In the Family of Things
Written for LGBT Fest.
Rating: PG
Prompt: 1587. X-Files, Melissa Scully, Coming out made her the black sheep of the family. Now that she’s back from the West Coast, she hopes that Dana will be more open-minded.
Summary: Post-episode for Beyond the Sea. A reunion and a farewell.
Author’s Notes: Thanks to ![[info]](http://www.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
lightlack and amyhit for insight like a fine-toothed comb. Any remaining tangles are my own.
.
The first memory I have of my father is saying goodbye. We are on a wharf in front of a ship that seems to take up the entire world. Billy and I stand next to our mother, who holds Dana in her arms. Charlie has not yet been born.
In his uniform, my father is a tall shadow blocking out the sun. I squint up at him as he bends to place a kiss on my forehead. “Be a good girl for your mother,” he tells me.
Mommy has promised us ice cream cones if we behave ourselves and so I stand very still, scrunching my toes inside my shoes and watching the men climb up and up and up the ramp that takes them to the top of the ship. It makes me think of the song about the ants marching and I start to hum, swishing my dress a little with my hands. It’s hot and I’m thirsty.
The first memory I have of my father is of him striding away from us as my mother cries softly and Billy scuffs red-faced at the ground. I wait for Mommy to scold him for dirtying his shoes but instead she pulls his head against her hip and strokes his hair.
It feels like we stand there forever, waiting for the ship to leave and make some more room in the sky.
The first memory I have of my father is his absence.
*
“Hey lady, we’re here.”
The slam of a door jerks me awake and I open my eyes to my sister’s apartment building in front of me. I’m groggy from too little sleep and what I’d really like is a cup of chamomile tea and a hot bath, but I have a feeling neither is in my immediate future.
The cab driver hauls my duffel onto the sidewalk and I give him a five-dollar tip as a thank you. I’d give him an extra twenty if I thought he’d carry it all the way inside for me. As he pulls away, I take a deep breath of the frigid eastern air and think wistfully of San Francisco.
It’s almost six o’clock but no light shines through Dana’s windows. I’ve spent the whole day operating on instinct and not once did it occur to me that she might not be here when I arrived.
My father is dead and my sister’s voice on my answering machine sounded more lost than I’ve ever heard it. Worse than the nights she would crawl into my bed after a bad dream; worse than the day she left Daniel.
I look up at the building and take another breath, then let it out slowly, wishing I could bypass this grief. But I’m stronger now than I was two years ago and I’ve made my choices.
The heat inside the building awakens the tips of my ears and nose. I rap on Dana’s door in time to my nervous heartbeat and practice breathwork techniques to calm the fluttering inside me. For a few seconds I will myself into composure, until the sound of the bolt being turned back slams through me like electricity.
The woman who opens the door is not the Dana I left. She’s thinner and her hair is shorter. Her face is pale and pillow-creased and there are dark shadows under her eyes. In leggings and a baggy sweatshirt she looks small and fragile and it shocks me.
“Missy? Oh my God, what are you doing here?” She’s clutching the doorknob as though she’ll fall over if she doesn’t and I wonder if she’s eaten anything today.
“You left me a message,” I remind her. “Can I come in?”
She steps back and I drop my bag, pulling her into a hug. “Hey, little sister. You don’t look well.”
Dana’s never been very easy with physical affection and I’m not surprised to feel her stiffen for a moment. What does surprise me is the way her arms clamp around my waist and she starts to shake. My strong little sister who was always tougher, smarter, braver than all the boys is breaking my heart.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” she whispers.
“I’m sorry,” I say and stroke her hair. “I’m here now. It’ll be okay.”
We stand together and rock and rock.
*
Dana’s apartment is bland and inoffensive. I suspect the décor has much more to do with Mom’s taste than with hers. Except for books and the occasional sentimental object, my sister’s never been very interested in life’s trappings. I’d like to splash some color in here–some deep reds or lemony yellows. All this beige cannot be healthy.
