16.

It was Sunday alright, and what a great start to the day it was. It turns out that my dreaming self found the floor far more comfortable than Jane's fluffy white guest bed, or at least it did when I was in the middle of being unconscious. When I pried open my eyes I heard the sound of a shotgun go off in my neck, where my joints had locked into the kind of position that would make an orthopedic surgeon grind their teeth. On the bright side, I didn't consider that to be a bad omen. First time in several long months—go me. It did give me an absolute monster of a headache though, and the quick (and highly burnt) breakfast Huey served to Jane and I went down with a side of Advil, double the recommended hourly dosage please and thank you. I was fine after that—fine enough to nearly tumble onto my skull in the shower, but fine none-the-less.

I was as well rested as I possibly could have been, given the circumstances. No doubt my position post-sleep was caused by nerves. The fact that I got any sleep at all came as a surprise, but Jane and I didn't have long to dwell on it. Huey offered to clean up dishes and make sure Trent woke up before the sun went down, which left me and Jane both appreciative and scrambling. We remembered how I was none too sure that Quinn was even still inside the city, so while dishes were clattering against a dishwasher that was nine sizes too small, I phoned up the hotel Quinn was staying at to see if she was still in. It was a relatively fancy joint parked near the edge of Midtown—a place called Disher Place—so a great deal of finesse was required to finally pry the information from the receptionist I talked to.

"Is Quinn Morgendorffer staying in your hotel?" I asked.

"Sure is," said the voice on the other end.

"Um, do you have the room number on you?"

"Family or stalker?"

"I—"

"Actually, don't care. She's in room 1308—you can probably guess the floor. If you're gonna bring in something sharp, hide it under a jacket so the doorman don't see you."

"Um—"

"Checkout's at 5:00, so you can probably get 'er good when she's leaving. But if you say you heard that from me then I'll sick my lawyer on your prison-bound ass."

And then the voice hung up. It's nice to see that, in the post-9/11 world we live in, some employees are still willing to show complete contempt for the safety of others. It reminded me of easier times long since passed, when we'd haul people in front of anti-Red kangaroo courts because of that equality nonsense they were yammering about. A simpler time, a peaceful time—minus all those National Guard incidents.

With that task taken care of, the only thing left to do was to actually do it, so to speak. And I took no chances with that—Jane was under strict orders to force me into a motor-vehicle of some kind and drag me by my hair to the thirteenth floor, if necessary. She said she was all too willing to oblige, and under normal circumstances I would pay close attention to the look she tossed my way. But we were living under extraordinary circumstances—the Great Heel Dragger herself, Daria Morgendorffer, was about to eat two crows in two days—and beggars had absolutely no option of being choosers. That's an uncharitable way of looking at it—not for my sake, but for Quinn's. The fact was that I could clearly see myself on the cusp of happiness. It was only fair that I extend the same possibility to someone else, especially if that someone had been rudely pulled back from my position because of something stupid I had said. Duty, honor, that sort of thing—though, of course, Quinn was my sister, and I loved her, and that was more important…that and the fact that decent human beings ought to make life less miserable for other people. Such a statement being as philosophically controversial as it is might just be further proof that we as a species are just not worth it, but I'm just going on a tangent now.

We said goodbye to Huey, I left an appreciative scrawl for Trent, and then we were in Jane's car, moving at the pace of quicksand in what I assume was church traffic, but might just have been further proof that fitting the population of Canada in one city was a bad idea. I didn't become an antinatalist by accident, you know.

While we were waiting for a new Grand Canyon to form on 5th Avenue, I could feel myself getting a bit antsy. That was a sign that talking about what I was doing would only cause further grief—in a situation like this, it really is better not to think about it. De-emphasize how important it is, relax yourself—if you bothered to do the field work before hand, you shouldn't need to think everything to death. At least, that's my view. Feel free to consider my story a running lesson on what not to do.

I had done the fieldwork already though, or I kept telling myself that anyways. It took me a while to get to sleep the night before, and that left me more than enough time to think of a plan. Jane was right that it would be best to leave any planning until the next morning—which ended up being only five-odd hours later—but sleep wasn't coming to me. Much like FEMA, it decided to be absent when I needed it most. Ultimately the lack of sleep was irrelevant for the planning stage, as my ideas survived unconsciousness and sounded almost rational at the breakfast table—to Jane and Huey too. I'd never give anything I do a stamp of approval, but perhaps this comes close.

