It wasn’t a good day. Brianna had a bad diaper rash, which made her cross and irritable, needing to be picked up every few minutes. She nursed and fussed alternately, pausing to spit up at intervals, making clammy wet patches on whatever I wore. I changed my blouse three times before eleven o’clock.
The heavy nursing bra I wore chafed under the arms, and my nipples felt cold and chapped. Midway through my laborious tidying-up of the house, there was a whooshing clank from under the floorboards, and the hot-air registers died with a feeble sigh.
“No, next week won’t do,” I said over the telephone to the furnace-repair shop. I looked at the window, where the cold February fog was threatening to seep under the sill and engulf us. “It’s forty-two degrees in here, and I have a three-month-old baby!” The baby in question was sitting in her baby seat, swaddled in all her blankets, squalling like a scalded cat. Ignoring the quacking of the person on the other end, I held the receiver next to Brianna’s wide open mouth for several seconds.
“See?” I demanded, lifting the phone to my ear again.
“Awright, lady,” said a resigned voice on the other end of the line. “I’ll come out this afternoon, sometime between noon and six.”
“Noon and six? Can’t you narrow it down a little more than that? I have to get out to the market,” I protested.
“You ain’t the only dead furnace in town, lady,” the voice said with finality, and hung up. I glanced at the clock; eleven-thirty. I’d never be able to get the marketing done and get back in half an hour. Marketing with a small baby was more like a ninety-minute expedition into Darkest Borneo, requiring massive amounts of equipment and tremendous expenditures of energy.
Gritting my teeth, I called the expensive market that delivered, ordered the necessities for dinner, and picked up the baby, who was by now the shade of an eggplant, and markedly smelly.
…
Brianna couldn’t sleep for more than ten minutes at a time. Consequently, neither could I. When we did drift off together at four o’clock, we were roused within a quarter of an hour by the crashing arrival of the furnace man, who pounded on the door, not bothering to set down the large wrench he was holding.
Jiggling the baby against my shoulder with one hand, I began cooking the dinner with the other, to the accompaniment of screeches in my ear and the sounds of violence from the cellar below.
“I ain’t promising nothin’, lady, but you got heat for now.” The furnace man appeared abruptly, wiping a smear of grease from his creased forehead. He leaned forward to inspect Brianna, who was lying more or less peacefully across my shoulder, loudly sucking her thumb.
…
Half an hour later, the chicken lay in its pan, stuffed and basted, surrounded by crushed garlic, sprigs of rosemary, and curls of lemon peel. A quick squeeze of lemon juice over the buttery skin, and I could stick it in the oven and go get myself and Brianna dressed. The kitchen looked like the result of an incompetent burglary, with cupboards hanging open and cooking paraphernalia strewn on every horizontal surface. I banged shut a couple of cupboard doors, and then the kitchen door itself, trusting that that would keep Mrs. Hinchcliffe out, even if good manners wouldn’t.
…
The doorbell rang as I was pulling on my stockings. There was a hole in one heel, but no time to do anything about it now. I stuck my feet into the pinching alligator pumps, snatched up Brianna, and went to answer the door.
It was Frank, too laden with packages to use his key. One-handed, I took most of them from him and parked them on the hall table.
“Dinner all ready, dear? I’ve brought a new tablecloth and napkins—thought ours were a bit shabby. And the wine, of course.” He lifted the bottle in his hand, smiling, then leaned forward to peer at me, and stopped smiling. He looked disapprovingly from my disheveled hair to my blouse, freshly stained with spit-up milk.
“Christ, Claire,” he said. “Couldn’t you fix yourself up a bit? I mean, it’s not as though you have anything else to do, at home all day—couldn’t you take a few minutes for a—”
“No,” I said, quite loudly. I pushed Brianna, who was wailing again with fretful exhaustion, into his arms.
“No,” I said again, and took the wine bottle from his unresisting hand.
“NO!” I shrieked, stamping my foot. I swung the bottle widely, and he dodged, but it was the doorjamb I struck, and purplish splatters of Beaujolais flew across the stoop, leaving glass shards glittering in the light from the entryway.
I flung the shattered bottle into the azaleas and ran coatless down the walk and into the freezing fog. At the foot of the walk, I passed the startled Hinchcliffes, who were arriving half an hour early, presumably in hopes of catching me in some domestic deficiency. I hoped they’d enjoy their dinner.
— Voyager
Photo: Starz, Season Three, Episode One, September 10, 2017
Gif: sassenach4life.tumblr.com, Season Three, Episode One, September 10, 2017 (birdsong)
Gif: headoverfeels.com, Season Three, Episode One, September 10, 2017 (Kill Bill)
Gif: manders1984.tumblr.com, Season Three, Episode One, September 10, 2017 (fight)
Book: Voyager, Diana Gabaldon, 1994
Tumblr: October 13, 2018, WhenFraserMetBeauchamp 🏴❤️🇬🇧
WFMB’s Tags: #Outlander #Season Three Episode One #S3E1 #The Battle Joined #Voyager #Chapter Three #It wasn’t a good day #Couldn’t you fix yourself up a bit? #Too Much of Frank #Claire Fraser #Frank Randall #139 #101318
