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⁂
“would someone care to classify
our broken hearts and twisted minds
so i can find someone to rely on?”
–paramore
⁂
December, 2001
Sofia doesn’t really realise what's happening for most of the night of her parents' death; she's only five and there are police sirens and flashing lights and so much noise all around her. All she knows is her big brother Daniel holds her tight all night, arm wrapped around her shoulders protectively. He is only ten and his own shoulders are too small to be carrying a burden like this.
She doesn’t even truly understand it. The nice police officers tell them things like “ice” and “losing control of the car”, but Sofia still wonders when her Dad will walk through the door to yell that it’s all a joke and her Mom will laugh at how they got them good.
They have no surviving relatives. Neither of their parents had any siblings, and their grandparents are long gone.
She doesn’t quite grasp what that means for them; not yet, anyway.
⁂
August, 2006
Dani is nervous.
She hides it well, but Jamie notices – she always does. She’s twisting her ring and fiddling with the hem of her pale pink t-shirt, and Jamie watches as she bites her lip a few times in a manner that Jamie would find distracting if she wasn’t jittery enough herself.
“You okay, Poppins?” Jamie asks, reaching out a hand to and tangling her fingers with Dani’s. She traces circles in Dani’s soft skin, her own fingertips calloused and rough, but Dani doesn’t seem to mind, just squeezes once and sighs. She finally turns her gaze from where it’s been stuck on the clock for the past fifteen minutes, her mismatched-coloured eyes settling on Jamie’s easily, and Jamie feels at peace for the first time that day.
“A little nervous,” Dani admits, her free hand fiddling with the hem of her shirt. “What if…” She trails off, biting her lip again, and the corner of Jamie’s lips curls into a slight smile.
“Hey,” she says softly, turning to face Dani fully and cradling her face in one hand, thumb running gently over the curve of her jaw, “we’ve talked about this. You won’t hurt them, and she can’t make you. Okay?”
“No, I know,” Dani says, head tilting into the heat of Jamie’s palm, “that’s– it’s not that. What if– I’m scared they won’t like me.”
Oh. For a moment, they sit in stunned silence as Jamie processes, almost taken aback by how mundane Dani’s concern is. For years, their biggest fear has been Viola and the misery she was capable of causing them. To have this thing, so very human, be their biggest concern… it almost makes Jamie tear up because of how far they’ve come.
“Oh, Poppins,” she says after a beat, shaking her head with a fond smile. “‘Course they’ll like you. How could they not?”
“How can you be sure?” Dani insists and Jamie almost laughs. Because, of all the fears and concerns she has about this, the thought of Daniel and Sofia not liking Dani has not even crossed her mind – it’s that ridiculous.
“You’ll just have to trust me on this, love,” Jamie says with a small grin. “Have I ever steered you wrong?”
Dani hums, but there’s a tiny smile playing at her lips. “Well, there was that time when you insisted on trying sushi…”
Jamie groans. “God, you’ll never let me live that down. How was I supposed to know that wasabi would be that disgusting?”
“I told you! Multiple times!”
She rolls her eyes but stifles a smile, because Dani’s laughter is unrestrained and genuine, the edge that’s been there all morning falling away and if Jamie has to be the butt of the joke for it to happen, then so be it. Throwing a quick glance at their clock, she stands up and pulls Dani to her feet.
“Let’s go Poppins, we don’t want to be late.”
⁂
“Well, this is it,” Jamie says, resisting the urge to wring her hands nervously. Instead, she shoves them into the pockets of her jumpsuit, letting the thumbs stick out.
“It’s very nice, Mrs Clayton,” Daniel says, all manners and polite smiles that don’t reach his eyes.
“Oh, God, no– it’s just Jamie, please,” Jamie says, almost tripping over nothing from sheer shock and Dani snorts an undignified laugh beside her.
“I’m sorry,” Daniel says immediately, too quickly for Jamie’s liking, and she barely manages to stop herself from frowning.
“No worries.”
Daniel’s eyes still look a little wild, and he stands protectively in front of Sofia almost unconsciously. Dani closes the front door behind them with a soft click, and motions towards the stairs, pointedly ignoring the tension.
“C’mon, let’s go see your room,” she says, and Jamie could kiss her for slipping into her I-worked-with-children-for-a-living mode. Before they can go upstairs, Kal comes trotting around the corner and Sofia lets out a small squeal.
“Dan look! They have a dog,” she says, almost reverently as she lets Kal sniff her hand. Daniel throws a quick, anxious look at Jamie and Dani, and relaxes once he sees no disapproval from either of them. Cautiously, he reaches out and scratches between Kal’s fluffy ears, and the dog tilts his head into it and licks Sofia’s hand, making her giggle.
“His name is Kal,” Dani explains, crouching down next to him and he immediately flops down, offering his belly up for scratches, his tail thumping on the floor. “He’s a big softie.”
“He’s cute,” Sofia says.
Jamie has never been more thankful for Kal and his playful, easygoing nature than she is now, as the tension and the awkwardness in the room abate with every thump of his fluffy tail.
When they move upstairs and show the kids their room, Jamie leans on the doorframe and tries to curb her nerves. Her mind runs an endless loop of will they like it, what if they hate it, is it enough, is it too much until Dani places her hand on the small of her back and the touch soothes the anxiety away almost instantly.
“If you guys want to change something or you want to paint it a different colour, just let me know, okay?” Jamie says and Daniel turns to her, polite smile in place again, and Jamie knows immediately that the kid could hate the colour with a fiery passion but he wouldn’t say a thing either way.
“It’s great, thank you,” he says, confirming her doubts, and then glances at Sofia out of the corner of his eye. She seems to take this as a signal, because her eyes widen and she turns to face Jamie and Dani.
“Yes, thank you so much,” she says and Jamie smiles.
“Do you need any help settling in?” Dani asks, but Daniel shakes his head.
“No, thank you,” he says, and Sofia nods along a moment later. An awkward silence starts to set in but Dani clears her throat, straightening out her t-shirt minutely.
“I’ll go get started on lunch, you guys unpack and come down when you’re finished.”
Downstairs, Jamie hops up on the counter while Dani takes out the vegetables and starts washing them. It’s an established tradition – Dani cooks and Jamie moves out of her way because she is a disaster in the kitchen the way Dani is a disaster when it comes to tea and coffee.
“That went well, I think,” Jamie says and Dani’s lips curve into a small smile, though she keeps her eyes on the potatoes. “I mean, I don’t think they hate us.”
“It did,” she confirms, humming along to the song on the radio. Jamie reaches over and turns it up a little almost subconsciously. “They’re gonna need some time and space to open up, though.”
“Yeah,” Jamie sighs, closing her eyes. “I just can’t help but think about what they must’ve been through. I mean, some of the stories the social workers told us… I feel like punching those bastards, I swear.”
“I know,” Dani says, and Jamie can see the spark of anger she gets in her mismatched eyes at the thought. “We just have to be patient with them, okay? Give them some time and hopefully some stability, too.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jamie says, hopping down from the counter. “How lucky am I to have such a smart, beautiful wife willing to try this with me?” She slaps Dani’s ass playfully as she passes, ducking under the rag that Dani uses to take a swipe at her, laughing.
⁂
Daniel comes down the stairs first, Sofia bounding after him, and he insists on helping them set the table while Sofia gets distracted by Calla, who she didn’t see when they came in.
“Do you have any other animals?” she asks, sitting cross-legged next to the cat and offering her hand, giggling when Calla swats at it lazily before cuddling into it.
“Nah, these two diggin’ up my garden is enough for me, I’d say,” Jamie says with a cheeky wink and Sofia looks up, eyes wide in wonder.
“You have a garden?”
“Yeah, out back,” Jamie nods, placing the cutlery on the table, “I’ve got some really cool flowers, and I’ve been meanin’ to plant a few more. Wanna help me?”
“Sure!” Sofia says excitedly, then shrinks back a little. “If that’s okay?”
“After you finish lunch, you can play in the dirt all you want, ladies,” Dani interrupts, placing the food on the table.
Lunch is a quiet affair. There’s a sort of wonder in Daniel and Sofia’s eyes at the sheer amount of food – yeah, Dani may have cooked a bit too much – but they eat politely, and Jamie chooses to ignore the way they both hesitate before Daniel asks for seconds. Asks. Like either of them would ever say no.