What I had decided to do was simple: I would explain why I was there and then let Quinn tear into me as hard as she possibly could. If I felt there was room to reconcile, I'd push ahead with my apology, which I had mapped out to basically be: don't make yourself the centre of attention, don't let it be about how upset you are that your own image was tarnished, make sure she knows that you truly feel bad about how she feels and that you want to make things better because you can't stand the idea that she feels that way, etc. She is family, and you want her to know that. If reconciliation seemed impossible, if she was far too angry or far too hurt, let her know that she was justified in feeling that way, and then leave. What happened next would be what happened next.

"You're taking notes, right Huey?" Jane had said at the breakfast table. He shook his head.

"Nope. Bro code—I'm supposed to say you're being emotional and just keep harping on that until you cry or hit me. Otherwise I lose my manhood, and then where would I be?"

"Better off than losing your teeth," I said, forking an egg into my mouth that looked like it had been cooked in Dresden. "Dental plan or not, Jane won't leave much of your jaw left to reconstruct."

"True," Jane said, "but small scratches are really my thing. Make 'em bleed slowly."

"Speaking of," I said, "remind me to check in with your favorite counsellor. I may have fobbed her number off on Brittany."

"Oh," Jane said, "so she's finally doing some damage on him then?"

"Yeah," I said. "It's not like in the movies, but it still wasn't pretty."

Huey snorted in fake contempt. "Tis what I mean. He's a man—he should handle it manily." A clenched fist came down on the table and rattled the utensils, followed by Huey's impression of a man trying to flex whilst dealing with a bladder infection. I looked at him warningly.

"That's what Kevin said too."

"And?" Huey said.

"And I think he broke his nose on some nice lady's wall."

Good times—that was one of the most enjoyable breakfasts I had in months, and most of the conversation revolved around violence. In fairness, a lot of my favorite breakfasts revolved around violence back during High School, but it's worth pointing out. Anyways, the plan seemed to pass the prying eyes of everyone awake at that hour, so talking about it more or thinking about it more was going to do no one any favours. I needed a distraction to keep my thoughts occupied, and luckily I had someone in the car willing to help.

"I saw Jodie on some girl's iPod the other day," I said.

"They're making decals of Jodie now?" Jane said, faking surprise. "Man, I thought this country hated politicians."

"But who could ever hate Jodie?"

"That preacher down in Georgia? Though, in fairness, he was a few burning crosses short of a full set."

"I'd say it was tragic that one of them fell on him, but I don't want his vengeful spirit going after me for lying."

Jane gave me a sly smile. "Nah, it's the shellfish you gotta watch out for."

"Gee, full circle," I said. "Do we get a Phil Collins song at the end of this movie, or does that cost extra?" We both shook our heads and smiled. "No, someone was watching an interview she did. She sounded presidential, for the most part."

"For the most part?"

"I may have hallucinated a chewing-out session between her and myself about halfway through. Then she really sounded presidential."

"Huh," Jane looked me over in an exaggerated motion. "Do I need to feel your forehead? Or are you already aware you're sick?"

"I'm aware," I said. "But the cure might be worse than the disease. All the voices in my head keep me sane."

I saw her brow scrunch, and up went the corner of my lip. "Yeah," she said, "not touching that. You say confession, I say minefield." She merged hard into a lane we should have been in three blocks ago and let the bike messenger behind us know how she felt about his disruptive presence. Turning her attention back to me she said, "Did you hallucinate any other conversations, or was it just the future CEO of AmericaCorp?"

"Fred Michaels and I had a chat," I said. "I'm sure a lot of people around me wish I hallucinated it."

"Ah," she said. Being somewhat connected in the art-world, she knew perfectly well that Fred's reputation preceded him. "Do we need to stop at his house afterwards?"

"No," I said. "If I ever see him again, I'll apologize then."

"And if not?"

"I won't cry about it."

Jane smiled, I smiled, then we both swore as a car cut us off and nearly killed the person next to us. But we were just outside Disher Place by that point, so an accident would've been on their dime anyways. Tempting tempting. The distraction had worked either way, but I was already back to being nervous. A great start if there ever was one, but then again it wouldn't help me much to be too relaxed either. Things like this aren't binary—hell, most things aren't.

Looking at the radio clock as we left the car, I saw the time—2:50. Quinn would be back from lunch and likely not ready to leave for a while. If there was a time to do this, it was now, and by that I mean then. That was the thought running through the front portion of my mind at least—subconsciously I couldn't help but wonder if next Christmas would've been better.

