(no subject)
13.
It rained on Mulder’s birthday, crunchy leaves turning to mush on the street.
After work, before she picked up William, Scully stopped at a grocery store and bought a single cupcake from the bakery. Day-old yellow cake with blue frosting swirled on top. She was sure she had candles somewhere in her kitchen.
Someone, a friend of her mother’s, obviously, had gifted her with an elaborate, album-sized scrapbook. “OH, BABY!” it said in wooden blocks across the front. It was in a shopping bag under her bed, gathering dust with the ribbons still attached.
There was, instead, a battered shoebox, unlabeled, that Scully was filling with photographs of William. She was not in them. Apart from her necessary role as sole family photographer, she felt hypocritical asking William to smile if she herself was unwilling. He didn’t seem to mind, but still. She tried not to cry very much in front of him.
Next to that, another shoebox, also unlabeled. This held a peculiar collection of snapshots of Mulder, hastily assembled from their office corkboard, from boxes he’d dug out of his mother’s basement, from her own personal collection amassed over the years.
She showed William photographs of Mulder every day, the way some parents used flashcards, hoping to push their offspring into important schools with waiting lists. She didn’t want him to learn German verbs or identify famous composers, only to recognize his fugitive father at some point in the future.
William’s favorite was the pilfered ID badge, with Mulder’s stern, laminated “Special Agent Fox Mulder, Federal Bureau of Investigation” face staring out.
“Dad,” she said to him. “Daddy.” She tapped the badge and William gurgled. On long car rides, she would clip it to his sleeper and he would alternate between gumming it and patting Mulder’s face. She entertained him by standing in front of a mirror with him in her arms, making him flash the ID. Saying in a deep voice, “Mulder. FBI.”
They sat at the table together, William in his highchair. The cupcake between them. She gave him the badge and he thwacked it happily against the tray.
She lit the candle and began to sing. William jerked his little frog legs, loving it. It suddenly struck her as absurd, singing “Happy Birthday” to a badge, and she started laughing. Hot tears were running down her cheeks. Singing to an FBI badge. Who was going to blow out the candle and make a wish? Who was going to eat the cupcake?
“Oh, Mulder,” she said out loud, blowing her nose with a napkin. William made a raspberry noise. “I agree,” she said to him.
She sleepwalked through her life, feeling rudderless. Without his eyes fixed on her, without his long fingers scraping her back. She told herself she should be used to it by now, but she never would be.
She felt like she was nine again, ticking off the interminable days of a forced stay at Girl Scout camp. Dull cases with duller partners stood in for the dozens of lanyards and potholders she’d woven to pass the time. She was utterly homesick for him.
He fell asleep with the ID tagged to his star-dotted onesie. Maybe she could deputize him, she thought, make him her temporary partner. He was certainly no less competent than a large number of agents already on government payroll. They could travel the country, William strapped to her chest. She would buy him a tiny water pistol and fill it up at rest stops. A better way to pass the time than making lanyards, better than pretending to be interested in cases that weren’t hers. Mulder was out there, somewhere. She and her new partner (green, but he’s got promise, I like the cut of his jib) would track him down.
She quietly took William’s picture, turning the flash off so as not to wake him, and then unclasped the badge, lightly pressing the crinkled fabric. She put the badge in the shoebox, then took it out again. She clipped it to the front pocket of her pajamas and went to bed, the plastic edges pressing against her heart.