I.

The cabbie dispatch had been exactly where John Bates said it would be, manned by a sour grump of an old Irishman. His eyes brightened only slightly at the prospect of making a few pounds on a slow Saturday afternoon, then returned to their previous disinterest when he realized it was a small fare. Nonetheless, fifteen minutes later, after being slammed from side to side in the old, musty cab, Anna was deposited in front of her apartment building, urn and body intact, if a bit jostled.

She sighed in relief when she shut the door to her apartment behind her, tossing her keys in a bowl on the entry table and setting the urn down to shrug off her jacket and kick off her infernal shoes.

"That it?" a voice called from the kitchen.

Anna smiled slightly and sighed as she thumbed her way through the day's post on the table. "Yeah, what's left, at least."

Gwen padded into the entry hall from the kitchen, a spoon in one hand, another in her mouth, and holding a tub of ice cream under her elbow. She offered the clean spoon to Anna and dug her own back into the tub. She shoved another heaping scoop into her mouth and regarded Anna's mother's ashes with a frown. "Smaller than I thought it'd be," she said with a shrug around her spoon.

"Body's seventy-five percent water," Anna recalled, "so I guess that's about right." She picked up the urn and carried it over to the small fireplace in the living room, setting it on the left side of the mantle. She adjusted the framed photo of her mother at an angle with the porcelain vase, gave it a lingering touch, and slumped down into the nearest chair. "Come on," she said with a sigh, holding out her hand for the ice cream. "Hand it here."

Gwen grabbed a pillow from the couch and placed it on the floor, settling down on top of it, within reach of Anna and their shared dessert. "Sorry I had to use your key," she apologized, "but I left my sweater here after the wake, and then I saw you had mint chocolate chip in your freezer and…"

"You helped yourself," Anna finished for her. "S'fine. I don't think I really wanted to be alone anyway, come to think of it." She scraped the edge of the carton, which was emptying fast between the two of them.

"Where'd you go? I mean after you got her. You were gone a good while."

Anna shook her head and frowned. "Just...I went for a walk. Nowhere in particular really. Ended up at the church where my parents were married, of all places."

This seemed to satisfy Gwen for the moment, who busied herself with finding the remote for the television and flipping to the first horrible romantic comedy she could find. Anna's cat, Moses, a mean old bag of grey fur with piercing eyes, glared at her from his perch on the back of the couch. Anna ignored the movie as well as the cat for the most part, instead letting her eyes drift upward to her mother's ashes wistfully. Gwen seemed to sense her mood after a while and turned off the television. She stared at Anna pointedly for a minute, tapping her spoon against her foot before Anna couldn't stand it any longer.

"Out with it," Anna sighed.

Gwen bit her lip, thinking carefully before speaking. "I know it's been a bad week, what with what happened, but you remember that tomorrow night was that party I wanted to go to…"

Anna closed her eyes and leaned her head on the back of the chair. "Don't let me stop you."

"And if you don't want to go, I understand…"

"You're right. I just picked up my mother's mortal remains, and you want me to go to a party?"

"And I wouldn't be asking if Eric wasn't going to be there…"

Anna's eyes shot open. "I thought you were going to see some fellow named Iain? I thought you were over Eric and into the 'I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire' stage, as I recall?"

Gwen wrung her hands together. "That's the thing...I'm supposed to meet Iain there, but Ethel says Eric sort of invited himself because he wanted to see me, and you know how Ethel can't turn anyone down."

"Don't I know it," Anna said with a snort. She sighed and leveled her gaze at her best friend. "So let me get this straight. You need me to run interference with your ex because you want to hook up with some guy you met on Facebook, is that it?"

Gwen grinned and nodded. "He's the friend of a friend. Of...a friend. It's complicated," she gushed. "Anyway, it would do you some good to get out, and maybe you'll meet someone there. I think she's invited half the town."

"You forget that I've probably met half of the town because of our jobs, and the other half I don't care to meet. I swear I think Ethel just stays at the firm so she can meet men." Anna screwed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose. It may do her some good to get out for an evening after being tied to her mother's bedside for the past two months. "All right."

Gwen shrieked and threw her arms around Anna's legs from the floor. "I owe you so much!" she gushed.

"You owe a few strong drinks for forcing me back into those shoes," Anna sighed as she wiggled her aching feet. "And another pint of ice cream."

II.

The music was loud, the people were drunk, the room was dark and somewhat smoky. All combined, it was giving her a splitting headache. Gwen's fellow hadn't shown up after all, and after exchanging a few angry texts with him, he became persona non grata to her. "I'm deleting him," she snapped as she made a few swipes on her phone.

Anna sipped her drink, relishing the sweet burn that went across her tongue. "Seems so final, deleting him from your Facebook," she said with arched brows. "It's the new divorce. The future is here." Her eyes narrowed shrewdly.

Gwen's shoulders slumped in defeat. "I'm just sorry I dragged you out here. Iain didn't show, Eric isn't even paying any attention to me," she said as she glared at her ex boyfriend, who was currently kissing the neck of some college-aged girl in the corner. "It was selfish of me. You're not even having any fun."

"I'm having plenty of fun," Anna retorted. "I'm racy. I'm fun. This lot is just a bit younger than I'm used to."

"More like we're getting older."

