December 1953
It is definitely one of the more boring dates Cosima has ever had. John is pleasant, if a bit dull and he has two left feet. There will be no dancing, at least not anything she'd particularly enjoy. He drives her home discussing only the movie and Cosima's job offer to teach high school science. He's an accountant, nothing fancy, but he makes a decent wage. He's...inoffensive, Cosima settles on a word as he pulls into her parents' driveway.
"I had a great time Cosima." He tells her as he turns off the car. "Next weekend?"
Cosima nods in response, if she stops saying yes to these dates she knows it will have consequences. From her mother. From her own desire to get back at Delphine. To have a wedding invitation show up in Delphine's mailbox and break her heart.
"Great. My parents are having their Christmas party." John tells her, clambering out of the car after her. . "I'll pick you up at 4 pm next Saturday."
"Thank you John. I had a nice night." Cosima says goodbye on her parents porch. Fully aware that her parents are peering through the window at them. The movie was enjoyable. The kissing not so much.
She lets John kiss her, counting the seconds until it's over and he withdraws. No doubt, noticing Arthur and Lillian staring at them from the window. At least John wanted to behave himself. He wanted Arthur and Lillian to like him, and for that reason, he had only ever tried to kiss her. Never more. That much was a relief.
"Looks like you kids had fun!" Lillian comments delightedly. No doubt feeling very proud of herself for setting this up. Arthur says nothing, observing quietly But whatever he had to say Cosima wasn't sure she wanted to hear it at all.
"It was fun." Cosima nods. What else can she say?
"A letter came for you again. Write the poor girl back Cosima." Lillian gestures to another letter on the table.
She recognizes the address the second time, sighing Cosima pulls the envelope towards her. She toys with the idea of burning it, of not even looking to see what a now-married Delphine would write to her this time.
"I'm tired." Cosima tells her parents, and moves towards the stairs, letter in hand.
"Are you alright?" Arthur asks quietly when his wife is out of earshot. "Do you like this fellow?"
"Yes. Yes. Of course." Cosima brushes off her father's unexpected concern and hops up the stairs. Trying to imbue her movements with her old energy. But she feels so very tired. Pretending is so very tiring now. So much worse, now that she knows.
In the end, she cannot resist and opens the letter.
Dear Cosima,
I am not going to attempt subterfuge any longer.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
I cannot make it through an hour without thinking of you, or missing you. Please write back to me. I cannot bear it if you were to disappear completely.
Love always,
Delphine
Cosima sighs, letting herself cry again. She folds the letter up, tucking it into her clothes. She hasn't thrown the first letter away, instead she'd hidden it away, tucked up with her unmentionables.
"I love you too, Delphine." Cosima whispers to herself in the dark. Surely Delphine must already know that. It doesn't have to be said anymore. She feels hollow, emptied out. And perhaps it's for the best.
January 1954
Delphine feels incredibly foolish but she doesn't really expect it, her menses don't arrive on time. Every 31 days since she was fourteen, she'd bled. Every 31 days, while loving Cosima. And now, nothing. Nothing that could ruin everything.
Delphine waits three days before telling anyone. Hoping this is some kind of mistake. That blood will come and that this won't mean a baby. Thomas's baby.
"I think I'm pregnant." She tells Thomas at breakfast on the third day. He hadn't been keeping track of her cycles. That was her job. Though she suspected even if she'd stuck to the calendar method, Thomas wouldn't let her refuse him even when she could conceive.
"Why weren't you keeping track?" Thomas accuses her, he certainly doesn't look happy either. "You could have prevented this!"
"You want me almost every night! When do you let me say no?" Delphine throws back. "When do you ask if it's a safe time?"
"You did this." Thomas gestures at her. "Call the doctor, tell him." He continues to eat his breakfast. Shaking his head and muttering to himself under his breath.
"I don't want this either!" Delphine screams at him. Finally losing her temper. He's briefly shocked, but doesn't engage. Delphine tries to calm herself again. The last thing she needs is a fight.
"Tu veux pas d'enfants?" Her husband scoffs at her, unsurprised by her pregnancy. "What did you expect, Delphine?"
"Je veux pas les tiens." Delphine shoots back, she doesn't want his. Never his. She feels sick again at the thought, feels herself tearing up, so instead she slips on her shoes and storms out the door intent on a very long walk.