She glances at Dani when the kids are not looking, and is met with the same barely-hidden worry she feels reflected in Dani’s eyes; a silent exchange in a language they’ve mastered over time.
After lunch, Sofia trails after Jamie into the garden out back; she is wide-eyed and grinning, a gap where her baby tooth has fallen out, and Jamie feels a tug in her heart. Sofia looks like the child she is, unburdened by everything she’s been through, and any doubts that Jamie might’ve had about the adoption disappear.
“C’mon, babe,” she says, “let’s go get you some gloves and the seeds.”
Sofia’s tiny, nine-year-old hands look hilarious in normal-sized gloves, but she insists on wearing them anyway. Jamie grabs two scrunchies that she’s stolen from Dani and places them around Sofia’s wrists over the gloves to keep them from falling off her hands; it looks ridiculous but Sofia seems satisfied so Jamie shrugs, tugs on her own gloves, and grabs the seeds.
“Okay, so first we need to find a good spot for these,” Jamie says, shaking the seed packet. “This is an iris seed, so we need a spot with lots of sunlight.”
Sofia nods very seriously, and Jamie tries not to grin.
She adds some trivia about the flower, about its meaning, as she shows Sofia how to properly dig a hole and plant the flower. Sofia looks focused and determined as she listens, and Jamie fights off a grin because of how adorable she looks.
“You wanna try, poppet?” she asks, and Sofia nods resolutely before she turns, bewildered, to stare at Jamie.
“What’s a poppet?” she asks with an adorably confused expression, brows furrowed and lips pursed a little.
“It’s what we call sweet little gremlins like you,” Jamie says with a grin as she helps her dig the hole.
“I’m not a gremlin,” Sofia pouts, and Jamie knows she would’ve crossed her arms petulantly if she hadn’t been planting the seed at the moment.
“No, you’re a poppet,” Jamie says, pinching her cheek gently and leaving a tiny streak of dirt on it. Sofia squirms away but she’s laughing so Jamie counts it as a win.
They keep working for a while; Sofia asks question after question about plants and Jamie answers them all as best as she can. Then the sun starts to set and Jamie is reminded of that one golden moment with Dani in this same garden that led to Sofia and Daniel; they seem to have a lot of important moments surrounded by plants. Jamie takes that as a good sign.
“Hey, Dan,” Sofia says distractedly, tongue sticking out as she pats the soil in front of her. Jamie jolts slightly, turning to see Daniel sitting on the steps that lead from the porch into the backyard, Kal’s head fully in his lap. The dog looks like he’s taking a nap, the waning rays of sun making his fur look almost yellow as Daniel strokes his head gently, eyes glued to Sofia and a small smile on his face.
“Hey,” he says, both to Sofia and Jamie, and she waves at him, flinging some dirt from her gloves unintentionally.
“Hey kid, everything alright?” Jamie asks, and Daniel nods.
“You havin’ fun, Sof?” he asks, careful not to wake Kal.
“Yeah!” she answers excitedly, and as she looks up at him a stray curl falls over her eyes. Jamie reaches out to tuck it behind her ear, leaving another streak of dirt on her cheekbone. “Wanna help?”
“Nah, I’ll wake him up if I get up,” Daniel said, inclining his head towards Kal. “Mrs Clayt– uh, Dani, told me to ask if you wanted to watch a movie before bed?”
“Sure,” Sofia replies, still distracted. “Can we make popcorn?” she asks, looking up at Jamie.
“Of course, poppet,” Jamie says, patting the soil one last time, satisfied with her own work, before standing up and letting out a groan as her spine cracks when she straightens up. “What d’you guys prefer, butter or caramel?”
“Ooh, butter! Butter, please!” Sofia begs, letting Jamie take off her gloves, returning the scrunchies into the pockets of her overalls. Daniel perks up.
“I vote butter too,” he says with a smile as he gets up, gently waking up Kal who shakes his head and yawns.
“Stellar choice, lads,” Jamie nods.
When they enter the house, Dani is sitting cross-legged in front of the cabinet that holds their steadily-growing collection of VHSs and DVDs, rifling through it. She looks up with a smile as they walk in, messy-haired, sweaty and with dirt-streaks on several parts of their arms and faces, and shakes her head fondly.
“When I said ‘play in the dirt’ I didn’t mean it literally, baby,” she says to Jamie, who shrugs and sticks out her tongue at her. “Go wash up, and then you can help me choose what to watch. You too, young lady,” she says, turning to Sofia.
They settle on the Star Wars: A New Hope DVD, because Dani and Daniel are both gigantic nerds. Jamie makes the popcorn the way Owen taught her, years back in the Manor, and has to make another batch mid-film because they eat the entire bowl before Han Solo even appears on-screen for the first time.
Later, after the kids go to bed – it’s a bit of a shuffle to work out the order of using the bathroom – Jamie and Dani lie on their bed, both content to simply stay quiet in the silence of the dark house. Kal has curled up at the foot of the bed, and Calla is already fast asleep in her cat bed in the corner of the room.
It’s normal, and at the same time very different because now, in the room on the other end of the floor, there are two children. Their children. As if just now processing that thought, Jamie turns to Dani, curling up on her side to face Dani and reaching out to trace the length of her cheek.
“Today was good, wasn’t it?” she asks in a whisper and Dani smiles, mismatched eyes sparkling in the soft glow of the moonlight shining through the window. “We can really do this.”
“We can,” Dani confirms in that same soft voice, hand grasping Jamie’s, leaning up to kiss her palm.
That’s how they fall asleep, fingers intertwined and legs tangled together under the thin covers in the stifling August heat.
⁂
Jamie wakes.
At first, she doesn’t know what woke her up. She wasn’t always a light sleeper, but since Dani left that one time...well, her sleep is light at best nowadays. It’s– she throws a look at the digital clock on her nightstand– God, it’s just past three in the morning, and her first thought is that maybe Dani is having one of her nightmares. She’s learned to recognise them just as they begin, and how to gently soothe her before they can reach their peak.
Yet Dani is sound asleep beside her, breaths deep and even, but the muffled sounds that Jamie hears sound a lot like a nightmare; they are coming from the children’s room.
Slowly so as not to wake Dani, Jamie gets out of the bed and pads towards the children’s room, her bare feet barely audible on the cold hardwood floor. The door to their room was left open for a reason, as was the children’s; she doubts she would’ve heard anything otherwise. There’s a sliver of light from Daniel and Sofia’s room, and as she approaches she can hear Daniel murmuring softly.
Jamie finds him kneeling next to Sofia’s bed, trying to gently shake her awake but to no avail, as the girl continues to sob in her sleep, thrashing almost violently. The covers have gotten all tangled and they're halfway off the bed, and Jamie can see the sheets balled up in Sofia’s left hand so tightly her knuckles have turned white.
“Hey,” Jamie says softly in order not to startle Daniel, but he still jolts and turns, eyes wide with fear.
“I’m sorry! We’ll be quiet, I promise,” he says, quickly, instinctively. Jamie flinches.
“No– it’s okay,” she says, curbing her desire to strangle whoever’s made him react like that. “Here, let me try. I’ve had some practice.”
Daniel looks between her and Sofia a couple of times, clearly torn, until he finally decides to stand and let Jamie take a seat at the bed. He backs up a few steps, but doesn’t return to his bed.
“I’m here love,” Jamie murmurs when she sits down next to Sofia on the bed, hand on the girl’s shoulder, “I’ve got you. Wake up for me babe, come on.” Sofia struggles, and her whimpers sound so painful that Jamie has to close her own eyes tightly in order not to cry. “C’mon darling, you’re safe, I’ve got you, I’m here. Wake up, Sof.”
Her sob cuts off halfway through when Jamie pulls her up with a hand around her back, almost yanking her out of the nightmare and Sofia startles awake. For a moment, she fights Jamie’s gentle hold before she sees Daniel, standing a few feet away and looking relieved. And then she crumbles, sobbing against Jamie and clutching at Jamie’s baggy band t-shirt like it’s a lifeline; disoriented, confused, and emotionally wrung out by her nightmare, and it’s all Jamie can do to rock her in her arms, murmuring comforting words and shushing her softly until the girl’s breaths even out and she tapers off into a dreamless sleep.
Careful not to wake her, she lowers Sofia back onto her pillow, pulling the covers up over her torso until she’s tucked in before she stands from the bed. Daniel is still in the same spot, wide awake and looking at the two of them warily, and Jamie sighs.
