Holly Stewart is just two weeks into her new job when her past and her present collide.
"Holly," a voice calls out from across the hall of the Police Administration building, heels sharp against the cool marble floor, "Holly Stewart?"
A red-haired woman walks purposefully across the hall, an epitome of efficiency and professionalism in her crisp uniform.
Suddenly Holly isn't thirty-three with a house and a job and a reputation for being one of the top forensic pathologists east of Saskatchewan. No, suddenly she's seventeen again and meeting her new boyfriend's mother for the first time, sweaty hands and dry mouth and everything. Suddenly her pulse is racing and her stomach is swirling and she's wants nothing more than to walk very quickly in the opposite direction because even though she'd considered the chances of this very scenario occurring, she thought she'd have a bit more luck, or at the least, a bit more time.
"Holly Stewart, it is you," the woman says and Holly shakes herself back into the present, trading memories tinged in the sepia hues of regret for the vibrant here and now.
"Mrs.—Detective Peck," Holly says in a polite voice, pleased she's managed to speak without stammering, "it's been a long time."
"It's Superintendent now, but you can just call me Elaine," she responds, her cheerful tone masking the blue steel Holly knows hides just beneath the surface, "what has it been, fifteen years?"
Elaine takes her arm and continues to chatter on as she starts walking further into the building. Holly, trapped by manners and memories, is helpless not to go along.
"…saw the name of the new pathologist the chief was raving about on the agenda for today's Police Services Board meeting and I couldn't help but wonder if it could be the same Holly from all those years ago. Of course, it could have been anyone…"
Holly's not really listening. Instead, she's chastising herself for ever thinking that this could have been avoided, for forgetting just how embedded into the community of law enforcement the Peck family always had been. For deluding herself into thinking that just because Toronto had almost three million citizens, just because the police force was the third largest in the whole nation, she could have ever, ever avoided this moment, her past.
Still, she thought to herself as they neared the room where she would be officially introduced to the Police Board, it could have been worse. It could have been—
"…-ven, as you may know, is now a detective. We're so proud. He's been doing excellent work in the Guns and Gangs division. We expect him to be promoted any time now. He's still single, you know. He dates here and there, but no one of consequence, really. Not in years. And then there's Gail, who, despite—oh, well, here we are."
Elaine points to a row of chairs sitting to the side of the room and is in the middle of saying something about having to find a time to catch up when her face lights up and Holly knows, just knows, that this isn't going to end well for her.
"Now," she says, "I just had an idea. It's perfect. You'll come over for dinner tonight—Bill and I try to have the children over at least once a month, keep up to date on their lives. We'd never hear anything from them otherwise, you know how they are. We can all catch up—I'll send Steven a note now just to let him know we're having a special guest tonight. We'll go straight after the meeting lets out."
There's no chance for Holly to get a word in edgewise. Not to remind her of the less-than-ideal circumstances of her break-up with Steve all those years ago—completely disappearing was a particularly adolescent tactic that she was in no way proud of. Not to head off the scheme she can see brewing in Elaine's clear, calculating eyes. Not even to stand up for herself and say "Thanks, but no thanks" or even take the coward's way out and pretend she's already got plans for the evening.
No, this woman is worse than a bulldozer.
Some things, Holly thinks, never change.
But then again, she knows, others do.
From the outside, the house is the same—grand, looming.
But inside, Holly has no idea. The room she's standing in now was never on the list of "approved for teenagers" spaces back when she was dating Steve. And now, she's pretty sure, the half-finished room in the basement where she and Steve spent most of their time is off-limits. She wonders how it looks now, if the lumpy couch and threadbare rug are still there. If Bill ever got around to finishing it, painting the walls and putting that carpet he was always talking about in. She wonders if Steve's room is still dark and musty, trophies lined up on the shelves, if it smells of old socks and deodorant. She wonders if Gail's still seems so empty, so bare of the love and humor and quirks she saw simmering beneath the teenager's skin all those years ago. She wonders if Gail ever figured out who she was, what she wanted, or if the shadow of her mother still clouds her eyes.
