April, 2013
She stands at the curb of the hotel, waiting for the valet to pull her car around. In front of her, a couple is loading up an SUV. A dress. The rear of the car full of wedding gifts. The bride and groom, arm in arm, exchanging kisses as the valet offers his congratulations.
Regina's stomach sinks into her heels. Somewhere in the hotel, Robin is on the phone with his wife, promising him that he'll be home soon. And she stands on the curb, alone, ready to make the two-hour drive to her empty house, her empty life.
This is it, she thinks. I'll never do this again. The valet pulls her Mercedes to the curb, and she climbs in. One last look at her phone – no new messages. She switches off the display and puts her car in gear.
August, 2012
She hates these Chamber of Commerce events. A night with small business owners, shaking hands and making small talk. She loves her job, loves being the mayor, but Regina doesn't want to spend her evenings working. She wants to spend them with Henry, and she resents having to pawn him off on Emma, of all people, while she's working. Emma, his birth mother, that he found by filching her stepdaughter's credit card. Emma, the cool mom that feeds him donuts and let him drive a jetski even though she expressly forbid it.
They're probably eating pizza and watching R-rated movies. Hell, for all she knows, they're doing tequila shots. She sighs and rolls her neck. Just half an hour more, and she can duck out.
"Long day?" comes a voice beside her.
She shrugs and smiles. "Par for the course," she says. "It's not easy being the mayor."
"So I gather," he says. He grins at her and holds out his hand. "Robin Locksley."
"Regina Mills," she replies.
"Yes, I know," he says, and she fights to suppress a shiver at his accent. Velvety smooth. There's something about a man with an accent, she thinks. She'd dated a Scot in law school – Graham – and the way he spoke to her made her toes curl. This man (Robin, she reminds herself), has a British accent, not quite as exotic, but definitely easier to understand. He also has deep blue eyes and a smile that makes her bite her lip and look down at her hands, afraid to make eye contact for too long.
She lets her eyes drift to his hands across the table. Strong and callused, a perfect match for his scruffy exterior. She wonders what it would feel like to take his hands in hers. She shouldn't be thinking that – she's the mayor, for God's sake, but there's something about his smile that makes her mind wander to dark, sultry places. Her fingers drift idly to her wineglass, stroking the stem. He matches her movements with his, fingers lingering over his whiskey glass. That's when she spots it, a band of gold on his left ring finger.
Of course. He's married. She pulls her hands back and tucks them into her lap.
"I should go," she says. "Circulate."
"Press the flesh," he jokes, and she nods.
"It was nice meeting you," she says. He smiles in reply and stands as she pulls away from the table.
"And you," he says. She turns away from the intensity in his gaze and walks as far away from him as she can, feeling his eyes on her with every step she takes.
She sees him less than a week later in the grocery store. He calls her name as she's checking labels on almond milk, looking for carageenan in the ingredients. No cancer-causing ingredients in her house. Her cart is filled with whole foods, fresh vegetables, and one package of Oreos in a vain attempt to bribe Henry into thinking she's just as cool as Emma.
Who is she kidding? She doesn't know how to work Henry's Playstation, even though she bought it for him. She reads comic books with him, but she can't remember which is Marvel and which is DC. Worst of all, she makes him do his math homework, whether he wants to or not. When she and Daniel adopted Henry, he'd promised her that Henry would love her, despite her fears that she didn't know how to be a mother. Daniel told her that he loved her more than anything, and how could this baby not do the same? She'd believed him. She struggles to believe him still, even though he's been dead almost as long as Henry's been alive.
She's thinking of Daniel as she studies the dairy case. She never drank anything but skim milk, thanks to her mother, until she married Daniel. He was lactose intolerant and introduced her to soymilk. She reads too much, though, and is convinced that soymilk will put her into early menopause, so she switched to almond milk two years ago.
"Regina," he calls out, and her head jerks up. "If that carton did something to offend you, I'll be happy to have more than a conversation with it."
