Molly Stearns (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
losttheright) wrote2017-09-02 04:04 am
losttheright) wrote2017-09-02 04:04 am
Entry tags:
(no subject)
This has been such a long time coming.
It's only now that they're here, that this is becoming real, that Molly has let herself think about it like that at all. She doesn't regret waiting, either, taking her time, making sure everything was right. Hell, because she did, she's wound up with a better situation than she would ever have envisioned — someone she knows and trusts, who's become a good friend of hers, whom she knows will be the kind of parent that she couldn't raising Abigail. She just also knows that this is, deep down, what she's wanted since the first morning she woke up in an empty bed, the father of her child gone. If anything, she thinks she's wanted it since before then. Her options were limited from the start, with what she was unwilling to do (again); Lee had a different approach, his own set of limitations, things he wouldn't have considered.
When it was the two of them, she could at least tell herself that maybe they could make it work, if only out of sheer determination alone. Molly isn't sure that she ever really believed that, the months after she told him she was pregnant and he walked out spent holding her breath, waiting for him to decide to do the same again, but she'd nearly convinced herself of it. Really, though, this has never been quite right and she knows it. Her days of wanting to settle down and start a family left her a long time ago, and these past months — this past year — has been more difficult than she's admitted to anyone, even herself.
Maybe now, she'll actually be able to focus on herself, to get her head on straight. She's already been approved for an apartment, ready to move out of the place she's never stopped thinking of as Lee's as soon as she's moved everything she needs to over to Jessica's. It's a step in the right direction, at least. Anything else, she'll need to work up to, but at least she'll have that chance.
She's turned it over and over in her head, and comes to the same conclusion every time: it's kind of perfect. Jessica will have a child here. She'll be able to see Abigail grow up and know that she'll be happy and healthy without having to be a parent — just a friend of the woman who's about to become her mother, a known entity in some regard but not a caregiver. And with as long as she's spent thinking about it, she knows she won't regret it. It's been almost a year since she gave birth, and never once has Molly felt like a mother. Abigail deserves better than that, and she deserves to be able to take care of herself, not wind up trapped because she missed a dose or two of her birth control pill and then her boyfriend disappeared.
Everyone comes out of this in a good position. There's a quiet sort of contentment in that, a comfort that overrides any anxiety she would otherwise feel about making this official. Besides, she knows how well this can work. As much as it hurts to think about them now, for how much she misses them, she watched Katie raise Jamie for years no differently than if he'd been her biological son, and Russell, too, once they made the adoption official on his end. They were happy, the three of them. She likes to think that Jessica and Abigail will be, too.
And if any of Jessica's family from home ever arrives here, well, there will just be one more member of it for them to meet.
"I'm glad we're doing this," she says, smile soft and warm as she looks over at Jessica, knowing as she speaks that it's true. "I'm... glad you wanted to do this." She'd have made it work regardless, but there are few people here that she trusts as much as she does Jessica, and few with whom she's been as open, too, about everything she's been dealing with. This isn't a band-aid or a temporary fix. It's what she needs to do, and she thinks — she hopes — that Jessica will feel as good about it as she does.
It's only now that they're here, that this is becoming real, that Molly has let herself think about it like that at all. She doesn't regret waiting, either, taking her time, making sure everything was right. Hell, because she did, she's wound up with a better situation than she would ever have envisioned — someone she knows and trusts, who's become a good friend of hers, whom she knows will be the kind of parent that she couldn't raising Abigail. She just also knows that this is, deep down, what she's wanted since the first morning she woke up in an empty bed, the father of her child gone. If anything, she thinks she's wanted it since before then. Her options were limited from the start, with what she was unwilling to do (again); Lee had a different approach, his own set of limitations, things he wouldn't have considered.
When it was the two of them, she could at least tell herself that maybe they could make it work, if only out of sheer determination alone. Molly isn't sure that she ever really believed that, the months after she told him she was pregnant and he walked out spent holding her breath, waiting for him to decide to do the same again, but she'd nearly convinced herself of it. Really, though, this has never been quite right and she knows it. Her days of wanting to settle down and start a family left her a long time ago, and these past months — this past year — has been more difficult than she's admitted to anyone, even herself.
Maybe now, she'll actually be able to focus on herself, to get her head on straight. She's already been approved for an apartment, ready to move out of the place she's never stopped thinking of as Lee's as soon as she's moved everything she needs to over to Jessica's. It's a step in the right direction, at least. Anything else, she'll need to work up to, but at least she'll have that chance.
She's turned it over and over in her head, and comes to the same conclusion every time: it's kind of perfect. Jessica will have a child here. She'll be able to see Abigail grow up and know that she'll be happy and healthy without having to be a parent — just a friend of the woman who's about to become her mother, a known entity in some regard but not a caregiver. And with as long as she's spent thinking about it, she knows she won't regret it. It's been almost a year since she gave birth, and never once has Molly felt like a mother. Abigail deserves better than that, and she deserves to be able to take care of herself, not wind up trapped because she missed a dose or two of her birth control pill and then her boyfriend disappeared.
Everyone comes out of this in a good position. There's a quiet sort of contentment in that, a comfort that overrides any anxiety she would otherwise feel about making this official. Besides, she knows how well this can work. As much as it hurts to think about them now, for how much she misses them, she watched Katie raise Jamie for years no differently than if he'd been her biological son, and Russell, too, once they made the adoption official on his end. They were happy, the three of them. She likes to think that Jessica and Abigail will be, too.
And if any of Jessica's family from home ever arrives here, well, there will just be one more member of it for them to meet.
"I'm glad we're doing this," she says, smile soft and warm as she looks over at Jessica, knowing as she speaks that it's true. "I'm... glad you wanted to do this." She'd have made it work regardless, but there are few people here that she trusts as much as she does Jessica, and few with whom she's been as open, too, about everything she's been dealing with. This isn't a band-aid or a temporary fix. It's what she needs to do, and she thinks — she hopes — that Jessica will feel as good about it as she does.