In the parlor, Holly stands and takes everything in. The collection of old books, some clearly well-loved and others barely touched. The stiff-looking furniture, the soft yellow glow of the lamps on the dark woods. A row of pictures neatly arranged on the mantel of the fireplace catches her eye, and she moves to look.
All the expected pictures are there—Bill and Elaine on their wedding day, portraits of the children as babies, a professional family portrait that must have been taken around Steve's graduation from college or Gail's from high school. Holly spends a few minutes looking at that one, the fly-away red hair that Steve would never let his mother talk him into cutting, Elaine's intense presence next to Bill's more relaxed frame. And Gail, her brilliant blue eyes somehow dark and brooding. If Holly closes her eyes she can see the aftermath of the photo so clearly, Gail shrugging her mother's hand off her shoulder, Steve rolling his eyes as Elaine tells them "just one more shot and this time, act like a Peck" for the third or fourth or fifth time.
The left side of the mantel, though, is a trip through Peck family policing. Generation after generation of graduation portraits, Pecks in their dress blues and stiff caps. Faces stern and eyes piercingly intense. She remembers Steve talking about the family tradition, about how it was expected that he'd follow in the footsteps of his elders. And how he was okay with it, how he'd only ever wanted to be a police officer anyway—just like his dad, like his uncles, like his grandfather. He did it then, she thinks, looking at his young face in the photo, the spark of mischief in his eye and the slightest curl of a grin around his mouth. He looks happy.
And then, last in the long line of Pecks, there's Gail.
Holly is surprised, honestly so.
The Gail she remembers never had a plan picked out for her life, except that it wasn't going to be this, falling in line and following the well-blazed trail of Pecks into the force. And yet, there she is. So different than the girl of Holly's memories, but still the same eyes, a shock of blue no less vibrant now. Older, true, a face that's thinner and wiser, that's lost the last pudge of childhood that used to sit around Gail's cheeks, her chin. But still the hard line of a surly pout, still the delicacy and the strength, the defiance.
She was beautiful then, Holly knows, and thinks back to a forbidden moment. Flushed cheeks and a wide, free smile. The press of bodies and a swaying rumble underfoot as they struggled to breathe in the hot, stale air.
She's even more so now, Holly sees as the picture fills in all the blanks, all the parts of the other woman that Holly had wondered about in the years since, in the years of trying not to. She's grown into herself, Holly thinks, and smiles softly.
It's a struggle not to reach out and touch the photo, to run her fingers along the contours of Gail's grown-up face and pretend she's real. Pretend Gail's here and warm under her fingertips. If she closes her eyes, Holly thinks, she can almost conjure the memory of scent, that comforting bouquet of wood and spice and life that was so uniquely Gail.
But then there's a commotion behind her, a rapid whispering, and the memory is gone.
Holly backs away from the mantel and the photographs and braces herself for an awkward reunion, giving herself a little pep talk.
"You can do this," her head says to her heart.
If only she believed it.
"Steven, you remember Holly," Elaine says as he struggles to put a name to her face.
Holly's anxiety eases a little bit, right alongside her guilt. She's not even insulted that it takes him a moment to remember who she is. Who she was.
But then he smiles wide and she can see the pieces falling into place—she always could read him, that hasn't changed—and suddenly she's being pulled into a hug.
He's gotten bigger—taller, and heavier. No longer the lean boy she once knew, Steve's grown into a man. But his arms are still soft and comfortable and warm, and she still feels safe inside of them.
She's always felt safe with him.
It just took her a while to learn the difference between safety and love.
"I'll let you two get reacquainted while I make sure your father hasn't overcooked the steak," Elaine says, none-too-subtly, and turns to leave.
Steve rolls his eyes and gives her a sheepish smile and something in Holly settles, falls back into place for the first time since she left this city all those years ago. She's missed this man.
