Steve watches her, head high and shoulders back, grace collected. After the shock has sunk in under the waves, dark and into the deep like the sea. Capable and holding so much and continuing to rock and and roll the water onward, almost untouched. Magnanimous with the pointed teasing, looking down her nose at him like she isn't several inches shorter. Inches she'll never need.
Somehow, that alone, actually makes his smile faintly more real than fake. That warning. That admission. The soft, quiet, nearly muted pain that has no specific spot, but exists in his chest regardless. It's not cheating. The have no rules, and no claims on each other. But it's still a goodbye, without a goodbye, and there wil be no lasts. No last kiss, no last gasping disaster.
He has to wonder if he did as well as her in the time she told him. A little disjointed, like having the weather turn out rainy rather than sunny once you reached the the deck, coming out from below, for all your off hours. But they have been here before. She's done it a few times. Maybe a little more quickly informative about it. There were still dinners and catching up, not the same whirlwind, sucking the marrow from every second, but still there.
He didn't remember minding as much as being surprised, reorganizing plans.
Still there, again, when those people were gone, again. Still here, now, all those years later.
She'd still be here if Danny was gone in a month. She'd still be here even if Danny wasn't gone in a month.
Steve reached a hand back up scrubbing fingers through his hair, fingertips hard against his head as he looked around the deserted living room, listening to the sound of the pipes as the water was turned on upstairs. Trying not to think about too many things. The phantoms of this room. Cath and Danny and Doris all layered upon it all, even his Dad and Mary.
Mary, who he had no idea how the handle still. There was paper vouchsafing the information of Doris's life. Or lack of one. "Doris McGarrett" was still dead. Died twenty-two years ago. Her children were well aware of that fact. It hadn't changed. It was documented. It might have been sealed by now. But he could burn out the part of him, echoed even in some of Cath's first words, days ago, that she deserved to know.
It wasn't something you wrote in an unaddressed card. Your mother is still alive. The number of sanction in that alone that would be broken. But Mary was smart, if more emotional and reckless, more fragile and temperamental. She'd get angry, the way he would have, if someone did that. A sick joke. But she'd believe him. Most likely. If he found a way to say the words.
If he hadn't signed away the right to say them. Was standing here wondering if one of those loyalties was deeper than the other. A concept that everyone who ever lived in this house seemed to have a problem with figuring out. Family, or Duty.
no subject
Somehow, that alone, actually makes his smile faintly more real than fake. That warning. That admission. The soft, quiet, nearly muted pain that has no specific spot, but exists in his chest regardless. It's not cheating. The have no rules, and no claims on each other. But it's still a goodbye, without a goodbye, and there wil be no lasts. No last kiss, no last gasping disaster.
He has to wonder if he did as well as her in the time she told him. A little disjointed, like having the weather turn out rainy rather than sunny once you reached the the deck, coming out from below, for all your off hours. But they have been here before. She's done it a few times. Maybe a little more quickly informative about it. There were still dinners and catching up, not the same whirlwind, sucking the marrow from every second, but still there.
He didn't remember minding as much as being surprised, reorganizing plans.
Still there, again, when those people were gone, again. Still here, now, all those years later.
She'd still be here if Danny was gone in a month. She'd still be here even if Danny wasn't gone in a month.
Steve reached a hand back up scrubbing fingers through his hair, fingertips hard against his head as he looked around the deserted living room, listening to the sound of the pipes as the water was turned on upstairs. Trying not to think about too many things. The phantoms of this room. Cath and Danny and Doris all layered upon it all, even his Dad and Mary.
Mary, who he had no idea how the handle still. There was paper vouchsafing the information of Doris's life. Or lack of one. "Doris McGarrett" was still dead. Died twenty-two years ago. Her children were well aware of that fact. It hadn't changed. It was documented. It might have been sealed by now. But he could burn out the part of him, echoed even in some of Cath's first words, days ago, that she deserved to know.
It wasn't something you wrote in an unaddressed card. Your mother is still alive. The number of sanction in that alone that would be broken. But Mary was smart, if more emotional and reckless, more fragile and temperamental. She'd get angry, the way he would have, if someone did that. A sick joke. But she'd believe him. Most likely. If he found a way to say the words.
If he hadn't signed away the right to say them. Was standing here wondering if one of those loyalties was deeper than the other.
A concept that everyone who ever lived in this house seemed to have a problem with figuring out. Family, or Duty.