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| graphic by d-franco |
As promised -- a sneak peek of the next chapter of "both alike in dignity." Hope you enjoy it -- I'd love to hear what you think!
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Grief, Tom discovers, is an utterly exhausting thing. They leave the hospital as soon as the doctor is certain that Sybil isn’t at risk for infection, and when they settle in to Grantham House, he suddenly finds himself completely exhausted and completely unable to sleep.
For the first few days, Sybil barely gets out of the big, soft bed they’re sleeping in at her grandmother’s house. Their room is on the first floor, and getting her up the steep stairs two days after she’d delivered a baby is more than a bit challenging. Once ensconced in the spacious bedroom – the same one she used to sleep in as a child when she visited her grandparents in London, she explains – she doesn’t much want to leave. She sleeps most of the time; sometimes she reads a bit or watches a little telly, but for the most part, she chooses simply to shut out the world by closing her eyes.
He envies her – well, he doesn’t really envy her, of course, but he wishes he could sleep the time away like she’s able to do. When he does fall asleep, out of sheer fatigue, he wakes suddenly amid horrible dreams – she keeps dying too, in his mind, and he rubs his eyes and watches the gentle rise and fall of her chest to prove to himself that she’s still there. She has the benefit of the medication prescribed at the hospital, which makes her groggy and even a little confused when she’s able to stay awake. Most of the time, though, she can’t. He sits next to her in the bed while she sleeps, surfing through the channels on the television without really seeing them. He does realise just how many adverts feature children, families with lots of precocious kids, babies crawling about with toys and pets and mothers. He’s never noticed before, but he notices now. He’s glad she’s sleeping.
When it comes to talking about what’s happened, though, he finds that grief is not only exhausting but also mute – neither of them really say anything. They talk a little about what’s happening to her body now – where she’s feeling pain, how he can help, whether or not the bleeding is something that should concern them – but not about what happened then. Then is over, it seems. Maybe they’ll talk about it eventually, but to what end? They can’t go back. It doesn’t seem like she wants to. He’s sorting through some of the paperwork from the hospital one afternoon, and he finds a pamphlet about long-term birth control solutions, implants and hormones and things he doesn’t really understand. He can’t blame her. He won’t blame her if she never, ever wants to be pregnant again.
One afternoon they’re lying in bed, watching one of his old box sets of The West Wing, when she looks up at him and scoots closer, touching his face with her fingertips. He can feel the catch of her skin against coarse hair – he’s not shaved since before she went into hospital, and his beard is starting to take over. But she doesn’t seem to mind. She shifts her weight, and then her lips are soft on his, and they’re kissing, unhurriedly, languidly, the kind of kisses that are simply kisses themselves, not a prelude to something else.
He reaches up and brushes his fingers against her wild, curly hair, and she sighs against his mouth, and they hold each other tightly. He still doesn’t sleep.
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