Post by Andrina on Nov 2, 2020 16:31:23 GMT -5
Andrina was meant to be napping. She was officially on maternity leave from her more strenuous responsibilities, though she still had a few students come to their house for lessons throughout the week. Which thrilled most of them since their house was anything but ordinary. They’d made it a home over the years. It was loud, chaotic, and warm-just like the Mumbles. She’d always loved her home here, but the more she was forced to remain in it, the more she wanted to get out. She’d worked a lot through her first pregnancy with Aiden, probably too much, but she was older now. Mermaids had a slightly longer lifespan than the average human so she wasn’t at as high of a risk as typical people in this world thought, but things certainly weren’t as easy as they were when she was in her twenties. She needed more rest.
She was supposed to be napping, but, after struggling for something like an hour to situate herself and the baby into a tolerably comfortable position, she relented with a sigh and sat up. She thought maybe she’d make something to eat, or maybe play something. The thought had barely crossed her mind when the comforting sounds of a familiar piece of composition floated to her down the hall from the living room. She smiled and then frowned in the span of three seconds, hovering in her own doorway as several things occurred to her.
Aiden must be home visiting for the weekend, or at least tonight. This made her smile given that her lovely daughter had been visiting far less frequently since they’d argued over her pregnancy. They had made amends...sort of. Andy had always thought she knew her daughter extremely well. She knew her favorite things to eat, she knew what songs made her smile. She knew that when she was little she used to cry if she missed a note on the piano. She knew that she refused to sleep without a stuffed animal. That was still true, if the penguin she found hiding under Aiden’s pillow when she went to change her sheets was any indication. Andrina knew that she threw herself at things with such extreme passion that it sometimes got her into trouble, just like her parents. She knew that she sometimes had trouble with words, like her father, and chose some other form of expression to get her point across. She knew that there were other things hidden in her room. Bottles in various sizes. They smelled closer to cleaner than something someone could drink.
Before the fight, Andrina had seen Aiden closing herself off. She didn’t play for them anymore, conversations were shorter, but she’d just thought...she was growing up. She thought that maybe she was having some troubles at school, maybe there was the coming and going of a love interest and her parents were a bit too exentric to discuss that sort of thing with. She thought Aiden must know, by now, that she could tell them anything, talk to them about anything. They were a very open family. She’d worried about it, complained to Mumble about how much she wanted to push, to know, to help, but before the fight she’d thought Aiden just needed space. She was at that age where Andy herself had been the most twisted up inside. After the fight, she’d shifted from feeling like an overprotective parent and grown deeply horrified that she hadn’t been protective enough.
For the first time she saw a glimpse of the true cynical anger and despair swimming in her daughter’s eyes and Andy felt profoundly that she’d been an idiot for not catching it sooner. Aiden had her father’s eyes. She knew what they looked like when they were reflecting heartbreak. It was like she’d been looking straight ahead for too long and suddenly Aiden pointed down at their feet and Andy was made acutely aware of the vast canyon that had formed between them. She knew her daughter Aiden, her baby. She did not know this adult that carried on some complicated version of life outside of their home and it wounded her deeply.
The second thing she noticed as she leaned against the doorframe, was the song choice. Nuvole Bianche. An Italian piece that translated to “White Clouds.” It was a song about longing, looking, hoping, and despair. She’d never heard Aiden play it before, but recognized the way her fingers danced over the keys, small hands hesitating just a touch too long on some of the more complicated parts. Aiden hardly played classical. She complained about it in her youth, despite always looking mesmerized whenever Andrina played a piece. If she thought back on it, there were only a few instances where Aiden chose to play it herself and each time was marked with some small tragedy in her life. She played Moonlight Sonata for a week when she was thirteen because the girl she liked didn’t hold her hand at the movies. Andy guessed the reason for her playing now was probably more significant.
