Note: I'm going to say this because it technically doesn't constitute a spoiler. This fic is, in part, about Lucy's miscarriage. I think it's important to know that up front, for a number of reasons. In addition to a standard content warning, I want to be up front about that because it's a reminder that this fic exists in an extensive 'verse that I've been writing for two years. So unless you've been here the whole time (or pretty much the whole time!), a lot of this material will feel random. Just know there's a whole internal logic to my work.
But for my friends who have been here the whole time … enjoy a low-stakes first chapter. It's on the house.
1. Baby Love
In the middle of the night, Lucy feels her husband's slow breath on her shoulders. She can hardly believe he's still there. A marriage that was meant to last eleven seconds is easing into its eleventh year. He's still here, slowly breathing, face turned toward his wife's back. The rhythm is predictable now – routine. It would be hard to believe if Lucy wasn't living it. Dally was supposed to be irregular. He was supposed to be temporary.
His slow exhales on Lucy's back suggest otherwise.
It's the middle of the night on the last day of February, which Lucy decides she'll commit to memory (though she doesn't quite know why). She's always sort of liked February. She likes the way the sun stays out a little longer each day, and she likes to watch the snow melt and puddle, even if it seeps through her boots. She'll never let on, but she likes a good resurrection.
Like most nights, especially the closer she gets to defending her dissertation, she has trouble falling asleep. Lucy's had trouble sleeping since before she was born. She's twenty-nine, and her mother still likes to remind her of the way she'd keep her up all night, kicking. Her mother Esther laughs through the stories now, but she didn't always.
My Lucy, Esther says now that Lucy has everything her mother ever wanted for her, has always wanted more time.
She still hates to admit when her mother is right, but she can't run away from it. Lucy has always wanted to pull and stretch time at her whim. She'll dunk her arms in it or drape it over her shoulders like a shawl. The only thing she won't do is wrap it around her ankles. She doesn't need to explain why.
Time is the one thing Lucy can't figure out whether or not she's able to control, which is why she's been obsessed with it since before she knew what obsessed meant. She can control her words and her limbs, but time floats around them, never quite landing between her fingers. Sometimes she thinks that's why she's never been able to get rid of Dally. Time was pouring from his gut when they met. Somehow, she's always been his stopper. He's the only person who's ever allowed her to touch time.
He's the only person who's ever allowed her to touch him (and then let her fingertips linger, too).
It's the middle of the night on the last day of February, and Lucy can't sleep because sleep is a waste of time. She's read before that you're supposed to be asleep for eight hours. When she thinks of all the work she could get done – all the books read, pages written, and lunches made – she feels a little bit of her head seep through her ears. She goes to sleep each night because she's supposed to, but she knows if she had her way, she'd never sleep at all.
She sighs and flattens her hand against her pillow. She hadn't realized it had been balled up into a fist before. Then again, she's always prided herself on her ability to make a fist. It keeps her alive, she thinks. Lucy has always loved that she is alive.
When she feels Dally lightly touch her back through her shirt, she remembers how much she loves that he is alive.
"What's the matter?" Lucy asks.
She doesn't turn to look at him. After he's slept with his face between her shoulder blades every night for eleven years, she doesn't need to.
"Nothin'," Dally mutters. "You ain't sleepin'."
"Well, no. But neither are you. So don't be precious about it, OK?"
She feels his amused exhale on her back, and she's glad he can't see her face. She's grinning like a fool.
"Dunno why I'm surprised," he says. "You never sleep."
"I sleep," Lucy says, though it's mostly a lie.
"No, you roll over, close your eyes, an' pretend. You think you're foolin' me."
"Do I ever succeed?"
"Whadda you think?"
Lucy laughs just loud enough for Dally to hear it. She feels his hand on her back again. It's not doing anything. It's just there. Maybe it would bother somebody else, but Lucy understands. She doesn't love this man for sentimental reasons.
It should be quiet in their apartment, but it's not. They're in the East Village, where it's always loud, even when it should shut up. There's wind outside their window. For a second, it sounds just like Lucy's favorite thunderstorm from her favorite summer back in Tulsa. She lets herself have the memory of the way the storm felt – the warmth of her blanket and the cool rain on the back of Dally's shirt. She breathes in and out, thinking about how it felt to hold onto him when he was coming up on nineteen and bitter like bad coffee. His hand gets softer on her back, and she can't believe she doesn't see his words coming.
"You wanna have a baby?"
Lucy whips around in the bed to look at Dally, whose expression says he doesn't understand what he just said. Lucy wrinkles her nose, grabs the comforter draped across her legs, and hisses.
"What?"
Dally rolls his eyes and makes a face that only Dally could make.
"Come on," he says. "Don't act like this is the first time you're hearin' me say it."
Lucy sighs. He's right. It's not the first time she's hearing him talk about having (another) baby – not even close. It doesn't mean it's not a shock every time he asks. Dally isn't supposed to want another baby. He didn't even want the first one. He's supposed to have accidents and stumble into solutions, like he did when he was eighteen – when they were eighteen. His hand strokes her back again. He's a transient lover who forgot his place by making one.
"I know," Lucy finally says, and it's terrible.
"You were into it when I brought it up a couple-a days ago," Dally says. "And that was only a couple-a days ago. How'd ya change your mind so fast from that to this, huh? How'd ya do it?"
"It's not that I changed my mind," Lucy says. "It's that every time … every time you bring it up …"
"What?"
She doesn't say anything. She's smart enough to keep her mouth shut. She's smart enough to pretend she doesn't feel it.