She laughs at that and puts the carton in her cart. "Nothing of the sort," she says casually. "I just like to read the labels. You can just never be too careful." She surveys his basket – beer, cheese and ground beef. "Well," she says primly, one eyebrow raised, "I can never be too careful."
He laughs at that and tries to hide his basket behind his back. "Don't judge," he says. "I'm spending the weekend alone and reverting back to my bachelor days."
Bachelor days, because of course he's married. "Where's your wife?" she asks, hoping her tone is neutral.
"Zelena and my son are visiting her parents out west. Is it wrong that I'm enjoying the peace and quiet?" he asks. "I have plans to watch sports and sit on the couch and eat crisps all weekend."
"Chips," she says with a laugh. "Here, they're chips."
He bites his lip. "Chips. Of course."
"Please tell me you're not going to just eat crap while you're alone," she says. She can't help herself; the mother in her won't shut up. "A salad? Just one vegetable?"
He reaches into her cart and plucks a red pepper out of her groceries. "Just one vegetable," he says. "For you."
June, 2013
She's finally relented and let Emma take Henry on vacation, despite her better judgment. She stares into the fridge, trying to figure out a meal plan for the week, before she realizes that it doesn't matter. For the first time in twelve years, she has nobody to feed but herself, but she can't bring herself to care about what she eats. She picks at a bowl of cereal, finally dumping the majority of it down the disposal.
Her phone rings. She pulls it off the counter, hoping that it's Henry calling, asking her to come pick him up.
It's not. It's Robin. Her thumb hovers over the screen. More than anything, she wants to answer the phone. Wants to tell him to come over, that she has the house to herself, that he can stay as long as he wants.
Instead, she turns off the ringer and places the phone face-down on the counter.
February, 2001
Henry won't stop crying. She can't blame him for that, because she wants to cry herself. She bounces him in her arms, trying to soothe his tears, but nothing quiets him once he starts going. Daniel always knew what to do – he could pluck the baby out of her arms, whisper to him while pacing through the nursery, and in a matter of moments, he'd be asleep. Daniel would look up at her as she leaned in the doorway of the nursery they'd decorated so lovingly together and wink at her. He'd place Henry so gently in his crib, pull the blanket over him and press a kiss to his brow. "We boys understand each other," he'd whisper to her as he led her down the hallway to their bedroom. "When we have a daughter, it'll be your turn to gang up on us."
When we have a daughter. She'd loved his optimism. She'd loved that he always knew what to say to make her feel better. He'd pulled her into the bedroom and closed the door, whispering that he didn't want their son to be scarred for life by the way he was going to make her scream for him.
Her eyes well with tears, and she isn't sure if it's from the sound of her son's agonizing cries, or from the silence where Daniel should be.
"Ms. Mills?" the secretary says. "Mr. Blanchard will see you now." She follows the perky blonde down the hallway to the attorney's office, the first of many meetings to discuss Daniel's probate case.
Mr. Blanchard (Call me Leo, he says) is kind and soothing. This isn't his first rodeo, she thinks. What a horrible thing, to be a probate lawyer, to deal with death every day. He sits her down and pulls out the paperwork that they'd done before they adopted Henry. Just a precaution, based on her mother's advice. Nothing would happen to them, but on the off-chance it did, Cora wanted her daughter to be protected.
Things happen. A rainy night, a drunk driver, a visit from state troopers. Things happen.
"Ms. Mills," the lawyer says, and for the first time, she regrets not taking Daniel's last name. She's independent, a self-made woman. He never begrudged her that, but now that he's gone, she wishes she at least carried his name. She has nothing left of him, other than a small house and a tiny 401k that he'd barely contributed to before that night. "I need you to sign these forms," the lawyer says, and she picks up the pen blindly. He walks her through the paperwork, a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Regina," he says, as she tucks Henry into his carrier, "if you need anything else, please don't be afraid to call."
She won't call him, but she appreciates the gesture nonetheless.