Chapter Text
“Owen, I’ve let you talk me into some insane shit over the years, but this is too much.”
Jamie exhales a thick puff of smoke to punctuate the end of her sentence and leans back in her chair, rolling her eyes for good measure. They’re sitting out back behind Owen’s restaurant, A Batter Place, on an uncharacteristically warm English spring day, and Jamie is regretting her decision to meet up with him more with each passing second.
“Look,” Owen’s eyes soften as he pushes an ashtray across the table, a silent reminder that he doesn’t want ashes left on the ground, “you would be doing me a huge favour, James.”
“James?” Jamie huffs, “You’re gonna call me that while begging for a favour? A highly illegal favour, I should add.”
“Oh yeah?” Owen teases as he raises an eyebrow, “Since when do you care about breaking the law?”
Jamie barks out a laugh and taps some ash out into the ashtray, “I’ve turned over a new leaf, mate. I’m not the same kid you knew from the neighborhood anymore.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yep.”
“Prove it,” Owen leans forward with a wicked twinkle in his eye, “prove that you’re reformed by going above and beyond for someone who isn’t green and leafy.”
Jamie stubs her cigarette out in the ashtray and immediately shakes another one out of the pack, “You’re challenging me to prove that I’m a fully reformed member of society by faking a whirlwind romance with your heterosexual, American cousin which will ultimately culminate in an extremely illegal green card marriage?”
Owen flinches, “Well, when you put it like that…” He tips his head back and runs his hands through his hair, “You’re right. It’s completely mental for me to even ask. I’m sorry, mate.”
And the thing is, he really does look apologetic, which is just one of a hundred things Jamie loves about him. This is the same man who stuck his neck out to vouch for her with his own employer when she’d just been released from prison. They’d been out of touch since their late teens, and back then she had been known as something of a troublemaker. Still, when he saw that she was having a hard time finding work, he spoke to the Wingraves at Bly Manor where he worked as their personal chef, and told them that he knew a good gardener. It was a big risk for Owen to take, and he did it willingly.
Knowing this about him, knowing the way that he’s willing to do anything for someone he loves, it comes as no surprise to Jamie that he’s willing to put himself at her mercy for a cousin who is in a tight spot, and from the way Owen tells it, it sounds like the tight spot Danielle finds herself in is not unlike the one Jamie herself was in a few years back: trapped, and on the cusp of reinvention.
“Okay,” she pauses to light the cigarette dangling from her lips, “let’s just say I was mad enough to actually consider this. How the hell is this supposed to work? I don’t even know this American cousin of yours.” Her nose wrinkles when she says the word “American”, as though she can taste something unpleasant in each of its syllables.
Owen grins and leans forward on his elbows, “I’ll tell you the basics! Then, when she actually gets here, the two of you can spend some time getting to know each other before the big day.”
“Oh God,” she mutters, pinching the bridge of her nose, “don’t call it that.”
“So,” Owen pretends he hasn’t heard her and says carefully, “does that mean you’ll do it?”
It’s mad, she knows. Mad that Owen would ask this of her and even more mad that she’s considering it at all.
“Fuck.” Jamie runs her fingers through her hair and grits her teeth, “Yeah. This is fucking mental, but I’ll do it.”
Owen claps his hands together and beams at her, “You will?”
“Well, not if you’re going to be so jovial about it. Don’t think I can stomach it.”
He shrugs amiably and reaches across the table to shake her shoulder, “Jamie, you know what this means, right?”
“Owen, I swear to Christ -“
“We’ll be cousins, you and me.”
“By marriage only, you twat. And if I were to agree to this, we would get divorced the minute her citizenship is finalized, or approved, or whatever the hell it is.”
“Sure, sure.” Owen says quickly, “Whatever you say.”
II.
“And why am I doing this again?” Jamie drains her glass and slides it to Owen for a refill, “I mean, seriously. Why? It’s mad, isn’t it?”
