38
The floor creeks after midnight; she puts her glasses on, removes the comforter from over her body and follows the noise. The light from the refrigerator illuminates the shiny wooden floor, her feet follow one after the other until she's standing in the doorway of their kitchen, watching her son sip milk directly from the carton; she shakes her head and exhales.
His shoulders tense, he stops abruptly and turns slowly to see the breather. His body relaxes, "oh its just you," he says and closes the lip of the carton.
She shifts her weight off the doorway, "hey give me that." He elongates his arm with the carton, and wipes his mouth.
"Why are you up?," she asks him, taking a swig of the milk before placing it back in the refrigerator. She turns on the hood light over the stove and takes a seat in their kitchen.
"Cant sleep."
"Something on your mind?"
He nods," dance" and leans against the back of another chair.
"Did you ask her yet?"
He wrinkles his eyebrows and nods.
She raises her eyebrows, and moves her hands around motioning for him to get on with it. "She said yes."
"I don't know why you had any doubt," she says matter of factly. "So what's the problem?"
His arms hang down the length of the chair, "I don't know how to dance."
"Yeah you do," she says giving him a look not understanding why he lacks such confidence.
"Yeah like this," he jumps from side to side with his arms in the air.
She starts laughing.
He laughs once as well, "but seriously, I don't know how to like, dance dance."
She runs a hand through her hair and sighs, "I'm not a great dancer either kid, it's just a lot of swaying."
He rambles, "yeah but you know enough, I'm gonna like step on her toes," his voice raises with worry, "like how do I know which way she's going to go?"
"Shh-I'll show you what I know okay?"
"Now?," he stands up straight ready to go.
"Uh no." She taps her index finger to her wrist, implying its late, "some of us need sleep so we don't look like the next admission to the geriatric unit."
"What?"
"I need my sleep kid."
A few evenings later Piper scrolls through their music library on their laptop and settles on a Rodgers and Hammerstein classic. Piper starts with proper etiquette, and arrganges their arms into a formal ballroom hold.
Alex almost immediately stands up next to her, "he cant hold her like that!" Jamie breaks away from Piper, judging her.
"Its a classic ballroom hold," her arms come away from her body, not understanding what the problem is.
"Exactly, debutante, it should be reserved for a ballroom," she turns to Jamie, "not the floor of a school gym."
The blonde's arms come to her sides defeated, she mutters, "was just trying to show him the "right" way to hold a lady."
Alex laughs, "when have you ever danced like this?," implying as proper as it may be, that their son will look like a freak if his elbow is pointed in the air.
Piper laughs, "never," she responds to the amount of experience she had actually implementing the forced ballroom lessons.
"Do I love you because you're beautiful, or are you beautiful because I love you?," Alex sings along with Piper's song in her best classical snob voice.
Alex leans over the computer and hits, UB40's "Cant Help Falling In Love."
She sets him in front of Piper, pulls his arm over Piper's shoulder and closes his hand around the back of her neck. She fixes his other hand on Piper's hip.
She takes a step back and looks at his hold, "good, now put some weight behind this hand," she says pointing to the rigid hand at Piper's waist, "and step in the direction you want to go." He pushes Piper with a little too much force, causing her to take an awkward step out to catch her balance.
"Ok no, no, no," she says physically removing him from her wife. "Ok first relax your arms more, here," she pulls his arms wide apart, "just shake it out."
He starts spastically wiggling his arms, "more, like spaghetti, wet noodle." She starts laughing at his flailing limbs, "or you know you could just do this the whole night."
He stops abruptly.
"Ok try again, just let your arms sink a little, and you're guiding her, not shoving her."
They step back and forth some, "good J," Piper tells him. "Try not to bob your head," Piper tells him. His neck stiffens, "no, don't be a board, just let it go with the direction of your body," he gets the rhythm down and follows her. "Better."
She breaks away some and picks up her pace a little.
"This song is kind of fast though, what if the beat is slower?"
"Then you just slow it down," she demonstrates changing her rhythm. He nods okay. "And you don't have to go from side to side, you can come forward, go back, go in circles, whatever you want. But if you're going to change direction, guide her." He looks at her slightly nervous having just mastered his step and touch.
"Watch," she says and beckons Alex to take his place. Alex pulls her in close and pushes her slightly away spinning her; they come back to hold, the brunette repositions her hands, just like she showed him, they sway back and forth.
