Chapter Text
(5)
Any good diagnostician would catch the first signs even in herself that something was off, but damn, it took her a month to seriously understand what was wrong. Helena had missed her period, twice now since November.
Now a month into 1953, she felt ill, especially in the mornings and her appetite was off. A quick consultation with a doctor at Mount Sinai during a momentary respite from solving medical cases, confirmed her thoughts. She doubted it was a good thing the firs thing she thought was: Oh, fuck.
It was too early, but goddammit…she was pregnant. She told Janet first. Her only truly loyal friend and closest thing she had to a sister. Janet, always one to look for the brightside, tried to give her pros, but saw quickly how to Helena this was a con. She knew she couldn't be a doctor while pregnant, knowing Mount Sinai's policies, she would be very politely asked to hand in her resignation. And her days as the hospital, at least as a doctor would be over.
A chapter of her life would come to a close, and she doubted how with a child, she could ever work her normal hours again. She had naively thought that she had a little more…time. That she and Jack weren't together that often, things would not slip past. But no.
She knew the pressure she was under daily would not do any good to the baby and she was sure her mother and Joe knew, that even as the ground work for her marriage to Jack was being laid, that her career was reaching its sunset. The cordial "If you can manage all these aspects, why should you stop".
Still, a housewife, she would not become. No. She'd find a way to fill her days different to that of a wife confined to the same four walls and a screaming baby while the husband goes past all respectable office hours.
To go about telling Jack the news, she decided to get it out of the way quickly. Sitting by the window, on a dark blue chez long in her bedroom, in the John Kennedys apartment on Park Avenue, New York. She held the powder blue handset to her ear, breathing softly into the microphone as she waited to be connected to, first Jack's secretary, Evelyn Lincoln, then to Jack's inner office phone. Her eyes watched the rain drops fall against the cool glass, cloud coverage heavy over the city in the winter of 1953. The room around her was decorated in shades of blue, not unlike the telephone in her hand. The phone crackled and Jack's voice was slightly breathless. She didn't wonder for too long "why?".
"Hello, Doc. Surprised to hear from you." She was surprised how easily humor came to him.
"I haven't said anything yet." Her tone slightly at a lower pitch, with a spec of melancholy.
He seemed to hear that little hitch in her voice, and his voice turned from casually humorous to a more approchable quality: "You usually don't call…that's new, Helena. You're normally at work around now."
She knew he was right, she was never the one to call or comment when he didn't.
"Yes…but I…I got off early." Morelike, packed my things up, after correctly assuming I would no longer be asked to come in. "I…I no longer work at Sinai."
"Wha-why?"
"My situation has changed. Hospital policy dictates, well, unofficially-"
"Your situation?" If she could see his face, she knew he would be looking at her with that slightly confused look that reminded her of a puppy.
"Jack, I'm pregnant." Helena heard his breath catch. "So, you see why…I called."
Then she heard on the other end of the line. "Senator, I can't do my best if you're like this…so stiff…" Barely audible, but Jack's breathing was quiet enough and the…assistant's voice loud enough.
Helena rolled her eyes at the realization. By now, she'd seen it more often than not of her husband leaving her stranded at parties, charity balls and even at mutual friends dinner parties. She'd caught on quick enough, he wasn't slick or very good at hiding.
"I see that I've called at an inopportune time. I'll let you…gather yourself and we'll discuss the new developements over the weekend. The cocktail party for Inez Cob, dinner for Colonel Atkinson at the Statler, and the reception for the Honorable and Mrs. Farrington at the Congressional Club?" Her air had shifted to that very clinical, almost sounding like how she spoke with her patients. Closed off, direct, and cold. (she wasn't known around Mount Sinai for being a warm and pleasant doctor, but a quick and correct diagnostician)
"Hel-Helena, I…" It seems he knew he was caught. Was he trying to cover it up or catch her before she hung up?
Either way: "Tell, Miss Whatever-her-name-is, to speak in more dulcet tones or her voice will be heard in New York City. I'll see you Friday." With that setting the handset down on the switch hook. Her skin tingled with heat, so she leaned her forehead against the cool window pane. Eyes falling shut, listening to only the sounds of the world outside and the downpour. Breath in, and out.
Her left hand creaped up to rest on her stomach, knowing what was beyond the fabric of her clothes and inside her. There nothing much to feel yet, but the thought was enough. She would become a mother. She prayed to God, nothing like her own.
