Marie Howard had not lived a life free of mistakes. Far from it.
She had the ordinary set of childish crimes, youthful indiscretions, too-hasty words, and bitter fights that secretly burden the hearts of men and women the world over. In addition she had a number of choices she wished she hadn't had to make, and a small voice at the back of her mind constantly worried over if those decisions had ultimately been correct. The decision to strike out on her own. The decision to refuse Kain's help. And, most of all, the decision to marry Geese.
She could never decide how she felt about that one. In many ways, her marriage had been a terrible, dreadful mistake, one you could quite reasonably say had destroyed her life. It had left her frightened, beaten, miserable, and poor. Even if it had given her the money she so desperately needed to feed Kain for those few years...she couldn't shake the awful feeling that if she'd been there, he wouldn't have started down the path he did.
But Geese had given her Rock. And so, for all the child could be a terror, and for all that she struggled to feed the both of them, and for all the corruption and violence that permeated the fabric of life in Southtown...she couldn't bring herself to hate him. She knew she should. She would sleep much better at night if she could just bring herself to hate Geese Howard properly.
But every time she tried, Rock would bring her his latest drawing, or a neat beetle, or just a hug, and she couldn't regret everything. Not completely.
So she grit her teeth and tightened her belt, worked long hours, and reminded herself that hard as it was, at least Rock wasn't growing up in a place where cocaine was an essential part of a complete breakfast.
It was all right. She'd made friends with the woman living next door from her first apartment, and they stayed neighbors after moving. Lydia was a technician at a local theatre and she watched Rock while Marie was working, lent them money when things got tight, and made Marie laugh. The last was the most important, really. They got along, they survived, and Rock grew up, little by little.
Then Marie got sick.
She shrugged it off at first. A little cough wasn't enough to stay home, especially in February when she needed to ration out her precious sick days for the rest of the year. The next day she was weak and dizzy, but kept going anyway. Christmas had bled them white and Rock was going to need new shoes any day now. The third day she couldn't get out of bed.
The next week was a blur of sweating and shivering. Lydia and their neighbor, Mrs Daniels, brought her broth and helped her to the bathroom in between dark, swirling dreams where she was back at Geese Tower with no way to escape. She'd wake from one just to fall into another, going round and round until she couldn't keep track of what was a dream and what wasn't.
When the fever broke and she woke up for real, Rock was gone.
No one had seen him go. The best anyone could say was that he had disappeared three days ago, between Mrs. Daniels leaving and Lydia coming back from work, and he hadn't been seen since. The police had been informed, but between the sudden reappearance of Geese and the corresponding rise in street violence they had brushed the case off. Even though Rock was just five years old. Even though he was more at risk from all the brutish, criminal louts that called themselves "street fighters" than anyone.
Marie's fist knotted into her sheets, but all she could do was lay there and gather her strength. Lydia and Mrs. Daniels were already doing what they could. Signs had been posted. The school had been informed and other parents had promised to keep an eye out for him. All the while, Southtown descended into open violence.
By the time Marie recovered, she had lost her job. It was strange how the most catastrophic event she could've thought of two weeks ago (short of Geese deciding he wanted her back) was nothing to her now. The time she didn't have to work was more time to look for Rock.
By the end of March the weather was warming up and Southtown was once again thoroughly under Geese's control. Marie had walked all over and fled from more street fights than she could count but for naught: Rock was still missing. She didn't want to admit it, but she was starting to lose hope. The streets of Southtown were not kind to lost children.
The idea that someone had discovered that Rock Howard was Geese's only son and had kidnapped him kept Marie awake at night. It was nonsense. Marie was sure Geese didn't even know he had a son; she had asked for a divorce immediately after seeing the little + and it had been given without a word of protest. Theirs had not been a loving marriage. She wasn't unknown among the underworld even now, but having been Geese's woman provided a certain amount of protection, if only because no one wanted to risk her lack of guards being a trap. The only connection Rock had to Geese was his name, but so what? It was her name too, and Howard was such a common name it took up two pages in the phone book. She'd checked.
None of that meant that some desperate, ambitious underling wouldn't try something if they somehow found out...and what would happen to Rock when it became obvious Geese had no concept of paternal feeling? Or worse...if he did?
She stifled her fears all through April and May, while around her the search slackened and the pitying looks grew. Lydia got her a job through the theatre group, where she came and went like a zombie. She was sure she did work there, but when the day was done she couldn't be bothered to remember what it was. She worked to eat and she ate to keep looking for Rock. That was all.