Anna hummed in agreement before tossing the rest of her drink back. "You know, I am a bit tired, and I think I've hit my limit for the evening." She glanced at her watch. "It's technically Sunday now. Supposed to be a good girl on Sundays."

"Right," Gwen huffed. "Come on, let's get a cab and go home. I've got better booze in my kitchen cabinet anyway that's not watered down like this mess."

III.

Something, or was it someone? Someone was pounding at her head.

"Anner," Gwen slurred, tapping Anna's face.

The morning light was entirely too bright as Anna let her eyes open a sliver. She groaned and covered her face with the nearest pillow she could find.

"Anner, phone."

Anna reached blindly for the phone that she vaguely remembered setting on Gwen's nightstand sometime around five in the morning, when they both grew tired of the Lord of the Rings marathon Gwen had suggested. "But it's Orlando Blooooom!" she had offered drunkenly as they both curled up beside each other on Gwen's bed. "You take a sip every time he kills an Orc."

The phone was ringing incessantly, and Anna managed to focus enough to see that it was her sister calling. "Bullocks," she swore as she swallowed the cottonmouth from her hangover. She swiped the screen. "Hey, Emm," she groaned into the phone.

"Anna?" Emily's voice was entirely too shrill and offensively perky this morning. "Where are you? I tried your apartment."

She sat up and rubbed her forehead. "Umm, at Gwen's. I had a bad night, you know? Stayed here for the night." Of course her sister wouldn't know. She couldn't be bothered to come home to see their mother in several years, much less help to take care of her, say goodbye, or pay her respects.

Emily sighed loudly and Anna could hear the sound of her two children screaming vulgarities in the background, far too loudly for a pair of eight year olds who should have some manners by now. "How are things?" Emily finally asked.

For the first time since her mother died, tears didn't come immediately. Instead, she was filled with irritation and bitterness. "You know, I have a ton of work waiting on me at the office, I'm still not attached, I live with my ex's nasty old cat, and Mum's gone after taking care of her non-stop the past two months. Other than that, I'm brilliant." She glanced at the alarm clock beside her. Quarter past eleven. Something tickled at the back of her mind…

"You don't have to be sharp, Anna," her sister said. "I would have come if Dennis had been able to take time off."

"He owns the company," Anna said in exasperation. "He makes, what, eight figures a year? You probably have enough frequent flyer miles that Richard Branson himself would have flown you home, plus I know for a fact you have his number in your mobile because you showed it to me once. But I get it, you're too busy. For the past two months, you've been too busy. Two years really."

"I didn't call to fight with you," Emily snapped.

Anna's stomach was beginning to churn. Bad sign. "Then why did you call?" she shot right back.

"I called to see what you're doing about the house. When are you selling it?"

This was her idea of not calling to fight? "I've no plans of the sort right now."

She could hear Emily's brain calculating from five thousand miles and several satellites away. "You know that half of it should be mine."

There is was. She knew it was coming. And she knew what had to be said. "Actually, it's not," she answered. "Mum put my name on the deed about five years ago when she rewrote her will. You'll get the contents of your old room, the boys get a little bit for their college fund, but the house itself is mine. You said so yourself, there was nothing in Yorkshire for you anymore." Not that she knew what she would do with the old four bedroom house with the lovely little garden out back. It was far too big for her, but she wasn't nearly ready to give it up.

She hated to be so blunt about it, but it was the cold truth. Emily hadn't been home in years, the boys had only met their grandmother twice, and for all intents and purposes, they had been cut out of Tabitha Smith's life, and Anna's as well. There was the occasional Christmas card, and a phone call once a year or so, but that was it. Emily Hansen had shunned their very modest upbringing in favor of her husband's fast-paced and lavish world in Silicon Valley. The tech boom had been good to Dennis. He was a plain looking and dull man with a knack for electronics and business who landed himself a gorgeous English blonde who knew how to host a good party and keep his ego afloat. Emily had admitted in a drunken 2am phone call some time ago that she hadn't loved her husband in years, just the idea of him and what he could do for her.

Emily's reply was terse. "I'll need her lawyer to send ours a copy of the will so he can look over it."

Anna shrugged, the motion sending her stomach into a tailspin. "He can look all he wants. You remember I work for a law firm myself. It's ironclad."

Her sister barked a ridiculous laugh. "Ah yes, the legal secretary with all the answers about the law. How's the degree going?"

"Senior researcher," Anna corrected. "Gwen's the head secretary." An ugly thought crossed her mind. "And I'm not sending you half of her ashes, so don't ask."

"Don't be vulgar," Emily snapped. "Look, just send the will, and it will all sort itself in the end."

Anna rubbed her forehead. "I'll have it sent when I get a chance."

Emily sighed heavily. "I suppose I'll talk to you some other time, then," she said with finality.

"Right. Some other time." The phone beeped and Anna looked at the screen. Emily had hung up on her.

Gwen's face was still buried under her pillow. "Your sister still sounds like a hosebeast," she mumbled sleepily.

Anna would have answered if her stomach hadn't picked that moment to show its displeasure at last night's festivities. She flew into the bathroom and emptied what little bit she had inside her into the toilet. She was washing her face with a cool cloth when Gwen groaned from behind her.

"Why did God make alcohol so wonderful if it does this crap to us?" Gwen said weakly as she stumbled into the bathroom.

It was that moment that Anna remembered where she had promised to be that morning.