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hyperesthesias · 2 months ago

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Permanently Together

Summary: Patients together in Dr. Caligari's psychiatric facility, Cesare and Jane escaped and attempted to make a new life for themselves. But unable to cope with what happened to them, Cesare leaves in the middle of the night, not knowing he has a son with Jane.

Rating: T

Warnings: Modern AU; PTSD; narcolepsy; hospitals, unplanned pregnancy; muteness; love triangle; references to sexual abuse; psychosis; sleepwalking (...obviously); angst with a happy ending.

Word Count: 11,849.

Reading Music: Shake the Disease by Depeche Mode; Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind; Everything Changes by Staind; Flightless Bird, American Mouth by Iron&Wine.

AO3 LINK

Cesare was always his favorite. Cesare never cried or complained, he never talked back or said anything against the Doctor – he couldn’t, even if he wanted to. Cesare was mute, except for on occasion, and even then, the words never really came out right. He stopped speaking when he was a kid, he told me once. He didn’t tell me exactly why, but he said it was the night his parents died, and ever since, the words just won’t come out. It’s never been a problem; we find other ways to talk, he writes, we sign together, we gesture vaguely. It all makes sense in the end. I told him once that I’ve never thought less of him because of the way he struggles. He told me that not everyone is so kind. We both knew that to be true.

Doctor Caligari was a mean son-of-a-bitch, but he was an expert at hiding it. Not that anyone really cared about an orphan like Cesare, or a psychotic like I was. It’s easy to get lost between the cracks when people aren’t looking out for you to begin with. But we got each other through the harder years – through the abuse, and the lies and manipulation, through the trial and sentencing. It didn’t matter how bad things got, Cesare and I believed each other, we were real.

I was sent to Doctor Caligari by my father for a bad case of general anxiety, and left with acute psychosis and more trauma than when I first went in. There are a lot of things I won’t talk about, but however bad I had it, Cesare had it worse. He was his favorite. There were mornings at the hospital when Cesare would tell me, in his own way, that he felt different – that there were patches from the night before that he remembered, and some he didn’t. He eventually decided, after some bits and pieces started coming together, that it was better he didn’t remember everything completely. I told him he was lucky – I remembered everything.

After the trial, the Doctor’s patients – who were still alive – were awarded monetary compensation for their misery. Nothing, no amount of money, could ever make what happened any better. It was almost an insult. But when I asked Cesare what he wanted to do with his newfound riches, he told me he wanted to do everything in his power to put the past behind him. That meant going to school. We were both in our early twenties at the time, most of our peers were already graduating. Everyone felt so far ahead of us, but then again, not everyone was locked in a hospital with a murdering-rapist-doctor, so I guess we deserved a little slack.

I went with him to university, I didn’t know what else to do. Cesare had dreams, he had goals – he knew exactly what degree he wanted and what he was going to do with it: he was going to get a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts and become a graphic designer. He was always drawing, every minute he was awake, which sometimes, wasn’t that often. The stress of school flared his narcolepsy, and at times he missed classes or slept right through them. But he kept going, he kept fighting. He wasn’t going to let anything stand in his way – ‘Not anymore’, he said.

But me? I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t want anything to do with my father; he and Caligari were friends, and my father trusted him to do the right thing. But after everything, after telling him that I was getting worse, after him telling me that it always gets worse before it gets better…He didn’t understand. And Caligari made sure I couldn’t communicate the way I needed to – that I couldn’t get help. It wasn’t my father’s fault. But at the time, I was still just raw and angry.

I opted for a business degree. It seemed the easiest degree to get besides psychology – and there was no way either me or Cesare were going anywhere near that department, even within a ten foot radius. I went through the motions, did my work, got an internship at a consolidation firm, joined a golfing club, every day hoping that things would feel better, that one day I’d wake up and feel like Elle Woods instead of, well, me.

We got an apartment together. We slept in separate rooms. Cesare didn’t like being touched after…everything. I couldn’t say I felt much different.

When you look back on things, everything feels so much clearer – you can see the upward progression of change. But when you’re in it, it feels so linear, so stagnant. But I was happy then, we both were. Living with my best friend, finally focusing on something other than everything that had been done to me. He made life make sense again, he was a constant and a joy. Everything felt new again, everything felt brighter – even the mundane. Even the sooty city air felt fresher. It was good. I just wish I’d been able to feel how good it was in the moment. But that’s the curse of healing: you can’t tell it’s happening as it happens. You just have to wait. Wait for things to scab over while you’re going through the motions. But you can’t ever stop doing the motions. Or you’ll stop altogether.

Cesare started to burn out by the third or fourth year. He denied it, but I knew him. I knew him well enough to know the look in his eye when he wasn’t feeling himself.

‘I can’t ever stop,’ he told me – half in sign, half in oddly formed words. ‘If I stop, then everything will catch up to me. I have to keep running. I can’t stop running.’

“Running is just going to make you tired,” I said.

“Jane –” he always says my name. It’s the one word he can get out with clarity. ‘What else am I supposed to do?’

“Take care of yourself.” We were sitting on the couch, my legs were resting over his, his tablet on my knees. As the years went on, we became more intimate with our physical barriers. “I’m not telling you to stop, Cheese. I’m just saying you need rest.”

‘I’ve had enough of rest. I can’t stay awake.’

“I don’t mean sleep. I just mean don’t be so hard on yourself.”

He sighed and looked away from me. “Jane…” he shook his head.

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I’m not trying to argue.” I ran my hand through his hair, and he turned back to me. “I love you. I don’t want to see you suffer.”

He took another breath and nodded as he held my hand and kissed my knuckles. “I love you, too,” he said, as best as he could. The effort makes it all the more sincere.

He slept next to me that night. It was cold, neither one of us like being cold – it feels sterile and oppressive. It feels better waking up next to someone you feel safe with, and I was happy he felt safe.

The next morning was better, I could see he felt a little lighter. He told me he was playing hooky that day and was going to skip classes. He’d run out of eyeliner and asked to borrow mine; we went shopping together. Menial tasks are more healing than people give them credit for, especially when they’re with someone you love. The opportunity to do something normal when you’ve felt and been so abnormal for so long is one of the more reaffirming things for a broken person. He smiled a lot that day.

There has always been something so beautiful about Cesare. His effortless laugh when swatching eyeshadow palettes, as I tease him and tell him how pale he is — like white cheddar Cheese. The way his eyes take in everything around him, like a bird observing the world from far away. I stood and watched him choose peaches from the produce aisle, and I can’t recall seeing anyone so beautiful; so gentle with something so tender in his hands, he brushed it against his face and smelled it, almost like he was kissing it. He leaves a softness wherever he goes.

