A/N: This chapter is another Interlude. Those of you who've been requesting more of Mark, Addison, and Vivian's life together pre-illness, this is your (ridiculously long) chapter. (Well, one of them.) Same deal as always with the interludes: they take place before the story started, and the next chapter we'll get back to the main story timeline. Thank you for the great feedback on the last chapter. I know this is a long, long story, and looking back I probably should have split it into two stories, but you can't undo the past. I can't promise I'll stop at 50, but this story is going somewhere and it won't be that much beyond that. So thank you again for reading, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.
INTERLUDE
everything will change
...
WEDNESDAY
"What if I can't do it?"
"We wouldn't let you do it at home if we were concerned," Addison tells her patient soothingly. The well-dressed woman on her office couch has first timer written all over her.
Her repeat patients are the ones who don't blink at needles, who dial FSH pens without breaking conversation stride and mix solutions for injection in airplane bathrooms without spilling a drop.
Everyone is a first-timer, once.
"Jamie." Addison leans forward. "I have total faith that you can do this."
Her patient – she's a Wall Street mover and shaker whose shoes rival Addison's own, hardly new to challenges, looks up at her with teary dark eyes. "What if it doesn't work?"
"Then we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Addison passes her patient a tissue – there are discreet boxes in a few places in her office; she was well aware when she started focusing more on fertility that they would get unfortunately frequent use. "Jamie … this is the first step. You can do this."
"Yeah." She's twisting small hands in her lap; a sparkling diamond catches the mid-afternoon light. "I guess." She looks up at Addison again, her cheeks flushing. "It must seem ridiculous to you, the needles and – I mean, it must be nothing to you."
"It's not nothing," Addison assures her. "As a doctor – yes, I'm used to needles, at work. But it's different when it's you, at home."
"When it's you, at …" Jamie's eyes widen. "You mean you've done it too?"
Slowly, Addison nods. She needs to tread carefully – she doesn't want her patient to feel alone, but she also doesn't want to get into the details. There's a line between empathy, and sharing that she's sore herself from progesterone, that she was in the stirrups this morning instead of wheeling around the office taking measurements.
It's a numbers game.
And then there are her results.
So she doesn't say anything else, and when Jamie's gaze slides toward the wall, where several large, framed pictures of Vivian hang in stair-step fashion, she doesn't correct the misconception.
She was an accident. A perfect, perfect accident. When we tried – and we did try – we couldn't do it.
"She's beautiful," Jamie says. "How old is she?"
"Five. Well, five and three quarters, she'd want me to clarify, but she was a little younger in those."
Addison smiles, as she can't help doing when she looks at those pictures.
They're lovely shots, taken by a grateful patient, a professional photographer who credited Addison with her healthy twins. Addison's not sure anyone's ever taken a bad picture of Viv, but there's something about these – skill, she supposes, because the photographer captured something of her daughter that she's not sure she and Mark have been able to with their own simple point-and-shoot cameras. The pictures are so very much Viv, solemn and silly all at once, her blue eyes crinkled up with laughter in one portrait, wide and thoughtful in the next. The images feel real, almost as if she could look up on a busy day stacked with charts and stare directly into her daughter's sweet freckled face.
"But what if I inject the wrong site?"
Drawn back to reality, Addison reassures her patient while she passes her the business card of one of her former nurses who now has her own consulting service. In the Tree Tops, that's what it's called. Addison tries not to think about the rest of the lyrics to the song:
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.
"Brenda Bradford used to work with me," Addison tells Jamie. "She or one of her nurses will come to you, whenever it's convenient – in the office, at home – and help you with the injections. Every day, twice a day, whatever you need."
Jamie's shoulders sag with relief, and Addison smiles.
And down will come baby, cradle and all.
…
She's reviewing her last chart – a patient with triplets implanted by an irresponsible clinic; Addison and her partners would never transfer more than two, particularly at this patient's age – when the intercom buzzes.
"You have a visitor, Doctor Montgomery."
Addison pushes back her wheeled chair, smiling. "Send her in."
The door opens and a little blur covers the carpeted floor between them.
"Mommy!" Viv clambers onto her lap before Addison can stand up. She draws her daughter close for a hug and kisses one freckled cheek.
"You got some sun today," she observes.
"Uh-huh. I had tennis." Viv turns around, relaxing against her, Addison noticing with a pang how low her little feet in their sneaker-soled mary janes hang. She's getting so big.
"You're almost too tall to fit on my lap," she teases her daughter, pulling her in for another hug. "Stop growing."
"Am not!" Viv wriggles around again to face her mother. "You sit on Daddy's lap and you're almost the same tall as him."
Addison notices Needa, leaning inconspicuously against the far wall of her office, hiding a smile behind her hand. She has one of her own for Viv's flattering and not entirely accurate view of her mother's height.
"How was tennis?" she asks Viv instead.
"Good." Vivian pats her bag.
"She's being modest," Needa says, "she didn't let that little boy get a shot in."
"That's my girl." Addison toys with one of Viv's long braids. "You're going to beat me soon."
"She passed me a while ago," Needa says with an exaggeratedly mournful expression. Then she smiles as if she just remembered something. "Oh, but I don't know how to play tennis."
"You do know how to play. You're good," Vivian tells her nanny loyally. She glances toward Addison. "Will you play with me at the house?"
Addison pauses, and Viv picks up on it. She's so quick, it's hard to get anything past her.
"We're going, right? This weekend? Mommy, you said we're going." She scoots down from her mother's lap and turns to face her.
Needa gives her a supportive smile, while Vivian props small hands on her hips.
"You said we could go," Viv repeats.
"I know, Vivi. We'll go. If we can," she adds, and Vivian's face changes from satisfaction to suspicion again.
"But you said – "
"Vivian," Needa interrupts, her tone perfectly calm, "did you remember you wanted to show Mommy what you made in pottery?"
"Oh yeah." Vivian throws one last look over her shoulder before rooting in the green canvas backpack that sometimes looks as big as she is.
Addison mouths a thank you to Viv's nanny, who smiles easily as if distracting Vivian was nothing at all.
"Look, Mommy." Vivian is holding a lump of shining clay aloft in patches of blues and greens. "It's Earth," Viv says as if it's obvious.
"I knew that." Addison takes the globe in her hands. It's heavy.
"It's for your desk," Viv explains, pointing. Addison sets the earth down between a stack of patient files and broken-spined journal she was reading earlier.
"There?"
"Yeah, that's good." Viv smiles at her. "You can look at it if you miss me."
Addison kisses the top of her head. "I always miss you when you're not here."
"I know." Vivian leans against her, then pops back up. "Can I make copies on the machine?" she asks brightly.
…
A warm breeze guides their walk home. Vivian burns off some energy running ahead and then back again, taking her mother's hand.
Addison relishes these times with her daughter, when their respective schedules coalesce sufficiently to allow an afternoon office visit, an early evening walk home together.
She doesn't have to check her blackberry to know that Mark won't be joining them.
Almost unconsciously, she rubs the spot on the back of her hip that's been stinging all day – longer than that, if she's honest. She massages the lump that's formed; she wasn't kidding when she told Jamie it was difficult for everyone.
