Arc One [6]
Author: Homer
Rating: G
Word Count: 1359
She'd been expecting Marco.
She hadn't been expecting Eva.
Nora had never known what to expect from Eva. She had been a ghost that had haunted her home every day of her marriage. Like the jar of black olives Peter had brought home one day from a shopping trip, even though none of them liked them.
It had sat in the fridge for months and months, none of them quiet willing to bring them up or deal with them.
The Yeerk had laughed as it threw them away.
It had regretted it later, when cravings started in earnest.
She had expected anger from Eva, to be honest, expected it the moment Marco and May had been shuffled out with a long look for this woman, a look that Marco didn’t even try to argue with. How easily this woman directed the boy that she’d had trouble keeping focused in math class. Much less at home.
She knew how to handle anger; had planed how to deal with this woman who had stolen her life back after Nora had moved in.
But they had been sitting across from each other for nearly twenty minutes over rapidly cooling coffee and not a word had been spoken.
"He talked about you a lot, when I first met him. I think the first few times we talked I didn't even realize you were supposed to be dead. You were so alive when he described you."
"He never talks about you." The words were flat, quiet.
Nora grimaced. "No wonder, thanks to your son he thought our marriage was a lie."
They both fell silent, barbs hanging in the air between them.
"Sorry, that was uncalled for. I love Peter. I do, really. But I love him enough to know that you needed him more, and part of him will always need you. The math just doesn't line up. We couldn't both get our happy endings with only one prince between us." She smiled, strained. She spent so many days teaching her students how to forgive, to let it go.
Why was it so hard to apply those words to herself?
"He's an amazing person." Eva's words were soft, directed mostly to her untouched coffee.
"He is. I'm glad to have met him."
The silence dropped again, hanging between them like a funeral shroud.
She could feel Peter’s presence so strongly she could almost hear him chattering in the corner; almost hear him missing the awkward silence completely and just talking.
She was fairly certain that Eva could as well, judging by the occasional glances she tossed to a chair in the corner. As though at any moment Peter’s voice would stop being memory and start being reality.
This wasn’t what she had expected.
She could hear May laughing in the backyard, and what sounded like (and probably was) a wild animal grunting. When has this become the normal color of her life? When was awkward sitting down for coffee and normal was letting a boy who could turn into animals play with your child?
Eva wasn’t what Nora had expected from Peter’s stories. There was something tired in her eyes, something stretched and strained in the way she moved and the constant rhythmic tap of her finger against the side of her coffee cup.
She reminded Nora less of a rival, less of the invader who had taken over her life, and more of one of her parents: trying to deal with being a parent again and reminding themselves that they had control.
It was almost disappointing.
“I mourned for my husband and my step-son. For months. Even when Marco reappeared, I still thought Peter was dead. It’s terrible, knowing that you’ve been responsible for the deaths of people you care about. Even if it turned out to be a lie, I listened to the Yeerk make the phone call that should have killed them. Listened as it was commended for doing well in executing them. Because killing two weak humans is something you get commended for.” She smiled sadly into her coffee. She had told this story many times now.
To most it would be a story of blame, of hate. “My step-son found an out for himself and his father but he left me behind.”
But for her… So many had been forced to do things they couldn’t deal with, things they felt guilty for doing.
It gave her a point of reference.
“You never tried to contact him.”
“I love him enough to know a part of him will always need you, and you needed him infinitely more than I did.” She smiled, looking at Eva for the first time, seeing the woman and not her rival.
“Spare me your pity.”
“I wouldn’t degrade you with such a useless emotion. What I feel for you is empathy. I wasn’t a host as long as you were, and my Yeerk was a useless low level. I was never alone, after infestation. After the war, I had my job and the children and people who needed me.” She couldn’t imagine trying to recover without that. How many people could look at her face and not see the mask of a monster that doomed so many innocents to torture and death? Peter could. Marco could. Perhaps she could as well. Or perhaps the fact that she saw Eva as a person as infinitely more of a personal threat than the unlamented Visser One let her look past the face. “I couldn’t take that away from you.”