A lot of people don’t know what to do with softness. They’re told softness doesn’t survive – that it’s anathema to endurance. But they’re wrong. Softness is the only way to survive. It’s the only way you don’t break under the pressure and the torment. Only the soft survive. Everyone else just lingers.

This was especially clear to me. Once I was good enough at golf, I was invited into a golfing group from my consolidation internship. It was a business opportunity, I told myself. And it was. It was also a chance to reassimilate into the real world. They were nothing like me, and it felt like learning an entirely new language, new mannerisms, as if I were morphing into a different species. But it just felt like I was straying away from what I loved – who I loved. I continued this uphill trend of opportunities, and meanwhile, Cesare seemed to get worse by the week. He started falling behind in his studies, and the more he fell behind, the less motivated he was to keep going.

He started self-destructing. Especially with smoking — ‘It’s the painless way to die’, he told me. We argued a lot. We never argued before that. He told me once that he was worried he’d never be good enough for me – I told him that there wasn’t anything anyone could do, anyone, that could make that true. I remember his face as I said it; like I’d reached into his heart and pulled it out, like I’d placed a kiss on its raw flesh. Everything Caligari had done to him, everything that he’d been made to do, was finally catching up to him and he couldn’t run fast enough to escape it. I couldn’t hold that against him.

Suddenly all of our plans together seemed more distant than they were when we’d first conceived them: that somehow we’d go into business together, I’d manage a company and he’d design for it; that we’d move somewhere else altogether and finally start even fresher; that maybe we’d get married, that maybe the way we loved each other now would only grow.

I wanted to stay, I wanted to sit with him through however long this agony would stay weighted on him like a blanket. I told him that.

“I’m not going to leave you.”

‘I know you won’t,’ he said, ‘But I want you to. I’m not getting better. I won’t be the one to bring you down with me. You deserve better than that.’

We were in bed together. Completely in bed together – vulnerable and coming down from the high. It wasn’t the first time we’d been together, but it was the last.

He was gone the next morning. His essentials were gone, his tablet was gone…The photograph of us at the fair, the first time we’d done anything outside the hospital in years, was gone. I tried filing a police report, but there was nothing they could do, he left on his own, and he’d all but told me that he would. I tried looking for him, I went to all the spots he loved: the cafe on the park corner, the library on the other side of town, the mall with the really big fountain he loved. But no matter where I looked, he wasn’t there. A part of me – however small it may have been – started to wonder if I’d made him up. That Cesare didn’t actually exist, and that he was actually some fantasy that helped me cope with everything that’d happened. That his leaving meant my mind didn’t need him anymore – after all, I was two months away from graduating, I had a full-time job at the firm waiting for me, I had friends, everything in my life seemed on the up and up. Maybe this was the final part of healing.

But Cesare was real. I knew he was. That doubt was quickly squashed. His soft curls, the feeling of his fingers between mine, the way he’d look at me whenever something stupid happened and it wasn’t appropriate to laugh, the stains of his lips on the rim of his favorite coffee mug. All of it was real. And all of it was gone.

I graduated, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to stand next to him, I wanted to celebrate together. I focused what little energy I had on setting up my career, and looking for him however and whenever I could. Especially since I found out I was pregnant.

It was hard. It was really hard. Especially when the postpartum depression hit. But I did it. The money from my consulting job helped, but it couldn’t replace Cesare. His son looks just like him. Black baby curls, and electric blue eyes. It’s like my genes didn’t even try. He’s beautiful, and the most precious gift Cesare has ever given me. I named him Aaron.

I never stopped looking for him. But at some point, I think I realized I wasn’t going to find him. I’d hired a private investigator, and kept her on retainer, but whenever I checked in, it was always the same thing: she couldn’t find him, it was like he’d vanished without a trace. He didn’t want to be found. My only hope was that he was still alive, and that he was happy. That all that running led him to somewhere he could feel…better. Maybe not at peace, but at least better.

Some friends from the firm set me up on a date with a guy in a different department. He was sweet, conventionally handsome, he liked kids. His name was Francis. We started seeing each other more regularly, but I didn’t love him. Not the way I loved Cesare. But I figured I would never, ever love like that again. And this was what people were supposed to do…It was part of going through the motions: find a good guy, settle down. Or just settle.

Aaron was two at the time. I didn’t introduce him to Francis for a while, not until clear boundaries between us were established. Not until I really knew who he was. I asked the private investigator I’d been using to look into his background, and everything came up clean. As long as he knew that sex was off the table, and that I wasn’t going to be sharing any details about what happened to me those years ago. That Aaron wasn’t going to call him any variation of ‘Dad’. I expected him to run the other way, I’m sure a lot of men would have. But he stayed. I don’t really know why.

We had fun. He was good for Aaron, he took him to the park on the weekends, we went to the zoo and aquarium together. He liked to cook dinner at my house, and after I put Aaron to bed, sometimes we’d stay up with some wine and watch old movies until he went home. It was everything any woman could want. Like I was living the perfect life.

Again, those thoughts crept in the back of my mind: that maybe I hadn’t left the hospital at all, that all of this was some sort of delusion created by some drug-induced stupor by Caligari. That I was lying on a gurney somewhere, being violated in who knows how many ways.

I’d stare off into space sometimes, those doubts and worries arresting my conscious thought.

“You okay?” Francis would ask, trying to look for my eyes.

I’d snap back into reality, and nod like I always did. “Yeah – just…thoughts. Memories.”

He looked so casual, sitting there on my couch. His wine glass dangling in his hand, his other arm wrapped around the backrest, legs crossed. Like he’d never had a care in the world. I know that’s unfair. We all carry burdens, we all have demons. Some of us just have more than others. Comparison is the thief of joy, and there was a part of me that was jealous of Francis – of how carefree he seemed. How all of them seemed: my friends, my coworkers. Appearances are deceiving, but all of us strive to feel the smile we’re putting on. No matter how many, or how few, our demons are.

I called my father for the first time in over six years years. He burst into tears on the phone. In that moment, I realized there wasn’t anything he needed forgiveness for, it was just that I’d needed space. I told him I loved him, and in that, I think I forgave myself.

He wanted to meet his three year old grandson as soon as possible, and we set up a date. I told Francis that it was something I needed to do alone.

“If you change your mind, if you want someone to be there with you, you know you can always ask me.”

“I know,” I told him. But I had no intention of asking him.

My father was so overwhelmed with emotion when he met Aaron, he couldn’t keep his eyes off him; all he wanted to do was hold him. Aaron didn’t seem to mind. They got along like a house on fire. In them, I saw the way my father was with me when I was a child. I hoped that I could pass on the gentleness he showed me, and refrain from his mistakes – that I could always protect him, even when I couldn’t.

