#songofthelark

[brandeewine]

.Day 34 of #studyingthemasters with @ssavaart #julesbreton #songofthelark #watercolor https://www.instagram.com/p/CaQoxX2vJmv/?utm_medium=tumblr

[152glasslippers]

it’s a goddamn blaze in the dark and you started it

Summary: He takes her by the hand and leads her back across the hall to where his kids are waiting. As soon as he opens the door, it’s evident he told them. They shriek in excitement, their happiness too new, too pure, to be contained, and throw themselves into her arms.

Artist/widower/neighbors AU.

This is it, the last chapter! A huge thank you to @songof-thelark, for prompting the idea that started this fic and for waiting so patiently for me to finish it, and to everyone who’s stuck with this story. Thank you for indulging in this little universe with me. 💖

chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5 | chapter 6 | chapter 7 | chapter 8 | chapter 9 | chapter 10

read it on ao3

chapter 11: after

The morning after he tells her he loves her, the man across the hall knocks on her door and greets her with a kiss. His lips find hers like a reflex or a habit, like he’s turned it over in his mind so many times it’s second nature. He is warm and solid beneath her palms, the curve of his shoulders, the strength of his arms. The way he holds her is safe and sure.

He takes her by the hand and leads her back across the hall to where his kids are waiting. As soon as he opens the door, it’s evident he told them. They shriek in excitement, their happiness too new, too pure, to be contained, and throw themselves into her arms.

She doesn’t know what comes next, how fast or how slow they’ll take this. She knows when she hugs his son and his daughter and meets his eyes over their heads, she thinks, our son, our daughter. She knows when he smiles at her it feels like forever.

She spent a sad childhood dreaming of escape, an angry adolescence determined to find it by any means, and a lonely adulthood learning that her longing for escape was really her wishing she belonged. A lifetime of wondering what it would be like to have a home.

But she doesn’t have to wonder. Not anymore.

[152glasslippers]

it’s a goddamn blaze in the dark and you started it

Summary: If he’d thought it something, to be surrounded by Karen’s art in her apartment, it’s nothing compared to walking through the gallery, no furniture, no appliances, none of the messy practicalities of daily living to dull the effects of her work. It’s overwhelming. He feels as if he’s walking through the very heart of her.

Artist/widower/neighbors AU for @songof-thelark. 🤍

chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5 | chapter 6 | chapter 7 | chapter 8 | chapter 9

chapter 10: the reveal

Frank buys a new suit for Karen’s art show and a dozen white roses.

The gallery hosting her show is exactly what he imagined a gallery to be: glass front, light colored hardwood floors, stark white walls. It’s a big space, divided into three rooms by large, open doorways, the back wall of the gallery visible from the entrance. There’s a decent crowd assembled by the time he gets there, half a dozen people milling about each room.

He stops dead when he sees her, standing off to the side in the front room, talking to a few people; friends, colleagues, or admirers, he can’t tell. Her long dress falls to the floor in a repeating pattern of light and dark purple fabric, intricately embroidered with a tapestry of roses and stars. The deep neckline hugs the curve of her breasts, and her hair falls to one side in waves like a Hollywood starlet, the ends curling against her bare skin. Her lips are stained a deep purple, a near match to the color of her dress.

She’s a work of art herself tonight.

Karen’s eyes flick around the room, searching the crowd while he stares, but they stop when they land on him, and he realizes, with an ache in his chest, that she was looking for him. She excuses herself from her group without taking her eyes off him. He stays where he is, rooted to the spot, pinned by her gaze.

“Hi.”

She looks even more beautiful up close. She always does.

“Hi.” He clears his throat, trying to regain some sense. He holds up the flowers. “These are for you. Congratulations.”

She takes them from him, lifting them to her face to smell them.

“You bought me flowers?” she asks, surprise in her tone, but she doesn’t seem displeased.

He lifts a shoulder, feigning nonchalance.

“I’m an old-fashioned kind of guy.”

She smiles at that and cradles the roses in her arms, eyes on the velvet petals.

“You look stunning, Karen.”

She looks up at him and blushes.

“Thank you,” she says, voice soft.

“I won’t keep you. I know everyone’ll be wanting to talk to you tonight.”

Her blush deepens.

“Thank you for coming.”

As if he would miss it, and he tells her so, saying the words and leaning in to kiss her on the cheek.

