When she was a child, every Sunday her grandmother took her to church.
Catherine Montgomery had mournfully accepted long before that she could not force her grown son and his Protestant wife to go to St. Paul's Catholic Church on Sundays. She stopped making an overt issue about it after they had married, for fear of alienating herself. But as long as she was charged with caring for her only granddaughter while her son and his wife slept off their Saturday nights well into Sunday afternoons or evenings, she would take Addison to church.
Catherine's rules were simple. A dress, nice shoes, and a hat to cover her hair.
None of the other little girls covered their hair. It was an archaic tradition in the Roman Catholic Church, even in Addison's earliest youth. But since Catherine had always been required to cover her hair, Addison was too. It was common among the old women Catherine knew, who not only wore ridiculous hats but sometimes even veils, who smelled like talc and Chanel, and congregated at the entrance of the cathedral before and after mass to cluck away. Only them, and Addison, would cover their hair. The little girls in Addison's Sunday school class were very quick to point that out, and relentless in it.
Once, when she was eight, in a rare act of rebellion, Addison got rid of the horrific hat her grandmother had purchased for the very purpose, so Catherine had made her cover her hair with a tissue for the entire mass, and took her out right after to buy another, which had managed to be even more horrific.
She never acted out again, even though she thought it was stupid that the sight of her hair somehow offended God.
The truth was, Addison found a lot of stupid things within the church.
She didn't know why it was any business of a priest if she lied.
She didn't know how Jesus managed to be the stale bread they took every week.
She didn't know why of all the churches, God was only present in theirs.
But, like she didn't mention her true feelings about her hat, she never said a word about anything else, either. If she did, Catherine would be upset, and might even stop coming to get Addison on Sunday mornings.
That fear was stronger than any objection Addison might have had to the church.
Some Sundays, if Catherine was sick or out of town, and Addison was forced to stay home, she remained in her room all day. She wouldn't leave to take a bath or even eat until she was sure her parents were awake and about, cleaning up the disaster that was always left from their Saturday night parties.
Stained glasses, ashtrays brimming with cigarette butts, and the scent of stale cologne, perfume, sex, and on a few occasions, vomit.
Those were the kinds of things Addison could expect to be waiting for her if she went into the downstairs of her parents' brownstone on Sunday mornings.
On the mornings Catherine didn't come and she could not simply avoid looking into the living room as she darted out the door, she only maintained her composure by not going down there until her parents could at least clean up a little bit.
But that wasn't even the worst of it.
The worst part was her parents themselves. Battered by alcohol and out of the company of anyone who truly mattered, they were stripped of any ability or desire to even pretend to care about her. She looked into her mother's bloodshot, bleary eyes on those mornings and the hollowed vacuous look of them made her sick to her stomach. Rose Montgomery existed only to please her husband, no matter what it did to her or her daughter.
Jack Montgomery, Addison's father, offered no comfort—if anything, the emotions that churned in his emerald eyes were worse. They didn't possess the bleak emptiness of her mother's, but a striking, specific indifference. Her mother almost seemed unaware of her existence at times—her father was more than aware, and simply didn't care.
After a while, Addison stopped looking at him. It was just easier not to look at either of them.
It was easier to just swallow her objections, put on a façade, and go to Church with Catherine.
But either way, she was a fraud. If she was with her parents, she was a fraud because she didn't look at them or ask them for the love she so horribly longed for, and if she was with Catherine, she was a fraud because she recited psalms she thought were stupid and prayed to a God that she didn't believe in.
Ever since then, Sunday for Addison was a day built on denial.
Denial of her feelings, denial of her thoughts, and denial of her desires.
As she got older, it became easier. Holding it in, encasing herself in a wall of cool, aloof, intelligence and taciturnity, became easier.
By the time she married Derek, it was a habit.
By the time he left her, it was second nature.
By the time she divorced him, it was a necessity for survival.