Vivian talks her first into walking along the park, even though it's out of their way, and then into Italian ices.
"You still have to eat your dinner," Addison reminds her, and is rewarded with a cherry-red lipped smile in return.
They sit side by side on one of the benches dotting the stone walls along the perimeter of the park. It's still light out, golden and glowing – May, not too warm, not too anything. It's frankly beautiful, postcard-perfect, yellow taxicabs alternating with the rest of the cars, city buses chugging along. The park is emanating the warm salty smell of hot pretzels and two corgis on the arm of an elegant older woman stop to sniff at their legs, much to Viv's delight. Wave after wave of people cover the sidewalk, often stopping to remark on the lovely weather.
It's times like these she can't imagine how anyone could leave New York.
It's sunny and warm, spring announcing itself, Viv cheerful enough to forget some of the sadness of the last few months.
The disappointments.
She reminds herself that they're starting again, that it will be different this time.
"Here, Mommy."
Vivian offers her a bite and Addison accepts it, more to please her daughter than because she's interested in Red Dye Number 6. The little wooden paddle tastes exactly the same as the ones she remembers from when she was a girl. The city has changed in some ways in the intervening four decades; Italian ices haven't changed.
"Is Daddy coming home for dinner?"
"He's working tonight," Addison says, smiling down at her daughter and, over her protests, cleaning some of the red stain from around her mouth. "Hold still, sweetheart."
Holding still is not Viv's forte.
"Ready?" Addison stands, holding out her hand.
Vivian pauses, maybe calculating her next step.
"We'll pick up sushi on the way," Addison offers.
"Call it in first," Viv suggests, a city child through and through, and Addison does so as they walk hand in hand down the sunny sidewalk.
…
The sushi is delicious – "it won't keep," she tells her daughter when Viv asks if they can put some of the leftovers in the refrigerator for her father.
It's not petty if it's true.
"Needa says people waste a lot of food," Viv announces.
"Yeah?" Addison is tying a plastic bag tightly around the paper one to contain the strong smell of soy sauce. She counts to five before answering. "She's probably right."
Viv just hops down from her stool, unbothered, pausing to pat her wooden days of the week calendar. She switches the day each morning, but it seems to be a battle of self-control for her daughter some nights not to do this beloved part of her routine in advance. Addison watches her little fingers trace the Wednesday sitting on the frame.
"What's Daddy going to eat for dinner?" Viv asks, turning back to her mother.
His pride.
"He'll find something. Don't worry, I won't let him starve," she assures her daughter when she frowns.
"Can we read now?" Viv asks.
Addison checks the time. "In a few minutes," she says. "Why don't you go get the – "
"No, I want to stay with you!"
So they walk up the stairs together, Viv's little fingers holding tight to her hand. Guilt throbs along with her injection site; she cuddles her daughter close to soothe both the guilt and the child, and they read half of a chapter while she holds the ice pack to the sore spot on her hip. Alternating sides hasn't made much of a difference this time, though she still advises her patients to do the same.
Vivian's been her shadow since the day she doesn't like to think about, so she's not surprised that she follows Addison into the bathroom off their bedroom and climbs onto the white chaise to watch her.
"Does it hurt?" Viv asks as Addison warms the oil, her small forehead wrinkled with concern.
Yes.
"Just a little pinch," she lies, readying the needle.
"But I don't like shots," Viv says, climbing up to her knees on the chaise.
"I don't think anyone likes shots, sweetheart, but sometimes people need them."
"For babies," Viv says in a knowledgeable tone. There's a pause where she knows her daughter is thinking about her other daughter, and she's about to intercede when Viv speaks again: "Did you have shots when I was in your belly too?"
"No."
"How come?"
"I didn't need them," Addison says simply.
"But why?"
Addison considers the question. There's a line she tries to walk, not oversharing with her daughter, but Viv is the daughter of two surgeons and her normal would probably make most people squeamish, so…
"The medicine is something that moms make in their bodies when they're pregnant," she says. "If they don't make enough, they take shots."
She winces internally at what the mentor for whom her daughter was named might say if she heard that explanation.
"You made enough when I was in your belly?"
"Yes. I was younger then," Addison says as she sees her daughter's lips part to ask the inevitable follow-up.
She doesn't have to wonder what Mark would think of this conversation, and she feels a pang of guilt followed by an unflattering frisson of I told you so. He could come home, instead of being annoyed with her – what does he expect her to do when she's alone with Vivian, not take the drugs?
Vivian looks worried. "Is the medicine working?"
"It's doing what it's supposed to do, sweetheart."
With Vivian staring, she finds her hand hovering over the needle, the other poised at the waist of her yoga pants. It's not the exposed flesh that bothers her; while she hasn't bathed with Vivian since she grew from toddler into little girl, it's still no more than she might show in a swimsuit.
You think a needle will scare her, after …?
But she doesn't want to finish the sentence. Doesn't let herself.
Viv is getting harder to distract, and without Mark here to pry her away... . "Vivi, can you do me a favor and grab the heating pad? It's in my office."
Viv looks torn. She avoids being in a separate room now.
"I'll talk to you the whole time," Addison promises, and Viv consents with this addendum. Addison keeps her word, and by the time Vivian returns from the room down the hall where Addison sat on that very heating pad last night to finish charting, the injection is finished.
…
It's still warm enough to leave the windows open to the spring breeze. She lets Vivian take her bath in her parents' bathroom tonight, where the massive tub dwarfs her small body and she can swim with delight from one end to the other.
Vivian has always loved the bath – any body of water, really, she's been their mermaid from the day she was born. A bath was always guaranteed to soothe her. Now, with her reluctance to be separated, Addison has taken to spending the time with her, sitting on the hassock in Viv's bathroom while her daughter splashes in the tub or, tonight, sitting on the heating pad on the big white chaise in her own bathroom, attempting to divert the conversation from her single-minded daughter's topic of choice.
"More bubbles, Vivi?"
"No. I'm good." Vivian lifts a handful of bubbles – they smell light and citrusy and, with a mischievous smile, she blows a few of them toward her mother.
"Just once," Addison reminds her. "Keep the rest of the bubbles in the tub."
Vivian splashes her wordless agreement, then sticks her pink-painted toes out of the water. It's the kind of indulgence Addison's own mother would never have allowed – the word trashy comes to mind, but it was Vivian's idea as much as her preferred casual dress, and Addison relishes letting her make those choices.
"Want me to keep reading?" Addison asks.
Viv nods, then shouts No! when Addison starts to stand up. "Don't go in the other room," she pleads.
"But the book is other room, Vivi," Addison says carefully, keeping her tone calm.
The smallest steps first, that's what the therapist advised. Let her see that if she comes back, you'll still be there.
"Then I don't want to read," Viv retorts. "Mommy – "
"Okay, it's okay. I'm staying." Addison sinks back down on the chaise and Vivian calms accordingly.
Addison's about to offer to tell her daughter a story instead when Viv returns to her topic of the evening.
"The new baby's not in you yet, but almost. Right?"