“C’mon, I’ll warm up some milk to help you fall back asleep.”
When they get to the kitchen, Jamie busies herself with finding a pot to heat up milk in, and then leans against the counter once she’s done, the countertop digging uncomfortably into her lower back as they wait. Daniel looks to be on the verge of asking her something several times, but seems reluctant to break the silence. She will have to break the ice first, then.
“Dani… she has nightmares sometimes,” she says, and Daniel’s eyes snap up to meet hers. “So do I, for that matter. We went through some traumatic shi– ah crap– stuff, some years back and… yeah,” she trails off, rubbing the back of her neck.
“I’m sorry,” Daniel offers, looking tired and way too old for his age. “Sofia, she– when we change fosters, she usually has nightmares the first week or so. The social workers said it’s probably a reaction to change. An unfamiliar environment, y’know?”
Jamie nods and he seems satisfied to leave it at that; he accepts the carefully poured cup of milk with a grateful smile that Jamie returns with a tired one of her own.
“You know, you don’t have to apologise for stuff like this,” Jamie says, voice cautious, and takes a swig of her milk. “We’re not going to punish you for having issues, alright?”
Daniel seems to consider that.
“I’m sorry,” he says after a few moments, looking ruefully down at his feet when Jamie pointedly looks at him. “A few of our fosters… well, they didn’t like it much when Sofia had nightmares.”
“They’re bastards,” Jamie says without thinking, and Daniel snorts in laughter.
“Yeah, you’re right about that.”
They drink their milk in silence, and Jamie rinses out both of their cups when they finish. The stairs creak a little when they climb them, sounding louder than they really are in the silence of the house.
“Well, good night then,” Jamie says after a beat, ruffling Daniel’s hair and turning to her and Dani’s bedroom.
“‘Night,” Daniel replies with a soft smile, and enters his and Sofia’s room.
Dani shifts when Jamie lies back down, eyes opening blearily while Jamie is moving under the covers.
“Mm, hey,” Dani mumbles, voice full of sleep, “ev’rything okay?”
“It’s nothing serious, I’ll tell you in the morning. Go back to sleep, love,” Jamie whispers, pressing a kiss to Dani’s forehead, smiling as Dani turns and throws a leg over hers, settling into the crook of Jamie’s shoulder.
“Mmkay,” Dani murmurs, already asleep, and Jamie lets Dani’s warm, rhythmic exhales on the skin of her neck to lull her to sleep.
⁂
November, 2006
Sofia’s tenth birthday passes in a flurry of presents and kids and noise.
The little one seems stunned after Dani and Jamie go all-out (okay, yeah, they might’ve gone slightly overboard) with the presents and the cake. But after some of the insinuations about previous fosters from Sofia that she made off-handedly, not even aware of how messed up they were, Jamie was completely set on giving her everything she could wish for and more for her first birthday with them.
Including, but not limited to: a cake made by Owen himself, tons of clothes and toys for Sofia, a movie night for her and all her friends from school, and going out for ice-cream, even if it’s almost December.
(Sofia might’ve said she liked that last one the most, because it reminded her of her parents. Jamie and Dani might’ve teared up.)
So when Jamie and Dani sneak downstairs around 2AM because Dani is craving cake and find a startled Sofia looking like a deer in headlights, Jamie nudges Dani in the ribs subtly, and Dani clears her throat.
“Hey munchkin, whatcha doing up?”
“Uh,” Sofia starts, moving in front of the fridge and slowly pushing it shut with her foot, “nothing.”
Dani gives her an amused, lopsided smile. “Uh-huh, I can see that. Were you hungry?” she asks, arms crossed and eyebrow raised. “Because if you were, that’s okay. Except if it’s cake, because you shouldn’t eat sugar this late.”
Even though that’s exactly what the two of them had come down to do.
Still, parenting is all about knowing when to bend the truth for your children, right?
Sofia’s gaze moves from Dani to Jamie and back again a few times, and Jamie knows she’s trying to gauge how genuine Dani’s reassurance is. She’s biting her lip nervously, her hands fisting the soft fabric of her oversized sleepshirt, and Jamie’s heart aches. What this poor girl must’ve been through to feel this nervous about their reaction to her eating… sorrow and fury simultaneously burn in Jamie, and she fights to keep her face neutral at the very least so that Sofia doesn’t take it as a negative reaction towards her.
“I wanted to see if we had some pizza left,” she finally mumbles, eyes downcast, clearly expecting a punishment. “I’m sorry.”
“What for, poppet?” Jamie asks, deliberately cheery as she digs through the fridge for the cold pizza slices. (Owen made the pizzas, too, so they’re probably more edible than anything Dani and Jamie would’ve cooked up, anyway.) “You got hungry. You need to eat. What’s there to be sorry about?”
“For taking your food without asking,” Sofia says without thought and, just… what the fuck. What the fuck. What kind of a sick bastard instills such a thought into a child’s head so carelessly and completely that they feel guilty for eating? In their own home?
Dani frowns for a second but hides it by pulling out Sofia’s chair, sitting on the chair next to her when the kid hesitantly plops down. Jamie hands them the plate with the pizza slices, grabbing one for herself before hopping up onto the counter because she’s allergic to sitting on a chair like a normal person.
“Why do you say that?” Dani asks before taking a bite of her pizza. Jamie’s already got her mouth stuffed like a chipmunk. Tentatively, Sofia reaches out for her own slice.
“Because you spend your money on it,” she says as she takes a bite, munching slowly.
“True,” Dani nods. “But we’re your parents, that’s what we’re here for.”
“Also, money’s not something you should even be thinking about at your age,” Jamie says around a mouthful of pizza. She pauses for a moment, a contemplative look on her face, before she spits out something into her hand. Sofia cringes, and Dani gives her that disappointed Mom stare that she’s perfected since they’ve brought the kids home.
“Wha’?” Jamie mumbles, almost incomprehensibly. “Ther’ was ‘n olive.”
“Anyway,” Dani continues, throwing one last disgusted look at Jamie, “you can eat however much you want, whenever you want, ‘kay? We’ll never punish you for that.”
“But there’s just one rule,” Jamie starts, in a voice that would sound stern except there’s that mischievous glint in her eyes that Dani knows too well, “you always have to share with us. Especially if it’s ice cream. Deal?” And then she winks at Sofia, who grins, mouth full and a gap in her front teeth.
“Deal,” she says, and when Jamie leans down – nearly falling off the counter in the process – to offer her hand for a high-five, Sofia slaps her palm with her own. Dani shakes her head at the childish display, but there’s an upturn to her lips as she puts the leftovers away and cleans up the crumbs from the table.
“What, no high-five for me?” she asks, mock-hurt and pouting, and Sofia rushes to high five her too.
“Alright, alright,” Jamie says, plopping down from the counter and wincing when her feet touch the cold tiles, “now you two are just being sappy. Off to bed with you, you little gremlin, shoo.”
Sofia turns to leave, but stops just before the stairs. She stands there for a moment, one foot on the bottom stair, seemingly deliberating something before she turns around and runs into the kitchen, almost bowling over Jamie with a hug around her middle. Jamie stands for a moment, arms raised like she’s afraid that touching Sofia will hurt her, before she relaxes and returns the hug.
Sofia then turns to Dani and gives her a tight hug too, and Dani gently places a hand on her head, stroking her long hair.
“Thanks,” Sofia mumbles into the fabric of Dani’s sleep shirt, before she rushes off upstairs, despite Jamie throwing out a stern “hey, no running up the stairs!” as she passes.
Dani and Jamie stand silently in the kitchen, until Jamie decides that there’s been enough emotional and parental moments for one night, thank you very much. She turns to rummage through the fridge again.
“So, about that cake…”
⁂
July, 2007
“Okay, so you have our phone numbers, you have Louis and Jack’s phone number, you have the number of Mrs Stevens down the street; the pizza money is on the counter and all the emergency numbers are on the post-it on the fridge,” Dani prattles off without stopping to take a breath, and Daniel watches with a raised eyebrow and an amused smile. “We’re only a call away.”
“Yes, I know,” he says, exchanging a glance with Jamie, “you’ve told me this three times already. We’ve stayed on our own before, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dani says, deflating. “I’m just–”
“Being thorough, yes Poppins, we know,” Jamie says, finishing tying her shoelaces and straightening up. “The kid’s got your speech memorised by now, and Louis and Jack promised they’d come check in on them in half an hour.” She places her hands on Dani’s shoulders and stares her straight in the eye. “Relax.”