There are things to tell him and things to ask forgiveness for, but right now, standing in his childhood home, she thinks that maybe there's a chance for forgiveness, for moving on and moving forward.
They're not long into their conversation, filling each other in on half a lifetime of history, when there's a thunder of footsteps in the hall and then a voice from just past the door that makes Holly's lungs deflate and her shoulders droop.
"Hey, butthead," Gail's voice says, "did you get Elaine's text? Did you hear who she invited—"
Dinner is tense.
At least it seems that way to Holly.
Elaine and Bill don't seem to notice anything, and she's doing her best not to let Gail's silence and glares bother her.
But they do. Of course they do.
Steve helps. He keeps the conversation going, and suddenly he's taking them all down memory lane as one half-remembered story inspires another. She and Steve had only dated for a few months—half a summer and then the fall—but they'd crammed a lot of fun into those days and weeks.
And it is kind of fun to watch Elaine's eyes bulge at just how much Steve managed to get away with even under her ever-present and watchful eye. Even Gail laughs, forgetting that she's angry, when Steve asks if she remembers the party he threw at the house one weekend when Bill and Elaine were at some police convention or training.
"Of course I do," Gail chips in, her eyes smiling as she pulls apart another roll, "you didn't have time to take all the empty cans and bottles to the dump so you shoved them all in your trunk and then somehow managed to convince Dad that the rattling sound was your muffler."
Even Bill laughs at that, though Elaine just purses her lips and narrows her eyes.
"Well," she sort of stutters, clearly at a loss for what to say, and the three of you start to laugh even harder.
It feels just like old times.
Until Elaine brings up the concert, wondering if that was some sort of shenanigans as well, and Gail goes silent again. Holly can feel the smolder of her anger all the way across the table.
"No," she says slowly, "that was just a concert like we said."
Elaine nods her head, "Good. For a moment I wondered whether you weren't the good influence I thought you were all those years ago."
"No," Steve comes to the rescue, "I was the bad influence. With my fast car and my rock and roll."
Dinner goes smoothly after that and then Holly finds herself pulled into a stiff but polite embrace by Elaine as she's standing at the door, waiting for Steve who has been "volunteered" to drive her home.
"Holly," she says, "it's been so nice to have you in our home again. We really did miss you when you moved away so suddenly. Even Gail—the girl moped for months. I told Bill once that it was almost like she'd been broken up with, she seemed so forlorn after you left."
"Mom," Steve interrupts, "that's enough. I've got to swing by the station on the way and I'm sure Holly would like to get home."
Elaine nods. "Alright, then. But where's your sister, she should say goodbye. I swear, Steven, that girl—"
"It's okay, Elaine," Holly tries to interrupt, but Steve puts a hand on her shoulder.
"She's already gone, said she needed to put the boys to bed," he tells Elaine, who just sighs and shakes her head.
And then they're out the door and free at last.
Holly takes a deep breath of the fresh night air, lets it sink in and cool her aching lungs. She laughs when Steve does the same.
The ride is quiet but for the Smashing Pumpkins song on the radio, and Holly smiles.
"Your taste in music hasn't gotten any better," Steve says with a sly smirk.
"Neither has yours, apparently," she answers back without missing a beat.
This, the two of them in the car, these were always their best moments. And Holly rests her head back against the seat and wonders why she ever wanted more.
"So," Steve starts, "you're back."
"Steve, I—" Holly tries to say, but he stops her.
"It's okay, Holly. You don't have to apologize. Not for anything. It's all water under the bridge. But I should apologize for Elaine. She's clearly trying to get us back together but, to be completely honest with you, I'm seeing someone. It's not serious yet, but I'd like it to be. I just haven't told Ma about it yet—so she keeps finding women to introduce me to."
"Don't worry about it," she says, and looks over to give him a smile, "but there's something I should tell you."
