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The first thing I notice about our room is that it is…bright. Bright, and big, bigger than our room at home, with one wall painted a lovely sea-blue and the other walls pale yellow, solid white furniture, airy curtains over a big window, and cute little beach-themed knick-knacks around the room. It’s literally a beach bedroom. Which is fitting because, and I still can’t believe this, we’re in Florida. Percy and I. We are in Florida, with Newt’s entire giant family, and I honestly, truly can’t believe how lucky I am to be here.
I hear a little laugh behind me and whip around to see Percy standing in the doorway. “Happy, are we?” he teases me. He pulls both our suitcases into the room, then reaches out and pulls me in for a hug. “I like to see you smile, just like that,” he murmurs, before drawing me into a kiss.
Percy absolutely loves to surprise me, and this time, he really hit the jackpot. Newt, his best friend, goes on a family trip to Disney World every year at Easter. It’s a whole-family affair; they rent a vacation house and go to the park for the big parade and have an egg hunt and everything, and they bring along, well, everyone. For this trip there are fourteen of us in total: besides me and Percy there’s Newt’s parents Elizabeth and Martin; Newt’s brother Theseus and his wife Leta and their two girls, Bella and Andie; Newt’s favorite cousin Rolf and his wife Luna and their twins Lorcan and Lysander (and I thought my name was a mouthful!); and of course Newt and Tina…oops. I lied. Technically, there are fifteen of us, if you count what the stork is supposed to bring Tina this summer.
We’re staying in a summer rental home-type thing that’s so giant it makes Newt and Tina’s house back in Grosse Pointe look tiny. Percy and I have our own room and, seriously, our own freaking bathroom. Our kitten, Ashley, has already staked out a corner of the bed and is purring contentedly as she lounges in her new spot (perk of renting a house: pet-friendly rental homes are easier to find than pet-friendly hotels). And there’s a pool out back that is just calling my name.
“Later,” Percy tells me with a grin when he sees where I’m looking. “Trust me, there’ll be plenty of time for that. Right now, though, we’ve got to get you into some lighter clothes, because you’ll absolutely die if you stay dressed like that in Florida, and get downstairs…we’re doing, well, the closest thing we can to a potluck dinner tonight.”
He kneels, unzips my suitcase, and tosses me a t-shirt and cargo shorts, then once I’ve changed he leads me to the kitchen. It, like the rest of the rooms in the rental house, is huge, which is just as well because half of the family is packed in here right now. “So what we do,” Percy explains as we stake out a small empty spot on the kitchen island, “is each family member makes a dish for dinner tonight. And then we all bring it to the table like we would for a potluck at church.”
Beside us, Tina is chopping (read: hacking) carrots and celery. “You guys are in for a real treat. Oh, it’s chicken soup,” she quickly adds when she sees Percy’s ??? face. “With matzo dumplings…yeah, I know. Cliche, whatever. Sue me, I’m here instead of doing Passover with Queenie and Jacob, so…”
“I’m not judging,” Percy tells her. “Trust me, when you see what I’m making you’ll either laugh or slap me.”
I’m already licking my lips at the thought of having a bowl of that soup tonight (I lived with her for three years before Percy and I got married, I know how good Goldstein chicken soup is) when I realize oh, shit, I have to be part of this too. “So what do I do?” I ask Percy, who’s already pulling out what I recognize as the ingredients for colcannon, or as I call it actual heaven. (Mashed potatoes and cabbage with a truckload of milk and butter. Trust me, it’s like a hug in a bowl.)
“Whatever you want.”
“But—I mean, is there anything I shouldn’t make? Like, is there anything that’s like, bad for tonight, or—”
Tina takes pity on me. She sets down her knife and gives me a hug from behind. “It’s okay, Cree. This isn’t like our Passover dinners back home where you have to separate everything out and keep it kosher.” She gives me one more squeeze and adds teasingly, “Trust me kiddo, these Episcopalians will eat anything.”
Percy rolls his eyes but admits, “Yeah, can confirm. I once made, uh, some unconventional worms and dirt pudding because I screwed up the actual dish I wanted to make…and Newt actually ate it.”
“Ate what?” Newt asks, breezing by with a tray of raw meatballs.
“My eggless brownie batter topped with Kroger-brand Oreo crumbs and sour gummy worms.”
Newt bursts out laughing. “Oh damn! Yeah, I forgot about that. Please, Graves, tell me you aren’t going to inflict that on us again this year.”
Percy rolls his eyes. “No, you whiner. Would you settle for mashed potatoes with cabbage?”
“Would you learn to cook something that doesn’t scream top o’ the mornin’ to ya?” Newt quips, and Percy pretends to throw a chunk of raw potato at him. Newt sighs exaggeratedly, slides his meatballs into the oven and turns to me. “So what’ll you be dazzling us with tonight, then?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. I can manage the basics. Scrambled eggs, grilled cheese, rip-and-dump specials like tater tots or chicken tenders. I can make spaghetti without burning the house down. I can put together a birthday cake from a mix without too much trouble. But other than that, well…
Newt gives me a sympathetic look. “You’ll figure it out. Seriously, this is just for fun. You’ll be fine, Credence, I promise.”
I’m determined to prove him right, so I go to the freezer (stick with your strengths, right?) and get creative. I get Theseus to show me how to work the air-fryer and stick in some crunchy chicken tenders, and then get to work with a box of mini Eggo waffles. When we’re all ready to start dinner I arrange my creation on a tray and present it to the others: chicken and waffles sliders with a side of bacon, and maple syrup for dipping.
Percy actually laughs, and for a second I’m hurt (really, is it that bad?) but then he slings an arm around my shoulders and plants a kiss on my cheek. “See, now you’re just showing off,” he teases.
Leta makes honest-to-God cooing noises. “Ohh, that’s so cute!”
“Make those again for brunch on Sunday, if you don’t mind,” Elizabeth requests.
Newt nudges me in the ribs. “See? Told you you’d be fine.”
We eat outside on the patio, adults at the big long table and the kids in the armchairs around the smaller table, with all the food spread out in a buffet on the unlit grill. “This is what we do for Maundy Thursday,” Percy explains to me in an aside as we fill our plates. “Tomorrow’s going to be very…subdued. This is supposed to represent Jesus’ last supper, the last time He had the chance to eat and be with His friends.”
I nod and go along with it, but a knot is forming in my belly. I almost forgot how seriously practicing Christians take Holy Week.
~
Lashes on my back, stinging into my skin, I weep and beg Ma to stop because I know she likes it better when I do
She grabs a handful of my hair and hurls me down to the floor
Sinful, wicked boy, you don’t deserve His forgiveness, how dare you
Ma, please, it was only one candy, it was for Modesty, only a dollar, I didn’t steal Ma, I would never—
And I can smell my own blood
And I try to block it out
I try to remember something sweet from the Bible, something comforting, a reminder that God loves me even if my mother does not
But her words sting more than the bite of the leather belt and I can’t block out everything she says, everything she means
WICKED. TERRIBLE. EVIL BOY. NO ONE COULD EVER WANT YOU. EVEN SATAN DOESN’T WANT YOUR SOUL, IT’S THAT FILTHY.
~
I try not to let the memories get to me. And most of the time, I succeed. There’s so much I know now that I didn’t know then. Therapy and support and love has taken me far, and I know that I don’t have to let her hurt me. Not anymore.
But love cannot erase scars. It’s not that I don’t love and trust Percy with all my heart; I do. And I know that no one here would never hurt me. But historically, Holy Week has not been a good time for me. And I think I got so caught up in the excitement of going to Florida, and going back to the place where Percy and I got engaged, that I kind of forgot what we’re really doing here.
I try to shake it off and focus on the feast that the fourteen of us have assembled instead. There’s my sliders, Percy’s potatoes, and Tina’s soup, of course, and Newt’s mozzarella-stuffed meatballs. Then Elizabeth’s delicious-looking pasta with salmon flakes and parmesan cheese; Leta’s chicken breasts (with a choice of feta cheese or apple vinaigrette sauce), and Rolf’s cheesy garlic bread. Martin’s taken care of the salad bar (green salad, three-bean salad, coleslaw, and berry fruit salad), and Theseus and Luna made the desserts (chocolate-and-peanut-butter buckeye cake and lavender cheesecake). Even the kids contributed: 11-year-old Andie made a tray of egg salad, tuna salad, and deli meat sandwiches on storebought croissants, 8-year-old Bella made Velveeta mac and cheese, and Luna helped her 6-year-old twins make Pillsbury bunny cookies.
It’s silly, I know. But the sight of all that food laid out, and the knowledge that no one here will smack my hand if I try to eat it, helps me fully banish the painful memories. Percy does notice, because he always notices, and puts his hand on my shoulder as we scope out the buffet. “Are you okay, sweetheart?” he asks quietly.
“Fine.” We fill our plates and I wait until we’re seated to tell him as discretely as I can, “It was just. I was thinking about…home. My old home.”
Percy, of course, knows what I mean. He reaches up immediately and strokes my back through my t-shirt, right over the scars, soothing away any phantom pain and letting me know without words that he doesn’t think any less of me for my scars. “If you need to leave,” he whispers, “please tell me. I promise no one here will think badly of you if you need to go to bed early, it’s been a long day.”
To my relief, however, I do not need to duck out early. Aside from saying grace at the beginning of the meal there isn’t much religious talk until the very end, when Elizabeth reminds everyone of the point of tonight. “Jesus had one last meal with His friends before He died. That’s what we’re celebrating tonight. Does anyone remember what was the last request Jesus made to his friends?”
Lorcan perks up. “Don’t fall asleep while you’re praying?”
Everyone chuckles indulgently, and Elizabeth outright giggles as she corrects him, “No, that’s a good guess though…I don’t think He minds if you fall asleep while you’re praying most of the time.”
“Love each other the way He loved them?” Bella offers up.
“There we go. That’s the one I was thinking of.” Elizabeth gives her a nod and smile before she faces us and goes on, “So that’s why we had our potluck dinner tonight. Cooking food for each other is an act of service, to show that we love and appreciate each other. But…” Her voice grows serious as she continues, “Part of loving someone is respecting them. So, out of respect for Jesus and the day He died, we’re going to have a very quiet day tomorrow. We’re not going to go to the park, or play in the pool, or have any treats or watch any TV.”
The Scamander-Lovegood twins both look at her with wide eyes. “For a whole day?” little Lysander whispers, unable to comprehend such a long time without the things that probably make life worth living to a six-year-old.
(I don’t tell him that when I was six, I didn’t know what TV was. I didn’t taste chocolate until I was twelve, and when I did, I was beaten bloody over it. And we lived in a trailer, miles away from any park, until I was almost fifteen and even then I had to sneak my sisters out of the house in order for them to play.)