After a few minutes of puzzling and listening to the melancholy of her playing, Andy couldn’t hold back any longer and made her way into the living room. Softly entering rooms was not one of Andy’s strong suits, but she managed to do it now. Socked feet shuffling carefully on hardwood floors until the notes rang out clearer and echoed gently on purposefully acoustic walls. She didn’t mean to startle her. She thought maybe she’d wait until she’d finished, just watching her rock a bit on the bench as she pressed on each note a little too hard and rolled with the music as it came. It was the look on her face that had Andy moving further without permission. Her eyes were red rimmed, face shining with previously shed tears. Andy felt like the floor had shifted, tears immediately rolling down her own cheeks as she at last came close enough to enter Aiden’s vision.
She stopped with a jumble of shocked notes and wiped at her eyes immediately.
“Mom, I thought you were both out-“ She gasped and cleared her throat, Andy didn’t let her sit long enough to put back up whatever walls she’d let tumble to release and wrapped her up in the tightest hug she was able given her tummy. There was a breath of tension held between them as Aiden rocked back for a second, arms hovering in the air for so long Andy thought she might give up, that this was the wrong choice, that she’d only pushed her further away somehow. And then, like the tide finally pushing back into the shore, She felt her daughter’s warmth around her shoulders, she stood so the whole thing was a little easier and buried her face into the fabric of Andy’s ugly old sleep shirt.
“Am I allowed to say I’m worried about you?” Andy said, voice shakier than she would have liked, petting Aiden’s hair as they embraced.
“No,” came the muffled childish reply. Andy offered her a hum at this.
“Can I ask what’s wrong?”
“No,” She said again, though there was a little bit of hesitation this time. Andy slid her hands down and poked at Aiden’s sides until she wiggled away from her, revealing a face of irritated amusement.
“I’m fine, cut it out,” She complained, pulling away enough to force her mother to cease. Andy frowned at her.
“You only play Classical when you're upset,” she inserted knowingly.
“I hate classical,” Aiden said, turning away and sitting back down on the bench, she left enough space for Andy to squeeze beside her. She didn’t say anything, rubbing her stomach unconsciously, an anxious habit these days, as she took her place beside her. She thought of what she might say, waited for Aiden to say more. When neither of them seemed able to come up with the words, she leaned forward and slowly, cautiously at first, began playing the piece where Aiden left off. Just a few slow chords.
“Is it that boy?” Andy said without looking away from the keys. Very rarely did Andy in the past have to navigate so carefully to get her daughter to open up. They just talked and they told each other things. She hadn’t realized that at some point Aiden started leaving things out. She saw Aiden wrap her arms around herself out of the corner of her eye. She wanted to hold her again, want to keep her safe from whatever unknown horror was haunting her. But, for whatever reason, Aiden hadn’t come to them with her woes. She felt her parents hadn’t raised her as they should have. She thought they were wreckless for having another child. Although she had since taken it all back, Andy knew some resentment remained. How had she been so thoughtless? So unaware of her own daughter's turmoil? It suffocated her. The idea that she’d let Aiden down, that she’d watch her daughter suffer with unseeing eyes.
“What boy,” Aiden whispered. Andy bumped her purposefully with her shoulder as she reached down to play a few notes closer to Aiden. Andy wasn’t always the best with sadness herself. She coped with silliness and optimism in most things. This worked well for her and Mumble. It used to work well for Aiden too. Andy thought it had. How many of her laughs had been forced? She blinked back the moisture in her eyes and smiled stupidly.
“Sometimes I sneak into your room at night to make sure you’re still breathing like a creep,” she said with a little laughter.
“Mom what the fuck,” Aiden complained, but Andy could tell without looking that she’d relaxed just a little.
“And sometimes you talk in your sleep,” Andy said, a little softer. The tension was back. She knew what she was talking about without continuing. She said the name at least a few times. Enough times that Andy’s scattered brain managed to cling onto it. Patience was not among Andy’s skills, but she’d grown better at it with age. Still she had to focus on the piano with too much effort to give Aiden enough time to think. She knew that much. Aiden needed time to think. She’d always been that way. When she was little, she’d put her hand over her mother’s mouth when she was trying to figure something out. She thought more than both her parents combined.
