Chapter Text
The sun shone bright on their faces. Jane’s hand was limp in Penelope’s as she chattered endlessly. Penelope had to force herself to focus on her daughter’s words though it is difficult because they are very similar to the words she spoke that morning and the day before and the day before that and every day since she watched that YouTube video about the Saturn V rocket.
“The thrusters come out in the ascent stage.” Jane’s voice is chipper. “Then it leaves the descent stage on the lunar surface.”
“I remember, darling. How was school?” Penelope hoped they might change the topic, but she already knows that her attempt is in vain.
“Good. And then the ascent stage leaves the moon and meets the service module.”
“Did you see Mrs. Campbell today?”
“No. The command module has a heat shield.”
“Why not?”
“No, Mummy. It does have a heat shield!”
They paused on the sidewalk and Penelope turned to her daughter. The girl looks everywhere but at her mother. Penelope holds up her hands in front of her face.
“Focus on me, Jane,” she said slowly, frustrated that she had to beg her daughter for eye contact. “Why didn’t you see Mrs. Campbell today?”
“Miss Brooks said she’s sick.”
Penelope relaxed a bit. The brutal year of reception had left Penelope in a state of vigilance. Of course, the posh private school Anthony had insisted on didn’t purposely keep Jane’s occupational therapist from her. She only wished Mrs. Campbell had thought to email her about rescheduling her session.
Penelope turned, took Jane’s hand and they resumed their walk home.
Penelope tried to do it on her own. She tried to resist the Bridgertons’ money as much as possible, but after Jane’s diagnosis and the failure at the state funded reception, Penelope had no choice.
She first began to suspect something was different when she would come to her mother’s home to pick Jane up after work and Portia would point to Jane with a worried expression on her face. Telling Penelope that the three year old spent the entire afternoon pacing back and forth muttering about butterflies and their colors.
“Mona’chs owange. S’wawwowtail bwack.” She said over and over as her little feet padded on Portia’s pristine white carpet.
Then she wouldn’t eat strawberries. She had one that was too mushy and it ruined the entire fruit for her.
One winter Violet bought her a lovely coat but Jane refused to touch it.
“Too soft!” she cried and ran when Penelope tried to put it on her.
Perhaps reception would be good for her, Penelope thought. It would be good to be around other children.
The Bridgertons tried then to get her to accept their offer to pay for tuition to a private school, but Penelope refused. She was raised in those schools and didn’t enjoy her time in their rigid conformity. She didn’t do well with the bullying either.
She was never quite enough to fit in with those kids and it was only her friendship with Eloise and Colin that protected her from the worst of it. They were the proper type of rich while everyone knew that Penelope’s family was barely hanging on.
She wanted Jane to have a more rounded experience, to meet different types of people. But in the end there were only meltdowns at drop off and getting calls throughout the day that Jane ran from the lunchroom because it was too loud.
What stung the most is that it was Daphne who pulled her aside and said that she might want to get Jane evaluated. She smiled tightly while swallowing the lump in her throat while listening to Daphne’s loving concerns. Daphne Bassett with her perfect husband, perfect children, and perfect life.
Penelope knew that Daphne loved Jane. That she was kind and sweet and never judged her but a voice deep inside her head (that sounded suspiciously like her mother) said that the woman pitied Penelope. The single mother of a fatherless child who was barely scraping by on her own.
The doctors said it wasn’t anything Penelope had done. It was likely genetic. Portia scoffed and said Jane probably got it from her father’s side. But Penelope remembered how, as a child, she couldn’t touch her mother’s beauty products—if even one was out of place, Portia’s entire day was ruined.
Penelope gave up her pride then for the sake of her daughter. Anthony Bridgerton used his connections to get Jane a quick evaluation and then offered to pay for the private school.
Year 1 at Haverleigh Prep had been so much better. The smaller classrooms, the 1 on 1 assistant she received for some activities. She was able to take her lunch in a quieter area with other children who were sensitive to noise like her.
There were always new rules to learn, new ways the world seemed to overwhelm her daughter. And just when they found one strategy to help Jane, one thing that made life a little easier—her daughter changed and Penelope had to figure out something different.
Jane chatted along about the different stages of the Saturn V rocket, Penelope tuned some of it out for her own sanity and went through their weekend plans in her head. Today was Jane’s afternoon tea with Violet, Charlotte, and Belinda. Tomorrow she met her mother and sisters and their children and Sunday was brunch with the entire clan.
Penelope was so distracted that she didn’t hear the buzzing of her phone in her purse that hung across chest. She didn’t realize that she had several missed calls from Violet, Kate and Daphne.
“You’re tired, Mummy,” Jane said, without looking up from the pavement.
Penelope smiled. “How can you tell?”
“Your voice is lower pitched when you’re tired.”
She laughed softly to herself, always forgetting out much Jane observed.
Her shoulders ached from holding tension all day. It had become her default posture: half-defensive, half-braced.
When she arrived at Violet’s home, she let herself in as she always did.
“Violet! We’re here!” She called out like she did every week.
“Grandma!” Jane said, running through to the living room just as the older woman came out. Penelope saw the worried expression on her face.