“The whole day,” Elizabeth confirms solemnly. And then she smiles. “So…after we clean up, we’ll go for a swim and have some fun, okay?”
Cleanup goes quickly with ten people working together. Within a half-hour we’re in the pool, watching the kids splash and play in the water while most of the adults chill out with poolside drinks. But of course Percy jumps in the pool to play with the kids, because he’s amazing like that, and he willingly lets them splash him and wing soaked Nerf balls at him and spray him with squirt guns.
I sit on the side of the pool, legs dangling in the water, and make no effort to hide my giggles as Lorcan and Lysander repeatedly jump off the steps and “knock over” my husband, and every single time he lets them, falling backwards and making as big a splash as he can just to make them laugh. Percy never tires of the game, never flinches or asks for a break. He’d make such a good dad, I catch myself thinking more than once, and then blush because, whoa, slow down man, we just got married a few months ago…
But the thoughts are still there and when I watch him with the kids my heart flutters, and when he looks over his shoulder with water dripping from his eyelashes, framed by the light of the early-evening sunset, with a child in his arms and a brilliant smile on his face…I can’t help it. I melt for him, like I always do, and he must see my blush but all he does is flash his light-up-the-world smile at me, which just makes me fall more deeply in love with him every time I see it.
~
We talk about our Things sometimes. Late at night, under the soothing cover of darkness, wrapped around each other like vines, we tell each other about the traumas we’re too ashamed to reveal in the daylight.
My mother was a twisted soul who, not to understate it, fucking tortured me. But she let me read the Bible, and people tend to forget this, but a not-insignificant portion of the Bible speaks of fighting and overthrowing one’s oppressors. And that was Ma’s crucial mistake: she not only made her abuse so blatant it could be recognized from the space shuttle, but she gave me the tools I needed in order to see, on some level anyway, that what she was doing was wrong. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I internalized plenty of it (the self-harm scars I still carry and my monthlong stint in a mental hospital are fair evidence of that) but I was able to fight my way out. Ma was horrible, but she handed me the weapon I needed to get myself away from her.
Jennifer Graves gave Percy no such chance. She still has the means to poison him even from afar. I see it in the way he eats, the fact that he wears full old-fashioned button-up pajamas to bed every night, the way he meticulously maintains his appearance, the fact that he feels he needs to hide so much from me. He fears judgement even more, I think, than I ever did. She didn’t tie him up and hand him over to the mark he was tailing during his last days as a policeman, but she laid the groundwork that allowed him to be mentally broken and held captive for three months.
Percy and I both have scars. The only difference is that you can see mine. Percy’s are buried so deep only those of us close to him know where to really look.
The night before Good Friday finds us wrapped up in each other’s arms with the windows wide open, moonlight filtering through the curtains in place of a night-light. The low tonight is 50 degrees and Percy sleeps better when it’s cool out, so: open window. I curl up against his chest and press my face into the soft, silky fabric of his pajamas while he cuddles me like I’m his teddy bear.
Some nights I just want to hold or be held and that’s fine. Tonight, however, I feel like talking, and when he asks if I’m okay I admit, “I’m not really looking forward to tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. Is there any…special reason for it, or just the usual?”
I stay quiet, and he sighs and reaches up to gently stroke up and down my spine, right over the thickest ropes of scar tissue. It feels so nice I can’t help but melt into the touch. His hands are still soft from earlier, when he spent a good fifteen minutes rubbing aloe gel and cocoa butter into my skin, ostensibly to make the scars fade but really, I think, he just likes the excuse to give me a back rub.
Percy doesn’t need me to spell it out for him that I had a shitty childhood. He knows the deprivation and abuse I suffered until I came to live with Tina and tries constantly to make up for it, even when I don’t need him to.
“You know,” he says after a minute, “if you want to just hole up in our room tomorrow and not go downstairs…everyone pretty much just hangs out in their room on Good Friday until we have our evening family time anyway, and like, if you want to skip—”
“Oh, Percy, no. We don’t have to skip anything…in a crowd this small we’d be missed, for one thing.”
“Actually…” Percy draws back a little and tilts my head up so we can see each other. “Lizzie is pretty much the nicest person you’ll ever meet. She won’t hold it against you for a minute if we miss everything tomorrow night.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah.” Percy pauses a moment, then cradles me against his chest again. As if sensing she’s needed, Ashley comes up from her spot at the foot of the bed and curls up on my pillow, making a little nest of my hair. Percy indulgently giggles at her and then continues tentatively, “You know…the way my mother reacted when she found out I was gay. It wasn’t great.”
That’s a nice way of putting, she scarred him for life by sending him to conversion therapy. But all I say is, “Yeah, I remember.”
“Well…” Percy sighs heavily. “I…I carried that with me for a long time. Didn’t tell anyone else. When I met Newt and Theseus in college all I could think was, don’t let them know how fucked up you are. Well. They brought me home with them for spring break, when Newt and I were in our junior year…Lizzie caught me down in the living room one night, Bible open on the coffee table. It was, I want to say, two AM.” He pauses for a moment there. Ashley mewls softly, as if to encourage him to go on, and we both stop to appreciate that before Percy goes on, “I was a mess. Crying, shaking, you’d’ve thought I just found that I had a week to live. Lizzie didn’t pass Go, didn’t collect her two hundred. Just sat right down and gave me the biggest hug. I must’ve told her at some point, or maybe she just figured out what I was upset about, because I just remember her telling me it’s all right sweetie, God loves you, you’re going to be okay.”
Oh. My heart feels so full; I could cry, but not out of sadness. The first few weeks that I lived with the Goldstein girls I couldn’t bring myself to come out to them, but when I did…I went to Queenie in tears and said to her, my ma said God hates me…you have a different God, right? do you think He’d hate me too? And before she could answer, Tina just snorted seriously, Cree, I doubt any sane God would give a damn if you’re sleeping with the Pope as long as you don’t hurt anyone. It was such a small thing, but it made me feel infinitely better. It sounds like Elizabeth Scamander did the same thing for Percy. And if I just liked her before, well, I absolutely adore her now.
Percy reaches around my head to pet Ashley, who’s still snuggling my hair. “So, my point is…she’s good stuff, Newt’s mum. I’d bet you anything too that Tina went and…well, you know Tina; she probably gave the Scamanders a heads-up that you haven’t had the easiest time.”
I can’t help but groan, just a little. Tina would. I love her, I do, but I don’t think she’ll ever see me as anything but the terrified, near-feral trauma victim she rescued four years ago, and I won’t lie, that stings just a little.
“I know,” Percy says with a knowing little chuckle, “but she means well…I’m just saying, love, if there’s anyone who’ll understand it’s Lizzie…worst thing she’ll do is hug you to death.”
“Oh no. I’ll have no idea how to deal with that. It’s not like I lived with Queenie Goldstein for three years,” I say dryly, just to make him laugh.
He does. And then he cuddles me close and kisses my forehead and promises me, again, that no matter what he will be here for me and he will always, always, always have my back.
(I know that. I do. But it’s nice to hear it.)
~
When I wake in the morning I know it’s late, at least nine or ten, because I am lying in a pool of sunshine and it’s so bright, like everything is here, so bright and so warm. I stretch out like a cat, smiling to myself when I feel my real cat rolling around beside me on the pillow. She makes a little mewling sound as I turn my head, and then I’m greeted with a good-morning bop to the nose from her teeny paw. I giggle and reach over to pet her, and she purrs happily as she snuggles into the side of my head. It’s a perfect moment…
And it only gets better when I feel a weight on the foot of my bed…I have to squint through the sun, but of course it’s Percy, who else would it be, and as I sit up I see that, even better, he’s got a tray with him. Coffee, fruit, and scrambled eggs on toast. “Isn’t this indulgent?” I say with a smile as I sit up all the way and push back the covers. “I thought today was supposed to be…less nice.”
“The rule is, ‘no sweets, no treats,’” Percy says with a teasing grin. “There’s nothing in there about bringing my husband breakfast in bed.”
Hard to fault logic like that. “Well then. In that case…”
Percy ends up pulling me into his lap and hand-feeding me bites of toast, then giggles like a little kid when I insist on hand-feeding him berries in return. When Ashley indignantly mewls for her breakfast we take her downstairs, only for the kids to all absolutely lose it over her. Which is entirely understandable, given that they aren’t allowed to do anything that kids would define as “fun” today.
So for most of the day, this is how it goes. Percy and I take little Ashley out to the glassed-in backyard and let her explore. She plays on the lounge chairs, naps in the sun, patiently lets the kids pet her and pick her up and walk her around in a doll carriage (yes, Bella, actually does that). We eat lunch outside too, just raw veggies and leftover sandwiches from last night’s potluck, and then go back up to our room for a cuddle.
It’s a nice day. Slow-paced and lazy. I spend a lot of time just lying in Percy’s arms in a warm bath of sunlight, melting into the comfort and safety of his embrace. There’s a little thrum of anxiety now and then when I remember what day it is, but mostly I feel pretty good; being cuddled in the sunshine by your beautiful husband while your cat purrs in your ear can do that.
“Tell me again,” I say a few times, “what’s going to happen tonight.”
“We’ll go downstairs for dinner,” he always says as he gently strokes my hair back from my eyes, “and then we’ll read the story of the Passion from the children’s bible, and get the kids to talk a little bit about it, and then we’ll watch The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, just up to the point where Aslan dies, and then we all sit there and listen to a few songs together in quiet reflection. And then I can take you back up here and cuddle you all night.”
When the sun dips low and it’s time for dinner, I let Percy lead the way. “It’s okay, baby,” he promises as we head for the patio. “If you need to leave early, just say the word.”
Dinner is very…tense. Everyone’s wearing black. The food is cold, all leftovers, and it doesn’t matter because no one eats much. It’s a very quiet, solemn meal; no joking or laughing or story-swapping tonight. It feels like dinner at my old home. And I don’t like it. The comfortable feeling I’ve had all day evaporates five minutes into the meal and I’m left gripping the edge of my seat under the table because I don’t know how well it’d go over if I reached for Percy’s hand.
But when we’re all cleaning the kitchen I linger behind a little, taking more time to wipe off the counters and start the dishwasher than necessary, and I’m surprised when it’s not Percy who hangs back with me, but Newt’s mom. “Are you okay, sweetie?” she asks when I take two full minutes to unwrap the detergent tab and put it in the compartment.
I can’t bring myself to make eye contact with her. I know she doesn’t mean any harm, but I don’t know her as well as I know Tina or Percy or even Newt, and she is not the person I want to see when I’m feeling vulnerable. “I’m okay,” I tell her. Phantom pain tingles in my back and I wince. Liar.
Elizabeth stays calm and neutral as she comes over close and puts a cautious hand on my arm. “We’re going to get started now,” she says softly, “but if you need to take a minute to breathe before you come over with us, you can, okay?”
