Asher answers the door. Jane hears him yell that he's got it, and shifts her attention back to the sheet music in front of her, tuning everything else out until she hears her other son yelling.
"We don't want you here! Get away from our house, you sick asshole."
James' screams bring Jane sprinting into the front hall, her adrenaline tunneling her vision down to just her sons, standing in the open door, their tall lanky bodies partially blocking whomever is there.
She skids to a stop behind James, and pulls him backwards, intent only on putting her body between him and whatever threat is on their doorstep. As she does, she focuses on that threat for the first time, and feels her stomach drop even further.
Felicia Fairfield is standing on the top step, her hands pressed flat against her chest, eyes wide with shock and indignation. Jane is sure that no one's ever called her an asshole before.
"James," she says, turning to put a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay."
"It's not," Asher says from behind his brother. He is not as loud or as outgoing as James, but he has a knack for saying the things that both boys are thinking. "It's not okay. She shouldn't be here."
"And you shouldn't call adults assholes," Jane continues to James as though he's spoken. "But here we are."
"Then you tell her to go," James says roughly. "Tell her to get lost."
Jane nods. "Go in the other room, guys," she says softly, "Please."
James looks like he would rather do anything else in the entire world, but Asher makes a sound halfway between a click and whistle, and the two of them turn and head out of the room.
That is when Jane notices Maura in the doorway to the kitchen. She stands with her arms crossed across her chest, and she stares past Jane at Felicia with such a burning look of hatred, that Jane feels a little off balance.
She turns back to the woman in the doorway, looking anywhere but her eyes. "Mrs. Fairfield," she says. The words sound strange in her ears. "What can I help you with?"
Felicia looks over Jane's shoulder as Maura approaches. "I…" she falters as Maura's arm slips protectively around Jane's waist. The feeling of Maura's touch sends comfort all through Jane's body. She is glad beyond words to have her there.
In front of them, Felicia is still staring at their closeness, transfixed. "I…wanted to come and…I just…"
Jane resists the urge to roll her eyes. She pulls Maura a little closer. "We're not going to separate for your comfort, Mrs. Fairfield," she says pointedly. "So you might as well spit it out."
Felicia looks up at her, wide eyed. "Charles Hoyt is dead," she says.
For what seems like an hour, Jane just stares at the floor. This isn't at all what she was expecting. She had been prepared for Felicia to make the same request of her that she made of her parents, the past replaying itself over like a horror movie stuck on auto play.
Felicia has gone scarlet, though her expression looks to be anger, rather than embarrassment. "I meant for that to come later," she says, almost to herself. "What I wanted to say first is that my son is going to plead guilty. He's going to plead guilty to everything and take the sentence he gets. There won't be any need for your daughter to testify."
She pauses, glancing at Maura. "And Charles Hoyt is dead," she repeats, like she knows that Jane's brain is unable to process the words and needs to hear them over and over.
Still she can't make her mouth work.
"How do you know?" Maura asks. Her other hand has come to Jane's shoulder.
Felicia nods. This is the question she was anticipating. "I asked to be notified of his release or of his death," she says. Jane was not aware that this was something that one could ask for.
"Why?" the question bursts from her before she realizes she is once again in command of her vocal chords.
Again, the older woman seems to have anticipated this question. "First," she says, as though reading from a list, "because I wanted to keep him away from Garrett, should he be released. And then…" she trails off so specifically, that Jane believes she has rehearsed. "Then it was habit," she finishes.
She looks up at Jane quickly, and so Jane looks into her eyes for one quick second, before she is able to look away. Felicia Fairfield has exactly Grace's eyes. It makes Jane feel a vague and general pain, to see those eyes again.
"So, Garrett has decided to plead guilty?" Maura takes the conversation over again. "He's changed his mind?"
The decision to go to trial had come to the Hartford house via their lawyer just ten days ago. Constance, Maura, Jane, and Grace had listened to him talk about their options for five minutes before Grace had made the hand gesture that asked for silence so that she could speak.
"I'm…going to…tantalize," she'd said, already shaking her head, working to try again. The lawyer had opened his mouth to give her the correct word, but Constance laid a hand on his arm and shook her head discreetly, not taking her eyes off of Grace.
"Testery," Grace said, and then slower. "Test-if-I."
"Of course you are, darling," Maura said, as Jane nodded her agreement. "If that's what you want to do, you'll do it."
And again when the lawyer had made a move to speak, Constance had forestalled him. "You will treat my granddaughter the way you would any other witness," she'd said, eyes fierce despite her mild tone.
So it had been decided. And though Maura and Jane stayed up late more nights than not, worrying, and planning, and simply holding onto each other, neither ever considered dissuading her.
Now Felicia Fairfield is on their doorstep, and she's telling them that there will be no trial.