“I didn’t come here for therapy, doctor. So please stop charging my insurance. I don’t need your pity, or your empathy or whatever psychological connection between us you’ve formed in your head. We are not the same.” Eva’s voice was sharp, curt, cutting through any sympathy like a dracon beam through living flesh.
Nora almost flinched, grimacing. “We aren’t. We’re very different. And we both fell in love with two very different men. They just happened to be embodied by the same person.” Her smile almost faltered, but she managed to keep it from sliding off her face entirely. “Would I like things to have turned out different? Yes. But… like I said, what story could we write that ends up with us both happier than we are? I have a beautiful daughter, a job I adore. I have students that I teach every day to smile even when they’re still hurting. Because the universe doesn’t care if you smile or cry, but it always confuses the monsters if you smile and laugh even when you’re hurting. I learned that from your son.”
Eva watched her, lifting the cup of cold coffee to her lips and taking a slow sip, brow furrowed and foot tapping against the floor in a discordant rhythm.
“We stole each other’s lives, Eva. It was neither of our faults. I have looked it in the eyes more times than I can count, because I can’t heal my students if I can’t even heal my own hurt first. I know Peter well enough to let him go, to give him back to you. No matter how much I miss his chatter.”
If you love something...
“I couldn’t.” The words were soft, barely verbalized. Selfish, yes, but she had known that already.
“I know. I’m not asking you to. I-“ She swallowed, still smiling. “I would like for my daughter to know her father, but I understand if you can’t allow that. But that’s all I will ask you in relation to Peter.”
Eva looked away, still tapping the edge of the coffee cup. “I don’t know what I expected coming here. You know more about me than I have managed to learn about you. You have an advantage.”
She grimaced, reminded of the jar of black olives that no one wanted to touch or toss out. Eva would always remind her of black olives and a shade of Peter’s smile that always made her sad.
“It’s not a chess game, Eva.” The words were soft and netted her a tight smile.
“Probably better that it isn’t. I’m not sure who would have won.”
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Rating: G
Word Count: 1359
She'd been expecting Marco.
She hadn't been expecting Eva.
Nora had never known what to expect from Eva. She had been a ghost that had haunted her home every day of her marriage. Like the jar of black olives Peter had brought home one day from a shopping trip, even though none of them liked them.
It had sat in the fridge for months and months, none of them quiet willing to bring them up or deal with them.
The Yeerk had laughed as it threw them away.
It had regretted it later, when cravings started in earnest.
She had expected anger from Eva, to be honest, expected it the moment Marco and May had been shuffled out with a long look for this woman, a look that Marco didn’t even try to argue with. How easily this woman directed the boy that she’d had trouble keeping focused in math class. Much less at home.
She knew how to handle anger; had planed how to deal with this woman who had stolen her life back after Nora had moved in.
But they had been sitting across from each other for nearly twenty minutes over rapidly cooling coffee and not a word had been spoken.
"He talked about you a lot, when I first met him. I think the first few times we talked I didn't even realize you were supposed to be dead. You were so alive when he described you."
"He never talks about you." The words were flat, quiet.
Nora grimaced. "No wonder, thanks to your son he thought our marriage was a lie."
They both fell silent, barbs hanging in the air between them.
"Sorry, that was uncalled for. I love Peter. I do, really. But I love him enough to know that you needed him more, and part of him will always need you. The math just doesn't line up. We couldn't both get our happy endings with only one prince between us." She smiled, strained. She spent so many days teaching her students how to forgive, to let it go.
Why was it so hard to apply those words to herself?
"He's an amazing person." Eva's words were soft, directed mostly to her untouched coffee.
"He is. I'm glad to have met him."
The silence dropped again, hanging between them like a funeral shroud.
She could feel Peter’s presence so strongly she could almost hear him chattering in the corner; almost hear him missing the awkward silence completely and just talking.
She was fairly certain that Eva could as well, judging by the occasional glances she tossed to a chair in the corner. As though at any moment Peter’s voice would stop being memory and start being reality.