Every time you bring it up, I'm afraid you're going to remember to leave.
She shakes her head instead.
"Never mind," she says. "It's just … when you think about it, it's never really a good time to have a baby."
"You're tellin' me that like I didn't have a fourteen-year-old kid for a mom," Dally says. "And I was a nineteen-year-old kid when I knocked you up before. 'F anybody knows this shit, it's me."
Lucy sighs and sits up a little straighter. To her surprise, Dally follows her lead.
"I know," she says. "But we didn't plan for Elenore. She just sort of … happened."
"I remember," Dally says. "So what? Turned out to be pretty cool, didn't she?"
Lucy sighs and allows a slow smile to creep across her lips. She thinks about their daughter Elenore, who's almost ten, asleep in her bed tonight. In the evening, she declared long division useless and gave up studying for her math test tomorrow after two hours at the dining room table, trying to figure it out. She then proceeded to watch Little House on the Prairie until she fell asleep on the couch. All her life, Lucy's loved a lot more people than she'll admit, but none of them compare to Elenore.
"Yes," she says. "There's nobody better than Elenore."
"Got that right."
"But being pregnant is so … much! I know you don't understand, because all you have to do is enjoy yourself, but after I had Elenore … don't you remember how much I told you it hurt? Don't you remember the way I had to walk?"
Dally snickers a little.
"Oh, yeah," he says. "Ya waddled like a fuckin' duck."
"You're damn right I did," Lucy says. "And I was nineteen then! I'm twenty-nine now. That's a whole ten years older than I was the last time I had a baby."
"I know how to add numbers together. I ain't stupid."
"I'm not … look, my body is not the same as it was ten years ago."
"Hey, ya know, you're right. There's a lotta shit you do better."
Lucy rolls her eyes as Dally throws his head back and laughs. It's a bit between the two of them – one that they've perfected in eleven years. But that's all it is. It's a bit. At the end of the day, they both know how much they want to be together. They both know how much they want each other.
She feels Dally's hand on her leg and can't decide whether she wants him to keep moving it up. Eventually, she bats it away.
"Hey," Dally says. "That kinda hurt."
"No, it didn't," Lucy says.
"OK, you're right."
Lucy sighs. She looks at Dally for a long time, and she realizes. She's been beside him for so long she's forgotten the way his eyes used to look. For so long, these have been her husband's eyes. She knows that jackass kid from Tulsa is still there, kicking around inside him, but she can hardly remember what he looked like then. The man beside her is just that: a man.
"I just want to rationalize a bit more before I …" she gestures toward her legs, and Dally rolls his eyes.
"Shit, Bennet," he says. "You weren't wound this tight when you was a virgin."
"Oh, blow it out your ass," Lucy says.
Dally smirks and kisses Lucy faster than she knows what to do with.
"You're pretty," he says.
And for a second, all of Lucy Bennet's famous rationality flies out the window. She blushes like a child and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, fighting a smile all the way. Dally notices and lets himself grin, too. He's always been better at grinning than Lucy is. It's why she loves him so much. It's why she never tells him so.
But then she remembers what he's on about, and her veins turn cold again. She scowls – not because she's angry but because she wants him to listen. Unfortunately, the best way to get Dally to listen is to fight with him. Fortunately, Lucy likes fighting.
"Why do you even want to have a baby, anyway?" she asks. "Aren't you supposed to be … you?"
"I don't know what that means," Dally says, and they both know it's a damn lie. "But I'm whoever I wanna be, babe."
"That's great. It'd be nice if you would answer my question."
"Well, couldja repeat it, professor? I'm a little distracted by how hot ya look."
Lucy tucks another lock of hair behind her ear. She's not a professor yet, but she likes to hear it said. She imagines it's the equivalent to looking in the mirror and practicing your new married name, given you're normal and got married some time after your high school graduation instead of the week after senior midterms.
She looks at Dally a little gentler now. His eyes are still fixed on her. A few seconds go by, and Lucy realizes again. Dally never stops looking at her this way. It doesn't make sense, but Lucy doesn't need it to. It's the one thing she's stopped trying to rationalize.
Another baby, on the other hand. She'll rationalize that until the cows come home and leave for work again.
"I think you heard me," Lucy says placidly. "Why do you even want another baby?"
Dally shrugs, and Lucy feels a chill get stuck in the middle of her spine. There's something about the way Dally shrugs. He doesn't do it often, but when he does, it's a cold reminder that more than anything else, he's human. Lucy loves that he's alive but hates that he has to be human. If he's human, then so is she, and she's not ready for that. She has dreams where she's the body without organs. They're nice dreams. She doesn't have to worry about blushing or bleeding. She can just … be. For a moment, she wonders if Dally would want to be with her – be a body without organs, too. She's never asked. She's too afraid he'll say no. Lucy may hate to bleed, but Dally lives for it.
"I dunno," Dally mutters, staring at the little square of sheets between her left leg and his right. "Just kinda figure … well, you know, don't ya, Bennet?"
Lucy sighs quietly. She knows exactly what Dally means, and it terrifies the hell out of her. Dally wants to have another baby because Elenore is getting older. Just last week she made her own breakfast before school without asking either of her parents for a lick of their assistance. He'd never say it, but Lucy knows it broke Dally's heart to find Elenore sitting at the table, pencil in one hand and Eggo in the other. He'd never say it, but Lucy knows how much he liked to wordlessly lift Elenore to the toaster to pop the waffles in and out. It's been a week, and she hasn't asked. It's like she forgot he used to help her at all. Dally, who's been worried about the day Elenore won't need him anymore since she was three years old and read the name John Steinbeck on her own, has been sullen in the morning ever since.