In those few months in which they attempted a reconciliation, every day was Sunday. The denial eventually grew to such a degree, she was able to deny not only the truth about herself, but also about her husband.
She made herself blind to the longing in his gaze when he looked at Meredith. He chose her. He loved her.
She made herself deaf to the worry in his voice when he spoke to Meredith. He chose her. Her loved her.
She made herself desensitized to his indifferent lovemaking with her. He chose her. He loved her.
She made herself unaware of the smell of Meredith on him when he returned to her on Prom night. He chose her. He loved her.
Even when she held Meredith's panties in her hands, sitting on the bed of the trailer alone wearing his tuxedo jacket, a very large part of her attempted to deny their significance.
Even the most profound denial would have been shattered in the face of that.
Addison's barely cracked.
In the days after she left Derek, truth managed to seep in, but very little.
After she choked down enough alcohol so she couldn't feel the pain and she stared in the shiny mirror of her five-star hotel room bathroom, she denied the resemblance between herself and her mother.
When she was in bed with Mark, using him only to make herself feel better, she denied the similarities between herself and her father.
When she looked into the accusing eyes of Alex Karev as he waved the test results for the distressed mother at her, she denied that she had failed as a doctor.
When she looked Mark right in the eye and told him she didn't want him in Seattle, she denied the part of her inside that wanted to beg him to hold her.
And the night the divorce papers were officially signed and she did not remove her rings, she denied that it was because she was still in love with Derek.
But, the cracks in her steely denial were bound to grow, and eventually, break away.
It began when Callie told her she had slept with Mark.
The hurt was too palpable to be denied.
It was worsened when Derek came whistling into the office.
The hurt was too profound to be denied.
And it came to a final, violent end in the Chief's office.
She looked into Derek's eyes and saw the same indifference to her and their marriage that she saw so long ago in her father's.
The realization muted her, and it was only because Cristina Yang interrupted the discussion that she didn't completely break down.
Sunday was over. The denial was not, after all, invincible.
For the rest of the day, the truth and pain flooded her relentlessly, until she had no choice.
She still sat on the ferry for a good twenty minutes before she worked up the ability to actually do it.
When she finally got the strength to stand and walk to the deck of the boat, with each step distinct, acute stabs of severe loneliness cut into her until by the time she actually reached the rail, she wanted nothing more than to be rid of the rings.
Rid of the denial.
Free to find the truth.
She gave them one last regard, then raised her arm and pitched them into the air.
In the instant after they were gone from her hand, she was overcome with panic.
She watched them vault into the air and then arc down to make their descent, ending with a barely perceptible plop. They were gone before she could even allow the strangled cry in her throat to escape, and she was petrified.
She had been afraid, in the first instants, because the denial had been such an integral part of her, she wasn't sure if she would know how to live without it.
Tears spilled from her eyes, blotting out her vision. She dropped her head and watched the tears drop the steep fall, also into the water.
She had never been more alone in her entire life.
When the tears finally ended, she raised her head and looked upward at the sun. It burned her eyes at first in their sensitivity, but no more tears came.
It was setting, in the West.
That Sunday, and the Sunday she had been living for almost a year, was drawing to a close.
The denial was over by default.
She had no reason to deny anymore.
Catherine and her horrific hats were long gone.
Her father had died, also, and her mother spent most of her time Europe.
Derek was no longer her husband.
Addison, for the first time in her life, had no one but Addison to appease.
Things were going to be different. She was in control now.
So while she felt a deep loneliness, she also felt a very viable flame of hope inside herself as she watched the sun setting, because it wasn't just setting on her Sundays.
It was setting on her Saturdays and Fridays, too.
Things were going to be different.
I should not be awake right now. I should be in bed. I'm going to New York City in exactly three and half hours, and I have to be at least coherent for that trip. But here I am. Writing this. Because if I didn't get the random idea I had in my head into words, there was no way I was going to sleep tonight. Plus, this story just needs to end. It's too sad to be unfinished. But, the point is, as always, I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for reading.
xo Bleu