The restaurant is closed, and it’s just the two of them here alone as Owen pours their drinks from a bottle he’d snagged from behind the bar while reminding her that he can do that because he owns the place. The lights are dim, the mood music has been silenced, and Jamie is leaning on the polished wood of the bar looking utterly miserable.
He closes his hand around Jamie’s glass to hold it steady as he pours and looks up at her over the rims of his glasses, “Relationship shite, James. The bloke she was with was okay enough, but boring as fuck. She needs a fresh start and she needs to get the fuck away from...” He waves a hand dismissively, “from whoever she became whilst they were together.”
“And the fresh start needs to happen in Bly?”
“Well, where else?”
“I don’t know, mate. Surely there are other houses in...wherever the fuck she’s from. Can’t she move into one of them?”
Owen nods thoughtfully, “She could,” he agrees, “or she could move across the world to get married to my prickly, yet lovable best mate.”
A few drinks later Jamie is well on the way to being absolutely legless when she rests her head on her fist and asks again, “Christ, remind me why I’m agreeing to this again?”
“My name is Owen,” he quips, “not Christ.” But when he notices the scowl on Jamie’s face, he shrugs, skips the explanation, and goes with, “Because you love me,” he tosses her a tooth-rotting smile and adds, “and who knows? It could be fun.”
Jamie literally bites her tongue to hold herself back from pointing out to Owen that there’s no way it could possibly be fun when the only romantic company she appreciates is the occasional addition of woman in her bed to keep her company for the night, and then the sun comes up and the woman is gone and she’s alone again in her boring flat with her boring, quiet, potted flatmates and that’s how she likes it. Her life is lonely and mostly, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
On the rare occasion that she desires some social interaction outside of that which is absolutely necessary, she calls Owen to go out for a drink, or meets Hannah for lunch, or if she’s feeling like engaging in some self-harm, she invites them out together so she can torture herself with their mutual obliviousness as they gaze adoringly at each other while everyone else pretends not to notice.
“Yeah,” Jamie mutters under her breath, “it’s gonna be real fun.”
III.
The first thing Jamie notices about Danielle Clayton is the rigidity in her posture as she strides toward them with a rolling suitcase in tow. The second thing she notices is that she is beautiful, stunning, really and when she’s a bit closer, Jamie can see that there is a light of shy kindness in her eyes that makes Jamie smile in spite of herself. Jamie wonders if Owen can sense this because when she looks up at him, she finds him grinning down at her.
“The fuck are you smiling at?” She spits as she reaches into her shirt pocket for her cigarettes, then stops when she remembers that you’re not allowed to smoke in an airport, and even though that rule makes perfect sense, it pisses her off because how the fuck is she supposed to meet this woman without a cigarette dangling from her lips and her hands in her pockets and her carefully curated coolness that works best when something like this isn’t happening?
If Owen can sense this internal conflict, he says nothing and offers her a hearty wink, “Nothing! Nothing at all.” Then with a nudge to Jamie’s shoulder he yells, “Dani, over here!”
Danielle seems to hear him because she speeds up a bit as Owen rushes toward her and when they meet, he encloses her in a tight hug, actually picking her up off of her feet and swaying lightly.
When she has both feet back on the ground, she nervously smooths her hair back and holds out a shaky hand. Jamie stares at the hand for a moment before she accepts it, immediately finding that she enjoys the feel of Danielle’s smooth, uncalloused palm against her own, roughened by the nature of her work. Danielle is lovely in a lilac sweater, hoop earrings, and a wave of blonde hair spilling over her shoulders, and Jamie finds that she has to fight back a grin.
“Hi,” she says with a shy smile, “I’m Dani.”
Her voice is sweet even though she sounds so American, and her cheeks are tinged pink and her eyes look tired, presumably from the long flight, but her smile is so warm that Jamie could almost forget that they’ve never actually met. Which is stupid, because they’ve never even been on the same continent before, so maybe she’s just sensing something familiar in Dani because she’s best friends with her oaf of a cousin who seems to be watching this unfold with great pleasure, or maybe there’s something else, something about Dani herself that something within Jamie recognizes.