I look up in surprise. She’s so earnest, looking at me as if she really cares what I’m feeling. “I’m okay,” I repeat, but it sticks in my throat a little. “It’s just…” I don’t want to tell her but, hell, from what Percy said she likely already knows. “This day hasn’t…been good for me, in the past, and…and I’ve gotten to kind of ignore it for the last few years because I’ve been with the Goldsteins, and…I don’t know. But I’m okay. Or, you know. I will be.”
Elizabeth looks at me closely for a moment, sizing me up in the way that only a mom can, and for a moment I almost back away because when my mom did that…ugh. Trouble was incoming, to say the least. But Elizabeth just says, “Do me a favor, at least take a minute and drink a nice glass of water before you come and join us, okay? Do you want me to tell Graves to come look after you?”
I shake my head again. “No, I…” I bite my lip. “I’m okay, really. I think maybe I do need a minute, yeah. But I’ll be right there.”
“Okay.” She pats my back and I almost jump; she’s so close to the scars. She reaches out to me for a hug. “May I?” she asks, and I lean into her automatically. It’s good. She’s gentle. “You don’t have to be afraid, sweetie,” she whispers as she holds me. “No one here is going to hurt you, no matter what, understand?”
I want to understand, I almost tell her. And most of me does understand, or I couldn’t be here. It’s just that there’s so many tiny, secret parts of me that forget I’m safe now. Therapy and medication are great, and I’ve tried to convince Percy of that a hundred times. But they can’t take away the memories entirely. Some part of me is always going to remember, instinctively and painfully, the things that I was subjected to as a kid. I can’t fix that. Just have to live with it.
“I’m trying,” I tell her plaintively.
Elizabeth gives me another light squeeze. “You don’t have to try. Not with us,” she assures me. “Now, get yourself a drink, take a few deep breaths. If you need anyone, and I do mean anyone, we’ll be right there in the living room.”
She leaves, and I take her advice. Drink a full glass of water and do a few rounds of 4-7-8 breathing until the tingling in my scars goes away and I feel a little less exposed. I remind myself, whispering it under my breath until I almost believe it, that I am okay. That Percy is here, and with him, I will always be safe. That my days of pain are behind me, and I don’t have to be afraid anymore.
When I go into the living room Percy, of course, has saved a spot for me…and the minute I sit down he draws me in close, wordlessly encouraging me to curl up against his side. Theseus has the childrens’ Bible and is reading the painfully familiar story of Jesus’ death. It’s written in simple, desaturated language, and even little baby Lorcan and Lysander seem to understand it fairly well.
It’s when little Bella asks the question that eight-year-old me once asked that I almost lose it again: “But why did Jesus have to die?”
I remember my mother’s answer to this question all too well. Because the world is full of vile sinners, and it’s all our fault that He had to let Himself be killed to erase our sins. Every time you sin, Credence, you’re driving those nails into His wrists all over again. For a moment I reel, and I have to grab onto Percy to keep myself from screaming. If anyone tells these kids anything similar, I think, I cannot be held responsible for my actions.
Theseus flails for a minute, but Luna smoothly rescues him. “Because He was taking one for the team,” she explains, and then smiles a little when the younger kids just look at her like, what? “Okay, let me put it this way…we all do bad stuff, right? No one is perfect. Now, some people believe that if you do bad stuff, you’ll be punished for it after you die. Jesus really, really loved everybody, though, and he didn’t want anyone to ever be punished like that again. So He died on purpose, just like Aslan dies for Edmund in the movie we’re watching tonight, so that He could make sure everyone who regretted doing bad stuff and said they were sorry for it would get a second chance.”
Bella frowns. “My friend Laurel’s mom says that only people who believe in Jesus get a second chance, everyone else goes to hell.”
I can’t help but look at Tina; I have to wonder what she’s thinking right now. She doesn’t seem too upset, but that might not mean anything. Tina’s a police detective and she’s got a hell of a poker face. Then I realize Bella is looking at Tina too, and my heart aches for her a little; I remember being that age and worrying about every “nice but Not Saved” person I knew. I’m dying to say something, but God, I don’t even know what to say.
But it turns out, I don’t have to. “She’s wrong,” Martin says firmly, and I almost cry out of sheer relief. “You can believe in whatever you like, but in this house, we do not tell people they’re going to hell.”
Bella still looks upset, so Leta jumps in. She looks around at the kids and says, “Listen, you guys, I know this stuff is all kind of hard to get your mind around, but here’s what you need to know right now. Jesus, whether you believe He’s the son of God or just a really awesome person who wanted to make the world a better place, had a really important message, and it was: be kind to each other. The people who killed him didn’t like that message. Because it’s hard to be kind to each other sometimes, isn’t it? It’s easier to be mean. That’s what makes today so important. We’re observing the day that a very good, kind person was unfairly killed, for trying to do the right thing and encouraging others to do the same.”
The conversation does go on a bit longer before we start the movie, but I don’t take in much of it. I’m too busy trying to process everything I’ve just heard, trying not to spiral in the endless what-ifs. All I can think about is how much how much pain I would’ve been spared if someone had talked to me at six, eight, or eleven the way the Scamander family talks to their kids.
But no, I remind myself as Newt pops the DVD in and we start up The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. No, there’s no point in dwelling on it. I survived. I got myself out, and I’m…a little scarred, but I’m okay. There’s nothing to be gained by trying to wish my past away.
Percy holds me close as we watch the movie. It’s a story I know well; the books of C.S. Lewis were some of the few that I was allowed to read as a kid aside from the Bible, and the familiarity is comforting…right up until the crucial scene, when Aslan offers himself up to appease the Deep Magic. Now, I’ve seen this movie a good half-dozen times; I know damn well that the stupid witch doesn’t actually manage to kill the lion. But I’ve never once made it through Aslan’s death scene without getting a little emotional.
I curl in close to Percy and press my face in his shoulder and try not to think of sneaking Modesty out of the trailer and walking the two miles to the local mall to sneak into the movie theater. I try not to wonder what she looks like now. Chastity believed, she was too much like Ma to ever want to be close to me, but Modesty loved me, and I hope she knows I loved her.
Does she remember me, I wonder? The family that took her insisted on a closed adoption. She’s not allowed to contact me until she’s eighteen, and I’m sure as hell not allowed to reach out to her. She was young when I broke up our family, but still she must remember. I try not to wonder if she’ll remember me when she’s old enough to write to me, try not to wonder if she ever misses me, if they know how to cheer her up when she’s crying the way I did…
The movie, as Percy warned me it would be, is cut off right after Aslan’s death scene. Now we’re supposed to have some quiet reflective time together, and honestly, I don’t know if I can handle it. Theseus starts up the music, Christian music of course, and I almost laugh when I hear the opening notes of Rufus Wainwright’s cover of “Hallelujah.” I love it, don’t get me wrong. But it’s yet another piece of art guaranteed to break my heart to pieces.
Percy seems to sense it, too, because he cradles me more securely in his arms and whispers, “Listen, sweetheart, we don’t have to stay here if you don’t want.”
“I don’t know,” I reply helplessly. I don’t know what I want. I want to see my sister again, I think longingly as I look at Tina’s baby bump and the way Newt rests his hand protectively over it. I want everything to be okay again and I don’t know how to make it happen.
I make it to the third verse, but I know it’s coming, I do, and like clockwork the tears begin at love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah. I can’t help but think of Percy, and how hard he tries and how much he hurts, and how, at the end of the day, there’s not much I can do to fix it. I can be here for him, but what is that, really, when he’s been so deeply hurt and I’m still healing myself? How can I hold him up, when there are moments like this when I feel so soft and so open it would be no work at all to tear me apart? I could barely protect my sisters and I couldn’t protect myself until Ma was dead. How can I protect the man I love? A “cold and broken hallelujah,” indeed.
I need to get out of here. Instinctively I pull myself out of Percy’s arms and, without so much as looking at anyone, I quietly but rapidly make my escape and take refuge on the patio. I’ve barely made it outside when I collapse into a beach lounger and, finally alone, cry my eyes out.
I usually don’t cry when I’m upset. I might get teary in moments of extreme or unexpected joy, but when I’m upset I’m more likely to go quiet, the way Percy does. But right now I need the catharsis of tears, and it’s as natural as breathing to curl into a ball and weep.
And I know that there’s no reason to cry. I do. I know it’s just those intrusive thoughts getting to me again. I’m just feeling sorry for myself. I just want, so badly, to believe that it’s real. That thousands of years ago a man born of a miracle loved everyone in the world—people who hadn’t been born yet—even me—that he loved us all so much, he was willing to be killed in the most brutal and painful way they could think of at the time. I want to believe it’s real, and that God is real, and that even in those horrible, dark, cold years before I got out, He was still in my corner.
I picture God watching me be starved and locked in my room and worked to exhaustion and whipped with my belt, picture Him reaching out to me and whispering hold on kid, I know it sucks right now but I promise, it’s going to get better. I’ve got something amazing waiting for you, just gotta hang in there. I picture Him reaching out and staying my mother’s hand just before she delivered a blow that could’ve killed me, ensuring the door of my room was unlocked at night so I could creep to the kitchen and steal food, putting Tina on duty the night I pushed Ma down the stairs so that she would be the one to investigate me.
And it all just makes me cry harder, because I know there are so many who’d say but Credence, the fact that you were allowed to be hurt for so long is proof there isn’t a God, not a loving, kind one at least. I curl in on myself and try to remember what I was taught to do here, but I can’t bring myself to try and dredge up a pleasant memory to try and mentally re-create, and it’s too hard to breathe deep when I’m stuffed up from crying.
It’s not long before I feel a pair of arms around me, feel my head being guided to a familiar chest. Percy, of course. He always knows. “I’m so sorry,” he murmurs as he cuddles me. “I should’ve gotten you out of there.”
“N-no,” I choke out, pressing myself closer into his arms. He’s always so gentle and I love him for it. “Crying feels good, I need to—to—”
“To let it out?” Percy supplies softly, and I nod against his chest. “Okay. Okay, sweetheart. Do whatever you need to do. I’m here.”
He holds me close as I cry, whispering sweet, gentle words of encouragement the whole time and rubbing my back until I finally relax into his embrace. “That’s it, love. That’s it. I’m here, I’ve got you,” he says, cuddling me like a child. “You’re not alone, my sweet boy. I’m right here.”
Eventually I realize how slow and soft his words are, the wet sounds of his breath over my head. I withdraw from his chest and look up to find that he, too, is in tears. “Oh…I’m sorry,” I murmur, and immediately pull him close, switching our positions slightly so that his head is now on my shoulder. I must’ve surprised him, because usually he would resist but right now he does not.
Percy lets out a slow, shuddery breath and lets himself go slack against me. “Are you okay?” he whispers.
