December 1954
It is without a doubt, the worst Christmas Cosima has had since her brothers died. She spends as much time as she can at her parent's home. Lillian even more apt to fawn over her now that she is showing, now that her baby can be felt from the outside. Her rounded belly is the least of her worries. Her child has gone from fluttering around inside her to thumping her insides multiple times a day. And Delphine hasn't written to her since the summer. Delphine must have had her baby months ago, and perhaps that was enough to make Delphine happy in the end. No news had come, so what should she believe?
"Carrying high, it's a boy." Her aunt says confidently as Cosima rolls her eyes. If she had to choose, she'd choose a daughter just to spite them all. Maybe, just maybe she'd get it.
John sits awkwardly at the table, talking to one of her cousins. Even he was miserable now. Her family's holiday party is just another event for them to avoid each other at. It beats the terrible silence in their home.
Could she leave while pregnant? Would that be too much scandal? Cosima finds herself thinking, staring out the window.
"Cosima…" Lillian prompts her from the doorway. "Can you run and get another jar of pickles from the pantry?"
"Alright." Cosima sighs, pushing her increasingly heavy body to her feet. She fetches the pickles and hands the jar over to her annoyed mother.
She sulks the remainder of the party, even as her female relatives present her with tiny hand knit booties and other gifts for the baby. Things that should excite her. But all she has left to to drift uselessly around her house. She'll be too pregnant to teach in the winter, and she'd barely begun at all.
Exhaustion sets in far earlier than it used to, and Cosima motions to John that she wants to go home. He nods and obliges her, running out to warm up the car.
"Visit us soon." Her cousin Mary insists, giving her a hug. "I will have lots of hand-me-downs for you!"
"Thanks." Cosima tries to escape her relatives as painlessly as possible. She's bundling up when John returns, merely knocking on the door to summon her outside.
"Bye!" Cosima waves again to the party, and trudges out into the snow. She climbs wordlessly into the car and slams the door.
"You're not a very good wife." John tells her on the drive home.
"I know." Cosima responds, shifting on her feet.
"No one else I know has these...problems." Even alone, John resorts to shielded speech. As if he's too ashamed to admit what the problems are.
"They aren't stuck married to me." Cosima retorts.
"No they aren't. But I am. Do you think you should see some kind of doctor?"
Cosima straightens in her seat, mildly panicked. "What do you mean?"
"Your aversion to sex. It's not normal. It's far more than just...frigidity." John tells her, his voice very low. "At first, I thought it might be. But the more I talk to other married men, the more I realize this is different. You don't even like kissing. You don't want to be touched."
"I'm pregnant!" Cosima argues as if that settles the argument. She is having his baby, why can't he just be happy with that.
"I know that! It's amazing you even managed that."
"I didn't do it alone." Cosima snarks. "We both know when this happened."
"And you were drunk. And you threw up."
"I had a lot of wine." Cosima crosses her arms.
"You cannot be drunk every time. It's not right! Marriage is supposed to be pleasurable. Satisfying." John raises his voice and then goes quiet. "Maybe you need a women's doctor? Or… a psychiatrist?"
Cosima blinks, staring at the snowflakes beginning to fall out the window. She wonders what Delphine is doing. If Delphine thinks of her at all now. If, there might be some other love out there for her. If that is the answer.
"Cosima?"
"Fine. I'll… go see a doctor." Cosima agrees reluctantly. She knows if she tells the truth she's likely to end up in electroshock therapy or worse. What could she even say?
John rarely tries to touch her anymore. He lays next to her in bed at night, facing away and not touching. It is still far more than she can stand. Can she leave? Cosima wonders, shifting in bed trying fruitlessly to get more comfortable. Could she leave now? Would her parents take her back? Where could she go?
The letter arrives the following morning, John puts it on the kitchen table for her to see before setting out to work for the day. Cosima hesitates, recognizing the handwriting before she even recognizes the return address. She rips open the envelope eagerly. She doesn't know what to expect
My darling Cosima,
I have missed you greatly. I gave birth to a son at the end of August and I swear I was scarcely alone until now. My maman and my sisters were here a lot. I didn't get to name the baby, his father named him Alain. He is a demanding child. He's asleep now, so I can finally write to you.
