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In lieu of my moribund witterings, a fic snippet from an as yet untitled Flack/Stanhope vignette:
The ultrasound had made it real. Until he had seen the proof of it with his own eyes, the idea that he was soon to be a father had been an abstract dream, a faraway probability that could not touch him. It had been a child's painting, done in awkward, bold strokes and vivid colors, the reds, whites, yellows, and blues of the Candyland game he had sometimes played as a kid with his baby sister. The colors of Tomorrow and Not Soon.
But reality was in black and white, stark and unforgiving, and it had told him that in seven months' time, his life of carefree autonomy would be over. He would be responsible for a life he had created. There would be pain and tears and bills, and every bullet meant for him now would have the potential to destroy three lives. If he died tomorrow, Rebecca would be not just a devastated widow with grief stamped on her face and smeared on her hands in red, white, and blue, but a single mother with a ramshackle, recalcitrant body and the condescending scrutiny of the world on her shoulders. She'd be fending off well-intended well-wishers by day and wrestling her demons by night, and there would be none to grant her safe harbor.
Not to mention your mother, a voice inside his head had pointed out with savage glee. She never approved of the broken girl you brought home with such pride. That was the most awkward, painful night of your life, and you never asked Rebecca to go back, though she has for your sake. Your mother is just as tough as your father, but far less principled when it comes to what is hers. She won't hesitate to wrest the living legacy of her sainted, dead son from his inferior widow in the name of doing what is best for the baby. She will steal that baby from its mother's very breast if she can manage it. Your father might put up a token protest, but a token is all it will be. When it comes to Familia Flack, Ana Flack has always ruled the roost.
Even if the worst doesn't happen, and you successfully dodge bullets and your family history of heart disease for the next twenty years, how the hell can you hope to raise a functional child? You're a fuck-up, pure and simple. You let your sister die when you were sixteen, and now you've gone and gotten your physically fragile wife pregnant.
What if she can't handle it? What if you come home one night and find her on the bathroom floor in a puddle of blood, legs spread and your baby's premature head slipped through the umbilical cord like a noose? Suppose she makes it to term. She could always die on the table, bleeding out in the stirrups while the nurses tend to your screaming child, who bought its first breath by dint of her last. Can you live with that? Can you stand to visit two graves at Christmas instead of one, sleeping baby in a sling tucked against your chest?
He had seen it all with terrible clarity, and as he'd walked, the city had begun to blur on the periphery of his vision, until all he could see were Rebecca's blood-smeared thighs and her agonized face, contorted with the ruthless pangs of childbirth.
She'll die, the voice had whispered. She'll die and leave you just like Diana did. It'll be déjà vu all over again. You'll sit in the front of the church and stare at the ebony casket on its polished steel runners and the spray of roses arranged so artfully on the lid. You'll stare at them with raw, dry eyes and wonder what sweet, screaming retard bought roses when everyone knows Rebecca loved sunflowers, with their enormous, nodding heads, thick stems, and bright yellow leaves that reminded her of the Florida sunshine she left behind. Your suit will fit this time, but the anguish will be the same as it was all those years ago. You'll sit with the baby in your lap, and it will shriek for the comfort of a breast whose milk has curdled.
You'll go home to your empty apartment and wander through the rooms, opening the drawers and closets and running your chapped fingers over her clothes in weary reverence. You'll pull out her favorite shirt or a pair of her underclothes and press them to your nose until all scent is leached from it. You'll feed your squalling child a bottle of thin formula, and then you'll sleep on the sofa because the bed is too big without her in it. The narrow couch will remind you of the narrow, eternal bed in which she sleeps, and as long as you keep her underwear fisted in your fingers, you'll keep the nightmares at bay.
You'll spend the rest of your life caught between your dead sister's rosary and your child, souvenirs of your most grievous failures.
The images conjured by the poison-tongued voice had come so quickly and so furiously that it had dizzied and nauseated him. He'd wound up staggering to a nearby news kiosk and buying a copy of the first paper upon which his had had fallen. He'd carried it to a nearby stoop and sat down hard with it clutched in his fumbling hands. He'd opened it under the pretense of reading, but his hands had been trembling so badly that the pages had rattled and rustled noisily in his grip. In the end, he'd sat with the paper folded haphazardly on his lap and mentally recited the starting lineup of the Rangers until the world came back into focus.
Never in his most feverish and lurid imaginings of her end had he thought it would come here. By all rights, this should have been the safest place in the city for her, surrounded as she was by a wall of blue and her husband, who was armed with 9mms at hip and shoulder and a service pistol taped to one ankle. She should have been untouched and untouchable, and yet there she sat, a gun pointed at her undefended belly while her supercop husband stood behind his desk with a smear of mustard on his chin.
