More backstory - Len's parents
Three snippets of Bordens' family history, 1962 to 1975
Worksafe, dammit
Much love and thanks to hibem and andmydog
Autumn 1962, Berkley
Being back at the campus was wonderful. After the noisy claustrophobic confinement of the suburbs even the dorms seemed airy and tranquil, and the months before winter break felt like a small eternity stretching promisingly before her. She spent the day of her arrival filling out forms and organising her schedule for the next semester, and hit the library the next day, right after breakfast.
Clifford Borden smiled at her from his usual table, and she took a seat next to him, by the open window, drinking in the familiar view of the buildings, trees and freshmen lazing on the lawn.
“Welcome back,” he said, looking just as happy to see the end of the summer as she felt. “Was it awful for you too?”
“Yes,” she confessed. “My younger sister got engaged. Now the family is pressuring me into marriage as if they expect a herd of camels from the deal.”
“But you’re barely twenty.”
“Twenty two. Sylvia is eighteen. I don’t understand either.”
“Amusingly enough, I’m in a similar predicament,” he said, rearranging his books on the table. He looked a little less thin, as he always did after going home, but the bones of his wrists still stood out sharply under his too-short cuffs. She liked watching his hands; there was a certain hypnotic quality in the way he moved, easily, fluidly, with a quiet, understated grace. “My grandmother - she’s feeling worse again.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“There’s nothing to be done. But everybody seems to consider it my duty to present her with a fiancée while I still can.”
“Ah. So there are downsides to being the only child as well.”
“Indeed,” he said, giving her another friendly smile. He’d gotten a haircut, probably at his family’s insistence, and she found herself missing the shine of his bright hair, the way it used to fall freely across his forehead and collar.
They studied a little in a companionable silence, but she felt her thoughts drifting, so slightly she couldn’t even tell the direction they were trying to flow in.
“Elaine,” Clifford said. “Would you like to marry me?”
She marked the page in her optics textbook, closed the volume and considered his words for a while.
“That’s an excellent idea,” she said. “Are you a protestant?”
“Yes. Baptised, not practising.”
“Then it’s settled,” she nodded. “I will chip in for the engagement ring - it needs to be fairly decent, I’m afraid. I’ll have to get back to you with the exact amount I can manage.”
“That won’t be necessary. My grandmother already gave me hers. It’s antique by now, and not very horrendous, I promise.”
He leaned over, pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and touched the back of her hand with his fingertips. They were slightly damp and very cold. For some reason, she expected him to feel warmer.
“But it needs to be adjusted,” he said. “Let me see…”
His fingers snaked between hers, warming up quickly, gauging the circumference of her ring finger. She shifted in her chair to make sure her elbow was supported before it started to tremble. Her arm felt heavy and numb, as if it belonged to somebody else.
“I’m a virgin,” she said, addressing the side of his neck, unnecessarily and too loud.
“Mhm, me too,” he said, carefully removing his fingers from her skin, not raising his eyes. “We don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
She turned back to her book, gripping it tightly. The lines of text jumped in front of her eyes in time with the pounding of her pulse. Clifford was organising his notes in complex stacks, and the rustling of paper echoed loudly in the empty room.
“Actually,” she said.
“Yes?”
“I think we have to. It’s too...”
“Distracting.”
“Yes.”
“What do you…” he said, and then his voice caught and failed. He lifted his hand to tug at his hair and sighed when his fingers met nothing.
“My roommate isn’t due back for hours. I don’t think it takes long,” she said.
He nodded, still not looking at her, and gathered his books.
Somewhere in the middle of the walk to her dorm he took her hand and held it for a while, awkwardly dipping his shoulder to compensate for their height difference. Both their palms began to sweat profusely right away, and they had to stop and wipe them with her handkerchief. His hands were cold again, shaking.
“It’s going to be fine,” she said. “I have a very solid understanding of everything involved.”
“Me too,” he said. “It’s probably hormonal release. I don’t know. But yes. I anticipate no complications.”
She smiled at him encouragingly and led the way, fumbling the keys out of her pocket, fighting a strange urge to fling herself at him, dramatically, open-armed, pin him to the lush green of the freshly mowed lawn and kiss his pale lips till they flushed and bruised.
It would be much more comfortable in bed, of course.