She wants Cosima. Wants to run away and be with her Cosima again, only Cosima. Abandon her husband and hope desperately he won't come after her. But it's not possible anymore. This… thing that has taken up residence inside her, this… baby has ruined everything. She cries then, not sure of where to go from this house. She cannot return home. She cannot go to Toronto, cannot expect her brother or Cosima to take her in. Cosima would never have her now. Thomas would never permit her to leave. Cosima never even returned her letters, she can only assume her beloved must be rightfully furious with her for leaving, for betraying her. For all of this.
After all, Thomas doesn't hit her. And even if he did, the law made allowances for such things. She is his wife, Delphine reminds herself. She knows it's unwise to attempt to return to her parents' home. Or to one of her siblings. She cannot feel so unhappy as this, but she sobs pitifully again all the way home. Maybe she could get rid of it, Delphine finds herself thinking. Perhaps it would never be born at all. Maybe there was a way.
2016
Cosima comes to her room, and despite her walker begins to pull her out with her. "Come with me, my love. I have something to show you. And then a surprise."
"Where are we going?" Delphine asks simply, rising to follow Cosima. There were memories she certainly didn't want to be alone with, and this was a good excuse to silence them again.
"I want to share something precious with you." Cosima tells her, stroking her face. "But we have to go into the lobby."
Delphine rarely gets to leave the closed ward, glancing back at the nurse by the door nods reluctantly, seemingly in on Cosima's plan. She could never remember the lobby, she was always pushed through it so quickly, whomever taking her out eager to have her locked away once again. It was lovely, like a large old fashioned living room. Or a lobby. Comfortable couches, a piano, a desk for service. It's beautiful.
"Close your eyes." Cosima insists. After guiding Delphine to a comfortable couch in the open lobby. Someone is playing the piano, and it suddenly feels so much better. She waits several minutes, wondering what her surprise will be.
Something warm is pressed into her lap. Delphine smells milk and immediately opens her eyes. "A baby?" She looks down at the infant, seeing Cosima in the child's face instantaneously. She cannot help herself, she begins to cry.
"Delphine?" Cosima repeats. "This is my great-granddaughter, Stella. James and Katie brought her for me to see. And… I wanted you with me."
"It's a beautiful surprise." Delphine continues to sob, looking at the child through her tears. A baby who resembles her Cosima. The child seems unsettled by her tears but doesn't cry. She, of course, is a stranger to this perfect tiny person. It's only a matter of time before the child cries.
She looks then to James, studying him closely, seeing Cosima and then Arthur in his face. This too makes her smile, though the tears continue.
"Are you alright?" The child's mother, Katie, asks her. "I can take her back if you want."
"Non. Non… I want to hold her." Delphine smiles, reaching for Cosima who leans into her. She lets Cosima lift the baby from her arms.
"I didn't think it'd make you cry. I'm sorry." Cosima apologizes. "I just wanted to share this with you."
"I think she's just happy, Grandma." James speaks softly. "It's good to finally meet you, Delphine."
"Once Charlie arrives, we'll all go out to dinner." Cosima strokes Delphine's hair with her free hand, cuddling the baby with the other.
"Charlie?" Delphine repeats. Who was Charlie? Why was he taking them anywhere?
"My youngest grandson." Cosima clarifies. "James's youngest brother. He's going to drive us."
"Are we celebrating?" Delphine asks. Surely permission to spring them from the nursing home for a couple hours suggested some kind of special occasion. Something Annabelle or Alain would have had to consent to.
"We will be." Cosima tells her. "Charlie is taking us to city hall first."
"City hall?"
"We found your passport. Annabelle gave it to Laura. We're getting a marriage license. It's good for three months." Cosima grins. "We won't get married until we work out the will. I promise."
"It's 2016?" Delphine asks, making sure.
"Yes my love." Cosima nods, leaning in for a kiss.
June 1954
Cosima looks at herself in the mirror, the wedding dress is beautiful. Covered in lace, with a full skirt. She looks like the cover of a bridal magazine. As beautiful as when she'd picked it out with Lillian and Joan and her cousin Mary. Her parents had spared no expense for the wedding of their only surviving child. But she doesn't want to be in it. She'd agreed to marry John in March when he asked, leaving three months for their mothers to thoroughly plan their wedding. At least they were happy, Cosima reasoned.
She'd hoped for another letter but it seemed Delphine had finally given up on her. Or perhaps Delphine simply began to enjoy her life. Maybe she'd wanted Delphine to try to stop her. To convince her not to marry. To defy her husband and societal conventions, to return to her. To beg her to take her back, to love only Cosima again. To run away together and take two teaching jobs in a nowhere town, far away from the crushing expectations of their families. Either way, no word comes.
