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It means when you’re suffering, that’s when you’re most real.
— Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy
When Simone Abara wakes up from a six-day long coma — according to the doctor —, several pieces of information are tossed in her direction before she can even process the first one. Her and Taissa were involved in a car accident in which she was the only one severely injured; her parents picked up Sammy at school after the principal realized none of his mothers would do it; the kid was being taken care of by his grandparents and, after two days of asking non-stop about Taissa and Simone, had gone completely silent; her wife left the hospital right after her second blood transfusion and simply disappeared without a trail except for her campaign manager’s car abandoned on the side of the road.
The woman can barely stop crying once the thought of her own death crosses her mind, not because of herself but out of concern for her child: what would become of Sammy if she hadn't survived? It is the only thing she can think of while the doctor and her father summarize everything that happened during the last few days. Her son, her sweet, solitary boy could have been orphaned by one mother and forsaken by the other in a heartbeat — that horrifies Abara more than the medical report she receives with descriptions of brain swelling, emergency surgery, orotracheal intubation and blood transfusions. She practically begs the medical team to make an exception and let Sammy visit right after her first battery of exams. She cries more than him during their twenty minutes together.
It is only on the next day, while Simone is finishing her first proper meal — some kind of tasteless broth because the nurses said they couldn’t risk her choking on anything more solid —, that Taissa Turner shows up. The sight is all too confusing to Simone’s sore eyes: her wife, mother of her son, state senator of New Jersey, wearing a set of baggy clothes that definitely doesn’t belong to her, hands sheepishly deep into the jacket’s pockets, disheveled hair, eyes tired and so full of guilt. For almost a minute, none of them utter a word.
“I’m so glad you’re awake”, Taissa finally says with the saddest attempt of a smile, not sounding the least bit surprised. There is relief in her voice, though, Simone has to give it to her. The woman tries to give a step towards the bed but changes her mind halfway, choosing to stand awkwardly next to the door instead. She looks like the opposite of the brilliant woman she used to be, which annoys the literature professor more than it should.
The part of her that is Taissa's wife wants to be happy with her presence, with the fact that she is alive and not dead in a ditch somewhere, happy that she came back and still cares; the part of her that is Sammy's mother wants to put her in that ditch. Simone is a mother above all.
“Where the fuck have you been, Taissa?” Saying that hurts her throat just as much as it pains her heart, putting the abandonment into words makes it more real. The way her wife’s face falls and her body recoils just confirms the accusation: she deserted her family and there isn’t a good reason why she did that. “I don’t care that you left me in a hospital bed and never cared to check whether I was still alive,” Simone lies, she does care but that’s not the priority, “but Sammy… He is just a child. I didn’t even know what to tell him. That his mother had something more important to deal with?”
“I’m so sorry, Simone. For leaving you and Sammy. For making you go through all that alone. I had to… I am really sorry.”
The apology seems to give Taissa the courage she needed to cross the room and sit on the chair next to Simone’s bed. Abara can still see the look of pity and disapproval on her mother’s face when she sat right there and told her about her wife’s disappearance; that look somehow made Simone feel ashamed of herself, of her life choices, of being the object of someone else’s neglect, of having trusted that woman she now barely recognizes. She hates Taissa’s sorrow because it is so not her . The woman Simone fell in love with has always been dependable and sure of herself, she never fails the people she cares about; lately, though, that woman has been repeating the words I’m sorry too many times for her liking.
It hurts so badly. Not just the kind of hurt you feel when someone you trust lets you down. It is the special kind of hurt caused when someone you love does something irremediable and you wish they hadn’t so you could keep loving them blindly, but it's too late. Now Simone sees an ugly side of Taissa she can never unsee and she is so mad for it, so mad at Taissa for ruining everything. It is too easy to apologize , she wants to scream, and make it my choice, my responsibility to forgive you .
Simone doesn’t scream, though; she is too tired for that. Besides, she is getting used to being the rational one, the one who clenches her teeth and does what has to be done instead of whatever the hell she wants. “Well, I'm sorry we are such a burden that you had to go away. Where the fuck have you been?”
“I can’t… I don’t know what to tell you.”
The professor sighs and turns her face to the wall in an attempt to hide her tears from Taissa. Worse than knowing her wife was capable of being so careless with her and their child in such a delicate moment, is the knowledge of what she has to do about it. There is no going back, no fixing it.
"We are getting divorced as soon as I leave this hospital." The words are enough to make Turner come to her senses. Simone feels cold, desperate hands on her own, lips pressed to her knuckles. They burn her skin and she has to get away from the touch, but instead she just looks back at her wife and sees her own pain reflected in those beautiful eyes. Although Taissa refuses to cry like Simone, it is there in her voice when she speaks next.
“I’m safe now. I know the timing is awful, but I did what you asked. I got help. I won’t hurt you or Sammy… anymore. I swear to you things are going to be different from now on. Please, Simone. You have to trust me.”
“I don’t think I can. I don’t even know you anymore, Taissa.”
