September 1959
Cosima groans moving over her lover, letting her hands caress soft bare skin. She cups pert small breasts in her hands. Grips soft hips with her strong fingers. Her eyes closed, she rides practiced fingers to her climax. Panting loudly as she recovers, aftershocks pulsing her insides.
"You're beautiful." A voice stirs her from her quiet enjoyment.
"Thank you." Cosima responds as soon as she's caught her breath. Immediately bending, adjusting position, to return the favour. As her hand works she can tell her lover is losing patience so dips her face to speed things along, drawing swollen flesh into her mouth readily.
A throaty laugh stirs her from her task. Blue eyes looking back down at her over the pale expanse of Ruth's body. It's quick, the tells of orgasm a little different with Ruth. Cosima relaxes above her.
"More," Cosima demands as soon as they're done. She's rarely satisfied. Desperately seeking something. More emotion? More intensity? Merely another orgasm? Cosima isn't even sure.
The brunette shakes her head. "Let me rest a while!"
"Come on…." Cosima cajoles. Knowing she can bat her eyes and get away with it. In or out of the library.
"Sometimes I forget how young you are." Ruth laughs. "But your stamina…. that reminds me."
"You're not that old." Cosima protests. Ruth certainly doesn't seem old, perhaps because she never married.
"I'll be 41 next birthday." Ruth sighs. "Let me lay back. You do the work."
"This is not work!" Cosima protests playfully. She easily brings her lover to a second orgasm. It pleases her, for a few minutes. But when she lays back in the bed she cannot help but remember how it felt when she was with Delphine.
"I love you." Ruth tells her when they're done, stroking her hair back. Cosima shivers in response.
"Ruth..." Cosima offers softly. This much she'd never managed to say. She wasn't sure. Perhaps she loved Ruth now after months of sneaking around with her. Perhaps...not. Maybe things were just different the second time around? Maybe it was just a different sort of love. There was desire certainly, though not as strong.
"I know, I'm not her, Cosima. And I never will be. She left you!" Ruth tells her for the hundredth time. She shakes her greying brown hair. Straight as Delphine's was curly.
"I haven't seen Delphine in years!" Cosima argues. "It's nothing now." Almost, Cosima thinks to herself. A letter would come soon. Delphine was consistent. Writing to her with the same love and fervour as she had years ago. Has Delphine's heart managed to stay much the same? Or is it a habit now?
"You still send her letters, of the erotic variety." Ruth looks at her accusatory. "I've seen one!"
"You shouldn't be looking!" Cosima protests. "Those are private!" They are hers, and she cannot stop the rise of anger that comes to this news.
Ruth sighs, pushing herself up on her bed. Cosima looks away. Making love with Ruth was easy enough now. But afterwards she always felt the same...lacking. Still, they'd been lovers on and off since the spring. She'd missed being touched, touching, all of it. A letter could excite her, could move her but it couldn't meet her needs for companionship. It never could.
"You brought her letter with us to your uncle's cottage. I peeked when you were swimming with Laura." Ruth admits shamelessly. "She writes well, anyway. Could make a go of lesbian pulp fiction if she were willing to kill her characters."
Cosima sighs. "That was months ago." The pulp fiction comment she ignores though she knows Ruth collects such books. She'd taken a look and found it fascinating. It was an illness, forbidden and yet one could get away with writing such things under a nom-de-plume, as long as the characters suffer at the end for what they have done.
"Do you still write to her?" Ruth asks impatiently. "You're my lover. But you're writing to her, aren't you?"
Cosima looks away, drawing her arms to her chest. "Yes." She'd written Delphine less than two weeks ago. Poured as much of herself, of her old feelings into it ss she could. As she always did.
Ruth looks at her sternly, suddenly reminding Cosima of the first day they met. "She's married to a man. She's a Catholic for crying out loud. She's probably up half the night with yet another baby and cleaning bottles and diapers all day. Whatever she can give you is just a fantasy, something she was never brave enough to really have. Her husband is fucking her. Don't forget that."
Cosima sits up, wondering if she should even attempt to defend Delphine. "I don't know how many babies she's had. Or how she feeds them. Or how often her husband beds her. I don't know. I haven't been to Montreal since July 1954." She wonders sometimes, but feels required to keep to her own rules. She never offers to go to Delphine anymore. Not since Laura was a baby. And Delphine had said she couldn't. Now it is just letters. No more.
"Cosima, you're the only non-immigrant I know who admitted to…. breastfeeding ." Ruth lowers her voice, making a face. For someone who'd never witnessed her nurse Laura, it seemed Ruth was intent on imagining it and shuddering.