I nod, reaching up to play with his long hair. “I just needed to cry it out, I think. Are you okay, though?”
He sighs heavily into my neck. “Yeah. Just. I really, really hate this night.”
“Me too.” I continue to play with his hair as we lean back into the chair. Slowly we both relax, our bodies melting into one another as the sky goes dark. “I want,” I tell him, my voice quivering a little, “so badly to think that it’s all…it’s all real. That God is out there and He loves us and…and it’s okay, you know?”
Percy laughs, a quiet, bitter little laugh that sends needles of pain through my heart. “You know, for a long time I hoped it wasn’t.”
Pain lances through me because I know, without having to ask, what he’s really saying. I hope it’s not true, because I don’t deserve to have someone die for me like that. I know, too, that nothing I can say will make that feeling go away. “I know it’s cheesy and pathetic…” I try not to start crying again. “I love the idea of God knowing us, loving us before we’re even born…I’ve never told anyone this before, but…I like to think of Him watching me when I was a kid, keeping Ma from going too far, keeping me safe, you know?”
Percy is quiet for a long moment. Then he lets out a little choked laugh mingling with a sob, and he presses his face against my neck as he whispers, “You are so, so fucking good, you know that? You are just…God, you’re so pure. I don’t know how someone can go through what you did and still be that good. If I were you I’d have gone full Loki by now.”
I can’t help but giggle at the mental image. “Well, New York’s a little too far away, but I can lead an alien invasion into Orlando on Sunday if it’ll make you feel better.”
Percy laughs again, a real laugh this time, and I know now that we will be okay. He sits up and leans over me, reaching up to brush loose strands of hair from my eyes. “Credence, love,” he murmurs tenderly, drawing the back of his hand down the curve of my cheek. “You don’t have to do anything. Just keep being who you are. You really are”—his voice breaks, just a little—“the best thing to ever happen to me, and I love you so much, you know that?”
“I love you too,” I tell him, and he leans in and it’s not the thing to do on a holy night but we kiss, slow and soft, right there in the glass-walled backyard. Let God watch, I think, almost defiantly; if what I believe is true, then He made Percy and I to be together anyway.
~
Saturday is a whirlwind of activity. Percy is immediately kidnapped by Leta, Elizabeth, and Newt, who will be doing most of the cooking for Easter brunch tomorrow. I hang around and help, a little bit anyway. Elizabeth and Leta insist I make the chicken-and-waffles sliders again, so I do, and then I pipe the filling into the devilled eggs as ordered. Mostly I just hang around and watch Percy cook because he looks so good doing it (I know. I know, I’m human, okay?).
When I’m not in the kitchen, I’m outside on the patio putting up Easter decorations. We deck the patio out like it’s the Easter Bunny meet-up at the mall, with inflatable bunnies and egg-shaped holiday lights and pastel streamers and everything else you could think of. The kids run in and out and “help” with this part and, frankly, it’s adorable.
In the afternoon, the kids dye eggs for tomorrow’s egg hunt. I help Luna set it all up and I think it surprises her a little when she tosses me a pack of dye tablets like I’m just supposed to magically know what to do with them, and I have to tell her I’ve never done it before. “Oh,” is all she says. “Well, you mix water with vinegar and drop the tab in. Don’t worry, it’s easy. We’re just doing it in advance because, trust me, once the kids get down here it’ll be a free-for-all.”
Percy comes up behind me and wraps both arms around my waist. “You should dye eggs with the kids,” he tells me. “You’d love it. Luna, think they’d mind?”
“Are you kidding?” Leta says as she too enters the kitchen with an armful of newspapers to spread over the island and the floor, just in time to hear him. “They’d get a huge kick out of telling him how to do it. And then Luna, since you’re free you can help us put together the baskets for tomorrow.”
So Luna retreats to the living room and arranges the couches into something of a fort, so she can assemble baskets without the kids seeing, with Percy and Leta helping out. Meanwhile, the kids stampede down to the island and perch on the stools, looking at me through eager eyes. “Okay, guys,” I tell them, remembering what Leta just said, “you’re going to have to talk me through this.”
Lysander’s eyes go big. “You don’t know? But you’re grown up!”
“It’s okay, we know how,” Andie quickly assures me. “Here, watch…you show him, Bella, you make the prettiest eggs.”
Bella happily rises to the occasion and makes a production of showing me how to pick a color, dip the egg, set the little egg timer, pick out your decorations while waiting for the color to set, and then fish the egg out with the little wire hoop and set it in the drying tray. “And then you can add glitter,” she finishes, “or wait for it to dry and draw on it with crayons or add stickers.” She turns very serious eyes on me, dark like her mom’s, and commands, “Now you try it.”
Leta was right, the kids absolutely love telling me how to dye the eggs. They watch me the first couple of times and provide plenty of feedback…and it warms my heart like nothing else when they’re actually proud of me for “doing it right.”
“So what do we do with these after we dye them?” I ask when we’ve dyed about half of our stock of eggs.
“We give them to Mom and Dad, and they put the eggs out for the Easter Bunny so she can hide them,” Bella informs me. “And then we find them tomorrow after the parade.”
“We met the Easter Bunny. She gave me jellybeans,” Lysander says happily.
“That wasn’t the real Easter Bunny,” Bella tells him, “just like when you meet Stitch at Disney he’s not really Stitch, it’s a guy in a suit.”
“It was too the real Easter Bunny!” Lorcan insists.
“Guys. Guys,” Andie cuts them off, sighing with the exasperation only an eleven-year-old girl can convey. “The real Easter Bunny is like Santa, okay? She doesn’t have time to run around taking pictures at malls, she’s gotta make, like, all the candy.”
“Yeah,” Bella says immediately, clearly ready to take her sister’s word as gospel. “And if she can’t make it, she’s gotta shop for it, like, at Kroger’s or somewhere.”
“That’s why there’s all that candy and stuff in the store even though she has to make candy too,” Andie informs me seriously.
I don’t know if they actually believe all this or if they’re just saying it for the littler kids, but I go along with it. “I see. So the Easter Bunny in the parade tomorrow…”
“That’s the real Mr. and Mrs. Easter Bunny,” Lorcan insists. “They go to Disney for the parade because it’s the best parade.”
“And you’ve seen this parade before?” I ask skeptically. They’re so little.
“Last year,” Lysander tells me brightly. “It’s the most fun thing there is.”
“Even more fun than the Halloween parade, and I know ’cause we saw that one last year too,” Lorcan adds.
Now, I definitely have my doubts about that. I went to the Halloween party last year too. Got engaged there, actually. And trick-or-treated for the first time too, which seemed to be Too Much for Percy, who actually teared up and gave me a giant kiss when I mentioned it. “Really? That much fun, huh?”
“Oh yeah. And! And, because it’s a special day, Mom let us eat candy at the parade, before we even ate real food,” Lysander says happily, and I can’t help but laugh a little because, God, it’s just such a kid thing to say.
Lorcan nods his agreement. “The chocolate eggs with the little toys in them are the best. I got to eat two of them for breakfast last year.”
“I like the marshmallow chicks and the pink marshmallow bunnies best,” Bella says as she sprinkles glitter on her latest egg. “Ooh, and the chocolate carrots.”
“Chocolate carrots?” I ask her, eyebrows raised.
“Oh they’re not really carrots, just chocolate shaped like carrots.” Andie pauses to expertly dunk the other end of her half-pink egg into the yellow dye and then continues, “And I like the Cadbury eggs. The ones with the gooey candy filling.”
“I like Robin’s Eggs. And jellybeans!” Lysander pauses in his busy task of covering an entire egg with stickers and looks up at me. “What kind of Easter candy is your favorite?” he asks innocently.
“Oh…um.” I realize, belatedly, that I actually have no idea. Tina is a chocolate addict and every year after Christmas and Easter she rushes over to the store and snaps up a bunch of sale candy, but it’s always the name-brand stuff—Hershey’s Kisses and mini Kit-Kats and the like—but in holiday-colored wrappers. I have no idea what any of these very specific candies taste like. “Chocolate, I guess. I don’t really know.”
Andie looks up, very serious now, and I realize with a little jolt that she’s put two and two together in the way only a kid can. “Did the Easter Bunny not come to your house when you were a kid?” she asks, in the tone of voice that says, very clearly, that she knows the mythical rabbit had nothing to do with it.
“Not really.” I reach absently for a white wax crayon and start doodling on a blank egg. “Um. Yeah. It’s not a big deal.”
Andie shoots a quick look at Lorcan and Lysander, who look stricken at the idea of the Easter Bunny leaving someone out, and she explains to me in a low voice, “We do stuff at my church at home for…um. You know. Kids that the Easter Bunny, uh, misses. Like, last week we made a bunch of baskets with candy and stuff and took them around to kids’ houses. So, you know.” She shrugs in an I know all about it way.
“But why didn’t she come see you, Cree? You’re nice,” Lorcan insists, looking mildly distressed.
I look frantically around for Luna or Rolfe who, of course, are nowhere to be seen. But Percy is watching me from the couch-fort over there, and I send him a silent help me signal before I carefully explain, “Well, my parents weren’t really a fan of the Easter Bunny, so, uh…they just told her to, y’know. Leave us alone.”
“Did they have a fight?” Lorcan asks innocently.
Lysander kicks his brother under the table. “You can’t just ask people stuff like that, Mommy says it’s not nice.”
“It’s no big deal, you guys,” I quickly assure them as Percy finally figures out that I need rescuing and crawls out of the couch fort, Easter grass stuck to his shoe. I bite back a laugh and jerk my head over at him. “I’ve got your Uncle Percy to give me presents now, don’t I?”
“What’s this about presents?” Percy scoops Lorcan, who still looks a little upset, off the stool and balances the kid on his hip. “I thought we were dying eggs.”
Lorcan turns his big eyes on Percy. “Uncle Percy, it’s not fair,” he pouts. “Cree said the Easter Bunny never left him any candy or anything. That’s not nice.”
“I was not the one who started this conversation,” I explain quickly, lest Percy think I’m spilling my Tragic Past to any tiny child who asks.
“Ohhh. Well, don’t you worry,” Percy assures Lorcan with a smile, “I’ve got that covered.” He plunks Lorcan back down in the chair and jerks his head at the door to the next room. “Credence, love, can I borrow you for a second?”
I look at Andie, who just nods. She’s more than capable of looking after her little sister and her cousins for a minute, so I get up and follow Percy to the little bathroom on the first floor. “I’m sorry,” I tell him as soon as the door is closed. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to like, start anything, the kids were talking about Easter candy and then Andie realized I have, like, no freaking idea how to dye an egg and she was the one who said the thing about the bunny not coming to my house as a kid and—”
But Percy cuts me off by pulling me into a long, fierce hug accompanied by an even fiercer kiss, and it takes a second to register but I do after a moment come to the understanding that I’m not in trouble.