"You're going to be late Cosima!" Lillian chides her, barging in to speed her up. "You cannot be late for your own wedding!"
Lillian picks up the veil, begins pinning the cap to Cosima's head.
"The wedding is in less than twenty minutes!"
"I know. I won't be." Cosima cannot contain her nerves. She knew when she'd said yes what she was dooming herself to. She'd forced herself to focus on one thing at a time. Saying yes. The engagement party. The planning. The dress. And now the wedding. Each step was harder than the last, each step she struggled with whether she could truly go through with this. The momentum was difficult to stop, how could she call things off now? And... Delphine was gone. Delphine was married. What else did she have to lose?
"What if I… what if I can't get married?" Cosima asks, afraid of the answer as her mother shepherds her out of the house to the car.
"What is going on now?" Arthur complains, fussing with his tie.
"It's cold feet. Just cold feet." Lillian tells Arthur, guiding Cosima and her poofy dress into the back of the car.
Arthur looks back at her, seemingly moved by this. "You look beautiful." He says finally.
"I can't breathe." Cosima mutters. The church is only ten minutes away. Far too close. Love, honour and obey. How can she keep those promises? How can she promise to obey John? She cannot keep that promise.
"Cosima, you look sad." Arthur remarks helping her out of the car. "Don't worry, John will have to dance with you tonight. Like it or not."
"I'm fine." Cosima insists, pasting a smile on her face. She's a bride and she has to act like one.
"Don't think past the reception, dear, it'll help." Lillian tells her, as her cousin fixes her dress.
As if she wants to be reminded of that . Cosima pales noticeably. Perhaps John wouldn't want to either. Maybe he'd drink too much, or they'd both just fall asleep. She'd been forcing herself not to think about it. It wasn't going to happen. Cosima told herself. Until it absolutely had to.
Mary laughs. "Oh. It's nothing, that will be easy. I'm sure John will love trying to unlace this dress."
Lillian laughs but Cosima is suddenly sobbing, panicked.
"Shh. Shh." Lillian hushes her. "It'll be fine. It's your wedding night. All good girls are nervous. And you have always been such a good girl."
Lillian glares at her cousin, but the damage has been done. Cosima cries harder as her mother awkwardly pats her back trying to reassure her. But nothing could ever make this feel right.
"Slow down." John put his hand over her third, or fourth, glass of wine at the reception. "I think we better get to the hotel. I don't want you too drunk."
Cosima shudders, placing the glass back down, her body thrumming with alcohol and nerves. She wants to be drunk, doesn't know how else she is supposed to get through this. Well-meaning friends and relatives congratulating her endlessly, even Sadie, with her baby son on her hip is there. Everyone she's ever cared about is there. Everyone but Delphine. Delphine who had never even RSVP'd yes or no. Delphine who is probably crying too, thinking of this. She finds another glass of wine and quickly downs it, she may have to be a bride, but she doesn't have to be sober.
Cosima remembers John and his brother Robert helping her to the car, vaguely remembers the hotel lobby. She cannot recall when she got undressed, if John had wrestled with the laces or not, when they'd gotten in bed. Only bits and pieces are clear.
In the end, it's a drunken haze of pain and fumbling. Later, she'll remember very little but sharp deep pain and nausea. When she throws up after, she blames the alcohol instead of the foul smell she now recognizes as something very male. John is unhappy, she's too drunk. There's some fight. There's something about the sheets. Blood and vomit. One expected, the other not. She falls asleep quickly.
Morning comes, and Cosima cries again. She's sore, Delphine had never made her feel this sore. Never made her bleed. Never left her a vile smelling mess. They have a honeymoon, a surprise planned by John. Her bags were already packed by Lillian. But she just wants to run away, immediately. She couldn't do this. She couldn't be a wife.
"Is it that bad?" John asks when he wakes to her crying. His morning arousal, something her friends had warned her about, quickly diminishes as he watches her sobbing. Legs tucked up to her chest, hiding as much of her body as she could.
Cosima merely nods, not trusting her words.
"You're hungover." John is accusatory, but he too has a hangover, Cosima quickly realizes. "You need to get cleaned up."
"I will… why?" Cosima asks. She sits up gingerly. She must get cleaned up anyway. Wherever they are going.
"Montréal. Our surprise honeymoon. We leave today. On the train. Five days."
"Montréal?" Cosima repeats sadly. There's only one thought left in her mind, Delphine .