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cynicalrainbows · 4 years

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The Next Best Thing Pt 3

So this is a very long rambley chapter of this Catalina-adopts-babey-Cathy au. I’m not sure if I’m entirely happy with how it turned out- I was trying to do a few things, really: get better at writing from the POV of actual small children (which is incredibly difficult and also quite fun) and also have a go at describing what an absolute headfuck grief is.

Like, I cannot get over how when people die, you’re expected to get around the angry and sadness and confusion...and ALSO just sort of....live your normal life. And it’s especially difficult that those two things then get mixed up: I remember sitting by my dad’s deathbed and watching him die and just feeling sort of....fine? A bit numb but also very concerned with extremely mundane things like did I remember to say thank you to all the nurses and did I remember to wash up the cups we’d made tea in? And then the next morning, I was on the edge of going into the road to throw things at the inconsiderate bastards who were just driving around and going to work like it was a normal day. And then three months later, I was sobbing hysterically while I made paninis at work because of some minor comment my absolute cunt of a boss made. And even now, years later, I had a sudden moment the other week when it suddenly hit me that I was never ever going to be able to say thank you to dad for the lovely things he wrote in my birthday cards. AND a moment of anger that I was never going to be able to have it out with him for lots of stuff I’m still angry with him for.

And then to have to deal with that as a child? Sweet Jesus. I honestly don’t know how children manage.

I was also trying really hard to get across the absolute mindfuck that is just being a 6-9 yr old girl. Like...I only vaguely remember being seven but still. And watching the children at my work? Good god.

SO i hope you all like it. I probably went overboard with making Aragon soft but I refuse to apologise because soft Aragon is the best Aragon.

Enjoy!

****

She used to like school, back before, but that was back when everything was different, when she had a Mum to collect her like everyone else and when she could write about going to the park and the library and the swimming pool in her newsbook just like everyone else.

Catalina has taken her to the park, to the library- but she can’t let herself enjoy it now. She keeps hoping that her parents will bob up from behind a bush or a bookshelf and tell her that everything was just a big misunderstanding- but they don’t. They never do, but she can’t stop herself hoping it, even if doing so feels like prodding a wobbly tooth- just as painful, just as impossible to resist.

Even the idea of school feels wrong now- school belongs back then, toher old normal.

Now, normal is staying at home with Catalina, trips to bookshops (new ones with cafes and shiney displays, old ones where the books are tired and tattered, with yellowing pages that smell of old paper and dust) which she likes, trips to church (which she wishes she liked) and trips to see a therapist (her therapist) which she has decided that she definitely doesn’t like.

She doesn’t like the stuffy waiting room, she doesn’t like the waiting room toys- the books with pages torn out and scribbles all over the cover, the sad barbies left lying with their legs splayed and half their clothes missing, the jigsaw puzzles where all the pieces are mixed together.

There are better things in the actual therapy room- paints and a real easel, better craft supplies even than at school- but after the first session, when she’s meant to be fetching her coat, she hears the therapist lady (Doctor Jenny, she is meant to call her) talking to Catalina about her, asking how she’s settling, asking if they’re coping….and she hates the thought of being discussed so much that she decides not to talk there again. Not even for the sake of the easel, and she rips the painting she made in her session into pieces in the backseat of the car on the way home. She wants to throw them out of the window but that would be littering and she has sat through enough school assemblies about littering to know that it is one of the worst, worst things you can do (aside from drawing in library books and pushing people into traffic) so she doesn’t, just holds the balled up painty scraps of paper in her fists until she can drop them into the bin where they belong.

School isn’t her new normal- but now apparently Catalina has to go back to work and she has to go back to school whether they want to or not.

‘Can’t you keep teaching me here? I did all my workbook-’ She quite likes filling out the booklets that the school had sent ‘in the interests of not falling behind’, although it feels funny to fill them out sitting on the sofa and wearing her weekend clothes.