“Hinrik,” she said at last. Andy hummed. There was more. She could tell in the way she said his name like the sound of it might shatter her, like she was leaning over a cliff. Andy focused on breathing, the feeling of the smooth keys against her fingers, grounding her. She had to wait.
“He’s at war.”
Andy stopped playing. War. She knew about war. She fought in one on the very grounds of Tintagel, helped rebuild it after it was all but destroyed. Blood, carnage, death. She jumped a bit when she felt Aiden’s head thunk down on her shoulder, jolting her back into the present. Hinrik. The boy she whispered about in her sleep. He was fighting in a war.
“Oh my sweet baby,” Andy lamented quietly, tears falling again as she turned her head and pushed a kiss into the top of Aiden’s head.
“My sweet little jellyfish, I love you so much,” she said, turning to gather her up again too tightly. Maybe she could squeeze the pain out of her, maybe she could soak up just a little into her own body. War. This wasn’t something she could write a stern letter about or go and talk to the boys parents or fight someone, anyone, over. She wanted to ask more, she wanted to know everything Aiden knew so she could prepare for the worst. So she could be prepared to notice when and if Aiden shattered. But she knew better. She knew that this new Aiden had even told her this much seemed like a small miracle, given the rolling waves of tension and release she’d just put her body through. So she held her and she felt her shake and desperately hoped that she was helping.
“I have to get back, I still have a class tonight,” Aiden said after what could have been anything between minutes and hours. Andy didn’t want to let her go.
“Play hooky,” she said, pushing another kiss into the top of her head. This earned her a watery chuckle.
“You’re a terrible parent,” she said. Her voice was light when she said it, teasing, but they both seized up as soon as it left her lips. Aiden pulled away and sat up quickly, before Andy even had time to let the full effect of the reminder wash over her.
“Oh no, mom, I didn’t mean...I was joking I promise,” she rushed. Andy took a quick breath. She knew she hadn’t meant anything by it. Not this time at least, but the stinging, poisonous reminder that she may still partly believe it somewhere in the recesses of her heart made Andrina want to curl up and melt into the floor. Instead she smiled.
“I know, baby,” she said, brushing some of Aiden’s long dark hair out of her face. She looked tired. Pale. She smelled like vanilla and cleaner.
“I know.”
She was supposed to be napping, but, after struggling for something like an hour to situate herself and the baby into a tolerably comfortable position, she relented with a sigh and sat up. She thought maybe she’d make something to eat, or maybe play something. The thought had barely crossed her mind when the comforting sounds of a familiar piece of composition floated to her down the hall from the living room. She smiled and then frowned in the span of three seconds, hovering in her own doorway as several things occurred to her.
Aiden must be home visiting for the weekend, or at least tonight. This made her smile given that her lovely daughter had been visiting far less frequently since they’d argued over her pregnancy. They had made amends...sort of. Andy had always thought she knew her daughter extremely well. She knew her favorite things to eat, she knew what songs made her smile. She knew that when she was little she used to cry if she missed a note on the piano. She knew that she refused to sleep without a stuffed animal. That was still true, if the penguin she found hiding under Aiden’s pillow when she went to change her sheets was any indication. Andrina knew that she threw herself at things with such extreme passion that it sometimes got her into trouble, just like her parents. She knew that she sometimes had trouble with words, like her father, and chose some other form of expression to get her point across. She knew that there were other things hidden in her room. Bottles in various sizes. They smelled closer to cleaner than something someone could drink.
Before the fight, Andrina had seen Aiden closing herself off. She didn’t play for them anymore, conversations were shorter, but she’d just thought...she was growing up. She thought that maybe she was having some troubles at school, maybe there was the coming and going of a love interest and her parents were a bit too exentric to discuss that sort of thing with. She thought Aiden must know, by now, that she could tell them anything, talk to them about anything. They were a very open family. She’d worried about it, complained to Mumble about how much she wanted to push, to know, to help, but before the fight she’d thought Aiden just needed space. She was at that age where Andy herself had been the most twisted up inside. After the fight, she’d shifted from feeling like an overprotective parent and grown deeply horrified that she hadn’t been protective enough.