Addison studies her daughter. Viv's hair is piled on her head to keep it out of the water. It makes her look older, and Addison has to blink for a moment. She's already growing up so fast. She and Mark used to joke when Viv was a baby, and then a passionately emotional toddler, that it would be nice to know what she was thinking. And then she learned to talk – and talk, and talk – and they get to hear what she's thinking. She's never going to get tired of it. It's just ...
"Right," Addison says carefully.
"And it's a boy," Viv says. "Right?"
She's right again. The same tests that reassured them the embryos were strong enough for transfer left no secret of their sex. There are patients – Addison's treated plenty of them – who still, after all the grueling and graphic work involved in IVF, still want to retain the mystery of whether the embryo will produce a male or female child. It's touching, really, the innocence of it.
Addison, though, had already had enough surprises.
"Did you know I was a girl?"
"Not right away." Addison smiles at her daughter. "But I thought you were, and so did Daddy."
Neither of them was surprised when their hunch was confirmed.
Vivian leans back in the tub, wriggling her little toes just out of the water again.
"Are you cold, Vivi? You want some more hot water?"
She shakes her head vigorously, the pile of dark-blonde hair wobbling.
"Okay." Addison curls her legs underneath her, reaching back to massage the injection site. Any hope of keeping Vivian from learning about their progress too early was mostly lost two cycles ago.
"But … he won't be here for my birthday," Viv says thoughtfully.
"No. Not this year, not until …" Addison says, stopping herself from saying February, from naming the date, as if she hasn't already marked it on the calendar.
"So he'll be here for my next year birthday. When I'm seven. Right?"
Addison glances automatically toward the closed bathroom door that's keeping the large room steamy and warm. "Viv … let's, um, let's talk about something else, sweetie."
"How come?" Viv tilts her head. "Daddy's not here."
There's a hollow in the pit of her stomach at her daughter's words. She was never going to do this – keep secrets, let Viv keep secrets, and she hasn't.
Not really.
The problem is that Vivian's smart; she's picked up on things Addison never told her explicitly.
Which makes her feel worse, really.
"Because … you haven't told me about the rest of your day at school," Addison says, relieved to hear her voice sounds far steadier than she feels. "You told me about reading … and recess … but what about French?"
"We did our postcards," Viv responds immediately, apparently sufficiently distracted, and then Addison is treated to the details of the pen pal project her daughter's class has undertaken with a sister school in France. "And Madame said mine was good. It has a bus on the front."
"City bus or school bus?"
"City," Viv says. "And Juliette's gonna send me one with a picture of something too. Like from where she lives."
Addison offers the appropriate amount of excitement at this news and Viv splashes appreciatively.
"We're supposed to tell them stuff like … where we live and what we like to do." Vivian pauses, looking like she has a delightful secret. "Hey, Mommy … you know how to say tennis in French?"
She does, but she shakes her head, enjoying her daughter's eager smile.
"Tennis!" Viv beams. "You spell it the same and everything."
…
Addison and Vivian are both asleep when he gets home, and he pauses at the end of the entry hall of their bedroom just to watch them for a moment.
His wife is half-sitting up against the headboard, and there's a small stack of charts on the antique nightstand next to her. She must have thought she could work more after Viv fell asleep. Vivian is curled up next to her mother, her long hair spread out over both of them.
Addison blinks as he approaches, starting to rouse.
"Hi," he says quietly, knowing she'll be fully awake in just a few more blinks. He leans over to kiss her; she feels warm from sleep.
"You want me to …?" He gestures toward their sleeping daughter.
"Yeah." Addison nods, stretching what must be a crick in her neck and smoothing Viv's hair. "You'll do the – "
"Of course." He leans over Addison to lift his daughter, feeling every one of his forty-four years at the strain of the position and hoping it doesn't show. Mercifully, this time his careful movements help Vivian stay asleep.
… until the hallway, where she wakes despite his best efforts, but she snuggles close without protest as he carries her to her room.
"Daddy," she murmurs as he sets her down on her bed.
"I'm right here. Go back to sleep, baby." He draws the covers over her.
She blinks sleepily and seems to want to say something else, but her eyes slide shut. Mark stays with her for a moment to make sure she's asleep, then dims the light and sets the alarmed door.
Just in case.
...
THURSDAY
Mark relieves Needa the next night, beating Addison home by what he hopes won't be much time. Then again, if she's avoiding him, like she was this morning, taking early call and leaving breakfast duties to him …
Viv, who misses nothing, seems to pick up on the tension, twining around his legs as he tries to hang up his coat and asking him multiple times when her mother will be home.
In time for her shots. That's what matters. Everything else is a crapshoot.
"I don't know, Viv," he tells her as patiently as he can, for the third time.
She trails him to the kitchen. "Daddy … it's Friday tomorrow, right?"
He nods, starting to regret the maple wood days of the week calendar they bought her for Christmas. She likes replacing it each day with the current one, and it's mostly cured her of her tendency to refer to every day as either tomorrow or yesterday. It sits in the kitchen now, mocking him.
"And then Saturday," Viv recites. "And Saturday we're going to the house. Right?"
He massages the bridge of his nose where a tension headache is gathering.
"Probably," he says, hoping to forestall an argument like the one he and Addison had when they talked about the weekend.
I'm not saying no to driving out there, I'm just saying maybe. I won't know until after the transfer. They might need –
So we can't make any plans, ever, just in case?
Mark, that's not fair, she responded, and the quiver in her voice hit him in the gut with guilt.
Vivian's face falls. "Probably means no," she scowls.
"No, it doesn't. It means probably." He turns her in the direction of the sink. "Wash your hands," he directs.
"But Mommy said – "
"Viv, enough," he cuts her off, regretting his short tone when she turns wounded eyes up to him.
"Sorry." He rests a hand on her head, his own version of ruffling when his daughter's hair is far too long for actual ruffling. When she's dried her hands, he lifts her up to sit on the island, studies her face for a moment. She's prettier than he was, to be certain, but he'd be lying not to recognize the way her blue eyes squint with her broad smiles, the freckles on her upturned nose. He toys with one of her long braids.
"Can we have sushi for dinner?" she asks, her pout resolving.
"Didn't you have sushi last night?"
"Yeah." She pulls her other braid over her shoulder to study the end of it. "But it was good."
"No concerns about the mercury, huh?"
"Mercury is in thermometers," she informs him.
"Then I guess you shouldn't eat those either."
She gives him a quarter-smile suggesting she appreciates his attempt at humor, and then pulls her legs up underneath her, criss-cross applesauce.
"I'm hungry," she says.
Viv is guaranteed to be hungriest outside of mealtimes. "Have a snack," he suggests. "We're waiting for Mommy to order mercury."
Vivian gives him a half-smile this time. "Ice cream," she says.
"Nice try." He points to the hanging wire baskets of fruit. "How about an apple?"
"No. Carrots," she proposes, "and almond butter."
A whole generation of kids afraid of the peanut. Viv has no allergies, other than bedtime. The vegetable drawer yields only a paper bag of thick, unwieldy carrots with long green leaves at the top. They look like they belong in one of Viv's old, brightly colored picture books.
