Chapter 9 #2
Mrs Lewis went straight to check on her granddaughter.
“Hello, my angel,” she cooed, sitting on the couch by Denny, who moaned in response, holding on to the hot water bottle for dear life. The sigh Tansy let out was laden with sympathy. “All this misery for a womb that will never give me a great-grandchild…”
“You will get a great-grandchild,” Denny whined. “One day, when I’m mature and responsible enough to go to the shelter down the street and adopt a cat.”
“As long as I get to spoil it and take it to the park in a pretty pram.”
Denny wheezed out a feeble laugh. Tansy reassuringly rubbed her stomach. “Rest, love. The Garden’s in good hands.” Her twinkling aquamarine eyes set on Eris. “And so are you, it seems.”
Tansy only stayed for a couple of minutes. The situation was under control and the shop was already open: unsupervised Rocco couldn’t be trusted.
“We’ll be downstairs. Shout if you need anything.” She paused, intercepting Eris’ mirthful look. “Or just give us a knock, I suppose.”
The woman’s cottony perfume hung in the air long after she left, clean and comforting. Eris had never met any of her grandparents: her parents had gone no-contact with their own families, a tradition that Eris was happy to carry on and likely put an end to, given her dislike for children.
Animals, though.
She loved animals.
* * *
Denny napped on and off for most of the morning.
Eris did her best to look after her, refilling the hot-water bottle when it ran cold, making her raspberry leaf tea to help with the cramps, accompanying her to the loo when she needed it. It felt good to be useful.
In the afternoon, Denny felt good enough to go back to work. It was a busy day, so in the evening she had to make up for the unproductive morning. After dinner, she took her laptop to the kitchen so that she’d feel the pressure of being watched while Eris tidied up.
Eris could sense her agony all the way across the kitchen.
“I need to hire a bookkeeper,” Denny groaned, hitting ‘start’ on the laptop.
Eris cocked an eyebrow at her. Then do it?
“It’s so much work!” Denny pulled a pained face. “You have to contact agencies, interview people, find someone who has the right vibes and pray they’re reliable…”
All Eris could do was place a chocolate bar in front of her.
It’s either that or keep on doing it all yourself. Pick your torture, Sunshine.
Denny got to work—if grunting and groaning at a screen in between a distraction and the next could be considered work.
Denny was physically and mentally unable to focus on one task at a time: every few minutes of actual work, she had to do something else, if only for a few seconds, as if to catch her breath: check her phone, read the ingredients of the chocolate bar, wipe her glasses...
Eris had to look away. She didn’t know it was possible to experience motion sickness while being perfectly still.
When the kitchen was spotless, she popped the kettle on for tea and went upstairs to shower.
For a long time, she’d believed bathrooms like Denny’s, all marble and stainless steel fittings, were only movie and magazine things.
Soap and hot water were already a luxury to her, who had learned at a very young age that cleanliness was the last anchor to dignity.
Poor hygiene had been an issue for many of her schoolmates back in the day and, even as a small child, she had been all too aware that her clothes might be worn, mended, faded, but at least they didn’t reek. They were clean. She was clean.
Upon her return she found Denny knocked out cold on the laptop, glasses askew.
She groaned inwardly.
I can’t leave you to your own devices for five minutes…
The sight of her so peaceful and vulnerable ignited something raw in Eris, an emotion that cut and tore through her with sharp talons.
She didn’t know why her heart ached like that when she looked at Denny.
She liked her, had grown quite fond of her despite everything…
The hurt didn’t make sense. Then again, Eris wasn’t familiar with that kind of bond: all the people she’d met until now had slipped through her fingers, sooner or later, and she had never looked back for any of them.
If she thought about a life without Denny, she felt lost. Beneath all the superficial differences, the two of them were surprisingly similar in many of the ways two individuals needed to be similar to coexist.
On her own, she’d always felt invincible.
No deadweights, no emotionally-fragile people to piss off by doing or saying the wrong thing.
Alone, she could be herself without having to watch her step all the time.
It wasn’t like that with Denny. Instead of taking her character’s eccentricities personally, Denny made an effort to understand and flow with them; the least Eris could do was to grow around Denny’s own eccentricities in return.
Denny made a faint noise. Eris stroked her hair with a sigh. If she moved her now, Denny might wake up and force herself to get back to work. Eris wasn’t going to allow that.