But it's not just about Elenore's independence. Lucy knows that. It's about how it's been nearly ten years since Dallas Winston became a father and nearly ten years since he discovered he's good at it. It's been nearly ten years of reading to Elenore, walking with Elenore, and lifting Elenore up to the toaster so she can make her waffles. Being a parent is the one thing Dally has always known he's good at. Other than a giving a guy a good kick in the teeth, fatherhood is the only thing that's ever come naturally to him.
Of course, then, motherhood feels like the only thing that hasn't come naturally for Lucy.
She has a memory like a Polaroid camera, reading proficiency in three languages, published sooner than any of the men in her cohort of graduate students, and strong student evaluations. Her professors call her research important and original. They often gesture to her as a model for graduate excellence when new students enter the department. One thing has always been clear: Lucy Bennet is a natural scholar.
She is not, however, a natural parent. It's ironic, of course, considering she's a natural scholar who understands natural and parent as inexorable. But she wasn't immediately good at it. She's still not immediately good at it. Elenore is a wonderful child – the best in the world – but she's so different than Lucy and Dally's child was supposed to be. For one thing, Elenore doesn't see any problem with crying if she's upset. It's easy for her. Lucy doesn't think less of her for it. In fact, she's a little jealous. There's a part of her that wishes she could fold herself up and cry for a little while. She's even tried. The tears never flow, and she's stuck with a rage that's too big for her body.
But to be a mother who can't cry with a daughter who cries at least once every week … it's a nightmare, and Lucy wishes it wasn't. It's not annoying. It's not weak. Lucy knows that. She simply doesn't know what to do with it.
Dally, on the other hand, always does. After Lucy spends an hour frantically offering solutions, none of which a crying nine-year-old can process, all that Dally has to do is quietly walk up to Elenore, tell her to put on her shoes, and take her out. She's fine in fifteen minutes. Every time, Lucy pulls Dally aside to ask him what he said to her. Every time, it's the same answer.
Nothing, he'll say.
I never would've come up with something as simple as that, Lucy will say.
And so they'll repeat every time Elenore cries.
Another baby will remind Lucy of everything she's done wrong. It's the opposite for Dally. Another baby would give him a chance to be even better than he already is. It's not that Lucy hates that Dally is better. It's that she hates that she's bad.
She sighs, louder this time.
"Yeah," she says. "I know."
Dally makes a face that makes him look younger than he is – a rarity.
"All right, wait a minute," he says. "You're not."
"I'm not what?"
"You're not gonna give me this shit about how you ain't a good mom. I can't listen to that shit, man. You know why?"
"Because you think it's shit?"
"Because I think it's shit."
Lucy rolls her eyes again. He's not going to give up. She turns her lips into a tiny smile.
"OK," she says. "Say we did have another baby. How would we afford it?"
"Hittin' me with the easy questions," Dally says.
"The easy questions?"
"Well, yeah. Don't be stupid."
"You're a bartender. I'm a teaching assistant. These are not 'two kids in New York City' jobs."
"Did you hear what I said? I said don't be stupid. So don't be. You ain't gonna be a 'teaching assistant …'"
"I don't understand why you always say that sarcastically."
"Sounds wrong comin' outta my mouth – for long. You got that job at your school, didn't ya? Somethin' … somethin' else assistant?"
"Assistant professor. And the assistant part is what'll keep us down for a little while."
"How long's a little while?"
"Seven years, about."
"We already been here seven years! Is there anything in your world that don't take seven years?"
"Don't change the subject."
"You're the one who's changin' the subject."
"How do you plan to make enough money to take care of another kid in New York City?"
Dally huffs like the answer should be obvious.
"I get tips," he says. "Some nights, I do real good. You remember what I came home with last Saturday, don't ya? New York City prices got a couple things workin' for 'em, lemme tell you."
"We can barely raise one kid on my stipend and your wages," Lucy says.
"So I'll pull more hours. Work a couple-a holidays. I ain't ever liked holidays very much. You know that."
"Dally."
"What?"
"Pull more hours? Work a couple of holidays? You'd just be eating into your time with the kid. Isn't that why you want another one? So you can spend time with her now that Elenore's getting too old to hang out with us?"
She waits for Dally to correct her or to ask her what makes her so sure this baby would be a girl. He doesn't. For a second, she thinks about jumping his bones just for that.
"I'd figure it out," he says.
Lucy bites her tongue to keep a grin from spreading out across her face. If Dallas Winston is ever cute, it's when he's resolved to do something. It's why they go together, Lucy thinks. She never gives up, and neither does he.
"I'd figure it out," Dally says again, "and you ain't too proud to take handouts from your folks. I like that about you."
Lucy feels herself turn pink. She's always been spoiled, but she didn't have a complicated relationship with it until she took Dally and Elenore and moved to New York. Her own upbringing was similar to the one Elenore has now. Jack Bennet was finishing up his dissertation at Yale when his one and only Lucy was born, and his wife, Esther, had only a few pennies to her own young name. But as a little girl, Lucy hardly knew it. Her parents still managed to give her everything. When Lucy looks at Elenore, she wants to do the same thing. She tries to do the same thing. Elenore Winston has more brand-new dresses than the nine-year-old daughter of a teaching assistant and a bartender should. Lucy can't help herself. She wants Elenore to have everything. A new baby would make that nearly impossible.