“He looks just like him,” father said, and touched Aaron’s soft cheek.

“He really does. He’s got his smile, too.”

“I can see that,” he laughed, and tickled him. “Does he sleep well?” He nodded, and watched as Aaron fussed and squirmed, wanting to play on the floor; he set him down, and stroked his hair as he wandered off to another part of the room play with the books I’d brought.

“He’s a perfect sleeper – I’d expected the opposite. But so far no signs of sleep attacks.”

“Very good,” he said as he watched him. “You’ve heard nothing from him, then?”

I shook my head. “He’s gone. I think…maybe gone for good.”

“It’s not your fault, you know. There was nothing you could have done to stop him.”

“I know…I think. Even if I know it, I’m not sure I believe it. He was…really depressed, Dad. I don’t know if he’s even alive. I don’t know if he…”

“What have you told him of his father?”

“That his father is a good man. That we love each other very much. We were best friends. That he works in another country. I know it’s a lie…But I can’t bring myself to say anything else. Francis is a good man but…he’s not Cesare. He’s not his father.”

“If you’re not in love with him, you need to let him go.”

I shrugged. “He makes me laugh. He’s…stable. He’s…”

“What you should be aspiring for?”

I nodded. I didn’t realize how much I missed being understood by my father.

He leaned back and sighed. “There are many ‘shoulds’ in life, Jane. Not all of them are worth pursuing.”

“Here I thought you were going to tell me I should just move on.”

“No. I would never tell you that. I know how much Cesare meant to you. I know how much he still does – I can see it. Have you told this ‘Francis’ about him at all?”

“No. I…haven’t spoken about him. To anyone, really. Up until now.” I felt a pain growing in my throat and I swallowed it hard. “It’s like if I don’t talk about him, then I don’t have to face the fact that he’s not here.”

He nodded again. “How you grieve his absence – I’m not saying that he’s gone…permanently – but his absence has left a wake; how you grieve that is entirely up to you. I know it’s not my place, we’ve only just begun to speak again, but I think that talking about him might help you feel more grounded.”

As much as I didn’t like the psych-speak, he was right. Stuffing it all down wasn’t helping. I decided to take up journaling. There was no way in hell I was seeing a therapist, and I still didn’t want to tell Francis about everything, even about Cesare. But I had to get it out somehow. Journaling helped with that. I had somewhere to redirect everything, somewhere I could talk about our relationship without being overanalysed.

The great thing about getting promoted is that you can dress however you want. I was made head of the consulting department and I started wearing my kimono cardigans again, rather than grey pantsuits and pencil skirts. I started feeling like myself again.

Aaron was perfect – he loved painting, he loved reading; I taught him sign in tandem with speaking, and it was one of the best things I’d ever done in my life. He rarely fussed because he had a way to communicate what he needed, and by his fourth birthday he was a conversationalist. So curious, so gentle. Also very funny. My kid is funnier than I am.

Francis proposed a few weeks after Aaron turned four. I hadn’t been expecting it. I know a lot of women see signs, they anticipate it, they wait for it. I didn’t know it was a step he wanted to take. I thought what we had was good – it was enough. I don’t know why I said yes. I think I kept waiting for the rush of love and excitement, I kept thinking the rose colored glasses were something that would evolve, that one day I’d wake up and be a fairytale princess. That that would be the mark of how far I’d come.

But it never came. And I was realizing that I just had to be okay with being numb. That that was how my life was. That the part of me capable of feeling giddy and excitable was left in the halls of that hospital somewhere. That I wouldn’t feel anything different than what I did now, and that it was as good as it was going to get.

So I said yes. And I planned a wedding. I took my father dress shopping, I chose the first one I tried on, because it looked decent on me, and the price tag didn’t make me gag.

“Are you happy?” my father asked me.

I didn’t answer right away. I had to assess it first. But I nodded.

“Are you…not upset?”

It was like a weight lifted off my shoulders when he said it, and I nodded again.

“Being ‘not upset’ isn’t the same thing as being happy, Jane. Happiness and contentment are emotions in and of themselves, they aren’t only the absence of conflict.”

I was still in that stupid dress. It squeezed me in all the wrong places and it looked like a fabric store puked all over it. He held me and I put my head on his shoulder. “What else am I supposed to do?”

He put his hand on my head and kissed me. “Do what will make you happiest – do what will keep you from regret.”

“Aaron – he’s so good with Aaron.”

“And so are you,” he said. “If you’re going to part ways, do it now before Aaron is older.”

He had a point, I thought. Do it now before he really understood what was happening. But I needed time to think about it. I asked the shop to put the dress on hold, and I took time to think about the ways in which I cared about Francis, and why. I told him I needed a break from planning, that I needed to close the deal I was working on first, and then I’d get back into it. He told me it wasn’t a problem. Nothing was ever a problem for him.

It wasn’t completely a lie, I was in the process of restructuring a clothing company. There were a lot of moving parts, and I was responsible for many of them, including hiring and firing a few people; a wedding wasn’t something I wanted to think about on top of all that.

I had a meeting with the head of the company, along with several of their department leads, and I was invited to their headquarters abroad. With their restructure they wanted to downsize their graphic design department, and it may have been my loyalty and bias, but it was one section I wanted to leave intact. The head of public relations didn’t like me because of it, I’m guessing they wanted to personally absorb the funds that would have been ‘reallocated’. But I didn’t budge.

I visited a few times, feeling like an outsider every time. It’s one thing when your work is acknowledged as much-needed help, it’s another to be seen as an invader. I was on the verge of another anxiety episode, I could feel it. Everytime I went into that office, it felt as if eyes were watching me, like I was entering a dark, haunted forest, looking for a way out. But I was newly promoted, I couldn’t show any sign of weakness – I’d worked so hard for the job I had, that to balk and say I wasn’t up to the task wasn’t an option. I had to find a way to be okay with the stress. I had to keep going, just until the deal was done – and I could put it all behind me.

Every day was about surviving the next. Aaron and Francis had come with me abroad, and together they went sightseeing. I told him to go without me, I didn’t want Aaron to miss out on adventures because of me. At the end of every day, the two would meet me in the lobby of the headquarters, waiting for me with the driver to take us back to the hotel we were staying at.

I bated my impatience, the pain in my feet, and the raging headache that wanted to crack through my skull everyday, just to make sure I didn’t take it all out on Aaron. He didn’t deserve that, he didn’t know what was going on. As far as he was concerned, his mom worked in a castle, and bossed people around like a queen. He’d run up to me everyday and throw his arms out yelling ‘Mommy!’ like it was the first time he’d ever seen me. How could I be annoyed with that. I’d wrap him up in a hug, and rock him back and forth until the headache settled, and we’d all go back to the hotel. Francis was staying in a suite next to ours, and was up every morning to make sure we were ready for the day.