Spring 1967, Berkley
When she walked into the apartment, Clifford was grading papers at the kitchen table with his back to the stove. Chicken soup, the only thing she’d been able to keep down lately, was bubbling in a pan, filling the room with a comforting, domestic smell.
“What did the doctor say?” Clifford asked, setting down the pencil. “Are you hungry?”
“No. The doctor says my stomach is fine. The doctor says it’s a pregnancy.”
He blinked up at her, mouth gaping, bright ginger strands falling over his eyes.
“But,” he said. “But. Oh. I see.”
She sat down at the table, dizzy with week-old hunger, tired and numb. Clifford’s expression was stunned, and nothing else.
“I want you to be a part of this decision,” she said. She’d been rehearsing that line all the way back from the hospital. What she really wanted was curl into a ball on the floor and cry till she passed out. Or possibly punch him.
“I see,” he said. “Well. It’s your body, Elaine. I can help you gather and organise the data, but the decision can only be yours.”
She sunk her fingernails into her palms, feeling ridiculously alone, considering the situation.
“There is a chance that abortion will irreversibly damage your reproductive function,” he said. “I’m not sure if you want to put that in the pros or cons column. Your maternal instinct might wake up.”
“Or it might not. It will be just as irreversible if I keep this and it doesn’t.”
“Well, we can always put it up for adoption. Or I’m sure my parents will be glad to take it in and raise it.”
“From an ecological and ethical standpoint, the right thing to do is to abort this one and, should the instinct demand so, adopt an orphan,” she said, resolutely meeting his glance. The gravity of the situation was finally getting trough to him. All colour had drained from his face, making his eyes look bigger and brighter, terrified.
“Elaine,” he said. “I will accept any decision you will make on this. But, forgive me if I’m pointing out the completely obvious, but this child, our child, has really good odds, genetically speaking, at being exceptionally gifted. I can’t - my mind recoils at the very thought of destroying something with this much potential. But I have no moral right to tell you…”
“You’re right,” she said, cupping her hands over her stomach. “Oh…”
She could almost feel it inside her, since she'd been told, like a foreign growth than needed to be scraped out, cleaned away. But now, when it had potential IQ, it was suddenly alive, real. A little girl with her face and his hair. A long-limbed boy with his mouth and her eyes.
“Clifford,” she said. “I’m...”
She curled forward, sliding from the chair on the floor, and began crying, choking on sobs, nauseous and weak, breathless.
“Elaine,” he was kneeling next to her, touching her shoulders. “Please don’t do this. Please don’t. We’ll get rid of it. Tomorrow. Please don’t.”
“No, no,” she leaned on him, realising dully that he’d never seen her cry before. “We’ll give it a try. There is plenty of time to reconsider. And even then.”
“Yes, yes. So many options.”
They were quiet for a while, listening to each other’s breathing and the boiling of the soup on the stove.
“We need to figure out the dates,” he said. “Plan it out. It’ll probably be close to midterms. We’ll need to rearrange everything.”
“Yes,” she wiped her face and rose to her feet. “Let’s do that.”
Christmas 1975, Walnut Creek, CA
The room was crowded, stuffy and noisy. The music was too muted to catch the words, which Leonard always found annoying, and yet just loud enough to force everyone to strain their voices trying to talk over it, distorting all the inflections and making them sound slightly manic.
Since they’d been shown into the room and found a spot to occupy, Elaine had hardly moved in her seat. She kept her back straight, her hands in her lap and her face smiling. Clifford stood next to her with his hand on the back of her chair, looking like he was posing for a Victorian style family portrait. His eyes were unfocused and hazy, which meant he was writing an article in his head.
A bunch of children darted through the room, screaming something poorly enunciated and bumping against people’s knees. A woman with a cocktail glass in one hand and cake plate in the other gave a half-hearted angry shout from the couch, but they ignored her and ran back, ramming themselves into every object in their path and giggling hysterically. The adults kept warning them to watch out, but colliding with things seemed to be the point of the game, as far as Leonard could tell.
“I’m so glad Leonard is not like that,” said Elaine quietly and widened her smile a fraction.
“Why would he be?” Clifford shrugged, not breaking his trance.