‘I’d like to, querida.’ Catalina looks tired- she’s been frowning and looking at papers, then typing, then frowning again and pressing the back space key very, very hard- but now she swivels her chair around to look at Cathy properly. ‘I really would. But we wouldn’t be allowed.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s the law, you have to be in school...and I have to go back to work…before everything just completely falls apart without me….’ She looks at the papers, drops them back into the pile. ‘You’ll be able to see all your friends again- you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

She shrugs. She would like to see Anne- but she hasn’t seen her properly since before then, only talked to her on the phone and Anne had kept talking about Anna, the new girl, about how she’s sitting with Anne til Cathy is back, about how she brought in a big cornet of sweets to share on her first day, about how there was something called Katjes that was really liquorice…. and even thinking about it makes her chest feel tight and scared because what if Anne doesn’t want to be best friends any more? (What if Anna is more fun?)

Catalina takes both of her hands in her own and kisses them. ‘It will be ok, querida. I promise.’

(Catalina always tells the truth but it’s harder to believe her this time.)

She watches from the doorway that evening as Catalina lays out clothes- stiff suits and high, high heels, skirt and blouse and school jumper- and feels sick.

She sleeps badly, picks at her toast and doesn’t hug Catalina back when she says goodbye. She’s not even allowed to go into the playground before the bell rings- instead, she has to go into the headmistresses office because there are ‘special circumstances’ (although what these are she isn’t quite sure.)

Mrs Jardin says things about grief and loss and settling in. No comment seems to be required from her so she stays quiet until the bell releases her.

Anne walks into the classroom with a girl she hasn’t seen before who she thinks must be Anna. This girl- this new girl- gives Cathy a friendly smile, as if she isn’t stealing her best friend while her back is turned…. and she pretends not to see.

(She doesn’t know why she should smile at a friend stealer.)

It doesn’t feel right to sit in her old class, as if everything is the same….but then, a new teacher comes in to take the register and she doesn’t like that it’s different either.

Anne whispers that she’s nice, that she let them make get well soon cards for their usual teacher rather than having to do the usual Friday spelling test, and she thinks that of course that would make Anne like her.

(Unlike her, Anne does not enjoy the spelling test.)

There’s dinner money to hand in, then a boring assembly about road safety and looking both ways. There’s literacy hour, like usual; numeracy hour, like usual. No gold stars for anyone (although their old teacher always used to have them- this new teacher just does boring ticks in red pen)- and then a change: they’re going to make cards.

For Mothers day.

Which is in a week.

Suddenly, she feels very cold. Mothers day.

She doesn’t want to think about last year- daffodils picked from the garden, carrying a tray not-to-spill-carefully into the bedroom, being allowed to boil the kettle and make the toast herself, the picture that kept coming out wrong and the poem she wrote herself in place of it.

She wants Catalina to come- to take her home or even just to BE there… but then she remembers that Catalina has abandoned her, that she’s the one making her have to go to school at all.

(And besides, Catalina is at work now anyway, doing whatever she does at work. She pictures meetings and shouty phone calls and wavy lines in red on graph paper, like when she and Anne play office.) (She wonders what games Anne plays with Anna and decides they’re probably all boring anyway.)

The teacher finished explaining- about spelling and sharing the felt pens and taking turns with the glitter, as if they’re babies, as if they’ve never made cards before when everyone knows that even the Nursery school children make cards at Christmas and Easter….and she turns to her blank sheet of construction paper and wishes she could tear it up.

‘What are you going to do?’

Anne’s whisper catches her by surprise.

‘What do you mean?’

Anne looks uncomfortable. ‘Because- well-’

She understands what Anne means, all at once, and it’s like cold water being poured on her- of course she can’t make a card for mum because mum isn’t there to have it and she knows this, but this realisation still feels new and suddenly she’s thinking of all the other things she won’t ever be able to give mum or dad ever again, birthday presents and Christmas presents and-

Anne is almost quivering next to her, her hand waving high in the air, and Cathy just KNOWS what she’s going to ask- what about if you don’t have a Mum to make a card for?

She knows that’s what she’s going to ask, and it makes her so angry (angry that Anne is asking, angry that it’s a question that applies to her now, angry that Anne and everyone else get to still have parents, angry that they have to do this stupid project in the first place when everyone knows that it’s meant to be history workbooks after break) that she’s burning hot all over.