"What happened to those little carrots that are already peeled?" He shifts a package of portabella mushrooms.
"Needa says peeling carrots is good for you," Viv says.
"Oh, yeah?" He withdraws his head from the refrigerator.
"Uh-huh." Viv nods. "She says people rush, rush, rush too much."
Mark considers this as he selected a few carrots from the brown paper bag, rubbing his thumb over their unpleasant outsides.
Vivian is watching him, her chin resting in her hand.
"Peeling is good for you, huh?" he confirms.
His daughter nods again.
"Okay, then." He roots in the drawer for the peeler. Viv is still watching him; he makes a silly face at her and gets another half-smile in return.
"Want to know what Olive did in Math today?" she asks after a moment.
He gestures for her to scoot further up the island, then hands her the peeler and two thick carrots.
"You know I do," he says, and he's rewarded this time with a full smile and the opening to a complicated story that's punctuated with enthusiastic peeling.
…
Mark plays checkers after dinner with his daughter, for whom board games sometimes devolve into contact sport. She's fairly subdued, for her, and he lets her win twice before, confident that Addison has finished her injections, he ushers Viv upstairs for her bath.
"I want to use your tub," Vivian says, pulling Mark with her into their bedroom and then grabbing Addison's hands. "Please?"
"Not tonight," Mark says before Addison can answer. He massages the tight muscles at the back of his neck. "Daddy needs to take a shower."
He closes the bathroom door, leaving Vivian's protests to her mother. What he really needs is the gym, or at least a run, but he's not eager to see how that would go over tonight. He settles for the free weights he keeps in one of the bedroom closets, pushing himself until his muscles are quivering with exertion instead of stress.
Hot water pounds his back, his shoulders, when he finally takes the shower that kept Viv from her preferred bathtub. It's quiet when he pokes his head out into the hall, just the occasional low murmur of his wife's voice from Viv's room, reading.
Their daughter will go to sleep soon, and then it's going to start all over.
Sure enough, the first thing Addison says, after Mark asks if Vivian went down is, my lining looked good this morning.
He doesn't respond.
"Thanks for asking," she adds. Her voice is neutral, pleasant even, but he hears its undertone.
He can't hold it against her. Two years of hormonal highs and lows as she attempted time after time to trick her body into completing a pregnancy. Sometimes it's not clear how much of what she says is her, and how much comes in little ridiculously priced glass vials
"Addison…"
"They'll go ahead tomorrow." She's looking past him, rubbing unconsciously at the injection site. He flexes his own hands. He could offer a massage, but he doesn't.
"Mark. They're doing the transfer tomorrow."
"You just told me."
She blinks, then picks up her hairbrush from the top of the dresser. "Eleven o'clock. Are you coming?"
"I have to work, Addison. The world can't stop every time you – " He closes his mouth at the hurt on her face. "I'm sorry." He is - sorry that she's hurt, anyway, even though he knows it doesn't help. Not really.
"No, you're not. Not about the right things," she adds.
He can't deny it, she knows him too well; she just shakes her head at him, disappointment dripping from her voice. "Mark ... when did you stop wanting this?"
When you started wanting it enough for the both of us.
More than enough.
Too much.
He doesn't say that; he couldn't.
He could say, I do want it.
But he doesn't say that either.
"You're still angry?" She shakes her head at his silence, starting to draw the brush through her hair and pausing. "These are the last two, Mark. This is it."
"I know."
"But you still - " she stops again. "I did two transfers this morning," she announces. "Farrah did three."
He waits for the arrow to land.
"Guess how many husbands showed up?"
"Five," he guesses without inflection, attempting to take some of the wind out of her gathering sails.
"Four, actually," she says. "The fifth one was a wife. But they were all there. They all showed up."
He doesn't respond.
"Mark..."
"How many times before that did they show up?" he asks, rounding on her angrily when she says his name one more time. "Those four husbands, and the one wife. How many times did they have to pick up the pieces when – "
"Don't you dare throw that in my face." She spins around with the hairbrush still in her hand, her face dark.
"I'm not throwing anything in your face."
"That's right. You're not doing anything at all." Her voice is cold.
"Drop it, Addison." He massages the back of his neck, where his muscles have clenched up again, hearing his voice rise despite himself.
"There are only two more. Tomorrow's transfer, and that's it. If you don't come …"
"If I don't come then what?" He doesn't bother to keep the anger out of his tone now, sees the moment she decides not to cross another line, and switches tactics instead.
"These are our babies, Mark." Her tone is soft, imploring. He sees her waking up white-faced in a hospital bed, already knowing but making him tell her anyway. "Our babies," she repeats. "Don't you want – "
"They're not fucking babies!"
She flinches visibly at the volume of his voice.
Any hope of rescuing the conversation is gone. He strides past her, pulling open the bedroom door only to see his daughter standing just over the threshold in her planet-printed pajamas, hair mussed from sleep, tears in her eyes.
"Vivi." Mark reaches for her, regret souring his stomach, but she's already run into the bedroom and is clinging to Addison.
"You woke me up," she whimpers.
"We didn't mean to," Mark tells her, stroking her hair as Addison, sitting on the end of the bed, holds their daughter flush against her and rocks slowly back and forth like she used to when she was small.
"Why were you yelling?" Viv asks, half-asleep again already, all ten fingers knotted in the fabric of Addison's robe.
"We weren't. We were just talking," he says, adding lying to my daughter to his list of misdeeds for the night.
He sits on the bed behind Addison so all of Viv's weight isn't pushing against her, but she doesn't seem to mind. It's not long before their daughter's head is lolling with sleep.
"Let's just keep her in here," Addison says, gesturing to their large bed.
Mark doesn't protest – not that his wife asked for his approval or even his buy-in, and their daughter's warm sleepy body is the barrier between them that night.
…
FRIDAY
"Good luck," he says.
"I wish you meant that," she responds without turning around. The kitchen smells like espresso and the light citrus scent of her perfume. Her hair is pinned up severely, exposing the nape of her neck.
He would ordinarily find the exposed skin irresistible; now, it just looks as angry as she does.
"Addison …" He massages the bridge of his nose.
"Forget it." She turns around, gesturing at the breakfast nook, where Viv is kneeling on the cushion and eating cereal out of a pink mug. She carries her mug to the sink without being told, and after washing her hands she carefully replaces the Thursday block with the Friday one and nods with satisfaction.
Addison waits until their daughter has left the room, pushing the kitchen door open with both hands, before she turns back to Mark.
"Needa's taking Viv," she says, fiddling with her phone like it's any other morning's shared logistics plan, and he doesn't respond.
"Mark." She rests a hand on his arm. "About last night …"
"Forget it," he says. He's too tired to argue – Viv slept fitfully through the night and he's pretty sure he has bruises from her little feet.
"This is the last transfer," she repeats in a low voice.
He studies her face for a moment, its beseeching expression, unable to resist pushing her a little. "So you'll stop, you mean? After this one?"
Hurt flickers in her eyes at his insinuation. "If it doesn't work," she says quietly, "then we'll … deal with it."
"Deal with it, like move on with our lives, have a nice summer with the kid we actually have … or deal with it like some – other thing?"
