on him." More giggles.
"Can you put her on, I wanna talk to her." I also figured Alex would welcome the interruption. "I love you."
"My dad! You gonna learns howa put braids in my hair like my mom dos."
"I am?"
"Yeah. Unc Alex gon' teachie you."
"He's gonna teachie me?"
"Yeah, my dad. And we gon' havee a dance party lader."
"You are?"
"Yeah, I missie da dance party." Oh, those dance parties. She loved them. I wondered when she had one last.
"So, you're having a good day?"
"Yeah, my dad. I's havin' a good day. Wansa talk to Brae? She colorin'."
"Yeah, please."
"Here Brae, say hi to your dada." I heard Jo say, before handing over the phone.
"Dada. Hi dada."
"Hi baby, what're you doing? Are you coloring?"
"Brae color! Horsie!"
"Are you happy?"
"Brae hap!"
"Love you, baby."
"Lovie!"
"See, all your kids are fine, Jackson. Alex just gave Adalaide a bottle and she's breaking in the crib for Lilly. She's fine. Stop stalling. Go see your w-i-f-e."
I hung up, putting my head on the steering wheel, ashamed that I was hoping for some kind of emergency. But there was none. I had to go visit my wife.
"Hi." I said, nervously looking down at my feet as Dr. Craven went to shut the door. I sat on the chair opposite the couch that April had gotten up from.
"Hi." She sat back down when she saw me sit, playing with her fingers in her lap. Her face was drawn and pale, her lips dry. She pulled her favorite strawberry chapstick tin from her pocket, concentrating hard on applying it. "You might wanna…" She couldn't look me in the eye.
"Jackson, thank you for coming, but if we're going to do therapy, I'm going to need my seat, if you don't mind."
"Oh right, sorry so…" I stood up awkwardly, motioning to the couch.
"Yes, you can sit anywhere on the couch you'd like."
I sat, making sure there was space between us, but not too much. April dropped her hand between us, there for the taking. I wanted to, but I just couldn't. I loved her. I was in love with her. And I realized she was sick, and that she needed me. I understood. I wanted to be there for her. Part of me wanted to grab her and hold her. I missed kissing her. But couldn't bring myself to take her hand.
"Jackson," she pleaded, whispering. I pretended not to hear.
"So, let's start, then shall we? April, you're already crying, what are you feeling?"
"He can't even look at me. He won't even take my…what did I do? I just want to know what I did. Why won't anybody tell me what I did? Are they…are they…?" she cried, unable to finish her sentence.
"April, remember yesterday? We told you your children are fine."
I snickered, the terror in their faces from this morning flashing through my mind. I wouldn't say they were fine.
"I saw that reaction, Jackson. Do you have something to say?"
"No, nothing. She's not…nothing."
"Can you tell her why you can't look at her? Why can't you hold her hand? What are you feeling, Jackson? This is the place to say." This was my first visit to a therapist's office. I was an Avery. We didn't talk about feelings.
"I feel. . ." How did I feel? I didn't even know. "I feel upset. I wish we…I wish we didn't have to be here. I don't understand how it…how it came to this."
"Are you angry, Jackson? Is that why you can't touch your wife? You can be angry."
"No! No." I grabbed April's hand to make a point. It felt cold, foreign. "I'm not angry…it's not her…"
"Talk to her, she's right there…"
"I'm not angry," I said, making an effort to look in her eyes. "You're sick."
"I don't…I don't know what to…why won't he…" She looked away from me, wiping a continuous stream of tears from her eyes, to no avail.
"Alright. So, what this is coming down to is…she doesn't know what happened. I know it's hard, so I tried to start somewhere else but, we are not going to make any progress until you tell her what happened. Can you do that, Jackson?"
Crash! I hear the sound of the broken glass from this morning, the one that's still on my floor, for the third time that day. Suddenly, almost violently, I let go of April's hand and walked toward the door. "No! No. I'm not doing this, this isn't…no…I shouldn't be…I'm not doing this."
Head down, I walked out of the room and quickly to the elevator, but Dr. Craven ran in front of me to block me.
"She needs you, Jackson. She needs you, too. And she needs you to be honest."
"I honestly want to leave, so…do you mind?"
"You're angry. Why are you angry?"
"I mean, I know it's just day two, but what have you been doing here, huh? Why do I have to be the one to…" I looked to the floor, unable to finish my sentence. "I should…I should transfer her to Seattle Community…"
"Really? You don't trust the doctors in the hospital you part own to…"
"No! No I don't…because you, you're…she doesn't know what happened? Are you kidding me? What have you been doing, discussing the weather?"
"Well, sessions are confidential…" I rolled my eyes at what I considered a lame excuse. "…But I will tell you that we've been dealing with her depression, which she hasn't ever addressed before. She's so in love with you that she tried to ignore all of her other feelings."
"Oh bullshit. Don't start blaming me for…don't make me feel guilty for…"
"I wasn't, I didn't say much about you at all…Do you though, do you feel guilty, Jackson?"
"What are you…" I looked down at the little man in front of me. I could easily toss him aside and just get on the elevator. But that wouldn't be productive at all. I loved her, and I wanted my family back. "Of course I feel guilty." I wiped a tear from my eye, hoping he thought it was dust.
"And angry. You seem very angry."
"I'm not…just at myself…she didn't…she's…"
"It's OK to be angry at her."
"I love her."
"That's OK. You can love her and be angry at her. I bet she's pretty angry at you, too."
"What does she…" I stopped myself. He wouldn't tell me that. "Fine! I'm angry. I'm angry at her. And I want her to come home. I need her back." There was no point in hiding the tears, anymore.