Greeting us at the top of the small, spiral, and somewhat white-stone stairs was a stereotypically looking doorman, and behind him a stereotypical set of revolving doors. We both expected a stereotypical lobby for the stereotypically rich, and would you believe it, at the other end of those revolving doors we saw stereotype galore. Red carpet mixed with gold trim and clashed painfully with dark flannel chairs; marble crawled up from the floor towards the middle of each hallway's stone arch; and above that there was absolutely nothing of note to draw your attention. It was a purposeful omission, I figured, as the colour of the stone wouldn't have looked out of place in a bomb shelter. Decadence and depravity, that's what I saw. Jane looked a lot more impressed, however, so perhaps I'm not offering an objective view. She even whistled.

"Huh," she said. "So this is what internet money gets you. Something we should be looking forward to?"

"Only if we rant about feminists or show our tits," I said. Or have the likeable personality and acceptable skill set that walls you off in a money-making demographic, I thought, like all the moldy people that watch cooking and make-up shows, but thinking it was about all I wanted to do with that thought. As enjoyable as it was to get my crass attitude back, I didn't want to start waving it around when there were open wounds that needed closing. I also didn't want to revert all the way back to High School—I had learned some valuable lessons by the time I graduated, and they were just valuable enough that to lose them would throw me into as horrible a hole as the one I recently crawled out of. I'd already scraped my shins enough, thank you very much—if I ever found myself down there again I'd just as soon become a rat.

Anyways, we kept staring at the lobby for a little longer, likely because I didn't want to move just yet and Jane wasn't going to move unless I was. Time ticked away—too much time, Jane decided, as she turned to me and said, "Thanks for not suggesting I wait in the car."

"I wouldn't ask you to leave your windows open in this city," I said. "Who knows what I'd come back to."

"Yep," she said, "I'll be right here. Right beside you. Right until you decide to move and then—"

"We're moving," I said, not moving at all. "Just hold on."

"Well, let's hurry, hmm? Because I see a people-watching spot and two AARP geezers are eyeing it too."

"Alright, to the elevators we go," I said, announcing the plan to all my limbs so they knew it was actually happening. I was a bit disappointed that I had stopped, but Jane didn't seem angry or upset or anything. She was just going with the flow, which is a blessing very few people understand, I think.

So, we walked across the red carpet toward the elevators—we walked across toward the elevators and I did my best to ignore my nerves. All the while I was busy comparing the décor with that of Brittany and Kevin's motel, since the differences were, in a word, numerous—like a luxury Sedan and an iron maiden. Jane actually seemed to be enjoying her look around the lobby though, so I expect more of the red and gold and bunker grey to show up in the near future. Her prerogative—it's a free country.

The both of us were so preoccupied though that we nearly walked past a little boy sitting by himself in one of the chairs, and he certainly would have missed us since his eyes were only a few inches away from the pages of a book. I did a double-take when I saw the cover: it was The Graveyard Book—just so happened to be my copy of The Graveyard Book—and hovering above the pages was the infinitely recognizable face of my nephew, Teddy. That didn't surprise me—he liked reading and he liked being with large groups of people who'll leave him the hell alone, if that makes sense—but I suppose he served as a noticeable jolt of reality, a reminder that I was in the same building as my sister, and that I had some scar tissue to deal with.

I stopped. Jane kept walking for two paces before her spidey-senses told her to stop too. Her neck craned in the direction I was looking, and very quickly she locked on to Teddy as well.

"Hey," she said. "We know him."

"Sure do," I said.

"Should we rough him up?" Jane said. "Get some information out of him?"

I paused to think, then said, "That's not a bad idea, Lieutenant. If he throws that book at me, we can go straight home."

"Would he actually do that though?" she asked, her brow raised. I shook my head.

"No, he likes books too much. He'd just throw a shoe."

And with that cheery thought, we walked on towards the little boy I called my nephew, towards his reading eyes and his book and his fashion sense that only a mother like Quinn could put together. He was better dressed than the doorman, which is pertinent information since apparently there's supposed to be nothing more irresistible than a man in uniform. Hmm, goodie—even writing the scene out I'm hesitating like I'm putting down the family dog.

