CHAPTER SIXTEEN

AT EASE, SOLDIER

I'm just saying, there's a slice of moon in both our skies. It's a white smile on its side, a nail clipping, a calcium slight. I'm describing it in case your eyes are closed, or you're elsewhere, engaged, distracted, indisposed. In case you're sitting on something, or someone.

In case you've forgotten.

In case you think you've got away.

In case she reminds you of home.

In case you're ironing your clothes to go places you would never go with me.

" — Lisa Matthews, from "Postcard from the Moon"

The cutlery clatters shrilly as I carry the plates to the sink. Forks and knives clatter to the floor. Breathlessly, I bend to pick them up, only to have them drop out of my trembling hands.

"Breathe, Luce. Breathe," I mutter to myself. But how can I? How can I ever be –

I try to sift my mind to the good parts, but it's no use, my mind circling back to the very fact that it's over. There's no way back from here. The fork rackets into the sink. I turn the faucet on with a rough jut of my hand. The water sprays onto my stomach, seeping through my shirt. Impatiently, I spread a towel across the sink to stop the water from running down the table front. I feel the shallowness of my breath as the moment passes slowly, just for a second before speeding up again.

The chair skirts sideways as I fall into it. Touching a hand to my lips, I will my hands to stop trembling. The table is cold against my sweaty hands. I try to focus. Focus on my breathing. On what I know. And what I don't.

"Breathe, Lucy."

My voice is a high-pitched breath in the quiet room.

Five years ago, Lucy 20 years old

It's stifling hot in the hallway where I stand clutching my weathered suitcase. I stare at my feet as the train rockets and shrieks, slowing on its way to the platform, my hand gripped tightly to the railing on my right. Here, on the evening train to London, Mumbai seems very far away. I stare at the silent trench coats and leather bags that jointly sway to the same tune as I, until my uncertainty becomes unbearable, and I resort to stare at my sandaled feet once again.

It's a quiet summer night in July, the sky is a clear midnight blue as the pale faces and bright eyes reflect the flicker of streetlights. And suddenly I miss Scorpius's snigger beside me, the harsh smell of curry and dust and our laughter in the crisp night air. The train rickets onwards and the stale smell of London and chips fan over me. Industrial buildings become red apartment houses until the train station towers in front of us, a lighthouse in this concrete city.

I wrote a letter. Red ribboned and short. I'm coming home seemed insufficient but true, my sorry too large and unforgiving to jot down on paper. So, it remained to those three words. For days, the letter lay on my bedside table, taunting, enticing. I'd sit bent over it, pen poised, feeling the itch to scribble everything and nothing. But the courage never came, and so I sent it one humid morning before my head caught up with my hands.

I didn't expect it to be this hard. I didn't think the thoughts of Ted would fester and burn as they do. The irrational itch for things to return to some sort of normal. How the excitement and nerves scorch my stomach as I scout towards the platform in the dark. Hoping, wishing -

The train enters the platform, slowing with a low rumble that echoes into my hands. Impatiently, I press towards the doors. In the doorway, the wind whips my hair and shoulders back as if to say at ease, soldier.

But I am no soldier, no woman, no warrior. I am simply a girl. Looking for her lover.

I half-fall, half-jump onto the platform, my knees nearly giving out from my tremors. The smell of fuel and grit welcomes me home and I turn around, flying on the spot, looking, searching –

Yet the platform remains empty.

I ride my old bike to Clem's. The tires are flat, and I cycle breathlessly, jolted up and down by the rocks in the dust-covered path, adrenaline pushing me onwards.

The sun shines treacherously on me, warming my skin. And I remember summer days when I'd cycle everywhere, my skirt flaying around my thighs, sandaled toes, and brown arms. But reality is merciless as my skirt snags and tears at my white thighs, my panting coming in grating drums.

When I see her, it feels as if everything has tilted on its head. The familiarity of her is bitter in my mouth as I try to insist on sanity, my mind clamoring at facts.

Clem's hair curls at her neck, as she works, bent down on her knees in the gravel. I place the bike against the withering picket fence, and she brings a hand up to her forehead to push away the curls to meet my eyes, leaving a black smear of dirt.

"Lucy," her eyes sparkle.