Jane feels irrationally angry, though she knows the emotion has more to do with her past than her daughter's.
"He didn't change his mind," Felicia says quietly, still looking at the ground. "But he will change his plea."
"He can plead innocent if he wants to," Jane hears herself say. "But the outcome will be the same."
Felicia nods. "I know that," she answers. Her voice has not gotten softer, but smaller somehow.
"Do you?" Maura wonders aloud.
"Yes."
They stand there for a moment longer, no one looking at anyone else, and Jane is just about to tell this woman to fuck off, when a shrill voice behind them makes Jane and Maura spin.
"Beast!"
Grace is entering the room, supported by Asher, with James hovering behind her protectively.
"Best…Beat….Bat….BITCH!" Grace cries. "You can't – can't keep me fly testing. Frame testifies."
Maura closes the distance back to her daughter very quickly, wrapping her arms around her. "Shhh, my lovely," she says gently. "No one is keeping your from anything. Calm down a little, okay?"
Jane knows that Maura is saying this because of the face Grace is making. It's the face that usually comes before a migraine.
The doctors don't know if Grace's Anomic Aphasia, her inability to produce the word she wants immediately, will ever fully disappear. Already in the months since her injury, she is worlds better, but long periods of effort, or extreme agitation still induce headaches powerful enough to make her weep.
Grace does not calm down. She pushes at her mother, still glaring at Felicia. "I hate you," she says through gritted teeth. "I hate you! Why did – why did you leave him hard….why…" she shakes her head jerkily. "He hurt mama!" she says finally. "You leaf – leaf – let him."
Felicia stares at Grace, her eyes wide, mouth slightly ajar. Jane wishes she would run. She wishes she would lose whatever mad courage brought her here, and just turn and go. But Grace is deteriorating, and Jane turns to focus on her as she puts one fragile hand to her forehead.
"Mama," she cries. "Mommy. Mama! Hurt – held – held me! Help me…"
Jane leaves the open door to attend to her daughter, and as she takes her in her arms, she sees Maura turn away, hand over her mouth. Her eyes are wet with tears.
"Hey, Riz-kid, you're okay. Hey, sweetheart. Breathe. It's okay. You're safe."
Asher puts his hand on Maura's arm. He is the most sensitive to her moods, and he hates to see her cry. So much so that he lets her pull him into a hug.
James glares at Felicia, still frozen in the doorway. "Can't you just…get out of here?" he hisses, voicing Jane's earlier wish.
"I did!" Felicia says loudly. The words look like they have pushed their way out of her mouth by force. "I let him hurt your mother. I…I let him hurt your mother and you, and…my own daughter."
The silence that falls at the confession is deafening. Jane stares at her, trying to comprehend the past minutes' revelations.
No one says anything as Felicia steps into the front hallway, her hands out, as if to show that she's not armed. She continues to speak to Grace, she looks at her as though she is the only one in the room.
"I don't know how to explain, and nothing I say will make up for the horrible things that I allowed my son to do."
"Then why did you let him do it?" James asks angrily.
"Because I loved him," she says simply. "You think that it's impossible," she says, seeing his face, "because you have never had a child. But it's the only answer I can give that is truthful. I loved them both, so much. And when Grace…" she breaks off, unable to say it, faltering for a second. "Well, I decided I would love him harder. Hold on. Harder. No matter what."
"If I ever hurt Grace, I hope my mother would lock me up forever. I hope my brother would kill me in my sleep," James says passionately, and by the way Felicia's head snaps up to look at him, Jane sees that she had not known her daughter's name until that moment.
She feels a sick twist in her stomach at the thought of one of her children inflicting deliberate harm on anyone. Could she stand by them if they did? Could she admit their guilt? Love them in spite of it?
She is not sure that she would have a choice.
"I hope that your parents never have that decision to make," Felicia says after a moment. "And if the time ever does come, I pray they have the strength protect one child…even at the cost of another."
"You knew," The knowledge hits her suddenly, full in the chest. "You knew what he was doing to her." Wave upon wave of revelation today. "You instructed that guard outside her window to finish two hours early every night."
Felicia looks at her, and Jane allows herself to look into those familiar eyes. The older woman doesn't speak. She lets Jane to look for as long as she wants. She steps forward a little more, reaching into the cavernous purse over her shoulder.
"I had the summer home in Cape Cod demolished," she says, pulling out a plastic shopping bag, wrapped several times around a little bundle. She looks up, and must be able to read Jane's face. "Not because I thought it might make you feel better. Not as some kind of attempt at amends. I did it in the hopes that it would ease my guilt." She sighs. "It did not. For what it's worth."
She holds out the bag. "I found these things, in one of the back rooms, hidden behind a trunk. I think he meant to burn them, but did not have the chance."