“I’d like to take you to dinner tonight,” Francis said and helped me put on my cardigan.

“What’s the occasion?”

“A celebration of your success,” he said.

I scoffed, almost unsure of myself. “I haven’t closed the deal yet. I wouldn’t celebrate too early.”

“I have every confidence in you.”

I turned and looked at him. “Why?”

“What?”

“Why do you have confidence in me?”

He put his hands in his pockets, taken aback, and gathered how to answer: “You’re a strong woman, Jane. You’ve gotten through some of the worst that life has to offer, and you’ve managed to make a life for yourself. And for your son. That’s worthy of every confidence a man can muster.”

I believed him, despite myself. “Thank you,” I said, and suddenly wanted to be done with the conversation I’d started. I kissed Aaron goodbye, as he told me all about how he and Francis were going to see a tiny museum on cheeses. I only laughed, but it was almost as if I could hear Cesare laughing with me.

I used to call him Cheese. When we first met, I was doped out of my mind, barely able to hold onto what he was telling me as he introduced himself. Between the suppressants and his difficulty speaking, all I could gather about his name was that it sounded something like ‘Cheese’, and it stuck ever since.

I carried that memory of him with me for the rest of the day. It gave me the strength to enter the building, with the knowing that I belonged there. Looking back on that time, on where we’d been – the common room of the hospital, where he finally had to spell his name out for me with a crayon – it all felt so far away, and yet it still clung to me like a sheath.

I was still seen as enemy number one, but I had the courage to lay down the terms, and insist on what I knew was best. I was exhausted by the time the day was done, and was ready to head back to the hotel and collapse.

But as I walked through the halls, my eye was caught by someone in the distance. Their head was down, they were preoccupied with a tablet in their hands; it was a man, dressed all in black, with soft, messy hair. My mind, playing tricks on me, conjured the image of Cesare in place of this man. Until I realized – as he looked up, as I saw the sharpness of his features, the dark circles under his eyes – it was him.

A cold chill went through me at the thought that the psychosis was back – it was always my fear, that whatever Caligari had done to me, that it’d caused a permanent change, and that remission from it would only ever be temporary. I was stressed, I was tired, it was only a figment of my imagination, a comfort to keep me sane despite the circumstances. That’s what Caligari used to tell me, as he drugged me and kept me under a haze.

But I didn’t feel like I was under a spell. He looked real. He walked to the elevator, still looking at his tablet, only glancing up to press the down button. I found myself gravitating towards him, as if I was being pulled to him, and I thought I might wake up at any moment – that all of this would vanish –

“Cesare –” I called out to him.

His eyesight snapped up, searching for the source of the voice that called him. A panic seemed to grip his face, what little color was in his face drained, and his bright blue eyes darted this way and that – until he saw me –

“Jane!” he dropped his tablet, and pushed through the people alarmed at his sudden speech. Water was already lining his eyes as he stood in front of me, and he took my arms and held me, touching me, my face, my hair, my hands – the same as I was doing to him, both of us trying to make sense of what we were seeing. He picked me up and swung me around, his face buried in my shoulder. “Jane…” he said again, the breath taken from him, he was shaking, suddenly overwhelmed. ‘I’m sorry…’ he attempted to say over and over again.

I shook my head, holding his face in my hands. “You’re alive – you’re alive.” No one else existed at that moment except for us. We could have been standing in an empty room, without eyes that watched us, that puzzled and wondered, or that judged. It was just us. All we saw was each other.

‘I’m alive – I’m alive now,’ he said through shaking hands and tearful sounds. ‘I’m alive now that you’re here. I never should have left. Forgive me.’ He brought my hands to his lips and kissed them. “I love you,” he said.

My fingers fanned out to caress his features, and he took my face in his and kissed me. Damn who saw, or what they thought. It was a moment that felt more real than life, and sweeter than any dream. He took my hand afterwards, and guided me to the elevator where he retrieved his tablet, and pressed the down button again – rapidly.

‘What are you doing here? Tell me everything,’ he said, still shaking. ‘Come home with me, I promise I’ll explain everything.’

“Hans!” his boss called from behind us. “Where are you going? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

‘I’m going home,’ he signed, and quickly got into the elevator the second it rang, with me in tow.

“I’ve looked for you – for so long, everywhere,” I told him.

‘I changed my name. I moved to a different country. I was running. From myself. From everything.’

My hands went to his face again, brushing the hair from his eyes, seeing what new little lines made their impressions in his rough skin. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

He sighed and made a diffident shrug and half nod. ‘I found something different. But the same. I needed to get my head right. I looked you up –’

“Oh, you did. Cesare – there’s something you need to know –”

‘I think I just got myself fired for kissing and kidnapping the consulting guru,’ he laughed. ‘I saw how successful you were. I debated whether to reach out to you, but I didn’t want to take away from all that you’d worked for.’

“You could never take anything away from me. You’ve given me everything.”

‘I hate myself for leaving. For being a coward. All I can do is ask for your forgiveness – and try to make up for the time I’ve wasted.’

“Cesare – “ I took him by the arms, trying desperately to get out the truth before the bell rung and the doors opened, but it was too late.

He looked at me, curious at my forcefulness, and furrowed as we shuffled out of the elevator to allow another patron to take our place. His hands were about to ask me what was wrong, when the sound of running footsteps caught his attention.

“Mommy!” Aaron sprinted towards me, arms outstretched waiting for me to pull him into an embrace, just like I always did.

I did it instinctually, but my voice shook as I spoke. “Hi, baby.”

Cesare was as pale as a ghost. It looked like the wind could’ve blown right through him. He froze, motionless, unable to take his eyes off of Aaron. He finally looked at me, and he knew. I didn’t have to say a word. It was as clear as day. I was holding his son.

Francis wasn’t far behind, but his pace lightly quickened when he saw the tension that began to grow and move between me and the man standing next to me as we exited the elevator – as my hands released their grip on him, and held my son instead. The picture Francis was seeing was vastly different from the truth, but I couldn’t say I blamed him for his desire to protect me and Aaron from a potential conflict.

“We need to talk,” I told Cesare.

He was still frozen there, watching the face of his son stare back at him.

“Hey, babe,” Francis came on the other side of me and put his hand on my back. “You ready to get going?” he looked at the man beside me and started to put together pieces of his own.

It took me a while to find my voice, but I nodded. “Yes – why don’t you and Aaron get a head start to the car.” I set him down and ushered them onward.