He doesn't say the words but he knows the other options.
She doesn't meet his eyes.
"Viv wants to go to the house," she says. "Drive up tomorrow and spend the weekend."
"I know that."
"Will you come?"
"Of course I'll come. I want to go," he says, stressing the I slightly and perhaps a bit unfairly to remind him that he's not the one who made their plans fragile.
When he kisses her goodbye, she holds onto him longer than a typical morning and he lets her.
…
He thinks about her the entire morning.
There's not a day he doesn't think about her anyway, there hasn't been, not since long before it was appropriate to do so.
He keeps glancing up during his office hours and catching the eye of the photograph on his desk. There's a glass of wine in her hand in the full shot, and he teased her about it when she wanted him to crop it. He didn't mind, not really, there are fewer distractions this way, just those incredible eyes focused directly on him.
Focus.
It's a buzzword for them really – he wants to focus on them, the two of them, the three of them. Wants the summer stretching out golden and slow, to take some time to be a family. You can't heal without time, can't breathe without exhale.
…
"Any tenderness?"
"For the last two years," Addison says, as if it's a joke, but she flinches slightly under practiced hands.
"I remember." Claudia – a casual friend, they were fellows together – smiles sympathetically as she continues the exam. Addison remembers she has IVF twins at home. Of course she does, because they both waited for the right time.
The fluorescents buzz faintly in the silent room.
"What is it?" Addison props herself up on her elbows. "Claudia?"
"Probably nothing," the other doctor says. "But just to be cautious …."
…
I'm in Claudia Gerber's office on 63rd, if you can get away for a few minutes, she types with shaking fingers.
…
"I'm scheduling you right now, Addison. But let me just get Feldenstein on the line so he can weigh in."
…
Mark … I'm sorry about last night. If you're not with a patient, can you please come?
…
"I know you say this all the time, but it really is true, isn't it? There's nothing we can do this second, so it's important to stay calm until we know more."
"Right."
"If you want to wait..."
But there is no waiting. There's no re-freezing the embryos. It's now or never.
"Go ahead with the transfer," Addison says, her eyes tracking the framed print hanging on the opposite wall of the exam room.
…
Forget it. I'm already gone.
…
She goes back to work.
Of course she goes back to work.
If all else fails, go back to work.
She leaves with phone numbers and promises and platitudes. They all know her, which makes her wish for a moment she'd worn a disguise and gone to … somewhere where they don't know her.
"Is everything all right, Doctor?"
"Everything's fine, Sharon." Addison smiles at the nurse. "I have a full roster this afternoon, so I'll just – "
"Of course. The first chart is on your chair."
There's a little pink handprint on her desk, glazed clay, that Viv made for her in preschool. She can't recall ever doing something like that herself but she does remember, years ago, during her first marriage, seeing five different glazed clay handprints hanging in her mother-in-law's den, one for each child. They looked much like this one.
Not that much has changed.
The hand is already impossibly tiny – Viv sometimes places her larger hand on top of it, when she's visiting the office, and laughs like she's Goldilocks and it's too small.
Addison traces its imprints now. So tiny she practically outgrew it while the kiln fired it into permanence. To make sure it would be remembered.
Remember is a word she can't consider right now. Summoning the combination of medical and etiquette training that hasn't failed her yet, she forces down everything she doesn't want to face and opens her first patient's chart.
Gisele. 42. Gravida 3, para 1. Now twelve weeks, three days, too high risk for transfer to an OB. Addison's partner got the patient pregnant, and now Addison will make sure the life sustains all the way to parity and that no one in her office ever says, do you really need another one?
Last time Gisele was here, she showed Addison photos of Hugo, her first. Her eyes were sad, like she wanted reassurance that the laughing toddler didn't need to be enough.
Who can say, anyway, what enough is?
The buzzer sounds, she stands to greet Gisele as Sharon leads her in, and she puts away any remaining thoughts to lose herself in the patient.
…
What is it?
Probably nothing.
"Mommy." Vivian pulls on her hand. "Needa said I couldn't have ice cream."
"Before dinner," Needa corrects, smiling fondly at Vivian, "not an all-out ban."
"Needa's right," Addison says, shrugging out of her light jacket. "Did you eat your dinner, Vivi?"
"No." Viv toys with the end of one of her braids. "Where's Daddy?"
"Working," Addison says, hanging up her jacket. "And you need to eat dinner before he gets home."
She recalls the way she and Mark parted ways this morning. She wasn't exactly surprised when he ignored the texts she sent from Claudia's office – he could have done so on a normal day, even, if he'd been with a patient. His only communication with her that day was short, letting her know he was filling in for a colleague that evening.
The first transfer, Mark was by her side for the procedure, holding her hand as she lay on the table with her knees splayed. He was solicitous afterwards, bringing her food and massaging her tired shoulders, preparing heat and ice for the necessary injections. More than supportive. Excited, even.
A sibling for Vivian – that's why Addison put herself through three stimulation cycles, banking as many normal embryos as she could. She wasn't young, but she was strong.
Healthy.
Carried a full-term pregnancy already.
Vivian is talking to her now, half protest at the idea of eating her dinner and half chatter about her day. Addison is doing her best to listen through the ocean waves in her ears.
"Did you hear me, Mommy?"
"I heard you, Vivi." Addison takes her daughter's small face in her hands.
Focus.
Needa is packing up now, preparing for the changing of the guards. Vivian runs over to kiss her goodbye, her ice cream betrayal apparently forgotten, and then runs back to Addison.
"Dr. Montgomery?" Needa approaches her, speaking quietly above Vivian's head. "Is everything all right?"
"Of course."
"I can stay longer, if you – "
"No, don't be silly. It's fine." Addison smiles briefly at Needa, then reaches for her daughter's hand. "Let's eat," she says. "Mommy's starving."
The salmon and sweet potatoes Viv must have shunned earlier are still sitting on the kitchen island. Addison is too tired for battle; she takes a few cooled bites herself instead, Vivian watching with interest, while she orders food. Their regular places are listed in the phone in order of how fast they deliver, and she's rewarded with a speedy delivery of Chinese food that Viv consents to eat with only token protest.
Now that the food's here, her own appetite diminishes. She praises Viv's ever-improving chopstick skills instead; her sweet husky-voiced chatter fills the kitchen and she lets Viv's stories of her day distract her.
No word from Mark, as she stashes leftovers in the fridge in case he's hungry later, opening the windows to let a fresh breeze wash out the fragrant scents of their dinner.
She offers Viv a movie, not even bothering to feel guilty for resorting to electronic distraction, and her daughter chooses Mary Poppins from the stack in the playroom without a second glance.
"It's your favorite," she reminds Addison, whose throat suddenly feels thick. She gives Vivian a quick squeeze.
"You're right, and it's a good thing I have it memorized," Addison says, smiling at her daughter.
"Oh. You have to work?" Viv asks, climbing onto the couch next to her.
"Just a little, sweetheart." Addison waits for the movie to get underway before she turns her daughter carefully so she's angled toward the television and away from her laptop.
She needs to do some research.
Reach out, make some calls.