"You make it look so easy though."
"You just gotta have fun with it," Alex tells him, "worst case scenario? You smack your head into hers and knock her out right?"
He smirks and rolls his eyes. He swaps places with Piper and gets moved around by Alex for a few counts before trying to re-take the lead. Piper looks at him dancing, and smiles, he doesn't look half bad.
"Okay?," Alex confirms fanning her face as the song fades out.
The opening beat of "Down with the Sickness," starts as the brunette pulls her hair back into a ponytail and grabs a bottle of water from the fridge.
She returns with a mouthful of water, her arm in the air, marching. She holds back the water in her cheeks as her son is bouncing back and forth like he'd done the other night, "oh wa-ah-ah- ah," they both screech.
"Godddddd," Piper sighs and the two bounce simultaneously.
A few evenings later, he's on the verge of running late for his first dance. The main bathroom door is closed, Piper stands outside the door as she continues her knocking, she swears she can hear him pep talking himself over the running faucet. Alex meets her in the hallway and gestures, "what is he doing?"
"No idea, he has like 12 hairs," she gestures around her head, the wrapping around the flower she picked out for him crinkles in her grasp.
He opens the door annoyed and turns off the light. He steps out and sees both of them waiting in the hall, "what?" he asks clearly tense and nervous.
"Are you ready?," Alex asks taking a look at his hair and goes to poke a piece of his gelled coif. He puts his hands into his back pockets and leans back against the wall and says nothing.
Alex places her hands on his shoulders, "kid, you're gonna be fine, just be yourself."
He nods, his head looks down and he sees the flower in Piper's hand. "I'm not bringing her a flower!"
"Why not?!"
"No one else is going to do that."
"Well good, don't be like everyone else," Piper almost shouts at him.
He looks at Alex for some backup, but she shakes her head and takes the flower from Piper. "I'm with her," she unwraps the paper from around the rose colored ranunculus that her wife chose for him to give to Lauren, "just lose the paper." She hands him the flower and he furrows his eyebrows.
"Hey, just be you. You," Alex points a finger into his chest, "are cool."
He glares at the brunette, "what is she supposed to do with it? Hold onto it the whole night?"
Alex shrugs her shoulders, "or when you go to pick her up, she can bring it back upstairs if she doesn't want to bring it with her."
"She'll like it baby, it matches her dress."
He nods, "wait how you know she's wearing a dress?"
"She narrowed down her closet with one of her friends, but asked for help deciding between the last two."
He holds the flower carefully, his thoughts now consumed with Lauren in her rose colored dress, and heads toward their door. "C'mon we're gonna be late," he calls out now in a rush.
His moms exchange glances as if they haven't been waiting for him for the last 60 minutes. She hears him flip out as she assumes Piper just tried to touch his hair as she shuts and locks the door.
"And port-de-bras," the dance teacher's voice echos through the plexiglass window. Nicky watches Harper's arms come away from her body while she stands near the barre. Her teacher adjusts her arms, lowering her elbows slightly, turning in her fingers. She moves onto the next student. Harper turns to look for Nicky and flashes her a thumbs up, before refocusing her attention to keep her eyes straight in front of her.
"Hey," Alex opens the door to the viewing area and sits among the sweaty shoes and nylons strewn about the room, "Nick thanks so much for taking her, meeting ran longer than expected."
"Not a problem babe," she says pointing up at Harper. She doesn't notice her mother as she's focusing on spotting the wall across the room as she practices her turns. "She's pretty good. Got changed quick, started stretching on her own, tied her hair back into a bun."
"Never thought I'd have a kid, that liked ballet."
They watch her for a bit, "so what's new? How'd the dance go?," her eyes widened and turned into toward the brunette.
"Great, they had an 'awesome' time," she says imitating her son slightly but looking a bit flat.
"Y'alright?," Nicky asks her.
"I don't know," she shrugs it off. "We're fine at home, more than fine... I can just feel this underlying disappointment in his voice because I won't answer all of his questions."
Nicky bit her lip and nodded.
"Like as though I don't trust him enough to be completely open with him, you know?"
The wild haired woman shakes her head, "it's not that easy, don't be so hard on yourself."
"It's like everyday he does something that screams 'I've reached maturity' and I think he'll be able to handle it. But in the same day he'll say something so completely naïve and I realize he's not ready."