We sit on her sofa drinking tea and it’s as familiar as if we saw each other only last week. Dana’s face is a little blotchy from crying as she tells me about the funeral.
“He was cremated and his ashes were spread at sea. Mom said it’s what he wanted.”
Of course, I think, surprised it hadn’t occurred to me before. How he would have hated the thought of being trapped on land for eternity. “The sea was always his first and greatest love,” I say, more to myself than to her.
“He loved us,” Dana says. “He loved Mom.”
“And he left us every chance he got.”
“Missy–” Dana sighs and rubs her temple.
This is an old, old argument, and one I’m not keen to revisit. My rancor isn’t what it used to be and I have no desire to hurt her. Not tonight.
I take her hand. “I don’t want to fight, Day. I didn’t come here for that.”
Over the rim of her mug, she looks at me with a new hardness in her face. “Why did you come?”
Because you sounded so wounded, so forlorn. Because I was terrified I was going to lose my baby sister. Because I didn’t know what else to do. “I came to see you,” I say eventually. “I came to say goodbye to Dad.”
She nods. “Does Mom know you’re here?” When I shake my head, she asks, “Are you going to see her?”
“I don’t know.”
I haven’t spoken to my mother in two years. I don’t know if I can. I’m not sure that I’ve forgiven her yet.
We sit for a little while longer with our cooling mugs of tea. Dana has to think about what she feels. When she’s decided, she’ll let me know.
Finally she puts her mug on the coffee table and stretches. “How long are you staying?”
“Just until Sunday. I have to be back at work on Monday.”
“Okay,” she says and smiles a little.
Just like that, I’m forgiven. Okay.
*
The last memory I have of my father is from 1992. We are sitting at my parents’ dinner table, five of us. It is early January, not long after New Year’s. I am thirty years old and I have just come out to my family.
My father is the first to speak. “Don’t be ridiculous, Melissa.” The cords of his neck are rigid and his face is flushed.
“Maybe you just haven’t met the right man yet, honey,” says my mother from the opposite end of the table.
Billy wades in with his own opinion that, of course, coincides with Dad’s. I hear the words “phase” and “sin.” Dana says nothing, just looks at me like I’m unrecognizable.
Voices swirl around me until I feel as though I’m at the eye of a storm. I concentrate on the feeling of air passing in and out of my lungs. I relax my clenched fists. I wait until everyone has stopped speaking.
“It’s not a phase, Dad. And I’m never going to meet the right man, Mom.” I meet my father’s eyes when I say the words I’ve practiced for tonight. “I have a girlfriend and I love her. I’d like to tell you about her; I’d like you to meet her. You can choose not to accept it, but it’s the truth. This is part of who I am.”
“I’ve heard enough,” my father says. He doesn’t raise his voice; his expression doesn’t change. “You’ve upset your mother, Melissa, and I think it’s time for you to go home. You can call us when you’ve come to your senses.”
How easily the captain dismisses his crew.
Later that night, my mother calls me. “He’s my husband, Melissa. I don’t expect you to understand.”
“And I’m your daughter.”
“You’re a grown woman now. You don’t need me anymore. Your father does.”
The last memory I have of my father is absence, too.
*
I come to wakefulness with my head buried under a pillow to escape the bright light. If Min has opened the curtains again I will be forced to hurt her. My arm slides across the bed to find a body part to whack and comes up empty. I lift my head, squinting against the sunshine, and that’s when I remember I’m at Dana’s. My sister learned the Scully
“up and at ‘em, rise and shine” motto well. I send Min a silent apology for my intended violence and flop back against the mattress.
It’s after noon but my body protests that it’s only nine. And a Saturday, too. I should be snuggled up against a naked woman in a dim bedroom in San Francisco, not going blind all alone in Georgetown, listening to my sister talk on the phone.
“Mulder, do you want them to put the catheter back in?” she’s asking. There’s a short pause. “Well then use the bed pan.”
I snort with laughter into the pillow.