“Aw, little Lenny!” shrieked Aunt Sylvia, cornering him against the bookcase. He flashed a panicky glance to his parents, and they gave him matching sombre, commiserating looks. He was on his own. “Well, aren’t you cute, and you’re getting so tall! What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“A fireman,” he said glumly, keeping still as she petted his hair and pinched his cheek. That was technically assault, he was pretty sure. She cooed some more and turned to Clifford.
“Hey, you’ve put on weight, haven’t you?” she poked him in the belly with her finger, and he nearly made a sound. “Before Elaine got her hands on you, you looked like a movie star.”
“He was clinically underweight,” said Elaine. “He’s healthy now. Thank you for noticing.”
The woman laughed very loudly and moved to another part of the room.
“Can we go home now?” asked Clifford, barely moving his lips.
“No,” said Elaine. Her knuckles were white and Leonard almost wanted to reach out and touch them, make them relax.
“When can we go home?” he asked instead, choosing to be practical.
“About six pm, I think. It depends on the overall atmosphere. Leonard, are you genuinely considering a career in fire protection?”
“No,” he said. “I haven’t decided what I want to do.”
“Well, you’re only seven,” nodded Clifford.
“Eight,” Leonard said. It always took Clifford at least half a year to adjust to the new number. “I think either physics or math, but I’m not sure.”
“Physics will give you more opportunities,” said Clifford quickly and Elaine gave his sleeve a small protesting tug. “But of course it’s up to you.”
They looked like they needed to talk. Leonard retreated to the corner and tried plundering the bookcase again. This time he successfully retrieved a large volume on Civil War, heavy and glossy, smelling breathtakingly of fresh ink, and curled up under the snacks table, skimming the preface. He had time for at least several chapters.
“Hey, look, it’s him!”
The kids had spotted his hiding place and were staring at him, kneeling at the side of the sofa with their heads bent low, hair touching the carpet. He knew that at least two of them were his cousins - he’d even been told their names, but they’d slipped his mind right away. They were probably trying to be friendly.
He put the book down and looked at them. The children blinked, squirmed, huffed and backed away, and resumed running shortly thereafter.
He pushed the book closer to the edge of the table to get more light on the page, propped his head up and didn’t remember much about the party after that, till Elaine knocked on the table top and asked him to come out and find his coat.
Worksafe, dammit
Much love and thanks to hibem and andmydog
Autumn 1962, Berkley
Being back at the campus was wonderful. After the noisy claustrophobic confinement of the suburbs even the dorms seemed airy and tranquil, and the months before winter break felt like a small eternity stretching promisingly before her. She spent the day of her arrival filling out forms and organising her schedule for the next semester, and hit the library the next day, right after breakfast.
Clifford Borden smiled at her from his usual table, and she took a seat next to him, by the open window, drinking in the familiar view of the buildings, trees and freshmen lazing on the lawn.
“Welcome back,” he said, looking just as happy to see the end of the summer as she felt. “Was it awful for you too?”
“Yes,” she confessed. “My younger sister got engaged. Now the family is pressuring me into marriage as if they expect a herd of camels from the deal.”
“But you’re barely twenty.”
“Twenty two. Sylvia is eighteen. I don’t understand either.”
“Amusingly enough, I’m in a similar predicament,” he said, rearranging his books on the table. He looked a little less thin, as he always did after going home, but the bones of his wrists still stood out sharply under his too-short cuffs. She liked watching his hands; there was a certain hypnotic quality in the way he moved, easily, fluidly, with a quiet, understated grace. “My grandmother - she’s feeling worse again.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“There’s nothing to be done. But everybody seems to consider it my duty to present her with a fiancée while I still can.”
“Ah. So there are downsides to being the only child as well.”
“Indeed,” he said, giving her another friendly smile. He’d gotten a haircut, probably at his family’s insistence, and she found herself missing the shine of his bright hair, the way it used to fall freely across his forehead and collar.
They studied a little in a companionable silence, but she felt her thoughts drifting, so slightly she couldn’t even tell the direction they were trying to flow in.
“Elaine,” Clifford said. “Would you like to marry me?”
She marked the page in her optics textbook, closed the volume and considered his words for a while.
“That’s an excellent idea,” she said. “Are you a protestant?”
“Yes. Baptised, not practising.”
“Then it’s settled,” she nodded. “I will chip in for the engagement ring - it needs to be fairly decent, I’m afraid. I’ll have to get back to you with the exact amount I can manage.”
