Rainjoyswriting - Family Affair.pdf

(372 KB) Pobierz
Family Affair
Family Affair
"Say, Bye-bye daddy!"
Ed waved Maes' arm for him. Roy watched wearily.
"You say he does talk."
"Bye-bye daddy?" Ed suggested to Maes, who gripped the side of Ed's hair in one small
fist when it swung close enough. He didn't pull; he just gripped. Ed never stopped him
doing it.
"Edward."
"I'm not saying he gives a great after dinner speech or anything," Ed said, head ducked a
little so Maes could keep hold of his hair, eyes raised to Roy. "He just usually says
something , you know?"
Roy looked at his son, who looked back with unreadable dark eyes.
"Goodbye, Maes. I'll see you tonight."
"You're too stiff with him."
"Will you stop telling me how to interact with my own son?"
"Isn't he stiff? Stubborn silly daddy." Ed said, and jigged Maes in his arms. "Bye-bye
daddy!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Door closed, Maes said, "Dada gone."
"Dada gone," Ed confirmed. "Dada gone to work. Not that he ever does any. Say, Dada's a
lazy waste of space!"
"Dada all gone?"
"No no, not all gone. He'll be back."
"Dada gone."
"Bye-bye Dada."
"Bye bye," Maes said, and stared at the closed door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The kitchen was Ed's worst enemy but he persevered, for Maes, for Roy, because Roy
had some standards when it came to food and because Maes couldn't just eat the half-
boiled noodles Ed had been willing to live off when he was a kid, when his brother was a
suit of armour and the egg that would be Maes was sitting inside the ovary he hadn't
known he had.
"So," he said, and Maes watched him from the high chair. "I can make you orange mush
out of mainly carrots. Or I can make you white mush out of mainly potatoes." Ed really
hated how much time and effort this required, how as soon as he'd got Maes fed he was
starving, and by the time he'd found anything he could eat Maes was hungry again, and
by then Roy was back and wondering aloud how Ed had spent the entire day at home
while he was at work but hadn't managed to cook anything , and Ed threw a wooden
spoon at him. Six months ago, he did it simultaneous to bursting into tears. Thank god
that patch of hormones had died.
"I could make you green mush?"
Maes stared at him.
". . . or I could heat up some of the stuff Gracia made for you."
Maes' staring had all sorts of different levels of meaning. Ed meekly did as he was
silently told, and reached for one of the little pots in the ice box.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Maes stood on his lap and looked down at the papers he'd spread over what had once
been Roy's desk.
"This is an array," Ed said.
"Ray."
"You use them for al-chem-i-cal trans-mu-tat-tions."
"Chemsultansatasuns."
"You put your hands on them," Ed took one of Maes' tiny wrists so, so carefully in each of
his unmatched hands and placed them on the paper. "And they go boom."
"Boom!"
"Mine usually do, anyway." Ed watched Maes slap his palms off the paper a few times.
"Your daddy makes the fire go with one of these, you've seen him do that, haven't you?
Don't you think it's cool?"
"Boom!"
"Why don't you ever talk to your daddy?"
"Boom!"
Ed sighed, and kissed the back of his head. "You little me," he said gloomily, because he
knew how Al must have felt by now.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For the first time in his life, Ed was learning to multitask. He didn't sink into the arrays
and the equations until he was submerged far over his head, an underwater distance and
he couldn't even hear the rest of the world anymore through the alchemy; instead he
floated, one ear on Maes in his playpen. It was slow. It was crawlingly slow working like
this, and sometimes things only ever made sense after he'd slept on them and on some
level had sunk deep enough into them, but - but he could do it. Who knew he could?
Only for Maes, he didn't doubt that. For Maes Ed could, would, do anything. If Maes
needed his constant attention then he would have it, even if it meant Ed had to crawl
through the equations he could have leapt right over and barely needed to touch once
upon a time.
And he felt awful, he felt like a failure as a human being let alone as a father that
sometimes Roy left in a morning and Ed felt his throat tighten, felt the frustration and
the resentment, because he couldn't. He couldn't leave. Because Maes needed him, and
even if Ed wanted to go off and play in the lab, wanted to sink himself in his arrays and
his experiments, he couldn't. What the hell was wrong with him? He'd almost killed
himself to have Maes and he loved his son so much that he suspected that that was the
reason he couldn't stop crying for all those months when Maes had been so young. He
loved him so much . And he knew he could never live up to what Maes deserved. Every
time he'd looked at him, thought about him, his eyes had filled. Why couldn't he just
accept that this was what his life was now, Maes was what his life was now . . . ?
So frustrating. So slow. But he worked, he worked, he read books and scribbled down
ideas and got up from the desk every ten minutes when Maes fussed. Again, more every