Cosima rolls her eyes. "Only a couple months." Cosima brushes it off. "Delphine probably has more babies but her letters are...consistent. They weren't right after she had her first. Or when I had Laura." Perhaps, Cosima thought, perhaps there was only one and Delphine no longer lets him touch her.
Ruth tries again. "She doesn't even know about your daughter! There is nothing real between you anymore. Let it go."
"I know." Cosima nods. But it was too late to correct that. How one would go about broaching the subject, admitting to a huge lie of omission she'd never know.
"If you turned up in Montréal and took off your clothes she'd figure out you've had a baby. At the very least she might guess. Her husband might catch you. Her house might be full of kids! You can't go."
"I won't." Cosima replies. How could she now? That would make it so much harder.
"So give up the letters too. Burn them all." Ruth instructs. "Let's… enjoy our little moments. No ghosts."
Cosima sits up, letting the sheets fall to her waist. "And what? Live with my parents? Have you as my dear friend? Become a librarian?"
"You could do worse." Ruth shrugs. "You did. The day I first saw you you were pregnant and researching divorce. Rather shamelessly. You were intriguing but ...in a brazen sort of way."
"That was years ago. Besides you didn't like me then." Cosima throws up her hands. Why does she bother? Why when Ruth gets like this so often?
Ruth leans in for a kiss which Cosima leans into, gently pressing their lips again. "But I do now. I'm a respectable spinster, no one bats an eye at a woman who lost her fella in the war." No one does, but if they knew how Ruth wore trousers whenever she wasn't working, perhaps they'd think otherwise.
"Except you're lying. There was a CWAC lady. No man. And a bomb girl!" Cosima tilts her head at Ruth. Knowing her youth and beauty plays hard in her favour. She can get away with poking back.
"And she didn't die, neither of them did. But they may as well have." Ruth finishes. "They left us, Cosima. For husbands, and children, and societal expectations. They're not like us!" Ruth insists. "Not our kind. You… you were at least smart enough to leave yours!"
Cosima looks at the clock. She jumps up from Ruth's bed. "I need to go." It's too late already. And she isn't interested in discussing John with Ruth yet again. Unless it was discussing the legalities of the divorce.
"Late again." Ruth teases, stretching.
"Always." Cosima dresses frantically in the afternoon light. She was supposed to be home a half hour ago. Though her parents expected it of her. And they were as capable as looking after Laura as she was.
She hops the streetcar back home, her mind a muddle of sex and feeling. It was never as intense as it was with Delphine. Never hit her quite the same way. Her heart perhaps not all the way in. But Ruth was like her, and Ruth was always around.
"You're late. How was your walk?" Lillian asks, bored as she regards Laura playing nearby with a doll and toy pram.
"It was fine. Ruth's good company. We talk about books mostly." Cosima shrugs it off. Truth is, being less enamoured makes it far easier to hide.
"Mommy will you play with me?" Laura looks up, asking in her little voice.
"Of course, mouse." Cosima smiles, settling herself on the floor next to her daughter. She strokes her daughter's dark hair. Laura, Laura was worth it in the end. Cosima admitted to herself. She couldn't imagine her life without Laura now.
Even Lillian cannot help but smile at the two of them together. This much was more beautiful than Cosima could have imagined. Laura was the best possible thing to have come from her unfortunate marriage. Even so, she knew there would never be another baby. She couldn't stomach another marriage. Never be the grandson her parents probably fantasized about. There would be only Laura.
"How was church?" Cosima asks. She's rocking Laura's doll as her child is fetching story books to read.
"It was fine. I miss our old church but… this is better for Laura."
Less embarrassing for Lillian to not have nearly everyone know Cosima left her husband. That Cosima was trying to divorce. It was easier. In most ways. But Lillian was quick to point out it wasn't something she did for herself.
"Did John call?" Cosima whispers when Laura has moved on to another game.
Lillian shakes her head. Not wanting to draw attention to it.
"His girlfriend is pregnant." Cosima tells her mother finally. She'd been hoarding that news to herself for over a month. "He's trying to push through the divorce so they can get married. It should be soon."'
Her mother lets out a loud sigh. "Cosima… You could have tried harder." Her mother hisses at her.
"Grandma?" Laura turns around. Her five-year-old face full of concern. "Grandma what's wrong? You look sad."
"Grandma is alright. She needs a minute." Cosima responds for her mother.
Lillian walks away, unwilling to discuss it any further. Cosima has no choice but to let the subject go.