The teacher suddenly stops her monologue on the necessity of Putting Lids on Felt Tips, as if she’s heard the question through the waving of Anne’s hand, and she smiles like she’s swallowed a tin of golden syrup. Her voice is syrupy to match.

‘Of course, for anyone who doesn’t have a mother-’ She pauses. ‘What I mean is, if you’d like to make a card for someone else- maybe an auntie….well, that’s fine’.

She even looks at Cathy as she says it- but she doesn’t want to make a card for Catalina. She isn’t her auntie, she definitely isn’t her mum.

‘Because of course, you don’t have to be a mum to do mum-things!’

(Her mum wouldn’t have abandoned her at school, she thinks first….and then she wonders if maybe her mum has abandoned her after all- except worse and more forever. It’s not a nice thought to have.)

‘People can be your mum in spirit and that’s fine!’

(Does that mean Catalina has to take the place of her mum now?)

Part of her still wants Catalina to come and make things ok again (although she’s not sure how she would)- but part of her is angry too.

She’s angry with Catalina, for doing all the ‘mum-things’, angry with herself that she’s been letting her. (Can her own mum see her letting Catalina tuck her into bed and run her bath and hear her spellings? Would she be cross if she could?)

She feels more mixed up than ever, and it’s all Anne’s fault, it’s all Anne’s fault (for asking the question, for putting the thought into the stupid teacher’s head, for liking Anna better) and when the teacher turns her back (because someone has somehow broken their gluestick like an idiot), the anger bubbles up and she kicks Anne as hard as she can under the desk.

She’s not sure what she’s expecting- Anne to kick her back maybe, or to jump up and tell on her and get her into trouble, but instead Anne just bursts into tears.

Part of her wants to say sorry….but part of her thinks it serves Anne right for sitting next to stupid new Anna with her stupid shoes that light up and her stupid purse shaped like a dog. (They’re definitely not cool and she definitely isn’t going to ask for either for her birthday.)

Within seconds, the teacher is bearing down on them both.

‘What on earth do you think you’re doing, young lady?’ (She thinks spitefully that the teacher has probably forgotten her name already, something that their usual teacher would NEVER do.)

She just scowls back.

‘You’re going to say sorry to- your friend’ (Clearly she’s forgotten Anne’s name too) ‘-and then you’re going to sit and get on with your card nicely where I can see you-’

‘I don’t want to.’

She folds her arms and the teacher huffs.

‘This is NOT the sort of behaviour I expect from children in this year group! Imagine what your mother would-’

She says it and then freezes, her face going bright red- and it’s this freezing that makes it worse, like a big loud reminder that mum CAN’T see her, that she’ll never see her again, that the teacher has made a big mistake by mentioning it…. And there’s a roaring in her head as she picks up her paper, rips it into pieces and throws them into the woman’s face.

When the teacher tries to take her hand and pull her to the front of the room, she pulls away and pushes all her things- her pencils and pens, her rubber that smells like strawberries onto the floor and stamps on them and feels the crack of plastic under her school shoes- until a hand closes around her wrist and she’s dragged away and deposited into the corridor.

(She’s never been put out into the corridor before because that’s something that only the really bad children have happen to them, and she’s never been one of them….except she also never used to be the child without parents, she never used to want to make Anne hurt, so maybe now everything is different, it doesn’t matter what she does because nothing will make it better, and there’s nothing to do but scream and scream and scream.)

She’s acting crazy, not like herself at all- and the scary thing is, she can’t seem to stop, though her throat is raw and sore and her head is aching.

It hurts worse than when she had flu, and had to drink cups of lemon and honey and suck on horrible tasting lozenges (that didn’t taste anything like cherry no matter what the label said)...except when she had flu, she knes she’d get better but can you get better from something like this that isn’t an illness?