Last night after Dana fell asleep next to me, I lay awake feeling the familiarity and strangeness of it. We’ve shared a bed often enough for me to know that her body asleep is just as precise and contained as her body awake. When we were little and Mom would come in to check on us at night, she would place her hand over Dana’s face to make sure she was breathing. My sister has always been such a little bundle of contradictions; a force of such focused energy that I envied her.
I don’t envy her grief.
My father loved me, provided for me, yet our relationship was never anything but strained. I felt suffocated. In every new place we moved I moulded myself to fit. It was my only means of escaping the way I never quite measured up to his expectations. Dana, though, struggled under the heavy weight of his favour. She fought so hard to do what was good, what was right, and to please him. He hurt her so much with his disapproval.
Now she’s bearing guilt among all her other burdens.
I hear clinking from the kitchen so I wander in and collapse against Dana where she’s standing at the sink, washing dishes.
“Mmph,” I say into her shoulder.
“Good morning to you, too. Or afternoon. Did I wake you?”
I yawn and turn around to peer in the fridge. “No. It was the light. Too bright.”
“You need half an hour of exposure to sunlight in winter to provide adequate Vitamin D. Trust me, I’m a doctor.” Her tone is wry.
“You’re a doctor for dead people, Day. I’ll call you when I need an autopsy.”
As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I regret them. I turn around and touch her shoulder. “I didn’t mean that.”
Her face is pale but she nods. “I know.”
She sits with me while I eat breakfast, picking at a sandwich of her own.
“Mom didn’t understand why I wanted to go back to work right away,” she tells me. “I needed something solid; I needed something else to think about. But everything seemed to circle back around to Daddy. And then–” she breaks off, crumbling bread and rolling it into little balls.
“What happened?”
“Mulder was shot. I almost lost him, too. We split up to do the search and then I heard the shot. Maybe if I’d been with him I could have–there was so much blood.”
Her hands are clasped together so tightly the knuckles are white. When I touch them, they’re cold.
“But he’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”
I can see her transformation into Dr Scully: the slight straightening of her spine; the set of her mouth; the distance. “The bullet nicked his femoral artery, but the surgeon was able to repair the damage. He’ll need some rehabilitation, but yes, he appears to be healing well.”
“And he’ll have a really cool scar to show his buddies.”
She gives me a sad little smile I don’t understand. There’s something I’m missing but all she says is, “We should probably leave soon.”
*
I make Dana stop at a mall so I can search the bookstores. All last night I struggled to find a meaningful way to farewell my father, a way to lay him to rest for me but also for Dana. I hope I’ve found it.
It’s still early in the afternoon when we arrive at a parking lot in front of a little strip of land being swallowed by water. The low sun is already rolling slowly westward and the blue of the sky is peeling back to reveal a handful of stars and a thumbnail of moon.
The car ticks quietly. The Potomac is a dull metal gray like the hull of a ship. The longer I stare at it, the larger it grows.
“Are you coming with me?” I ask.
Dana looks at me with surprise. “If you want me to.”
I am afraid. I’m afraid the way I used to be whenever Dad came home on leave; afraid because I’m an ungrateful daughter who was happiest when he was away; afraid that the sea will rise up and consume me in retribution; that my father himself will rise up in all his stern disapproval; that I will never truly be free.
“I do,” I tell her.
We leave the warmth of the car and walk along the small jetty. The air is bitter, though calm, and the shush of water moving restlessly against the pylons feels amplified in my body, as if my blood has picked up the rhythm.
I once told Dana that the important thing in life is who we meet along our path. Only now does it become clear to me that the people we leave behind, the people who leave us behind, are just as important.
I think of my father’s ashes spreading out across the Atlantic. I have spent almost my whole life trying to escape him, to wrench myself from his influence, only now to find that he is spread as finely through me as that ash. I could sift forever and never be rid of every speck.
I close my eyes and breathe slowly, deeply. I’ve spent two years away from my family, punishing myself as well as them. And now I have the irrational urge to laugh. Of course I will never be free. I look at my sister and take her hand. We are inextricably bound to each other, by genetics, by love. My father is part of that.