“Okay,” I say when he pulls back. “Okay, want to tell me what just happened?”
He squeezes my hands tight. “I’m just happy you’re here,” he tells me, and I realize there are tears in his eyes and he’s looking at me the same way he did when he found out I’d never been trick-or-treating. “I just—I know this is ridiculous, okay, but I love that I’m the one who gets to show you all this stuff, that I get to be here when you—when you do this fun kid stuff, hunting eggs and seeing the parade and—and I’m just happy that you’re—I don’t even know.” He lets go of one hand to wipe tears from his eyes and finishes, “Well, it’s just. It’s like I said last night. You have the purest, sweetest heart of anyone I’ve ever met, and I’m just…so, so lucky that you chose me.”
He kisses me one more time and goes back out to watch the kids, leaving me alone in the bathroom both happy and confused. I’m always completely, thoroughly baffled by the things I do that make Percy so happy he forgets how to talk sense, but I never, ever complain about it. Percy deserves to be happy, damn it. I just love that somehow I’m the one who makes him feel that way.
~
At sundown that night, once all the food has been made and the eggs have been dyed and the house has been decorated, we all gather in the game room and sit on the floor in a circle, with a tall white candle decorated with a pink flowery cross on a little table in the center. Each of us has been handed some kind of noisemaker—mostly kiddie instruments; slide whistles and tambourines and plastic maracas and the like—and strictly instructed not to use it until “the right time,” a direction I can tell the kids are itching to disobey.
“You’ll know when,” Percy assures me with a smirk as we settle into our places. “Trust me, you’ll know.”
Newt’s dad hands him a lighter, which he offers to Tina. “Do you want to?”
“Depends,” she replies with a little grin. “Am I going to turn into a pillar of salt?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Newt laughs. He nudges her towards the candle. “Go ahead.”
She leans in and lights the candle. It’s dim and a little hard to see with most of the lights off, so Martin uses a reading light to read the prayers from the little red book on his lap. It’s not at all like the “Jesus-we-just” prayers in my old church, there’s lots of flowery language— sanctify this new fire, grant that in this Paschal feast we may so burn with heavenly desires, that with pure minds we may attain to the festival of everlasting light —and I like it, I like it a lot.
I’ve never been to an Easter Vigil service before, but right away, I get a better feeling from it than I did from even the tame Good Friday service the Scamanders put on yesterday…and I quickly realize it’s because every Bible story discussed tonight, is one that I used to read to comfort myself when Ma was acting like a jerk. The deliverance at the Red Sea, the valley of the dry bones, the story of Creation…all my “comfort” passages, things I’d read to remind myself that God is not, in fact, the vengeful and cruel thing Ma made Him out to be.
It’s…it’s nice. The sun dips low in the sky and disappears behind the horizon. The room is dim and shadowy and it feels so intimate to be sitting here in candlelight, with Percy’s arm close around me keeping me tightly laced to his side as if to protect me…I do feel protected, and the atmosphere now is so much more relaxed than last night that I almost can’t help but feel at ease.
And then it’s quiet, very quiet, for a moment. And then a whispered countdown (three…two…one…) and then all the adults say at the same time, “Hallelujah, Christ is risen!” and the kids reply (screaming to the rooftops) the lord is risen indeed— and the rest is drowned out in a whole mess of sound. Whistles, clappers, jingling bells, stomping feet. All the lights come on, the candle is moved out of the way, and suddenly I can’t see straight because there is paper confetti everywhere. I catch sight of Tina, who looks almost as confused as I feel, and then she shrugs, laughs, grabs her own little plastic trumpet and joins in.
Percy finds me in the chaos and grabs my hand, pulls me in close. “I guess Jesus likes to party?” I joke, and he laughs and pulls me in for a kiss. I try to duck away. “Percy! Not in front of the kids!”
“They’ve seen their parents kiss,” he says with a laugh, and when I try to squirm away, he seizes me around the waist and, with more strength than he should be able to store up in that skinny body of his, dips me back for a movie-star kiss.
I hear a dreamy sigh from Andie and an ew! from Lorcan and a wolf-whistle from Tina, none of which is all that surprising. Percy sets me back upright just as the noise is dying down and Elizabeth is syncing her phone to the bluetooth speaker. “All right,” she says, addressing me, “time to make some more joyful noise…Cree, sweetie, you want to pick a song first? You’re new, it’s only fair…”
I look over to Tina, who shrugs. “Don’t look at me,” she smirks, “when they let me do it a few years ago I picked ‘We Will Rock You,’ which was apparently the wrong choice.”
Well, okay then. I look back to Percy, who quickly explains, “It’s part of the ‘joyful noise’ thing…sad religious songs on Good Friday, happy ones tonight.”
“Oh…” But I don’t know any Christian worship songs that would be good for this. Trust me, Ma was not the type to play any “happy” religious music for her kids. I look around helplessly, suddenly very aware that everyone is looking at me. “Um…I don’t really…have a favorite, I…”
Newt decides to have mercy on me. “Mum, give me the phone,” he says. “I’ve got one in mind…trust me Credence, you’ll love this.”
The kids are all bobbing on their feet, clearly ready for something to happen, still shaking or tapping their noisemakers. A moment later what they’re waiting for becomes apparent as music blares out of the speakers, music that I’ve never heard before but instantly love. It’s bouncy and bright and like nothing I’ve heard before, I can’t describe it, I can only pick out certain sounds, certain familiar instruments (the bouncy thump-thump of a drum, the playful twang of a fiddle) and it’s so fun, so happy, that I’m almost startled.
I turn to Percy in surprise, a what is this? forming on my lips, but before I can ask I see, out of the corner of my eye, that the others are dancing, the kids especially, and I see Newt pull Tina into it and she rolls her eyes but goes willingly. Percy laughs, catches my arm and twirls me around with abandon, and I let out a little squeak of surprise but I don’t resist, I don’t think I can.
Clearly this is a song everyone but me knows because most of the others are singing along, Percy included. Dance, dance, wherever you may be, I am the Lord of the Dance said He… It takes me a minute, even as Percy spins me around the room laughing like a child, to realize that this is a song, sung in first-person point of view from Jesus, about His life and about the Passion. But it’s so bright, and so cheery, and for a moment I’m so disoriented I freeze—
I know they call it Good Friday and Holy Saturday for a reason. I know that the idea of Christ’s death and rebirth is supposed to be a good thing; they call it the good news after all. I know, objectively, that most Christians, even the “scary evangelical ones,” as Tina calls them, look at their religion as a bright and happy thing, even to the point of overlooking the rougher and angrier parts of the Bible.
But I’ve never borne witness to a piece of art or music like this that openly takes joy in the story of Jesus, something that sees the crucifixion as something to be celebrated. They buried my body and they thought I’d gone…I am the Light that will never ever die… This song doesn’t treat the Passion as a horrible tragedy that should’ve been averted. It treats the whole affair as a triumph…because it is.
I do believe in God, I think, my heart suddenly full. Tears flood my eyes even as a little gasp of joy slips out. Ma would’ve hated this…the joy, the dancing, all of it…but she can’t take it away from me now. She was wrong…she hated me but God didn’t, He never did, He never will…
My legs almost give out and Percy has to catch me. “Easy there,” he murmurs. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
For a second I have to cling to him, still a little unsteady. As is so often the case I’d happily tell him what I’m feeling except I don’t have the words for it. It’s joy, relief, excitement, awe, all of it mixed up in a blender…the feeling you get when you think you’ve bombed a test only to find that you got an A instead, or thinking you’d have to cancel a picnic due to bad weather and then waking up to sunshine the morning of. I don’t know what to call it. But I know I never want to lose this feeling, ever.
When I manage to stand back up Percy sees the tears in my eyes and I see alarm flash across his face, but I can’t stop smiling. “I’m okay,” I tell him, and then with a near-hysterical laugh I jump at him for a hug that nearly knocks him backwards. I can’t remember the last time I felt this light. “I’m happy,” I tell him, another giggle bubbling up from inside me like water from a fountain. “I’m so happy, Percy, I really am.”
He sighs, as if relieved, and holds me close with his face pressed into my neck, even as the others keep dancing and singing along and throwing confetti as if we’re not even there. “That’s all I ever want to hear.”
~
We watch the rest of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and then pack the kids off to bed. Percy plants me in the kitchen to help Tina make grab-and-go breakfasts for tomorrow (we have to be out of here at six-thirty sharp if we’re going to make it to the parade) while he goes off to help the others hide the eggs for the kids. “How are you holding up?” I ask Tina as we assemble little paper bags of baked goods, fruit, and Babybel cheeses, to be grabbed on the way out the door in the morning. “Is this all like…completely insane to you?”
“Nah, not really. I’m a grown-ass woman, I can handle the some weird religious shit,” she says, shrugging it off in typical Tina fashion. “Like…the whole thing can get dicey, yeah, the whole Jewish thing…don’t get me started on the fact that Jewish people still get blamed for the Crucifixion…but I know that not one person in that room in there would ever in a million years treat me any differently because I don’t follow their religion. And it also helps that I know Newt would do the same for me, he’s spent plenty of Jewish holidays with me, so…” She shrugs again. “Besides, Elizabeth and Martin keep checking in on me, too, just like you did. They don’t do the whole Christian guilt thing, which is good because I hate that, it’s just…y’know, ‘are you okay,’ ‘do you want to sit this out.’ It’s sweet.” She nudges me in the arm. “How about you? I mean, this has to be hard on you too, right?”
“I’m okay.” It’s the truth, but suddenly, weirdly, I’m honestly worried about her judging me. Tina’s so practical…I can’t imagine her actually being okay with me believing so strongly in something that, to an outsider, has caused me nothing but pain…and what if she thinks it’s a slap in the face, that after she spent so much time taking care of me, letting me join her and Queenie in their own faith’s celebrations, I still believe something completely different?
“Credence.” Her voice is soft, but she’s not going to let me off the hook. “Did you forget how well I know you? Something’s bugging you. What is it?”
I chew my lip for a second before I ask her carefully, “Are…are we okay? Does it bother you that I…” My hands shake. I have to look away. “I don’t want to be ungrateful,” I tell her in a voice barely above a whisper. “You and Queenie have been so good to me and like…I don’t want you to think…”
She wraps both arms around me and pulls me in close. Once Tina learned that physical contact comforted me rather than scared me, she went all in with the hugs and for that I am eternally thankful. And I love that she can always fill in what I’m saying. “Not to make this a cheesy kum-ba-ya moment,” she tells me as she holds me close, “but you’re family to me, okay? I don’t care what religion you are, that’s not going to change.” She draws back and holds me at arm’s length. “I’m never not going to love you, and I’m never not going to be proud of how far you’ve come. Do you understand that? Because seriously, we are not leaving this room until I get that into your head.”
