Philippe Barrault (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
figureheading) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
wealthofnations2022-11-26 03:11 pm
figureheading) wrote in wealthofnations2022-11-26 03:11 pm
Entry tags:
fic: priceless.
Violette has taken the lead on her pregnancy, period, with Philippe for the most part trailing behind, biting his nails, because she insisted that they didn’t get the sex of the child confirmed, either would be a pleasant surprise, right, darling? All Philippe can think of as he nods is his father’s story of the Barrault lineage that almost ended with him, until he had his miracle son.
Don’t let it end with you, boy, he’d say as soon as Philippe was of an age when thinking of reproducing was no longer truly obscene. How old had he been, eleven. Possibly. Maybe twelve. Don’t let it end with you.
I won’t, Philippe had innocently answered, as if it would ever be his call to make. As if he could know.
So, when she finally, three days overdue, goes into labour, his wife, he hangs a white cloth out his car window and rushes her to the hospital. It is a mercilessly fast delivery, she screams too much to yell at him, and he stands by her side all throughout, thinking he might die before she does, really. If not die, then faint, definitely. Good God.
The nurse rubs the child until it starts wailing, the cloth obscuring what might be between its legs, until she comes over, the doctor tending to Violette, good, she’s okay, not dead, neither of them is, and places a wrinkled-looking, pink little being in his arms, saying, your daughter, sir, healthy and loud. He looks down at the tiny thing, noticing ten fingers and ten toes and definitely no male genitalia.
His heart sinks. His heart sinks, although his arms stay in the same position, supporting the head, the bottom, the rest of his new-born daughter. It took them a decade to make her.
They don’t have a decade to make a new attempt.
The girl starts crying and he is relieved to walk over to Violette, pass her on in the very way she will never pass on his name to anyone. Violette takes her, suckles her, entranced by the sight of the baby feeding. Philippe realises only then that she simply wanted a child, while he wanted so much more.
He excuses himself.
Rushes out.
Finds a secluded corner and cries.
Don’t let it end with you, boy, he’d say as soon as Philippe was of an age when thinking of reproducing was no longer truly obscene. How old had he been, eleven. Possibly. Maybe twelve. Don’t let it end with you.
I won’t, Philippe had innocently answered, as if it would ever be his call to make. As if he could know.
So, when she finally, three days overdue, goes into labour, his wife, he hangs a white cloth out his car window and rushes her to the hospital. It is a mercilessly fast delivery, she screams too much to yell at him, and he stands by her side all throughout, thinking he might die before she does, really. If not die, then faint, definitely. Good God.
The nurse rubs the child until it starts wailing, the cloth obscuring what might be between its legs, until she comes over, the doctor tending to Violette, good, she’s okay, not dead, neither of them is, and places a wrinkled-looking, pink little being in his arms, saying, your daughter, sir, healthy and loud. He looks down at the tiny thing, noticing ten fingers and ten toes and definitely no male genitalia.
His heart sinks. His heart sinks, although his arms stay in the same position, supporting the head, the bottom, the rest of his new-born daughter. It took them a decade to make her.
They don’t have a decade to make a new attempt.
The girl starts crying and he is relieved to walk over to Violette, pass her on in the very way she will never pass on his name to anyone. Violette takes her, suckles her, entranced by the sight of the baby feeding. Philippe realises only then that she simply wanted a child, while he wanted so much more.
He excuses himself.
Rushes out.
Finds a secluded corner and cries.