899 A Whimsical Future
Months passed since that night in the alley, and barring small, minor incidents, life proceeded on for Michael pertaining with the promise of life as peaceful and as mundane as can be.
From the receding winter lights blood the vibrancy and green of bright spring, eventually stagnating to the scorching, sultry skies of a seemingly endless sumr; through the dull clank of tools and spare parts, the flying sparks of welded tal, days would pass on seamlessly from one to the next.
Each and every tomorrow dawning quiet, simple… and very, very normal.
"Are you happy, Michael?" Lilith asked him one day, the sizzle of breakfast perating the stillness of an early Sunday morning. "The way we are - are you content?"
Michael was piqued by the question, enough so to lift his eyes up from his brimming plate of bacon, eggs, and sausages, centering them forward onto the apron-clad figure skillfully flipping pancakes by the stove.
It might have been grueling, but gone were the days of having to bear the bitter taste of burnt butter, the occasional lingering scent of flour on the tongue, and the frequent complaints from many alard tenants over the abundance of smoke filling the halls of the entire apartnt floor.
At first, it seed to be just another one of her nurous whims - like going to the movies, or desiring an entire diet consisting of nothing but sweets - wanting to make their own als rather than delivered on a daily lukewarm and possibly also smushed inside crumpled paper bags.
But she went at it, slaving over the stove for hours, diligently scrubbing away each mistake and failure in the form of blackened flakes from the pan to start again, and ruminating over the pages of a cookbook propped up against the side of the fridge.
Nowadays, it was much stranger to miss a ho-cooked al than not. There has not been a single discarded paper bag in the apartnt for weeks - and would there be?
Ho-cooked als were the standard, the normal of a married couple- were they not?
Michael continued to stare, quietly watching as she rrily plated, served, and sat down across from him on the dining table, carefully squeezing her cup of coffee into the cramped assortnts of plates… all the while finding the question still yet lingering with every passing glance she threw at him.
"I don't know what you an," he finally responded.
"I an exactly as I an," Lilith said, her pancakes glistening with the slow trickle of syrup. "A job, a bit of money, a roof over our heads - rented, of course - and best of all, a loving, doting housewife ready to et your every single need."
"Okay…"
"So?" Lilith lightly licked the tip of her fingers, lips smacking with a hint of maple. "Are you content with this?"
"Content," He plopped a strip of bacon into his mouth, chewing, slowly. "You an, as in, you're asking if I'm happy?"
His wife just shrugged, loosening the knot in her apron before throwing it off to the side.
"However way you want it to an, I suppose."
Questions - especially these kinds of questions - were ones that were utterly impossible to leave unanswered. Lilith always needed, wanted to know the things she didn't. An insatiable, relentless curiosity… one that threatened to have him arriving late to work should he foolishly choose to leave it be.
"You see, the man I married, only up until recently, has never actually experienced a quiet mont in his life," Lilith elaborated. "Before bills and landlords, every day was dangerous, exciting, never really a dull mont. and to compare that to how everything is now…"
She batted her eyes at him, her head tilting slowly to the side; that terrible curiosity growing in her smile.
"I wonder if he misses it?"
Michael pondered for a mont. He considered her words, considered them carefully.
All he's done in the past, and all he's doing in the present. He never once had the notion that he actually enjoyed the thrill of peril. To him, all that he's done he did so simply out of commitnt, obligation, duty… a sworn duty that ultimately chose to walk away from.
He was tired of it all, he told himself. He wanted to live a way of life of his own will, his own choice… and that was how he eventually arrived at this… this quietness… this normalcy… and though it may seem like nothing to most… it was still more than anything he could have ever asked for.
But then another thought blitzed into his contemplating - that one mory, that one night - he didn't know it at the ti, but upon reflecting, the few tis slaving under the hood of a car reminiscing, he could at least admit that his brief encounter with Dave had stirred him with much more intrigue than any rusted bit of scrap tal in the shop possibly could.
Michael stopped thinking, and believing it firmly without the slightest doubt, he spoke his thoughts.
"I don't," and with a bite of toast, he finished. "I am content."
That stare of hers remained on Lilith's expression, so simple yet so ambiguous as if knowing more… or knowing better.
"I'm glad to hear that," She said, and she took a small bite of her food, an even smaller sip of her drink, and spoke again, her words in such a disparity with the beaming smile on her lips. "I wish I could say the sa about ."
Michael stopped chewing at once.
"aning?"
"I an exactly as I an, dear," Lilith said with a simper. "I am not content with the way we are. To be honest, I'm getting quite bored with everything."
"Bored?"
"Just the trite, simple woes of a normal housewife, you see," she sighed, perching both head and arms onto the table. "A husband that's always working, a house that's always empty, day after day for months on end… seriously, a woman can go mad, you know?"
Michael just listened, didn't speak - he didn't need to, not yet. Before, early in their relationship, whenever they ran into a problem, he used to offer suggestions, compromises, and learned very quickly that he was rely wasting his breath.