Jane frees one hand from Grace and reaches out to take it. She doesn't open it, just holds it at her side.
She already knows what it is.
Felicia clasps her hands together. "Malcolm is dead," she says. "Charles Hoyt is dead, the house is gone and…Garrett is going to prison for the rest of his life." It hurts her to say this, Jane can see it in her face.
She thinks of all the times she'd tried to convince Grace to go to the police. All the times she'd dried her tears and begged her to run away. To hide. To fight for freedom.
And Grace refused. She loved her mother too much to leave her alone in that house, she said.
And Garrett…She always trailed off at this part, but Jane could hear what she didn't say and it filled her to the brim with hatred and jealousy and pity.
She loved him. He was her abuser and her jailer, but he was also her brother.
"I hope that you can forget us," Felicia says, clearing her throat. "I hope that you can forget us, and still remember her." She looks at Grace. "She deserves to be remembered. Especially by those who did right by her."
She turns to go without saying good-bye. No one calls her back. Jane knows it will be the last time she ever sees her, and she is not sad about it.
When she looks over Grace's head at Maura, she knows that her wife feels the same way.
…
The plastic bag holds a worn, short sleeve Red Sox t-shirt, two dozen or so letters addressed to Grace in Jane's hand writing, and a set of earrings that Jane got for her girlfriend on their two month anniversary.
More surprising, the bag also holds three sealed letters addressed to Jane from Grace. Garrett must have pilfered these from the mailbox before they could be sent, but he did not open them.
Felicia hadn't either.
"Why-why wound you, Mama?" Grace asks her, when Jane tells her family she's not going to open them either.
"Because…the love I had for Grace is in the past. It was really good and special, yes. But it's over now." She says quietly.
Maura smiles at her. They have both had to learn to live somewhere in between reverence and rejection of Jane's past.
For a while, just before her pregnancy, Maura had struggled against the possibility of Grace as Jane's wife, had the horrible things not happened, and Jane still does not quite know how Maura reconciled herself to a ghost with unlimited potential.
But when she'd given birth and asked Jane permission for the middle name, she'd said, "I love her. I love her for what she was to you, honey. And I'll love her as my daughter too."
And Jane found that it made the past both easier, and brighter, and further away, when she called her daughter by that name.
Asher and James sit side by side on the couch. They both look disgruntled, though it is Asher who speaks first. "I hate Garrett," he says.
James nods.
"It's not love, what he did," Asher continues. "It's not love what any of them did. You don't hurt the people you love."
Maura sighs, reaching out to pat his arm. "Sometimes, sweetheart, that is all you do to them."
Jane knows she is thinking of her father, older now, and coming towards the end of his life. Jane hopes that Maura will talk to him. She hopes that if they cannot make up, that they will at least speak. For both their sakes.
"Loud," Grace says, and everyone waits.
"Love…is…ugly, Sunshines," she says.
"You're right," Maura says. "Love is ugly sometimes."
"Mama…Carry we to bed?" she says, leaning into Jane. Lately, Grace has taken to catnaps, six or seven in the course of a day. The doctor says it is nothing to worry about, that it might even mean progress. And sometimes, Jane thinks that when she wakes up, her speech is better.
Her hands shake less holding the bow of her cello.
She picks Grace up like she's an infant, even though she knows that's not what she meant, ignoring her squawk of indignation, because her face is also secretly delighted.
"You got mad," she whispers into Grace's ear. "You got really upset and you didn't fall into a migraine. You're going to be okay, hon. You're going to get better."
Grace burrows into her mother's shoulder as they climb the stairs.
"Good love," she says tiredly. And when Jane tucks her in under the covers, Grace reaches out and pulls the worn old t-shirt from where it dangles from Jane's back pocket.
Jane smiles and doesn't take it back.
Out in the hall, Maura meets her, wrapping her arms around her waist, and leaning into her. "She didn't have a migraine," she murmurs.
"I know," Jane says, kissing the top of her head. "She's going to be okay."
It's the first time that it feels like the absolute truth.
"You should call Alicia about that song, Jane. It's brilliant."
Jane pulls in a deep breath. "I don't need to go back just yet," she says. "There's enough money for another year, at least. And I could pick up classes if I-"
But Maura pulls back to look at her, and she falls silent, eyes closing as the other woman's hand traces her cheek lightly. "I love you," she says softly, "more than anyone in the whole world. You are phenomenal. And it's time."
Jane grins. "Yes Ma'am," she says. "You'll go back too?"
Maura nods. "Deal."
They kiss, like a handshake and a promise. There will be more conversation, about Felicia, and work, and doctor's, and parents.
But right now, they both just hold onto each other, and revel in the knowledge that while there are various different types of love in the world…
Their love is good.