On Rock's birthday, she spent the entire day swinging between weeping in despair and staring blankly at the wall.
Three days afterward, she swallowed her pride, put on her best dress, and did her makeup like she was going into battle.
If you wanted someone found in Southtown, there was only one group to ask. The Howard Connection could get you anyone, anytime, anywhere...if you could pay the price.
Marie arrived at Geese Tower half an hour after Terry Bogard left.
She watched the ambulance carrying her ex-husband's corpse drive away and could not muster up the faintest spark of a feeling. Not anger, not sorrow, not joy.
On the way home, she met a boy.
He was tall and broad, and she froze on the sidewalk when she saw him waiting outside her apartment. Then he saw her and walked forward with the unhurried, confident stride of someone that had nothing to fear from street violence. Under the numbness, her heart began to race.
He stopped in front of her and spoke. His voice and eyes were both distant and cool. "Don't look so stiff, Marie. It's just me, Abel."
Abel. It was obvious now she saw the familiar silver hair and dark eyes, but...she had to look up to see him now. He was so different from the child she'd left behind.
"Abel! You've grown so tall, I didn't recognize you. It's been so long." A part of her was still frightened, but she shoved it down. She hadn't stayed with Kain for very good reasons, and Abel was never far from her brother, but... She remembered him as a tall, gangly boy who silently brought her misshapen lumps of pottery because he thought she'd like them. He'd protected Kain while she was earning money the only way she could. Out of every fighter in the city, she desperately wanted to be able to trust Abel.
"Almost a decade. Kain and I...we've been working." He shifted, almost awkwardly, and scratched at the back of his head. "Listen, Marie. Geese is dead."
"I know."
"It's not going to be safe for you much longer. This isn't like the last time. Now everyone knows he's gone for good and soon the vultures will be fighting over his empire's carcass. For the past eight years Kain and I have been working under Don Papas," Marie remembered the name: the biggest of Southtown's minor bosses, a cut-rate man who thought owning a stable of powerful fighters was the key to Geese's success, "and Kain killed him as soon as the news came in. He's in charge now."
Abel stopped. Marie kept smiling, but her heart had frozen in her chest and she didn't trust her voice. Eventually he started again. "I know you and Kain had some sort of fight, but right now we're set up to be the next rulers of Southtown. And Kain wants you to be at his side when he takes over. You know he takes care of those close to him, he always has. If you're with us, you'll be kept safe and happy. It'll be like old times."
Marie remembered the old times, when they were all young and as innocent as Southtown allowed. She also remembered what it was to be a kept woman.
She had no desire to go back to that particular hell.
"Thank you, Abel," she said, injecting exactly the right amount of sorrow into her voice, "but please. We were divorced, but my ex-husband just died. I need a bit of time." He started to protest, and she held up one hand and pasted a kind, motherly expression on her face. "Three days. You can give me that much, can't you?"
He fell back, but his face said he wasn't happy about it. "All right. I'll go tell Kain." Marie smiled again and slipped past him to the door, only to be stopped by a sudden, painful hand on her arm. "I'll be right back," Abel promised. "Don't worry. I'll protect you."
A sudden, instinctual surge of desperate fear ran through her, one she ruthlessly squashed before it could show on her face. "That's very kind of you, Abel. Thank you. But surely Kain needs you more...?"
"Kain has a group of loyal men, but you're all alone. You need a strong man to protect you, Marie."
The last thing Marie had ever needed was a strong man. Every single bit of trouble in her life could be traced back to one.
She smiled and nodded but he still didn't let go of her arm.
"It will all work out. Kain has a plan, you know. We're going to take Geese's legacy and complete it. Southtown will be cleansed into a city where there is no room for the weak." He finally let go after that. "I'll be going now. Stay inside and don't open the door for anyone but me."
Marie kept the kind smile on until his back disappeared around the corner. 'A city where there is no room for the weak'. What nonsense. If that was true, why did they want her? Why did they want it at all? They'd suffered under Southtown's merciless rule as much as she had.
Because with Geese out of the way they thought they'd be on top. Men who thought with their fists never learned. It was heartbreaking and freeing all at once to know that the boys of her memories were dead after all.
And that meant there was only one path left for her.
She hurried into the apartment with nothing but cold determination moving her body and started throwing clothes and necessities into a spare bag. Lydia flew in a few minutes after, her face smeared with fear. "Marie! Geese is dead, and-"
"I know." She grabbed her toiletries and threw them in the bag as well. "I'm leaving." She gave Lydia a short rundown of Kain and Abel while she shoved the big photo album into the bag. She left the art supplies; they were cheap and she hadn't been using them lately anyway. Rock's toys...had to be left behind. She refused to think about what that meant.