“I can wait here for you,” Francis said, still watching Cesare with a sharp eye.

“No –” I looked up at him. “I need you to wait for me at the car.”

Out of all the times I needed him to trust me, I needed it to be then. And he did, for the most part. “Alright, we’ll be outside. C’mon, buddy,” he picked Aaron up and walked out of the building; but I could see him waiting just outside the door, not in the car. Waiting in case he needed to intervene.

I can’t imagine what it must’ve looked like to him. Watching the two of us sign back and forth frantically, arguing and despairing behind the soundless glass.

Dinner was cancelled. Francis brought over take out and a bottle of wine after I put Aaron to sleep in the bedroom of the hotel suite. I couldn’t sleep, something told me Cesare couldn’t either. It’s like I could feel both of us awake in different parts of the city, sitting motionless, ruminating and contemplating. I was afraid he would leave again.

“Do you want me to call the police?” Francis asked after we’d finished dinner, after half the bottle was gone. He was careful with how he said it, real quiet, as if he didn’t want to startle me.

I was surprised nonetheless. “What? No, why?”

“It must have been hard to see him again.”

“It was. Really hard. But…why would you call the police?”

“He’s Aaron’s father, isn’t he? The man…who hurt you?”

I took a breath and poured another drink. “No. Cesare would never hurt me. He’s never hurt me. Cesare was also…a patient,” I said and poured a little extra.

“But he is his father.”

“Yes.”

He nodded and poured another drink for himself, too. He hesitated a moment as he leaned back, but he decided to speak anyway: “What happened, Jane? I know I promised I’d never ask – and I haven’t. But today was…different. Today changes a few things.”

“It does,” I said. “It changes a lot.” He waited for me to answer. It took me a long time. There was so much to say, so many things I deliberated on whether or not I should share, in the end I just told the truth:

“He protected me,” I said. “He’d been there, at the hospital, longer than I had, since he was a child. Since the car accident that killed his parents. He was there, in the car when they were killed. That’s when he lost his voice. He was transferred to a psychiatric facility after he was given a clean bill of health by the hospital. Mutism wasn’t well understood, it still isn’t. I always thought there was a physical component as to why he couldn’t speak, on top of the emotional; that maybe the accident damaged his ability to speak, and that maybe that’s where his narcolepsy came from, too — that, and the post traumatic stress. But he never told me. I’m not sure he really knew, either. The pediatricians thought he would heal better in a safer environment, I guess – and he didn’t have any other remaining family. Doctor Caligari came highly recommended, he was supposedly a pioneer in his field. It seemed like a good fit.

“We were in our teens when we met. We were the same age. I started seeing…the Doctor in one-on-one sessions because of my anxiety. I was going off to college in a few years and my father wanted me to have additional support. He knew Caligari. They’d worked together in the past. What neither of us knew was that he was drugging me, little by little, with the medications he prescribed. He gave them to me with the intention of causing side effects. To make me crazier than I was already. No – I…I wasn’t crazy. Not at first. I was a teenager. Scared. Normal. I wasn’t crazy.

“But that didn’t last, I guess. The side effects induced psychosis. I was unstable. And at Caligari’s recommendation, my father agreed to send me to his psychiatric facility. I begged him not to. But he trusted him to do the right thing. It wasn’t his fault.

“I spent years there. So had everyone else. Some survived, some didn’t. Caligari liked us both – but Cesare was his favorite. He had…a particular interest in the science of sleep, and the power of suggestion. Cesare was a narcoleptic and a sleepwalker. He liked seeing how much he could get Cesare to do when he was asleep. What, exactly, he could get him to do. Anything from violence to sex. He’d use him as a research subject on sleepwalking and narcolepsy, and then publish the research under the pretense of using lab animals.

“I think he kept me because he liked the power of having his friend’s daughter held captive, without him knowing. It made him feel powerful. He…did things. But Cesare did what he could to protect me, to keep Caligari’s eye off of me and onto him, instead. Cesare wanted to protect me because he respected me – he liked that I didn’t want him to change, he liked that I understood him. A lot of people get frustrated with his inability to speak, or they don’t try as hard as they could to understand what he’s trying to communicate. It was never an issue for me. I didn’t mind taking the time to listen and learn what he was saying. He taught me how to sign. We spent a lot of time together, a lot of time. We loved each other. There wasn’t any doubt of it.

“Caligari kept me as drugged and docile as possible so that I couldn’t call for help. I tried – more than once. Sometimes he would let my father see me, the two of us partitioned between glass. He wanted to taunt my father without him knowing. It was all just a power play. I tried to tell my father what was happening, but he didn’t believe me at first. Caligari had ruined my credibility so thoroughly that my father tried to calm me down by saying ‘it would be a difficult adjustment, but that everything would be okay in the end.’

“But years passed and I was only getting worse, and Caligari wouldn’t let my father see me anymore, until he insisted. I begged him for help one more time. I knew it would be my last. I don’t know if he believed me completely, but he knew something was wrong. He told Caligari he was going to start motions to get me released. But he couldn’t let that happen.

“He sent Cesare after me. In his sleep. Instructed him to kill me in the night while he had me drugged and restrained. Had I been anyone else, I know he would’ve done it. But he loved me.

“I watched him – there, but not present – as he came over me with a knife in his hand, ready to kill me. He had no idea what he was doing. But something inside his eyes – still dead asleep –, it clicked when he saw me. And he dropped the knife. He became frantic, and I tried to calm him down, so that Caligari wouldn’t hear him. We had a very small window, I thought, where maybe we could escape.

“He obeyed me instantly. And I realized I had immense power over him. Because he loved me. I instructed him to undo my restraints, and that we would run together – but it had to be quick. He again obeyed me, and as I started to stand, I realized I wasn’t going to make it. Caligari had pumped me with enough tranquilizers that I wouldn’t be able to move while Cesare killed me, but that I’d be awake enough to feel it. I wasn’t able to run. I shook Cesare until he woke, I begged him to run without me.

“By the time he realized what was happening, that we had an opportunity to disappear, he told me he’d rather die with me than leave without me. He wasn’t leaving me behind, he said. He carried me, dragged me, pulled me until we were on the outside grounds of the facility.

“Caligari quickly realized his plan had failed. He set dogs on us, but Cesare never stopped running, he never stopped carrying me and pulling me with him. It caused a terrible commotion. The alarms went off, the security was sent out to find us. Other patients started revolting. A fire broke out in the riot – it was the middle of the night, but I still remember the flames were as bright as the sun. We ran until we couldn’t anymore. I still have the scars on my leg from where I was bitten by one of the dogs.