I almost laugh. Tina has always been pretty extreme when it comes to protecting me. But this is…this is sweet. I don’t mind this kind of overprotection. “Tina?”
“Yeah?”
I hug her, and she hugs me back. I bury my face in her hair and feel her baby bump against my stomach, and I think about my own sisters. I think about how much I’ll always love them—even Chastity, who was too close to Ma to even try to love me—and how I tried to protect them, and how Tina, from the very start, gave it her all to make me feel safe. I think that without her, I’m not kidding when I say I would likely be dead. She is family, and to know the feeling is mutual is enough to make even my anxious heart melt like hot butter.
“I love you too,” I tell her, and she squeezes me tight, and I know she knows I mean it.
~
I will never not love watching Percy get ready for bed.
I sit on the edge of the tub in the Barenaked Ladies t-shirt that I stole from Percy’s closet ages ago, with Ashley resting contentedly in my arms, while Percy performs his night-care routine. Wash face, exfoliate with willow bark and charcoal scrub, apply something called “mega serum” (apparently it “prevents aging”…I have to call bullshit on that; if that was really a thing scientists would’ve grabbed it and run with it by now), moisturize, and he’s still not done. Brush teeth, floss meticulously, rinse twice with organic mouthwash. He brushes his hair and very carefully goes after stray facial hair with a tiny pair of scissors, after which he applies something called “beard oil.” He puts on more “anti-aging” under-eye cream (Jesus, Percy, how old do you think you are?), files his nails, puts on something called cuticle cream, finishes it all off with a round of hand lotion that smells like beeswax and strawberry-flavored lip balm.
“Are we done?” I invariably tease him when he finally turns to me and announces he’s ready for bed. “Sure you don’t have anything else to do? Get a wax, maybe?”
“Hey,” he pouts, “I thought you liked body hair.” He reaches out and gives Ashley’s ears a scritch. “C’mon, let’s go sleep.”
In the bedroom Percy opens the window, turns on the ASMR track that sounds like falling rain (he says he does it for me, but I know he secretly loves it too) and changes into his pajamas…the sleek, silky button-up pajamas with long legs and long sleeves. I love to cuddle him when he wears those PJs, but I know he gets so warm and I wish he’d let me talk him into something lighter, more comfortable. Maybe I could get him some as a present, I think as he crawls into bed beside me. He does have a birthday coming up at the end of May…
He curls around me protectively as we settle in. “Are you okay, sweetheart? Need anything?”
“Just you…Percy?”
“Yes, love?”
“I…” I swallow hard. “I want to start going to church when we get back home. Like…a nice one, like, wherever Newt’s parents go.”
“Okay. Do you want me to come with you?” he offers immediately.
That’s…not the answer I expected, at all. “Only if you want to…if it won’t…um, hurt you.”
Percy’s quiet for a moment, and finally he says, “I don’t know, honestly. Only one way to find out, I guess.” There’s another long pause, and then, “The priest at my parents’ church has been there since—well, since after my mother, you know. Did what she did. He’s very kind. I think you’d like him a lot.”
My heart hurts a little. I know he’ll gladly do anything for me, but this is not something I’m willing to let him do. I’ve seen him around his parents twice now and both times ended with him on the verge of a devastating anxiety attack. I’m not going to let him put himself through that, no matter how nice and affirming his priest is. “Or,” I suggest softly, “we could find our own place.”
He cuddles me close, one hand stroking up and down my back. “Or, we could find our own place,” he agrees. “We can do whatever you want.”
“I want,” I tell him, reaching up and unbuttoning his PJ top carefully, one button at a time, “to make you happy, too.” He doesn’t stop me, so I keep going, undoing the smooth metal buttons until the shirt is fully open. I roll Percy over onto his back, then sit up just enough to pull off my own shirt, and lay my head down over his chest so I can feel his heart beating against my cheek. “Is this okay?” I ask, even as his hand is already moving through my hair and I can feel him relaxing underneath me.
“Very okay,” Percy says with a contented sigh. He strokes my hair for another minute or so before wrapping me up tight in his arms and cradling me close to his chest. “I love you so much, you know that?”
“I love you too,” I say, and I mean it. Everything from his ridiculous extended night-care routine to his absurd pajamas to his heartbreaking martyr complex. I love every piece of him and I can’t wait for the day I can make him understand it.
~
When I was a kid, Easter meant…another day at church. No egg hunts, definitely no candy, no people in giant bunny costumes bounding around throwing jellybeans in the air. None of that. Another day at church, singing a few mildly less-depressing worship tunes, going home and “spring cleaning.” That was about it. If I was really lucky, Ma might be in too good a mood to beat me, and I’d consider that a victory.
My point is, it was a pretty low-key day. So I think my disorientation upon being hauled out of bed at 5:45 AM, shoved into the shower, dressed in a suit, pumped full of coffee, and whisked off to wait in a very, very long line for about two and a half hours, only to finally be allowed into the park and have to rush for a parade spot, and end up parked in front of a little spray of TV cameras and a very perky guy in bunny ears shouting about how great it is to be at Disney World this morning…is a little understandable.
It’s not that I don’t want to be here. I do. I’m just a little off balance. I can get up early; I do it for work every day. This just isn’t my normal get-up-early routine and, honestly, the bright colors, the loud music, the sheer amount of stimuli surrounding me is not helping. Part of me thinks a little longingly that I would have loved this as a kid…but hopping that train of thought is too painful and I very firmly shut it down.
And add this to the list of things I didn’t think of before we got here: apparently this parade is broadcast live. And thanks to our rush to get here, we’re in a prime spot to see the parade…which is also a prime spot to be “interviewed.” Lovely.
At least we look good, I think as the camera guys finish prepping and signal the perky parade host to start his spiel. Everyone’s dressed up, the girls have all done their hair, the kids all decked out in their favorite Easter stuff. Even Percy, to my immense amusement, has conceded the necessity, as impressed on him by Bella and the twins, of wearing bunny ears. I could’ve actually died from giggling so hard…except seconds later, Bella handed me a pair of rainbow bunny ears and looked at me with big puppy eyes. And, well. Here I stand, wearing rainbow bunny ears, inches away from a live TV camera…with my husband wearing matching rainbow bunny ears…and his best friend behind me in a candy-pink suit that could be seen from the space shuttle.
On Newt’s other side, Tina gives the world’s biggest yawn. “I want coffee,” she whines. My sentiments exactly.
“Bad for the baby,” Newt says absently, looking at the organized chaos around us. He leans over and taps my shoulder. “Cree, look over there…” He points down main street, right in front of the castle, where a group of girls in bright pink-and-white cheer costumes and matching pink bunny ears are lined up in front of some kind of giant flower. “The parade starts there, of course.”
Fascinating. Or it would be, if I were more awake. I try not to yawn like Tina, aware that we’re going to be filmed any minute. Percy gives my arm a squeeze. “We can nap later,” he promises me in a whisper.
“Thanks Mario!” booms a cheerful voice not six feet away from me. “Welcome to the 2021 Walt Disney World Happy Easter Parade! I’m Michael Kay—”
“And I’m Michelle Kay!” pipes up a college-age girl I didn’t notice before.
“—and we’re ready to have fun! Are you guys ready to have fun?” he addresses the crowd behind him, a far-too-huge grin on his face for someone who probably got up even earlier than we did.
They work the crowd behind them and in front of us for a little bit, and then turn our attention to the bunch of girls on the flower float. Percy squeezes my hand, and when I turn my head to look at him, his eyes are bright and excited. Oh. A little rush of warmth rolls through me; I can’t help it, Percy’s happiness is rare and always infectious. “Ready?” he asks me with a little grin. “It’s starting. And, fair warning, if you thought the Halloween parade was corny…”
“It’s Disney. I’d be surprised if it wasn’t,” I reply with a laugh, and Percy’s eyes flash with a look I know only too well. That look almost always heralds a kiss or embrace and this time is no exception: Percy casually, but definitely possessively, slings an arm around my shoulders and briefly presses his forehead against mine.
Since we’re so close to the starting line, we get the first (and, as Elizabeth insists, the best) performances. It’s…colorful. The girls with the bright pink bunny ears come bouncing down Main Street on pogo sticks and bouncer balls, accompanied by Goofy, Pluto, and Roger Rabbit. I sneak a peek over my shoulder and see the apparently brother-and-sister parade hosts bopping along to the music, and I try not to giggle when I realize that they, just like Percy and I, are wearing matching bunny ears.
It’s pure spectacle. Soon the girls in pink are joined by another set of girls in yellow and blue and green and, yes, more pink, dancing along to “Here Comes Peter Cottontail.” Giant Easter eggs drift down main street, and behind it all is a giant yellow bunny. The number ends with Mickey Mouse popping out from the dancers to proclaim it’s a “wonderful day!” and suddenly, confetti cannons are popping off and there’s confetti everywhere, people are cheering and Percy’s grabbing me around the waist like a little kid and…
Lorcan and Lysander are so excited they’re literally jumping up and down. Bella and Andie are clutching each other and squealing. The other adults are all smiling and laughing and even Theseus, who Newt’s always complained about being “too serious,” is giggling like a kid as Leta scoops confetti out of the air by the handful and ensures it lands in his hair. Luna’s flower crown has tilted down around one ear and Rolf’s glasses are nearly entirely covered by confetti. I can only imagine how ridiculous I look.
Everything around us is colorful and happy, and for a moment, I can almost pretend I’m one of the little kids here; after all, it’s my first time at the parade too. Roger Rabbit dances by and, for what reason I can’t fathom, gives me a high-five. Percy laughs and squeezes me around the waist again, his head landing against my shoulder so that his bunny ears tickle my nose. It’s almost bittersweet, this moment; I’m happy, so happy, my heart is so light it could float out of my chest, but there’s always that twinge, that little secret wish that I could’ve had this all along, that my sisters could’ve had it too.
I can’t stop smiling and there are tears in my eyes and I love it, I love these moments even if they do hurt a little, because when I was Lorcan and Lysander’s age I couldn’t have imagined this kind of joy and now that I have it, it almost feels too good to be true. But I can feel my husband’s arms around me and I know it is real, and I’m not going to wake up in my old church with open cuts on my back and an aching, bitter heart.
Suddenly there’s a microphone in my face, and the Disney-host guy is shouting something over the sound of the confetti guns. For a second I blank out (what did he just ask me?) and then I manage to meet his eyes through the wall of glitter and confetti. “Hi?” I say, hoping it’s the right answer.
“Hey there!” the parade girl says as she bounces up to join who I can only assume is her brother. “Love the bunny ears!”
“Thank—”
“Hey! You two have matching bunny ears,” observes Parade Guy. “My brother and I like to match too, he couldn’t be here with us today—”
“I don’t think they’re brothers, Mikey,” the girl cuts in, barely able to contain her giggles.