Jamie meets Owens eye over Dani’s shoulder and sees that he’s watching the two of them with a smirk. She pauses to see if he’s going to introduce them, and when he doesn’t, she slips into her easy confidence and gives Dani’s hand a few friendly shakes and says, “It’s good to meet you, love. I’m Jamie.”
And it’s the strangest thing, really, because Jamie finds that she means it.
IV.
“So, Owen says that you work at the manor, too.”
“Yeah,” Jamie says, smiling a little as she scans the room for him, “known him much longer than that, though.”
Owen had promised that he wouldn’t leave them alone together until things felt a bit more comfortable, and yet they’d only made it a few minutes into dinner at A Batter Place before he had wandered off to the kitchen.
“You don’t mind, do you ladies?” Owen had said as he was already rising to his feet, hurrying off before they could respond.
So that is how Jamie finds herself alone with Dani in a crowded room, and she finds that Dani is as sweet as she is beautiful, and still, Jamie would rather be almost anywhere else. It’s got nothing to do with Dani, really, and everything to do with the intimacy of the whole thing. It makes Jamie feel cagey and caged in to be sitting with a woman who has expectations, and questions, who might be hurt by Jamie’s aloofness, who might ask an innocent question that forces Jamie to reveal more of herself than she cares to.
“Right,” Dani nods as she brings her glass to her lips, “you guys grew up in the same neighborhood, right?”
Here it is, and Jamie watches Dani’s face for a moment, noting the length of her eyelashes and the genuine curiosity. The combination of Dani’s gentle beauty and her gentle demeanor turns out to be just disarming enough that Jamie offers an honest answer, “Yeah, one of the foster homes I stayed in for a while was just down the street from his mum’s house.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t -“ Dani stammers, blushing furiously as she does.
Jamie meets Dani’s gaze, wanting Dani to see that she isn’t offended at all, because she isn’t really, she’s just waiting to see if the truth will send Dani running for the hills. When she’s confident that Dani isn’t about to flee, Jamie deftly moves the conversation away from herself.
“I uh…” Jamie pauses to drink from her glass, “I’ve heard that you two have known each other for a while, as well.”
Dani blinks a few times and then she’s laughing so softly that it makes Jamie’s heart flutter.
“Yeah, let’s see…” Dani lifts her fingers as if counting, “Owen is three years older than me, so I guess we’ve known each other for about twenty-seven years now. Way back.” They laugh together this time and it feels warm.
They make a few more minutes of small talk about Dani’s flight, and Jamie’s morning, and how pleasant the weather is for a change. It’s all perfectly fine, but Jamie can’t stop scanning the room for Owen’s silhouette because she didn’t sign up to babysit Owen’s heterosexual American cousin except...well, she did. She’s agreed to marry this woman, this stranger of a woman who is looking at Jamie so sweetly when she says, “Hey, Jamie.”
Dani’s voice is impossibly soft as it draws Jamie out from her own thoughts. Jamie looks at her, and then she really looks at her and she is nearly overcome with the absurdity of it all. Jamie is sitting in Owen’s restaurant with a glass of wine in hand, wearing one of the few pairs of trousers she owns that aren’t littered with patches and mud stains, and she’s staring at the woman who will soon become her wife. Her wife.
Jamie is going to have a wife even though she doesn’t do relationships and hasn’t been in one since she first realized that she could opt out of them, that she could create a life for herself and guard every inch of it against anyone who would intrude.
She remembers the exhilaration she’d felt when she realized that she could break the cycle, that she didn’t have to repeat her parent’s loveless marriage, and it isn’t lost on her now that this is exactly what she’s doing. Only, instead of getting married to legitimize an unplanned pregnancy, Dani and Jamie are getting married to legitimize Dani’s presence in this country.
