Chapter Text
“Carol.” Helen was annoyed. “Carol, wake up.”
Carol was currently sprawled out on the couch. She blearily looked up at Helen. The sunrise was cracking through the foyer. Helen’s eyes sparkled that pretty blue, like marbles she picked up from the museum as a child. The ones she played with when she was left to her own devices because the kids on the playground just knew there was something “different” about her.
Pretty. She thought. So pretty. She started to crack a smile, and then she noticed the firm lip on Helen’s mouth. The taste of rotting whiskey on her tongue. Right, they’d been arguing. She’s been sleeping on the couch for two weeks. The dull ache in her shoulder comes out as soon as she shifts to look at Helen properly. Now, she’s annoyed again.
“What?” She knew it was a little harsh. But her eyes burned from the sun now. Her constant headache set in. Helen would throw a fit if she went and got her sunglasses already. Said it made her look like a wanna be rockstar.
“Carol,” Helen said again. Her face was blank.
“Yes, that’s me.” She starts rubbing her face. It’s blocking enough of the sun. If she just presses her eyeballs into her palms hard enough-
“Carol, look at me,” Helen demanded. Her voice quivered at the end. Something was. Off. But Carol liked to hold a grudge. She takes a second and then lowers her hands.
“Welcome to Starbucks, yes, I am Carol, how may I take your order? At fuckass in the morning.” She should have been nicer, but the clock is reading 7 am. Even without the hangover, she’s never been a morning person.
“Are you straight?”
“We scissor so no-”
“Are you sober?” Helen doesn’t fuel her little joke. Not even a smirk.
Carol takes a second to answer. She feels sober. She only had three last night, and she drank her Helen-mandated water.
“Yes. I’m sober. I only had two last night.” She’s looking at Helen uneasily now. Helen can usually just tell.
“I need you to drive.” Did her voice almost crack? Carol knows she didn’t take any mushrooms last night. Helen’s voice cracked.
“Drive where?” She’s starting to feel the anxiety. Hangxiety. Whatever. It’s creeping up her spine.
“I need you not to freak out. And I am only going to say it once because I cannot say it again.”
“Baby, what?”
“I need you to drive me to the hospital.”
“Oh.”
That’s when Carol knew she lost it. The baby that they’d been trying for. It didn’t take.
“I - yeah, just let me put on a bra.”
“It’s right here.” Carol looks down, Helen had put it on the coffee table before she woke her.
“Okay, okay.” Carol frantically began putting on the bra. “Are you in pain?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.” What else was there to say? Carol put her shirt back on and grabbed the keys off the coffee table. Helen set everything out in front of her before waking her. Even a cup of coffee. Good dependable Helen who would make a wonderful mother. Just lost her chance. Three months in. Just out of the first trimester.
Carol shoves her feet into her vans without socks. Helen is blankly staring at her. Carol didn’t notice that she was holding her stomach, clutching at it. It makes her pause. There’s nothing there now.
“Carol, I need you to move.” Helen is firm. Helen is in pain. Carol needs to move. Carol is moving. Carol isn’t crying. There isn’t what feels like a stone in her throat. No, nope, she will keep it together. She stands; she has to pass Helen to go towards the door. She wants to grab her and wrap her in a blanket till this all passes. But, they have to go to the hospital. She has to keep it together.
Helen doesn’t move as she passes. Carol turns around. “Are you okay to walk?” She grabs her shoulder.
“Don’t touch me.” Carol’s hand jumps back, and Helen turns towards her. She’s looking at the floor. “I can’t fall apart right now, I can’t-”
Helen cuts herself off. She can’t have comfort. Later. She will want it later, which is what goes unsaid. Right now, Helen has to do something. And when Helen has to do something, she gets it done.
“Okay.” Carol goes ahead and out the door. She opens the passenger door and leaves it open while she starts the car. Helen starts to slowly make her way out of their front door. She looks like a crying Madonna. Carol runs to close the door behind Helen. She keeps a few feet back as she watches her walk to the car. Helen pauses.
“Help me-” Carol is on her before she even finishes asking. Helping her in the car and closing the door for her. She runs back to the driver's side, and in a second, they are on the road.
It’s silent then, showtunes that Carol denies ever listening to, blare through the speakers when the Bluetooth connects. “It's a Small World” from the Disney ride comes through. Fuck.
“Sorry.” Carol shuts it off.
“Can you leave it on?” Helen asks. Carol knows she will now hate this song for the rest of her life. So she puts it on.
It really is a small world after all. Too short a ride to the hospital. But the road feels wide and all too small.