Vivian, engrossed in the movie, leans against her, occasionally singing along with the actors.
I does what I likes, and I likes what I do…
"Mommy? How come there's only two kids?" Vivian asks abruptly, turning away from the screen.
"In the movie, you mean?"
Vivian nods. They've been reading the books at night, together – Addison remembering them from childhood as a bit edgier and more whimsical all at once – and Viv was fascinated to find the existence of three more Banks children younger than Jane and Michael.
"I don't know, sweetheart. I guess they didn't have time to include the twins."
"Or Annabel," Vivian reminds her. "But they should have all of them."
"Yeah?" Addison brushes some stray strands of hair off her daughter's face. "Maybe you'll make a new version of the movie when you're older, with all of them."
"Maybe." Viv considers this. "They shouldn't leave out the babies."
Addison holds her breath, waiting for the inevitable transition.
It comes, of course.
"My baby is in there now," Viv is saying, reaching out, "my baby brother." Addison catches her little hand before it can make contact and brings it to her lips instead, planting a kiss on her palm. Viv giggles, protesting that it tickles, before Addison releases her. "He is in there, right, Mommy?" she persists.
Vivian is hard to distract.
She and Mark like to credit each other with their daughter's stubborn determination. In truth it comes from both of them, she knows. They are so alike in so many ways: it is, at it always has been, both the strongest and most fragile aspect of their marriage.
"Vivi…" Addison sets the laptop and stack of papers aside, reaches out and settles her daughter on her lap. Viv nestles close and Addison has a momentary pang at the way her daughter's dark blonde head rests against her breast, as if she's still tiny and nursing. Silently, she strokes her hair, tucking the wispy pieces back into the braid. Viv's hair is long – they compromise on two-inch trims, to keep the split ends away, and she knows this much hair is an indulgence. It's one she was never allowed and one she enjoys granting Vivian, enjoys every moment belonging only to them as she sifts through tangles and brushes chaotic strands into a single shining cape.
Her daughter is looking up at her expectantly – with Mark's eyes, laughing semicircles where Addison's, in pictures at Viv's age, were round and sad. Vivian looks so much like her father; it was a rueful joke, when she was small, when gossip still attended them in hospital halls.
Mark swears he can see her in their daughter, though Addison remains unconvinced it's anything more than sheer affection tinged with wishful thinking. But Addison carried her for forty-one weeks – refusing an induction, confident in her own monitoring skills – birthed her, nursed life into her.
She doesn't need a reflection of her own face to know that Vivian is hers.
"It's, um … I don't know anything yet, sweetheart."
God, I really don't know anything. At all.
"But he's supposed to be in there. You took his shots and everything." Viv's voice trails off. "Did he die?" she asks, her tone conversational. The child of two doctors, Vivian could never have been the type to refer to, for example, the smashed pigeon carcass they stepped over crossing Park Avenue as sleeping. Still, to be this conversant around this particular issue…. Addison's cheeks flush with the knowledge of what Mark's reaction would be.
"No, baby, he didn't die."
How to explain this bridge of breathless waiting to a five-year-old, even a bright and curious one like Vivian?
She's shown Vivian magnifications of the blastocysts, in an attempt to help her understand, but they've never been anything but babies to her daughter.
"Good," Viv says, turning her face up to her mother with a sweet smile before she refocuses on the movie.
…
The house is quiet by the time he gets home – it always seems so much larger when it's not filled with Vivian's chatter and fleet footsteps. The first floor is darkened but a shadow of low yellow light escapes from under the swinging kitchen door, along with a light breeze.
He steels himself before he goes in.
Addison is sitting at the kitchen island, her back to him, and doesn't turn around when he approaches. He's not surprised.
"Viv's sleeping?" he asks as he approaches. "Addison?"
She turns around then. "I texted you," she says. Her eyes look solidly blue in this light.
He just nods.
"You didn't answer."
"I know," he says finally when she seems to be waiting for a response. Her posture is noticeably stiff; she's angry with him.
It's nothing less than he expected. Maybe than he deserves.
He operates on instinct, in so many moments, couldn't say why he does it, just that he does. Nothing else could explain the cliff he jumped over, the first time he touched her … could it?
Eleven o'clock came and went this morning, and he knew the transfer was underway. Without him. He knew she wanted him there, and he knew he wasn't there.
He doesn't apologize; she wouldn't want to hear it and he's not quite sure it's true anyway.
"How, uh, how did it go?" he asks without looking at her.
She doesn't respond.
"Addison?"
"Mark." She's half turned away now, gestures toward the empty stools beside her. "Sit down."
"Why?" he asks automatically, but when she turns around her face is serious enough that he reaches for one of the stools at the kitchen island.
"Just … sit down," she repeats.
He has the fleeting, instinctual thought, don't tell me, that whatever she's about to say won't be good.
She pushes her hair behind her ears, and he hears her voice shake when she speaks his name. It's enough to push him forward and she doesn't resist when he wraps his arms around her. She's stiff against him but doesn't protest; he tastes fear at the back of his throat as he holds on to her.
And so it is that the words that will change their lives are spoken for the first time directly into the shoulder of his shirt, and he has to move her back, ask her to repeat it, frame the cold skin of her cheeks in his hands, before he understands.
He doesn't want to understand.
"Don't flip out," she says. "So they found something, Mark, people find things all the time."
Not on her, they don't. Not on his wife.
She's not meeting his eyes, suggesting she knows more than she's saying.
"And the tests?"
"I'm seeing Luca tomorrow. Remember, he was in –"
"I remember," he cuts her off. "I'm going with you."
He sees her lips part and sees the exact moment she thinks better of making a comment on his absence today. "Okay," she says after a moment and this acquiescence worries him even more.
"Addison…"
"Mark, it's okay."
"I should have been there."
She doesn't say anything.
He could easily tell her he was with a patient, unable to get away. But for some reason, perhaps down to the nature of their relationship, he feels more comfortable hurting her than lying to her. And he knows from her expression that she knows he saw the texts.
"I'm sorry."
"I know," and she rests one of her hands, the one with the rings, against his cheek. For a moment he entertains an urge to grab her and Vivian and get out of here. Just – go. Wherever. Somewhere no one can find them. No one can call and tell them what they don't want to hear.
"Mark, it's okay," she says again, softly. "You know … a little optimism might not be the worst thing right now."
And he watches, with a spreading sense of dread, as her other hand comes to rest on her still-flat stomach.
His own stomach sinks.
"What do you mean?" he asks warily.
She kisses him instead of answering and he responds instead of pushing it, standing without letting go of her. When he lifts her onto the counter, feels the familiar press of her heels against the backs of his thighs, tastes the dip at the side of her neck, it's the first time in months.
His body responds so quickly he feels like a teenager again, in over his head, and she laughs against his lips when she feels his excitement. He's drunk with the permission to touch her, to forget the rest of the world together like they have from the start. Metal gives way between his fingers, turning to silky bare skin, and she arches against him.
Stop.
"Stop," she says before his fingers can brush the lace that dips below her navel, as he's been expecting, her dress already unzipped, his palms full of soft skin. She's a little breathless, strands of hair around her face. It's been too long since he's seen her like this, since he's made her feel the way he knows he can.