“Going to go take a look around,” he murmurs, and then he steps away, further into the gallery, breathing in deeply in attempt to calm his racing heart.

read the rest on ao3

[152glasslippers]

it’s a goddamn blaze in the dark and you started it

Summary: “Ben would have been proud of you for this one,” she says.

“Yeah?”

Doris raises her eyebrows.

“I already said so. Don’t go fishing.” And then she softens, looking down at the portrait again. “Yes.”

Artist/widower/neighbors AU for @songof-thelark.

This chapter brought to you by my undying love for Doris Eurich. 💖

chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5 | chapter 6 | chapter 7 | chapter 8

chapter 9: family

She thought maybe her meltdown would change things between her and Frank, make them uncomfortable, but it doesn’t. Frank is magnanimous and takes it in stride. She thought maybe he would look at her differently, and he does. He knows her even better now.

With the truth about Kevin, other truths come out.

Ben. How much he really encouraged her, trained her. The extra hours he helped her outside of class when he didn’t have to. How much it meant to have someone believe in her, how close she came to quitting again when she lost him. How she knew he’d have told her she had so much more to do. Her relationship with his wife, Doris, who became her new biggest supporter in Ben’s absence.

The next time she visits Doris, the art she brings to liven up the walls of her hospital room includes a few drawings from Lisa and Frankie and a get well soon card from the two of them. Karen didn’t have it in her heart to tell them she might never get better.

Doris is asleep when she gets there, so she crosses the room silently to the chair next to Doris’s bed, only to find Doris’s eyes on her when she sits down.

“I’m awake. You can quit tiptoeing.” Doris pushes herself up so she’s propped against the pillows more. “Too far. Come here.” She reaches for Karen with one trembling arm, and Karen takes her hand, joins her on the bed and hugs her. Doris pulls back to look her over, stroking her hair, tucking it behind her ear and smoothing it out, brushing the ends back over her shoulders. “How’s my girl?”

“Good.”

“You lying?”

“No.” And it feels like new, to be so certain. “How are you?”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“Thank God.”

Doris huffs.

“Thank my nurses first. Now show me what’s new and then show me what you brought me.”

Karen pulls her phone from her back pocket and opens the folder where she keeps the photos of her work. Doris inspects them slowly, like she always does, not even bothering to look up when the nurse comes in to check her vitals. She stops when she gets to the portrait of Frank. Karen finally finished it since her last visit.

She’d taken her time with it, taken longer maybe than she ever has with a painting. It felt especially important to get right.

“This your man?”

“He’s not mine.”

Doris looks at her shrewdly, then shifts her attention back to Karen’s phone.

“Has he seen this?” she asks after another minute of studying it.

“No.” Frank hasn’t ever brought up the portrait she started that night, and she’s never been able to decide whether it was out of respect for her process, lack of interest, or something else entirely. “Why?”

read the rest on ao3

[152glasslippers]

it’s a goddamn blaze in the dark and you started it

Summary: She doesn’t say anything, and maybe he shouldn’t press, but she has to know: He’ll cook her dinner and drive her upstate, drive her to the lumber yard and spend hours helping her stretch new canvas. He’ll help her carry her groceries, help her hang a new painting. He’ll teach her to weld, teach her to box, teach her anything she wants to know, give her anything, as long as she knows he’s here for this, too.

“You want to tell me what happened today?”

Artist/widower/neighbors AU.

For @songof-thelark, who also prompted, “Anything that has Karen telling Frank about her family…with him calling her father a worthless fuck.” I’m only too happy to oblige. 😘

chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5 | chapter 6 | chapter 7

chapter 8: forgiveness

Frank is in the living room with Frankie playing Minecraft when he hears the front door open, Lisa coming home after spending the afternoon at her friend’s, one of the girls in her class who lives in the building.

“Living room!” Frankie shouts, and Frank elbows him in the ribs.

“Think the whole building heard you, kid.”

Frankie grins, sheepish but unapologetic, and Lisa appears in the doorway, still wearing her backpack.

“You have fun, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, we did our nails.” She waves her fingers at them. “Have you talked to Karen today?”

The hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

“No. Why?”

“I ran into her on my way to Avery’s. She seemed really upset.” Lisa glances down at her shoes and back up again. “She looked like she’d been crying,” she says quietly.

