no one here can love and understand me, what hard-luck stories they hand me

[intheruins]

Soon, George will be a month old and Serena will have been in the city just as long. It's surreal. She hasn't done much since arriving and she's never been one for idling. She wants to head out to the country and find a place that feels more like home, but she can afford neither the expense nor the strength.

So she does what she can. She doesn't have the room for a full nursery but she has a bassinet for George and a changing table, and even a rocking chair. That's where she seems to spend most of her time, feeding him with the milk that she makes from scoops of powder and warm water. 

She reads, too. There are decades of books that she can't account for, though the local library does have some of her old favourites. She sits and rocks and feeds George, losing herself in fictional worlds and trying not to think about the loss of Pemberton and how much harder this all is without him.

Beth, strange as their friendship is, proves to be something of a touchstone for Serena. That she was the first person Serena met is something she believes comes down to more than coincidence. One afternoon, she manages to type out a message on the phone that many have tried to teach her to use.

W  OULD YO U LI KE TO CO ME OV ER  FOR      TEA ?

It's a mess, but she figures Beth will know what she means.

Comments

[a_littlefaith]

"I've always loved babies," she says, looking at Serena with a smile. "Even when I was just a kid myself, I always wanted to grow up and be a mom. After everything that happened back where I'm from, I ended up takin' care of my friend's sister, Judith, after she was born. Their mom died givin' birth to her and their dad was... well, he was kind of the leader of all of us, so he had a lot on his plate. I looked after her a lot then."

And she still does now, but Carl has more responsibility and Judith is older and bigger. There's still a lot they need to do, but she's more independent.

"I dunno if it'll still happen for me," she admits. "But I love other peoples' babies just as much as I do Judith." Maybe not just as much, because Judith is family, but it's a close thing.

[intheruins]

Serena can't help but frown at the mention of a mother lost in birth. Back in North Carolina, it had happened an awful lot. Too many babies were buried with them.

"I didn't think it would happen for me," Serena says. She certainly never thought that she'd find someone to love her in spite of all of her imperfections, someone who would want to bond their blood even after all she'd done wrong.

"I didn't think I'd ever have a family," she continues, still watching Beth and George. There's no envy, not like when she'd seen the Harmon girl holding Jacob. There are few people that Serena trusts in this world, Beth is one of them. "You might find yourself surprised one day. You're still young."

[a_littlefaith]

"It might," Beth agrees, because she knows there's no sense jumping the gun one way or the other. It's not something she and Curtis have talked about at all and while he's really good with Judith, she also won't be surprised if it turns out it's not something he wants for himself in the same way she does.

She knows why. The things he's told her about his home, it makes sense if he wouldn't ever want that.

"My boyfriend's about ten years older than me," she tells Serena, looking up at her from George's sweet face. "And there are a lot of reasons why he might not want a family, but the thing is... part of me feels like I've been waitin' for him all this time and we're finally findin' ourselves and I don't wanna put any strain on it by askin' questions we might not know the answers to yet."

[intheruins]

"If you don't ask, you mightn't ever get what you want," Serena says. With Pemberton, they'd both wanted children. That much had gone without saying. Of course in the first few months of marriage when they'd coupled they'd used protection, but that they'd one day try for an heir was an inevitability.

They simply had too much to let it die with them.

"Most men can be swayed any way you wish, but you might find that he already feels the same way." She doesn't want to come across as manipulative, especially not to Beth, but she's well-versed in the world of men and what they want. More importantly, what they need. "If your relationship is meant to last, I find it hard to believe there's any strain that would break it."

[a_littlefaith]

"Oh, well," she pauses and laughs. "I mean, I'm not in too much of a rush anyway. I'm only twenty-one, I figure if I ever start a family, it won't be for at least a couple more years. I've got all my music stuff goin' on and I wanna finish school first, too."

And when she thinks about it, she doesn't want to have to sway Curtis. If it's something they do together, she wants it to be something they both want.

"I think I got some time still," she says, grinning, giving George a gentle bounce. "Before I start askin' him about it, I mean. We only just started sayin' 'I love you'."