-Change of POV-
Jack Kennedy didn't embarass easily. Or so he'd led himself to believe. Now he doubted what he even knew anymore. That…that whole phone call and Miss Quinton, had been…deebly mortifing. He usually brushed of any and all such occurences. But now, he didn't know what to feel.
He was going to be a father. Him, Jack Kennedy, a man who's fatalistic life led him to believe he wouldn't live past 45, was now, well, more like in over half a year, becoming a father.
And his wife had heard the voice of another woman over the phone just as she'd delivered the news to him. He heard the barely-open latch of a new room in their lifehouse, slam shut. That removed delivery, of reciting their scheduled joint appearences, took away any chance of him explaining away the voice of the woman kneeling at his feet, the fly of his trousers open, and her hand on him. It was intentional, he got that. To not let him even try to lie.
Suffice to say, Miss Quinton would be finding other employment elsewhere. She wasn't discreet.
He was going to be a father.
God, he didn't even have a chance to feel joy over the news. He remembered he didn't feel any hint of happiness in Helena's voice either as she told him.
"Aren't we a merry pair?" She had rhetorically said at their wedding reception, her tone in deadpann.
Merry, indeed.
"Mrs. Lincoln, can you clear my schedule for the rest of the day? I'm going out."
He liked his daily schedules packed, but he needed to ruminate and reflect for more than just a few moments before an inevitable second wave of news would hit.
"Yes, Senator." Mrs. Lincoln answered, in a dutiful manner. Although Jack noted her slightly raised brow. His shoulders more hunched and his coat slung loosely over his wirethin frame. Scarf haphazardly covering the column of his neck.
He headed out, leaving behind the Senate Office Building.
- Back to Helena's POV-
—
It was late in the afternoon, when Helena arrived in a taxi on O Street, holding a suitcase while the driver took out the second. Fancy dress frocks took up more luggage space, and still it surprised her everytime, warranting the second suitcase. The gray stone steps up to the house weren't slipper like the street had been. Little bits of stone chips, sneaked into her boots.
Jack wasn't supposed to be home until late, ordinarily. Helena reached for the door handle when it opened and there was Jack, clad in blue cashmere sweater and grey trousers, out of his daily suit of choice.
Would she be unkind if she thought she didn't want to see him there, looking like he'd waited for her arrival. After their tumultuous phone call, she wasn't exactly pleased to see him. But he took her suitcase out of her hand, and picked up the other one by her side.
With his back, she doubted these moves were doing him any favors. "I was fine with-"
"It's freezing, get inside." He stopped her. The quality of his voice faint, gentle even. "I can take these upstairs while you take your coat off."
Wrinkles formed between her brows, with one brow tilting upward at the soft command in his timbre, as he did head upstairs to their bedroom, though looking to be a bit unsteady on his trek.
She hung up her coat on the coatrack, removing her brown boots, sock clad feet touching the cool wood floor. Then a strange smell reached her nose. Burning.
So, going against her original plan of being a silent partner that evening. "Jack, is something burning?" Her head directed toward the staircase. She heard a string of curses as her husband came barrelling down the stairs toward the kitchen. Huh? Following him, arms behind her back.
And for the first time, to her recollection, she saw her husband attend to something inside the oven while another thing (she wasn't sure what this scene she was witnessing was about) was over-boiling on the stove top. "Where's Adeline? Jack, what's goin-"
"Damn!" And deep grey smoke left the open oven door. Helena got closer to see something in a cake tin, looking like a pit of cole. Turning off the stove and opening a window while Jack, cursed again and Jack disposed of the burnt specimen. The room smelt as burnt as the thing in the tin looked.
The cool January wafted in, with a wintery breeze joining in. Helena leaned her elbows on the window sill as she observed the zone in the kitchen. Jack having the bin open, trying to remove the over-roasted thing from the tin, the pot no longer over flowing, but remnants of it streaked the sides of the steel dish, a large salad bowl with half cut greens strewn in with a cutting board next to it. There was flour on some counters, and on the floor. Containers open and laid out across the moss green countertops. A recipe book on the small breakfast table in the not-so-large space.
"This looks like warzone." She made him chuckle. She didn't know how to feel about that. "I'll ask again, where's Adeline?"
"Home with her boys. I told her that I'd be…fine."
"You were trying to cook?" Her eyes widening, arms crossing over her stomach. Never had she thought he'd. "And it's been going swell."
"Don't mock." He smiled, fading quickly from his features. "I…I upset you."
"I didn't think you'd notice." Sharp like a razor blade, he looked cut by her words.
