I Saw Her Standing There 8b/10

[suburban_boho]

A/N: Finally, got this last half done. Hopefully there won't be such a wait on chapters 9 and 10 but I can't guarantee anything. This one is a long chapter but I've been writing for this chapter this whole time.

Thanks to mollybeakers for encouraging me to keep in a scene of hospital life, it ended up being the transition I needed.

Enjoy!

Comments

[suburban_boho]

Thanks for your comment. I'm always pleased when I have some kind of effect on a reader and it seems I had one on you. That made my morning at the crack of stupid to get that email.

Re: Maureen's health : I could get stuck on that for ages, because all I've read and one of the facts that saddens me the most about her untimely death is that she WAS getting well. Had gone home, and spent most of late November into December at home, with her family, and then around Christmas took a turn for the worse and was gone before New Year's Eve. Somewhere I read 63 days after the transplant. I want to show that upswing, and damnit, if I HAVE to work a shitty mind numbing job (For 3 months or so) I will put it to use where I can, LOL. I take in everything I can (which is why this might be one of the most detailed chapters I've written)and hold it all.

Alice's experiences, especially the hiding and playing straight are still sadly common. It does rip lives to shreds and it's all because of the strong desire to be what society deems normal. And both parties are destroyed - Alice's husband never got to know anything about his daughter, never got to even know her name, where she's buried, anything , probably doesn't know Alice left the UK. Nothing. Just knows that she tried to kill herself because of a phone call from some random bloke that Alice was living with is all that he knows of Peter.

I debated the baby but I was always sure of the suicide attempt for Alice. She's a people pleaser and to feel she failed an expectation of her is too much and it's still a sadly common thing, I think, for closeted or just out of the closet people. The self-loathing gets too much. Maybe not for thirty plus year olds but I definitely think running from her true self for so many years stunted something in Alice emotionally. She never got to truly grow up emotionally, because she just kept focusing on something else or someone else.The baby, Angelica, became important to me when I realized Alice does very little for Alice and needed an external source to drive her to come out and come clean to herself and everyone else. Make that break, get out of a marriage that's based on a false identity. It's easier for her to do something for someone else.

Agreed, the two very different perspectives of God and his reasons for acting are important. And abound today. Alice had only had up to that point her mother's view of why God took the baby and I think that really play a number on her esteem for herself.

I'm glad the story moved you so much and had such an effect.

Thanks for your words!

[mollybeakers]

Maureen's health...

It's true. The vertebrate body is a wonderfully complex thing, and upswings before death are very common. And you're correct: the body actually begins to repair and recover, but is not always successful with that final push being a point of make or break.

Alice has been trying to live as an independent dependent person. It don't work that way, and she teeters on the edge of falling too far one way or the other. Either becoming unhealthily co-dependent, or becoming SO independent that she can't share anything with anyone. Not a good thing for a person with low self esteem. The independent has been winning, and it seems to me that this could be part of what pisses Nell off.

Shhh. I'm gonna be quiet now... ;)

JB

[suburban_boho]

No, I like your thoughts! Don't go quiet on me if you have more.

First, going back a comment (I got distracted then tired last night replying) about the hands thing- I'm glad you liked it. I think certain sense memories travel through decades and remain and I wanted to have something to bridge the gap at least emotionally if/when words failed, weren't appropriate, or human contact would just be better.

Now about the health rebound before decline- I've never until today witnessed it myself - at work I've been on a few floors and I watched one man go from complete tube feed, then tube-feed with food,which would indicate that he's getting better, then just today (not even a week from when I last served him) he was moved to Palliative Care (not ALWAYS Hospice/End of Life but I'd say 6 of 10 cases are Hospice) and the nurse informed me he wouldn't need his tray because he's there for end of life care. Mostly I've seen the decline just be a steady thing,which is why I was always so shocked by Maureen's situation but the more I work in health care, the more I have to agree that the human body is just way too complex to follow on simple path.

Sorry random tangent :-P

Anyway, about Alice. Yeah, she's definitely too far on the independent side -and teetering on complete isolating never let anyone in at all independence- for many reasons. Which is why Nell knows so little of her past- only the parts Alice has deemed important, and it's definitely some of Nell's reaction to the whole thing. Neither are saints or complete sinners. Just almost too opposite- Nell needs to be involved in too much - she should know more than she does, no doubt, but she should never have assumed that she needed to be involved in the phone call or visit. Now that I've covered almost all about Maureen and Alice's relationship that I feel needs to be told, I'll work on patching up Nell and Alice.

Thanks again :)

[mollybeakers]

Contact: All yeses. And that this seems to be 'their' particular thing, and that it began without much thought, and continues decades later without much thought is great. For them, it's simply a communicative point of connection for them.

End of life is another one of those 'things' of mine. Yeah. Don't get me started. It'll expand well beyond this story.

Alice and Nell. Holy shit, the dynamic here is fascinating.

Absolutely, everything I've been pissed at Nell for up to this point is just what you've said. No, she had absolutely no right to assume she should be involved in this situation to the degree she wants to be. HOWEVER. Had she been in command of the knowledge of what happened to Alice, things MAY be markedly different. Or may not, depending on how Nell would have processed it.

I get the feeling that both sides of this relationship has suffered from lies of omission. I can sense (meaning I could be wrong) that Nell has confessed a bit about her bad times with partners leaving her for exes... but I can imagine that these weren't exactly confessions, but bits of information given forth in the heat of an insecure argument. Or not.

Alice has all this shit she's holding, and perhaps has only shown a G-rated version of her experience with Nell. This especially seems significant when it is revealed that Alice pushes on with her story to Maureen and states that it feels GOOD to talk about it.

So if these two haven't actually shared things with each other that would eventually affect their relationship, they're in a precarious place. If a person has no clue why others react to life situations, how are they to go forward? There is no point of reference for either of them if they're living as besties with benefits instead of living as adults committed to a long term relationship. ?

Alice the helper and Nell the insecure. Powder keg and flame. Kaboom.

Shit, I don't know? Maybe BOTH of them are too leary to share and need to get past that??

JB

[suburban_boho]

'Lies of Omission' : I think often times relationships suffer more when bits and pieces are just blanked out than when all comes tumbling out, the good, the bad, the dirty. Not that everyone doesn't have a few but when they pile up, and in the case of Alice and Nell, they have (you aren't too far off on the heat of the argument 'confession' - it's more like after an argument, Nell offered up as explanation why she does what she does, says what she says. A sort of 'oh Baby, I didn't mean to be like/say/do that but it's just ...' then fill in the blanks with bits and pieces) it just adds more fuel to what is already an, as you correctly state, explosive and volatile situation.

Alice has her reasons. For years- at least 15-16, all Alice has had is the notion that she was judged by God, that she was at fault for her daughter, plus images of her father walking out at her lowest moment, just wiping his hands of her, and that guilt and shame and sadness are too much to dredge through and reveal. She's just as insecure as Nell, really, just it manifest differently. She's been ashamed and I think having the impartial ear of Maureen, who, if anyone, would give her the truth, and because of that long lost connection that was built on admiration/infatuation, having her reassurance that she's not horrible, that her parents - especially her mother- were cruel and very in the wrong, it does something for Alice's self-esteem. Plus the general freeing of finally unloading on someone.

Both Nell and Alice have some work to do, which means I do too ;).

[mollybeakers]

Lies was too strong a word. Omission of important personal information would have sufficed. Lies only become lies when there is intent to hide something. Protecting oneself by not sharing is different. Just lack of communication, yeah?

JB