“Jamie,” Dani says, staring down at the table, steeling herself, “Thank you for this. We don’t even know each other and you’re already doing the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.” Dani shakes her head and says, “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”
Jamie’s brow furrows at the praise, “I’m not looking for repayment, Dani. Owen is my friend, my best friend and he’s gotten me out of some jams that felt impossible at the time. I’d do anything for him.”
The problem is, this explanation makes it sound as though she’s doing this entirely for Owen’s benefit, which is only partially true because Jamie knows how it feels to run away from something without a clear destination in mind and she knows how it feels to wake up every morning in a life that doesn’t fit properly. She also knows how it feels to find herself at the mercy of a stranger’s kindness.
Jamie fiddles with the padlock dangling from her necklace and asks, “Did Owen ever tell you how I ended up here? I’m from up north originally.”
Dani shakes her head and leans forward, watching Jamie closely in a way that makes her feel exposed. It feels like someone is really seeing into her in a way that no one else has for years, if anyone ever had at all. Dani looks right at her when she talks and she does it with such intensity that Jamie could almost forget that they’re not alone. The way Dani looks at her makes her want to be open and it feels so damn easy to just tell the truth, so she does.
“Well,” Jamie says, “some of it isn’t great dinner conversation so we’ll have to save those bits for another time, but I got into some shit as a kid and I ended up serving some time at Her Majesty’s pleasure...”
Dani’s blue eyes widen only slightly, but it’s enough that Jamie can tell that Owen hasn’t shared her secrets. It makes her heart swell with affection for her friend and his loyalty, although she figures a staged whirlwind romance might be a bit easier if Dani had moved to a foreign country already knowing that she’s signing up to marry an ex-con.
“While I was inside, I decided that I wasn’t ever going back, so I finished what you yanks,” her nose wrinkles here, “would refer to as ‘high school’ and then I tried my hand at a few trades that didn’t hold my interest; until I found gardening. The first time I got down on my knees in a garden, it was like everything else made sense.” Jamie bites her lip and recalls the first time she’d felt dirt under her fingernails in the prison yard, the first time she’d eaten something that she’d grown from a seed, and the first time she ever stroked the flowers of a petal that her own hands had nurtured until it bloomed so beautifully.
“I got out and it was rough. No one would hire me, and I was…” she stops and clears her throat, “Anyway, I ran into Owen by chance, and he told me that he’d put in a good word for me up at the manor. They took a chance and they hired me, and so, you see, he saved my life.”
So Jamie figures that this is it, this is the moment when she will look up to find Dani looking at her like she’s...a criminal, and Dani will decide that life in Ohio or Arkansas or wherever she’s from isn’t so bad, and she’ll make an excuse to get the hell out of this restaurant and back into polite, educated, civilized company. And Jamie will be alone in this crowded room, feeling foolish for having even entertained the thought that maybe Dani could be different.
When Jamie looks up, Dani just exhales a deep breath that ends in one syllable, “Wow.”
Jamie blinks at her for a moment, takes a breath to ground herself, and says, “So if I can help someone else like me, someone else who maybe just needs a fresh start, it’s the only thing to do, right?”
When she looks closely, Jamie is surprised to find a film of tears in Dani’s eyes. Dani leans closer, opening her mouth to speak but stops when they hear Owen approaching, giving orders over his shoulder to an employee who trails behind him.
“Alright, ladies.” Owen rests a hand on each of their shoulders as a waiter sets their food down in front of them, “Sorry I got held up, where were we?”
Jamie is only slightly alarmed that suddenly, she feels disappointed to have him back.
V.
After dinner, they drop Dani off in front of her hotel, where she leaves them with a quick kiss on Owen’s cheek and a shy wave in Jamie’s general direction.
The moment she’s out of earshot, Owen glanced at Jamie as he pulls the car away from the curb and says, “So?”
“So what?” Jamie grumbles as she sticks a cigarette between her lips.
“What did you think of her?”
“Was this a blind date?”