“That won’t be necessary. My grandmother already gave me hers. It’s antique by now, and not very horrendous, I promise.”
He leaned over, pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and touched the back of her hand with his fingertips. They were slightly damp and very cold. For some reason, she expected him to feel warmer.
“But it needs to be adjusted,” he said. “Let me see…”
His fingers snaked between hers, warming up quickly, gauging the circumference of her ring finger. She shifted in her chair to make sure her elbow was supported before it started to tremble. Her arm felt heavy and numb, as if it belonged to somebody else.
“I’m a virgin,” she said, addressing the side of his neck, unnecessarily and too loud.
“Mhm, me too,” he said, carefully removing his fingers from her skin, not raising his eyes. “We don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
She turned back to her book, gripping it tightly. The lines of text jumped in front of her eyes in time with the pounding of her pulse. Clifford was organising his notes in complex stacks, and the rustling of paper echoed loudly in the empty room.
“Actually,” she said.
“Yes?”
“I think we have to. It’s too...”
“Distracting.”
“Yes.”
“What do you…” he said, and then his voice caught and failed. He lifted his hand to tug at his hair and sighed when his fingers met nothing.
“My roommate isn’t due back for hours. I don’t think it takes long,” she said.
He nodded, still not looking at her, and gathered his books.
Somewhere in the middle of the walk to her dorm he took her hand and held it for a while, awkwardly dipping his shoulder to compensate for their height difference. Both their palms began to sweat profusely right away, and they had to stop and wipe them with her handkerchief. His hands were cold again, shaking.
“It’s going to be fine,” she said. “I have a very solid understanding of everything involved.”
“Me too,” he said. “It’s probably hormonal release. I don’t know. But yes. I anticipate no complications.”
She smiled at him encouragingly and led the way, fumbling the keys out of her pocket, fighting a strange urge to fling herself at him, dramatically, open-armed, pin him to the lush green of the freshly mowed lawn and kiss his pale lips till they flushed and bruised.
It would be much more comfortable in bed, of course.
Spring 1967, Berkley
When she walked into the apartment, Clifford was grading papers at the kitchen table with his back to the stove. Chicken soup, the only thing she’d been able to keep down lately, was bubbling in a pan, filling the room with a comforting, domestic smell.
“What did the doctor say?” Clifford asked, setting down the pencil. “Are you hungry?”
“No. The doctor says my stomach is fine. The doctor says it’s a pregnancy.”
He blinked up at her, mouth gaping, bright ginger strands falling over his eyes.
“But,” he said. “But. Oh. I see.”
She sat down at the table, dizzy with week-old hunger, tired and numb. Clifford’s expression was stunned, and nothing else.
“I want you to be a part of this decision,” she said. She’d been rehearsing that line all the way back from the hospital. What she really wanted was curl into a ball on the floor and cry till she passed out. Or possibly punch him.
“I see,” he said. “Well. It’s your body, Elaine. I can help you gather and organise the data, but the decision can only be yours.”
She sunk her fingernails into her palms, feeling ridiculously alone, considering the situation.
“There is a chance that abortion will irreversibly damage your reproductive function,” he said. “I’m not sure if you want to put that in the pros or cons column. Your maternal instinct might wake up.”
“Or it might not. It will be just as irreversible if I keep this and it doesn’t.”
“Well, we can always put it up for adoption. Or I’m sure my parents will be glad to take it in and raise it.”
“From an ecological and ethical standpoint, the right thing to do is to abort this one and, should the instinct demand so, adopt an orphan,” she said, resolutely meeting his glance. The gravity of the situation was finally getting trough to him. All colour had drained from his face, making his eyes look bigger and brighter, terrified.
“Elaine,” he said. “I will accept any decision you will make on this. But, forgive me if I’m pointing out the completely obvious, but this child, our child, has really good odds, genetically speaking, at being exceptionally gifted. I can’t - my mind recoils at the very thought of destroying something with this much potential. But I have no moral right to tell you…”
“You’re right,” she said, cupping her hands over her stomach. “Oh…”
She could almost feel it inside her, since she'd been told, like a foreign growth than needed to be scraped out, cleaned away. But now, when it had potential IQ, it was suddenly alive, real. A little girl with her face and his hair. A long-limbed boy with his mouth and her eyes.