“Okay, okay,” Dani says, rolling her eyes but she can’t hide her smile. “Let’s go then, we’ll miss our reservation.”
“Oh, so now she wants to hurry up,” Jamie teases, grinning, and dodges a swipe from Dani. “Poppet, I’m not leaving until I get a goodbye hug!”
“I’m coming,” Sofia yells from upstairs, and they hear her thudding footsteps rushing on the floor above. Jamie gives Daniel a hug and ruffles his hair, grinning when he jumps back like he’s burned; he’s at that stage of puberty where his looks are just about the most important thing in the world. Like anyone’s gonna see him messy-haired at home, anyway.
“Hug incoming,” Dani warns with a wide smile, and a moment later Sofia barrels into Jamie, embracing her around her middle tightly. Jamie cherishes each hug because both of the kids are iffy at best with physical contact, flinching at sudden movements or extra loud noises, and Jamie’s heart aches every time it happens. She wishes she could physically remove the hurt, the trauma, but knows she can only do her best to make the kids comfortable enough to let themselves heal.
But it still sucks.
By the time they leave the house, Daniel’s already booted up the Playstation 3 they got as a Christmas gift from the Wingraves, offering to play NBA 2k7 against Sofia, who’s become increasingly interested in basketball lately.
For the first hour and a half of their date, everything goes smoothly. The restaurant they eat at is great, the food is amazing, and afterwards, they stroll leisurely by the river, holding hands and simply enjoying the scenery. Jamie stares a little more at Dani than at the landscape around them – her wife looks as stunning at 46 as she did twenty years before. Now, there are smile lines around her mouth and crow’s feet around her eyes that crinkle when she laughs, and her hair’s started to grey; Jamie loves it all, loves everything about her.
She’s lost in her musings when her phone rings loudly, the default ringtone breaking the comfortable silence between them.
“Hello?” she answers after taking a moment to dig it out of her pocket.
“It’s Louis,” comes the voice from the other side of the line, and Jamie straightens up at the tone of his voice. “Don’t panic but–”
“Too late,” Jamie says, and Dani immediately knows something is wrong by the tight tone of her voice. They head towards Jamie’s beat-up truck without having to exchange any words, Dani already rummaging for the keys in her purse. “What happened?
“Seriously, everyone’s alive and not in any danger, but Sofia’s had a little… fall,” Louis says. “And now they won’t let us take them to the hospital or call 911.”
“What do you mean, ‘a little fall’?” Jamie asks, high-pitched and panicked, and Dani turns to give her a wide-eyed look.
Who?, she mouths at Jamie, who covers the speaker and mouths, Sofia.
“Look, right now, the most important thing is that you hurry up and come back so that you can talk them into letting you take Sofia to the hospital,” Louis says. “I promise it’s nothing life-threatening, so don’t speed, okay? We’ll be waiting here with the kids.” He hangs up without waiting for her to answer.
Jamie curses, shoving the phone frustratedly back in her pocket, and motions for Dani to throw her the keys as they reach the car.
“What happened?” Dani asks once they’re on the road and when Jamie looks closer, her hands are shaking.
“They’re both fine,” Jamie says immediately, taking Dani’s hand and squeezing gently, “but Sofia had a fall, apparently, and now she and Daniel won’t let them take her to the hospital for some bloody reason.”
They arrive in record time, breaking several laws and speed limits, and rush inside, leaving the car parked haphazardly in the driveway, halfway on the front lawn.
“In here,” Jack says from the living room when they enter the house, and they practically run into the room, nearly tripping over Calla who’s lying near the entrance, waving her tail occasionally.
“What happened?” Dani demands, slipping into the role of the Bly Manor governess with nearly terrifying ease.
Daniel and Sofia are sitting on the couch, Sofia holding her right arm close to her body, and both look incredibly anxious and scared at the same time; there are tear streaks on Sofia’s cheeks, and the poor kid looks frazzled. Louis and Jack stand near them, identical worried looks on their faces.
“Nothing!” Sofia says immediately, though it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that there’s a lump on her forearm that shouldn’t be there, and she’s biting her lip in pain every time she moves her arm.
“Wanna try that again?” Dani asks, crossing her arms and looking sternly at them.
“She fell,” Daniel says after a long pause, sighing. “I guess she slipped or something– I was just gone for like a minute, in– in the bathroom,” he says, almost in tears. Jamie approaches them slowly and rubs his back reassuringly.
“It’s not your fault, love, accidents happen,” Jamie says. “But you have to let us take her to the hospi–”
“No, please,” Daniel interrupts while Sofia immediately shakes her head almost feverishly.
“I’m fine,” she insists, standing up quickly. “Look, I don’t even feel it.” She reaches for the glass of water in front of her with her broken arm, putting on a brave face. She manages a few centimeters of movement before the pain must become unbearable, because she curls back into herself, hissing in discomfort.
“Yeah, no, this isn’t up for debate,” Dani says, walking over to the landline.
“Please,” Daniel yells desperately and stands up; Dani pauses for a moment. “If you take her to a hospital, they’ll have to call the social workers, and then they’ll think it’s your fault because you left us alone and– and they take kids away for this stuff, please, we don’t want to go back–”
“Hey,” Jamie interrupts firmly, moving to look Daniel in the eye; he’s already taller than her at 16, and she sighs mentally. “Dan, listen to me. No one’s going anywhere, okay? But we have to take Sof to the hospital.”
“But–”
“Daniel,” Dani starts, standing in front of him and taking his hands into hers. Jamie moves aside, taking a seat by Sofia, who is looking at the floor dejectedly. “Honey, you need to trust that we know what we’re doing, alright? Now, please, let’s go because we’re wasting time.”
Defeated, Daniel nods and Dani pulls him into a hug, murmuring comforting words too low for Jamie to hear. At the same time, Jamie ruffles Sofia’s hair.
“How’s the arm, poppet?”
“Hurts,” Sofia admits in a tiny voice. She looks up at Jamie tearfully. “You won’t let them take us away, will you?”
“Of course not, poppet,” Jamie says, pulling her into a sideways hug, careful not to jostle her around too much. “Besides, if I let them take you, who’d I have left to garden with, huh?”
They pile into Jamie’s truck, and Louis leans down to look at Jamie through the open window at the driver’s side when she lowers it.
“Seriously, we can’t thank you two enough for being there, mate,” Jamie says, and he waves her off.
“No biggie, hon,” he says with a small smile. “We’ll bring you something to eat tomorrow so you don’t have to make lunch.”
“You don’t have to–”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waves her off again with an eye-roll. “It’s already past midnight and you won’t be coming home any time soon. You’ll need the rest, so shush and let us cook. Jack’s been wanting to show off his lasagna, anyway.”
“Well, I won’t say no to lasagna,” Jamie laughs as Dani climbs into the passenger seat, having just finished with strapping Sofia in.
“Alright, drive safe you two,” Louis says and Jack waves from behind him.
The drive to the hospital is short; Jamie takes care not to drive over any bumps or holes in order not to jostle Sofia too much, and when they get to the hospital they let them into a room to wait for the doctor. Dani stays with Sofia and Daniel while Jamie goes to fill out the paperwork.
“Does it hurt a lot?” Jamie hears Dani ask Sofia, and hears a sniffle from the girl.
“It’s not that bad,” she replies and Jamie rolls her eyes. Does anyone in this family let themselves admit they’re in pain?
“Alright, if you say so,” Dani acquiesces, and there’s a brief moment of silence. Finishing the forms, Jamie hands them off and goes back to stand next to Dani, intertwining their fingers with the ease of someone who’s done it millions of times before. Daniel takes a seat on one of the few chairs lined up against the wall, and his leg starts bouncing.
“So, what did you guys do while we were gone? Before you fell, I mean,” Dani asks Sofia in order to distract her, and the kid shrugs automatically, then winces.
“I beat Dan at NBA,” she says, and though she’s in pain there’s a clear note of pride in her voice. Daniel grumbles, for a moment simply an older, teenage brother of a kid six years his junior.
“I let her win,” he mutters, and Sofia scoffs.
“I crushed him,” she continues, pausing to glare at him dramatically. “And we ordered pizza, and then I watched some National Geographic, and he did his homework.”