For the first time she saw a glimpse of the true cynical anger and despair swimming in her daughter’s eyes and Andy felt profoundly that she’d been an idiot for not catching it sooner. Aiden had her father’s eyes. She knew what they looked like when they were reflecting heartbreak. It was like she’d been looking straight ahead for too long and suddenly Aiden pointed down at their feet and Andy was made acutely aware of the vast canyon that had formed between them. She knew her daughter Aiden, her baby. She did not know this adult that carried on some complicated version of life outside of their home and it wounded her deeply.
The second thing she noticed as she leaned against the doorframe, was the song choice. Nuvole Bianche. An Italian piece that translated to “White Clouds.” It was a song about longing, looking, hoping, and despair. She’d never heard Aiden play it before, but recognized the way her fingers danced over the keys, small hands hesitating just a touch too long on some of the more complicated parts. Aiden hardly played classical. She complained about it in her youth, despite always looking mesmerized whenever Andrina played a piece. If she thought back on it, there were only a few instances where Aiden chose to play it herself and each time was marked with some small tragedy in her life. She played Moonlight Sonata for a week when she was thirteen because the girl she liked didn’t hold her hand at the movies. Andy guessed the reason for her playing now was probably more significant.
After a few minutes of puzzling and listening to the melancholy of her playing, Andy couldn’t hold back any longer and made her way into the living room. Softly entering rooms was not one of Andy’s strong suits, but she managed to do it now. Socked feet shuffling carefully on hardwood floors until the notes rang out clearer and echoed gently on purposefully acoustic walls. She didn’t mean to startle her. She thought maybe she’d wait until she’d finished, just watching her rock a bit on the bench as she pressed on each note a little too hard and rolled with the music as it came. It was the look on her face that had Andy moving further without permission. Her eyes were red rimmed, face shining with previously shed tears. Andy felt like the floor had shifted, tears immediately rolling down her own cheeks as she at last came close enough to enter Aiden’s vision.
She stopped with a jumble of shocked notes and wiped at her eyes immediately.
“Mom, I thought you were both out-“ She gasped and cleared her throat, Andy didn’t let her sit long enough to put back up whatever walls she’d let tumble to release and wrapped her up in the tightest hug she was able given her tummy. There was a breath of tension held between them as Aiden rocked back for a second, arms hovering in the air for so long Andy thought she might give up, that this was the wrong choice, that she’d only pushed her further away somehow. And then, like the tide finally pushing back into the shore, She felt her daughter’s warmth around her shoulders, she stood so the whole thing was a little easier and buried her face into the fabric of Andy’s ugly old sleep shirt.
“Am I allowed to say I’m worried about you?” Andy said, voice shakier than she would have liked, petting Aiden’s hair as they embraced.
“No,” came the muffled childish reply. Andy offered her a hum at this.
“Can I ask what’s wrong?”
“No,” She said again, though there was a little bit of hesitation this time. Andy slid her hands down and poked at Aiden’s sides until she wiggled away from her, revealing a face of irritated amusement.
“I’m fine, cut it out,” She complained, pulling away enough to force her mother to cease. Andy frowned at her.
“You only play Classical when you're upset,” she inserted knowingly.
“I hate classical,” Aiden said, turning away and sitting back down on the bench, she left enough space for Andy to squeeze beside her. She didn’t say anything, rubbing her stomach unconsciously, an anxious habit these days, as she took her place beside her. She thought of what she might say, waited for Aiden to say more. When neither of them seemed able to come up with the words, she leaned forward and slowly, cautiously at first, began playing the piece where Aiden left off. Just a few slow chords.