“Actually, he’s my husband,” I say, and only after the words have already left my mouth do I notice that the cameras are pointed straight at us. Oops. Behind me, Newt is positively vibrating with silent laughter. “Uh. Yeah. We’re married. Don’t tell my mom,” I joke nervously.
Parade Guy just blinks. Clearly, he didn’t predict that answer. Parade Girl, on the other hand, doesn’t miss a beat. “Aww, that’s so cute. And who are these guys down here?” she asks, crouching down to greet Lorcan and Lysander, who are both looking up at her through wide eyes.
Percy’s arm is like steel around my waist. I turn around to mouth a quick I’m sorry, only to see that he’s holding on so tightly to keep from falling over because he’s giggling so hard he can’t breathe. The Parade Guy and Parade Girl move on, and eventually Percy calms down enough to say, “Oh my God, I hope that ends up on YouTube.”
“That makes one of us,” I reply, but I can’t help but giggle too, and honestly, the way Percy’s looking at me right now is more than enough to make up for a momentary twinge of embarrassment. I realize, distantly, that if anyone I know back home (my boss, anyone from my old church, hell, my sisters) is watching this parade, and they didn’t know I’m gay, well, now they do.
I don’t mind. Ma would hate it. But I don’t have to. She’d have me repent and hide and fight it. But I spent my first twenty years on this earth fighting. I’d rather just be happy now.
~
The parade is only the beginning.
Back at the house, everyone, even the kids, help work to get brunch on the table. Understandable, honestly, because we’re all freaking starving by this point. The kids are bouncing off the wall, because they know exciting stuff awaits, and we all want to get to the “fun part.” The kids have been strictly instructed to not go into the yard or pool area, so we’re eating in the actual dining room instead of on the patio. “Don’t you go into the backyard either,” Percy warns me. “I have a surprise for you.”
When we finally sit down to eat, I can’t quite get my head around how much food we have. I mean, I’m used to eating with Jacob and Queenie, who both cook like they’re expecting the dwarves from The Hobbit to drop in at any minute, and this is still a lot of food. Breakfast food like egg bakes and bacon and cinnamon rolls, lunch food like stuffed mushrooms and deviled eggs and a smoked ham that smells so good it should be illegal, and random little things like my chicken-and-waffle sliders and steamed vegetables and a lusciously creamy macaroni and cheese casserole…
I spare a moment to acknowledge that, yes, my entire former church would hate how indulgent this is, and then dig in like I haven’t eaten in months. Percy eats too and this is how I know he’s all right and he is happy, because he never eats when he’s anxious (hell, half the time I have to sweet-talk him into eating on a normal day) but now when Elizabeth pushes a second helping of ham and deviled eggs on him he accepts it eagerly and takes another scoop of mac and cheese. When the kids start a random sing-a-long he joins in, and I don’t know any of the songs, they’re all Episcopalian hymns and pop songs from the kids’ Sunday schools, but it doesn’t matter because Percy is happy, he is singing and I love him so much I have to curl into his side and give him a hug.
“What’s this?” Percy asks, even as he indulgently cuddles me back.
“I just love you,” I say, and mean it.
After the brunch leftovers are put away and the dishwasher is loaded to the max, Leta and Elizabeth gather the kids in the entrance hall. All of them wait with their baskets, the younger ones practically bouncing up and down. Percy nudges me into the hall with them, and it’s not until he hands me a pink straw basket that I realize what he intends, and— “Percy, no,” I protest. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” he says with a little smile. He drops a kiss on my cheek and gently guides me into place, standing beside the little knot of kids. “There’s no age limit on this stuff, you know.”
“It’s for the kids, you know it is—”
Elizabeth breaks in, “Credence, honey, no one in this house is going to judge you even for a second.”
“I will,” I tell her. My throat tightens a little; I know what Percy is trying to do, but there’s a difference between trick-or-treating with a bunch of other costumed adults at Disney and this. I’m going to feel so odd running around with the kids like I’m one of them, and besides…it’s supposed to be their day. I’ll just be in the way or, worse, I’m afraid I’ll somehow take away from their fun.
“Give us a minute,” Percy requests, and before I can say another word he pulls me back into the trusty powder room and shuts the door. “Look at me, sweetheart,” he coaxes, and reluctantly I do. He looks so eager, so soft, and the thought of not doing what he wants actually, physically hurts. “I want you to have the chance to do this,” he tells me gently. “I think you deserve to have this memory, and I think you’ll have a lot of fun if you can just…let go and enjoy it.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Really, Percy?” Percy is the reigning champion of not ever “letting go and enjoying it.”
“I know,” he concedes with a sheepish little grin, “I’m a proper hypocrite and we can talk about that later, but…please, try it? Just for me?” He looks at me through big, appealing eyes. “I had a hand in hiding the eggs and I promise, the ones you’ll most likely find are not in places the younger kids would think to look. You won’t be spoiling their fun, just having some of your own, and…I talked to the others,” he finally admits with a grimace. “I know, I probably shouldn’t have. But I promise you love, no one is going to look at you sideways for doing this. Everyone in this house is on-board with you joining in the egg hunt. Please, just once, just for me, and if you don’t like it, well, you can stop anytime. Okay?”
I still feel weird about it. But I reluctantly cave in, take the pink basket, and let him steer me out of the powder room and back to the waiting little knot of kids. “Okay,” Leta says cheerfully when she sees me. “Ready, you guys? We all know the rules, right? No stealing eggs from each other, no tricks. This is for fun, it’s not a contest. Understood?”
We all nod. “Excellent. And on that note…” Elizabeth says, and then she dramatically opens the front door. Right away the four kids take off. I stand there a for a good few seconds until Percy, with a sigh, pushes me out the door.
Right away I understand the setup. The little kids, the twins, run around the lawn, collecting eggs that are mostly out and the open and easily spotted; the girls, being a little older and smarter, actually look in bushes and potted plants and the like. Still, for a minute I just stand there, lost and feeling more foolish than ever; all I can think about is how weird people will think it is if they pass by and see a five-foot-eleven grown-ass man hunting eggs with a bunch of kids.
A small hand on my arm makes me jump. I look down and see Bella, who already has two eggs in her basket. “Come here,” she says seriously, and leads me over to the lone tree in the front yard. “Start by looking up there. You’re tall, you can get to places we can’t. And don’t forget to like…open drawers and stuff,” she instructs me.
It should make me feel even more ridiculous to be given directions on how to hunt eggs by an eight-year-old. But it actually makes me feel better. Clearly, the kids don’t find anything weird about this. And if they’re okay with it, well then, what am I so worried about?
I tentatively push into the tree, moving the branches aside until, sure enough, I find two eggs, one plastic and one of the ones we dyed yesterday, tucked into the branches. I don’t know what it says about me that my first instinct is still that I should give them to the littler kids, but when I extricate myself from the tree branches I can see Lysander and Bella still in the yard and even from a distance I see that they both have a few eggs in their baskets. Okay, yeah, that makes me feel better.
So it does feel awkward at first, yeah. But it’s almost impossible not to get caught up in the excitement of it, especially not with the twins running around and outright squealing every time they find an egg, and with Bella and Andie constantly coming over and checking in on me. It strikes me at one point they’re looking after me the same way they look after Luna’s kids, trying to make sure we’re all having a good time, and it truly melts my heart. I make a mental note, more than once, to tell Leta how amazing her daughters are.
It’s weirdly fun, running around the house and yard trying to find eggs. I didn’t think it would be, honestly, after all I’m too old to enjoy this, right? But there’s something sweetly satisfying about the game, about the simple act of looking for something and knowing there’s no real consequence if I don’t find it…and yes, it’s basic and I know it, but seeing the bright colors of the eggs peeking out from behind furniture or out from under a patch of grass just feels so nice; I love seeing pretty things so much.
And I get as much joy out of being with the kids as I do actually finding the eggs. They’re so sweet, and it becomes clear very quickly that they see me as one of them more so than one of the adults (case in point: Percy is “Uncle Percy,” but I’m just “Cree”) and they have absolutely no reservations at all about sucking me into their world. More than once, one of the Lovegood twins will entreat me to get an egg from a tree branch or from behind the couch for them, and then tackle me the way they did Percy as a thank-you. Andie notices at one point that I’ve found way fewer eggs than the twins and Bella (and honestly, I will admit I did that on purpose) and teases me about being “beaten” at hunting eggs by a couple of kindergarteners.
“To be fair,” I point out, “they’ve done this a few more times than I have.”
Andie goes quiet for a moment. Then with a kind of to hell with it air that reminds me so much of my sister it physically hurts, she lunges in for an around-the-waist hug and nearly knocks me into the wall. I’m amazed, actually. An eleven-year-old who weighs about as much as a wet loaf of bread should not be able to squeeze me like a 10-foot python. But she does, and for a second I can’t breathe but I don’t say anything.
“Thanks,” I say when, after a century, she finally lets me go. “I needed that.”
“Dad says hugs are magic. Real magic, not like, pretending the Easter Bunny is real kind of magic.”
I have to laugh at that; Theseus is very much a hugger and it doesn’t surprise me at all that he’d say something like that to his kids. “Well, he’s not wrong.” I give her a quick side-hug just to make her smile, which she does. “C’mon. Let’s go see if the Pretend Easter Bunny left any more eggs for us to find.”
~
I have never seen this much sugar in my life.
(And considering that last fall Percy took me trick-or-treating at four different theme parks, trust me, that’s saying something.)
I didn’t know this much candy could fit inside a handful of plastic eggs. I also didn’t know there were this many different kinds of Easter candy. Turns out, all the stuff the kids mentioned when we were dyeing eggs yesterday? Just the tip of the iceberg.
I’m sitting at the dining table with the kids, cracking open the plastic eggs we found earlier. Some of them have little toys in them. Some of them have stickers or temporary tattoos. But the vast majority are stuffed to bursting with candy. The kids are squealing and giggling and trading with each other for their favorite candies, while I just set aside the real eggs, then crack open the plastic ones and empty the contents into my basket.
Tina comes over and plunks down beside me, her eyes wide at the contents of my basket. I can’t blame her. “You’re going to eat all that?” she says, raising an eyebrow at me.
“Not if you help me,” I say reasonably, pushing the basket to her. “Feel free to take the Reeses, if you want them.” Tina loves Reese’s peanut butter cups, and Reese’s Pieces, and…well, you get the idea. I can take or leave them.
“If I eat that many peanut butter eggs, I might turn into one.” Still, she happily plucks a Reese’s egg out of the basket and munches it while I finish opening my eggs. “Mm. So, what do you think? More fun than Passover?” she teases me.