Nicky straightens her back. "You have a great relationship with him," she tries to remind her.
"Yeah," her tongue traces her bottom teeth, "and I'm terrified of fucking that up. I don't want him to think of me as a criminal."
She takes a breath, "Al, remember that night Harper asked me about the scar?" The brunette nods, knowing what her friend is implying.
"I get it, I don't want those kids looking at me as this pathetic human being who couldn't resist the power of a substance. I like that they see me as this loyal, reliable person in their lives that makes them smile. I don't want to lose that either."
The brunette looks at the fear in her friends face, I don't. "But you can't let your past shame you," she parroted the mantra the brunette preached to her that summer night two years ago. "You want them to grow up knowing that people make mistakes, right? Have faith that they'll be able to see how you grew from that mistake."
"Yeah but that wasn't a mistake, it wasn't an accident. I knowingly did things that I knew were wrong. Consequence didn't exist, it wasn't a factor until it got out of control," she runs both of her guilty hands through her hair and chokes out, "and I dragged Piper along."
"Yeah you did, but that's not who you are anymore. Even if that need for the power and rush is still there, like the smack is for me, you don't use it for that fucked up shit anymore."
The brunettes head leans up against the wall behind her.
"You have to look at that experience and trust that it helped you be a better person for it."
"I'm tired of holding back, tired of the look he gives me, wanting to shake the words from the back of my throat." Nicky holds her hand, she strokes her thumb over the brunette's wrist. "I just can't, Nicky. I'm so scared."
"He has a connection with you, he looks up to you, relates to you- for a reason. You need to believe that all of those things will trump anything you tell him about your past. No shame."
She bites her lip hard, so deeply, she can start to taste the metallic zing from the pierced skin, "alright. I'm gonna do it."
At home, Piper comes through their front door and hangs her sweater on the coat rack.
"J?," she shouts out as she removes her shoes and walks closer to his room, "Jamie, are you home?," she says as she steps into his room. "Hey!"
He looks up at her, out of it. Piper concernedly approaches him on his floor, "are you okay?"
He shakes his head no, and swivels his biology text book so she can read, "DNA and Cell Biology." She looks at him for him to say what's on his mind, but he stays silent. "Do you not understand something? I wasn't great at biology, but I can skim through here and try to help."
"We went over the biology behind conception, the egg and the sperm and I'm like okay great I know this stuff. But then we started talking about chromosomes, and genetic make up...," his voice trails as distress washes over his face.
The blonde's forehead wrinkles, she places a hand on his leg, "yeah?"
His breath is heard, rapidly but steadily escaping past his lips, "I know you told me a while ago, but it never really clicked that I don't have," his breath catches, "any of mom's."
She stops breathing, her mind runs rampant, and yet she's speechless. She's torn between the sadness on her son's innocent face, and frustrated by his confusion. Her lungs re-fill, "baby I thought you understood, I'm sorry."
"I just thought I was a Vause-man," his voice squeaks, then re-deepend, "man-of-Vause," he forces a laugh and roughly brushes the wetness from his cheeks. "I just thought I somehow came from her too. I never thought past it."
"You're hers though baby, through and through. You know that right?"
"Am I completely stupid for not thinking about this til now?"
"No, you know it really is a difficult thing to get your head around, to really understand what it means." She breathes, "I'm sorry you're hurting."
He looks up to acknowledge her words.
She gauges his maturity and takes a chance, "it's really painful, when you love someone so much and want to make a family with them, but can't do that the way another couple can. You were still made through an act of love, it's just a different kind of love." She nods her head at her own words, "what your mom and I have, is a different kind of love."
He looks at her briefly but averts his gaze, hanging his head. She unlocks her phone and scrolls through hundreds of photos until she finds one from right after they were newly married.
She sets the phone down within his sightlines, "a different kind of love."
He looks at the picture of Alex's arm around Piper's shoulder, her tongue is pressed against Piper's cheek. Piper looks revolted. He laughs and nods, "a different kind of love." He exhales, "it's just feels normal."
"It is normal." He looks settled for a moment, when once again his eyebrows furrow in distress. "Talk to me sweet pea."