“Is it that boy?” Andy said without looking away from the keys. Very rarely did Andy in the past have to navigate so carefully to get her daughter to open up. They just talked and they told each other things. She hadn’t realized that at some point Aiden started leaving things out. She saw Aiden wrap her arms around herself out of the corner of her eye. She wanted to hold her again, want to keep her safe from whatever unknown horror was haunting her. But, for whatever reason, Aiden hadn’t come to them with her woes. She felt her parents hadn’t raised her as they should have. She thought they were wreckless for having another child. Although she had since taken it all back, Andy knew some resentment remained. How had she been so thoughtless? So unaware of her own daughter's turmoil? It suffocated her. The idea that she’d let Aiden down, that she’d watch her daughter suffer with unseeing eyes.
“What boy,” Aiden whispered. Andy bumped her purposefully with her shoulder as she reached down to play a few notes closer to Aiden. Andy wasn’t always the best with sadness herself. She coped with silliness and optimism in most things. This worked well for her and Mumble. It used to work well for Aiden too. Andy thought it had. How many of her laughs had been forced? She blinked back the moisture in her eyes and smiled stupidly.
“Sometimes I sneak into your room at night to make sure you’re still breathing like a creep,” she said with a little laughter.
“Mom what the fuck,” Aiden complained, but Andy could tell without looking that she’d relaxed just a little.
“And sometimes you talk in your sleep,” Andy said, a little softer. The tension was back. She knew what she was talking about without continuing. She said the name at least a few times. Enough times that Andy’s scattered brain managed to cling onto it. Patience was not among Andy’s skills, but she’d grown better at it with age. Still she had to focus on the piano with too much effort to give Aiden enough time to think. She knew that much. Aiden needed time to think. She’d always been that way. When she was little, she’d put her hand over her mother’s mouth when she was trying to figure something out. She thought more than both her parents combined.
“Hinrik,” she said at last. Andy hummed. There was more. She could tell in the way she said his name like the sound of it might shatter her, like she was leaning over a cliff. Andy focused on breathing, the feeling of the smooth keys against her fingers, grounding her. She had to wait.
“He’s at war.”
Andy stopped playing. War. She knew about war. She fought in one on the very grounds of Tintagel, helped rebuild it after it was all but destroyed. Blood, carnage, death. She jumped a bit when she felt Aiden’s head thunk down on her shoulder, jolting her back into the present. Hinrik. The boy she whispered about in her sleep. He was fighting in a war.
“Oh my sweet baby,” Andy lamented quietly, tears falling again as she turned her head and pushed a kiss into the top of Aiden’s head.
“My sweet little jellyfish, I love you so much,” she said, turning to gather her up again too tightly. Maybe she could squeeze the pain out of her, maybe she could soak up just a little into her own body. War. This wasn’t something she could write a stern letter about or go and talk to the boys parents or fight someone, anyone, over. She wanted to ask more, she wanted to know everything Aiden knew so she could prepare for the worst. So she could be prepared to notice when and if Aiden shattered. But she knew better. She knew that this new Aiden had even told her this much seemed like a small miracle, given the rolling waves of tension and release she’d just put her body through. So she held her and she felt her shake and desperately hoped that she was helping.
“I have to get back, I still have a class tonight,” Aiden said after what could have been anything between minutes and hours. Andy didn’t want to let her go.
“Play hooky,” she said, pushing another kiss into the top of her head. This earned her a watery chuckle.
“You’re a terrible parent,” she said. Her voice was light when she said it, teasing, but they both seized up as soon as it left her lips. Aiden pulled away and sat up quickly, before Andy even had time to let the full effect of the reminder wash over her.
“Oh no, mom, I didn’t mean...I was joking I promise,” she rushed. Andy took a quick breath. She knew she hadn’t meant anything by it. Not this time at least, but the stinging, poisonous reminder that she may still partly believe it somewhere in the recesses of her heart made Andrina want to curl up and melt into the floor. Instead she smiled.
“I know, baby,” she said, brushing some of Aiden’s long dark hair out of her face. She looked tired. Pale. She smelled like vanilla and cleaner.
“I know.”