And yet, Lucy still can't bring herself to say no.
This, naturally, is right around the time Dally notices the same thing.
"I'm hearin' a bunch of things," he says. "But I ain't hearin' no. I ain't hearin' you don't really want another one."
Lucy tips her head and looks at him. She hopes he can hear what she'll never be able to say.
You're the only one who knows how to find me.
"You're right," she says. "I haven't said no. I don't … I don't want to say no."
"Then whadda you want?"
Lucy sighs gently and places one hand on Dally's knee. When he doesn't flinch, she thinks she could just about hit the ceiling. She decides, instead, to keep her cool.
"I want it to make sense," she says. "That's all."
Dally makes a face, and Lucy can't tell if he's horrified or impressed. Her husband is a man of many expressions, but most of them make him look like he's in pain.
"You want it to make sense?" he asks. "All right. Fine. I'll make sense. You and me … we did a pretty good job with the first kid. Seems like we'd do all right again. We're gonna make more money. And I know for 's much 's you think you gotta be worried about this – like you gotta be fuckin' practical or somethin' – you want it, too."
Lucy takes a breath. She stares at Dally for a long time and wonders what she saw in him half a lifetime ago. He's not the kind of handsome you giggle about in the back of the movie theater. He's not handsome at all. When they were kids, he was the biggest jackass Lucy had ever met, and she'd met some real jerks. She'd beaten the tar out of some of them – badly enough to wind up in handcuffs before her fourteenth birthday. It just didn't seem to matter how bad Dally was. She's had eyes for him since the day he made sure they met. He's had eyes for her since before she turned her head. It's simple, she thinks, even if it's not easy. She loves him. Dallas Winston is the one thing she can't make sense of.
She doesn't even want to try.
All she knows is that he's the kind of man she'd have a baby with – this time, on purpose.
Her eyes scan him from the top of his head to his torso. He's as skinny as he was the night he came home in that July '66 thunderstorm. Her gaze lands just above his neck.
"What?" he asks.
"Nothing," Lucy says, a little breathless. "You just …"
"What?"
"You have the best damn ears in the world."
"Ears? What…?"
He furrows his brow, but before he can ask her what she means, they lunge at each other, kissing like they're still eighteen and living above a bookstore.
When they wake up next to each other a few hours later, they're almost smiling. Dally sits up first and grazes Lucy's leg on the way up. She follows, agitated.
"Why did you get up first?" she asks.
"'Cause somebody had to," Dally says. "What's the matter? Didn't get enough-a me?"
"Neither of us can ever get enough of the other, remember? It's our curse."
"If that's what'cha wanna call it."
He brushes his lips against hers and rolls out of bed, anchoring his ear toward the door as he pulls on a pair of jeans. Lucy watches as she lies on her side, head still warm on her pillow. It takes her a minute to figure out what he's doing.
"Oh," she says. "I see."
Dally turns around and makes a face.
"You see what?"
"You're listening for your baby."
He makes a different face now, to cover up the fact that he's blushing.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he says. "Could you please get up? I don't like bein' up before you. It ain't right."
With a smirk on her lips, Lucy slowly pulls herself up from the mattress and rifles through their top dresser drawer.
"Mmm, you're changing the subject," she says. "I think you're listening for whether Elenore's gotten up yet. I think you're waiting for her to call for you like she always did before. You remember how sweet she used to sound. She'd call down the hallway, 'Dad, could you help me with my waffles?'"
"Don't know what you're talkin' about," Dally says again, this time through thinner lips.
"But it's been a little while since she asked you for help. You got to the point where you just … helped her."
"You gonna put your other leg in those tights or what?"
Lucy slides her leg through the fabric without breaking eye contact. Dally closes his eyes and draws his mouth into one thin line. Lucy loves when Dally can't keep his eyes open anymore. That's how she knows she's winning.
"But then … she started making her own waffles," Lucy continues. "Without you. And you don't want to admit it's bothering you not to do things for somebody else, but I know it is!"
Dally gives her a look. He's trying to be a jackass. It's just not working.
"You done gloatin'?" he asks. "Can we move on, please?"
Lucy pulls her skirt on and smirks.
"Fine," she says. "We can move on. But I'm just letting you know … that I know."
"Know what?"
"Oh, that you want to be needed. And that's why you want another waffle buddy."
"'F you ever say somethin' as stupid as that again …"
"I know. I couldn't believe it as it was coming out of my mouth. How much sleep did we get last night?"
"Half an hour, 'f we were lucky."
"Oh, we were."
They look down at themselves and realize they're holding each other by the forearms. As soon as they see it, they take a few steps back. Eleven years together, and for as well as they know each other, it's still a secret when the sun is out.
Dally gives Lucy a different look this time.
"You weren't lyin' to me, were ya?" he asks. "When I asked you … when you said …"
"No, I was telling the truth," Lucy assures him, and she watches with delight as he unfurrows his brow. "I wouldn't say something like that unless I meant it. And I meant it the whole time. I'd like another kid, too."
"Then how come you asked so many fuckin' questions?"
Lucy sighs and walks closer to Dally again. He takes one step closer to her, too, and he doesn't realize he did it. That's the best part.
"Well, would I have been Lucy if I hadn't?" she volunteers.
Dally exhales, but it sounds like it's trying to be a laugh.
"Don't ask more questions, Bennet," he says. "Say what'cha mean."