They're both breathing heavily.
"The transfer… ." Her voice trails off, his eyes on the flushed skin of her chest as it rises and falls with her staggered breathing.
This, he remembers. The two-week hands-off period. The one that somehow bled into two years.
He just says her name, once, and then his head drops. He's suddenly exhausted.
She wraps her arms around his neck. "Don't hate me," she whispers suddenly, fiercely.
He couldn't, even if he tried.
Don't make me try, he doesn't say.
"Never," he says instead and she holds on more tightly. He didn't even realize there was space left between them.
She takes his hand, her smaller – but not small – one strong as she leads him with increasing force to her bare stomach. He speaks her name again and she ignores him, pressing his palm to her flesh. It's been longer than months since he's done this; she's self-conscious, he knows, about this part of her body, has been since Vivian's birth. As if the part of her where their daughter stretched her flesh, made her first home, could be anything but beautiful.
"Our last ones," she reminds him quietly.
He doesn't respond, just pulls her close, aware this moment of unusual intimacy is over. Physically, anyway, even if his body hasn't quite realized it.
She leans back, looking up at him through lowered lashes.
"Let me …?" she suggests, sounding almost hopeful.
But he covers her hand with his before it can insinuate between their bodies.
"Mark," she sighs. He holds onto her hand and she leans forward to rest her forehead against his for a long silent moment.
"What happens now?" he asks finally, hearing the crack in his voice.
"Now?" Addison leans back, turning her face to look at his. She's very pale in the muted kitchen light, her eyes huge and no color he could identify. "Now … we wait."
"There must be – "
"One step at a time. Mark." She rests her hand on his arm, grips really, and he meets her eyes. They're a hundred miles away, just as they have been after each transfer. Planning, dreaming, don't get your hopes up, that's what everyone says, and everyone also says, stay optimistic, it's a fucking roller coaster and she's still sitting on the island with her legs dangling.
"We'll know more tomorrow," she says, like they might tell a patient's family. "When we see him."
For the same reason she's saying it, he assumes.
She draws him back between her splayed legs, arms tight around his neck with their bodies so closely pressed he can feel her heartbeat against his through the bare skin of her chest. He breathes her in for a moment before he cups the back of her skull, drawing her head to his shoulder. One of her hands grips his neck, the other palming his back. So many points of contact, as his free hand cradles the small of her back.
Where do you want me to touch you?
Everywhere.
Those younger versions of themselves mock him from the corners of his memory, Addison's head thrown back, long hair damp with sweat, keening, wanting as much of him as he could give and he's there too – bold, stupid, dizzy with love and lust.
There's no going back now.
Not that night, and not tonight.
The buzzing alarm from upstairs interrupts their embrace. They move quickly in tandem, Mark lifting her down from the island with one arm while his other hand seeks out one of the many monitors hooked up to the alarm system.
"What's she doing?" Addison asks breathily, sliding her arms into the sleeves of the sheath he unzipped; automatically, he turns her around to fasten it again.
"Nothing," Mark says.
"Nothing?" Addison reaches for the monitor. "Let me see."
In shades of night-vision green, their daughter is standing in her now-open doorway, long hair loose around her shoulders, in her rainbow-printed summer pajamas turned green and greener by the cameras.
She's just … standing there, and then her small hands rise, slowly, and come to a pause flat against the air.
They watch her for a moment. She's calm, as she is sometimes, like the time Mark found her taking each book off her shelves and splitting it in the middle, then closing it and putting it back, asleep the entire time.
Then she's moving – barely, just infinitesimal movements with her hands flat on nothing, as if she's pushing against a surface no one else can see.
It's a gamble with Viv's sleep disturbances – it's classic walking, sometimes, the last few months – eerie but seemingly not dangerous and still recognizable gestures.
He doesn't know what she's doing now as she continues to press against whatever she seems to think is stopping her from leaving the room.
He sees recognition flicker in Addison's eyes, watches her gaze travel to the swinging door of the kitchen. It has no knob; it's heavy-weighted, to prevent swinging it into someone. An adult can manage with a little extra force; a child would need two hands.
His wife's face changes, her expression resolute. Wiping at her eyes, though he doesn't see anything there, she sets the monitor back down and leaves to go check on Viv. Mark trails her up the stairs, but by the time they get there, Vivian is in bed, sleeping on her back with one arm thrown over her head like she has since toddlerhood. Like she never left her bed.
Like it never happened at all.
Mark resets the alarm, Addison closes the door, and they go to bed like the rest of the night never happened either, silence sliding under the covers with their tired bodies. He waits for her to fall asleep first, and he hears it in the rhythm of her slumbering breath as he follows her:
Everything will change.
…
SATURDAY
Vivian wakes them at first light, same as always, kneeling over them still warm from sleep, her long hair brushing the sheets.
There's eager anticipation all over her small face as he drags his tired eyes open.
"We're going to East Hampton!" she announces brightly. "Mommy said," she adds, glancing at Addison when neither parent responds.
He'll see us at eleven.
Can't it be earlier?
Yes, but I didn't want it to be earlier. I wanted to have some time at home first.
Vivian bounces on her knees on the bed. She's already dressed in shorts and a t-shirt; at least half of Viv's independence is part and parcel of her stubborn nature. She likes to be ready to go so she doesn't miss out. "We are going," she says. "Right?"
"Vivi…" Addison reaches for her and Viv ducks away, scowling.
"You said." Her tone is accusatory. "You said we could go."
Addison rests a hand on Mark's arm before he can intercede, perhaps catching the change in his breathing.
"I know, Vivi," she says, gentle and placating. "I'm not saying we can't go."
"So we can go?" Viv brightens. "I want to bring my new racket. The one at the house is like…" Her little hands rise, gesturing to show the apparent imperfections of the strings.
"It's still really early, sweetheart." Addison reaches for Vivian again, successful this time in tipping her forward to lie against her body. Viv resists, briefly, then curls up with her mother.
"But I'm not tired," she protests, warning in her husky voice.
"We're tired," Mark says easily. "We're a little older than you, Vivi."
Vivian's upturned nose wrinkles with confusion. "Daddy … I don't think that's how it works."
Addison doesn't say anything. Her eyes are closed, her cheek resting against the top of Viv's sandy-blonde head. He watches them breathe in sync for a moment, and then it's over.
"Mommy." Viv is wriggling in her mother's arms, trying to get her attention. "Can we get up now?"
And then to Mark's dismay, one of his daughter's small hand drifts down to Addison's midsection, which she pats fondly. "Is he in there?" she whispers, sotto voce.
Addison's cheeks flush at her words.
He swallows his annoyance when he sees the expression on her face.
Resolute, he swings his legs out of bed and shuts himself in the walk-in closet long enough to change his clothes.
Addison and Vivian are both sitting up in bed when he returns, startlingly similar expressions on their very different faces.
"Vivi – let's go." He holds out his hands.
"Go where?"
"Bagels," he says, as if the answer is obvious.
Vivian's lips purse. "But you said you're tired."