Helena knew by now he prided himself on his observational skills, it just in her opinion lacked in the department of their strange and unusual marriage.
His eyes avoided hers, gaze drifting away to the messy stove and not his messy marriage, voice low. "I did." He looked to accept her. "I'm not…good with…this." Making up or talking about an issue, Helena finished the sentence in her head.
"And you're not good at cooking." She added.
He huffed, a flash of amusement crossing him. "Don't make me laugh when I'm being serious."
"But you're not." A pause. "I'm not either. At this." She gestured at the four foot long gap between them, in-earnest.
"We're good on camera, but away from the lense, we're out of focus."
It was her turn to huff out a laugh. "I get it, you're a writer. No need to wax poetic to me. Jack, face it, we're far from being a husband and wife, aside from signing the paperwork and sharing spaces and last names."
"And a child." His green eyes lingered on her middle.
She'd almost forgotten. "Yes, that, too. But we don't…behave like one." She almost used the word "act", which was reserved more to their public personas. "I have never given you a reason to behave…unlike yourself and neither have you."
"I would never want you to." He had abandoned the tin and crossed the kitchen floor to stand directly in front of her.
Her eyes were downcast. "We're atypical in a typical structure."
He reached for her, then pulled back. She felt the warmth radiating from his skin, and the cold as he stopped himself.
The unspeakable was put aside. Neither knew how to face that part of their relationship. So, something more immediate came to mind.
"I wanted to to do something new. Adeline left me a checklist and recipe. But looks like I'm not that good at following instructions." He spoke, still in gentle tones with a sincere smile. "I'm a politician, not a chief."
Tugging at her mouth was a smile, as she looked at him. "What was it meant to be?"
"I asked what your…your favorites were." He seemed to become shy, almost boyish, hand reaching up to scratch the back of his neck.
"You did? Why?"
"I…for you and the…the baby."
"Oh." An oddly sweet gesture, and new.
"But as we can see, we'll have to go without dinner, since this was obviously a fuck up." He sighed.
"Well, maybe we can salvage…something. Or just order a pizza?" She offered, moving past him to look under the lid of the pot on the stovetop. Just as she made her way there, Jack's fingers lightly grazed her side, like a subtle breeze. It was there and then it wasn't. Removing the lid, she found some very…um…cooked (?) vegetables, the only problem was that they seemed to be stuck to the bottom. She gently put the lid back on. "Okay. I'll go make a call. I'm sure some place is still open."
She felt Jack's gaze burn on her skin and she met his eyes. His mouth opened. "Thank you."
She shrugged her shoulders. "I'm eating for two, I can't miss dinner."
In a casual setting in their living room, the John Kennedys had dinner. With tissue paper around the slices of pizza as to not stain any furniture or the rug. Somethings were ignored and others celebrated.
"Jack?" Helena wiped her mouth with a tissue.
"Yes, Doc?" Jack swallowed a bite of his slice.
"There's no use in me living in New York anymore, since I won't work there…"
"Mhm."
"So, I think it's logical that I move here. It is our house. And for the baby."
Jack nodded again, sensing there was "but".
"But I won't stay at home forever, become traditional wife with an apron and up to her sleeves in flour with three children running around. I still need to do my own thing. I haven't figured it out yet…but that I know."
"I wouldn't have it any other way."
She shouldn't have been surprised at his answer. He had never been the one to deny her anything, it was more his father and her mother. He wasn't like either of them. She supposed, she should've known that by now.
–
Helena picked up a shift in Jack ever since she packed up the apartment in New York and arrived in Georgetown. He hovered around her at first. A month would go by, the longest stretch either had spent together in one shared space. Then two.
At social functions, he would keep an eye on her. Even going so far as to hold her by her waist or her hand sometimes.
However, as much as things change, as much stays the same. He would still stray away on occasion with a pretty woman, leaving her behind. It wasn't all too often. But enough, for her to notice.
They didn't talk about it, Helena for the reason she didn't want to sound like nag and like one of those insecure wives, when she was neither and their marriage hadn't stemmed from love. So, she couldn't act jealous or behave at all in that manner, so she believed. She didn't blame herself for these discrepancies, but the callous and obvious manner, ticked her off, a smidge.
–
"Helly. Hey!" Bobby's reedy voice nearly made Helena jump out of her skin. Standing on the porch of the big house, looking out onto the lawn, she hadn't heard Bobby coming up to her. A sheen of sweat coating his skin - fresh from playing touchfootball with Ethel, Jack, Eunice and Sarge (Eunice's fiancee).