Lydia watched her silently, then took a deep breath. "All right. I'm coming too."
"Lydia-"
"Everyone knows we're friends." Her face was pale but set. "When they come back and you're not here, I'm the obvious target, aren't I."
"Yes." It hurt to say, but it was true. There had been the faintest hint of affection in Abel's eyes...for Marie, and Marie alone. She had no more illusions of what kind of men he and her brother had become. She also had no illusions on how long that affection would last when he found out she had refused his offer.
Geese had been arrogant, petty, violent, and cruel, but he was always honest. He'd never pretended to work for anyone's benefit but his own. He'd treated her like an irritating necessity at best, but he'd never said it had been for her own good.
They tossed their bags in Marie's car and she drove away without looking back. Her thoughts were still cold, clear, and pointed only at getting away from Southtown as quickly as possible.
They made it to Mobile before she cracked.
She had abandoned Rock. There was no way around it. No matter how much she told herself about mortality rates for lost children and how thoroughly he had disappeared, the fact remained: she had abandoned her only child to a filthy, bloodstained city that was about to explode.
Was he hiding now? Was he crouched behind garbage, watching men beat each other to death for no reason? Were they beating him? Was he crying out for her, alone and afraid? Or had that already happened, and his little body was lying still in some nameless alley?
When she was a teenager, she had found the bloody corpse of a child outside their home. He had been killed by a gang of older kids for no particular reason; just because they could. Because they had the strength and he didn't. That was the kind of city Southtown was. And if by some miracle Rock was still alive...she had left him to face it all alone.
She'd lived for him. His smile had given her strength when she'd felt like she couldn't go on. She'd been able to overcome all her hardships only for the sake of making sure Rock had the bright future he deserved.
And he'd never have it. Rock would never get past kindergarten, he'd never learn cursive or fractions or his history of his home. He'd never fall in love and be unable to bring himself to talk to her, he'd never stay out late with his friends, he'd never cry that she didn't understand, he'd never wreck her car doing something stupid. He'd never try a dozen different hobbies and discard most of them, never travel, never get a job. The only place he'd live would be her memories, eternally frozen at five.
No matter how much Lydia tried to comfort her, it wasn't enough. She was as failure as a mother and as a human. There was no going back from that.
"Listen," Lydia said after they'd switched places and Marie was curled up in the passenger seat, "there wasn't anything you could do. Even if he was still alive, if you found Rock now-"
"-he'd grow up to be just like his father." That had always been her worst fear. It was hard to believe with Rock, who smiled and laughed so easily, but...Kain had been the same way, at that age. Marie pulled her arms tighter around herself. Knowing she had made the right choice didn't erase the pain. Two hours ago she'd been ready to sell herself back to Geese to see Rock again, but she'd never really believed he'd be interested in her child. She knew Geese. She didn't know Kain anymore.
Lydia was the one that got them to New Orleans and found the cheap motel on the west side of the city. Marie just cried and tried to work out where it had all gone so wrong.
If she could go back, what could she do? Was there anything? Had she ever been given a real choice?
In the morning, she was out of tears. Lydia handled the calls back to Southtown, canceling their bank accounts, and informing their landlord that they had moved out. Lydia got them back in the car and heading west. Lydia bought the dinner they both picked at as she drove.
Marie slept and stared out the window all the way to California.
They stopped in California because there wasn't any further to go. Marie would've kept driving all the way into the Pacific, but Lydia pulled off into a small LA suburb. They lived out of the car while looking for a new apartment, and Marie never quite got used to how quiet the streets were at night. There was traffic, yes, and drunken revelers, but when she could drag herself down the street to the local store she never felt unsafe. Lydia's new coworkers complained about the crime and it made no sense. They had been living there over a year before Marie saw her first fight, and it ended with a couple hastily-thrown punches and a lot of shouting before both men stalked off. No one was battered into unconsciousness, and everyone stared at Marie like she was crazy when she remarked on it in surprise.
Maybe she was. She spent entire days in bed; she forgot to eat or bathe unless Lydia forced her. She lived in a grey haze and didn't mind. It was her punishment for abandoning her son.
Eventually Lydia dragged her to some local charity and dumped her on them for the day. She ended up stuffing envelopes in a small room with a quiet woman. After a few hours she thought to ask what they were doing this for. The answer was, more or less, that they were working to help homeless women and children, which sent Marie off on another storm of crying. She apologized profusely, was unable to explain why the answer had affected her so, and went home.