It frightens her that she can’t stop but then perhaps it doesn’t matter because everything is ruined anyhow, her parents are never coming back (she knows this, she knows this), all her pens are broken, everyone in her class saw her tear things up like a really bad kid and Anne will sit next to Anna forever and Catalina will be so angry with her…...she’ll be in so much trouble and what if Catalina doesn’t want her any more, what if she decides that she’s too much trouble because of this-

The thought has her curled up into herself, her face pressed against her drawn-up knees because it’s so scary, scarier than roller coasters and dogs that bark and the dark space under her bed, scarier than the little bit of a horror film that Anne’s sister showed them once when she slept over with the man that had knives for hands, scarier than anything-

The click click click of high heels sound down the hall- and it’s a new sound to hear at school because those aren’t the sort of shoes that the teachers or the dinner ladies wear, they’re not even the sort of shoes the big grown-up girls in Year 6 wear, she only knows one person who wears those sort of shoes-

‘Querida-’

When Catalina crouches down in front of her and puts a hand on her arm, part of her wants to cling onto her and make her promise to not ever leave ever ever- but another part of her tells her that she’s being stupi,d that of course her godmother won;t want her any more, that she’s probably just come into school to tell her that- and so she pushes the hand away roughly and won’t look up.

‘What’s the matter?’

She says nothing.

‘I can’t help if you don’t talk to me, carino.’

She doesn’t want to talk.

‘I need to make sure you are ok, querida. Can you tell me what made you so upset?’

She doesnt sound angry, she sounds like she always does- and it’s all wrong, she shouldn’t even be here, school shouldn’t be calling Catalina . No one else has their godparents called into school….cxcept of course they have to because there’s no one else, there’s no one else at all-

‘I hate you.’

She even means it. Perhaps if Catalina wasn’t around to fill in and do all the mum things, then mum would still be alive (because how could she have died if there was truly no one else?)

‘Why querida?’

‘It’s your fault. You should have died instead of mum.’

She means that too, but as she says it, she hides her face in her arms so she doesn’t have to see if Catalina looks cross or sad or (and this would somehow be worst of all) like she doesn’t even care.

(Not that she cares how Catalina feels. If she hadn’t ruined everything by making her come into school- if she hadn’t ruined everything by existing at all-)

She wonders, in the darkness of her arms, what will happen next- shouting (except Catalina doesn’t shout, apart from at traffic lights that change too quickly or spiders that come out of nowhere) or just the click-click-click of her heels leaving...but there’s nothing.

Nothing at all.

Just quiet.

It’s so quiet for so long that she wonders if perhaps Catalina has actually left after all- it would make sense for her to leave- and the thought gives her a little frisson of fear.

Despite everything….she doesn’t want to be all by herself. Not really.

She waits for a long, long time.

Eventually, she risks a glance up- steeling herself for the empty corridor.

But Catalina is still there, sitting on the wooden floor with her high shoes sitting next to her and the nail polish on her toes showing through her tights.

She doesn’t look cross, only very sad and tired…. but she makes her face into a smile when she sees she’s being watched and the relief- that she isn’t being shouted at or sent away or hated is enough to make her start to cry all over again.

She knows she’s probably ruined everything already by saying those things- and she can’t escape the feeling that she’s doing something wrong by wanting by wanting her godmother in the same way she used to want her mum (like she’s betraying her, like she’s making her sad in heaven)......but she’s so very tired and lonely, and Catalina looks so warm and safe and comforting that she reaches out to her without meaning to, half wondering if she’ll be pushed away.

She isn’t pushed away.

Warm hands gently draw her close until she’s being held safe in her godmothers arms, one hand stroking her damp tangled hair away from her hot face while she tries to burrow far into Catalina’s smart silk work shirt and stiff black blazer.

She knows she’s making them both wet and disgusting but she doesn’t care and Catalina doesn’t seem to mind either, just gently rocks her back and forth and murmurs things that must be in spanish but it doesn’t matter that she can’t understand, she just wants Catalina to keep holding her and keep talking because if she’s doing that, she can;t be planning on getting rid of her, at least not now, at least not yet-

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry-’

‘Oh querida. It’s alright. It’s all going to alright.’

She should explain herself- that’s what adults always say ‘explain yourself’, but she doesn’t know if she can and when she tries, it comes out wrong and she starts hiccuping in between sobs.

‘Shhhh, carino. You don’t have to talk yet.’

She whimpers and presses her face back into Catalina’s chest and feels a kiss be pressed into her hairline.

‘It’s alright. We’ll sort this all out, I promise.’