I sink into the grass next to her, my legs shaking. There are words here that I could conjure. Help me. I'm lost. But the words end up in the corner of my mouth, silent. She continues weeding out the strawberry field with me by her side. I slip off my sandals and press my toes into the tall, cool grass. A bee buzzes noisily against my ear and I wave it off.

Sometimes love doesn't have to be loud. Instead, it's the quiet hum of bees and the rhythmic melody of garden gloves and metal against dirt. I exhale, struggling to keep to the garden, to Clem's quiet form and not to return to our old apartment, last night, or the taste of Ted.

"Have you seen Ted?" I try to sound nonchalant, dropping back against the grass, full of awkward limbs and elbows.

"Like today?" I try to ease out the tremor to my voice - but really, really, I've never mastered indifference well, with cool faces and a fag loose in my mouth. I feel wet against my back, and I stare absentmindedly at a bruise forming on my forearm.

I can't remember if it was Ted who planted the strawberries with me, or if it was Clem. It's so long ago that it feels nothing more than a memory. The distance between then and now is all but a hollow hum.

Clem doesn't pause in her weeding, a vibrating confirmation. "Went to eat breakfast at Daisy's bar with Pippa and her parents."

The corners of my mouth tug. It's hard.

I get up on my elbows and knees. The ground scrapes roughly at my skin.

"Let me help you."

And then there's this. The humid smell of dirt, its insistent push against my long nails. The sturdiness of the sunflower. The burn in my lower back.

Five years ago, Lucy 20 years old, Ted 23 years old.

Ted is stealing glances at me. He's weighing the moments, trying to gauge what to say. My throat feels dry. I get up from the bed and start folding our clothes into the bags.

"You need to sleep," he says from the corner.

I don't look up. "So do you."

The tension in his shoulders rise, a sigh then.

"Lucy."

He signed the death certificate for the both of us. His hands had been steady, his expression intense. "Is that all?" he had asked the nurse. As if this too was an exam he needed to excel. I had wished that we could get past this point. Whatever it is, it feels too stagnant. Like two people tugging each other down.

"Ted," I ask back. In the corner of my eye, I see the nurse pause in the hall. Watching us, watching each other. Ted is leaning against the door, arms crossed at his chest.

Ted frowns. Down the hall, I can hear a baby calling, a mother's soothing voice. He touches my wrist.

Startled, I retract my arm.

"I think, I'm going to go for a walk," I manage half a smile.

"Did you trade-in your fancy job to become a gardener?"

Lily's bulging stomach blocks my view of her face, but she sounds like she's smiling. Heavily, she falls into the grass beside me. It almost looks comical, the hugeness of her belly, almost engulfing her entire body. The sight steals a smile from me, blossoming through my insistent frown.

"This is the most useful I've felt in months."

I push the shovel into the ground with a smile, feeling Lily's gaze on me.

"I call bull," she says, looking at me down her nose. "You hated Herbology."

"Things change," I shrug.

"They do not – and you do not. Nice manicure, by the way," she nods at my now-blackened manicure. "Not sure there's any way to save that one."

I glance at my manicure, half of which has already been scraped off by the dirt.

"You're hiding out."

She says it as a matter of fact. Like there's no escaping the truth. Lily squirms and struggles to lean on her elbow, staring into my eyes.

I fumble to save the conversation, which is brutal and difficult, but then Lily's hand makes it into mine. She squeezes my hand, and it's sort of earnest, this moment here. I struggle to find my voice, and I hear myself say "oh,", and even to me, it sounds like a confession.

"How long?"

It is a typical Lily Potter question: it's incredibly simple and impossible to escape. I remove my hand from hers, sense coming as the slow roar of aging.

"I don't think I ever stopped."

I knock the phrase around a bit, untangling the words I've just said. I try to avoid Lily's stare, but it's impossible. She watches. She sits there with her huge stomach, and she watches. Cradling her stomach and stroking its arch.

It's hard to think.

It's hard not to.

"It's not like I planned – " I begin, gritted teeth and defences ready. I can feel my heart thundering in my throat, the feeling of being misunderstood bitter in my mouth. I feel my self-control crumbling.

"You know that nonsense I spewed about loving life in London? Remember that, Lily? The truth is, when I chose to run and leave Ted, I chose wrong."