I roll my eyes at her. She knows damn well I love the Seder dinners that she and Queenie host every year. “Hmm, let’s see…history lesson or basket of candy? What a hard decision,” I tease her right back.
Percy arrives just in time to hear this little exchange. He plunks down on my other side and squeezes my arm. “Good haul?” he says with a little smile, flicking a loose strand of hair out of my face.
“Very good. I’m going to either have candy for a month or be extremely sick tonight,” I joke, and then look up in time to see that all four of the kids are watching me closely. “What?” I ask.
“What all’d you get?” Bella demands, her eyes wide. She hops up and comes around the table, nudging her way between me and Percy to poke through my basket. “Ooh. Looks like a little bit of everything…wait.” She frowns a little, then reaches for her own basket and drops a little plastic packet of what looks like little pastel jellybeans into mine. “Here, I have two of these…they’re Robin’s Eggs and you have to try them.” I look up at her, a little surprised. “You didn’t know about any of the candy we were talking about yesterday,” she explains like it’s obvious. “You wanna try everything, right?”
I look at Tina, startled, and am relieved to see that she looks as thrown as I feel. Tina’s not a crier, not before pregnancy hormones got hold of her anyway, but her eyes look suspiciously bright. I feel movement behind me and whip around to see Percy squishing Bella in a giant hug. “You little angel,” he murmurs. “You’re so good, you know that? Where’s your mom, I’m telling her…”
“Well, it’s only fair,” she insists, and then when he just squeezes her again she whines, “Ugh, Uncle Percy, you’re squishing me.” He lets her go and she writhes away, looking at me expectantly. “So? You wanna try it?” she asks eagerly.
Well, now I have to, right? With all four of the kids excitedly watching I try each of the candies that they insist are “the best.” I learn that the much-hyped Robin’s Eggs and pretty much anything by Cadbury is a big yes! and that Marshmallow Peeps and jellybeans are a hard no, and I also learn that eating one of everything in a very full basket of candy, after eating so much food earlier, is probably not the best idea.
But it’s worth it. I trade candy with the kids and it seems to amuse them a hell of a lot that “trading” usually translates to “I take one bite of a Peep, nearly choke, and then very politely shove all my Peeps to the center of the table and put them up for grabs while the kids laugh their heads off at the look on my face.” We end up all in a cuddle pile in front of the TV watching Winnie the Pooh: Springtime with Roo, with me halfway onto Percy’s lap and the kids all piled on top of us.
They fall asleep, one by one, and are carted off to their rooms by their parents. Newt makes us one last round of sandwiches with ham left over from brunch and passes around cups of cold duck punch (for him and his parents and Percy) and virgin mimosas (for Tina, and for me when I take one sip of the sour champagne punch and nearly spit it out on the coffee table). Full and sleepy, I snuggle up to Percy’s side and whisper, take me to bed.
It’s been, I think, an actual perfect day.
~
We stay in Florida for two more days after Easter, so we can go to the parks without the holiday-weekend crowds. Percy and I take the kids to Legoland and then go to some after-hours party at one of the Disney waterparks, and then spend the whole next day at Universal Studios. Our place, I tell him, and he blushes and tries to deflect but I don’t let him. I know I stole his thunder that week, however unintentionally, but Universal was the place he meant to ask me to be his forever and that will never not mean something to me.
The last night in Florida is hot, stupidly hot, and I sweet-talk Percy out of his ridiculous pajamas and we crank up the AC in our room and lie on top of the covers in our underwear. We intend, initially, to make love (did I mention this bed is even bigger than the one Percy has at home?) but it’s just too damn warm and we’re too worn-out from the whole week and it just feels so nice to lie in his arms and feel the rise and fall of his chest and look into his soft brown eyes and know that he loves me as much as I love him.
We’re tired but not sleepy, so we just lie there and talk, with Ashley curled contentedly at our feet. Every now and then we’ll stir up enough energy to trade messy, slow kisses that make me feel like I’m floating. Occasionally we’ll sneak a treat from my Easter basket, and at one point Percy pulls out a toy car from one of the eggs instead of candy and giggles like a kid as he uses me as a track for it.
“That tickles,” I say lazily as he rolls it over my belly. It does tickle, a little, but it’s not the kind of tickling that makes me want to start something by tickling him back or goading him into tickling me more. It just feels…nice.
“And yet I don’t hear you complaining,” he teases. He rolls the car around my ribcage, stopping just at the base of my sternum. “Do you want me to stop?”
“Mmm…no. Feels good.” I close my eyes and bask in the sensation of the tiny wheels rolling over my skin. “Percy?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Thank you. For this week…for everything…”
He pauses in rolling the car over my upper arm and kisses my forehead. “You’re most welcome, my love. It was…more incredible than I can say, watching you this week, seeing you so happy.”
“Right back at you,” I say, and mean it. Percy resumes rolling the little car over me, and I let out a little hum of pleasure. When he trails the car over my stomach again he does it just lightly enough to actually tickle a bit. My belly involuntarily dips and I let out a little gasp. “Do that again…”
“Of course. Whatever it takes to make you smile.” He rolls the car across my belly, same spot, same pressure, and grins a little when I twitch again. “That feel good, sweetheart?”
“Mmm. Yes.” I turn my head and nuzzle into his shoulder. He laughs softly as I roll over and press myself completely against him. He’s warm and a little sweaty and so am I, and even so it feels so nice to feel his skin against mine. He rolls the little toy car up and down my spine, and I let out a sound that would, quite frankly, be embarrassing if anyone else were around to hear it. Percy knows how to turn me into a gooey, pleasure-drunk mess, every time.
“We should do this again,” he says, still rolling the toy car up and down my back. A tingle runs down my spine and every remaining drop of tension drains out of me like water, every muscle going slack as a soft moan escapes my lips. “Just the two of us next time, maybe. I love seeing you run around like a kid, all happy and relaxed, just having fun without worrying about who’s looking. What do you think? Want to go to some more parks? There’s a killer one in Indiana that’s holiday-themed, you’d love it.”
“Mmm, we could,” I murmur into his chest. “You know you don’t have to, right? I just like being with you…”
“I know, you’ve told me…but I like to spoil you, my love. We’ve been over this.” He finally lets the car slip from his fingers and begins to trace patterns across my back with his fingertips. Another little moan slips out. Percy either doesn’t hear it or pretends not to as he goes on, “As I was saying…if you’re worn out on theme parks we could do something else…you know those little play areas in the malls? Like, the one at the mall by our apartment with the breakfast food-shaped play structures? Those look fun, don’t they?”
“You can’t be serious,” I protest sleepily. “Theme parks are one thing, but I can’t just…not in public…”
“So, we go when it’s closed. Why not? I do security for a few malls in the area, I’m sure I can work something out.”
“Percy, c’mon.”
“Well then, how about I make you one of those playplaces?” He sounds playful, teasing, but there’s something underneath that says too plainly that if I told him I wanted a breakfast-food playground, he’d make it happen. He continues to caress my back, tracing the outlines of my scars with a feather-light touch. “I’d do it, you know. I’m sure it can’t be that hard…just gotta find a supplier…”
“Percy!” I giggle, but I know damn well he means it, and if I asked, he’d do it in a heartbeat. “For one thing, there’s no room in your apartment.”
The hand tracing patterns on my back abruptly stops. “My apartment?” he asks tentatively.
“Our—oh, you know what I meant.”
He’s tense for a moment and then he says softly, “You know…joking aside, I was thinking of moving to a bigger place a while ago…and then, you know, what with the wedding and, well, everything that came after it kind of went on the back burner, but…”
“Percy—”
“No, really,” he says, and suddenly I’m on my back with him laying overtop me, a look I know all too well in those warm brown eyes. “You said earlier, even, we should find a place of our own.”
“I was talking about a church that isn’t, like, tainted by your parents,” I protest. “Not a whole entire new place to live!”
“Okay but consider this…” Percy bites his lip. “We could…if we had a bigger place. We could…I’m sorry, this is so presumptuous, I shouldn’t—”
“Percy,” I cut him off, my heart suddenly racing, “say it. Tell me why you want a bigger place to live.”
He briefly squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them again and looks at me with hope so bright it’s almost painful written across his face. “You’re so good with the kids, I just thought…maybe…you’d like that someday?” he offers tentatively, and I knew this was where he was going, I knew, but it still makes my heart swell like nothing else to hear him say it.
“Yes,” I whisper, my stomach full of butterflies, my vision suddenly blurry. “Yes, I want—I want a family with you.”
His entire face lights up. “Kids?”
“Kids. Like, not a lot of kids. Maybe two kids. Or just one.” I think of how sweet he is to the Lovegood twins, of how much he loves it when the kids all gang up on him, and I amend, “Or as many as you want.”
“And a bigger apartment? For all these possible future kids?”
“A huge apartment. A condo, even.”
“A house.” He’s smiling broadly now, tears of joy welling in his eyes too. “With a yard.”
“A massive yard. Fenced in. So we can have dogs, kids like dogs, right?”
“Yes. Room for a pool, too.”
“And a breakfast playground.” Impulsively I reach up and boop him on the nose, and he lets out a startled laugh. “I seem to remember someone promising a breakfast playground.”
Percy’s surprised chuckle quickly turns into a long, shuddering sigh that I know by now translates to please God don’t let me cry I’m not THAT much of a sap. “You can have as many playgrounds as you want.” He settles down on top of me, his head resting directly over my heart. “Anything you want, Credence. Anything in the world, if it’s something I can get for you I will.”
I know he means it. “Percy?” I say, reaching up and stroking his long, silky-soft hair.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I just—” My throat nearly closes up. My heart jerks like it’s being jolted with electricity. I love him, God, I didn’t think it was possible to love anyone this much. “I just want—”
I want to protect you, heal you, just like you do for me. I want you to wake up every morning and feel loved, because that’s what you make me feel and I want you to always know that with me, you are completely safe. I want to take you to church with me, I want to make you understand that God loves you too, almost as much as I do. I want you healthy, I want to feed you until your belly goes soft and your ribs disappear, I want to make you sleep until those shadows under your eyes go away. I want to make love to you until your body sings with pleasure, make you understand that to me you are the most precious being on the surface of the earth, want to make you understand that you deserve to feel good and to feel loved, I want to make you understand that you ARE loved.
I can’t say any of that. Not right now. Honestly, I think he already knows anyway. So all I do is wrap my arms and legs around him tight and cling to him like child holding a teddy bear, and I tell him, “You’re all I want, Percy. You’re all I’ll ever want, or need. Just…” I try not to tear up. “Just keep loving me, and let me love you.”
“Oh, Credence…consider it done, sweetheart.”
“Good.”
I squeeze my husband a little tighter and he lets out a soft noise of contentment as he squeezes back. I feel satisfaction roll through me in waves. He doesn’t want me to let him go. Well, that’s good…because I don’t plan to.