“You should go check on her.” Frankie tears his eyes away from the TV. “She’s always there for us when we’re sad.” And Frank knows he’s thinking about the day Karen brought him home from school. She’d told him later, in vague terms, that Frankie had been crying about Maria.

“You guys okay for a bit?”

Lisa drops her backpack and crosses the room over to him, takes his controller and plops down on the couch next to Frankie.

“We’ll be fine.”

He kisses them each on the head and then he’s out the door and across the hall, knocking on Karen’s door with the same urgency as that first day.

She doesn’t answer.

He knocks again, harder. No answer. The light is on in her apartment, peeking out from under the doorframe. He bangs on the door, unable to explain his rising panic even to himself.

Nothing.

Maybe she doesn’t want to see anyone. Maybe she can’t hear him. He absolutely does not consider all of the worst possible reasons why she might not be able to come to the door.

He fumbles in his pocket for his keys. They’d swapped weeks ago, but he’s never had a reason to use it. He’s overreacting, he knows. He lets himself in.

“Karen? Karen!”

His brain and his body fall back into an old rhythm, sweeping her apartment like he’s clearing rooms on a strike team. Living room empty. Kitchen empty. Bedroom empty. He’s running on autopilot, moving quickly, too quickly to draw the most obvious conclusion. He barges into the bathroom, swinging the door open.

She’s in the bathtub.

Bubbles up to her shoulders, water soaking into the hair escaping the bun at the base of her neck.

She turns her head to stare at him.

“Frank!”

He walks a few paces into the room so he can see her, breathing hard, adrenaline racing.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.” She lifts an arm out of the water to gesture at herself. “I’m in the tub.”

He exhales. His heart rate starts to slow.

“You’re fine.”

“I really am. What did you think…?”

“The light was on, and you weren’t answering. I thought…I don’t know what I thought.” He shrugs, helpless, as understanding comes. “I thought if something was wrong, I didn’t want to hesitate.”

Karen watches him, concern and empathy in her eyes, and it all catches up with him at once. She’s naked and in the bathtub. He stormed into her bathroom and then stayed. His face heats. His heart picks up again, but this time from embarrassment.

“Jesus Christ.” He turns away from her, gripping the sink. “Karen, I—I’m so sorry.”

read the rest on ao3

[152glasslippers]

it’s a goddamn blaze in the dark and you started it

Summary: Karen unlaces Frankie’s sneakers, tugs them off his feet.

“Do you want to change your clothes?”

Frankie snuffs and nods, and Karen brings him one of the giant t-shirts she wears sometimes when she paints. She doesn’t have any pants that won’t be woefully big on him, but her shirt should cover him head to toe. He takes it from her, and she smooths her hand over his forehead, brushing his hair back, checking for a fever. Her brain stutters at the motion, part instinct and part memory, and for a brief moment, Karen’s forehead tingles, a flash of her mother’s touch on her skin.

Artist/widower/neighbors AU for @songof-thelark​.

CW: emetophobia

The act is not described in any detail, but it is mentioned several times, in the context of a child feeling ill.

chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5 | chapter 6

chapter 7: in sickness

Her phone rings while she’s on her way to class, Frank’s name flashing across the screen.

“Hey.”

“Karen?” He sighs, sounding relieved she picked up. “Karen, I—I need your help.”

She stops walking down the sidewalk.

“Name it.”

“Frankie, he, uh…He got sick at school. Threw up in class, and…” His voice drops lower. “Karen, I cannot get out of this goddamn meeting. Curt’s out of town and—there’s no one else I trust.”

She steps out into the street, flagging down a cab.

“I’m on my way.”

He gives her the address, waits on the phone while she gets in the cab, repeats it to the driver.

“I’ll call the school, tell ‘em you have my permission to pick him up, and I’ll be out of this meeting as soon as I—”

“Frank.” She cuts him off. “It’s okay. I’ve got him.”

The line goes quiet, a heavy silence, and then—

“Yeah. I know you do.”

Something warm blooms in her chest.

“See you soon,” she says and they hang up.

She sends an email to her students on the way, canceling class, and tells the driver to keep the meter running when they pull up to Frankie’s school. The administration assistant in the front office checks her ID and signs her in, gives her directions to the nurse’s office. She doesn’t run, but it’s close.