There are things that happen in pieces. One moment, I'm sitting, bathing in Lily's silent pity. The next I'm standing, announcing that I'll get on with the gardening.

Then I'm digging in the uncomfortable silence.

Then Lily's voice. Sharp. Stunned.

"My water just broke."

Five years ago, Lucy 20 years old, Ted 23 years old.

When Ted approaches me and his hand touches my arm, I hate myself. It's sad, pathetic, it's ungrateful the way I wish that baby belongs to someone else.

I try my hardest not to dwell on these things: the searching glances he offers me during lunch, the way the nurses linger and squeeze my arm. The all-around assumption that I am about to break, and it's fine, of course. It's fine, I have taken to reminding myself, attempting to talk myself down from whatever flare of emotion that threatens. It's fine.

"You've never let me apologize." Ted is standing in front of me, slightly awkward, his chin tilted up and his jaw set– he must have practiced this in his head. I watch him, watching me, gazing at us from the outside. Two lovers fighting to get back to some sense of home.

"It's… not your fault. It isn't anyone's fault –" I stop myself half a second too late. The words taste a little funny. I think about apparating, the blood and my voice that didn't even sound like my own voice. Mr. Goggles' mews and that darkness which still lingers in my bones. I hug my arms around myself, feeling cold.

"It's fine," I say quietly.

Ted slides his hands into his pockets. He watches me and I watch him. You never really stop knowing a person. He's like an unfinished novel, standing there by the bed, armed with love and hopelessness.

"Lucy."

My name surprises me.

Having no idea what to do with the room, him, and I, I get up.

"I'm going for a walk."

I'm out the door before he has a chance to say anything.

The whiteness of the hospital walls is bright against my eyes. I walk up and down the maternity ward. Billie Holiday is piped through the speakers and somehow, I always end up in front of the babies. Staring.

"Which one is yours?"

Her eyes are kind, and I cannot – I can't tell her the truth.

Instead, I point towards a dark-haired baby with a small blue hat.

"He's lovely."

"Thank you." I manage half a smile.

In a broom closet, stuffed between cleaning supplies and brooms, I hiccup and blink back tears. My fingers are clumsy as I attempt to straighten my hospital gown across the insistent bump. The pain is white-hot in my gut.

It never stops, that pain.

We sit side by side in silence. Auntie Ginny gnawing at her lips. Uncle Harry squeezing her knee every other minute. Nurses rush past us in a seemingly endless pattern of evening rush and patients.

I would have left ages ago had it not been for Auntie Ginny's insistent Stay. Maybe it's self-hatred, a moral code. Maybe it's the circumstances this time around. My incessant need for a silver lining. I feel like an intruder inside the maternity ward, listening in on hushed conversations, insistent pit-patters in a silent room.

Mum arrives, crossing the threshold to the waiting room.

"Oh goodie, you're here. I've been owling you for days."

"Mum-"

I grab her hand, amazed at the fact that she's here. We cross the door and slowly shut it behind us. The vending machine lights up in the room and I turn towards it, unsure of what to do next.

"How is she?" Mum whisper-yells, her voice insistent.

"Fine. It's going according to planned." I breathe, throwing coins into the vending machine like daggers.

It's quiet in here except for the sudden buzz of the machine churning out a bag of crisps.

The silence that passes is rummaged by the history of the past five years. Mum pauses with one hand pressed against the vending machine. I want to reach out my fingers and hold on to whatever I can. A woman far braver than me would say something. A woman far braver than me would tell her off.

I take two steps forward and stop. "I suppose it's good for me to see that good things can come out of hospitals."

Mum shifts uneasily. Opens her mouth. Then closes it.

I grab the bag of crisps from the vending machine, opening them swiftly. The sharp smell of salt and vinegar fills the air as. The taste is sharp on my tongue as we eye each other. In that instance, I braced for fury, but instead she just put a hand over mine.

"I've been walking the maternity ward again, staring at the babies. Suppose that makes me a bit of a creeper, huh?"

My fingers pause inside the bag of crisps, searching.

"I didn't make you lose that child," she whispers, watching the door to the waiting room.

She hates this.

"But you wished for it," I answer, not budging – not this time.

Her shoulders slump, a little, and her arms fall to her side. She struggles for several moments, her mouth opening and closing.