“Clifford,” she said. “I’m...”
She curled forward, sliding from the chair on the floor, and began crying, choking on sobs, nauseous and weak, breathless.
“Elaine,” he was kneeling next to her, touching her shoulders. “Please don’t do this. Please don’t. We’ll get rid of it. Tomorrow. Please don’t.”
“No, no,” she leaned on him, realising dully that he’d never seen her cry before. “We’ll give it a try. There is plenty of time to reconsider. And even then.”
“Yes, yes. So many options.”
They were quiet for a while, listening to each other’s breathing and the boiling of the soup on the stove.
“We need to figure out the dates,” he said. “Plan it out. It’ll probably be close to midterms. We’ll need to rearrange everything.”
“Yes,” she wiped her face and rose to her feet. “Let’s do that.”
Christmas 1975, Walnut Creek, CA
The room was crowded, stuffy and noisy. The music was too muted to catch the words, which Leonard always found annoying, and yet just loud enough to force everyone to strain their voices trying to talk over it, distorting all the inflections and making them sound slightly manic.
Since they’d been shown into the room and found a spot to occupy, Elaine had hardly moved in her seat. She kept her back straight, her hands in her lap and her face smiling. Clifford stood next to her with his hand on the back of her chair, looking like he was posing for a Victorian style family portrait. His eyes were unfocused and hazy, which meant he was writing an article in his head.
A bunch of children darted through the room, screaming something poorly enunciated and bumping against people’s knees. A woman with a cocktail glass in one hand and cake plate in the other gave a half-hearted angry shout from the couch, but they ignored her and ran back, ramming themselves into every object in their path and giggling hysterically. The adults kept warning them to watch out, but colliding with things seemed to be the point of the game, as far as Leonard could tell.
“I’m so glad Leonard is not like that,” said Elaine quietly and widened her smile a fraction.
“Why would he be?” Clifford shrugged, not breaking his trance.
“Aw, little Lenny!” shrieked Aunt Sylvia, cornering him against the bookcase. He flashed a panicky glance to his parents, and they gave him matching sombre, commiserating looks. He was on his own. “Well, aren’t you cute, and you’re getting so tall! What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“A fireman,” he said glumly, keeping still as she petted his hair and pinched his cheek. That was technically assault, he was pretty sure. She cooed some more and turned to Clifford.
“Hey, you’ve put on weight, haven’t you?” she poked him in the belly with her finger, and he nearly made a sound. “Before Elaine got her hands on you, you looked like a movie star.”
“He was clinically underweight,” said Elaine. “He’s healthy now. Thank you for noticing.”
The woman laughed very loudly and moved to another part of the room.
“Can we go home now?” asked Clifford, barely moving his lips.
“No,” said Elaine. Her knuckles were white and Leonard almost wanted to reach out and touch them, make them relax.
“When can we go home?” he asked instead, choosing to be practical.
“About six pm, I think. It depends on the overall atmosphere. Leonard, are you genuinely considering a career in fire protection?”
“No,” he said. “I haven’t decided what I want to do.”
“Well, you’re only seven,” nodded Clifford.
“Eight,” Leonard said. It always took Clifford at least half a year to adjust to the new number. “I think either physics or math, but I’m not sure.”
“Physics will give you more opportunities,” said Clifford quickly and Elaine gave his sleeve a small protesting tug. “But of course it’s up to you.”
They looked like they needed to talk. Leonard retreated to the corner and tried plundering the bookcase again. This time he successfully retrieved a large volume on Civil War, heavy and glossy, smelling breathtakingly of fresh ink, and curled up under the snacks table, skimming the preface. He had time for at least several chapters.
“Hey, look, it’s him!”
The kids had spotted his hiding place and were staring at him, kneeling at the side of the sofa with their heads bent low, hair touching the carpet. He knew that at least two of them were his cousins - he’d even been told their names, but they’d slipped his mind right away. They were probably trying to be friendly.
He put the book down and looked at them. The children blinked, squirmed, huffed and backed away, and resumed running shortly thereafter.
He pushed the book closer to the edge of the table to get more light on the page, propped his head up and didn’t remember much about the party after that, till Elaine knocked on the table top and asked him to come out and find his coat.