The Baker's Wife (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andhiswife) wrote2017-06-19 10:04 pm
andhiswife) wrote2017-06-19 10:04 pm
Entry tags:
The Tale You Tell
It's been a difficult week.
That's actually an understatement. But she can't let the full weight of it settle on her, not when she's out in public like this. So for as long as she's out here, doing some shopping, it's just been a difficult week.
She's told Baz and Simon about her situation. They'd offered to give her time off, but that wasn't what she wanted. The Gardens are one of the few places where she doesn't feel like climbing the walls. There's too much else going on, too many other things that require her attention. It's everywhere else that's the problem. Her apartment is too quiet and too empty and too immaculate; she can't even justify housework anymore because everything that could possibly need doing has already been done thrice over.
And she knows she has friends who would help her, who would be happy to provide company or distractions or whatever she needed. But that would require telling them. Repeating the story wouldn't make it any more real than it is already, but the thought of burdening anyone else with it -- and how could something this heavy not be a burden? -- turns her stomach. So much so that she's been politely deflecting the invitations she's received, rather than try to face anyone.
She'll say this for texting: it makes it easier to lie.
The thought of food rather turns her stomach, too, but she's getting groceries, anyway. Even if the chief appeal of cooking is making a mess that she would then have to tidy up, it's still a necessary chore. Her clothing is starting to hang a bit looser than it ought to, and she doesn't want to make new garments for what she knows, distantly, to be an impermanent state of affairs. So, groceries. She can do this.
[Find Greta looking terrible either at or en route to a grocery store, or on her way back to Candlewood. Closed unless we've spoken; hmu if you still want in.]
That's actually an understatement. But she can't let the full weight of it settle on her, not when she's out in public like this. So for as long as she's out here, doing some shopping, it's just been a difficult week.
She's told Baz and Simon about her situation. They'd offered to give her time off, but that wasn't what she wanted. The Gardens are one of the few places where she doesn't feel like climbing the walls. There's too much else going on, too many other things that require her attention. It's everywhere else that's the problem. Her apartment is too quiet and too empty and too immaculate; she can't even justify housework anymore because everything that could possibly need doing has already been done thrice over.
And she knows she has friends who would help her, who would be happy to provide company or distractions or whatever she needed. But that would require telling them. Repeating the story wouldn't make it any more real than it is already, but the thought of burdening anyone else with it -- and how could something this heavy not be a burden? -- turns her stomach. So much so that she's been politely deflecting the invitations she's received, rather than try to face anyone.
She'll say this for texting: it makes it easier to lie.
The thought of food rather turns her stomach, too, but she's getting groceries, anyway. Even if the chief appeal of cooking is making a mess that she would then have to tidy up, it's still a necessary chore. Her clothing is starting to hang a bit looser than it ought to, and she doesn't want to make new garments for what she knows, distantly, to be an impermanent state of affairs. So, groceries. She can do this.
[Find Greta looking terrible either at or en route to a grocery store, or on her way back to Candlewood. Closed unless we've spoken; hmu if you still want in.]
no subject
"Why can't you be more regular, huh?" Jesse asked, looking down at his daughter in the carrier. She answered his question with a gurgle, which he assumed was a very wise answer he just couldn't translate.
They were basically all done with grocery shopping now and he was just seeing if there was anything that he didn't know he needed just yet. Jesse thought about getting a pie of some sorts but honestly the pie at Semele's had ruined all other pie for him. It was probably best to just go home.
Turning the corner of the isle Jesse smiled down at Ripley one last time before glancing back up. What he saw at the end of the other end of the isle made him completely freeze up. His stomach lurched and his heart skipped a beat when he saw that it was Greta at the other end.
Oh. Fuck.
no subject
Not as well as he knows her, of course.
She should say something. He's looking at her as if... well, as if he's seen a ghost, fittingly enough. She doesn't want to be looked at that way, and if there's something she can do or say that might convince him that she's alive, that she's fine... but she isn't. Not fine, anyway, and arguably not alive -- not where it matters.
So she just stares back at him like a startled forest creature, to her own distant frustration. She must look so foolish.
no subject
That's the only thought that went through Jesse's mind. Fortunately it didn't also come out of his mouth too because that would have been really shitty to do. He'd already caused Greta enough pain and he didn't want to hurt her more but he also didn't want to hurt her more. His presence here couldn't be anything but painful and he can see it on her face. Just looking at him must be hurting her.
So Jesse did the cowardly but hopefully right thing and just turned around. He left his cart and all his groceries there and just turned around and left. Walking all the way to the end of the store in case she tried to catch him in one of the other isles he just made for the exit as quickly as possible and hoped that she wouldn't try to talk to him on the way out.
no subject
But leaving his groceries and fleeing as if she's carrying some sort of plague is ridiculous.
She stares at the cart in stunned silence for a moment or two, wondering if she ought to laugh or scream. Then she resolutely turns her back on it and walks in the opposite direction from the one the boy fled. Someone else can clean up that mess; she won't take charge of it. She has enough to be getting on with.