Lucy presses up in her tights and kisses Dally as hastily as he kissed her before. He barely has time to kiss her back, but when he does, he uses about as much pressure as …
A baby.
"I'm saying exactly what I mean," Lucy says. "I knew what I wanted, but I needed to make sure we were on the same page. I needed to make sure your head was screwed on right."
Dally laughs, a little haughtily, and spreads out his arms like he's got something to show off.
"My head?" he asks. "Baby, I'm the picture of sanity."
Lucy laughs, too – but in earnest. She tells herself she can't help it. She rushes right up to Dally and throws her arms around his waist like she's dancing to a bad song. He doesn't budge. He grabs her around the waist like he can hear a bad song, too.
"I really did mean it," she says. "I do mean it. If it takes three months, or two years, or last night … we ought to have another one."
Dally knits his brow again.
"Man, you better be serious," he says.
"Am I ever anything else?"
"All right. I get it."
He kisses her again, and as soon as his hands start to wrap around her even tighter, they hear it.
"Dad?" Elenore calls out from the hallway. "Dad, I need your help!"
Lucy watches as Dally's face softens – just barely, enough so that even he doesn't notice. He's at his best when he's gruff. If Lucy didn't think so, she wouldn't love him to begin with. A little softness, however, can't hurt either of them, unless they ask it to.
"Better get out there," Lucy says.
"Or what?" Dally asks.
"Or I'll say waffle buddy again."
Dally makes his way to the door and points his index finger at her on the way out.
"You ain't got no right havin' this much power," he says. "You know that, don't you?"
"Occasionally," Lucy says. "Mostly, I just know you like it."
And even though he throws his hand up in dismissal and walks out the door to go find Elenore, Lucy knows she's right. There were never two such invincible people in so much love before.
Eventually, Lucy finds her way into the kitchen, where Elenore sits at the table. Dally stands over her with one hand flat on a piece of paper as Elenore writes. It's an unusual scene for their home, so Lucy stays in the shadow between the hallway and the kitchen, just to listen.
"Don't say that!" Elenore pleads in a high voice. "I don't want a jinx."
"You ain't gonna get a jinx," Dally says.
"But why would you say you wish I'd gotten an F?"
"'Cause that one's easy to switch up. All you gotta do is add an extra leg, and you yourself got an A. It's easy. Used to watch Pony do it all the time; just so Darry would get off his back."
"Oh. Well, if Pony could do it, then I think I should do it."
By now, Lucy has heard about enough. She waltzes into the kitchen and immediately begins to rifle through the cabinets. If she makes enough noise, maybe they'll get distracted and stop whatever they're not supposed to be doing.
"Are you teaching my daughter how to turn an F into an A?" she asks.
"I'm teaching 'er how to be smart," Dally says.
"She already is smart."
Dally turns back to Elenore with a gleam in his eye – one that Lucy never would have known he could make until eleven years ago.
"Hear that, kid?" he asks. "What I tell ya?"
Elenore drops her chin into her chest, which can only mean one thing.
"'Ain't got nothin' to worry about, kid,'" she says, trying to make her voice as low and curt as her father's.
Lucy wraps her hand around her mouth so that Dally might not see her laughing. Dally points one finger at Elenore, who can't stop giggling.
"Don't do that," he says. "I don't like it when ya do that."
"Why?" Elenore asks. "'Cause I sound just like you?"
Dally tries to form a response, but nothing comes out. His girls can do that to him. Lucy can feel her eyes start to sparkle as she thinks about another little girl on the other end of the kitchen table, making light of the old man, never the kind of guy you thought you could make light of. That's what happens when you have a bunch of girls. Even the toughest and meanest of men turn into plywood.
"Do you watch your mouth when I ain't around?" Dally finally asks.
"No," Elenore says. "I speak loads worse."
She leans over to get a better look at Lucy. That grin.
"Don't I, Mom?" she asks.
Lucy chuckles under her breath, walks over to Elenore at the table, and cups her chin in her hand. She gets a good look at Elenore's face. She's a beautiful kid, which only has a little to do with the fact that she looks just like her mother. Dark hair, big blue eyes, and rosy cheeks. She looks like a doll. Lucy smiles as she lets go of Elenore's chin. She wants the next kid to look a lot like this one.
"You have always been a pistol," Lucy says. "And I have always been proud of you for it."
"Will you be proud of me for what I'm about to show you?"
"Depends. Does it have anything at all to do with disco?"
"No."
"Then proceed."
Sheepishly, Elenore moves her little hand from the top a paper that looks a lot like a math test. Sure enough, that's what it is – a ten-question quiz on long division with a big, red C at the top. Lucy meets Elenore's eye, and Elenore looks like she's swallowed a fly.
"I was thinking Dad could help me change the C into a B," she admits.
Lucy isn't sure whether to laugh or to take away Elenore's television privileges when she gets home from school. When she catches a glimpse of Dally from the corner of her eye, she chooses the former.
It's good to see all the anxiety on Elenore's face melt away, after all.
"Elenore!" Lucy says. "This is why you called for your dad when you got out of bed this morning?"
"Well, yeah," Elenore says. "I was thinking … you know he's Dallas Winston, right?"
Lucy laughs a little harder while Dally throws his hands behind his neck and slowly backs away from the table.
"Ah, Christ," he mutters.
Lucy turns her gaze back to Elenore, who looks so much older than nine (and so much younger, too).
"What do you know about that?" she asks. "I mean … he's just your dad."
"Not just. People always look at him funny when we go back to Crap-lahoma."