The next week she steeled her heart and went back. It took most of her energy, but if she could keep just one child from ending up like Rock and Kain, wasn't it worth it? The workers were surprisingly kind, all things considered. By the time she was able to explain everything, she had been working there for two years.
She changed her name back to Heinlein, got a new driver's license, and took care of all the little details of moving that she'd put off. Her grief did not fade or heal, but became less urgent. She could look at the little picture of Rock they had set up in the corner in lieu of a grave and not have her heart jerk in pain. She could smile at other women's children. And she was starting to think about maybe, possibly, having another.
It was an absurd thought. How could she be trusted with another child? Look what had happened to the first one!
But she was young, and she wanted another chance.
Lydia just sighed and told her she'd need a better job if that's what she was thinking of, which was entirely correct. She asked around at the charity and eventually managed to land another receptionist job that paid enough for her and Lydia to find a better home, a nice little three-bedroom fixer-upper on the edge of the suburb. They had it more-or-less clean and nice after a few months under Lydia's DIY abilities, and another six months of saving brought them enough to start seriously thinking about a child.
Marie was adamant about not getting a man involved. She'd learned her lesson there. She refused to even look at the donor's pictures, preferring to keep them as far from her mind as possible. This child would come from her alone.
She remembered Rock's pregnancy being easier.
Her daughter came out small and squashed, with a few wispy strands of jet-black hair. But her eyes were a bright blood red, just like Rock's, and that's when Marie knew the crying little bundle was truly hers.
She named the baby Elizabeth, for her mother, because the only other woman she could think of honoring was Lydia and that would be too confusing. The first night after they came home Marie stayed up late at night before Beth finally dropped off, and then waited there, simply enjoying holding her new child. Beth would grow up safe. She wouldn't have to starve in a slum, she wouldn't have to run from fights, she wouldn't have to sell herself to a crime boss to survive. She'd have books and toys and nice clothes. She'd go to school and get crushes and there was no chance the boy she liked would cross the wrong man and be found face-down in an alley. She'd be happy and strong.
She'd have everything Rock never had.
Marie's tears fell soft and quick, a silent baptism for her small daughter.
After Beth, their lives fell into a routine. Lydia moved to a larger theatre troupe and began earning more money. Marie started sketching again, first during the long nights when Beth refused to sleep, then whenever she found a spare moment. Eventually she bought proper paints and an easel, and while she was rusty after the long break, slowly her skills began to return. A few of her paintings sold; most didn't, but Marie was happy just to be creating again. She'd never be a great artist, but she'd never intended to be. It was enough to put her heart on canvas.
Beth grew like all children. She asked questions Marie hadn't thought of answers to ("why don't I have a daddy?"), ones she knew well ("why do we have red eyes? The other kids say I'm a demon!"), and ones she had been dreading ("who's that boy in the picture?"). She loved making pictures like her mama, swimming in the local pool, and going for walks in the park. She made a whole passel of friends at school, and played with an imaginary version of her missing older brother at home. And no one ever, ever hit or threatened her.
It took Marie a long time to identify the delicate, gossamer strands that stretched across her heart as contentment. It was a strange feeling. She had been happy before, even the years with Geese had held a few small moments, but it had always been underpinned with an uneasy sense that it couldn't last. Happiness was just a passing feeling before reality stepped in again. But now, on the other side of the country, she was getting used to the idea that tomorrow would be much like today. There would be fear and stress, but they could be overcome and fade into the darkness of yesterday. The past still haunted her in the depths of the night, and maybe that would never change, but the dawn always came in the end.
One day, over a decade after Geese had died and she had fled Southtown in the night, Marie was painting outside. The sun was setting behind her, Beth was working on her homework nearby, and the canvas was her entire world. When the doorbell rang Beth jumped up to get it without being asked.
There was nothing but the faint chirping of crickets until Beth called: "Mom! There's a man at the door!"
Marie sighed and grumbled a bit as she headed indoors. It was probably something with the anti-corruption group she'd joined, and while she loved working with them, couldn't it wait until tomorrow? The light was fading and she had to make every minute count.
At the door was a blond young man in a black t-shirt, and a barely-repressed chill ran down Marie's spine. Something about the way he held himself reminded her of Geese, though his lean frame couldn't be further from her ex-husband's bulk. He was chatting with Beth but looked up and smiled at her approach. He had a pretty face, with fine features and-
-and bright red eyes-
"Mom!"