TCOT Absurd Assumption C24
Note: And the talking continues...thank you for your patience.
More references to TCOT Pretty Stones. ~ D
A crying woman was perhaps the only thing in the world Perry Mason felt no confidence in dealing with, and a crying Della Street had never been an exception to that lack of confidence.
Until Della Street had been accused of murder, and suddenly, after thirty years, he knew exactly how to react to her tears.
No explanation, no plea, no whispered words of consolation would stop her tears or soothe the suffering at their root. All he could do was hold her, and hope that she could understand what he had done, and why he had done it.
Despite all the honesty in the room, he would still protect her from the truth of what her father had done to her mother, and what he wouldn't have considered for a moment discussing with Della's team of doctors. But he could let her know the course of action he'd decided on – hardly a new procedure, and one that was in fact gaining respect as the most sensible, most reliable, least invasive permanent form of birth control, after having been ignorantly performed primarily as a 'humane' alternative to prevent the procreation of 'defectives', i.e., those determined to be physically abhorrent, mentally disturbed, or criminally insane. What held the procedure back from mainstream acceptance for years was the male ego, an artificially inflated and often blindly revered entity if there ever was one, but it hadn't been difficult at all for Perry to set that deterrent aside, because what kind of life would he have without Della, ego and seed intact?
He knew exactly the kind of life he would have. He had been living it for the past three years. And it was no life at all.
It had been the right thing to do, even though he doubted many would have thought so at the time, especially Della herself. His brother, his cousins, his friends, and eventually his nephews – all had gone forth and procreated admirably. There were plenty of Masons in the world. He didn't have a deep yearning to contribute to the clan unless Della could be the mother, and there was no way in hell he'd let her take the chance ever again. Paul Drake would have sided with him if Junior wasn't in the picture because once the shock and recriminations surrounding his son's birth faded, Paul could never have wished the child away. So he hadn't told a living soul what he had done.
"I'm so sorry, baby. I should have told you. I just didn't know how." He spoke softly into her hair, his deep voice hardly more than a minor vibration. "I'm the big, strong man and it was my job to protect you."
"Oh my God." She sniffed, rubbed her nose back and forth across his shirt, and he hugged her closer to him. "Oh my God," she repeated. "I thought…oh Perry. Why did you do it?" Myriad emotions jumbled together in her brain: helplessness, affection, anger, tenderness, despair, happiness. She wanted the spinner to land on angry because had she only known, the past three years would have been very different for so many people.
"It turns out I was wrong when I claimed I could live without making love to you, and I was not going to put your life in jeopardy ever again because of my selfishness."
"Your selfishness?" Della's voice rose slightly, pulled up by her eyebrows, remembering that conversation from years ago when her – what had Carter called them…shortcomings were revealed – when Perry with more emotion than in his impassioned final arguments declared he could live without making love to her, but couldn't possibly live without her.
"I couldn't lose you, Della. If it happened once, no matter how careful we were, no matter that the doctors said it would be impossible, it could have happened again, and I knew you…we…would have done everything we could to…I couldn't lose you. I had to protect you."
Perry had accused Della's father of being prurient and callous years ago, but when faced with the exact situation Jamison Street faced, his initial reaction had been the same as the older man's.
It frightened and sickened him to think about it.
That's why he had done what he had done: to presciently spare himself from having to face a decision he could never make. To protect himself.
"I should be very, very angry with you, Perry." She sighed deeply, her trembling easing. "Trust me, I'm trying to be…but all I feel is…sad."
Perry felt something pass between them at that moment, whether it was acceptance, encouragement, permission, or whatever, for the first time in nearly twenty years they were talking about the fact they had conceived a child. He knew Della felt it as well, because she pushed herself away from him so that they were nose-to-nose. It was all right. The world wouldn't end if they talked about the baby they thought could never be but nearly had been. And it would be a whole new world if they talked about other things as well.
"Everyone around us was married and having children – even Paul for heaven's sake – and I couldn't give you children, let alone marry you," she continued after several seconds of holding his gaze silently. "Then I was pregnant when I shouldn't have been...and you would have a wife and a family, just like you wanted. Just like all your friends had."
"But Della, I didn't want what my friends had. I wanted you and what we had." He had always joked about what he called his damned conservative disposition, those rights and wrongs dictated by his parents and his older brother, the ingrained morals he strove to reconcile with the man he truly was. He probably wouldn't have been an ideal husband and father because he had never envisioned himself as such, which Della recognized, accepted, and loved him despite of it, while he refused to.
"Oh, Perry." It came out as a sigh, floating in the tiny space between them. Too late it was becoming crystal clear to her.