It was a warm May day, Helena having less than two months to go before the baby was due. Her clothes no longer fit her, and wearing a loose dress was what she wore most in the sweltering months of late spring and early summer.
"What, Bobby?" Turning her head to look at him.
"You looked to be off in another world. You shouldn't be standing out in the sun so much. You might get heat stroke." Bobby also acted differently ever since Jack and her announced her pregnancy. Bobby was always attentive toward her, but especially now, in her more delicate state.
"Bobby, I'm fine. I can't stay sheltered away in the house. I need vitamin D." She smiled, good-naturedly.
"Bob, come on, let's go play a round of tennis!" The ever cheerful Ethel called out to her husband a few feet from the porch. Eunice and Sarge had decided to go sailing, and Jack had gone inside to lie down (having again, fallen on his back and not hiding his pain). "Helena's a doctor, she knows what to do."
"See, Bobby, listen to that wife of yours." Helena gestured to the fellow blonde, whilst Bobby chuckled.
"It's just…" His voice could really be meek and small. That was an endearing quality of his.
Helena put her hands up in surrender: "I'm all right. But if I go back inside, will that set your heart at ease?"
He nodded, forelock of hair falling over his forehead, he pushed it back. "Thank you." Speaking to Ethel. "I'm coming, Ethel." And going after his wife.
Leaving Helena on her own on the porch. The air was cool and the sun hot. The sounds of waves and birds was soothing. She liked basking in the sun for a bit. The child inside her, kicked her softly, reminding her of what she had promised to Bobby. "I know, hon." She whispered, hand resting on her bump under the baby blue cotton of her dress. "I'm going inside."
Windows open in their bedroom, Jack lay on the bed looking up at the ceiling, his head going up way to quickly as Helena came in. Uttering a soft, almost in audible "ow" with his hand going to his neck.
"Hi." Her voice was gentle as she closed the door after her.
"Hi." He returned the greeting. "Bobby sequester you indoors, again?"
"Yes. He did." She said. "Mind if I join you?" She gestured to the bed.
"Knock yourself out, Doc."
Taking off her sandals and slowly laying on her back, head on a fluffy silken pillow. Closing her eyes, feeling everything around her, with every sense. A warm hand touched her middle, slowly drawing patterns over her bump. Peeking open her eyes, she saw how Jack had lightly turned his body to his side and was looking at her with a look of wonder, childlike even.
"Crazy that a person is growing inside you."
She chuckled. "Yeah, a bit."
The baby kicked where his fingers had been. His eyes would widen every time it had occurred. This point must've been a high point in there marriage of times he'd willingly been touching her, affectionate with her, if that was possible in their relationship. She had thought the chances of them becoming close very slim.
"Does it hurt?" His palm against her, as the baby kicks against his open hand.
"Not too much, it's more just…oh I don't know how to explain it…but she's strong."
"She? How do you know that?" He raised an eyebrow.
"I have a feeling." She stated.
"So no medical explanation, doctor?"
"Nope, just a feeling."
His grin was brighter than a lightbulb. He'd never looked at her like that, for that long. Saying…"I know you" with those green eyes of his. The unreadable still curled between colorful flicks in his eyes, a puzzle still not solved.
–
On June 24th, precisely 10 days before her scheduled arrival, Esther Beatrice Radcliffe Kennedy, made her entrance into the world. Painfully and arduously for her mother, but quickly enough, her cries would fill the room.
It was clear love at first sight with Jack and Esther. Helena had shut her eyes to rest after the birth, only to hear her daughter's cries and then the soft-spoken tone of her husband saying "Shh, your mother is sleeping" and the babe silenced instantly.
Strange that in a matter of hours, Jack and her had become responsible for a whole human being, small and fragile, and theirs. Jack had taken to sitting with Esther as much as he could, holding her like she was the most precious thing (he'd at first been worried he'd drop her, but a midwife showed him the proper way to hold her and then it became all he wanted to do). Pride shone from him like rays of sunlight.
He sat on Helena's bed with Esther in his arms as the couple took to admiring this little bundle, innocent to the world, sweet and untarnished. Jack couldn't take his eyes off his daughter. Helena couldn't take her eyes off Jack. He didn't catch her staring. She didn't mind, knowing what was blooming inside her would need to stay there, tucked away.
It wasn't the time or place. Love…
Written by a human in Ellipsus.