Holly takes a deep breath. She's done this a million times, come out to her parents, her extended family, her friends, classmates and coworkers. She's so used to coming out to people now that it comes as a surprise when she realizes how nervous she is. It feels like so much depends on this one, this coming out.
And maybe it's because they used to be something, back when they were really no more than children. Back before they truly, honestly, knew who they were. Before they'd truly experienced the world.
Or maybe it's because she really, truly, cares about this man, about the children they were and the friends she'd like them to be again.
"I'm a lesbian, Steve," she says, surprised at how normal her voice sounds.
He's quiet for a moment as they sit at a red light a few blocks from his parents' house, and then he turns to her and gives her a gentle smile.
"Well, maybe Elaine can find a woman for you then," he says, and they laugh together.
She sees the question form before it even reaches his lips.
"No, I didn't know when we were dating. At most," she tells him, "at the most I'd realized that I was different. I'd had a crush, I guess, on a girl at my school in New York, but I'd just written it off."
"Are you happy," he asks, "I mean, are you—"
Holly knows what he means. "I am," she says, and when he says "Good" as the light changes, she knows he means it.
They're still a few blocks from where she parked her car earlier, and Holly knows she's not going to be able to say goodbye without asking the question that's been on her mind since they left the house.
"So," she says, swallowing against the ball in her throat, "your sister has kids?"
Steve glances at her out of the side of his eye. "What," he asks, "are you crazy? Gail? Kids?"
"You said she went home to put the boys to bed," Holly reminds him.
"Oh," he says and grins, "her roommates. She lives in a dump with two guys from her rookie class. Calls them all sorts of names—"boys" is probably the tamest. They're good guys, they watch after her. She went to pick them up from the Penny—and don't mind her mood."
"She did seem rather upset that I was there," Holly replies, but doesn't tell him that she might have any idea why. She wants to. She wants to talk to him about what had happened all those years ago. She's never told anyone. Not even her parents. Not even her closest friends.
But now that she's here, she wants to tell Steve.
Only, Holly thinks to herself, she can't. This is something that she needs to talk to Gail about first, before she talks to anyone else.
"Yeah," Steve says, "she was in rare form tonight. Normally I'd say it's just Gail being Gail, but I thought she was actually going to throw something when Ma brought up that concert the two of you went to that fall."
She doesn't respond. What can she say, that she knows exactly why Gail was so upset? That clearly the woman was still angry at what Holly had done, at the lines Holly had almost crossed.
Steve takes a left and finally, Holly can see the police building in the distance.
"Wait," he exclaims loudly, startling her, "you're the girl!"
Her heart races and her breath stops and she can feel a cold pool of sweat gather at the base of her spine.
But Steve doesn't notice, his eyes are wild with the same sort of joy he'd get whenever he figured out the mystery first back when they'd spend Friday nights playing Clue! and that Sherlock Holmes game his parents had had for years.
"I can't believe I didn't figure it out before now. She was so weird after you and I broke up, and then you moved and suddenly she hated everything and everyone. But when she told me I never thought it could be you."
"She told you what happened," Holly asks, shocked at his reaction. She's always thought that if Steve knew, he'd be angry and upset. Not excited. Not this.
"Well," he says, looking over at her with a look that's half-contemplation, half-reflection, "she was drunk. She went through some things last year and after, sometimes she'd show up at my apartment half-drunk and needing just to be, you know? One night she comes by all upset—this guy she'd been seeing went deep undercover, just left without saying anything to her, and she spends the night on my couch drinking and talking about how people always leave her and then she says something—"
They pull into the parking structure and the fluorescent lights give his pale skin a sallow color.
It matches the swirling anxiety in her stomach, the heavy steak and potatoes they'd had for dinner no longer agreeing with her.