"If this is what you want, however, then I wouldn't want things any other way. So long as I'm with you, that's all I'll ever need," Lilith went on. "But like any caring husband, I believe you would want to know how I feel about things the way they are now. And just like a caring husband, I believe you would want to rectify that as soon as possible."
This was how things always ended with her. Any problem, any trouble, she herself always already had the solution. Long before he could think of anything, she already knew exactly what she wanted.
So, knowing better, Michael asked. "What are you suggesting we do about it?"
A slight smile returned to her lips, her head raising just a little higher.
"The solution's rather simple, don't you think?" Lilith said. "I'm easily bored, easily lonely, so wouldn't it be nice to have an extra set of feet running around the house?"
He blinked, long, hard, and opened them again to the most blatant smirk on her face.
"A child."
"Years of entertainnt, years of busywork, I'll never be bored again," she giggled, lifting both her brows and reaching for her drink. "Now imagine two."
Then before Michael could say anything, Lilith's hand gave a sudden jerk and coffee dribbled all over the floor from the mug she was holding, her amused expression receding, contorting, attempting and failing to muffle her coughs with her free palm.
"Sounds worse…" Michael said calmly after quiet had gradually returned to the table.
"I'm fine," Lilith assured, already wiping and clearing the spilled droplets with a ply of tissue. "Just caught by surprise this ti."
"I'll tell Jamie I'll be taking the next few days off."
"Again?"
"He'll understand. Besides, you were the one complaining about - "
"Sweet of you, Michael, but I'm fine," Lilith firmly said, clearing her throat and truly looking no worse for wear. "I'm also not letting you conveniently change the subject. Sit for a mont. Give that thought so room to breathe, hm?"
"I don't have to, Lilith," Michael said, running his fingers through his hair without thought. "We're not having children."
"I beg to differ."
"This is not a good idea."
"I disagree."
"We don't know what might happen."
"That's the fun of it."
"You had children."
"I want your children."
"Lilith, no," Michael stared at her directly, feeling a heavy weight shaping the look in his eyes. "This is not like one of your simple wants. You can't treat this like any other whimsical desire that you just - "
"And what makes you think I think of this as whimsical?" Lilith gazed back at him, and he saw too a similar shape to her eyes. It looked sharp, earnest. "I didn't choose to be with you because I thought it'd be an amusing thing to do. This is no different. I really do want this, and I really do want this with you. A child, our child… through you, I knew what it's like to love soone… now I'm more than eager to know if I'm able to love even more."
Defying her was a nigh impossible task. Especially like this. But he had to, he needed to… for she wasn't the only one that longed for the prospect… Michael had thought about it too. Perhaps too many tis to count.
Yet ultimately, he'd always arrive at the sa regrettable conclusion.
"And what of our child, Lilith? What about them?" He asked. "We bring them to this world with the weight of our past on their shoulders? We raise them, teach them, and show them the wrongs from the right. They'll love you. You'd be the kindest mother. Yet they won't know what you really are, what you did. All their life, they'll know only what you show them."
"And why would we tell them?" Lilith inquired, caught montarily off-guard by her usually mute husband's stream of sentences. "Why would they know?"
"They won't, and hopefully they never will. But could you really lie to them like that so easily?"
"Yes."
It was Michael's turn to be caught completely blindsided.
"You said you'd love them."
"Hence, the lie," she simply said. "They won't feel any burden, if there isn't any to know about. A happy little family, that will be our lie. And eventually given ti, a bit of hope, it wouldn't necessarily be a lie anymore."
"And what of their abilities?" Michael pressed on. "Who knows what they could possibly inherit from us? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything. Seven years of peace, maybe more, and then one day they manage to do sothing out of the ordinary, different from the world they know. They ask, they demand, and sooner or later, the truth cos to light. Now they know, and now they know you. The question that remains now is - can you really bear seeing your whole world turn against you once again?"
For the first ti, for as far back as Michael could recount, Lilith did not have a readied response.
"I see you've actually given this a fair bit of thought already," she muttered.
After that, it was mostly quiet. No more questions, no more suggestions. Just the silence of clattering silverware and the chirping of birds nestled by the windowsill.
Then, while absentmindedly mopping a puddle of syrup with a pancake piece, Lilith slowly raised her eyes towards him again, that weight, that shape, more prominent than ever before.
"I could," she finally answered. "Could you?"
With a creak, Michael shot out from his seat, dropping his plate and drink into the empty sink.
"Gonna be late," he said, throwing a jacket over his shirt, and sliding his feet into a shabby pair of shoes. "I'll ask Jamie for so ti off the next few days. I need the break anyway."
Lilith smiled. He saw her, recognized her expression, and heard her question a full second before she even spoke.
"Think about it more, would you?" She pleaded with him. "Promise?"
Turning, he strode over to the front door, handle in hand, before he stopped, before he sighed.
"Fine," he opened the door, exiting into the normal. "Promise."
Every had one small scene in a chapter that accidentally ballooned into a full-blown chapter of their own? Yeah, this is one of them.
Brendanjoke
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