“The fire department came, we heard the sirens coming up the road. When they saw the state we were in, they took us to the hospital. When they put out the fire, all of Caligari’s research was exposed. He’d attempted to flee, but when an investigation was opened, it didn’t take long to find him. They caught him trying to leave the country.

“Cesare and I recuperated at the hospital together. One of the last things I remember from that night is reaching out to him on the gurney next to mine – trying to see his face past both of our oxygen masks. The next thing I remember after that is him sitting next to me in the hospital courtyard a week later. I remember the way the flowers looked – more vibrant than I’d ever seen them, the sky more blue than I ever noticed; I remember seeing his face, as if there was a film that’d been removed from my eyes. He looked cleaner, crisper, his skin more porcelain than grey, his hair brighter and looser, rather than dull and flat. He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I knew I’d love him in every lifetime, no matter when, no matter where.

“There was a trial. Cesare and I both had to testify. I didn’t think it was fair. We’d already been through so much, and we were asked to give even more. Cesare had to fight for an interpreter, and I offered to do it, but they needed an official neutral interpreter, which we had to wait for.

“My father wanted me to stay with him, but I told him no. I was too angry at the time. He paid for an apartment of my choosing instead. He just wanted me to be safe. I think he was trying to make up for everything. Cesare had nowhere to go, and I invited him to stay with me at that apartment, I’d gotten a two bedroom for us. He didn’t want to impose at first – he didn’t want his presence to bring up anything I wanted to forget. I told him I never wanted to forget him, and he agreed. It was awkward at first, we kept to ourselves, not really sure what to do, how to be. But we just needed time to unravel all the wrapped steel that’d been sheathed around us. Until we were left exposed: just ourselves. Things became more natural after that. We fell in love all over again. It was like getting a second chance. But we all heal differently.

“After the trial, we were awarded a settlement. We used it to go to school together. And in the fourth year, two months before we graduated, Cesare left. He had become extremely depressed. He didn’t want to ruin my opportunity for a better life, he said. He didn’t want to weigh me down. But I would’ve carried him, the way he carried me.

“Aaron is so much like his father,” I sniffed and tried to keep my tears at bay. “Not just the way he looks, but his heart. He’s gentle, kind, smart, like all the best parts of us both. I looked for him for so long. But…I guess he didn’t want to be found. I guess he wasn’t ready.”

“Did he know you were pregnant when he left?” Francis asked.

“No. I didn’t know either. But I know that if he’d known he never would have left.” I swallowed, my breath hot and wet. “Today was the first time we’d seen each other since then. We spent more time together than apart, and it felt like no time had gone by at all. He looked happy.” I tried to hide the shaking in my voice.

I could see him referring to the events earlier in the day: the look of shock on Cesare’s face, the desperation in the way we communicated, my doubt of Francis’ confidence and love. He knew I didn’t belong to him, that I never had – that even though we’d been parted, I’d always belonged to Cesare.

He thought carefully, and finished his glass. “You two set up a time to talk?”

“Not exactly. I’m afraid he’ll run. Again.” I finished my own and stared at the droplets of red that gathered at the bottom.

“He won’t,” he said.

“How do you know that?”

“He sounds like a smart man. He knows what he’s lost. He won’t risk losing it again.”

“You have a lot of faith in people,” I said.

“I have faith in good people,” he answered and looked at me. He set his glass down and stood, he held out his hand and helped me to my feet, where he held my arms. “You are a good woman, Jane. You always have been. No matter what’s happened to you. It doesn’t change that. It doesn’t change who you are.” He kissed my temple, and when I looked at him as he pulled away I saw a sadness in him that I’d never seen before. “I would have loved you,” he said.

“I know.”

Francis left my hotel suite, and I heard him shut himself into his own. I still couldn’t sleep. I lay on the couch, watching the morning sun come through the edges of the curtains. I could feel Cesare doing the same somewhere far away.

I was woken by two little hands on my face.

“Hi, Mama,” Aaron’s sweet voice called me.

“Hi, baby,” I brushed his hair out of his face. “Mama’s staying home today,” my voice was still muffled with stuffed and swollen sinuses from the crying I’d done in the night. “Want to do something fun?”

‘Yes, fun,’ he signed with his little smile.

“You wanna watch movies and eat popcorn?”

“Movies and candy,” he giggled.

Oh, what the hell, I thought. “Alright, but good food first for breakfast.”

We stayed home and watched adventures, and ordered room service for snacks. Francis came by for lunch and brought us something healthier to eat than chocolate. He stayed to play with Aaron; that sadness was still there on his face, and it looked as though he would miss my son. He was better to me than I deserved, especially since he knew my heart had never been invested in the relationship he wanted so badly with me. It hadn’t been fair to him, and I realized my father was right. I should have let him go sooner.

He didn’t stay long, but told me he would bring by dinner as well. Despite the fact that I wasn’t in love with him, I appreciated that he didn’t bolt, that he planned to stay at the hotel for the duration of my visit, and that we’d figure everything else out when we returned home. I didn’t know what I was going to do. But it was nice to not think about the past or the future that day, and instead just be present with my son while we enjoyed ourselves. I was luckier than most. And I was luckier, still, than most patients who escaped Caligari, and all of them who couldn’t. I try to be ever cognizant of that.

The day was winding into evening, and dinnertime was approaching. I was sitting on the couch with Aaron, while we joked and told stories, while he showed me the souvenir he got from the cheese museum. There was a knock at the door, and I told him to wash up for dinner.

I opened the door.

Cesare was on the other side of it.

He was trying not to shake visibly, but he was failing; I could see the trembling in his clothes, in his hair, the water along the lashes of his eyes. I could see it, because I instantly felt the same.

“Cesare…” I gravitated towards him, and quickly stepped aside. “Come in.”

He did as asked. He was holding with him a flower stalk and a plain blue gift bag. But when he stepped inside my suite, he suddenly seemed unsure of what to do with himself and his offerings. He stood in the center of the living room, noting the children’s toys on the coffee table, the mess from the afternoon’s snacks and litter. His eyes, wide and pale, finally turned and found mine. ‘I didn’t mean to interrupt,’ he signed, and found himself having walked in a stiff circle.

“You didn’t,” I said. “We were…” I trailed off, not sure what to say. “Dinner should be here soon.”

He nodded. Then looked around again, noting the absence of his son. ‘Where is he?’

“He’s washing up. He’s in the bathroom.”

He nodded again. ‘I wanted to apologise for making a scene yesterday,’ he started, and approached me; he handed me the flowers: a stalk of baby’s breath. ‘I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.’

“You reacted the way anyone would.” I took the flowers and held them to my heart. “I should have been quicker to say something.”