“Oh? Anything interesting on National Geographic?” Dani asks and Sofia moves to shrug again before she catches herself. She pauses for a moment as if remembering something.
“Ma, do you have heterosexuality?” she asks out of the blue and for a moment, both Dani and Jamie are momentarily stunned by the non sequitur. And then Jamie starts cracking up, leaving Dani to answer Sofia’s question, while Daniel looks torn between laughter and utter mortification.
“Uh. No kiddo, I’m gay. Why do you ask?”
“Oh.” Sofia pauses again, tilting her head curiously like a confused puppy. “It’s just that they mentioned it in the documentary I watched, and they said some animals have eyes with different colours, like you do.”
Jamie starts wheezing.
“Baby,” Dani says, clearly fighting a laugh, “that’s heterochromia.”
“Oh. Cool,” Sofia says, nodding to herself. Then she turns to Dani again. “Also, what’s gay?”
The doctor chooses that moment to enter the room with a nurse, and they both give them weird looks. Dani can only shrug helplessly while Jamie attempts to stop laughing, but she’s slightly hysterical after the night they’ve had so it’s a bit more difficult than usual.
Doctor Jones, as it turns out, is a pretty laid-back man who is great with kids. He explains everything about the injury, pointing it out on the x-ray to a very interested Sofia, and sets her bone with ease. The social worker, Emilia, shows up soon after that, and Dani steps outside to talk with her while Jamie stays back as they put Sofia’s arm in a cast. Daniel’s leg starts bouncing faster as he nervously listens to the low murmur of Dani and Emilia’s voices, words indistinguishable in the hum of the hospital. When Dani returns with Emilia in tow, she gives him a soft smile and a discreet thumbs up and he slumps in relief.
By 3AM, they’re driving back home with Sofia’s arm in a green cast and a set of instructions on how to function with it. There’s already a line scribbled on it; Jamie had taken a sharpie and started writing “love you, little gremlin” but Sofia had noticed what she was writing at the last second and had pulled her arm away with a dramatic gasp. Now, the line reads “love you, little greml–” with the l tapering off into a squiggly line. Sofia sticks out her tongue petulantly at Jamie whenever their gazes meet in the rearview mirror.
However, the kid is understandably exhausted. Once they get home, she brushes her teeth and changes into her PJs like a zombie, and she’s out like a light seconds after she slides into bed. Jamie kisses her forehead softly, caressing her soft hair for a moment before she straightens up and walks into the room they’d converted into Daniel’s bedroom once they’d been sure the kids wanted to stay for good.
“Hi,” she says, leaning on the doorpost, and Daniel turns around to face her. He looks tired, as they all do, but there’s an underlying current of emotion Jamie can sense as clearly as day, and she can hazard a guess as to what it is. “Just wanted to say goodnight and to let you know that one, it’s not your fault, and two, you did great today, alright?”
“No I didn’t,” he says, sitting on his bed and burying his face in his hands. “I wasn’t there when she slipped, and things could’ve been much worse.”
“But they weren’t, and you can’t watch her every moment of every day, Dan. You need to let yourself be a kid, yeah?” Jamie says, taking a seat next to him on the bed and pulling him into a sideways hug. He lets his head drop to her shoulder, and a moment later she feels him shaking. “Accidents happen; you did the right thing when you called Louis and Jack. And hey?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you for trusting us today. I know it wasn’t easy.” He sniffles, and Jamie smiles against her will. “Alright, I’ll get out of your hair now, I know you must be tired as hel– heck, tired as heck.”
When she leaves the room, he’s wiping at his eyes but there’s a slight smile on his lips. Jamie takes it as a win.
⁂
September, 2007
Jamie’s lying on the couch with her feet in Dani’s lap, reading Mrs Dalloway for the fifth time when Daniel comes home from school with a familiar this-day-sucked-please-don’t-talk-to-me air about him.
He toes off his sneakers and drops his backpack next to them with a loud thud, and Jamie spares a thought for how the poor lad’s back must be feeling with all those textbooks in his backpack. Dani instinctively moves closer to Jamie to make room for him as he approaches, and he flops down gracelessly, all lanky limbs and teenage angst.
Dani rubs his back comfortingly as Jamie observes over the top of her reading glasses (yes, glasses; she’s getting old).
What Jamie wants to say is something soothing; what comes out instead is:
“Your hair’s gettin’ long, love.”
Both Dani and Daniel turn to look at her with raised eyebrows, expressions so similar that Jamie’s breath catches in her lungs for a moment. Dani seems to be shooting her a I-love-you-but-what-the-fuck look, and Daniel just looks confused.
“Yeah,” he says, running a hand through it, momentarily distracted, “I wanted to try growing it out.” He turns to them, a quick and sudden panicked glint in his eyes that Jamie would’ve missed if she hadn’t been watching him. “You’re okay with it, right?”
Jamie shrugs, placing a pressed-flower bookmark that Sofia and Dani had made for her into the book to mark her place before closing it and tossing it onto the coffee table. “It’s your hair, Dan, you can do what you want with it. As long as you’re happy, why would we stop you?”
He breathes a sigh of relief both Dani and Jamie pretend not to hear, and Dani tugs at one of the strands falling into his eyes with a grin.
“I could braid it for you, if you want to?”
“Sure,” he grins, light and easy, the tension dissipated, and takes a seat on the floor between Dani’s legs, shrugging out of his hoodie so that he’s just in his t-shirt. He pushes slightly at the coffee table to create more room for his legs. “But, like… cool braids.”
“Of course, of course,” Dani says, mock serious, and shifts forward a little bit more. Jamie watches as she separates his hair into sections, nimble fingers starting to slowly braid his dark hair.
Sofia returns from school at that moment too, waving goodbye to the friend that takes the same route home as she does, before she turns and hurriedly undoes her laces, pausing for a moment to scratch her arm; her cast has been off for a whole day but her arm still itches occasionally.
“Moms, I got a–” she starts, but stops mid-word. “Are you braiding Dan’s hair?” she asks, and Daniel nods, getting a tug on his hair from Dani in reproach. Sofia’s eyes light up. “Can I try? Please please pleeeease let me braid your hair, Dan.”
“Alright, alright, poppet,” Jamie says, swinging her legs over the side of the couch so that she’s sitting upright, “you sit here and braid this side and Dani will braid the other.” She stands up, extending her arms over her head until there’s a satisfying pop in her spine and shoulders. “And I will go and grab my camera because this is something I want framed.”
Daniel’s half-hearted protests and Sofia’s laughter follow her out of the room and up the stairs, where she keeps her camera and her camcorder. Debating between the two for a moment, she shrugs and grabs both, hanging the camera around neck while she turns on the recorder and begins recording before she’s even gone down the stairs.
“And here we see a family of gremlins engaging in a familial bonding ritual,” Jamie starts narrating like she’s in a National Geographic documentary, and is met with three glares pointed in her direction. “They seem to be irritated at the interruption, so we shall take a step back so we don’t disturb them.”
“I’ll show you gremlins,” Dani mutters, pouting, and Jamie cracks up.
“Poppins, that doesn’t even make sense,” she says, before she lets them tug her down next to Daniel, flopping clumsily onto the floor. She places the recorder on the coffee table and leaves it there, recording, as she takes pictures for as long as she can before they manhandle her into having her hair braided, too.
After they’ve taken a picture together with everyone’s hair braided messily and covered in scrunchies and glittery hairpins, Daniel swears he’s going to run away from home if they show that to anyone and Jamie laughs, loud and unrestrained, running away with the camera as he gives chase around the house.
Dani and Sofia watch from the couch, amused, and Jamie overhears them betting on whether or not anyone will trip and break something. (She’s really disappointed in Dani when she says that it will probably be Jamie; she should know by now that Jamie has superior hand-eye coordi–)
(She trips.)
⁂
March, 2008
“Mom!” Sofia yells one morning from the upstairs bathroom, voice tinged with panic, and Jamie and Dani exchange a look.
“Coming, poppet,” Jamie yells back, ignoring a dirty look from Daniel who’s the only person who can’t function before 10AM in a house full of morning people. “What’s up?” Jamie asks when she gets upstairs, leaning gently onto the bathroom door. She nearly falls in when Sofia opens it suddenly, barely getting her bearings in time to stop herself from faceplanting onto the tiles. “Whoa, where’s the fire?”