"Yes," she whispers, "And sometimes, I think that that's just as bad."

I turn towards her, still looking at her in a way that freezes her.

"Okay," I whisper.

"I told him not to go after you," her voice is less than a whisper. "When he came looking for you at our house, I told him to set you free – to let you become all that you could possibly become. Without him."

That's the thing about mum. She understands the importance of letting people go when they need to be gone. I hope she understands the importance of letting them back in, as well.

"I'm in love with him," I begin and can't seem to stop, "I'm still madly in love with Ted."

There's a motion to her throat as she swallows, hard, it can't be in surprise – she must have expected at least this.

"I thought I was going to be happy here. With it all. That I would have a family – because more than wanting to prove myself, that's all I've ever really wanted."

"Are you taking a dig at me?" Mum looks exhausted and afraid of something. Me?

"No. I'm just trying to be honest." Mum looks more curious than offended. My fingers dig into my thigh. "I think it's time I start deciding what happens in my life."

"I'm only trying to help," she says suddenly.

I nod and squeeze her hand. I left, I want to tell her. And it was my choice, too. But it's not that simple, a choice isn't just a choice, but infinitely filled with strings and complexity. One of them is standing right here, in front of me.

"I've missed you," I say. It feels a little rusty to say. Mum's smile is slow. Her hand steady.

Five years ago, Lucy 20 years old, Ted 23 years old.

"It's three o'clock in the morning."

Ted is sobbing into a bottle of Jack Daniels, crouched low in the corner of the hallway. I feel my exhaustion pushing against my eyes and I clutch the door tightly, my knuckles turning white.

"Thought it was time to put him to bed." Darren rubs the back of his neck. "So, I brought him here."

I nod silently, stepping closer from the door. I wrap my robe closer around me, shivering in the cool air. "Where've you been?"

"Out and about," he answers evasively. "Not really sure it was the best idea."

We're quiet then. His tone sounds a little too apologetic and I try to muster some sort of expression that adequately musters this. I'm too angry for thanks and what happened this time is too hard, acknowledging the pattern of the current situation. We've been avoiding each other for a week, working away from home. When did this become my life is too close to the surface and I bite my tongue forcefully, tasting blood.

"Suppose it's been a while coming," my ears feel a little fuzzy.

"Sorry," Darren says quietly. He reaches for my wrist. His fingertips are warm. "We're all miserable."

My mouth becomes heavy and hot. "Yeah."

Ted drops the Jack Daniels, and it spills onto the floor. I slip on my trainers quickly, breathing deeply to master one last strength.

"Help me carry him to bed?"

Darren's expression doesn't change. "Sure."

We carry him wordlessly into bed. I place a bucket by the side of his bed, touching his forehead briefly. Sigh.

"Thanks," I turn to face him, forcing a smile.

Darren nods, his eyes search mine. "No problem."

That's when he sees it. The blue crib in the corner of the bedroom, standing on my side. He turns, startled. His mouth opens and closes.

I know, I could tell him. Neither of us has had the strength to remove it. But my throat is tight, my fingers clutching the edge of his jacket.

"Talk tomorrow," Darren grimaces and raises a hand slowly, laying it gently to rest over my knuckles. His hand is warm. I nod. Look away, too.

"Talk tomorrow." My fingers pull at my pockets.

I keep my back turned as he exits the dark room, closing the front door without further sound. Ted's hiccoughs are replaced by low snores, and I settle on the bed next to him, my toes cold on the hardwood floor.

We didn't share everything.

The grief is as corporal and real as the two of us in this bedroom and I can almost make out the body of our child between the sheets. My memory is cruel. There is no overarching purpose or a clear-cut memory of his little face. Instead, it's manifested in smells and sights luring at me out of nowhere, a sound that suddenly reminds me of what we've lost. What should have been here.

My eyes wander hungrily over the bridge of his nose, his jaw and chest. I watch the rise and fall of his chest, his familiar sighs, and shivers. The shadow of a beard and the stark contrast his ivory skin plays against it. There's a lot of me that's been locked up for a while. It's not the first time I think about running. About the what ifs.