He shook his head. ‘That fault isn’t on you. That fault is mine.’ He handed me the gift bag; a plain, soft teddy bear was inside of it. ‘I should leave…I didn’t mean to interrupt,’ he said again.

“Please don’t –” I stopped him.

‘I don’t want to interrupt dinner with your fiance.’

“He’s not my fiance. Not anymore. He…never really was.”

Cesare didn’t move.

Neither did I.

He couldn’t stop the tears anymore, and they were flowing freely down his face. ‘I want to be here – I want to be with you. I want…to be with him. I didn’t know – I didn’t know –’

I set the flowers and bag down and held his face and brushed away the tears, helpless to my own. “I know.”

‘But I know now – But you’re getting married –’

“I’m not getting married,” I told him again. “I told Francis. I told him everything.”

‘Everything?’

I nodded. “Everything.”

He relaxed into my touch, and placed his hands on mine as he sighed, looking into my eyes. I felt the rush of all the time we’d spent apart in his eyes; I felt him reach his soul into mine, reaching out to me, hoping I’d reach back. ‘Take me wherever you go. Take me. I don’t want to let go this time. I won’t let go.’ He brushed away my tears.

‘I won’t let go,’ I signed back.

Cesare choked back a sob and smiled. I hadn’t seen him smile since before he left. It had been so long. He gathered himself, and tempered his tears as he motioned to the other room. ‘What is his name? ’

“His name is Aaron,” I told him, and showed him the sign I made for his name. “He’s perfect,” the rush of adrenaline and quiet sobbing came out as shuddering laughter.

‘Of course he is,’ he said, ‘he’s yours.’

“He’s ours.” I spoke and I signed, needing him to know its weight and tenderness.

He cupped my face and kissed my head, trying desperately to contain his emotion.

“Mama!” Aaron called as he ran out of the suite bedroom and showed me his clean hands.

I fixed my face quickly, and Cesare turned to do the same, wanting to make a good first impression for his son.

“Aaron,” I called him over and kissed his fingers. “Do you remember me telling you that Dad works in another country?” He nodded, sceptical, looking from me to the tall figure behind me who was still turned away from us. “Well, Dad doesn’t need to live in that country anymore. Dad can come home now. Dad is home now.”

“Is he Dad?” he asked, trying to see what he looked like, to compare him to photographs I’d shown him.

“Yes he is, that’s Dad.”

Cesare turned around, gathering his courage, and knelt to Aaron’s level. He looked at me, hoping I would translate, but was surprised when Aaron signed to him first.

Aaron tapped him on the arm and called his attention. “Where did you go?” he spoke and signed.

The relief on Cesare’s face was palpable when he realized that he’d be able to communicate with his son. But a perplexity took it over quickly when he also realized he didn’t have an answer. He glanced to me again, unsure of what to tell him. ‘I had a lot of work I needed to do,’ he signed, unconfident. ‘But I’m done now. I can be with you and Mom forever now. I don’t ever need to leave again.’

Aaron looked at him, taking in his face, looking him over. When he seemed satisfied enough — that the man in front of him looked just like the man from the framed photographs at home, and the photo albums on my bookshelves — he accepted what he saw as truth. “You look like Dad in the pictures,” he smiled and touched his face.

He nodded happily. ‘Yes! I’m Dad – I’m your Dad.’ I’d never seen him smile so big, I’d never seen him so happy.

Aaron threw his arms around him, and squeezed so tight I thought they’d both explode.

Cesare wrapped his arms around his son and kissed his head. He rocked him back and forth, nestling his face on his soft baby hair.

There was another knock at the door, and I went to answer it. I dried my face as best as I could, knowing it was useless anyway.

It was Francis this time, with the dinner he’d promised. He greeted me with a gentleness, but quickly saw past me and into the suite. He saw Cesare and Aaron in an embrace, how happy they were.

“I’ll leave you to it,” he said and handed me the bag, with that sadness still on his face.

“Francis –” I stopped him. “Thank you.”

He took my hand and kissed it. “Be good to yourself, Jane. You’re too hard on yourself. You deserve better than that.” He began to walk away. I didn’t know if I’d ever see him again.

Cesare heard Francis at the door, and reluctantly released his son and stood. ‘I’ll be right back,’ he told me, and followed him out into the hallway.

“Where’s Dad going?”

“He’s going to tell Francis thank you,” I said.

“Francis brought dinner now?”

“Yes he did. He’s very kind, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, Francis is nice. Is he going to have dinner, too?”

“No. Dinner will just be you, me, and Dad tonight.”

“I’m happy Dad is back now.”

“Me, too, baby.”

I set the table and watched them through a mirror hung in the hallway as Cesare ran after Francis. He caught up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. He began to sign, but was interrupted –

“I’m sorry, I don’t know any sign language.”

Cesare pulled out his phone instead and typed: ‘Thank you. For taking care of my son. And the woman I love. Thank you isn’t enough.’

“It’s plenty. She’s a good woman. And you’ve got yourself a good kid.” I wondered if that was Francis’ subtle way of admonishing him for his supposed abandonment.

But Cesare didn’t seem to take it that way. They exchanged pleasantries, and he came back into the suite to share dinner. Aaron clung to him the entire time and asked a million questions, each of which his father answered patiently and as best as he could. I tried to keep his routine as best as possible, but he was wired with excitement and emotion; so after bathtime the three of us went to the bedroom and continued to talk until Aaron was too tired to stay awake. I tucked him in as he fell asleep, and Cesare and I moved to the living room; we talked all night, the pair of us were emotionally spent. But happy.

We talked about all the plans we used to have – how they changed, how they stayed the same. We still wanted to work together. He loved what he did, and I loved having a position that gave me more flexibility. We still wanted to get married.

‘Do you want more kids?’ he asked me; we were sitting on the couch, his arm around me, his long legs propped on the coffee table.

“No – definitely not,” I laughed. “One is enough.”

He chuckled. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’

“Don’t get me wrong, he’s perfect. It’s just…hard.”

‘I’m here now. You’re not alone.’

I curled closer into him, as if I could crawl into the space between his ribs and lie there.

‘I hope you didn’t have any difficulties with the pregnancy. I hope you had help.’

“No. I was okay. After he was born was a different story, though. I was lucky to have some friends from the company, older women who knew what I was going through, they helped me. They got me through a lot. Once was enough for that, too.” But I stopped, overcome with a feeling and a memory.

He felt me squirm, and he looked at me. ‘What’s wrong?’

“It’s just…I guess it hasn’t only been once.”

‘What do you mean?’

“At the hospital…There was a time I thought I might’ve been pregnant. But I wasn’t sure. I was so nauseous all the time. I thought it might’ve been the drugs he was giving me at the time. He’d just switched them to something else. But I just wasn’t sure.”