“I think I got it,” Sofia says, biting her lip nervously, face slightly pink, and lets Jamie into the bathroom.
“Got what?” Jamie asks, eyebrow raised in question but then it dawns, and she’s instantly tongue-tied. “Oh– the– you got your…?”
“Yeah,” Sofia says, and Jamie doesn’t know why she’s suddenly tearing up except maybe because her little girl is becoming a woman or something equally as cliché and old-fashioned as that.
She remembers when Sofia had first approached her and Dani with shy questions about the pain in her chest; Jamie had immediately panicked and thought it was some undiagnosed illness until Sofia clarified that her chest hurt to the touch. It was an entirely different kind of ache to realise your daughter had started puberty, that she’s growing up and there was nothing Jamie and Dani could do to stop that.
Then there was the trip to the mall to buy Sofia her first bra; Dani had helped her get her measures while Jamie had floundered until Dani calmed her down by tenderly stroking her jaw with her thumb and kissing her softly, quickly.
Jamie had never had that – had never had anyone explain these things to her when she was a child, because her mother was a ghost from the age of 5 and had disappeared for real by the time Jamie was starting school. All that was left was Mikey and her dad, and both were equally ill-equipped to explain to Jamie what was happening to her body and what she was supposed to do.
She’s never had anyone explain periods to her, how to measure her chest properly to buy a bra, or to tell her about the mood swings and the sense of drifting that came with puberty, and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t give Sofia everything she herself never had.
“I don’t– how do I–” Sofia stutters, breaking Jamie out of her musings.
“Right,” Jamie says, sniffling once and nodding resolutely, “right. Let me get Dani here too, and we’ll explain everything to ya, alright?” She waits for a nod from Sofia before going downstairs and practically dragging Dani away with her, with Daniel watching in confusion from the kitchen table as everyone’s food gets abandoned.
“Uh… is Sofia okay?” he asks, and Jamie smiles.
“It’s just girl things, don’t worry.”
Dani takes over explaining how to properly use pads and what this means for Sofia, and Jamie just tries her hardest not to start bawling like a baby; instead, she squeezes Dani’s hand and hugs Sofia gently, kissing the crown of her head tenderly.
“You know what? I propose a day off school today, yeah?” Dani says and Jamie’s head snaps up in surprise. Dani’s the more responsible parent, they both know that; Dani sets the rules and makes sure they are followed while Jamie helps the kids bend (and sometimes break) them.
“If that’s okay,” Sofia mumbles and Dani softens.
“Of course, babe,” she says, then leads her out of the bathroom by the hand to the kitchen to finish her breakfast, Jamie trailing after them.
Daniel grumbles good-naturedly that Sofia gets to miss school and he doesn’t, but leaves with a tight hug to his sibling and refuses to move until she gives him a kiss on the cheek, which she does, rolling her eyes but acquiescing. (God, here comes her puberty. How fun.)
They spend the day on the couch, watching Sofia’s favourite movies (Mulan and Night at the Museum); at one point Dani and Sofia rope Jamie into letting them paint her nails and ends up with hot pink nails while Dani and Sofia giggle uncontrollably.
“If I get any weird looks from customers tomorrow, I’m filing for divorce,” Jamie jokes, then gives a kiss to a pouting Dani. “Just joking Poppins, you know you’ll never get rid of me.”
“Gross,” Sofia laughs, then freezes. Her eyes widen and she stares at the two of them anxiously. “Wait, I’m sorry,” she starts, clenching her fists nervously, “I didn’t mean that. I’m s–”
“Hey, poppet,” Jamie says, holding her face in her hands. “Breathe, love. You don’t have to apologise.”
“It’s okay, babe,” Dani says, then offers a wide, if a little forced, grin. “Besides, it’s our duty as your parents to be gross, you know.”
Sofia calms down slightly once she sees she will not get punished, and even manages a slight smile.
It’s been almost two years, but Jamie still gets a sudden flare of anger at things like this; she curses the system and the people in it and those who let them foster children with no regard to the children’s well-being. Sofia and Daniel have gotten off lightly, Jamie knows, in comparison to what she knows first-hand happens in the system. Neglect and abuse and mental and emotional scars to last a lifetime; but it still doesn’t sit right with Jamie that these kids, these two goddamn angels of human beings were treated so cruelly for no reason at all.
“Now, do you want me to destroy you in NBA, yes or yes? Loser does the dishes?” Jamie asks, fetching the PS controllers, and Sofia snorts, accepting the proffered gadget with a resolute look.
“You’re on, Mom,” Sofia says, turning so that she’s sitting on the edge of her seat, leaning forward in determination. She turns and sticks her tongue out at Dani. “You can’t be worse than Ma, anyway.” Dani shakes her head fondly.
“Awfully brave words from someone who has at least fifteen pictures of her covered in glitter for her first Halloween here. What a shame it would be if I broke out the photo albums the first time you brought a girlfriend or a boyfriend home...” Dani trails off with a mock-threatening look, and Sofia’s eyes widen.
“I take it back, Mom’s definitely the worst player.”
“Hey! Uncalled for!”
⁂
December, 2008
Dani has an episode.
It starts subtle: Dani seems a little more on edge, a little sadder, and her smiles are fewer in number and don’t reach her eyes. It’s even more pronounced because Christmas is right around the corner and the outside joy and brightness doesn’t reflect in Dani, who becomes more and more subdued the longer her melancholy goes on. The kids can clearly sense that something is wrong; Daniel keeps shooting them worried glances and Sofia seems to tiptoe around them both.
Jamie knows that even though a large part of it is worry for Dani, there’s a part of them that even now, more than two years later, fears that one day they will snap and start the cycle of abuse and neglect the kids seem to have escaped; she cannot blame them for that, not really, because she knows it’s not on purpose. She wishes she could explain, and not just in the form of a fictional, bedtime story; reveal the whole, ugly truth of it all and Viola’s sinister presence and why there’s a despondency that permeates every word Dani says.
As it is, she distracts the kids and shifts their attention from Dani to herself, to school, to gardening, to just about anything she can think of to keep their eyes off Dani, who’s crumbling twice as fast as Jamie can help her rebuild herself.
Dani has taken to listening to some of Daniel’s music when she’s frustrated, and Jamie can hear the thrums of a Paramore song muffled through the thick wooden door of Dani’s art room.
“Dani?” Jamie asks when she tentatively enters the room. Dani’s got her back to the entrance, blinds drawn even though the sun has set long ago. The tall lamp in the corner serves as the only source of light, and it paints shadows on the walls almost eerily. They dance across the planes of Dani’s face, casting half of it into the darkness and making the purple circles under her eyes more pronounced, but the lack of light has nothing to do with the darkness that’s settled into Dani’s eyes and Jamie aches for her. “Love?”
Dani doesn’t say anything, but her shoulders slump minutely and Jamie takes that as a good sign to approach. She hugs her from behind with her face nestled where Dani’s shoulder meets her neck, arms passing under Dani’s to settle just under her chest, and after a momentary pause Dani drops the bit of charcoal she had been holding tightly and places her hands over Jamie’s, smearing charcoal over her skin.
“I’m so tired, Jamie,” Dani says after a prolonged silence and Jamie can’t help the way her fingers tense slightly, curling into the material of Dani’s ratty, stained t-shirt and into the skin below, as if to make sure Dani’s still there.
“I know, love,” Jamie says, mumbling the words into the skin of Dani’s neck, and Dani sighs in something resembling contentment for the first time in days. Jamie lets the silence stretch on for a bit, nuzzling Dani’s neck. “D’you think you’re up for some food tonight? Dan and Sof have been worried sick.”
Dani sighs again. “I should eat, yeah. Can you– can you just give me some time? The worst has passed, I think, but I still– I feel raw.”
“That’s okay,” Jamie says, kissing the nape of Dani’s neck once before she steps back. “I’ll cook something up, and if you don’t feel up for it I’m sure one of the kids will eat it.”
“Thank you,” Dani nods, hesitating for a moment before she places a light kiss on Jamie’s lips. Jamie closes her eyes, returning it and tenderly running her fingers through Dani’s hair, before she breaks the kiss and leans her forehead on Dani’s for a second. “Tell the kids I’m sorry,” Dani says and Jamie nods.
“You don’t have anything to apologise for, love,” Jamie says, “but I’ll tell them anyway.”
