The Rainbow (Frerard) [underwater_sky]

August - An Archive (Part Two)

            I called up Mikey the next day, and arranged to meet him and Alexa for dinner that night. I stayed home during the day, unpacking and cleaning, while Jasmine headed back to work. It was the weekend and I knew I would be back at work on Monday and needed to get myself together and more of this project underway before I became too distracted. Jasmine, on the other hand, was eager to get out the door. Meredith had sent us the copy of the magazine that had come out while we were away and Jasmine had been poring over it all morning before she left. She had never really seen a magazine that Meredith had done as editor, except for the few sample issues that she was shown during her interview. She sat at the table, her brow furrowed, before she decided that she had to go in. Though no one would be there, Jasmine needed reclaim her position at her desk (hoping that, at least, hadn't been changed too much) and to fix the damage that had apparently been done. The perceived damage was really not much at all. The issue was called Liberty and had one too many articles about politics (without the personal) inside. Jasmine had always like the quasi-artistic bent to the magazine, embodied in their gender-bending logo of a feminine mouth with a mustache, and she was reluctant to let go of that vision just yet. She still had August, she told herself, and maybe a little of September, too. She began to expand on some of the ideas she had thought over while she was at The Bear, and I encouraged her. I knew that she needed to work, like I needed to organize and get the archive underway. Jasmine thanked me for the support and kissed me before she went, also informing me that she needed to see Lydia afterwards, and that she would be going alone. I swallowed hard, knowing that tone in her voice, and watched her speak it with her newly cropped hair. I wondered what would transpire from both of her meetings today, but didn't vocalize my concern. I had been calling her Hyacinth, on and off, and though she had responded well to it, she told me to stop as I said goodbye to her for the day.

            "Just for now. I need to get some things in order, and then we'll talk, okay?" She smiled, and I agreed. I would have to let her go and do what she needed to do, and in her absence, while I waited to do my own project, I got our life back together again. I cooked meals for all of us for the week, unpacked and washed what had not been taken care of the night before, and managed to understand Gerard's medication and how to get him to take it.

            Vivian had been strict with me to not hide it in his food or trick him, as if he was a dog, but to just give it to him. He was going to complain, but he liked complaining. Even before this entire illness, Gerard had always liked complaining about whatever he could, teasing and critiquing, but it was only so he felt he had some control over situations where he didn't. He knew what was best for him and he knew that the people around him wanted the best for him. At least for now, while he knew who we were, it would be wrong to deprive him of the choice to take medication. Vivian had warned me it once took her all afternoon to persuade him, but she didn't expect that to happen again. "If he knows who you are, Frank, there is not a lot he won't do," she had told me with sadness in her voice. I thought of nothing but that remark as I gingerly stepped into Gerard's room and asked him how he was that day. I brought food, new art supplies, some music, and his medication, and we ended up spending the afternoon together. Not because he wouldn't take his pill; not at all, that went down easily though he groaned at the sight of it. It was me who was stubborn and didn't want to leave. Though he wasn't much for talking, he was active and animated, and I put on the tape of protest songs that Jasmine had given me before we left for The Bear. I had wanted to tell him more about my time there, but it didn't seem fair. Instead I sat with him, read nearby him, and helped him get some art supplies he couldn't reach with the one side of his body that was still slightly numb. He kept flexing his hands, to try and get dexterity back, and I held whatever one was idle as he did this. I stayed in his room, even when he fell asleep and the music shut itself off, just looking around. I didn't think about the archive consciously as I did any of this, but I knew in my mind I was trying to recreate his room here and memorize every surface. Everything in here had its origin someplace else, and his room collected and brought them all together again. Everything, I said to myself, but that rainbow canvas.