Henry Clinton had spent the entire ride in near silence, nodding along and wearing a horrified expression. It had been so long since she'd last spoken about what had happened to her that she had nearly forgotten how astounded they always were. Indeed, he was almost silent, except for a simple refrain: "I can't imagine." He couldn't imagine sitting there, learning all that at once at age eight, he couldn't imagine being Alexandra and having to explain it all, he couldn't imagine how Scout felt. Each time she merely nodded, and moved along, until the story was over. What else could she say? She could imagine, after all.
It wasn't long after she finished that they arrived at the Finch household. Somehow, even with decades of age, it looked the same as it always had. Both before everything, when she and Jem played on the street, peaked into the Radley house, and spent summers sleeping in cots on the front porch, and after, when she'd returned from Mobile, and stumbled home day after day tried to ignore the torrent of memories, the house had been a constant. She found herself staying in the passenger's seat even after Henry came around and opened the car door for her, entranced by the strange familiarity, the one thing in Maycomb she neither loved nor hated, but merely accepted. The Finches changed, no matter how imperceptibly; their house did not.
She let Henry lead her into the familiar hall. There were no changes there to comfort her, nothing new to suggest that at least one thing in Maycomb had changed. Instead, she was greeted by the sight of the same worn couches, the old, soot-stained rug, and the faded blue curtains that she'd been told her mother picked out and had hung there for the quarter-century since. Henry politely greeted Atticus, stationed in his familiar armchair, and Alexandra, sitting on the sofa, and Scout, for once, did not interject. She had no desire to be back in that house, much less make conversation with its occupants. Henry could do that for her.
But Alexandra greeted her, with her familiar tone, an appallingly feminine drawl. "Jean Louise, how wonderful to see you again!" Scout flinched at her name, but smiled cordially and even gave her a hug for good measure, despite how much physical contact set her on edge. Though she hated to admit it, because the woman was so damn irritable, and could not understand a single thing about her, Scout knew she meant well. The problem was that Alexandra had always been able to speak, gossip, and love without consequence. Someone who had the luxury of agreeing with Maycomb's expectations for her and who had been able to run its social hierarchy instead of being rejected by it could never understand how Scout lived, how she functioned. Alexandra never had to run away, to avoid things, to do anything but trust the social order that had placed men above women. Scout resented her aunt for it, but she couldn't in good conscience say she didn't envy her.
Between her and Atticus, there was a simple understanding. He'd suffered loss, been subject to rumors, worked hard for what he wanted even if no one else understood. They were, in some sense, the same person. So he knew enough to greet her simply with "Hello Scout," then stayed patiently in his seat, waiting for her to steer the conversation. But instead, Alexandra took the reigns.
"How was the train?"
"Fine." It was a lie, but of course it was; her aunt never knew the full extent of her memories, her struggles, because she had moved back to Finch's Landing not long after Scout had seemed to recover and had only seen her a few times a year since.
"Did you eat?"
"I don't think so." She knew she hadn't, but admitting that would be inviting a lecture on taking care of herself.
"And the ride here?"
"Henry was excellent company." Scout looked towards him, hoping he'd interject somehow, and save her from the horrors of conversation in Maycomb, conversation that always turned to others, to gossip, to "news." She had been Maycomb's big news in 1935, and ever since, she had no desire to learn about what others had been doing from people who hadn't even spoken to them. But instead, Henry just nodded politely and thanked her.
"I'm glad. How have you been managing in the city?" Alexandra flashed the sweet, polite smile she'd perfected over decades of missionary circles and church society meetings. Scout didn't think she'd once seen a genuine smile from her, or indeed, any genuine emotion at all, aside from when Jem died and when she was in the hospital.
At that, Scout made sure to smile in return, and actually smile, not the uncomfortable, faked thing she so often flashed at Alexandra in an attempt to be polite. "Wonderfully. Work has been lovely and I've been more social than you would believe." The first statement would be a travesty in Alexandra's eyes. She had long given up on the idea that Scout could ever be fixed, or made into a perfect woman, but still, the idea that she enjoyed working outside the home would still be unimaginable. The second was an understatement—Scout had possessed acquaintances and accomplices during her childhood and college years, but never true friends who she'd gone out of her way to speak to.
"Have you thought about moving back?" Alexandra still wore her false smile, still spoke lightly, and innocently, but the words immediately send panic through Scout's blood. Alexandra had known Scout for her entire life, and yet somehow, even as she relinquished her desires for Scout to dress properly and abandon her career, she refused to grasp that Scout would never be anything but miserable in Maycomb. Perhaps if she knew as much about Scout as Atticus, she would understand, but Scout doubted it. Alexandra simply could not live without striving to fix one thing or another about her, while Atticus had tried his best to raise his children so they did not need to be fixed. When Bob Ewell had came along and ruined it, he had simply attempted to minimize the damage and then left her be.
"No," she finally said, plain and simply. There was no point in justifying it further, and Alexandra didn't press it further.
Scout turned her attention to Atticus, since she knew that, at least, would result in pleasant conversation. "How have you been?"
"A little better. How about you?"
"A little better," she said with a smile, both of them knowing that what they really meant was that they'd been the same, but minded it less. "How's the office been?"
"The same old cases. You know. Henry's been learning well." At this, Henry muttered a polite thanks.
"Wonderful." And with that, they'd gotten through their yearly pleasantries. Another year could pass by with each being reasonably certain that the other was doing alright. The rest of her homecoming could be spent either in blessed silence, or in discussion of whatever Atticus had been reading. As she liked it.
