2016
They're returned to the nursing home before lunch the following day.
"Delphine and I got married." Cosima insists on telling all the nurses. Dr. Smith merely congratulates them but not all reactions were so positive. It's expected but it still stings. The other residents either don't respond or grimace at the news.
"I think we'll need to move." Delphine tells her after lunchtime when they're cuddled up on a couch. Though she wonders if they won't just find more of the same.
"Well I think a spouse is considered your next of kin. I can overide your children." Cosima volunteers. "I can move us. I can consent for you, if I have to."
Delphine wraps her arms around her. "Stay with me tonight?" She makes her request wondering what the nurses and aides will do now, if they will let them stay together.
"Always." Cosima responds and leans in for a kiss.
They're kissing happily, not expecting any interruption, when a familiar but angry voice shouts at them,
"Maman! What have you done?!" Alain shouts at them, disturbing other residents and no doubt drawing attention.
"Hello Alain." Delphine responds calmy, wondering when her son had decided shouting at her was a good tactic.
"What have you done?" He repeats. "Annabelle told me… you...you…"
"I got married." Delphine tells him holding fast to Cosima's hand.
Her son looks like he's about to go off, so Delphine stands, putting herself between him and Cosima.
"I knew exactly what I was doing, Alain. I love Cosima. I can show you pictures of Cosima and I from 1952. Get me my oldest photo album and I will show you. I am not senile. I am not deluded. And I am not wrong."
"Mais t'es pas une gouine!" Alain's temper flares up unsurprisingly and Delphine finds herself dropping her voice, to make him quiet to listen to her. Like she had to when he was actually a child.
Cosima doesn't understand but Delphine does, sighing on'y briefly she responds. "Non. Je suis gouine. Je suis lesbienne. I always have been."
"But you married Papa. You had three children. You're capable of better than this. This isn't you. You never … you never did anything like this." Alain drops his voice slightly but she can still feel the anger and concern coming off of him.
"But I did." Delphine argues not missing a beat. "Do you remember that old locket I wore, when you were little? The one with the broken clasp."
"I'm sure Annabelle threw it away when you moved here. It was broken maman." Alain seems moderately calmer but is losing patience.
"What locket?" Cosima looks between them.
"I broke the clasp!" Delphine raises her voice finally. "Because inside was a picture of Cosima and a lock of her hair. I couldn't let anyone open it, so I broke the clasp. Made sure it couldn't be opened." Alain's eyes drift to the picture behind her, a rather stiff family portrait of Delphine, Thomas and all three of their children. The locket around Delphine's neck even then.
"That's what you did with it?" Cosima looks at her. "I remember you asking for a lock of hair, I remember cutting it off and mailing it to you in a letter."
"I know." Delphine smiles. "I kept it. For years and years, Cosima. Wouldn't let them throw it away."
"Mailed it when?" Alain looks between them, he's been unwilling to listen. "You're wearing that damn locket in almost every picture we have of you, Maman!"
"When you were a baby. Now sit down and listen, Alain. Just listen enough to understand." Delphine tries. She has no intention of telling him the whole truth, just enough to understand he must let this go.
Alain stands to leave instead, walking around in a circle. His mostly grey hair cropped short to his head.
Cosima finally speaks. "So this one got your magnificent brain for sciences, but none of your kindness?"
Delphine sighs. "He is my son. He will either see reason or he won't. He...he loves the idea of his father too much. Of all the children, he was Thomas' favourite."
"Because he was the boy." Cosima surmises quickly. "He wanted a son."
"Non." Alain responds from the doorway. "I loved my father. If you had found a boyfriend after he died, then that would have been fine. It would have been appropriate eventually. But why do this to yourself? You're embarrassing all of us. They're all talking about you. You won't be able to stay here. You're making people uncomfortable. Even your grandchildren are uncomfortable!"
"He loved you. And the girls. But never me… and that much was mutual." Delphine tries kindly. "It's uncomfortable to have to live the life of someone you're not. That's uncomfortable."
End of August 1954
It's earlier than she expects, Delphine knows when labour finally comes. Her aunt seems unconcerned, she's had nine of her own at home and that is simply how this will be done. Her aunt and uncle seem uneasy with her lack of excitement for her baby. How one is supposed to be excited when they're bent over on the floor with each contraction Delphine will never know.
But at least, Delphine thinks between contractions, she doesn't have to be anywhere near Thomas. She retches and then must tolerate it as her aunt holds a glass of water to her lips, after wiping vomit from her face. A cousin or two lurks in the background. But she barely notices their footsteps. Until the wave abates and the pain vanishes, for a while at any rate. The doctor will be called, her aunt had assured her, as things progress. But this… this is ridiculous. Who would want to do this again? Delphine thinks as she retches again. How on earth had her maman done this ten times?
In the end it's done, and she is praised by her aunt, by the doctor, when they place a healthy boy in her arms. She regards the helpless baby in shock for several moments. Sees that his ears are like hers, perhaps, perhaps more of his face will be too. Delphine wonders at this baby, at this child.