“Well, no. But you two seemed to be hitting it off while I was away.”
“Yeah,” Jamie huffs, “what took you so long anyway?
“The kid working the stove needed me, and then I saw that you two were talking so I just made myself scarce for a while longer.”
“Owen,” Jamie takes the cigarette out of her mouth without lighting it, “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I’m not interested in an actual relationship with your heterosexual cousin.” She pauses for a moment and then adds, “Or anyone else, for that matter.”
Owen’s moustache twitches slightly, “Who said she’s straight?”
“Mate,” Jamie says, her patience beginning to wear thin, “are you trying to tell me something or are you just going to keep being cryptic and weird?”
“No, I’m not trying to tell you anything, Jim.” His eyes fixed on the road ahead, “I don’t know anything, I swear. It’s just this feeling I have. What do you lot call it?” Owen twirls the end of his moustache as he stares straight ahead, “Ahh, yes. I think it’s my gaydar.”
“Your cousin sets off your gaydar? That woman I just met?”
“Yep.”
Jamie cups her hands to light her cigarette and then punches his shoulder with a loose fist, “Owen, you need to get your head checked, ‘cause I’m pretty sure that the only thing queer about that girl is her weirdo of a cousin.”
VI.
Jamie Taylor is a creature of habit. She’s been an early riser since her prison days, up before the sun to get ready for the day and out into the garden as early as possible to make the most out of the English sun while it lasts.
So when her phone rings at 1 AM, still several hours before her alarm is set to go off, she’s confused at first and then immediately irritated. She gropes in the dark for her phone, finding it under her pillow, and manages to answer it without opening her eyes.
“What?” She snarls into the phone, debating whether life in prison would be worth murdering whoever has called her at this ungodly hour.
“Jamie?”
She recognizes the voice immediately.
“Dani? Why the hell…”
“Jamie, I’m so sorry to call so late, or...I guess it’s actually early.”
Dani’s rushing to get the words out, and Jamie only catches fragments of them. Something about having locked herself out of the hotel somehow, Owen not answering his phone, and having nowhere else to go. Despite her annoyance, Jamie’s out of bed and stumbling around her room, pulling on her overalls before Dani has even finished her thrilling tale.
“...and if it hadn’t started raining, I wouldn’t have minded waiting until the staff unlocked the door in the morning.”
“Wait, Dani.” Jamie stops with one leg in and one leg out of her trousers, “Have you been out there since we dropped you off?” Her question is met with a long pause, “Dani?”
“Well, yes.” Jamie can imagine the pink flush spreading over Dani’s cheeks, can hear the note of anxiety in her voice, “At first, I figured someone would let me in right away and then I realized that they weren’t coming, but then Owen was asleep and…”
As Dani explains, Jamie is shoving her wallet and keys into her pockets, she hesitates before leaving the flat, and grabs the afghan she keeps folded over the back of the couch.
“Okay, okay. I’m on my way, alright?”
“Okay,” Dani says in a small voice, and then she adds, “Jamie, thank you.”
Jamie decides to take a risk and hopes that the joke lands, “It’s alright, can’t let my wife freeze to death, right? Don’t want to be a widow before I’ve even gotten my first grey hair.”
Dani lets out a small laugh that sounds like a mix between a cough and a sob, “I guess that would be awkward, huh?”
“Awkward if I let my wife freeze to death? More like I’d end up on one of those mad American crime shows you lot have. It’s always the husband, you know.”
VII.
The first sight of Dani huddled under the awning of the hotel sends a bolt of pity through Jamie. It’s pouring rain, and despite her best efforts to stay dry, Jamie can see that she’s drenched from head to toe. Jamie pulls up directly in front of her and honks once, then reaches for the heater and cranks the knob as high as it can safely go without making her old truck explode. Dani climbs in, shivering and sputtering with wet hair plastered around her face.
“Jesus, Dani,” Jamie says as she eases the afghan around Dani’s shoulders, “are you alright?”