Alexandra excused herself to go to the kitchen to prepare an early dinner, and Scout was relieved to see her go, paying no mind to the fact that her aunt believed a fine young woman would offer to help cook. It was only when Henry, who had been quietly standing by the door, looked towards her and nodded towards the kitchen that she even considered it. "What?"
"Isn't there something you thought you should tell her in private?" He smiled, that damn smile that showed he still didn't believe that their little bargain had occurred. If only he wasn't right, in realizing that she'd have to tell Aunt Alexandra about her intents to marry him sooner or later. Better to ease the blow now and say she was considering it than to come home with a ring on her finger and face her full wrath.
Scout nodded, and slipped into the kitchen, quietly asking, "Is there anything I can do to help?"
"Could you put a pot of water on to boil for me, please, and then start chopping some carrots?" Scout didn't respond, only obeyed, silently following her aunt's instructions and knowing that she couldn't immediately start talking, or Alexandra would know that it was the only reason she'd entered the kitchen in the first place.
She tried not to notice how damn pleased with herself Alexandra seemed as she prepared potatoes, and seasoned chicken. How was she so happy in life when all she did was keep house and cook, spending her whole life engaged in nothing but domestic pursuits? Meanwhile, Scout felt that her soul was been eaten away by resigning herself to the kitchen, whatever independence she enjoyed being destroyed with each slice of her knife. She put the pot on, then cut one, two, three carrots before she was sure she'd be safe to talk.
"Aunt Alexandra?"
"Yes, Jean?"
"I'm sure you think it's about time I left New York and settled down."
"In my opinion, you should never have gone up there in the first place. And by twenty-six… there's no need to be settled quite yet, but you should be considering it at least."
Scout frowned. How to say it in a way that wouldn't immediately catch Alexandra's eye, wouldn't invite an attack from one angle or another. "Well, it's just that Henry and I have been dating for a while now, and we were thinking that it was about time we considered getting married."
"Jean Louise-" Already her voice was harsh, overbearing. It was the lecture Scout could have seen coming a mile away, and still, it stung like hell. She couldn't do it, not then, not without Jem. She had already exposed herself to Henry, shared with him the worst memory of her life. She didn't need Alexandra stripping her bare too, and for the millionth time, making it seem like it was her fault Henry was the only man who could ever love her for who she is, her fault that she'd spent her whole childhood and adolescence too busy trying to survive despite memories and gossip to learn to act like a proper Finch.
Scout let her voice be harsh, biting. "We'll be formally engaged by the time I'm back in New York whether you like it or not. Now I'm going to the bathroom." She stormed through the door, stopped in the living room to grab her purse, ignoring the look Henry gave her, entered the bathroom, and locked the door. She hated to walk out on an argument, but she knew there was only one way she'd be able to survive talking to the bitch.
She fiddled with the damn pill bottle until it finally opened, then swallowed one whole. The pills were for inescapable memories, and that was a rule— too many and she'd be hooked to sedatives and even more of a wreck than she was already. But if she was going to be able to survive this fucking conversation, she needed something, and she didn't carry whiskey with her. Besides, with the pills, she knew within five minutes, she'd find herself caring a whole lot less about everything Alexandra said, and the same couldn't be said if she'd taken a shot. Even on an empty stomach, her tolerance was too high for that.
She made her way back to the kitchen slowly, setting her purse back down on the couch along the way. There, she resumed chopping, waiting for the lecture to commence.
"Jean Louise, you have to think about this carefully. Henry's a perfectly fine boy, sure, but his father ran off on him when he was young, and Finches simply don't marry that sort of folk. He's done very well for himself despite his background, in no small part because of your father's generosity towards him, but the fact remains, he's still got that in his blood. The Clintons have a drinking streak in their family, too, and that's the last thing you want to pass down to your children. They have a tendency towards broken marriages, as you can see from his parents, and you most certainly do not want that. Haven't you seen how he'll eat with his hands and lick his fingers, play with the buttons on his shirts when he thinks no one is looking, pick at his nose and his eyes? He's a fine boy, and he means well, but he simply cannot help it. He's trash through and through, and-"
Scout already hadn't been fully listening to her aunt, but as she finished her speech, the words began to slip away from her grasp, and she had to focus hard to hear them. Instead, the world was light, fuzzy, far away, and so she didn't feel the slightest bit guilty for interrupting her. How could she when she had already formulated the proper response, even if it was one she wouldn't dare say sober?
"Aunty, I have just one question: if I married Henry, would that then make me trash?"
She strained to hear and understand Alexandra's response. "It most certainly would."
She inhaled, attempted to mimic Atticus' courtroom speeches. "Well then, Aunt Alexandra, I'd say that raises the question: what part of the marriage is responsible for the transfer of trashiness in the first place? It couldn't be the legal aspect or the religious aspect, since it isn't something that either God or the law seem terribly concerned about." She could vaguely see Alexandra's face, staring at her disapprovingly, shaking her head. "It couldn't be the love, either, or I'd be trash already and it wouldn't matter if I married him. So that leaves just one thing, and well, by that measure, I'd say Bob Ewell made me trash way back in 1935 and I have nothing to worry about."
Now she could hear Alexandra clearly, even if she could not bring herself to care. "Jean Louise Finch, how dare you take your tragedy and use it so flippantly! As if the entire town isn't whispering about how you never recovered as it is…"
Scout laid down her knife, left the carrots, and exited the kitchen. She'd found her confidence and said her words. There was no point in remaining with the self-righteous, societal-minded bitch longer than she had to. Instead, she pulled the first one of Atticus' books she saw off his shelf, sat on the sofa, and began to read, waiting for the high of the sedative to wear off. Thank God, it never took long.