She sees Frankie before he sees her, through the open door to the nurse’s office. He’s curled up, pale and grimacing, on one of the vinyl-covered benches every nurse’s office seems to have, but his eyes light up when she comes into view.

“Karen!”

He pushes himself into a sitting position and holds out his arms, and Karen walks right into them, crouching down in front of him and pulling him into her chest. He lays his head on her shoulder and whimpers in her ear.

“I threw up in front of my whole class, Karen. It was so embarrassing.”

“It’s okay. Everybody gets sick. You couldn’t help it.”

“They said Dad couldn’t come, and Uncle Curtis couldn’t come. There was no one to come get me.”

Her heart breaks. He sounds even younger than he is.

“It’s okay,” she repeats. And then she tells him what she told Frank. “I’ve got you now.”

She pulls him even closer, and Frankie tightens his hold, burying his face in her neck. Karen looks over her shoulder at the nurse hovering behind them.

“Karen Page?” the older woman asks. Karen nods. “He vomited again when he came to my office, but only once, about an hour ago now. He hasn’t had anything to eat or drink to help his stomach; he refused it all.”

“Thank you.” She ducks her head to whisper in Frankie’s ear. “Do you want me to carry you out?” Maybe he’s too old, but he’s definitely not too heavy. He feels fragile in her arms.

Frankie shakes his head against her neck. Karen loosens her hold, and they stand up together slowly. She picks up Frankie’s backpack with one hand, and Frankie takes her other.

“Feel better soon, Frankie,” the nurse calls gently, and Frankie mumbles a thank you as they make their way out the door, his face serious with concentration, like he’s scared he’ll be sick again, and he’s trying not to.

He sits on her lap in the cab, and Karen wraps her arms around him, trying to keep him from getting jostled. She tips the cabbie extra for waiting and before they can even step away from the curb, Frankie asks in a small voice, “Karen? Could you carry me now?”

read the rest on ao3

[152glasslippers]

it’s a goddamn blaze in the dark and you started it

Summary: The question rings in his head the rest of the night.

When he leaves the kids with the sitter and walks across the hall to 5B; when Karen opens the door and the smile she gives him is blinding; when he drives them to the gym and Karen describes her latest sculpture idea, her hands delicately tracing the shape of it in the air.

How long are you going to wait to find out?

Artist/widower/neighbors AU for @songof-thelark.

Get in, losers, Karen and Frank are basically dating and are in denial about it. 😘

chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4 | chapter 5

chapter 6: truth

That’s how it starts.

Frank devotes a few Sundays to giving Karen welding lessons after she shows him the sketches of the metal sculptures she’s been dreaming up; Karen spends an afternoon with Lisa and Frankie baking cookies for Frank and the crew in thanks; Frank offers to drive when Karen needs to go to a specialty paint store upstate, save her the trouble of renting a car or taking the bus in return for taking the kids off his hands the day they baked; and on and on, weeks of trading favors back and forth to say thank you.

“So, you’re dating,” Curt says when he visits Frank for lunch one day. They’re perched on a pair of paint buckets on the top floor of the building Frank’s working on, looking out over the city through newly installed windows. It’s not phrased as a question.

“No.”

Curtis shoots him a knowing look.

“Really. And where were you two weekends ago when I was having movie night with Lisa and Frank?”

“I was at home.”

“Yeah, you were at home, Frank. Making dinner. For Karen.”

“She watched the kids while I was at group the week before, you know that. I was saying thank you.”

“By preparing a homemade meal for a beautiful woman,” Curt says wryly. “Frank. Come on.”

“We’re not dating,” Frank growls. He takes a bite of his sandwich and focuses his attention on the skyline sprawling beneath them, avoiding the assessing look in Curtis’ eyes.

“This about Maria?”

No one else would get away with asking the question, but no one else has been there for him like Curt, both before and after Maria died.

“No.”

“You and I both know there’s no timeline for this sort of thing. If you’re ready to be in a relationship again, you deserve to have that.”

“Yeah,” he says roughly. “Yeah, I know that.”

But Curtis isn’t done.

“If it’s not about Maria, this about the kids?”

Frank hangs his head and sighs. Part of it is. He’s a single father. Nothing in his life is only about him.

“How do I know if they’re ready for that? Seeing me with another woman?”