“I’m…” and for a moment, Jamie thinks that Dani is going to lie, but Dani says, “no, I’m not. But I’m a bit better now.” She says this last part with a smile wide enough that Jamie is almost convinced that Dani believes what she’s saying.
The drive to Jamie’s flat is mostly quiet, the silence between them occasionally shattered by a loud clap of thunder or another of Dani’s whispered apologies.
When she’s alone with Dani in her flat, she finds herself beginning to feel caged in again. It’s too much to be alone with this woman who moved here so that Jamie could fucking marry her, and now she’s in Jamie’s home and what the fuck is Jamie supposed to do with that? It’s too intimate, intimate in a way that sex has never been for her, because Dani is already embedding herself in Jamie’s life and Jamie only has herself to blame.
“Jamie?” Dani is standing in the middle of Jamie’s small sitting room fiddling with her clothes, “Can you help me get this thing off?” Dani gestures to her zippered jacket as she says this.
Jamie’s eyes widen, “Blimey.”
“Not...not like that.” Dani hurries to clarify, “It’s just…” and she holds up her hands to show her trembling fingers that are obviously too cold and stiff to operate the zipper.
“Oh, right.” Jamie clears her throat and steps over to Dani, reaching out slowly enough that either of them can still change their mind, but they don’t. And it shouldn’t be a big deal to Jamie because this is what she’s best at when it comes to women: undressing them, but it feels like a big deal when her fingers meet the cold metal of Dani’s zipper. Ignoring this, she places a gentle hand on Dani’s shoulder to brace herself and unzips the jacket with the other. Then, she helps Dani shrug the jacket off of her shoulders, and carries it over to the coat hooks.
“Dani,” she says as she hangs it up to dry, “what the hell were you doing out there in a flimsy cotton thing like this?”
Dani sounds exasperated, “Well, I didn’t think it would rain, and I definitely didn’t expect to be standing outside all night.”
“If you’re going to be an Englishwoman, you should know that you should always expect it to rain.” She chuckles a little and turns back to face Dani, “Do you have anything warm to change into?”
Dani hangs her head, “No. I’d already taken my suitcase inside before we went to dinner…”
“Oh, that’s alright.” Jamie says as she moves over to her dresser and rummages for some sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and some thick socks and hands all of it over to Dani. “Bathroom’s through there.”
It’s too intimate. The thought of allowing this woman into her home, into her clothes, is overwhelming enough that she has to pinch the bridge of her nose to ward off the headache that is rolling in like a storm. While Dani is in the bathroom getting changed, Jamie decides to turn the kettle on and then steps back into her room to change into the pyjama bottoms she’d been wearing earlier.
When she hears the bathroom door open and footsteps coming up behind her in the kitchen, Jamie calls over her shoulder, “Dani. How do you like your tea?”
With a nervous chuckle, Dani answers, “I like it iced. With lots of sugar and lemon slices.”
“Oh my God.” Jamie groans, “Dani, you know it isn’t too late for me to call off the engagement, right?”
“Hey, you asked.”
“I know, and I’m regretting it.” Jamie says with a laugh, “Hey, open the cabinet behind you and grab a few mugs for us?”
Dani grabs the mugs and sets them on the counter in front of Jamie, but doesn’t back away. Instead, she peers over Jamie’s shoulder and watches intently as Jamie goes through the motions of preparing two cups of tea.
When they’re ready, Jamie hands one to Dani and leads her over to the couch, saying, “Look, I’m sorry if I was a bit of an arse earlier today. Or standoffish or something. I’m just, not used to…”
Jamie pauses, doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. Not used to pretty Americans? Not used to suddenly sharing her life with someone? Not used to worrying about anyone but herself?
“Marrying American strangers?” Dani chimes in, smiling brightly enough that Jamie can see that she isn’t offended.
“Exactly.”
