Rum Raisin 2: Coming to Terms
Title: Coming to Terms
Main Story: In The Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: Rum raisin 2 (father), pocky chain, caramel, cherry (present tense pocky chain is hard okay) (also crypticness), malt (sir wayni's stocking prompt).
Word Count: 500
Rating: G
Summary: Olivia, coming to terms.
Notes: How many people are surprised that I used this prompt for Olivia? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
She cried for what felt like forever, after. Jake handled the girls and the arrangements; she doesn't know what she would have done without him.
She's glad she was there, at the end.
She holds Joanna's hand through the funeral, and stays with her for a few days afterwards, when Jake and the girls have gone back to New York. Joanna doesn't really cry; she just looks exhausted, and sleeps through the days. Somewhere under the grief, Olivia's worried about her.
"He loved you so much," Joanna says, suddenly, one day.
It's the first thing she said since the funeral.
--
After Joanna is more herself, she goes home, spends some time with her girls. They had a great time with Daddy, they say. They have a good father.
So did she. She thinks.
"I have to know," she tells Jake, after the girls have gone to bed. "I know he didn't want to know, but I need to."
"If you think it's a good idea," Jake says, in the tone that means he thinks it isn't. "I don't want you to break your heart."
Again, he doesn't say. She hears it anyway.
"I won't," she says, but doesn't mean it.
--
Getting her own blood sample is easy. Getting her father's is trickier-- luckily the hospital lab still has some. Joanna sweet-talks them into giving her a vial, somehow.
She must be feeling better. Olivia hopes so, anyway.
The testing center is reluctant, although payment in advance helps their attitudes. They tell her they have no way of verifying that the blood really is Hugh Marhenke's. They can't be completely sure of the results.
That's fine, Olivia tells them, and slips an extra twenty under the counter. She doesn't need complete certainty, she says; they nod.
She just needs to know.
--
The envelope comes on a Tuesday, plain and discreet, addressed to her with the testing center's logo in the corner. She has to sign for it. It feels far too light to hold the answers she's been seeking.
She holds it between her fingers, tests the edge of the flap. It's barely glued down. People hardly ever send paper mail anymore; she's surprised that the testing center still does. But then there's something permanent about the written word, something unchangeable.
Whatever's in this envelope will define who she is and was and will be.
Whatever it says will change everything.
--
She and Jake take the girls to see their grandmother a few months later. It's more for Joanna's sake than anything else; she's fading, and it frightens Olivia. Her granddaughters seem to revive her. They certainly make her smile. And if that means that Olivia and Jake get time alone, well, some things have side benefits.
Olivia takes one afternoon and visits her father's grave by herself. She says nothing, at least not aloud; just sits beside his headstone and listens to the wind.
When she goes, she leaves a scattered spread of paper hearts, cut from an unopened envelope.
Main Story: In The Heart
Flavors, Toppings, Extras: Rum raisin 2 (father), pocky chain, caramel, cherry (present tense pocky chain is hard okay) (also crypticness), malt (sir wayni's stocking prompt).
Word Count: 500
Rating: G
Summary: Olivia, coming to terms.
Notes: How many people are surprised that I used this prompt for Olivia? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
She cried for what felt like forever, after. Jake handled the girls and the arrangements; she doesn't know what she would have done without him.
She's glad she was there, at the end.
She holds Joanna's hand through the funeral, and stays with her for a few days afterwards, when Jake and the girls have gone back to New York. Joanna doesn't really cry; she just looks exhausted, and sleeps through the days. Somewhere under the grief, Olivia's worried about her.
"He loved you so much," Joanna says, suddenly, one day.
It's the first thing she said since the funeral.
--
After Joanna is more herself, she goes home, spends some time with her girls. They had a great time with Daddy, they say. They have a good father.
So did she. She thinks.
"I have to know," she tells Jake, after the girls have gone to bed. "I know he didn't want to know, but I need to."
"If you think it's a good idea," Jake says, in the tone that means he thinks it isn't. "I don't want you to break your heart."
Again, he doesn't say. She hears it anyway.
"I won't," she says, but doesn't mean it.
--
Getting her own blood sample is easy. Getting her father's is trickier-- luckily the hospital lab still has some. Joanna sweet-talks them into giving her a vial, somehow.
She must be feeling better. Olivia hopes so, anyway.
The testing center is reluctant, although payment in advance helps their attitudes. They tell her they have no way of verifying that the blood really is Hugh Marhenke's. They can't be completely sure of the results.
That's fine, Olivia tells them, and slips an extra twenty under the counter. She doesn't need complete certainty, she says; they nod.
She just needs to know.
--
The envelope comes on a Tuesday, plain and discreet, addressed to her with the testing center's logo in the corner. She has to sign for it. It feels far too light to hold the answers she's been seeking.
She holds it between her fingers, tests the edge of the flap. It's barely glued down. People hardly ever send paper mail anymore; she's surprised that the testing center still does. But then there's something permanent about the written word, something unchangeable.
Whatever's in this envelope will define who she is and was and will be.
Whatever it says will change everything.
--
She and Jake take the girls to see their grandmother a few months later. It's more for Joanna's sake than anything else; she's fading, and it frightens Olivia. Her granddaughters seem to revive her. They certainly make her smile. And if that means that Olivia and Jake get time alone, well, some things have side benefits.
Olivia takes one afternoon and visits her father's grave by herself. She says nothing, at least not aloud; just sits beside his headstone and listens to the wind.
When she goes, she leaves a scattered spread of paper hearts, cut from an unopened envelope.