“Thank you,” Dani repeats, and turns back to her easel with one final squeeze of Jamie’s hand. Jamie tries to ignore the contents on the canvas; it’s always hardest to look at art that Dani produces in moments like this, when the Lady lurks on the edges of her consciousness.
When Jamie exits Dani’s art room, she leans back against the door before she lets herself slide down it until she’s sitting with her back against the wooden panel, legs bent at the knees and eyes firmly shut.
She hears footsteps a few minutes later and when she opens her eyes, Sofia is standing in front of her, Calla curled up in her arms; the cat is old and frail, and now more than ever lets herself be held and cuddled. Wordlessly, Sofia sits down next to Jamie with her legs crossed, leaning her head against Jamie’s shoulder and Jamie leans her head on top of Sofia’s, sighing once and reaching out to pet Calla.
“Is Ma gonna be okay?” Sofia asks, breaking the silence, and Jamie closes her eyes once more to stave off the wave of tears that suddenly comes.
“She will,” Jamie says, throat oddly dry and choked up, and Sofia’s shoulders slump in relief minutely. “We just have to give her time, poppet.”
“Okay,” the girl agrees easily, scratching behind Calla’s ears and her fingertips bump against Jamie’s on the tiny cat’s head. “Can Dan and I help her somehow?”
Jamie feels herself smile. “Just be patient with her, yeah? Your Ma’s been through a lot and it sometimes makes her sad.”
“We can do that,” Sofia says. There’s silence again, the only thing breaking it the muffled sounds of drums, guitar, and Hayley Williams’ voice drifting from inside Dani’s room. “You know, pancakes cheer me up when I’m sad.” She looks meaningfully at Jamie, who laughs softly.
“Pancakes are a breakfast food though, Sof,” she says and can practically feel Sofia roll her eyes.
“Says who?”
Jamie pauses. “You’ve got me there, poppet.” She stands up, stiff from the position her joints were in, and holds out a hand to help Sofia up. “Let’s go make your Ma some pancakes.”
“With smiley faces?”
“With smiley faces.”
Later, when Dani comes down, hands freshly washed of charcoal and eyes red-rimmed like she’s been crying – which everyone dutifully ignores – she smiles genuinely for the first time in days when she sees the mess of whipped cream and blueberries piled on some questionable-looking pancakes. Daniel and Sofia squabble over who made the better smiley face, Kal and Calla wander into the kitchen to investigate the noise, Jamie kisses Dani softly, sweetly, and things are okay.
⁂
July, 2014
“You suck!” Sofia yells, slamming the door to her room with all the attitude she can muster in her almost 17-year-old body. Jamie sighs.
“Remember when you said her puberty wasn’t gonna be that bad?” she asks Dani, who’s rubbing her temples in frustration. Dani snorts.
“Okay, you can say ‘I told you so’,” Dani says, and Jamie smirks, embracing her wife and placing a kiss on her temple.
“Oh, I’m gonna,” Jamie says with a cocky grin and Dani slaps her on the arm a moment later. “Oof, you’re becoming violent in your old age, Poppins.”
“Shut up,” Dani says, rolling her eyes but huffing a laugh anyway. “All this for a stupid party,” she mumbles, staring up at the ceiling like she’s going to get x-ray vision any moment now and see Sofia through the walls.
“She’s a teenager,” Jamie says, leading them to the couch and turning the TV on, letting some random show run in the background on low volume, “getting invited to a party by your crush seems like life and death.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dani nods. “I know. I just wish we could talk rationally about this with her.” She pauses for a moment. “Do you think we’re overreacting?”
“A little bit, probably,” Jamie sighs, sinking further into the couch cushions. “I trust her, love, I just wish she wasn’t growing up so fast.”
“Me too.” They sit in silence for a few minutes, and then Dani sighs. “We should let her go, shouldn’t we?”
“Yup.”
“Okay, she’s probably cooled off enough to not throw something at you, you can go tell her she can go to the party,” Dani says and Jamie huffs.
“Alright Poppins, but if I end up with a pillow thrown at my face you’re kissing it better,” Jamie warns as she extricates herself from Dani and the couch. Dani snorts.
“Poor baby,” Dani says and rolls her eyes, but Jamie notices she doesn’t say no.
Sofia, predictably, squeals in joy at being allowed to go to the party, throwing her arms around Jamie in a hug that nearly knocks her off her feet.
“You know the rules, poppet,” Jamie warns once Sofia lets up, turning to her closet to start rifling through it.
“Yeah, yeah,” she says, waving her off, “if I drink, I should call you to come pick me up. No getting in the car with anyone who’s had anything to drink, help someone if they’re in trouble, and if someone tries to force themselves on me, kick them in the groin.”
“Good,” Jamie says, satisfied for now. “Your curfew is 1:30AM; come and tell us you’ve made it home when you get back.”
“Will do.” Sofia seems to consider something for a moment, before she turns her puppy dog eyes on Jamie. “Can I stay out until 2?”
“Don’t push it, gremlin.”
⁂
When Jamie’s phone rings at 1:17AM, an unknown number flashing across the screen, she knows this can’t be good.
“Yeah?” she answers, voice groggy from sleep but she’s already pulling on the first pair of pants she can find while Dani sits up in bed, instantly awake.
“Mom,” Sofia’s voice greets her from the other side of the line and she sighs in relief.
“Sofia! Are you alright?” Jamie asks, catching the dark green sweater Dani tosses her.
“Yeah, I– I’m fine but… can you come pick us up?”
“Of course,” Jamie says without thinking, then pauses. “Us?”
“Uh… Andy and Ethan are with me too.” There’s muffled conversation on the other side of the line, and Jamie notices for the first time that she can’t hear any loud voices or music as she expected there to be at a party. “Can– is it okay if Andy sleeps over?”
Jamie sighs. “Can I at least know what happened?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here, okay?”
“Alright, I’ll tell Dani to set up the bed in the guest room.”
“About that…” Jamie can imagine Sofia biting her lip nervously. “Is it alright if Andy sleeps in my room?” Jamie’s eyebrows raise at that.
“Sof, you better have a damn good story to tell me when I get there.” Sofia laughs and Jamie mentally sighs in relief; the kid is at least partly okay if she’s laughing. “Alright, text me the address, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Love you, poppet.”
“Love you, Mom.”
“Is everything okay? Sofia alright?” Dani asks, tying off a robe at her waist, and Jamie spares a thought (with the tiny part of her brain that isn’t worried about Sofia) to how gorgeous her wife looks with her hair messy and greying, her robe lopsided and her large glasses askew on her nose.
“Yeah love,” Jamie says, plopping down the stairs and unintentionally waking up Bluebell, who looks at her from her cat bed with so much displeasure in her eyes, tail waving unhappily. “She called me to pick her, Andy and Ethan up, and to ask if Andy can sleep over. I’m guessin’ there’s a story there but she seemed alright on the phone, so I wouldn’t be too worried.” She leaves the laces of her beat-up black Chucks untied, grabbing the car keys off the key hook by the door and giving Dani a peck. “Could you grab an extra pillow and some blankets for Andy and leave them on Sofia’s bed before you go back to sleep? I’ll let you know when we come home.”
“Of course, baby,” Dani replies with a small smile, arms crossed to stave off the night chill. “Drive safe. Love you.”
“Love you too, Poppins.”
Any good mood that Jamie was in disappears immediately when she arrives at the address Sofia had texted her – a fucking park, in the middle of the night – and sees the three of them seated on a bench nearby, Andy’s hand tilting Sofia’s head up. And then she sees Sofia’s split lip, Ethan’s bloody nose, and Andy’s bloody and swollen knuckles.
The car doors slamming shut startles the three kids and Sofia jumps up from the bench, arms out placatingly when she sees the thunderous way Jamie approaches.
“I can explain–”
“What the hell happened?!”
Sofia sighs and leads her a bit farther away from the other two. “There was a fight,” Sofia starts and Jamie scoffs, crossing her arms.
“No shit; why were you in it?”
Sofia bites her lip, wincing when it tugs at her cut, and runs a nervous hand through her hair, throwing a quick glance at Andy who’s already looking her way. She blushes and looks away and Jamie really wants an explanation for the injuries but she files these little tidbits to be analysed at a later date.
“Andy kissed me.” Or now, now’s good too.
“Wha– did she force herself on you or something?” Jamie asks, immediately glaring at Andy over Sofia’s shoulder, and the girl shrinks back a little.