‘Did you have your period?’

“It was really late. That’s why I thought I’ve might’ve…”

He stopped and thought for a while, and I suddenly regretted saying anything at all. I felt like an idiot to overwhelm him. But we’d always been able to talk about everything together, especially memories – things that we’d forgotten, and suddenly remembered. By habit, I went back into that dynamic almost immediately. But he didn’t stop me.

‘By him, or by me?’ he asked.

I shook my head. “I wasn’t sure.”

He nodded, and held me closer. I felt a tension in his chest, and he looked away; I could see the strain in the muscles of his jaw – he was angry. But his hand was still gentle around me as he stroked my shoulder.

I knew he wasn’t angry at me, but at the past – all of it. I still felt bad for saying anything.

He turned back to me, with a scoff and a brow raised with disgust. ‘It was probably the medication. If you’d been pregnant, he would’ve kept the baby and done something to it.’

I scoffed with him and looked up at him. “I hate that you’re right.”

He kissed the top of my head. ‘We are going to be okay now,’ he said. ‘I know it. We have control of our lives. More than we ever have before.’ He paused and sighed. ‘I never should have left –’

“Cesare –”

He stopped me. ‘I never should have left. But I’m more capable now than I was. No matter what happens – all of the good, and all of the…not so good – you won’t be alone anymore. You never were. I’ve always been here. And I always will be.’ He brushed a tear from my face.

I nodded, feeling that pain in my throat again.

‘I’ve faced hell with you. I’ve done my time in purgatory. I’m ready to face heaven with you, too.’

I held onto him, my legs over his now, my hands gripped into his shirt. I didn’t want to let him go. And I didn’t have to.

He held me the whole night.

He stayed there with us at the hotel for the remainder of our stay. They tried to fire him for kissing and kidnapping the consulting guru, but I didn’t let that happen. He quit anyway – he wanted a different job, he said, something not so corporate and soulless. Something where he could really stretch his creative legs, without so many bosses and rules hanging over his head.

After I finished closing the restructuring deal, we worked out the logistics of him moving back with me. I had a large house back home, and there would be enough space for all three of us to have separate rooms. With my connections, he could have any graphic design job he wanted. He said he wanted to work from home. It was better for his mental health, and better for my schedule. He could bond with Aaron, and I didn’t have to worry about picking him up after preschool or kindergarten. It was like we fit together seamlessly – like we were better for each other than we had been before.

I told Aaron that Francis and I weren’t going to be going to be seeing each other anymore, but that he was still a good and kind person. The last time I saw Francis was at the airport when we got home, when we all parted ways. He asked to be transferred to a different location of the company, I think it was for the best, really. My life was turned right side up, but his was turned upside down. I never meant to hurt him.

My life started over, better than it had been – better than it had ever been. The way it was supposed to be. Cesare and Aaron became closer than I could have hoped. Aaron brought out a side in him that granted him permission to play and enjoy life. It allowed him to give himself, in a way, all of the things that he was denied as a child.

Cesare still has the occasional cigarette, but not for the same reasons, and only when he gets really stressed, like with a deadline at work. Or when Aaron started sleepwalking. That scared him. It scared me, too, but not as bad as it did him. Aaron had just started kindergarten and had stressors of his own, which I guess triggered the genetic component of sleepwalking.

“Most kids grow out of it,” I reassured him.

‘I didn’t,’ he half signed with a cigarette in one hand.

“Who knows what he did to keep you that way. Besides you haven’t had an episode in a long time, right?”

He nodded, and took another drag. He kept the cigarette between his lips as he signed: ‘I’m always afraid of what’s going to happen when I go to sleep. I don’t want him to feel the same way.’

“He won’t,” I said. “Even if he doesn’t grow out of it, he doesn’t have the same history we do. Your fear will not be his.” I touched his arms, and brushed his hair from his face. “He has two parents who love him very much, who would do anything for him, and who can provide for his every need. That’s half the battle. He will be okay. Because we’ll make sure of it.”

I felt him start to relax, and he removed the cigarette from his lips before he took a deep breath of cleaner air. He looked at me, into my eyes, and he knew I was right. He nodded.

“We will be okay. Because we can make sure of it now.”

He nodded again, and this time pulled me to his chest.

“We’ll be okay.” This time, I finally believed it.

So did he.

I got to go wedding dress shopping again. This time with both my father and Aaron. I chose the sixth dress I tried on, something that felt loose and that I could move in; it had a beautiful gauze train. I felt like a bride – like a queen. I felt like myself. Aaron and my father’s excitement solidified my choice, and the price wasn’t too bad, either.

We got married in a park, just the three of us, and my father. We didn’t need anything else. Just the people who loved us. Just each other.

He was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen: elegant and bright, in his black tuxedo and with his beaming smile when I came down the aisle. He dipped me when we kissed. It’s my favorite photograph of us.

We have movie nights, and we cook together. We bicker about which pasta sauce to get at the store, and which is the right way to fold a fitted sheet. He helps Aaron with his homework, and picks him up from school. I bring them to company parties, and introduce them as my husband and my son. And every time I do it, I have to try not to cry.

My house became a home, and the three of us created a routine that worked well for all of our needs: we have separate rooms, we have a no screens after eleven policy; we limit alcohol, and we give each other space when we’re overwhelmed. Because we still have our struggles – God knows we’ll have post-traumatic stress for the rest of our lives. The trick is working with it, not trying to get rid of it. And not taking it out on our son.

We discussed – at length – getting Aaron therapy for all of the change in his life, and eventually we found someone we trusted. We read so many reviews.

‘If only online reviews had been a thing back then,’ Cesare joked.

I laughed. “I think you just dated yourself.” But it felt good to hear him say ‘back then’, to rub the salve of humor on something that we could acknowledge as being in the past.

Everyone heals at different rates. But it doesn’t mean healing doesn’t happen at all. Sometimes it just takes time. And patience. And a lot of change.

Aaron is eleven now. He’s starting junior high school soon. He’s going to be as tall as his father, I can tell already. He likes going with us to buy new eyeshadow palettes, and he doesn’t care that his father and I share clothes. He likes wearing kimonos, too. And he wears eyeliner like his father. He’s bright, and compassionate; he’s creative, and he’s never known pain. That’s all I could possibly ask for.

We’re an odd little family. We look different, we sound different – our roles are different. But it doesn’t matter. Because we’re happy. And we’re together.

And that’s what counts.

#i wrote this as a writing exercise initially #the cabinet of dr. caligari #the cabinet of doctor caligari #das cabinet des dr. caligari #cesare the somnambulist #cesare #jane olsen #cesare x jane #vintage horror #german expressionism #*

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