Carol hears Helen open the glovebox. What is she? Normally, Carol would flick her head over and see what she is doing. For some reason, she can’t shake the idea that this is the only time she will ever drive her child anywhere. Her eyes are glued to the road, and she’s driving ten miles per hour over.
Flick. Helen’s smoking. The smell enters her nose immediately as the windows are closed.
“Should you be?” Carol asks. Maybe the doctors could work some magic, and everything would be okay.
“We need to go shopping for a new bed after this,” Helen says before taking another drag. Like there’s a sale at Bob’s Furniture discount this week.
“Light me one of those.”
“You don’t smoke.”
“First-hand is healthier than second-hand.” A weak joke. It’s how she deals with things. Avoiding them with jokes. Helen hands her the one she’d been smoking and lights a new one for herself.
All soon enough, they are pulling into the hospital. The cigarettes are stubbed out, and Carol is out of the car in a second.
“Wait here.” She tells Helen. And then she books it through the ER doors. Thank god the waiting room is empty. She runs right up to the receptionist, who looks like she’s about to tell Carol to calm down.
“Please, my wife is bleeding, I need some help.”
After that, it's all a blur to Carol. Helen is rushed in a wheelchair. They check her vitals. Carol stays close but not too close. Everything is fine. There’s just no second heartbeat in the room when they do the ultrasound. But Helen is fine. Helen’s here.
Maybe if Carol had been in bed with her, they could have come sooner. Maybe they could have saved the. No, Carol knows better. She’s smart enough to realize. These things just happen. There’s no super drug that will fix it all. Mother Nature has her time for all of us. And besides, what mother would she be? A closeted drunk? Mother of the year.
Helen would have just shone. She picked up after Carol more than enough. Held her when she cried over being kicked out of her family over the holidays every year. Dealt with the drunken rants over the book sales tanking, her mother reached out to call her a sinner, or someone said something homophobic to her. Stopped her from sleeping days away. Made sure she took her meds and told her when it was time to adjust them. Helen showed her off to all of their friends. Cheered her on. Made sure she remembered to eat.
Helen weeded the garden twice a week, and Carol realized she weeded her too. Maybe she should say pruned like a rose to be more positive. But as she looked at her wife lying there with no sound coming from the ultrasound. When Helen finally started to crack and bring her hand to her mouth and tears started to form. Carol felt like a weed.
“I’ll give you ladies a minute.” The doctor, a pasty man, says.
“Carol?”
That’s her. She pulls the chair next to Helen and grabs onto her.
“I’m sorry,” Helen says. She’s slightly high from the drugs she’s on to ease the pain. Carol knows because Helen never did cry right when she was on pain medication. It always makes her too loopy.
“Please don’t apologize.” Carol makes sure to look her right in the eye as she says it.
“I’m not, I’m just sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“I’m a terrible mother.”
“No, you're not.”
“But, they’re not- They aren’t.” Here.
“It’s okay, baby.” Fuck that was the wrong word.
“Don’t call me that.” She snaps and then starts to softly cry again.
“Helen. Hey, hey, hey. Helen. It’s okay. Just think about, um. I would be a terrible mother, and we both know that. Think about all the things I’d mess up.”
“You wouldn’t.” She already stopped crying. Jesus, Helen was such a lightweight with everything. Her mood swings in another direction. A seriously delirious one.
“I would so be covered in pee all the time.”
“You wouldn’t be a terrible mother.”
“I forget to eat like twice a week.”
“I never would have married you if I thought you would be a terrible mother.” Helen starts petting her hair. Like she’s a dog. She is one after all. She’s Helen’s dog. And then she boops her nose and giggles. They were pretty anti-kid when they first got together, but as time passed, Helen started to want them. And Carol wanted whatever Helen wanted. She herself never felt maternal.
“Did you always want kids?” Carol can’t help herself from asking.
“No, no. We wanted to travel. But, I. You're so lonely. I want to make sure you are never lonely. I won’t always... And I wanted to be closer to you. More you. Little you. I never loved someone so much that I needed more of them. I thought I’d get sick of her someday. But, then I- I needed more. And it feels nice to have that person inside of me.”
Carol didn’t know this. And it hits her like a freight train. She never would have guessed she would fall more in love with Helen while they lost their child.
“We can try again.”
“I don’t know if I have it in me.”
“That’s okay.”
“But, you're lonely.”
“I’m not. I have you.”
“So pretty.”
“Thank you, you’re pretty too.”
“Do you think they have your eyes?” Helen’s eyes are starting to close. Her words are slurred.
“I don’t know.”
“I like brown eyes.”
“We both have blue.”
“I... I don’t know.. Um something new.” And then she's asleep. And Carol is alone.