Chapter 2
"Mother and Father had a fight," Wednesday announced during breakfast to which neither of her parents were yet present.
She jabbed absently into her food, waiting for her grandmother to make a comment.
"Oh, nonsense," Hester waved off her concern."Your parents never fight."
"They did this time," Pugsley confirmed between mouthfuls of his black pudding and fried eggs."Father slept in the library."
"Interesting," his Grandmother mused out loud, placing her finger on her lips in a contemplating manner. "I wonder who will get the house in divorce settlement."
"Mama," Pubert cooed to himself from his high chair, trying to pick at the small pieces of cut meat his grandmother was feeding him with. Or, well, at least she was trying to.
"Do you think they will divorce?" Wednesday asked, frowning at her grandmother's insinuation.
"Well, I have never seen them fight before," Hester replied."Certainly never seen Gomez sleeping on the sofa, so… I would say so."
"Mama!" Pubert exclaimed again, waving his arms and happily flung his cup full of pumpkin juice on the floor.
"You, little rascal," Hester commented affectionately at her youngest grandchild."I wonder who gets you in a divorce settlement, you devil."
"Mama!"
Wednesday and Pugsley exchanged worried glances.
"Oh, do not fret," Eudora appeased in the midst of cleaning the mess on the floor."Divorce is not a big deal. I have been divorced twice."
The two children frowned at her in surprise.
"You were?" They asked in unison.
"Why of course, didn't I tell you about it?"
"No."
"Oh," she exclaimed, surprised."I thought I did. Well, in my opinion, if you weren't divorced at least once in your life...did you even really live?"
"But I don't want parents to divorce," Wednesday replied morosely, abandoning her food altogether.
"Jackie Gibson's parents are divorcing as well," Pugsley supplied lightly, still happily digging into his food."She said they are buying her more gifts than she has ever seen in her life - each trying to win her side, you get it?"
"Our parents would never do that."
"People change, my little vulture," Hester mused, wiping the spilt juice from the floor."I guess every marriage has a crisis. Mine certainly had. Hence why I was divorced three times."
Both children frowned and looked at each other in bewilderment.
"Three?" Wednesday asked."You just said you were divorced twice."
Hester lifted her palm and started counting her fingers, uttering some names under her nose.
"No, it was definitely three,"
"Mama!" Pubert exclaimed happily, kicking his legs in his high chair making the remaining occupants of the kitchen turn towards the stairs where indeed, the graceful silhouette of the Addams matriarch slowly descended the stairs.
Morticia smiled and picked up her son, placing a soft kiss on his nose.
"Did you manage to get any food into your mouth at all?" She asked, surveying the food stains on his grey romper and the utter mess on the kitchen floor.
"Mama!" Her son replied happily, forcing the cut piece of meat in his hands into her mouth and then frowned at her. "Nom, nom - " he told her firmly, making her smile.
"Ugh, when is he going to learn some new words?" Pugsley complained."How many times a day can he 'mama'?"
"Well, dear, you didn't even start talking properly until you were almost three," his grandmother pointed out."And he's not even one yet."
Wednesday turned towards her brother, her eyebrows raised in disbelief.
"You didn't talk until you were three?"
Pugsley shrugged, utterly unconcerned.
"I had nothing to say," he replied simply.
"Have you seen your father?" Morticia asked, propping Pubert on her hip.
"He left early in the morning," Pugsley supplied."He didn't say where."
"Right," she nodded, trying her best not to sigh in exasperation.
She entirely expected Gomez not to react all that well to their conversation but storming out of the bedroom, spending the night on the sofa in the library and disappearing devils knows where before she was even awake, were absolutely new on the scale of her husband's dramatics.
Granted, perhaps she could have been more subtle with him, she could have weighed her words more carefully but really, his response was completely out of proportions.
And if it didn't prove her very point, she didn't know what did.
She wondered how long he was planning to sulk before they could address the issue at hand. She really didn't have the energy to deal with any of this.
"Is it about the divorce?" Her son asked lightly.
"Ugh," Wednesday groaned, covering her face with the palms of her hands."Pugsley, you have the subtlety of a butcher."
"What on earth are you talking about?" Morticia frowned.
"You and father argued and you never ever argue so now, logically, you're going to divorce," Pugsley explained as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Logically?" Morticia repeated, raising her eyebrow in amusement.
The things her children could come up with and dress it as logic was nothing but astounding. Clearly, they inherited it from their dear father -
"Granny said so."
Naturally. Her mother and her inimitable way of comforting people.
Morticia sighed and closed her eyes, silently counting to ten and praying for patience to whoever was listening.