This wasn’t what she had expected.
She could hear May laughing in the backyard, and what sounded like (and probably was) a wild animal grunting. When has this become the normal color of her life? When was awkward sitting down for coffee and normal was letting a boy who could turn into animals play with your child?
Eva wasn’t what Nora had expected from Peter’s stories. There was something tired in her eyes, something stretched and strained in the way she moved and the constant rhythmic tap of her finger against the side of her coffee cup.
She reminded Nora less of a rival, less of the invader who had taken over her life, and more of one of her parents: trying to deal with being a parent again and reminding themselves that they had control.
It was almost disappointing.
“I mourned for my husband and my step-son. For months. Even when Marco reappeared, I still thought Peter was dead. It’s terrible, knowing that you’ve been responsible for the deaths of people you care about. Even if it turned out to be a lie, I listened to the Yeerk make the phone call that should have killed them. Listened as it was commended for doing well in executing them. Because killing two weak humans is something you get commended for.” She smiled sadly into her coffee. She had told this story many times now.
To most it would be a story of blame, of hate. “My step-son found an out for himself and his father but he left me behind.”
But for her… So many had been forced to do things they couldn’t deal with, things they felt guilty for doing.
It gave her a point of reference.
“You never tried to contact him.”
“I love him enough to know a part of him will always need you, and you needed him infinitely more than I did.” She smiled, looking at Eva for the first time, seeing the woman and not her rival.
“Spare me your pity.”
“I wouldn’t degrade you with such a useless emotion. What I feel for you is empathy. I wasn’t a host as long as you were, and my Yeerk was a useless low level. I was never alone, after infestation. After the war, I had my job and the children and people who needed me.” She couldn’t imagine trying to recover without that. How many people could look at her face and not see the mask of a monster that doomed so many innocents to torture and death? Peter could. Marco could. Perhaps she could as well. Or perhaps the fact that she saw Eva as a person as infinitely more of a personal threat than the unlamented Visser One let her look past the face. “I couldn’t take that away from you.”
“I didn’t come here for therapy, doctor. So please stop charging my insurance. I don’t need your pity, or your empathy or whatever psychological connection between us you’ve formed in your head. We are not the same.” Eva’s voice was sharp, curt, cutting through any sympathy like a dracon beam through living flesh.
Nora almost flinched, grimacing. “We aren’t. We’re very different. And we both fell in love with two very different men. They just happened to be embodied by the same person.” Her smile almost faltered, but she managed to keep it from sliding off her face entirely. “Would I like things to have turned out different? Yes. But… like I said, what story could we write that ends up with us both happier than we are? I have a beautiful daughter, a job I adore. I have students that I teach every day to smile even when they’re still hurting. Because the universe doesn’t care if you smile or cry, but it always confuses the monsters if you smile and laugh even when you’re hurting. I learned that from your son.”
Eva watched her, lifting the cup of cold coffee to her lips and taking a slow sip, brow furrowed and foot tapping against the floor in a discordant rhythm.
“We stole each other’s lives, Eva. It was neither of our faults. I have looked it in the eyes more times than I can count, because I can’t heal my students if I can’t even heal my own hurt first. I know Peter well enough to let him go, to give him back to you. No matter how much I miss his chatter.”
If you love something...
“I couldn’t.” The words were soft, barely verbalized. Selfish, yes, but she had known that already.
“I know. I’m not asking you to. I-“ She swallowed, still smiling. “I would like for my daughter to know her father, but I understand if you can’t allow that. But that’s all I will ask you in relation to Peter.”
Eva looked away, still tapping the edge of the coffee cup. “I don’t know what I expected coming here. You know more about me than I have managed to learn about you. You have an advantage.”
She grimaced, reminded of the jar of black olives that no one wanted to touch or toss out. Eva would always remind her of black olives and a shade of Peter’s smile that always made her sad.
“It’s not a chess game, Eva.” The words were soft and netted her a tight smile.
“Probably better that it isn’t. I’m not sure who would have won.”
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