“Jamie,” Dani sets her mug down on the coffee table, “I know that this whole thing is so weird, and it puts you in a weird position and ordinarily, I wouldn’t have agreed to any of it, but Owen made it seem…” Dani pauses to collect her thoughts, “From the way Owen talked about it, it didn’t even occur to me that you might be...uncomfortable.”
“Look, Dani -“ Jamie starts, but Dani cuts her off, “Jamie, if you don’t want to do this, I swear I won’t be mad. I’ll figure something else out or I’ll move back home. I just don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.” Dani begins to chew on her lip as she says this, and Jamie can practically see the anxiety radiating off of her.
She looks so small, so sad.
“I just…” Jamie sets her own mug down and turns to face Dani, “Dani, I don’t even do relationships, ever. Now I’m getting married. It’s just a lot.”
Dani nods seriously, “I know. I was engaged once, and it’s...big.”
“It is big, but I said I’d do it, and I meant what I said.” Jamie nods resolutely, “And anyway, it isn’t forever, right?”
“Right.” Dani agrees, and she visibly relaxes.
“If I may, what happened with the engagement? Why’d it end?”
“He…” Dani closes her eyes, “He died.”
“Your ex died? When Owen said it was a bad relationship situation, he didn’t mention that the bloke had actually died.”
Dani shrugs and bites down on her trembling bottom lip.
“So,” Jamie says, “why’d you do it, then?”
Dani frowns and tilts her head, “Do what?”
“Well, it’s clear that you’re on the lam. And anyway, what did we say earlier?” Jamie sees Dani’s face fall and wonders if she’s gone too far with her attempt to lighten the mood, “It’s always the husband…”
Dani flinches and shifts uncomfortably, pulling the afghan tighter around her shoulders. “I was uh, I was there when it happened.”
Oh.
“Oh?” Jamie says, wincing a little, “Fuck, I’m sorry…” And she’s not sure if she’s apologizing for the dead boyfriend or for the painful attempt at a joke. Maybe it’s both.
It’s so quiet in the flat that all Jamie can hear is the sound of rain crashing against the windows and Dani’s foot tapping against the wood floor.
Dani sounds hoarse when she finally disturbs the silence, “We were parked on the side of the road, and it was raining hard, kind of like tonight. We were…” She stops and shudders, and there’s a faraway look in her eyes that makes Jamie’s mouth go dry, terrified of what she’ll say next.
“Anyway, he got out of the car, and as he opened the door…” She’s wiping tears away from her cheeks now, but they’re falling faster than she can wipe them.
“Hey, Dani,” Jamie hesitantly rests one hand on Dani’s knee to stop its bouncing. When she does this, Dani looks down at her knee and Jamie’s resting hand there as if she hadn’t realized she’d been doing it at all. “Dani, you don’t have to tell me anything else, not yet or not ever if you don’t want to.”
Dani sniffs and wipes at her eyes with her sleeve, which is technically Jamie’s sleeve, which Jamie is trying not to think about, and nods gratefully.
“We can talk about other stuff,” Jamie offers, “I mean, we have to get to know each other, right? For the interviews.”
Dani visibly brightens at this, and reaches for her phone, “I actually made a list.”
“A list?”
“Yeah, of the types of questions they’ll probably ask us.”
Jamie nods and climbs to her feet, “Okay, hold on.” She rummages in a drawer to find a pad of paper and a few pens, and returns to her seat on the couch. She tears off a sheet of paper and passes it to Dani along with a pen.
“Alright,” Dani accepts the paper with a smile, “The first questions are easy, but still very important. Middle name?”
“Well, that is easy.” Jamie says with a shrug, “Haven’t got one. What about you?”
“Mine is Louise.”
“Danielle Louise Clayton.” Jamie says slowly, trying each of the syllables out on her tongue. Trying to not think about the other Louise.
Dani must see something flicker in Jamie’s eyes because she manages to look even more nervous when she says, “Pretty bad, huh?”
“No,” Jamie says quickly, honestly, “not at all. It suits you somehow.”