"We have an appointment with the tailor at eleven, why don't you two get ready?" She said instead.
"Yes, mother," both children replied, already pushing their chairs off the table.
"Oh, mother," Pugsley called from the stairs."In case you need us to be on your side during the court battle, I need some plutonium for my testing of nuclear chain reaction - "
"Pugsley - " she tried to reprimand her son but couldn't help but smile a little.
"Just a thought!" He retorted promptly before running out of the kitchen.
They were gone for less than a second when her mother cleared her throat and a manner that told Morticia she was going to snoop for information.
"So, you and Gomez had a fight, huh?"
"We didn't have a fight," Morticia contradicted, putting Pubert back in his high chair so he could finish his meal."We're just discussing something and we simply… have a different approach to certain things."
"So… you had a fight," Her mother decided.
"No," Morticia insisted, pouring the boy a fresh cup of pumpkin juice. "I shared something with Gomez and he didn't take it very well."
"Well, obviously since he slept on the sofa," the older woman pointed out.
"That was his choice, I didn't tell him to sleep on the sofa."
"The children are worried -"
"I will speak with them."
"Morticia," her mother said in a surprisingly soft tone."You can always walk away from the things that no longer make you happy."
Morticia shook her head.
"Walking away is not the way, Mama."
"It certainly worked very well for me."
"Did it?" She asked, her tone marked with blatant sarcasm.
She seldom referred to her mother in a disrespectful manner but what leaving her husband would achieve here? Splitting their family wasn't a solution. Far from it.
"There's no point wasting your time on things you can't fix," her mother replied patiently, choosing to disregard Morticia's tone.
"How can you tell if you can't fix them if you never even try to?" Morticia countered, suddenly irritated.
"Most men don't change," Hester stated simply."It's best to save yourself time and humiliation and just walk away first."
"Gomez is not most men, mama," Morticia insisted."Do you mind looking after Pubert while I take the children to the tailor?"
"Of course," her mother smiled at her. "You know, you don't need to divorce - "
"Mama, no one is divorcing."
"All I want to say is that I still have the axe that I used to severe marriage ties with your step-father -"
Morticia couldn't help but smile.
"Thank you but I quite like my husband in one piece," she replied."But I appreciate your support."
Her mother smiled at her, obviously pleased she could be of help.
"If you ever change your mind, you're welcome to use it."
He was starting to feel dizzy. He would need to get down soon. Maybe not so soon though. He needed to think, and what better position to think than hanging upside down from the tree branch among Addams Swamp, the aforementioned branch was currently digging painfully into the back of his knees? Pain and dizziness, just what he needed right now.
He could easily fall down into that swamp, he thought as he drew another puff of his cigar.
Maybe he would drown, he contemplated, releasing a grey cloud of smoke from his mouth.
No, he decided, his wife would certainly not appreciate it if he drowned himself. No matter how cross she was with him. Although, it would be quite a romantic end to his miserable existence.
Except, he chastised himself immediately, his life was far from miserable.
Ever since he met this enchanting creature that he was now lucky to call his wife, he could hardly think of a time when he didn't feel anything less than incredibly blessed. Even years of guilt over his brother's disappearance, times where he would fall into a state of melancholy never overshadowed the fact that he was an incredibly lucky man.
All thanks to her.
She was the sole centre of his universe. Always.
Ever since he laid his eyes on her on that fateful night at Bar's funeral, he lived for her. He spent almost every waking moment trying to learn everything about her, anticipate her every wish, dedicated himself to her happiness as if there was no other existence beyond enslaving himself to her.
She meant everything to him.
And to tell him now, in such an explicit and agonisingly painful manner that this wasn't enough, that he was failing her as a husband, that he wasn't giving her what she needed - it was unbearable.
He couldn't stand the thought that he was failing her. That he placed all that burden on her without even once considering how she was handling it. How did he fail to notice that it was becoming too much for her? How? How could that have happened when he prided himself with being so attuned to her. How could he have let her carry that burden on her own?
He knew the answer, though.
Morticia's ability to control the chaos around her was so incredible and it was all too easy to allow her to take the lead. To place all the responsibility on her, she was always there for him, he could fix things no one else could.
And she was right, as she always was, he couldn't deal with problems, he never could. Problems seemed to him impenetrable, hopeless and unsolvable. He never dealt with his problems, and why would he, there was always a way around them or a way from them. And, of course, there was always her - his wife, who took all his burdens upon herself and he never once considered the possibility that they might one day crash upon her because, to him, she was always invincible.
"What the hell are you doing?"
He couldn't help but smile at his brother's gruff voice. It still felt so new to have him back in his life, and for the second time, no less.