"Elenore."
"What? When I'm right, I'm right!"
Now, Lucy and Dally look to one another with, undoubtedly, the same question. They can't tell which one of them their daughter sounds more like.
"What do you mean, though?" Lucy asks. "How do people look at your dad funny?"
Elenore makes a face like she shouldn't need to explain something so simple. Sometimes, Lucy thinks that Elenore thinks she's the smartest person in the family. It would make her angry if she didn't recognize she did the same thing to her own parents – that she still does the same thing to her own parents.
"Well, it's obvious," Elenore says. "It's the same thing every time we run into somebody from the past. They always take one look at me, and then they look at him. And they always say something stupid, like, 'Dallas Winston and a kid. I can't believe it!' I don't like it."
Lucy sighs a little. She looks at Dally again. His back is pressed up against the refrigerator door, and when he looks into Lucy's eyes, he looks almost afraid. They haven't told Elenore very much about the people they were before she was born. All Elenore really knows is that her parents met when they were teenagers, got married because their best friends dared them to, and had her because it was meant to happen that way. She doesn't know her old man's name as well as she knows her old man.
"It makes me think that Dad was kind of bad, but the cool kind of bad," Elenore says. "Like the Fonz."
Lucy wraps her hand around another giggle. Dally groans and swings the fridge open but takes nothing out.
"You're half right," Lucy says. "But you're glad he's your dad, aren't you?"
"Well, yeah!"
As Lucy cranes her neck to look at Dally, she thinks she sees him start to smile. This room is filled with girls who are glad to know him. He deserves another.
(And so does she.)
"I just wish he'd been able to turn my C into a B, like I asked him to," Elenore adds.
Her voice is sharp – the kind of sharp that Dallas Winston wouldn't have tolerated when his name was bigger than he was. Of course, he still won't tolerate it.
"What did you say?"
It's just that his reasons now are very different.
"Come on, Dad!" Elenore begs. "You know I didn't want Mom to be mad at me for getting a C on my quiz. Couldn't you have tried to help me out?"
"You didn't even give me a shot!"
"Well, maybe if you didn't dally, Dally…"
Dally looks like he might run through the wall.
"OK!" Lucy shouts before anyone says anything else they'll grow to regret before the day can even begin. She points to Elenore.
"We'll start with you," she says. "Why did you think I would be mad at you for getting a C on your math quiz?"
"Because you love getting A's," Elenore says. "I know that's what you got in school all the time. And when you grade papers … you always brag about how many A's your students get. I didn't want to be one of the ones you didn't like."
The look on her face is no lie. Elenore is about the only thing in the world that could shatter Lucy's heart. This morning, that's exactly what she does. Lucy takes one long look at the C on top of Elenore's paper and tries to remember what it felt like to be in her place. Then, of course, she remembers she was never in her place. For as much as Jack and Esther Bennet were proud of their daughter's work ethic, they never talked about perfect scores and four-point-ohs like Lucy does. Lucy made her own pressure. For Elenore, Lucy is the pressure.
She hopes she's pregnant today. If she is, she promises not to pressure the next one.
"You never have to hide a C from me," Lucy says (because it's the right thing to say, even though she feels wrong saying it). "Not in math, anyway. How're you doing in English?"
"Mrs. Russo says my spelling is too good," Elenore says with her shoulders back. "She's going to put me in a group all my own. I already learned how to spell miscellaneous. Want to hear?"
"No," Dally says before Lucy can say anything.
She fixes her eyes on him now.
"You're next," Lucy says. "Don't be mad at your daughter for being funnier than you thought she could be."
"Yeah, Dad," Elenore adds. "Be mad at me because you're less funny."
The look on Dally's face turns blank. Lucy looks into his eyes and swears she can hear exactly what he's thinking: Elenore rules this roost because she doesn't have a clue who she's talking to.
"Lemme ask you somethin'," Dally says. "You wanna walk to school alone?"
Elenore looks aghast.
"But the street is scary!" she says. "There are … pigeons!"
Lucy's heart flutters a little. Of all the things in the East Village for a nine-year-old girl to fear, Lucy loves that for Elenore, it's pigeons. She has the sweetest heart. When they have another baby, Lucy hopes her heart is half as sweet as Elenore's.
Maybe it'll teach Lucy a thing or two. But she's not holding her breath.
"All right," Dally says. "You want me to walk ya to school, you gotta treat me like a man. Ya hear me?"
"I hear you," Elenore says. "But I don't know if I get it."
"What part don't ya get?"
"What does it mean to treat somebody like a man? How's it different than treating Mom like a woman?"
Before Dally can say anything, Lucy cuts in with the only thing she knows she's good for.
"It's not," she says, and Dally gives her a look that only she can read (just not with words that actually exist).
He turns to Elenore and sighs, but quietly enough so that only Lucy knows how to hear it.
"Just don't fuckin' talk back to me," Dally says. "And I won't talk back to you, neither. You dig?"
Elenore beams and sticks out one hand for her father to shake. He hesitates for a second, but in the end, he takes it. Lucy watches and conceals a little smile. Back home, everybody's still right: Dallas Winston should never have made a baby, and he never should have raised her, either. They're right, but it doesn't matter. They don't need to know what he's like when he's at home. No one but the three of them will ever need to know what Tuesday morning looks like in this kitchen.
Lucy comes around and taps Elenore on the shoulder. They look just alike, and Lucy can't believe how much she loves it.
"You better get going," Lucy says. "I know you don't like to be late for school."