“I think they’ve already told you. They love Karen.”

“Then how do I risk that?” He looks back up at Curtis. “I mean, you’re right, Curt. They love her. They worship her. I say something and it doesn’t work out? How do I do that to them? How do I risk them losing her?”

Curtis shifts on his bucket, turning his body away from the windows to face Frank head on.

“You really think she’d do that? Because after everything you’ve told me about her, everything the kids have told me, as much as she seems to care about them—I don’t think she’d let that happen. I don’t think she’d let anything come between her and Lisa and Frankie, no matter what there is or isn’t between you two.”

The thing is, he knows he’s right. Karen cares about his kids—she’s told him as much—and he knows there’s nothing in the world that could change that. He sees it every time she’s with them.

“What if that’s all this is, yeah?” he asks quietly, and Curt leans in closer. “What if it’s just about the kids? She cares about them, and I’m their dad, and she’s just…being a good neighbor.”

He feels like an idiot. He feels like a goddamn preteen with a crush, like he’s never done any of this before. He wouldn’t blame Curtis for laughing at him, but he doesn’t.

“I don’t know, man,” he says, sympathetic. “But she’s talented and smart and interesting and kind. And she seems to like spending time with you. For some reason. It’s beyond me,” he adds, and Frank snorts. “So how long are you going to wait to find out?”

read the rest on ao3

[152glasslippers]

it’s a goddamn blaze in the dark and you started it

Summary: “Lisa,” she starts carefully while Lisa clicks through the screens. She is not Lisa’s parent. She is very aware it’s not her place to tell Lisa what to do, but there’s something that has to be said before she goes home. “I get why you didn’t want to go to your dad today. And it means so much to me that you felt comfortable confiding in me, but…” She takes a deep breath. “You need to tell your dad.”

Lisa looks up at her.

“Do I have to?”

Artist/widower/neighbors AU for @songof-thelark. ❤️

CW: menstruation

This chapter is about periods. I have no excuse for myself except to say—Lisa is 12 years old and without a mother. You had to know this was coming.

chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4

chapter 5: firsts

When Karen was nine, her grandmother told her it was time to learn how to make her secret fudge recipe.

“Your mother never learned, so it’s up to you to carry it on.”

It was after Christmas. Her parents had taken Kevin sledding. She didn’t want to be stuck in the kitchen; she wanted to be outside, in the snow.

“Why don’t you just write it down?”

Her grandmother had tilted her chin up with her index finger.

“Because. It matters how we share things, love.”

Her grandmother’s recipe was the first Karen ever made by herself, the first she ever made from memory, and it was one of the first things she gave up when she left Vermont.

Who was she carrying it for anymore?

*

Lisa knocks on her door on a Saturday afternoon, still in her pajamas, down to the slippers on her feet.

“Hey, babe.” Karen first called her that a few weeks ago and Lisa had thought it was hilarious, but she doesn’t even crack a smile now. Karen lets her in and peers around her at the empty hallway. “Your dad know where you are?”

Lisa won’t look at her, her eyes on the floor.

“I told him you promised to show me the painting you were working on.”

She hadn’t.

“Okay,” she says gently. “What’s really going?”

Lisa finally looks at her.

“I got my period,” she says miserably. “I didn’t know what else to do. I mean,” she huffs. “I know what to do. But I don’t have anything and—” Lisa looks at her meaningfully and Karen hears the rest. I didn’t want to go to my dad.

“Come on.” She takes Lisa by the hand and leads her to the bathroom, to the shelf where she keeps extra pads and tampons. “I’d recommend a pad. Your period probably won’t be that heavy, so a tampon might be uncomfortable.”

“Okay.” Lisa is wide eyed.

“You know how to use it?”

“Peel and stick?”

Karen laughs.

“Peel and stick.”

She leaves Lisa in the bathroom with instructions to shout if she needs help and waits for her in the kitchen. She tries to remember her first period. She can’t.

Lisa comes out of the bathroom and slides onto the stool across from Karen.

“How are you feeling?”

Lisa shrugs.

“Fine, I guess. I’m just tired. I had it when I woke up, and I spent all morning stressing about what to do.”

Karen imagines her lying in bed, hiding under her blankets, alone in her misery, and her heart breaks a little.

“You can always come to me,” she tells her softly.

read the rest on ao3