“That’s not... You know the part of me that matters. The rest…”, she trails off.
“You were never truly mine, were you? You never let me in whatever it is that you keep to yourself, and I respected that as long as it didn’t hurt our family. But look at us now, Tai. Even now, after all you’ve done, you can’t tell me one true thing.”
With that, Taissa looks down and lets go of Simone’s hand. She feels the urge to grab her back; after a week of abandonment, having her wife hold her even if in despair is better than nothing. She suppresses the urge to, as she did so many times, make room for Taissa’s suffering at the cost of her own. A tear falls from the senator’s eye onto those unfamiliar jeans, and with that Taissa Turner finally cracks a little bit.
"My whole life, I tried to go on as if the crash had never happened. Look, I’m not trying to play the victim card or anything like that, okay?” She glares at Simone long enough to make sure she understands — and she does, she sees now just how terrified Taissa is of being seen as a victim of her own tragedy, always has been. “I wanted to have everything and not let this one bad thing in my past shape my entire future. I really thought I was making it, you know? I had a perfect family, my career was taking off and for years people had been more interested in my ideas than in asking whether I had resorted to cannibalism out there. My life was fulfilled. But of course it wasn't going to last. Because whatever happened to me in the wilderness, it's changed me forever, no matter how hard I try to run from it. That's why I walk in my sleep doing awful things I wouldn't even dream of doing awake; that's why I left you and Sammy when you needed me the most. The thing, Simone, is that you fell in love with a lie. The person you married is not who I am but who I wanted to be — who I would have been, had the crash never happened. In another life, we could have made it. Growing old together, raising Sammy and then helping him out with the grandchildren, traveling around the world once we are both retired… All the things I promised you. I wish we could have it all, because that's what you deserve. But not me, not after everything I did. So, please, baby, believe me when I tell you I’m sorry. Not only for what I just did but also for deceiving you into marrying a person that died twenty five years ago."
Silence fills the room with the weight of Taissa’s confession, even as she cries she doesn't make a sound. The professor watches her, astonished like a person who was just presented with a dead bird by their beloved pet. Simone realizes that she believes in it more than she believes in anything that woman has ever said to her. It makes sense to her that the apparently perfect human being she has adored her entire life is nothing but the product of a tormented soul’s idea of a perfect human. It makes sense that Taissa is so afraid of whoever she has become to survive that she would hide it even from herself. Most of all, it makes sense that Simone falls in love with her a little bit deeper because that brokenness is the truest thing she has ever witnessed. She is both glad for and terrified by it.
Has she known it all along, about that lie, and pretended to not see what was underneath? Did Taissa play her part so well that even she lost track of what was real? It doesn’t seem to matter right now.
“Oh, baby… I wish you had talked to me. I wish I could have helped you.” Abara touches Taissa’s face gently, wiping her tears with the tips of her fingers. The state senator closes her eyes, leans into her touch and then kisses the palm of her hand. Simone pulls her face closer so she can plant a kiss on her forehead, calculating the damage of her next words. “You know it doesn’t change anything now, don’t you? I still have to divorce you. It’s the best we can do for Sammy, and for each other.”
“I know”, her wife whispers while holding her close. “I love you, Simone.”
“I love you, too.” Even though Simone means it, she wishes she doesn’t so things would be easier. She can’t help but love the stranger she built a family with. She also can’t help but hate her for everything that’s happened since the beginning of her campaign — since they first met, maybe. “For what it’s worth, I really thought our marriage was going to work as well. And I think you did your best for as long as you could.”
Taissa finally lets go of Simone, sniffs and rubs her face in a gesture that Simone knows is meant to recompose herself rather than hide her sadness. “I want to see Sammy, if that’s okay for you. I won’t traumatize him with that speech, I promise.” The attempt of a joke doesn’t bring a smile to either of their faces, it’s too soon. At least it serves to remind Simone of her duties.
“My mom is spending the night with me. I will try and convince her to arrange a meeting between the two of you, although I don’t think you should see him alone yet. Sammy is too scared with all that’s happened.” Turner seems offended by her lack of trust but is wise enough to not protest. “He misses you. I didn’t know what to tell him so I said you were sick and had to see a doctor in another town.”
Listening to that information which should have upset her, Taissa smiles to herself as if it bears a secret only she can understand. Simone wonders if it has something to do with the help her wife got while she was gone, which reminds her why she was angry to begin with. The other woman hasn’t told her why she had to disappear in the worst possible moment and probably never will, so she will just stick to the lie Simone made up to cover up for her. It feels oddly good to be mad at her again.
“I think you should leave now, Taissa. It's getting late and I’m really tired.”
“Oh, sure.” She stands up and appears self-conscious of the way she looks for the first time since she got there. “I’ll be back tomorrow. To see you and talk about Sammy.”
Simone just nods, not ready to say goodbye yet. She watches as her future ex-wife leaves the hospital room, taking with her fifteen years of lies. Only when the other woman is gone does she allow herself to mourn the ghost of the person Taissa should have been.