Perry took her face between his hands once more. Della grasped his wrists and leaned her forehead against his while he spoke tenderly. "When did we stop talking to one another, Della? How did we allow so many secrets to take over our lives? What the hell happened?"
"It was my fault." She paused to gather her strength. "When I was sick…when...it happened…you were so worried and – and I thought if we didn't talk about it, it couldn't hurt us. Then it became easier not to talk about a lot of things that hurt."
"It hurts whether we talk about it or not, and it will hurt forever, darling. I was scared out of my mind."
"So was I. You were scared, but you were happy too – happy that I was finally going to marry you, happy that you were going to have a family... And then when...when there was no baby...you were so sad..."
"Of course I was sad. I mourned for our baby, Della. I still do." He pulled away to look at her better, to see the emotions in her big, beautiful eyes more clearly. "I never thought much about being a father, Della. I would have done it, and tried to be good at it...for you, if that's what you wanted. I was happy because you were happy."
"And we're right back where we started."
He tugged at a curl near her temple, gently sliding it behind her ear. "You have always made me happy, my love."
"Did I make you happy when...after...when I wouldn't go through with marrying you?"
Perry was quiet for a few seconds. "No. It didn't make you happy, either."
It hadn't made her happy. But being grief-stricken over a miscarriage was no reason to get married – especially when all the same reasons they hadn't gotten married before the miscarriage still existed. Each anniversary would only be a painful reminder of what had happened and she didn't want a marker for that pain. "Do you remember a long time ago when you coached me on the fine art of blurting?"
Perry chuckled softly. "You kept warning me when you were about to say something earth-shattering."
"Do you remember what my first official blurt was?"
"That you were afraid you weren't enough for me," he responded instantly. There was no need to search his memory for that one. It had haunted him from the moment she blurted it. "Oh, Della..."
"Was I still enough for you then?"
"You were always so much more than I deserved."
"Then imagine for a moment how I must have felt when Laura Parrish dropped all those hints that Kaitlynn was your daughter. You were my entire world, and I thought I was yours...you said so. You even gave me the world to wear on my charm bracelet."
"Della –"
"Let me finish. I also thought the mess after Washington DC was buried in the past…only to find out fifteen years later that the wife of your good friend Max Parrish was the woman you'd slept with, that you had a daughter with her and had kept it all hidden from me. I was so angry with you. I still am." She scowled at him to show how serious she was.
"Then why for the love of Mike didn't you confront me about what Laura said? Why did you hold it all in? We could have cleared the whole thing up and I never would have –"
"Because I was angry at you for staying with me when you should have been with Laura all those years, raising your daughter," Della interrupted. "We weren't really together, with you in San Francisco and me in Los Angeles...as a judge you didn't need me anymore, so I stepped out of the picture. I wasn't going to be an obligation any longer."
If she had punched him between the eyes he couldn't have been more flabbergasted. An obligation? "I didn't need you anymore? Della, if anything, I needed you more than I ever had, and I would never have left you for Laura. I told you that fifteen years ago, and I meant it. I only let you leave three years ago because you said you wanted to be with Hummel. I never for one moment considered our separation had anything to do with Laura Parrish. I just wanted you to be happy and if being with Hummel made you happy, then...then… "
"Everything for me," she said in that floating whisper again.
"Always for you."
"Pardon the melodrama, but was it really for me you decided to bring Max and Laura out of the shadows? Both of us had friends we didn't share with one another, and that was perfectly fine, considering we needed to go to separate corners sometimes. What made you think it was a good idea to let yet another woman you'd slept with into our life?"
Almost without realizing it, Perry's lips touched Della's briefly. "I'm so sorry, baby. Max went into partnership on the talent agency in LA and asked for legal advice. I referred him to Jim Brandis, and when he suggested we get together, I couldn't very well say no. That's when I found out he and Laura were still battling, and she was threatening to stay in Virginia without him. Darling, Kaitlynn isn't my daughter, but I'm very fond of her. I've been Uncle Perry to a little girl and I like it. Laura had been behaving herself for years…I thought it would be okay to finally talk about them to you."
"Sometimes I don't know whether to be honored or offended that you loved me," Della said in exasperation. "The other women you've been involved with are so similar that I've often wondered what attracted you to me in the first place, because I sincerely hope I'm nothing like any of them. You are so perceptive of human behavior Perry Mason – except when it comes to personal interactions with women."