She’d like to say that some things can’t be fixed- but she’s too tired. She actually doesn’t feel very well at all, and now she’s noticing it- not just the way her throat is sore, not just the being tired, she feels sick too, and her head aches and she’s shaking a bit all over like she has the flu except she doesn’t- but Catalina’s arms are warm and safe and so she makes herself just think about that, about that instead.

A long, long time passes before she feels like she can talk again- there’s a heaviness all up her arm and legs and in her head.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.’

‘It’s alright, querida. Do you want to tell me what happened? What made you so upset, hm?’

She doesn’t want to tell her at all but Catalina won’t be able to fix it if she doesn’t so she does her best- the Mother’s day card and Anne trying to ask her stupid question, Anne sitting with Anna instead of her, the daffodils last year, never being able to make another Mother’s day card again, the way the teacher looked at her, the anger and Anne crying at being kicked and all her own pens being broken.

Catalina listens and nods seriously and doesn’t interrupt, even though Cathy knows it’s a bit jumbled and she has to keep stopping every so often to sniffle into the tissues Catalina hands to her from the little packet in her purse.

When she finishes, Catalina nods slowly, like she’s working it all out in her head.

‘That is….quite a lot, querida.’

It actually makes her feel a (tiny) bit better, that Catalina doesn’t laugh or tell her she’s making a fuss about nothing…..but she knows what it also means- it isn’t all going to be fixed right away. Perhaps Catalina can see she’s disappointed because she squeezes her hand.

‘Would you like to hear my thoughts so far?’

She would.

‘I think your parents loved you very, very much. And that if they can see you, they will be thinking how very proud they are that you have been so brave and done so well, even without them there. I think they’d be proud to see how well you’re coping with having to live in a new place and do things differently.’

‘You don’t think they’d….mind? Do you think they’d be upset that I- about today?’

It hurts to ask but she wants to be sure.

Catalina shakes her head.

‘I think that you are having to work through a lot of things that are difficult. Very, very difficult. There is no easy way to lose people. And sometimes it will make you sad, and sometimes it will make you angry….like today-’

There’s a tiny lightening in her stomach at Catalina says that. She doesn’t feel better exactly...but it helps to know that perhaps she isn’t a really bad person after all. That it’s not badness, just grief. That maybe it’s even a bit normal.

‘Does everyone…..feel like this?’

Catalina looks down at her. ‘In one way or another….yes.’

‘Do you?’

‘Sometimes...yes.’

The thought makes her eyes go wide. She tries to imagine Catalina throwing pens on the floor of her smart office and it’s almost enough to make her smile again. Almost.

‘It doesn’t make you bad, it just part of grieving, carino- the hurting’ She pauses. ‘Not that you don’t need to try and make sure you don’t hurt other people too of course. I think perhaps you owe Anne an apology, hm?’

She shrugs and burrows back against the blazer and it feels cold and damp. ‘I don’t think she even wants to be my friend anymore-’

‘I can’t believe that, querida.’

‘It’s true. She has Anna now.’

‘Well’ Catalina changes position, stretching a cramped leg. ‘Why don’t you ask her?’

She isn’t sure what she means- and then Catalina gives her a tiny nudge and she looks up to see Anne’s face peering anxiously through the pane of glass in the classroom door. When she sees Cathy looking back at her, she looks enormously relieved- before she stops herself and makes a silly exaggerated cross face instead and mimes hopping up and down in pain.

Cathy finds she’s laughing in spite of herself- and Anne laughs too and sticks out her tongue, before a summons from inside drags her reluctantly away from the door.

‘Seems like she still wants to be friends to me.’

And she thinks perhaps Catalina is right.

Perhaps things aren’t as broken as she thought.

(Perhaps she can live with Catalina and let her do the mum-things that her own mum isn’t around for, but also keep thinking of mum-as-mum in her head. Perhaps she doesn’t have to feel guilty for doing normal things- perhaps she can feel proud. Perhaps things will work out mostly alright- not as alright as they’d have been if mum and dad were still alive but….close. Close enough.)

(Perhaps she’ll even ask Anna if she wants to play one day.)

(Perhaps.)

#six #six the musical #six the musical fanfiction #six fanfiction #sixfic

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