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Ted Lasso March 2022 Comment-a-Thon Rewards
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Published:
2022-05-01
Words:
1,171
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
28
Kudos:
140
Bookmarks:
5
Hits:
1,253

Item 38

Summary:

So far, there are thirty-seven items on Michelle’s list of things she only found out she and Ted have in common after they got a divorce. (Ted's mom passes away, and Michelle and her girlfriend attend the funeral.)

Notes:

A fic for the lovely Pomidorowka, who requested fic about Michelle! Thank you for being part of the Ted Lasso Comment-a-Thon!

(See the end of the work for other works inspired by this one.)

Work Text:

So far, there are thirty-seven items on Michelle’s list of things she only found out she and Ted have in common after they got a divorce. Once the first few came up in conversation, she realized she ought to start writing them down for safekeeping. She’s reserved a few pages for the list in the middle of her notebook, right after a Baked Alaska recipe her cousin sent in the mail. The items range from the mundane to the revelatory. She hasn’t attempted the Baked Alaska yet; she always gets distracted by the list.

Item 1: Neither of us felt comfortable in the church we went to when Henry was a baby.

Item 3: Bisexuality!

Item 17: We both like the frozen custard from Andy’s better than the frozen custard from Freddy’s, but each of us always suggested Freddy’s because we thought the other liked it better. We were such idiots for this.

Other than the time wasted on her second-favorite frozen custard, the list doesn’t make her feel anything resembling regret. She fell out of love with Ted a long time ago. She’ll never recapture it. When she recollects events that took place on days she knows she was in love with him, some of the sensation has drained even from the memories. Hurting him has brought her more guilt than almost anything else in her life, but the list helps. It helps her understand her friend Ted, with whom she parents Henry. Thirty-seven things she shared with him first or he shared with her first. Thirty-seven things that are true about them both. The list will only get longer. She hopes.

This weekend is butting pretty heavily against Item 26: Albeit for different reasons, Ted and I are both convinced our mothers will never truly understand us.

Ted’s mother is dead, and today is her funeral, and Michelle is sitting in a Catholic church in downtown Kansas City. She isn’t in the front row next to Ted and Henry; Ted’s partner Rebecca has that job. Michelle is three rows back, her girlfriend Dana at her side. And she’s nervous. Not because of Dana, or memories, or the painful juxtaposition of old family structures and new. She’s nervous because of Ted. She called him last night after he and Rebecca flew in so they could chat over the funeral plans, and he swore up and down that he didn’t feel at all weird about his own mother’s funeral being the place he’d meet his ex-wife’s partner for the very first time. “Look on the bright side,” he’d said cheerfully. “You won’t have to introduce her to my mom.” She’d laughed politely, but the conversation unsettled her. She’d been thinking of her list of thirty-seven items as clues—not to the new Ted, because there was no such thing, but to the Ted he’d always been, finally honest and free.

But now he’s lost another parent. Another family relationship doomed to lack resolution. A less traumatic sequel to the worst thing that ever happened to him. A thing they don’t have in common. And she really ought to pay attention to the priest, who’s just said he knew Mrs. Lasso for over half a century, or at least to Dana, who’s allergic to organized religion but is here anyway. But she’s distracted, because the Ted she can see only in profile at the front of the church is as brave and smiley and selfless as the man she was married to, and that terrifies her. He probably managed to bake a cake for the potluck in the church hall scheduled to follow the service. He’s probably refused Rebecca’s help a zillion times since getting the news. He’s probably leaning into that unnatural blend of stoic and class clown that ultimately drove Michelle away, because she couldn’t keep living with only a fraction of him. And now she’s afraid of what will happen if he loses anyone else. If he sabotages himself with the same old miserable fears.

The service is a blur, and even during Ted’s eulogy, short and sweet, she mostly hears his voice and not the words. At the potluck, she and Dana sit at the same table as Henry and Ted and Rebecca, and people keep coming up to Ted to pay their respects, and the macaroni and cheese and pork sandwich and mashed potatoes sit heavier and heavier in Michelle’s stomach. Finally, after at least a dozen parishioners have approached the table, Ted stands up abruptly, says he’s going to get some air. He gives Rebecca a quick kiss on the lips and rushes out of the hall.

Everyone eats quietly for a few minutes before Rebecca stands up too. She taps Henry on the shoulder, and murmurs something meant for Henry alone. “We’ll be back,” she says, and then they’re gone too. Michelle wonders why, if Ted’s gone off to panic alone or grieve alone, Rebecca presumably decided to bring Henry along to find him. It’s a pretty ironic judgment on Michelle’s part, which she realizes a few thoughts later.

“I’m sure they’re okay,” Dana says, which makes Michelle realize her face must give away distress.

“Yeah. I think I’ll get some air, too,” Michelle says.

But when she leaves the hall, she doesn’t have to go outside to find Ted and the others. The three of them are sitting right in the corridor, on folding chairs they must have pulled from a Sunday School classroom. Ted is in the middle, and he isn’t sobbing but he is crying, tears streaming down his face, and Rebecca has an arm around his shoulder, and her other arm is stretched across his lap so she can hold onto Henry’s arm, and Henry is slumped against his father in his black suit that looks so much like Ted’s, and Rebecca’s got her eyes closed, and she’s kissing Ted’s temple and murmuring something sweet, too softly for Michelle to hear. It’s a three-person grief hug. As honest as it gets.

She remembers: a few years ago, Ted broke his foot and walked on it, fully put his weight on it, to get to another part of the house so Henry wouldn’t have to see him break down.

Michelle takes a deep breath, unable to care if she goes unnoticed. No one notices her anyway, and instead of going outside like she’d intended, she walks back into the church hall where she finds Dana still seated at the table, studiously eating a piece of pie one of the old ladies must have brought her.

“Hey,” she says, and Dana looks up, her perfect freckled face immediately softening at the sight of her.

“Hey, love.” Dana stands so they’re face to face.

“I think I need a hug.”

The hug is immediate, and it smells like Dana, like laundry detergent and citrusy perfume and her one daily cigarette.

“I’ve always got a hug for you,” Dana says, and something in her voice makes it sound like the easiest promise she’s ever made.

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