"I have your eyes...," he pauses. She watches him think, always so serious when thinking like this. He raises his hand as if asking for a moment and returns with a stack of photo albums from their living room book shelf. He sets them on the floor of his bedroom and drags his backpack over. He cracks his binder open and flips to his science section opening to the day's notes. He sets different albums around himself in a circle, while she gets up and out of the way; she sits on his bed and watches his process. Alex. He says nothing, just sorts through the pages pulling random photos, dragging his finger across the text. Piper worriedly looks on waiting for him to blow up, but he doesn't. His tense shoulders settle as he holds select photos like playing cards splayed in his hands. "I just... I'm her... she's my ma. We like the same food, authors, music, I think like her," his frustration is clear in his tone.
Piper continues with their similarities, "and you love fiercely, you move your mouth the same way, you have her fire in you and you say what's on your mind."
He nods.
"She's your mother," he blinks his tears, "since before you were a speck she was your mother."
"I just feel like hers."
"You are baby. She rubbed you and read to you before you were born. Made sure I took my vitamins and got good rest, she went with me for long walks to help you grow healthy. She wrapped you up tight, made sure you were breathing every twenty minutes while you slept. Changed all your diapers. Sang to you, off pitch, but sang." She removes the "flour-baby" photo from the album and he looks at the smile that breaks across her face while she laughs. She studies it for a minute and replaces it in the plastic sleeve. She keeps her finger on it while she talks to him, "she wanted to make sure she wrapped it right before she put you in."
He pulls another one with the same carrier, a younger version of Alex, with him tucked securely in the wrap. Her hands are on her hips, her smile is wide, like she wore him pride. "She kept you snug against her chest in the madness of the city because she didn't want you miss anything if you were lying down in a carriage." He leans the photo on his nightstand against the copy of The Scarlett Letter she'd given him. Piper pulls him near her, she holds his face against her shoulder and presses her lips firmly against his head. "She kisses you til you break out into giggles, even sometimes cooks for you, kicks your ass til she knows she's got your best outta you. " He nods silently. "She cried while you sat in time out having to listen to you wail and feared you'd resent her. She's-your-mom."
"She is my ma," he laughs. "It just doesn't make sense, how I could be so much like her but we don't share any genes."
"Have you gone through Darwin's or Harlow's or Plato's views, about nature versus nurture?"
Silence.
"The Tempest?," she tries to simplify once the names she spoke registered a bank stare across her son's face.
"No," he tells her.
She says he will and offers a brief synopsis, as only this mother can do. Except it's not brief at all, its thick with details, and has a tone of bias to the beliefs that align with her own.
"So people end up the way they're raised?"
"Yes. The physical parts are in your genes, and there are some medical implications regarding your DNA, but the personality, the way you behave, think, react? It's all learned from your environment and the way you were raised."
"So if someone else was my mother I would be totally different?"
"Yes."
He thinks for a long while and says out loud what Piper tells herself every time they've had important decisions to make, "I wouldn't want anyone else."
"Me neither."
A little while later, Harper and Alex come home from dance school.
"Hey squeaky," Harper teases.
"Towhead," he says messing up her bun.
She comes up on her toes, "giant!"
"Shrimp."
Piper calls in the background, "everyday you guys? You'd think you come up with better ones."
Harper runs off to change out of her dance clothes. Alex removes her coat and hangs it up, Jamie, who's eyes are just shy of her own, looks into her eyes, momentarily, before giving her the tightest hug. He pulls away slightly.
"What's that for?," she acts shocked at the normally demanded affection, "not that I'm complaining." He hangs on for a second longer, her eyes dance all over his face, before he pulls away to wash up for dinner. She throws Piper a weird glance as the blonde makes her way over to her, "I need to talk to you," she says heavily.
The pit in her stomach feels like lead.
"He asked me about DNA Al, his."
Her mouth dips down to the side some, "okay."
"He just really got that you don't share any."
"Fuck, really? He seems okay though."
"He was really upset, he thinks the world of you." Alex nods. "He just kept saying you're his ma, like with this disbelief." The brunette swallows, pushing the leaded pit lower, as the monotonous fog of Piper's voice swirls around her. She watches the blonde's mouth move, catching words like "predisposition" and "phenotype;" she feels Piper's hand touch her face bringing her back to reality. "But he gets that the things you're taught, how you're brought up, modeled behavior, is what really makes you who you are. So he's okay."
The confidence she'd managed to build on the walk home, slowly settled as low as it could possibly go. She places the heel of her hand against her stomach and presses inward. I can't tell him now.