The ultrasound had made it real. Until he had seen the proof of it with his own eyes, the idea that he was soon to be a father had been an abstract dream, a faraway probability that could not touch him. It had been a child's painting, done in awkward, bold strokes and vivid colors, the reds, whites, yellows, and blues of the Candyland game he had sometimes played as a kid with his baby sister. The colors of Tomorrow and Not Soon.
But reality was in black and white, stark and unforgiving, and it had told him that in seven months' time, his life of carefree autonomy would be over. He would be responsible for a life he had created. There would be pain and tears and bills, and every bullet meant for him now would have the potential to destroy three lives. If he died tomorrow, Rebecca would be not just a devastated widow with grief stamped on her face and smeared on her hands in red, white, and blue, but a single mother with a ramshackle, recalcitrant body and the condescending scrutiny of the world on her shoulders. She'd be fending off well-intended well-wishers by day and wrestling her demons by night, and there would be none to grant her safe harbor.
Not to mention your mother, a voice inside his head had pointed out with savage glee. She never approved of the broken girl you brought home with such pride. That was the most awkward, painful night of your life, and you never asked Rebecca to go back, though she has for your sake. Your mother is just as tough as your father, but far less principled when it comes to what is hers. She won't hesitate to wrest the living legacy of her sainted, dead son from his inferior widow in the name of doing what is best for the baby. She will steal that baby from its mother's very breast if she can manage it. Your father might put up a token protest, but a token is all it will be. When it comes to Familia Flack, Ana Flack has always ruled the roost.
Even if the worst doesn't happen, and you successfully dodge bullets and your family history of heart disease for the next twenty years, how the hell can you hope to raise a functional child? You're a fuck-up, pure and simple. You let your sister die when you were sixteen, and now you've gone and gotten your physically fragile wife pregnant.
What if she can't handle it? What if you come home one night and find her on the bathroom floor in a puddle of blood, legs spread and your baby's premature head slipped through the umbilical cord like a noose? Suppose she makes it to term. She could always die on the table, bleeding out in the stirrups while the nurses tend to your screaming child, who bought its first breath by dint of her last. Can you live with that? Can you stand to visit two graves at Christmas instead of one, sleeping baby in a sling tucked against your chest?
He had seen it all with terrible clarity, and as he'd walked, the city had begun to blur on the periphery of his vision, until all he could see were Rebecca's blood-smeared thighs and her agonized face, contorted with the ruthless pangs of childbirth.
She'll die, the voice had whispered. She'll die and leave you just like Diana did. It'll be déjà vu all over again. You'll sit in the front of the church and stare at the ebony casket on its polished steel runners and the spray of roses arranged so artfully on the lid. You'll stare at them with raw, dry eyes and wonder what sweet, screaming retard bought roses when everyone knows Rebecca loved sunflowers, with their enormous, nodding heads, thick stems, and bright yellow leaves that reminded her of the Florida sunshine she left behind. Your suit will fit this time, but the anguish will be the same as it was all those years ago. You'll sit with the baby in your lap, and it will shriek for the comfort of a breast whose milk has curdled.
You'll go home to your empty apartment and wander through the rooms, opening the drawers and closets and running your chapped fingers over her clothes in weary reverence. You'll pull out her favorite shirt or a pair of her underclothes and press them to your nose until all scent is leached from it. You'll feed your squalling child a bottle of thin formula, and then you'll sleep on the sofa because the bed is too big without her in it. The narrow couch will remind you of the narrow, eternal bed in which she sleeps, and as long as you keep her underwear fisted in your fingers, you'll keep the nightmares at bay.
You'll spend the rest of your life caught between your dead sister's rosary and your child, souvenirs of your most grievous failures.
The images conjured by the poison-tongued voice had come so quickly and so furiously that it had dizzied and nauseated him. He'd wound up staggering to a nearby news kiosk and buying a copy of the first paper upon which his had had fallen. He'd carried it to a nearby stoop and sat down hard with it clutched in his fumbling hands. He'd opened it under the pretense of reading, but his hands had been trembling so badly that the pages had rattled and rustled noisily in his grip. In the end, he'd sat with the paper folded haphazardly on his lap and mentally recited the starting lineup of the Rangers until the world came back into focus.
Never in his most feverish and lurid imaginings of her end had he thought it would come here. By all rights, this should have been the safest place in the city for her, surrounded as she was by a wall of blue and her husband, who was armed with 9mms at hip and shoulder and a service pistol taped to one ankle. She should have been untouched and untouchable, and yet there she sat, a gun pointed at her undefended belly while her supercop husband stood behind his desk with a smear of mustard on his chin.
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