Should I not mention the baby again? Is it better if I don't? Tell me what you want, and I will do it. I can write only of our love if you wish.
I dreamed of you last night. We ran down the dock at your uncle's cottage and leapt naked into the water. You kissed me and when we pulled ourselves from the water, I made love to you in the sunlight. I woke up crying, Cosima. Because I miss you. I miss everything about you.
When I am not dreaming, I think of you often. I think of your last visit to Montréal. I think of our days and nights in Toronto, tucked up in my bed. Sometimes I think of how I felt with your hands on me, and I still shudder at the thought.
How are you, Cosima? What do your days look like? Do you enjoy teaching? Do you think of me? Do you still think of me in your bed? Do you still love me as I do you?
Could you send a picture of you? Can you send me a lock of your hair? I want something of you, to keep with me, always.
Write to me. And tell me you're mine.
Love always,
Delphine.
Cosima takes a deep breath. She will send Delphine a picture, and the lock of hair. But the rest of it? She glances down at her belly. Perhaps, perhaps it was better to keep that a secret. To let Delphine think they could still just run away together. To encourage Delphine to come to her. Even if it is all just a fantasy. Something that could never truly be now.
January 1955
Delphine excitedly pulls the letter from the mailbox, she'd left her son on the floor awkwardly reaching for his rattle. Alain squawks in annoyance when she re-enters the house, and she feels her milk threaten to let down again. Her doctor had advised her that her son needed bottles, immediately, for his health and his sleep. But no matter what she fed her child he woke during the night screaming for her. And this, well this annoyed Thomas. So she continued.
She stops, opening her blouse and feeding her son. At least it didn't take as long now. Alain calms against her, and once she switches sides his eyes drift shut. She places her child back onto the blanket on the floor before slipping away.
"Maman va revenir mon amour." Delphine promises the sleeping baby, somehow she doesn't want to read the letter in front of him. She hides in the kitchen instead.
She eases the envelope open and once she has unfolded the letter finds a perfect lock of dark hair. Cosima's hair. Two photos, one of Cosima from what she can only assume is before her marriage, and another of the two of them embracing joyously. Even seeing Cosima's face excites her. It had been July. It seemed so long ago now.
The locket is already around her neck, it's easy enough to place the lock of hair inside it and close it again. A piece of Cosima to keep, Delphine promises herself. Just this.
Dear Delphine,
I am no longer teaching. I spend my days reading and drifting around my house. It's a bungalow. Nowhere near as grand as yours. I did enjoy teaching science, but found I was tired of it. Maybe I will return to university and stun my family once again.
I don't want to know about the baby. I want to pretend. I want to be yours. I want you to be mine, only mine. I want this to be ours.
I want to leave my husband, but am still trying to figure out how. I went to the library the other day to research divorce. Can you imagine? I must have thoroughly scandalized the poor librarian.
I wish you could be with me here. I wish we had an apartment. We would only need one bed, and enough space to dance. I'd make you coffee when you woke in the morning, and we'd lock the doors and pull the shades at night. We'd make love as often as we could. So often, you would tell me to stop. We would find the places people like us go, and go there. And then go home, to be alone together again.
I love that you dream of me. That you think of me. That your last night with me is a comfort to you, as it is to me. I think of how you looked at me, how you felt. And it makes me long for you again. But there is no relief. Just my wanting.
I am yours, Delphine. I love you.
If you say the word, I will come to you again. And I will regret nothing, my darling.
Yours always, Cosima
Delphine clutches the letter, the feelings welling up inside her almost too much to bear. For months, she wasn't sure she could want anymore. But perhaps it was shifting now. Her body longs for Cosima as much as her heart does. Unable to think of how to proceed, she cries. Cosima cannot come here. Alain is here. Her maman comes frequently, as do her sisters. She cannot hide Cosima here. Nor can she shut Alain away in his room for hours and ignore his existence just to be with Cosima.
