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“Marry me.”
“Wha’?”
“Marry me.”
It’s not a question.
That’s the first thing Carla registers.
It’s a demand.
“Marry me.” No ring, no bended knee, just tear stained cheeks and a white knuckled grip on her hand.
Carla feels a laugh bubble and pop on her lips, an incredulous shake of her head.
Of all the proposals she’s had, and she’s had a few now, this has to take the crown for surprising her most. She feels her fingers flex against the soft flesh of her loves thigh, feels her heart begin to gallop, a punishing pace that sets her ears ringing in response.
This wasn’t how she imagined it going with Lisa.
Lisa’s eyes begin to cloud.
Panic makes her lips curl upwards and Lisa’s eyes cloud further, a retreat she’s come to recognise now.
Panic makes her lips part:
“You have lousy timing, Lis.”
Those aren’t the words she means to say, but in her mind's eye she sees Craig’s goofy smile and she knows she’ll never roll her eyes fondly at him ever again.
Then again, even without the looming premature death of the young man she's watched grow up, she doesn’t know exactly what to say to a not-question like that.
‘Yes’ because she can see them in white dresses, can see it so clearly that it morphs her reality for a second: Baby’s Breath and trailing greens and her hand tucked into the crook of Roy’s elbow as he guides her. Michelle and Ryan and Betsy on the front row and there’s Lisa, waiting for her, probably crying, definitely smiling that smile. That one that’s just for her.
‘No’ because wedding bells have begun to sound a lot like a death knell for her love life. Because every time she’s walked an aisle dressed all in white it’s been for the last time, and every time it ends with her signature against the Decree Nisi.
‘ Not yet’ because she wants this, she realises. Wants Lisa’s ring on her finger, wants to call Lisa her wife, wants to have petty arguments over whose name they’ll take. But not like this. Not motivated out of a need to grasp rather than to hold, not motivated out of grief and panic.
She looks to Lisa and she sees so much pain behind tired eyes. A past loss that pushes her and pulls her and drives her, still, through this life.
Lisa’s scoff does nothing to disguise the pain that lands with Carla’s words.
Carla winces because she can see it, can see how “ you’ve got lousy timing” sounds a lot like a no. Can feel how that would hurt the already hurting.
It’s not a no, she doesn’t want to say no.
But it’s not a yes either.
She extracts her hands from Lisa’s grip and leans back and for a second blue eyes widen, her breath stutters. Lisa’s mouth parts, a twist of desperation that makes her lips twitch. And Carla can see the venom building from down low, knows the strike as it rears, knows, now, that Lisa speaks in haste when she’s vulnerable. But then Carla’s leaning back in, trailing her fingers back to pull out the bobble in ice blonde hair, and she can taste the way it fizzles out in the air between them.
She runs her fingers through tangled tendrils to smooth it down but she fears it’s a lost cause, knotted beyond measure with the amount of times Lisa’s own hands have gripped it in grief in the last hour or so.
A part of her wants to rewind 24 hours, to not have had this atom bomb land in her lap at all. But then she’s cupping wet cheeks in her palms, smile dropping into gentle affection.
She loves this stupid woman, who runs away until suddenly she’s running towards. Regimented until her mouth runs away from her. Bratty until soothed. Sharp until smoothed.
“Shall we go to bed?”
Lisa’s head shakes in the cocoon of Carla’s hold. “I’m not tired,” she says, yawning.
“Ok.” Carla smiles affectionately. She scritches her nails in Lisa’s hairline, eyes drinking in the way tired eyes flutter closed, nodding in exaggerated belief. “Then let’s just go lay down.”
It’s a testament to how far they’ve come, how far Lisa has come, that Lisa allows herself to be pulled up and pushed into the bedroom. She doesn’t run, doesn’t find some excuse to leave Carla’s space. She leads the way at the press of Carla’s hands.
The bedroom door clicks shut, and with it Lisa pulls away. Her back to Carla, her shoulders rounded and head bowed, she pulls off her clothes. Carla watches from her side of the bed as she pulls her own pyjamas on, as Lisa lets her clothes drop to the floor. She doesn’t fold them like she normally does, instead she just steps out of the pile and into cotton shorts
Carla hums in displeasure, a spike of worry making her nerves tingle. She steps back into Lisa’s space, her own clothes discarded as they normally are. Her hand trailing along the small of Lisa’s back, she pushes Lisa into bed and bends to pick up the discarded jumper, pants and shirt. Once folded, she places the pile neatly into the seat of the chair before the vanity. She can eel the burn of Lisa's attention on her, but not the familiar weight of her eyes.
Lisa hasn’t looked at her once since they entered their space, her back firmly towards Carla. It stays that way as Carla climbs into bed and breathes once, twice, into the chasm of space between them. She knows this is just another form of Lisa pulling away, running without running. But she knows that now is not the time to leave Lisa to stew, alone in her brain.
Carla’s fingers reach across the gap and settle on the dip of Lisa’s waist.
“Lisa.” She breathes.
Lisa’s breath hitches in response, a wet, pathetic sound, thick with the tears that are flowing again.
Suddenly Carla’s hand is gripped tight and she’s tugged forward. She goes willingly, curling around Lisa’s back, hands pulling apart Lisa's arms as she holds herself. Carla's arms hold her together now and she squeezes her tight while her sobs shake the bed.
“Oh, baby.” Carla nuzzles against the crown of Lisa’s head, presses her lips and squeezes tighter.
"Carla." Lisa searches for her, turning.
"I'm here." She swears, and she pulls Lisa around and into position. It’s with gentle hands that she guides Lisa’s head to its space in the crook of her neck, as she places Lisa’s hand, palm flat, against the thudding of her heartbeat, as she runs her fingers up and down the bumps of her spine.
She soothes Lisa to sleep like that, her weight holding Carla down against the mattress, her tears drying in the dip of Carla’s collar bone. She has a fitful night, woken by her own tears or more than one occasion.
Carla spends the night soothing her back to sleep, and in between those times she finds herself thinking.
She thinks about marriage, must doze off thinking about it at one point as she dreams of walking down the aisle towards every man whose name she’s taken at once. And there is, lots of them that is. And every single one of them has opted out. She’s a nightmare, she knows that, difficult and barbed; a 50 year old mess who still doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up.
She doesn’t want to wake up in a year's time, two years' time, to Lisa’s face joining their midst.
Maybe she’s had enough of marriage.
Maybe marriage has had enough of her.
But then again, having a wife. She’s never done that before.
Mrs Connor-Swain, that sounds nice.
‘My wife’ in her own voice, that sounds nice too.
‘My wife’ in Lisa’s voice sounds even nicer.
Maybe, when the time is right, she has one more left in her.