Steve continues after she tells him which level she parked on earlier that day. "It was weird, came completely out of nowhere. I mean, I'm used to Gail being hot one minute and cold the next—she's the most prickly person I've ever met. And I don't blame her, growing up as Elaine's personal pet project couldn't have been easy. But suddenly my drunk sister is crying into my shirt about how no one will ever stay and love her and apologizing for ruining my relationship. It took me twenty minutes just to calm her down enough to tell me what she meant."
Holly asks, she can't not. "What did she mean, Steve?"
"She told me that she'd had a crush on one of my old girlfriends, a serious crush. And that the other woman broke up with me because of it, but I never made the connection with you. I mean," he says, "and you may find this hard to believe, but you're not the only woman to ever break up with me."
She almost smiles.
But she can't, and something in her silence must strike him, because his voice takes an even gentler tone and he reaches out to put a soft hand on her knee.
"But that's not exactly what happened, is it, Holly," he asks.
Holly shakes her head and tries to fight the urge to cry, to run. They're parked right next to her car, she could open the door and get into her own in seconds, and then drive. She could drive and leave this town again and never come back.
But she's better than this, and Steve's story has lit a tiny brave spark in her heart.
"No," Holly answers him, "no, it's not."
She tells him the whole story, goes all the way back to the start of it. New York and Mindy McRae's sweet-smelling hair. How horrified and scared she'd been, not understanding what she was feeling. Or, maybe, understanding and not wanting to, denying it out of some sense of self-preservation.
Holly tells him about becoming friends with Gail, even though he knew that part already, even though he was there to see it happen. She tells him the little things that, looking back, seem so clear and undeniable.
And then, she tells him about the concert. The way she'd grabbed Gail's hand to keep the other girl from fidgeting, how she'd felt her stomach flip, and then flop. The hazy pleasure that filled her body as she slipped into the music, as she closed her eyes and listened, Gail's hand held safe in her own.
The way she'd slipped into a heated daydream, someone's gentle, loving lips on her own. How when she opened her eyes in the fantasy, Gail's face looked back at her, Gail's lips, Gail's eyes.
She told him of her shock and her fear. Of the trip home, and how they'd been thrown together by the crowd of weaving, weary people and the motion of the train.
She ends with the horror she felt. At feeling something, again, for another girl. Something stronger than she'd ever felt for him, for any boy. The horror of it being Gail, her boyfriend's sister, her boyfriend's younger sister.
He knows the rest. How she broke up with him when he got back from his ski-trip. How she was polite but distant, avoiding him at all costs, during her last weeks of the term. How she begged and pleaded with her parents to let her move in with her aunt back in New York and finish her senior year somewhere—anywhere—else.
How she disappeared into thin air, leaving behind his sweatshirt and a stack of cds. A pathetic attempt at a goodbye. At an "I'm sorry."
"Wow," Steve says, and she looks at him curiously.
"That's all," Holly asks, "you're not upset? You're not—all you've got is 'wow?'"
Steve tilts his head, thinking.
"Yep, just wow," he answers. "And no, I'm not upset. Maybe I might have been fifteen years ago when it happened, or ten years ago. But it happened a long time ago, and neither you, nor my sister, did anything wrong."
"Okay," he amends, "maybe you could have stuck around, Holly, but we were all kids. Who knows what would have happened. Besides," Steve puts on his most charming smile, "I think we all turned out pretty great in the end. You—a doctor. My sister—a semi-functioning human being. Me—a fabulous specimen of modern policing…"
Later that night, once she's home and showered and tucked herself into her big, empty bed, Holly thinks about Steve's very last words to her. The way he rolled down the window and called out to her as she was getting ready to back out of her parking space.
"And hey, Holly," he'd said, a curious look on his face, one that usually signaled mischief brewing in that trouble-loving brain of his, "I know you want to settle things with Gail, explain and make your peace, but give her a little space. She's like a rabid dog—tends to bite when she feels cornered. But don't worry," and there it was, that grin, "it'll all work out."
Laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling and watching the lights from the street dance across it, Holly hopes Steve is right.
She'll just have to trust him.