"Hanging from the tree and contemplating what a complete idiot I am," he replied morosely.
He heard Fester let out an amused snort.
"Marital problems I presume?" His brother concluded.
Gomez didn't reply. He wasn't sure he wanted to share with his brother what an utter failure he was as a husband. It was humiliating enough to contemplate that fact in solitude.
"Just apologise and buy her some jewellery," Fester supplied.
"Apologies are not going to cut it this time, Fester."
"Ouch, that bad?"
"Nah," Gomez replied, finally turning his head towards his brother. "Worse."
"Can you come down from the tree, so we can talk about it?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"It's probably not even as bad as you think," Fester pointed out, rolling his eyes. "Come down, you overheated Castilian."
His brother had a simply uncanny flair for dramatics. He could not imagine what these two could even argue about, he has never seen a couple more obsessed with each other than Gomez and Morticia.
"She said I didn't support her," Gomez revealed miserably, still stubbornly hanging from the tree.
"She said what?" Fester exclaimed in disbelief."Come on now, she has everything a heart desires. More money than one would ever need in a lifetime and you! You adore her, you're devoted to her like a… a Bald Eagle."
Gomez frowned and turned towards his brother.
"Bald Eagle?"
"Yeah."
"I'm not bald," Gomez denied."My hair isn't even thinning."
"Bald Eagles mate for life with their partners," his brother explained."Come down, you're making me dizzy."
"That makes two of us," Gomez sighed but finally swung himself off the tree, unceremoniously landing knee-deep into swamp water next to his brother.
"Wearing Brogues for a walk in a swamp," Fester remarked casually before adding facetiously," smart."
"I really couldn't care about fashion right now, Fester," Gomez sighed dejectedly, reaching for another cigar, and offered it to his brother.
Fester took the cigar from him and nodded in thanks.
"Come, let's have a walk down the swamp, like we did in the good ole' days," he offered, motioning with his head for Gomez to follow.
Gomez followed mutely, slowly making his way through the wetland.
"I can't believe Morticia said you're not supportive. That's insane," his brother remarked, breaking the silence." All she has to do is to flick her fingers and you come running. What else can she possibly want?"
"It's not that, Fester -"
"It's a woman thing, I guess," his brother interjected with an exaggerated sigh." Look at me, I gave Debbie everything she asked for and more… and it still wasn't enough."
"Morticia doesn't care about money, Fester," he replied."She never did. She didn't know I was rich when she agreed to marry me -"
Fester raised his eyebrows in a sceptical manner.
"Oh really? She didn't know she was marrying an Addams?"
"Well yes, of course she knew," he admitted.
"Then there's no chance she didn't know how rich you were."
"It never mattered to her," he insisted."When we had to leave the Manor and live at that motel -"
"Ugh, don't remind me," Fester winced."I'm still beating myself up about it."
"It was more my fault than it was yours."
"How come?"
"She suspected...she knew something was not right and she'd told me," he revealed."And I didn't listen. I didn't want to listen, I wanted you back so badly I preferred to live with my illusions. And it almost cost me my family."
Fester lowered his gaze and cleared his throat self-consciously.
"Oh."
"She never blamed me," Gomez whispered."Even though I was of no help to her. I was feeling so low, devastated. I didn't want to face reality around me. I left everything for her to deal with, to keep the family together."
"Well, all's well that ends well," Fester supplied lightly. "I think we should love people the way they are, not trying to change them. You are what you are, you've always been like that. Remember what Father always said? When faced with insurmountable problems -"
"Give up and walk away."
"That's the Addams way."
"But that doesn't solve anything, Fester," he whispered more to himself than to his brother.
But what was the solution? He couldn't change, Fester was right, he's always been this way, it was his way. How could he change now, after all these years? Even though he wanted to… he wanted to be whatever Morticia needed him to be, but how?
He didn't know how, he didn't want to face her and admit it to her. He didn't know how to change, he didn't even know where to start. Maybe he could start with admitting he was a failure.
He was a failure of a husband who never deserved such a treasure as Morticia in the first place.
"Well, just go to her and apologise," his brother's voice interjected his pitiful musings.
Gomez inhaled deeply and nodded silently.
"Apologise and then what?"
"Well, that's as far as I got," Fester admitted."It's better than hiding in the swamp."
Gomez looked at him and his lips curled into a small smile.
"You're right, old man," he admitted and exhaled loudly, lifting his gaze up to the grey clouded sky."I'm such a fool."
He could feel Fester next to him shrug at his assessment before proclaiming cheerfully -
"That's also the Addams way."
A/N: Thank you for reading.