"You know that probably won't happen for a couple of weeks, at least Jackson. But the first step to April's coming home…to getting her back, is to tell her what happened. And I'm sorry, but it's not…Only you know what you saw. We know from the medical perspective. You didn't even tell us much, beyond what we needed to know. Which is fine. But if you want her to come home healthy, she needs to know the whole story. And you need to tell her while she's here. Because we have the tools to help her deal with it."
"Is she…is she even ready?"
"I think so. I don't know the whole story. But she's not…she never was suicidal, Jackson. It might hurt, but she'll be here, she'll work through it. She can't exactly…well, she can't exactly acknowledge the newborn, yet, but she loves her children."
I pushed this new, disturbing bit of information aside, not able to deal with it yet, myself. "So what? How does this work? Do you want me to tell you first, just in case she can't…"
"We can do it however you want. However you want."
"Fine." I paused a second, thinking. "I don't want you in there."
"Jackson, you can't…I really don't want you to use this to hurt her in any way. I know you're angry. But this is, this is…"
"I won't. I don't want to hurt her, on purpose. But you said this is my story, that I have to tell it."
"I did, but…"
"So I just want it to be us. And then she can process it however she needs to. I just…I can't…I just want to tell my wife."
"Alright fine. That's fine. Let me just make sure she's OK with that. You can go in 1211. She'll be in in a few minutes."
That was fine with me. I needed a few minutes to process what I was about to do. Room 1211 was empty, literally empty, and I wondered for a second what the psych budget was used for, that they couldn't even put a couch in every room. I shook the thought away, sitting on the carpet, against the off-white wall, in a corner, head in my hands.
I wasn't certain this was the right thing to do, but Dr. Craven had a point; he had several good points, actually. She had to know what happened if she was ever going to get out. And of course I was going to be the one to tell her. I'd always known that, on some level. But, I hadn't told anybody, yet. Nikki and I were the two adults that saw anything, and she didn't see much. Only one tiny human experienced every second of terror. I didn't want to re-live what I knew even once if I could help it. That night was strictly need-to-know. And telling her was going to be the most difficult thing I ever did in my life, I knew it.
April walked in and peeked at me anxiously, before walking across the room and sitting in the corner diagonal from me, curling herself into a ball. Despite the seriousness of what we were about to do, I couldn't help but smile.
When we were first married, before we even knew April was pregnant with Arabella, we used to play a game. I didn't have an office in my apartment. I wasn't anticipating being the representative for the majority owners of a hospital when I bought it. And once I was on the board, it never even occurred to me to furnish an office. I lived alone, and was more concerned with drafting budgets than anything else.
But, April hated when I worked in bed. And I did have one spare room with nothing in it. So, I would sit in there with my laptop and work. And when April got home, or when she got annoyed waiting for me to come to bed, she'd come into the room and sit in the opposite corner from where I was. Slowly, we'd both start moving toward the center of the room. My speed usually depended on how much work I had left to finish. But April's. April's speed depended on how horny she was. Sometimes, she'd take an article of clothing off each time she moved forward, and if she was really…frustrated, she didn't even bother to play the game at all and just took off her clothes and stood in the middle of the room, waiting. She never had to wait long.
But then, Arabella was born, and the spare room turned into a nursery. Soon after Tenley was born, we moved into the 1.5 million dollar home I bought while April was sleeping, and even though it was huge, we had enough kids now (and enough stuff) to fill every room.
It had been awhile since we sat across from each other in an empty room, with nothing but time. Of course, the nature of this moment was very different than all the others, but it was comforting, relying on a good memory to somehow help us get through this, the most difficult moment in five years of marriage. I scooted a few inches forward. April did the same.
I reached the center first, motivated by the fact that the faster I got through this, the sooner I could hug my girls. I put out my hands, offering support. It occurred to me that this is the first time I've actually thought about helping her, and I feel ashamed. I didn't blame her for hesitating. "Come on babe, I'm here."
She shook her head back and forth, like a child. Like Arabella when it's her turn to help set the table. "No, no, no, no, no, don't make me. Don't." Our four year old will scream, shaking her wild mane, until we're so hungry we leave her in the kitchen, and eat off paper plates with plastic utensils in the dining room.
"You're mad at me." She found words.
"But I love you."
"I'm scared."
"I was, too," I thought. And I wanted to snap. But I didn't. "Me too," I offered, instead.
"Why are you scared?"
"Because I don't want to hurt you."
"But I need to know."
"I know," I whispered playing with the shag of the rug. Finally, she took my hands, lacing her fingers with mine.
"Ready?"
"No."
"What do you need?"
"Will you kiss me, please?" I felt my breath catch in my throat, a mixture of fear and that shame that was apparently the theme of the day. I felt shame because of the fear. But I felt fear because, if I kissed her, what did it mean? Forgiveness? Acceptance? Or, maybe it just meant love.
Love, I was realizing, in the past two days more than ever before, was complicated. Subconsciously, a little piece of me was expecting my love for April to go away, because of that night. But it didn't. It wasn't. In fact, it might've been growing stronger with every second I was away from her.
"She is sick," I reminded myself. "She did not do this on purpose."
Finally, I nodded, slowly lifting my hands to frame her face. We kissed, and I tasted the strawberry wax on her lips. I missed that.
We missed each other so much we keep kissing. But then I remembered and pulled away. The expression on April's face looked like I'd just slapped her. This is why I was afraid.
"Are you ready?" April shrugged. Maybe Dr. Craven was right; maybe he should be here. It seemed like April wanted that kiss to fix everything. But I knew we had a lot more breaking to do, first. "I'm here and I love you and I am ready to tell you what happened. That's all I've got for you, right now. What've you got for me?"
"I'm ready," she whispered after a minute, so softly that at first I thought it was just her voice in my head. I put my finger under her chin so she is looking me in the eyes, and I started with the broken glass.