She cannot let her. Perhaps she should go to confession again. Remind that idiotic priest that she is still homosexual. Perhaps she will return every year. But she has no desire to confess adultery again.
She clutches the locket instead. Thinking of the perfect lock of hair inside it. Thinking of Cosima cutting it, of Cosima writing this letter. She thinks of Cosima kissing her, of what it would feel like to make love to Cosima now.
October 1955
She finally rocks Laura to sleep and lays her in her crib. Her child was getting too big for this, Cosima muses as she watches Laura stretch in her sleep, giving thanks to whatever god exists that her daughter looks nothing like her father.
She returns to her own bedroom and begins turning down the comforter.
"Cosima."
"John." She responds without looking up.
He takes off his clothes as he often does, reaching for her.
"I'm tired." Cosima throws at him. The same thing she tells him over and over again.
"Laura is seven months old, Cosima. Come to bed." John invites, hands inviting but not forcing.
"I don't want to." Cosima says simply, rolling away. She doesn't want to, but she doesn't want to look at his face either. She'd used every excuse; having just given birth, being exhausted from getting up to make Laura her bottles in the middle of the night. Now, finally she was running out of excuses.
"But we're married." John tries to reason with her. "You're my wife."
"I hate it." Cosima tells him, begging as she puts whatever distance she can between them. "Please don't make me." The last time she'd given in, she'd been pregnant and had taken the advice of her doctor in an effort to avoid a visit to a psychiatrist. It had been as horrible as she remembered.
He hasn't really forced her, Cosima admits. While he'd beg and attempt to bargain with her, he's never once forced her. Or laid hands on her. Her tears seemed to provide a shield, he couldn't maintain his mood when she was crying. His anger was palpable anyway, he'd storm off frustrated. Implying that there was still something wrong with her, that she should see some kind of doctor.
"You don't love me at all, do you?" John looks at her, seeing her. And it feels like a relief.
"I'm sorry." Cosima apologizes instead of answering. There's no need to say anything now. Enough is out in the open to kill this charade.
John shakes his head looking at her. "But… why? Why marry me at all? You must have known how much I liked you. Loved you even."
"Because I never loved a man. I can't. I'm… I'm broken." Cosima offers instead of the truth. Maybe in some ways it is the truth. She only has letters from Delphine now. Nothing else seemed possible.
"I thought after you had Laura, you'd change. And you did… but not how I expected."
"You deserve a wife who can love you back." Cosima tells him softly. "And I can never be that. I think we need to find a way out."
"Take Laura," John sighs. "In the morning, I want you to take her to your parents, and I want you to stay there."
She knows she can't live like this. Laura brings her some joy. Especially beginning to creep around after her. But she'll suffocate here before long.
"Please." Cosima stands on her parents pouch, balancing Laura on her hip. She doesn't have much with her, a few haphazardly packed suitcases. But surely they'll take her back.
"Go home to your husband, Cosima." Lillian looks scathingly at her.
"Please let me stay." Cosima feels tears pricking her eyes. "John told me to take Laura and come here. Don't make me go back."
"Oh, let her in Lillian." Arthur reaches to take his granddaughter from her arms. Laura readily goes to her grandfather, her tears abating quickly in his arms.
"Arthur." Lillian looks questioningly at her husband.
"Can't you see how miserable she's been?" Arthur shakes his head sadly at his daughter. "Come in, Cosima."
Hours later Cosima lies awake in her childhood bedroom, Laura asleep in a borrowed crib a few feet away. She hears her parents whispered voices, knows that she will overhear far worse in the coming weeks and days. Wonders how long before she will be put to work in the shoe store again.
This, this was far better than living a lie. John may never understand exactly why she cannot love him, but at least she's home now. The only thing she wants now, is Delphine to be free too. Perhaps, perhaps there was a way. But Delphine doesn't even know that Laura exists. She couldn't plan to find a way to support the … four of them? Hopefully Delphine wasn't expecting again.
Shaking her head to clear her fantasies, Cosima tries to sleep. A whimper from the crib has her cursing and rising to her feet. Laura needs her, and she has to be Laura's mother. If they were caught, she could lose everything.