“No! Of course not,” Sofia says quickly, and Jamie feels a little bad for glaring at Andy. “We were– this football player caught us,” she admits and Jamie’s heart sinks. She can see where this is going, and prays against everything that it takes a different turn. “He started making these stupid homophobic comments, and then I told him to fuck off– language, I know– and then he pushed me so I kneed him in the groin like you told me to and Andy punched him and broke his nose.” Well. Go Andy. “And then some of his caveman buddies jumped in, and Ethan tried to help but they broke his nose– don’t worry, Andy set it back– and in that whole mess someone elbowed me in the face and then someone yelled that the cops were coming so we booked it out of there and… yeah.”
Jamie sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose.
“Are you mad at me?” Sofia asks, voice tiny, and Jamie shakes her head.
“Of course not, poppet,” Jamie says immediately, pulling her into a hug and Sofia hugs back right away, deflating against her, and Ethan and Andy slump in relief on the bench too. “I’ll never be mad at you for defending yourself, alright? You did good tonight.” She releases Sofia and looks at the other two, finally calming down enough to appraise the situation.
Ethan sits somewhat crookedly on the bench, his geeky Star Wars t-shirt blood-stained, his glasses clumsily duct-taped, and two tampons stuffed up his nose to halt the blood. Jamie has to stop herself from snorting at the sight. Andy, on the other hand, sits almost ramrod straight, a bruise on her jaw, her ripped jeans flecked with blood – presumably Ethan’s – and the sleeves of her red and black flannel shirt rolled up to reveal a rapidly-darkening bruise around her wrist where one of those stupid, homophobic fucks must have grabbed her.
“Are you two alright?” Jamie asks as she and Sofia move closer to them, and they nod.
“No worries, Mrs Clayton,” Ethan says and throws a quick thumbs-up at her, though it comes out clogged and nasally due to the tampons stuffed into his nose.
“We’re good,” Andy says, relaxing slightly at the realization that Jamie is not going to punish them– or punish Sofia, more likely. “Sorry for starting the fight.”
“On the contrary, love, thanks for defending my daughter’s honour,” Jamie grins and Andy blushes a little, Ethan squirming next to her. So maybe her daughter’s friends have a little crush on her; it’s hilarious to tease them sometimes, though Sofia finds it “cringe” and embarrassing, or whatever the term is. “Let’s get you guys home.”
She drops Ethan off at his house after helping him clean the blood off his face with wet wipes she found in the console of her car, and makes sure to remind Andy to call her father to tell him that she’s staying with them.
“Hey, Sof,” Jamie starts once Andy’s gone to the bathroom to brush her teeth and Sofia is piling the blankets next to her bed for Andy to sleep on, “I want to hear all about you and Andy soon.” Sofia groans, blushing and hiding her face in her hands. “What? It’s not every day your daughter gets her first girlfriend–”
“She’s not my girlfriend!” Sofia hisses, throwing a worried look at the bathroom door and then glaring at Jamie, who smirks.
“Well she’s enough of a girlfriend to fight a football player for you, gremlin,” Jamie teases, and Sofia’s blush gets darker, spreading to the tips of her ears.
“Ugh, go away Mom,” she whines, throwing a decorative pillow at her, but there’s a smile on her face. Jamie dodges and cackles, throwing out a ‘goodnight’ over her shoulder, before leaning back in to toss Sofia a mock-threatening look.
“Doors open, young lady, there will be no fooling around under my roof,” she says, but she can’t stay serious long enough to finish the sentence, a teasing grin breaking out on her face. “I’m serious though, doors open. I’m cool but I’m not that cool. Also, dibs on not explaining what happened to your mother. ‘Night.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sofia says sullenly. “‘Night.”
Jamie leaves the room just as Andy exits the bathroom, and the girl gives her a polite smile and wishes her goodnight. Before she enters her and Dani’s bedroom, Jamie hears her saying to Sofia: “So girlfriends, huh?”
In the morning, Jamie wakes before everyone and on the way down to brew tea for her and Dani, she throws a quick glance into Sofia’s room.
The girls are fast asleep, but Jamie can’t help but smile when she sees Sofia’s arm hanging off the edge of the bed, fingers tightly intertwined with Andy’s.
⁂
September, 2015
Jamie thanks God roughly around fifteen times that Daniel is there to help them move Sofia into her dorm; her back is definitely not what it used to be, and she winces just looking at all the boxes of stuff Sofia has.
“Okay, that should be everything,” Daniel says, wiping the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand. “Jeez kid, Moms are spoiling you for sure. I didn’t even know you had half this stuff.”
Sofia rolls her eyes. “Says the guy who had six separate boxes of books when he was moving away for college.”
“Six boxes of books is better than three boxes of video games–”
“Excuse you, you’re the one who bought like half of them for me–”
“Children, please,” Dani says, ever the mediator, and holds up her hands placatingly. “Let’s just agree that you are both nerds.”
“Well, now you’ve done it,” Jamie sighs as both of their children turn around indignantly and start squabbling with Dani. “If you start another ‘who’s the biggest nerd’ debate I’m filing for divorce, Poppins.”
“You know that threat makes no sense anymore, right? You literally married me twice,” Dani says, smirking, and Jamie rolls her eyes and promptly ignores her, turning to Daniel and Sofia.
“Alright kids, dinner? Or late lunch, I guess. Our treat,” she says, motioning to Dani and herself. “You’re a college student now, this might be your last chance at a decent meal for at least four years,” she adds to Sofia who laughs.
“Fair enough, I’ll be surviving off Pop-Tarts and ramen soon enough,” she jokes and Daniel nudges her in the ribs good-naturedly.
“You’re the one who wanted ‘the full college experience’ or whatever, I told you you could stay with Tanya and me,” he says and Sofia rolls her eyes again.
“Dan, I love you but I don’t want to spend my last four years before having to become a functional adult intruding on my brother and his fiancée,” she says and he huffs.
“Fine, I’m just saying. Also, you’re never intruding,” he grumbles and she chuckles. “And you better come to dinner at least twice a week.”
“Sure,” she says, linking her arm through his. “Now, take us to that cool diner you took us to the last time we came to visit.”
Jamie and Dani stroll behind them, content to simply observe their kids as they continue talking, jumping from topic to topic and waving their hands animatedly. Jamie knows that for all her I’m-too-cool-for-my-lame-older-brother façade, Sofia’s missed Daniel terribly; going from seeing her brother every day to having to schedule calls with him has been incredibly tough on her and Jamie can see her entire demeanour getting lighter, as if a weight’s been lifted from her shoulders.
“–Andy and Ethan made a whole plan; she’s just two hours away and he’s even closer so we’re gonna work out the visits as soon as we get our class schedules,” Sofia is saying as they settle into the booth in the diner, gesticulating wildly as she talks and Jamie smiles softly at the sight, interlocking her fingers with Dani’s on her thigh and squeezing once.
They’re interrupted by the waitress coming to take their order; Jamie lets Dani order for her while Daniel and Sofia deliberate for a few moments like they won’t order the exact same thing they order everywhere.
“This really was one of the best things we ever did, huh?” Dani leans in to whisper in Jamie’s ear, motioning towards their kids with her head and Jamie turns her gaze to them, sitting opposite of them in the booth and arguing about– about the best way to make ramen, apparently.
She looks at them intently, soaking in every detail and committing the whole scene to memory – Daniel’s stubble and how he scratches at it every now and then, how he taps his fingers on the table when he talks, almost to the rhythm of his words, and the way he looks at Sofia protectively and lovingly like she’s his whole world, the same way he did at fifteen. Sofia in her indie band t-shirt, looking grown up and like a kid at the same time, laughing loudly at something Daniel has said; fiddling with her numerous bracelets and rings, reaching out to steal some of Daniel’s fries once their orders arrive and chewing with a smug grin despite his loud protests (which are completely for show, since he lets her have more with a fond shake of his head).
The images mix and she sees both them as they are now and as they were years ago – two kids against the world who’s chewed them up and spit them out more times than they could count, growing up as Jamie and Dani grow old; the years that have passed play like a movie in her head.
“Definitely,” Jamie agrees in an almost reverent whisper, placing a soft kiss on Dani’s lips, and feels her wife smile into it.
⁂
“don’t you know that
i’ll be around to guide you
in your darkest moments? [...]
we’ll cast some light and you’ll be alright.”
–josé gonzáles
⁂