It took my body weeks to fully understand the situation. At the time, it had been cruel. That even physically, the situation was impossible to grasp. My breasts felt heavy, sore, and leaky for weeks. My stomach empty. Fantom-kicks would stir my mind out of the blue. Bowel-movement, they'd say. But all I know is that bowel-movements have never felt as real and corporal as if there was still a baby drumming against the inside of my stomach. With time, this too, passed. And I found myself praying for the feeling to return. For some sort of memory to remain inside my body of that life that I carried for nine months.

In the dark, I reach for a dress and fold it neatly on the bed. A jumper follows, two pairs of jeans and some shoes. It fits easily into my backpack, and I close it slowly, my hands cold. It brings a certain taste to my mouth, reminiscent of fear and regret at the beginning of all this. I almost feel like saying, I don't have to do this. But I do. I do.

Mr. Gobbles curls and meows around my legs as I fumble with the keys. His gaze is sharp. I pick him up, unlocking the door. My breathing echoes in the hallway as I push the door shut, trying not to feel like this is the end of everything.

Sometimes change happens slowly and sometimes it happens fast to many different people and in many ways, and this is me and this is Ted, and I will dream about this the rest of my life and how for that split, split second, I thought about not walking out the door.

Instead, it's this:

"Let's go, Gobbles."

Lily's face is a mixture of pure joy and exhaustion. I try and match her glow, but the pain inside me is impossible to stop.

Ginny croons, her whole heart in her voice. Lily's eyes glow as she watches us, surrounding the baby. She places him in my arms.

I watch his small mouth, the small frown between his eyebrows and his impossible soft snores. I press my lips against his forehead. His skin is warm and soft against my lips, and I inhale, closing my eyes for just a second. He smells rich, faint and familiar, emotions I can't properly remember.

"Hello there," I whisper-smile, the moment making me breathy. I find my counterpoint in my mother's eyes, her gaze holding me in place.

I notice his small fingernails. I remember the moment of holding my own baby, the weight of the bundle. The stark contrast of a pliable body and a stiff one. I block the memory expertly, focusing my attention on the chatter in the room.

"He's perfect," my hands tremble as I place him back in Lily's waiting arms.

I push open the window in my apartment. A gust of warm air pushes against my face. I push the window open further, until the metal creaks against my hands. There's a sound of a couple bickering downstairs, unmistakably romantic. I stand by the window, rocking back and forth on my heels, my eyes narrow as I study the rectangle of light escaping between the two apartment houses across the street.

Mr. Gobbles mews as I open the takeaway box. Chicken Tikka Masala. I breathe in the heady air of curry and chicken.

The fact that I'd accepted Miranda's proposal seems insane in itself; a sure tell-tale that I must have lost my mind. Now, looking back, I almost feel… relieved. It's all over. Intentional or not, I've managed to burn all my bridges to ash.

I grab my wineglass tightly. The cool glass balances me a little, and the sharp frightened pain subsides slightly. A cruel voice inside me whispers, liar.

I sink down slowly, my feet coming to rest in my couch. The apartment feels oddly foreign, the shades and shapes of furniture curling towards me.

My phone rings.

"Weasley," Miranda's voice is unmistakable. I put down my wineglass, clutching my hands in my lap to step them trembling.

"Well done on this," she says, "I know it can't have been easy. Scorpius gives his praises."

"Thank you," I say, uncertainty present in the tremor of my voice.

"I'm looking forward to the final piece."

I hear the promise and threat in her voice. These things will all come to pass, along with endless stories of how we used to think things would've played out. I feel the disappointment settle slowly in the pit of my stomach. Here, in my couch, I lean against the pillows, the feel of surrender potent and consuming.

In the silence afterwards, I try to deny the sense of catastrophe with no success. The silence rings, like chiming crystal, and I pour another glass of red wine. The burgundy shift in the last rays of sunlight as I twirl the liquid.

Someone pounds on the door.

I set aside my glass carefully with a slight tremor to my knees, I stand and walk towards the door.

"Who's there?" I manage finally, the roughness of my throat making my voice raspy.

"It's Vic."

I heave a sigh, wine heavy on my tongue. "I'm not –"

"Open the door."

The insistent warning to her voice makes me open immediately. Vic advances through the door immediately, her eyes wild.

"Where the hell have you been? Ted and Darren got into a fight at the pub. We need to go there right now."