Carefully, she peeled the laptop away and set it aside, easing Denny back down to the table. Eris took her in: she didn’t like those dark circles under her eyes.
For someone so keen on taking care of others, you’re absolutely terrible at taking care of yourself.
She slipped the glasses off Denny’s nose and made a decision.
She fetched a blanket from the couch and draped it over Denny’s back, then took a seat beside her with a cup of tea.
Checking the laptop, she could see why it was so hard for Denny to sit through this kind of task: supplier data, invoice numbers, dates, VAT, payments…
Dull enough to be torture to a vivacious mind like Denny’s.
But Eris’ mind thrived in order and schemes and this kind of chore wasn’t as taxing to her as it was for her little blonde hummingbird.
It only took a couple of hours. A whole half an hour went to figuring out the website, but the forms were intuitive enough; once she got the hang of the process, things became surprisingly smooth. It was easy to stay motivated with Denny slumbering so soundly next to her.
There were times when she was alarmed by the lengths she was willing to go for this girl, but then she remembered everything that Denny had done for her just because she could, and that knocked everything back into perspective.
She owed Denny. Big time.
And, for the first time, a debt felt more like a privilege than a noose.
* * *
“You shouldn’t have! It’s my responsibility! You shouldn’t feel compelled to do stuff for me just because you’re living here!”
Eris could hardly follow what Denny was barking, too mesmerised by her trying to be menacing and coming across as anything but. Between the tousled hair and the wide yawn that had just scrunched up her sleepy face, she only looked irresistibly cute.
While Denny ranted on, Eris typed out her reply, which went ignored. She had to stick the phone under Denny’s nose.
Why are you getting so worked up over a bit of paperwork?
Denny squinted to read without her glasses.
“It was my paperwork! My problem, Eris, not yours!”
Jesus Denny CHILL
You’ve been looking out for me for like a month
You could let me look out for you ONCE without throwing a tantrum
“And you… You shouldn’t have carried me up the stairs! You could’ve hurt yourself!”
Eris shook her head. Cracked ribs weren’t an excuse any more. Joe had recently promoted her to a full workout schedule. She had already proved she could lift way more than Denny’s weight. It may not be as impressive as the other way around, but she expected credit when it was due.
I was so smooth you didn’t even notice
“Yeah, well—” Denny fumbled. Eris defiantly folded her arms. “You— I—” Denny exhaled, defeated. “Thank you, I guess.”
Eris chuckled with a tilt of the head. See? It wasn’t so hard.
There was a quiet longing in Denny’s eyes. Eris didn’t just see it: she felt it under her own skin. To her own shock, her arms opened up on their own will to close around Denny, who stood frozen for a moment before returning the hug.
“Thank you,” she whispered, burying her face into Eris’ neck. “Not for doing my stuff. I mean, for that, too, but… This.” Her arms tightened around Eris with all their remarkable strength. “This means so much to me.”
Eris’ synapses panicked slightly at the sensorial overload: the unfamiliar sensation of the embrace, Denny’s slender, solid body, her comforting scent, the warmth of her breath… It was a lot, but not enough to make her want to back away.
She had never held anything so valuable. Not even her own life.
I know, Sunshine. Sorry it took me so long.
* * *
October kicked off with a spell of bad weather. Denny’s enthusiasm about it took the flat by storm.
The spring pastel colours disappeared, replaced by a palette of earthy autumn tones that transformed the fairy cottage into a cosy, witchy lair. Pumpkins, candles, and blankets decorated every corner and the oven was frequently occupied by a new pie recipe.
A Black History Month t-shirt also appeared. Denny never wore it outside, only at home, and when she took it off she draped it on the back of the armchair in the corner of her room, like a tapestry on display.
In all of this, Eris stood bedazzled, caught in a whirlwind of novelties that threw her a little off kilter.
But Denny’s energy was rubbing off on her, all that warm radiance seeping into her, bringing light where there had never been any.
Her aversion to human touch was evolving to accommodate her growing desire to get closer to Denny, to feel, to listen, to share.
At night, when she lay awake waiting for her swirling thoughts to fizzle out and let her drift into sleep, she often wondered if this was how normal people lived: taking safety and stability for granted, unshakingly confident in the love that was waiting for them at home when everything else became unbearable.
The world seemed more livable, less ugly, now that she had Denny.
“You’re pensive.”