Delphine doesn't dare write her letter now. She knows she owes Cosima another letter. But her home is too busy. Thomas drifting around. Alain playing so loudly his father removed him from the sitting room.
Her son is precious. Delphine acknowledges, watching him play in the yard. He is rambunctious, masculine, clever - his father is pleased with him, mostly from a distance. Likely everything he should be but she misses the baby. The one who clung to her and begged for her to sing to him.
"Viens," Delphine invites her son, holding up a book. He'll only permit her to cuddle him while they read together. She reads to him every day. Alain happy enough to let her. Her son slips under her arm and leans in and she begins to read to him. "Il était une fois…"
They don't get through the whole story before Thomas gets annoyed.
"You'll ruin that boy with your coddling!" Thomas rants from across the room, barely lowering his newspaper. She glances at the calendar, it may be as good a time as any. Alain has been a bright light of her existence, mostly. But she wants more. Wants to be needed and loved, wants to watch another child go from squirming and laughing to running wildly around the yard. That much, she knows she can have.
"I am reading to him. It's good for him." Delphine argues. On this, she'll dig in her heels.
"He should read to himself." Thomas throws back. "He's six years old!"
"He will! When he learns how." Delphine argues. "C'est pas grâve." She assures her concerned son. And resumes reading to him while his father fumes silently across the room.
She sneaks into the study after supper while Thomas and Alain are watching television. Delphine clears her mind and begins to write, left hand clinging to her broken locket.
My darling Cosima… Delphine writes. She wants to ask Cosima to come to her wants to beg her to but she resists. Instead constructing a fantasy scenario in which Cosima visits. In which they make love on the sofa. Hoping that Cosima will ask. That she will beg to come see her again
Later that night, she crawls into bed next to Thomas. She looks over at him and takes a breath to relax herself. This she had been putting off for months. But there seemed no other option now.
Thomas looks over at her. "What?"
"I want another baby. I want to get pregnant." Delphine states plainly. She takes off her nightgown for emphasis. Thomas wanted her only infrequently now. But surely he'd allow her this. She'd figured it would have happened on it's own by now, but the infrequency of their relations was a problem. As was her husband's habit of pulling out.
Thomas raises his eyes. "I guess it would stop you from coddling our son."
Delphine merely nods. She's not looking forward to the act, only the result. The sight of her naked body doesn't arouse him as easily as it once did. It may take more effort than she really wants to put in.
Thomas looks her over, seemingly assessing his options. "How much do you want it?"
Delphine sighs. "I will only do things that can result in children." She's given him that limit before. He respected it more or less likely because he was realistically concerned Delphine would bite.
"Otherwise, whatever I want?" Thomas considers his options. "Every month until you fall pregnant?"
"As long as you don't pull-out, yes." Delphine agrees. Wondering what she's agreed to. Hopefully she'll conceive quickly. Hopefully a daughter, maybe Thomas would let her have more say with a girl.
"Hold the headboard and face away from me." Thomas decides finally. "Hurry up."
Delphine does as he asks; trying to feign enough excitement to get her husband going. But he knows as well as she does it's a farce.
"Beautiful but frigid." Thomas sighs, even with his hands on her. He rouses more easily than she expects. At least it should be quick.
November 1959
"You have mail." Lillian informs Cosima once she's home for the day. At least she was decently paid for inventory and bookkeeping for the shoe store.
"A letter?" Cosima asks optimistically. Delphine had seemed more inflamed for her than ever. The last letter had made her blush imagining the scenarios Delphine described.
"No, not another letter from Montreal." Lillian's lips are a tight line. It's not any sort of mail she's pleased to see.
Cosima opens the large envelope. Hoping this is it at last. That she can be done dealing with John for all eternity.
"It's my divorce papers." Cosima smiles. She cannot help but be pleased. It had taken so long.
"I hope you're happy." Lillian tells Cosima as she furiously peels carrots in the kitchen. Arthut says nothing, just takes his seat silently.
"I'm relieved. Not happy." Cosima reiterates calmly. "We've been working towards this for years! You both knew this was coming."
"She's the only child we have Lillian. What the hell are you doing?" Arthur hisses to his wife. "Do you want to drive Cosima away? Do you want her and Laura to move out?"
"She divorced a perfectly fine man. For what? To come home and work in your store!" Lillian shouts. "She'll never get past the stigma, Cosima will always be a divorcée. It'll even follow Laura her whole life!"
"They were both miserable. She married him to please you! That's not right. We shouldn't have rushed her. We should have let her find her own man, in her own time." Arthur exclaims angrily. "Or maybe she would have been like your Aunt Pearl, but you know what? We should have let her be!"