Elenore hops off her chair and slides her jacket over her arms. All the while, she shakes her little head.
"No," she says. "You don't like when I'm late for school. I would love to stay home all day and teach myself."
"And how would you teach yourself math when you don't even like it?"
"Easy. 'Elenore has thirty Sugar Frosted Flakes. She eats them all. How many does she have left? Zero.'"
Dally stands up now, too, and rolls his eyes.
"Kid," he says. "D'you really think we believe you're only eatin' thirty-a those at a time?"
"I could stop at thirty if I wanted."
"Yeah, and I could bring home 30,000 dollars."
"Why don't you, then?"
Lucy pulls Elenore back toward her, spins her around, and plants a kiss right in the middle of her forehead.
"Be good," she says. "Don't mouth off to your dad."
Elenore rolls her eyes.
"Fine," she says. "But it's so much fun!"
Lucy bites her lip. She can't argue with that. She gives Elenore one more kiss before she sends her out the door.
"I'll see you after school," Lucy calls out.
"I'll see you after school!"
Lucy hides a giggle under her breath as Dally wraps one hand around her waist. She does the same to him and slowly smiles with her whole face.
"You have to get going," Lucy says. "If she gets into a tardy habit, I …"
"You're still upset about it, ain't ya?" Dally asks.
"Upset about what?"
"Right after you and me got married, you were late for school a couple-a times."
He wraps his other hand around her waist, and she feels like she did when she was eighteen and suddenly married to a man with a rap sheet longer than Bleak House. Her head still swims, and she still doesn't mind.
"Ya know, for a broad who wound up in handcuffs when she was thirteen, you sure were sore about gettin' an hour of detention."
Lucy frowns, and Dally lets out the most annoying laugh she's ever heard. She loves it.
"That was different," she says. "My arrest was political. My detention was …"
"Worth it?"
She glares at him, but as soon as his grip around her waist gets tighter, she can't focus on anything else. He's one of only two people who will ever be able to distract her.
"You'll be back before I have to teach?" Lucy asks, a little breathless.
"'F I run back from takin' the kid, yeah," Dally says.
"Do that."
Dally smirks and kisses Lucy for a few seconds too long.
"Sure. Whatever you say, honey."
He says it like it's a joke, but it doesn't matter. Lucy knows he means it.
"That's ridiculous," David in the front row says and slams his copy of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on the desk, pages down.
"Well, I don't think so," Pam in the second row pipes up from behind a smaller copy of the same book. "I think Lucy makes a good point."
"I better!" Lucy says and dusts the chalk off her palms. "In case you all forgot, I'm still the teacher here."
It's been almost seven full years since Lucy stepped in front of a class for the first time. She was about a month out from her twenty-third birthday, and she thought she knew everything because she had a bachelor's degree and a father in the field. At the end of her very first semester back in '70, she received more than a few student evaluations with lines like, "She wants you to think she knows everything" and "She thinks we've read as much as she says she has." It's the only time she's ever really apologized for her flaws – all for her job.
The funny thing is that in so many ways, the classroom began to feel more like her home than her apartment with Dally and Elenore. She adores them more than anybody in the world (even Sadie), but they all know some manner of the truth: Lucy Bennet belongs in the home even less than Dallas Winston does. If there's a caretaking gene, then both of her parents must be recessive for it. Esther and Jack Bennet know how to love everybody; Lucy still fears what it means to love out loud. But in the classroom, all that fear dissipates as soon as she picks up a piece of chalk. This is where they love her. This is where she deserves to be loved.
"Teacher or not, it sounds ridiculous!" David in the front row continues to complain. "I mean – look what you wrote."
Lucy turns her head to look at the familiar phrase on the board. She's written it about a hundred times since high school, and nobody's ever taken issue with it before.
"Uh-huh," she says. "What's wrong with it?"
"It doesn't make sense! Jekyll does not translate to Je kyll, or I kill. The French word for kill doesn't even sound like the English word! It's tuer!"
"David, once again, you underestimate the power of creative writing," Lucy says. "Can't Stevenson play around with two languages at once?"
"But why would he? He wasn't French!"
"True, but he notably disliked French realism because he thought it was unnecessarily ugly. And what's more ugly, in this novella where the hero turns out to be the villain, than murder? Why wouldn't Stevenson have paired ugliness with the French language, then, if he held such a low opinion of French literature in the first place?"
David in the front row bows his head and turns a few shades of red, each one more severe than the last. Lucy smirks and taps her chalk against the blackboard one time.
"What do we say?" she asks.
"You're the expert."
"Damn right."
The entire Introduction to Literature class laughs warmly, including David in the front row. Such is the dynamic she has with her students (and has worked double overtime to ensure after those first evaluations). She teases them, and they tease her right back. The best part about teaching isn't the education, she thinks. It's having a laugh about the lesson.
It's so easy when she's the teacher.
She looks up at the clock, and as usual; she's gone two minutes over the assigned class time. As she dismisses the class, she pauses in front of the blackboard for a moment. Somebody always wants to talk, either about something they were too nervous to ask in class or about their essay topics. Usually, it's David in the front row, the class provocateur whose big claim to fame is that he's defying his father's wishes by majoring in English instead of biology. It sounds familiar, but Lucy would never tell him that. She loves her students so long as it's not all that personal.