"So we'll get coffee too." He curls his hands, beckoning. "Come on, Viv."
"Can I have coffee?" she asks hopefully.
"That's the last thing you need." He scoops her off the bed when she still doesn't move, tossing her over his shoulder and making her squeal with surprised approval.
"Mark…"
He turns at the sound of his name, gripping Viv with one hand, expecting Addison to scold him for being rough. It's horseplay, he'll say, it's what dads do. It's what Derek's dad did anyway, and that's the only one he had.
But Addison doesn't seem bothered by their daughter, upside down and currently drumming his back with her fists as she recites the litany of treats she's expecting from the bagel place. She's already at rainbow cookie when Mark talks over her.
"Addie … what is it?"
She looks up at him, and it's the angle or the low light but she suddenly looks very young, like how he remembers her in medical school when they'd study all night, and she wanted something. Can I have one of your highlighters? Can you get me a Tab?
"Make mine decaf," she says.
He pretends that containing an energetic Viv is the reason he doesn't answer, and not his disappointment.
Their daughter's husky voice is the soundtrack down the stairs, pausing to giggle every time a step pushes his shoulder into her ribs. "Daddy…" she's calling, rapping on his back as they approach the front door.
He pretends he's just noticed he's still carrying her, enjoying her laugh, then sets her on her feet, grabbing both her hands when she looks a little unsteady.
"All my blood is in my head," she observes with interest, then pauses. "Is that a real thing? Needa said it's a real thing … but she's not a doctor."
Doctors don't know everything.
He studies his daughter's flushed face. "More or less," he says, smiling at her.
"Oh." Viv stretches her arms out to the side, regaining her balance, then pauses as if she's just remembered something. "Will you play tennis with me?"
"Hm?" He's unlocking the series of bolts Addison insists on at the front door.
"At the house. Will you play tennis with me?" Vivian mimes a forehand, beaming when he assures her he'll play with her.
Then, with a quick sidelong glance at him, she mimes the one-handed backhand she's not allowed with a racket.
"Not like that, I won't."
Viv frowns at him. "Sutton's dad lets her."
Sutton's dad sees her maybe once a month.
Not that Mark can blame him for keeping his distance. The whole family gives him the heebie-jeebies, but Sutton's a nice kid and he can't hold her family against her, not with his own history.
"Why can't I, anyway?"
Mark pulls open the front door, a thousand thoughts spinning through his head, and fast and uncontrollable as a tennis ball.
At least the way he plays, the way he used to play.
"Because I don't want you to burn out your rotator cuff before you can vote."
"Wait!" Vivian squeals as he starts to usher her out the door.
"Viv…"
But she's already pushing the kitchen door open with both little hands. He follows her to keep her from dawdling, but all she does is replace the maple wood Friday with Saturday. He lets her regard the calendar with satisfaction for a moment before he urges her out of the house.
"Let's go, Vivi."
He tugs on the end of her ponytail when she hovers on the front steps.
Then they debate briefly – but fiercely – over whether she should ride her scooter to the bagel place. Mark wins, and Vivian sulks only as far as the next block.
"I can ride it at the house, though," she says, turning her face up to see Mark, who's holding her by the hand, and squinting a little in the sun. "Today. Right?"
Mark massages the back of his neck with his free hand. Viv and her one-track mind.
We don't know anything yet. Maybe I shouldn't even have told you.
Of course you should have told me!
"We'll see," he says, and Viv groans in frustration.
"Mommy has to work," he says when she demands a reason.
She considers this. "Are you staying with me? Can we go to the ancient playground?"
"I don't know, baby, I … need to work too. Mommy's making a playdate for you," he adds quickly.
Viv considers this. "Not Emma P.," she says.
Beggars can't be choosers, kiddo.
Her small face is so innocent and hopeful. He forces down the fear that's making him irritable.
"No Emma P., huh? What about Emma J.?" he teases.
"Emma J.'s okay." Vivian reaches for his hand again, her bad mood seeming to dissipate. "But later can we go, Daddy? To the house?"
"I don't know, Viv," he says carefully.
"Tomorrow," she proposes.
Tomorrow feels like a hundred years away.
This feeling of knowing, that today is the first day of something … it clings to the air around him, distracts him from his daughter's chatter.
At the bagel counter, he lets Viv choose sweets without even token protest. She seems to sense his distraction, holding up her arms three blocks from home and telling him she's too tired to walk anymore. It's clearly not true, but he sets her on his shoulders anyway, holding onto her small sneakered feet.
…
"Mommy!"
Vivian runs to her like they've been separated for days, which is undeniably flattering. One of her partners, observing this a few months ago, told Addison to enjoy it while she could – her teenagers barely acknowledged her if they bumped into each other on the street.
Enjoy it while you can.
"We got bagels," Viv chatters. "And it's sunny so we can eat outside. Can we eat outside?"
Addison glances automatically toward the back garden, the small table and chairs partially hidden by the wrought iron archway. Leaves climb the swirls of it. Flowers will blossom there, eventually.
"Sure," she says, enjoying Viv's delight – which she knows won't last long once she realizes a trip to the Hamptons house this weekend is looking very unlikely.
"You going to change first?" Mark tugs her gently toward him by the sash of her blue silk robe, and she enjoys his tone too, light and teasing.
"Maybe," she says, kissing him quickly when he laughs.
"Mommy." Vivian frowns at her. "You're wearing pajamas."
Addison is amused by how scandalized her daughter sounds, like a direct line from the grandmother she's met only half a dozen times
"You're right. I'll go change. You two set up, okay?"
Vivian is already halfway out the door. Addison pauses to pull Mark in for one more kiss.
"I thought you liked this robe," she murmurs in his ear, pleased when she can feel him swallows hard.
"You're a tease." He smiles down at her when she pretends to be offended, his thumbs stroking the silk lapels next to her throat. "Go get dressed before Viv reports you for indecent exposure."
She does, but she pauses halfway up the wide staircase, hearing the voices of her family in the kitchen and outside – Mark's rumbling and low, Viv's husky but childishly-pitched. They both laugh at something she can't hear.
We don't know anything yet.
One of her hands slides down her blue silk robe to rest on the spot where Vivian grew. Where Julian grew, until he didn't. Where the next two never did. Where Faith grew, until she didn't. Where the two after that never did.
And now we wait.
"Mommy! Are you ready yet?" Viv's voice is closer now, like her little face is pressed up against the leaded windows. There's anticipation in her voice – joy, even.
"Almost," she calls, and ascends the rest of the stairs so she won't have to keep her daughter waiting any longer than necessary.
I think I could write another 44-chapter story just about the Sloans in this universe. It's been a gradually rougher couple of years for them - it wasn't all fluff before Addison's diagnosis, but I have to admit I love exploring their life together before they were reintroduced to Derek and his perspective. Reviews are love, and my fingers are tired, so I hope you will write and let me know your thoughts. Next chapter picks up after the bombshell that ended Chapter 43. Thank you for reading!
PS Yes, there is a song called Everything Will Change, but I admit to cheating a little because I can't help but think of the line in Postal Service's Brand New Colony - that song has always reminded me of Mark and Addison.
