Hemingway. (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ernestoic) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} spinningcompass,@ 2016-06-20 12:40:00 |
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Where? Their apartment
When? Last night
What? Father's day chat etc
Open? No
Warnings? TBD
Hemingway really hadn't expected anything. He knew Abi, and he knew Charlie, so of course the handprint painting and teddy hadn't surprised him, but they would have been more than enough. He loved them, in fact. The typewriter had been over the top, but he understood why Abi would want to do that. It had thrilled him, and he'd spent a good ten minutes messing about with it before he even bothered to open up the piece of paper that he had simply assumed would be a letter from his not-wife. Always a pleasure to receive, but nothing- nothing- could have prepared him for what he had actually found.
He had been overwhelmed. There had been a lot of loud swearing followed by very real tears. A whole mixture of feelings, and none of them negative. When they had come back from delivering Clint's gifts, Hemingway had hugged their boy so tightly the kid had been squirming and laughing and calling him silly. He'd hugged Abi just as tightly, and life had gone on. There had been playing outside, climbing trees while Abi fussed more over Hemingway breaking something than Charlie- he was the old man, after all, she enjoyed reminding him. And there had been sandwiches sitting at a park bench, convincing Charlie to take one more bite and then he could try the twirly slide again. There was holding down one side of a seesaw with Charlie up in the air, legs kicking, squealing giggles, begging to be let down and then begging him to do it again almost immediately after his feet were back on the ground.
After all of the fun, Charlie had pretty much passed out come bedtime, not keeping his eyes open past one page of a story. Afterwards, Hemingway had gone to his study to look at the typewriter again, marvel at the old-newness of it. No personal history to it. A new start, a new life.
But there was the thought that had been with him most of the day, even if he hadn't been thinking directly on it. Picking up a couple of photographs, he sat down at his desk and examined them. His other boys. The ones who wouldn't get to meet their new brother. The ones who would endlessly remain the same age in Ernest's head, even if they had to be growing up in his absence. What were they like now? What was happening?
It would never reach them of course, but if he could just pretend that it would then it would help. He took out some paper, and with the photos in front of him he started to write a letter to tell them about Abi and Charlie, to ask questions about their life that would never be answered, to tell them that he loved them even though he wasn't there right now. And it only took a few sentences for him to suspend his disbelief and buy in to the small act.