I take my newly purchased book out of the pocket of my coat and open it. This is for both of us, I tell her silently. I hope somehow she hears me.
“You do not have to be good,” I read. “You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.”
The silence seems deeper when I finish. I feel Dana’s little hitching breaths through our joined hands and I know she’s trying not to cry. A heron fishes in the reeds and the wind flutters the pages in my hand like wings. I am lighter. I am so much lighter.
“Who wrote that?” Dana asks eventually.
“Mary Oliver; she’s a poet.” I tell her.
“It’s beautiful.”
“I’ll leave you the book,” I say. “I have a copy at home.”
She nods and we stay side-by-side, living monuments to all the girls we’ve been who also stood at the boundaries of water saying goodbye.
*
It’s dark when we get back to Dana’s and neither of us feels like cooking. We order pizza and Dana opens a bottle of wine. The apartment is lit by soft lamps and we talk about unimportant things.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” she asks when we’re halfway through the bottle.
I set my glass on the coffee table and curl my feet underneath me. “About being gay?” She nods. This is something I’ve thought about so many times. “Until I met Min, I didn’t know. And then, after, I was confused and afraid.” I shrug. “A part of me didn’t want to say it aloud because that would make it true.”
I watch her take this in, examine it like a specimen, like evidence. The expression on her face is so familiar.
“I think I understand. I wish you had told me, but–” she looks into her wine glass and tucks her hair behind one ear. “I think I understand.”
“I’m glad,” I say. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“I know,” she says, with the first real smile I’ve seen from her since I arrived.
“What’s it like?” she asks after a moment.
“What’s what like?”
“Being with a woman.”
I almost drop the glass I’ve just picked up again. “You mean in comparison to being with a man?”
She nods.
“You’re a doctor, Dana. You should know the answer to that.”
I get a pillow thrown at me, and laugh.
“Honestly, Day, I really don’t know how to answer. She’s smart and funny and sexy and I love her. I’ve never had that with a man.”
“So you’re happy?”
I think of Min the way I left her Friday morning–sleepy and muttering obscenities in Korean when she stubbed her toe on my duffel bag. She’s so cute when she’s grumpy and half-awake. Her disgruntled, “I love you, Miss, but do you have to be such a slob?” followed by, “Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?” and her worried eyes.
“Yeah,” I say. “I am.”
“I’m glad.”
*
All the lights are off and we’re gazing at the winter sky, counting stars. It’s after midnight, already Sunday.
“I feel as though the world is emptier without him,” Dana says softly. “Even though I know it’s not true.”
I lean against her and nudge her head with my own. She sighs a little and pushes against me so that we’re holding each other up, balancing in place. I find the tiny pinprick that is Polaris in the darkness and mark its position with my finger on the glass. There is so much room in the sky.
“I know,” I tell her. “Me too.”
-Fin-
*
Notes:
The poem that Melissa reads is “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver, from the collection Dream Work.
This fic grew from an idea I had back in 2006 to write a post-ep for BtS that explains why Missy wasn’t at her father’s funeral. Almost as soon as I claimed this prompt, the character of Melissa’s girlfriend came to me and wouldn’t go away. Despite my research and lots of babbling to miss a., almost everything Min-related ended up on the cutting room floor. But I like her a lot and I want to share her, so I’m going to. Min (which means bright/clever) is 38 and a public defender. She and Missy met professionally; in my universe Missy is a social worker. Min’s parents met during the Korean War – her mother was a refugee and her father was an American GI. She has a younger brother, John, who just got married in Canada with one traditional Korean ceremony (peh bek) and one western ceremony, which is why Missy didn’t get Dana’s phone call about their father’s death and wasn’t at the funeral. Min likes turquoise jewellery and still hasn’t come out to her parents (although her brother knows) and this eventually destroys her relationship with Missy, which is why Missy is once again living in the Maryland/DC area during One Breath and beyond.
See, I told you I’d thought about this.