day, he sympathised hopelessly with mothers the world over. You don't just gain a child
when you give birth - you give your life. Equivalent exchange, but you don't gain, the
child does, and that's why you do it.
Maes drummed Babbit off the bars of his playpen. Ed glanced down and smiled, and
Maes looked up, holding the bars of the pen to stay upright, so tiny and with such large
dark eyes and his uncle Al's hair coming through now, no longer newborn-pale but the
faintest, lightest brown -
"Dada," Maes said, and Ed got up to kneel by the pen, taking the stuffed rabbit as it was
offered up, smiling helplessly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After lunch Ed had to get changed again, because the attempt at orange mush had ended
up mainly decorating his shirt. He dropped it into the spilling basket and thought, More
washing.
He washed. He cooked. He cleaned. He cared for the baby.
This was not the life he'd ever thought he'd have.
Well, of course it wasn't. Giving birth had never been in Ed's life plan because Ed was -
he was - male, he had always been male, he still was male. A handful of errant internal
organs would never change that. A clutch of unruly, unwanted hormones would not
change that. Male. Man. Masculine. Yes.
. . . except Roy complicated that somewhat, because Roy had impregnated him in the first
place and Roy treated him like a wife sometimes and Roy -
Well. Roy fucked him. But . . .
It could be incredibly confusing. It could make him so miserable, sometimes. Because he
wouldn't change his life, he wouldn't write Maes out of it for a second, or Roy, god not
Roy he couldn't live without him now (Sleep in an empty bed? Wake up alone in the
morning? Ed's brain boggled), but sometimes he thought -
He'd never get the chance to find out.
What would mother have thought?
That he'd done . . . everything he'd done, and now he was a - his teeth gritted - housewife
to a man more than ten years older than him, his ex-superior officer -
Would she have been proud of this? Would she even have accepted this?
From the playpen Maes called, "Dada!" and the smile twisted Ed's mouth, he lifted Maes
out and knew that she would have loved Maes, and that was all, that was all that
mattered.
"Let's go for a walk," he said, and Maes said, "Duck."
"Yeah, yeah, ducks, if you like."
"Duck."
"I'll get some bread."
"Duck!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ed didn't trust the duck pond. He kept Maes strapped into his pushchair and threw the
bread for him from a distance (ducks were floating disease-ships), but Maes was always
happy to just watch the ducks, mouth open as if in surprise just that they existed.
"Would you like your daddy to bring you to feed the ducks this weekend? Your other
daddy?"
"Dada," Maes said, not paying attention, eyes on the ducks.
Ed sighed, brushed his fingertips along his son's hair and stood up. He didn't understand
why Maes held a little of himself back from Roy, or maybe he did, because didn't Roy
hold a little of himself back from Maes? Ed didn't doubt that Roy would die for his son,
but he still cared about his dignity more than making the animal noises in Maes'
cardboard books, he didn't seem to know how to be natural with him at all, and the pair
of them didn't know what to make of each other . . .
Ed carefully wheeled Maes a way back from the pond, onto the grass, and put down a
blanket before letting him out of the pushchair. "-there." he said, setting Maes onto the
grass. Maes tried to stand again so Ed patiently held him up, helped him walk a few steps.
"You wanna try on your own?"
He helped Maes get to his wobbly feet and then stepped back, crouched at the edge of
the blanket, and Maes took two shaky steps to him and fell into his hands. "So clever ." Ed
breathed into his hair, and tried not to cry because he'd had a little girl once who never
got the chance to, never would have been able to . . .
He flumped onto his back, breathed heavily at the obscenely blue sky a couple of times
until his eyes had cleared, and Maes tried to climb onto him. He smiled a little
awkwardly, helped him onto his chest, and Maes looked around in awe as if he was on
top of the world. The smile was very real, then.
Maes focused on something over his head. Ed tilted his neck back to look up at the
woman approaching with a pram, who crouched by his head to say to Maes, "Aren't you
a big boy now? Is your dad looking after you again today?"
She smiled down at him. "I see you here a lot," she said. "It's really nice of you to take so
much time to bond with your son. So many fathers think they're too busy and then they
have teenagers and they don't know what happened."
Ed sat up, supporting Maes to bring him onto his lap. "I guess," he said, because he'd just
thought of Roy and felt a little sick, actually. "You here often?"
"Almost every day. I go out of my skull in the house all day long." She rocked the pram
back and forth a little by its handle, and inside something small and pink cooed softly to
itself. "Doesn't his mother like to bring him here? I never see you with-"
"He doesn't have a mother."

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika:

Zgłoś jeśli naruszono regulamin