Jane rushed to Violet with excitement and jumped about excitedly. She didn’t hug very often, but allowed Violet to take her hands.
“Jane, my love,” she said smiling. “How was your day? Do you still like your new school?”
“Yes! I like the media center. They have a huge poster of the solar system.”
Violet looked up at Penelope and cocked an eyebrow.
“It’s what they call the library,” Penelope explained.
“Oh, well things certainly have changed since my little ones were in primary.”
Hyacinth only recently started university, but it seemed that as soon as Violet’s children left school she had a small gaggle of grandchildren that started.
Jane began reciting all of her knowledge about the rocket unprompted. Violet had heard all of these facts the week before and looked over her head to fix Penelope with a worrying stare.
“Did you see my call?” Her voice was soft.
Penelope shook her head. “Sorry, I left the phone on silent after the meeting at her school and she’s been talking the entire walk home, I—”
Violet shook her head and cut off Penelope. “I understand, dear, but we have a visitor.”
Penelope blanched. “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you need to cancel?”
She couldn’t help the bit of apprehension in her voice. Jane did not do well with abruptly changed plans.
Luckily, they were past the point when these things would ruin the rest of their day. It might make the walk home a bit unbearable, but survivable.
Kate rushed into the foyer with Charlotte in tow. Charlotte was the same age as Jane, but Kate’s exact duplicate.
“Charlotte!” Jane said excitedly. “The Saturn V rocket has three main stages, the first stage has five engines.”
“I don’t care,” Charlotte said, annoyed. Jane was unfazed.
“Charlotte,” Kate hissed. “Be nice.”
“That’s all she talks about,” the girl said.
Kate gave Penelope a pleading look and Penelope shook her head. She understood Charlotte’s frustrations. Jane was often praised by the adults in the family for her ability to memorize so many facets of her interests and for her massive vocabulary, but she failed to connect with the other children her age.
Charlotte was a smart girl, but many of the things Jane spoke of went over her head. She was an average five year old girl who wanted to play with dolls, draw and watch princess movies. Jane liked to watch documentaries on offshore wind farms and the same damn video about the Saturn V over and over.
Penelope hoped that Jane might temper out a bit as she grew older and that Charlotte may become more sympathetic. She hoped the girls might find something that they had in common one day and be friends.
Belinda was a few years older than the two and more patient with Jane.
“We tried to call you, Penelope.” Kate said in a hushed tone. Tension filled the air and Penelope looked worriedly between the two women.
“Is something wrong? We can do this another day.”
“No!” Jane said far too loudly.
“Softer voice,” Penelope said in the calming tone she had to use when Jane became upset.
Kate opened her mouth to answer Penelope when a voice sounded from the direction of the library.
“Who else is here?” It was a voice that Penelope hadn’t heard in over five years but it was definitely one she would never forget. She tried to, so often did she try to train herself not to dream of it.
Her first instinct was to leave. To pick up Jane and run out the door, but she was rooted to the spot. Her blood turned to ice in her veins. Her breathing was coming quicker.
“Wait!” Daphne’s voice rang out. “Mother and Kate will join us in a minute,”
Penelope understood now. Daphne was in charge of distracting him while Violet and Kate warned Penelope so that she may leave.
She glanced at the women whose faces had also paled. Violet reached for her hand. “Everything will be well, dear. Do not worry. Take a breath.”
Penelope nodded and did so. The breath fortified her and she was able to hold her head high when he stepped into the foyer. He was older, his eyes were wary, he looked much more lucid than the last time she saw him.
He stopped abruptly when he saw her. The past lingered between them and for a moment she wondered if he might be the one to flee. The silence between the adults in the hall was deafening. The children talked and argued, but it all faded into a dull roar in the back of Penelope’s mind.
“Pen.” It was almost a whisper. That name brought back far too many memories. She wanted to scream. She wanted to run. But she smiled tightly.
“Hello, Colin.”
“Hello! I’m Jane Featherington. Who are you?”
Penelope exhaled and closed her eyes. Her daughter never met a stranger. She was like her father in that aspect. She could start up a conversation with a waitress and spend forty five minutes regaling her with information about whatever she was into that week.
“This is my son, Colin,” Violet told her, trying to diffuse the tension in the room. “He’s been away for a very long time.”
“Is he my uncle too? Like Anthony and Ben and Greg?”
Colin cocked an eyebrow at the question. Violet glanced up at Penelope who gave her a short nod.
“Yes, Just like them,” Violet said smiling.
Daphne rushed into the hall, out of breath. Her very rounded belly obviously slowed her down. She mouthed I’m sorry behind his back but Penelope gave her a small smile and shook her head.
Colin squatted and reached a hand out to Jane. “It’s nice to meet you, Jane.”
The four women watched with breath held to see what would happen. To see what Jane would do. Penelope feared that Jane wouldn’t respond. Or would say something inappropriate or randomly off topic.
Jane looked cautiously from his face to his hand. She shook it violently and laughed at the way he let his arm go limp so she could swing it up and down.
Colin gave a half smile and Penelope felt her heart tug. He looked so much like he did years ago. Before the parties, the drinking, the drugs and the heartbreak.
Now he was playfully shaking hands with the girl who he had no idea was his daughter.