“Why? Because I seem like an old lady?”
“No.” Jamie says simply, recalling her brief foray into anthroponymy while in prison, trying to not recall the other Louise, “No, it’s because you seem like a warrior.”
Dani’s lips part and her jaw works, it’s subtle, but Jamie can see that she wants to say something. Instead, Dani just blushes and moves on to the next question. And it goes on just that way, for hours. At first, Dani asks all of the questions from the list she’d made, but eventually Jamie starts contributing questions of her own.
Jamie asks if Dani has any tattoos, and Dani says, “God, no. My ex would have…” but she never finishes the thought.
Dani asks what her parent’s names are, and there is no recognition in her face when Jamie’s voice trembles as she says, “My mum was called Louise. Is called Louise, I reckon…”
Jamie asks silly questions, trying to lighten the mood, questions that she knows won’t be part of the interview process like, “What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?” and “What’s up with you lot and your large portion sizes?”
They laugh so hard that they cry when Jamie regales Dani with tales from her younger, less law-abiding years and Dani overflows with sympathy when Jamie walks her through her own gnarled family tree: “Mum took off when I was young, dad nearly worked himself to death, I raised Mikey, Denny split...”
When it’s nearly 4 AM, Jamie sets her pen down and looks at Dani, “I’ve got work in a few hours, so I’m going to have to turn in.”
Dani blanches, “Oh my God,” and she sputters, “Jamie, I’m - you should have said...I wouldn’t have,” and then she stops, swallows, and groans, “God I’m sorry.”
Jamie waits for a moment, and then decides to spare them both and intervene, “Dani,” she hesitates and then sets one cautious hand on Dani’s tense shoulder, “it’s alright. If I’d minded, I wouldn’t have stayed up, okay?”
Dani bites her bottom lip, blue eyes still downcast, “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll just. I’m going to…”
She seems so small, so sad, so unsure.
“You’ll crash here for a few hours, and then I’ll drop you off at your hotel or with Owen, whatever you prefer.” Jamie stands and reaches into her small coat closet, “Here,” she holds a lone pillow out to Dani who accepts it eagerly. “Goodnight.”
VIII.
The shapes on Jamie’s ceiling shift as the sun begins a lazy ascent on the other side of her curtains. It’s quiet in her room, save for her own breathing, and because they are separated by a door, she cannot hear Dani breathing on her couch. Can’t tell if it’s the quick panicky breaths Jamie knows she’s prone to when she’s feeling anxious, or the slow, lazy breaths of a deep sleep.
Jamie hopes that it’s the latter.
Even though she can’t hear her, even as she strains to listen, she can feel her presence. Can feel that there is someone in her home, wearing her clothes, expecting something from Jamie that Jamie isn’t sure she can give. If Dani just needs her signature on a marriage license, that’s one thing, that’s easy, that’s something Jamie can give. But if Dani wants, or expects something more...if Dani expects that she can have Jamie in any other way beyond that signature on a piece of paper, well, then...
IX.
Alone on Jamie’s couch, Dani struggles to control her breathing as she cries quietly, this is an art she has perfected through years of lying awake next to the sleeping body of a man who had grown up to be so unlike the little boy she’d befriended when they were children. Even after they grew up, during the light of day, with clothes on, there were times when Eddie could almost be mistaken for that little boy. But then at night, in their bed, he would reach for her, and it never occurred to her that she could say “no”. So, she just wouldn’t say anything at all, save for a few half-hearted moans, followed by a loud cry in the shower and then a quiet cry next to Edmund’s sleeping body.
Now she cries alone on a stranger’s couch in a foreign country because she misses that boy, because she remembers the look in his eyes when he asked why she was breaking his heart. And even though she tries not to, she remembers the look in his eyes as he lay dying in the street. She’d held one of his blood slicked hands in her own, and tried to comfort him, hoping he wasn’t thinking of how she’d just broken his heart, and now that is what she sees every night when she goes to bed alone.