"Un beau bébé." The doctor announces, while stitching her up. When he is done he begins readying to leave. He'd barely been here at all. Delphine wonders. What would this have been like in hospital in Montréal? Would she have been stuck there for days until Thomas came to retrieve her? Would there have been more fighting the last few months? Would she have done something foolish and tried to run away to Cosima?
"Tu va s'appeler comment?" Her aunt strokes her sweaty hair. "Je vais appeler ton mari dans le matin."
"Je sais pas." Delphine answers honestly. She hasn't thought much of a name for the baby. Her aunt helps her latch her baby to her breast, observing to see if the child will suckle. When he does she nods and begins tidying up and hollering for her cousins.
If she doesn't have to go home, Delphine thinks, observing her new son. Maybe this won't be so bad. Maybe Thomas wouldn't want her back and she could hide here for a while. She could write Cosima and let her know she was here with the baby. Though she's not sure what good that will do.
She must name her son. Delphine decides, and soon. Before his father arrives.
"But this is wonderful news Cosima!" Lillian gushes over her. As she'd expected her mother would. She'd had it confirmed and it still didn't feel real, though she'd begun to feel very nauseated several times a day. She had thrown up every day for the last three weeks and she'd barely started this pregnancy.
"And fast work too." Arthur quips from his seat at the table. "We'll be grandparents before the spring."
"March-ish." Cosima supplies. John had chosen not to accompany her since she'd been so cranky. "But… I…" How could she ask to go home? Surely they'd never allow it.
"Where is John?" Lillian is suddenly concerned. "He is pleased, I hope."
"He is." Cosima tells them. Then she tries honesty. "We aren't getting along very well."
"It's a big change." Lillian brushes her off. "It'll pass. And soon you'll have your baby."
"I.. I know that. But… it's not working." Cosima tries again, very quietly.
"It will." Lillian responds.
Her father looks at her across the table, concern playing out on his unusually silent face.
"Anyway, we should celebrate, with all four of us." Lillian insists.
"Celebrate what?" Cosima asks confused.
"Your baby. New beginnings?" Lillian tells her. "You must have gotten pregnant on your wedding night. What luck!"
Cosima cannot stop herself from grimacing at the hazy drunken memory. Her mother is probably correct but she's not interested in revisiting that memory.
"I wonder if it'll be a boy?" Lillian continues as she moves into the kitchen to continue fixing lunch. "Your aunt has a way with these things, we'll have to wait until you're showing and ask her."
"It'll be a girl." Arthur tells her simply. "I'll bet you ten dollars."
"How do you know? What does a man know about babies?" Lillian laughs at her. "Time will tell either way. It's good news, Cosima. You should be so happy."
Cosima doesn't care, just buries her face in her hands, unable to share an ounce of her parents' joy.
September 1954
"Where is he? Where is my son?" Delphine hears Thomas demanding, before he repeats his demands in French, realizing that her uncle's English is lacking.
Thomas barges into the room in which she is nursing her son. A tiny bed made up for him in a dresser drawer. She's leaking milk now, but makes no attempt to disguise what she's doing. Her child is thriving, surely Thomas will not complain.
"You put my son in a drawer?" Thomas remarks scathingly.
"Matante Marguerite did. It works. He sleeps there or with me." Delphine answers plainly in English trying not to laugh at the sounds of her aunt complaining to her cousins from downstairs. Clearly Matante Marguerite is unimpressed.
"Let me see him." Thomas reaches out his hands, but the baby continues suckling.
"I will hand him to you when he's fed." Delphine tells him calmly, unwilling to hand the newborn over just yet. "I've named him André Joseph Lucien Rousseau. My brother can be his godfather." She can love her baby, Delphine has realized, just not his father.
"Non. He will be Alain Thomas Rousseau." He tells Delphine plainly, without malice. "He is my son, and I will name him."
"But…" Delphine tries to argue. She is the mother, surely she should have some say in the boy's name. She'd done all the work of bringing him into the world, she'd be the one feeding him and rearing him.
"That is his name Delphine. He is my son." Thomas tells her clearly. "There will be no further discussion on this."
"Can I stay here?" Delphine asks, trying not to let too much hope into her voice. She'd managed to get a letter to Cosima, instructing her not to write for now, but who knows what would come.
"Don't be ridiculous. We're returning to Montréal today. He belongs in the city, not on some farm."
"I haven't recovered yet." Delphine panics. She'd barely left the bed and when she had she'd been so sore. Her aunt had reassured her this was all normal, to sit and feed and eat and drink, to rest as she could, for now. There were always hands to hold the baby anf being here wasn't so bad.
"You belong at home, taking care of Alain. We will return tomorrow at the latest." Thomas informs her. He finally takes the baby from her arms. He's asleep, a thin coating of light brown hair on his head, his swaddling blankets damp with milk.
"Fine." Delphine agrees. "Tomorrow." She has no say anyway. André sleeps unaware that he is now Alain, that his father is here at all. Delphine finds herself envying her baby's obliviousness. A child won't care, Delphine realizes, not if their maman cannot love their papa. As long as the child feels loved, and is taken care of, it doesn't matter.
"Your mother can help you with the baby." Thomas tells her as if he has offered a great compromise in this.
It feels more like a cage, and the bars have closed around her once again.