But today, instead of David in the front row, it's Pam in the second row. It's a nice change of pace, Lucy thinks. She likes Pam. She's a little on the quiet side, but she knows how to speak up when she needs to. She has almost black hair that she keeps pulled back into a ponytail, and big blue eyes. She reminds Lucy of a very good friend, but Lucy could never tell her that.
"Lucy?" Pam asks.
"That'd be me."
"Can I talk to you?"
"Of course. Did you still want to write your paper on Sense and Sensibility?"
"Yes, but that's … it's not what I wanted to talk to you about."
Lucy makes a face. In this moment, she's so obsessed with paper topics and essay questions that she can't see a life beyond them. Then, of course, Pam blinks.
She's been crying.
"Oh," Lucy says, voice a little shaky. "What's … go ahead."
"I'm just wondering," Pam says. "You … you told us you got married when you were in high school, right?"
Lucy laughs a little. It's always so much funnier coming out of somebody else's mouth.
"Yes," she says. "It's a long story, but the short answer is yes."
Pam nods as though it's a piece of ancient wisdom – which, maybe for somebody born in 1958, it is.
"Hmm," Pam muses. "And you said … you said before that you had your daughter when you were in college. Didn't you?"
Lucy nods.
"Yes," she says. "She was born on the very last day of my freshman year. Good timing, that kid. I don't know how she lost it when she grew up a little more, but I can barely get her out the door for school on time these days."
Lucy has a short laugh with herself, and as soon as she notices that Pam is still paying attention, she clears her throat and pretends it never happened. Too personal.
"Well, either way," she says, even though it doesn't quite fit the conversation. "Yes. I had Elenore when I was in college."
Pam nods again like this even older wisdom.
"Hmm," she repeats. "And … was that OK? Like … did you ever feel like maybe there were some parts of it you couldn't do?"
Lucy tips her head to the side and gives Pam a look she usually reserves for Elenore. Part of her (albeit a small one – it has to be a small one) wants to ask Pam if there's something wrong. She just won't. She's Lucy Bennet, she loves her job, and she knows better. She straightens her spine and remembers where (and who) she is.
She remembers who she has to be.
"I've nearly always had help," Lucy says, keeping her voice as steady as she can. "My husband and I used to live around the block from my parents, and we … we have a lot of friends."
Regrettably, her heart clenches when she says the word friends. All she can see is the way Sadie and Soda smile at each other when they're up to something. It's been nearly three months since she saw the twins. Three months. When they were kids, they couldn't make it three days.
Sometimes she wonders if it hurts worse for Dally and Elenore. Lucy went to school in Tulsa, but her husband and her daughter were born there. Then she remembers of course it hurts worse for Dally and Elenore – because they know how to let it hurt.
"Hmm," Pam says for the third time. "I'm sorry if I'm asking too many questions. It's just that I know you have that one picture of your daughter on your desk, and you've mentioned your husband a few times …"
"And you're realizing that teachers don't live at school?" Lucy asks, jovial as ever. "Pam, aren't you a little old to discover that?"
Pam lets out a little laugh and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Of course I know you don't live at school," she says. "I was only thinking. You're married, you have a baby, you teach at NYU … I don't think I ever knew somebody could do that."
And for as smart as Lucy is (for as many languages as she can read and as many philosophers she can quote off the top of her head), she can't see what's right underneath Pam's words today.
(Except that she can. She just doesn't want to.)
Lucy gives Pam a tiny smile and starts to pack up her bag.
"I'm lucky," she says. "I try not to take that for granted."
Pam nods like it means something.
"Right," she says. "Um. I was really just … it was on my mind. It's just – my parents were asking me questions about what I'm going to do if I get an English degree, and you're the only person I can talk to who already has one, and …"
Lucy smiles warmly. It's so easy when she's the teacher.
"It's fine," she says, and she means it. "I'm happy to do what I can."
Pam's worried look turns into a reassured grin. She tucks the same strand of hair behind her ear again, but this time, she looks better – stronger. Lucy can't help but feel a little pride for her student. It's easy when it's her job.
"Oh," Pam says. "Thank you."
"Of course. Is there anything else you wanted to talk to me about?"
Pam shakes her head, and before long, she's on her way out of the room. Lucy slings her bag onto her shoulder and looks out at the now empty seats before her eyes. Just moments ago, they were filled with students – students who weren't just listening to her so they could earn high marks on their exams, but because they wanted to. She made them laugh. She made them challenge each other. She made them think. She's good at this. If Dallas Winston was born to be a daddy, then Lucy Bennet was born to be a teacher.
She flattens her palm against her stomach and hopes that's good enough.
There you have it: We open with low stakes, slice of life material, but that's a pretty common move from me. Things will happen, as they always (sort of) do. I'm not sure how often I'm going to update this, but after about a year of Lucy and Dally being supporting characters in the story of their daughter and granddaughter, I thought I'd give myself the space to think about the two of them again (when I get stuck on what to do with Elenore and Veronica).
Title is from a Simon and Garfunkel song of the same name. I went through about a million titles for this fic before deciding on this one, so I hope it's OK. Thanks to HappierThanMost's most recent one shot for jogging my Simon and Garfunkel memory. The chapter title comes from a song by The Supremes.
As for the more obscure references: The body without organs is a reference to Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, a 1972 book that Lucy would have been familiar with. Frosted Flakes did used to be called Sugar Frosted Flakes. Bleak House is a Charles Dickens novel. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a novella by Robert Louis Stevenson, and yes, he did hate French realism. The Jekyll line is also a callback to "Odd" because I'm shameless.
Hinton owns The Outsiders. I own a box of tissue.