"Della, I didn't mean to offend you by saying Laura reminded me of – "
"Perry, you don't see it do you? You don't see that every single woman you've paraded in front of me for thirty years has absolutely no idea who you are? They all formed an idea of who you are, because you are so very attractive in every possible way. They wanted the idea, the idealized Perry Mason, and took advantage of you – of the one thing they were all able to recognize in you. And you enabled them along the way, because no matter how hard-boiled you want people to think you are, you are vulnerable and trusting when you like someone. You allowed those women chance after chance to redeem themselves in the face of your attraction to them, refusing to give up on your idea of who they are. And when they disappoint you, instead of confronting them about it, you look the other way and hope their behavior will change. You would never do that with a client." Well, except for one client…but that was another discussion for another time.
She was right, of course. He had allowed that 'parade' of women too much latitude in his personal dealings with them, which had disappointed Della, the one woman who had never disappointed him. "Then why on earth did you think I would be better off with Laura Parrish?"
"Because there was a child involved, Perry! You have an established precedent – you married Maryann Baynum because she was pregnant. I thought you would – should – marry the mother of your child, just as your mother would have wanted. So when Laura said she had filed for divorce…it was the last thing in the world I wanted, but I had to let you go so you could be with your daughter…but I couldn't talk about it..."
Perry made an anguished noise, a cross between a moan and a sigh. Laura may have behaved herself for several years, but the damage she had caused in a phone call that evening three years ago boggled the mind. Telephones certainly seemed to bring out the worst in people. "Oh Lord, Della. Max wanted out of the marriage, which put Laura in a panic because she's needy and can't be alone. Max told her you and I were separated, so she flew to San Francisco and was sitting on my doorstep, still claiming that Kaitlynn was mine and that she was finally going to tell Max. I told her there was nothing between us, definitely not Kaitlynn, and sent her back to her family. I've kept in touch with Kaitlynn but I haven't spoken with Laura in over two years."
"I was so angry with you," Della repeated, her voice now just above a whisper, trying to digest everything he was telling her. "I gave up what we had so you could be a father to your daughter, and what did you do? You got involved with Robin Calhoun! The only positive I saw in that was the fact she had grandchildren and you would have a family of sorts."
"Well, since you were my family and I didn't know what you'd done or why, what did you expect me to do? I was lonely for you and blamed myself for everything that happened by promising Harvey I'd sit out his term. I really thought it was the distance I'd put between us that was the last straw for you, why you turned to Hummel, and I couldn't stand in your way if you weren't happy. As for Robin...I'm human. I need human contact."
She slid her hands along his arms until they rested on his shoulders, aching with her own loneliness, her own need for human contact. The clarity with which she now saw things was stunning: together they were happy and apart they were unhappy. It really wasn't complicated at all. Son-of-a-biscuit, Perry had been right all these years. "If I hadn't insisted on the bartender writing down those preposterous rules and told you I never slept with Bryce Hummel, and in fact hadn't seen him in several weeks, what would have happened that night?"
This time he was completely aware that his lips touched hers; rejoicing in the thrill of kissing her, and when she made a low purr deep in her throat, he knew that the love they shared wasn't behind them. It was in front of them, beckoning, waiting for them to resuscitate it, to embrace it, to live it. He ended the kiss to smile crookedly at her. "You know, I've gotten better at math over the years. All of the other women in my life don't add up to one of you, Della Street."
Most women would have slapped him for saying such a thing, but Della couldn't imagine a more perfect response from a most imperfect man to an equally imperfect woman. A tender smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. Perfect numbers, like perfect men, are very rare*.
Perry leaned forward, reached out his arm, and swept every single designer accent pillow to the floor before gently lowering her to the frightfully expensive down pillows he preferred to sleep on.
Della's fingers slid through his thick, wavy, salt-and-pepper hair, as his lips found the pulse point at the hollow of her collarbone, and smiled against blushed skin when her heartbeat quickened. "What are you doing?" She knew with euphoric exhilaration exactly what he was doing, but needed him to tell her to make it real.
"I'm preparing a demonstration as to what would have happened that night given the intriguing scenario thusly outlined."
"It's about damn time," she said in a whisper enveloped by desire, surrendering to everything she had always loved about him, would forever love about him, walls lying in ruins at her feet. "Proceed with the demonstration, Mr. Mason."
Her robe was impatiently pushed aside and his hands, warm and gentle and sure of their course, caused exquisite shivers to emanate from deep within her soul outward. His tongue laved tender skin, heating it, then cooling it by gently blowing along the same path, and she cried out at the indescribable pleasure. Perry's arms surrounded her, lifted her from the mattress to press her heart against his heart.
"I love you, Della. I have always loved you and I will never stop loving you."
Della's arms circled his neck and brought his mouth down to hers in a kiss they were certain to talk about the rest of their lives.
*Rene Descartes