Lillian looks like she's been slapped. She's quiet for a few moments.
Cosima looks between her parents. Unsure of what to say. What could she say? She wasn't even sure who Aunt Pearl was and never mind anything else. She can surmise Aunt Pearl was a spinster but little else.
"And your granddaughter is going to grow up without her father. He's already keen on remarrying. I don't think he'll visit Laura as much then." Lillian argues,
"And our daughter is doing a fine job raising her." Arthur stops his wife. "Laura is kind and happy. You take her to church on Sundays. She's taking piano lessons. She has friends. She's loved. That little girl is going to be just fine. It's you that needs Cosima married."
"I'm never marrying again." Cosima tells her parents bluntly. "I don't care what kind of doctors you think I need to see. I'm never being anyone's wife ever again."
"Cosima…" Lillian looks at her pleadingly. "Don't rule it out so quickly."
"No. I'll be the best mother I can be, I'll work in the shoe store. I'll go to church with you. I'll be respectable in everything else. But I will not remarry. I'm not interested in dating either." Cosima warns her mother. "Besides I'm a divorcée now. I'm damaged goods."
"Then what do you want?" Lillian throws up her hands in exasperation. "What kind of unconventional life are you after?"
"I want to go back to university. I cannot teach now. Let me find something to do." Cosima asks. "Let me study sciences. Let me find my own way."
Arthur considers a long moment before nodding. "You should then. You need some kind of happiness."
Lillian sighs, glancing out into the backyard where Laura plays in the snow with the neighbours' two daughters. Content as can be.
"Fine. Laura's old enough now." Lillian sighs. "It's not like you listen to reason much."
Cosima lets her mother prattle on, knowing that in her way, Lillian would support this. That Laura wouldn't lack for love or anything else while she was studying. That Lillian would be the key to this working.
"Thank you, mom." Cosima tells her softly.
April 1960
Delphine watches her son bound to the bus stop. Eager for school, this side of her son reminds her irresistibly of herself. Alain's temper was unfortunately more like his father's. Sighing, she moves herself back into the house once Alain is safely on the school bus.
She moves to the record player, selecting her new record. In music and books, in medical research, she tried her best to stay up to date. Everything else… She was not as informed as she had been years ago. Maybe, maybe Cosima was. Maybe she should ask her what she read now. She closes the curtains, not caring what the neighbours might think and settles herself in the dark on a chair, letting the record play. Her fingers drift across her own lips.
"And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart
High up in the sky the little stars climb
Always reminding me that we're apart"
The smooth voice fills the room, and Delphine lets it take her elsewhere for a while.
" You wander down the lane and far away
Leaving me a song that will not die
Love is now the stardust of yesterday
The music of the years gone by ."
Love, she still remembers love.
Cosima, her face is easy enough for her to conjure here. She lets her eyes close. Lets herself picture her beautiful Cosima. Cosima dancing exuberantly. Cosima talking enthusiastically. Cosima… making love with her.
"The melody
Haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration
But that was long ago
And now my consolation is in the stardust of a song"
Inside her, her new baby squirms, unaware of its mother's imaginings. This child she wants and yet, she wishes she could have run away to Cosima years ago.
" Though I dream in vain
In my heart it will remain
My stardust melody
The memory of love's refrain. "
She undresses, just enough. Josephine doesn't clean until tomorrow and she knows her fantasy won't be disturbed. She lets herself touch, and she remembers. It is in vain, but right now she doesn't care. She wants to remember. She wants to lose herself in Cosima.
Delphine knows Cosima would take her like this. Can remember that last night. She imagines Cosima pouring out her love, touching, begging her to run away with her. Cosima's lips pressed reverently to her belly, and then to her sex. Cosima begging to be hers .
She writes to her immediately afterwards. As soon as she's cleaned herself up. Delphine writes, trying to express the depth of her longing. How much she wants to even just see Cosima again. Part of her wonders if she should even try. If Cosima still wants her.
I want you to come to me Cosima. Please. Please come and see me again. I'll do anything, just please come.
The words look stark and needy on the page. But she knows, Cosima's address is once again the same as her parents. Cosima's marriage must be over by now. At least in practice. Surely, Cosima hasn't taken another.
She wonders what Cosima's life is truly like. If it is merely toiling away in the shoe store and filling her heart with their letters. If Cosima still goes dancing. If Cosima will study again, get to do what both of them once dreamed of. If her beloved can have that small happiness, intellectual fulfillment and maybe, maybe let Delphine keep her heart.