Have your friends collect your records
Gladys comes to your last show in Toronto. It's nowhere near as awkward as it was with Betty; you're comfortable around Gladys in a way that you're not comfortable with anyone any more but there's still a slight awkwardness on your part. You used to admire her so much; her jet-black, meticulously coiffed hair, her gloves, her stockings, her jewelry. Now you admire her for so much more; her strength of character, for enduring the isolation she so obviously faces as an unwed mother living with another woman. You would have expected that being cut off from her fortune would have changed her but she's still as graceful as ever, even with a child trailing behind her.
You invite them both into your dressing room. Kitty is shy of you now and half-hides behind her mother until you entice her out with a chocolate from a box that an admirer left for you. She takes it with delight and absent-mindedly slips her hand into yours as she sucks on the unexpected treat, looking wide-eyed around the room. You offer one to Gladys too, who also accepts. You cast an auditing eye over the gifts in the room, wondering which of them it'll be best to send home with Gladys rather than carrying all that extra baggage over state lines.
"You look weird," Gladys says suddenly, breaking the silence. You turn to the mirror and laugh, grab a damp cloth and wipe your face.
"Better?" you ask. She nods and Kitty hands her empty wrapper to you, and you in turn drop it into the wastepaper basket.
"I'm so proud of you," Gladys eventually says. "I never thought..."
"Neither did I," you tell her, because you never thought you could live a life without Betty and here you are, without her, talking to her partner.
"You left Betty quite heartbroken, you know," Gladys says conversationally, and this is why you didn't want to tour Ontario. You didn't want to be reminded of your own cruelty, of all the horrible things you had done. All that you couldn't leave behind but did anyway. You think Gladys is going to chastise you, or gloat, but she looks at your softly. "Me too," she says finally, and steps forward to embrace you. She's warm and still smells like that perfume she used to wear during the war; you can't recall the name of it right now, but it reminds you of Hazel, and James, of purple hands and locker-rooms and feeling safe.
When you exhale, you can finally feel the tension being lifted off you. She holds you longer than would probably be proper but the door is shut fast from prying eyes and you hadn't seen (before this week, at least) her for longer than her child had been alive. You wait until she pulls away, content to simply rest there a moment in peaceful understanding.
When she pulls away, her eyes are damp.
"I missed you, Kate," she says.
"Missed you too," you tell her quickly, because her tears appear to be contagious.
"Then why did you leave?" She asks, swinging your joined hands between you.
"I was becoming someone I wasn't sure I wanted to be. I was too reliant on other people, I had to go somewhere I could find out who I was." Gladys nods sagely.
"And did you like what you found?" You hesitate, because there's two answers to this question.
"I don't like that I hurt people to get where I am. I like what I do, mostly. It's very lonely." You look to where Gladys' hand still rests in yours, It's cold comfort, knowing she'l be going home to Betty pretty soon, slipping into bed beside a sleeping body that will half-wake at her weight on the bed, roll over to hold her, even in sleep.
"She has all your records," Gladys says, and you smile uncertainly, shaken from your train of thought. You almost wish the night was over so you can finally leave this city and all its memories behind you, along with the constant confrontation of Gladys and Bettys' relationship. But it'll be years before you see them again, and Kitty will never be the age she is right now, peering at herself in the mirror on tip-toes. The next time you see her, she'll be too big to pull into your lap when you sit at your dresser, too old to giggle at roses patting her nose. Gladys slips onto the seat beside you. "She read your letters too. She understands, I think."
"I never meant..." you starts, but Gladys nods.
"She knows you didn't set out to hurt her, but you did, Kate. I spent so much time doing damage control. People crying over Vera, over Ivan, over you."
"She cried over me?" You ask, a little awed. Betty's tough; you've only seen her cry a handful of times. Nazi's don't make Betty cry, but you do. "She must hate me," you say, jogging Kitty on your knee, taking a powder-puff from her hand and putting it back in the powder.
"She could never hate you," Gladys says dismissively. "You should know that by now." You pass Kitty to Gladys as you stand, who takes her with surprising ease, as though Betty and her passing the child between them is so common that it requires little processing. Of all the things to make you sad tonight, this is the worst. You can't even quantify why, so you turn away and start packing candy into bags so Gladys can take them home with her. When you hand her a bag, she tuts at you.
"I'm spoiled enough already," you tell her. "Besides, I'd only have to leave them at the hotel, day after tomorrow." You carefully slip some roses into the bag too. Kitty seems taken with the deep red blooms.
"Which hotel?" Gladys asks, and you tell her. "Good room service," is all she says.
You lead her to the door; it's quite late. You're sure it must be past Kitty's bedtime. Gladys hugs you with one arm, and one of Kitty's arms completes the embrace. She's used to this, being held between two adult bodies, and before this week you'd had so few hugs that even this one threatens to break down what's left of your defenses.
"I'll write," you yell down the hallway after them. Gladys half-turns, weighed down by child and bags.
"So will I," she says, and you know this time your letters will be answered, instead of wondering if your letters dissolved into the ether the moment you pushed them into the mailbox.
Author's note: Be kind, I wrote this in a meeting/on a train. Surfacing still on hiatus for reasons.