The truth was that Teddy had just as much a right to be mad at me as Quinn, or at least that was my perspective on the matter. I remembered the look he gave me as Quinn shuffled lifelessly out of my apartment, where he seemed to be asking himself more and more questions to cover up answers that he violently disliked. It was the kind of look that only comes about when a young person gets close enough to someone they idolize to see the warts and liver spots. Innocence dies hard, and getting it back is a fruitless task. It made me confront the fact that, yes, another human being thought enough positive things about me to actually enjoy my company, and if you've been paying attention you'd note how I consider something like that to be a bit of a burden. The fact that I was coming to this realization on the same day I intended to right a huge wrong didn't help lessen the load in the slightest.

So, I was nervous—nervous about what Teddy would say, nervous that I would fail. As I have already said, it was time to extent the same potential for happiness to someone else, and Teddy just so happened to be a candidate for "someone else". The fact that Teddy, in essence, would be a sort of litmus test for the rest of the day was perhaps a bit more palpable at that moment though. I was right that a negative reaction from Teddy would mean a quick exit in the near future. Going any further would be like launching a rescue mission while bits of asteroid were still falling from the sky. On the other hand, a positive reaction from Teddy didn't necessarily mean I'd get a similar reception upstairs. If that was the case, then I'd have to explain to Teddy why his Aunt had ruined family get-togethers forever and that it wasn't his mother's fault that I disappeared from his life completely. Almost selfishly, I felt like I would have to keep him from hating Quinn if that was the case, and, well, if you've been reading this far, you can likely guess that my brainwaves shot off in widely divergent directions.

But I pressed ahead anyways. Let those thoughts make a lead pile in my stomach, I thought, I'm due for a doctor's appointment anyways.

I hope you write better dialogue than that, another voice said.

Kindly clamp it until spoken to, I answered back. I get the feeling Jane could tell I was having a conversation in my head, since I distinctly recall getting a weird look from her. Or a worried look—sometimes they blend together.

All the same, I didn't stop walking until we reached Teddy's chair. He didn't look up from his book until we were almost within flicking distance, and to this day, part of me is convinced that he saw us the moment we walked into the lobby, and he was feigning interest in Gaiman's prose until he felt he had a handle on what he wanted to say. Teddy had more maturity in him than most of the people in otherwise civilized circles—he was raised well, most certainly.

When we did get to within flicking distance, what was Jane supposed to do except flick his arm? She did so, and the eyes tore away from his page and leapt from the point of contact to the two faces staring down at him. I chose to focus on the book instead of his immediate reaction—if he was play acting, I didn't let myself see. I'm still not sure why I did that, but I did it none-the-less.

Because I knew I'd clamp up otherwise if I didn't speak right away, I made sure to open my mouth as soon as I was sure Teddy was looking at us. "Hey Teddy," I said. And that was it—all other words and potential combinations there-in met the kind of grizzly end that's usually saved for flies. As is expected to happen in situations such as this, the entire lobby took that moment to pipe down and give off the illusion of intent listening, leaving me and my gaping pie-hole to gawk awkwardly at a little kid whom I apparently was convinced was only seconds away from biting my jugular.

Shit, I thought, followed by, dear god, I'm going to wait until Jane bails me out, aren't I? I am—what the hell do people even keep me around for, anyways? What happened next was a high-speed conflict between my desire to get words out into the open and to restrict said words to combinations that made sense or at least didn't sound unbearably stupid. The silence drug itself on for a second longer as a consequence, but eventually I managed to get out something passible.

I said, "How's the book?" and waited to see what Teddy's immediate reaction would be. His reaction was, unfortunately, a look of pure confusion and a hundred conflicting responses, all vying to take over before his vocal cords started to work. Confusion briskly snapped into unease as he set his book down and regarded the two adults in front of him.

"Hey Auntie Daria," he said, "hey Auntie Jane. Um…" Look number two was a loose-fitting cover of excitement, about as authentic to my eyes as dollar store jewelry. "…it's good! I like it! Bod's a cool character even though he makes me sad. Um, sometimes."

"Well," Jane said, turning towards me, "another happy customer, it looks like."

"Yeah," I said, feeling my face harden despite a lot of internal protest. "Happy. Sure is."

Back in the chair, Teddy stirred. We heard him say "Um—" before any and all noise was abruptly cut off. Teddy's voice at this point was timid—timid enough that I could tell any conversation would be a struggle. He was trying not to be demanding but still wanting answers, trying to figure out how he should feel but believing strongly that it didn't involve him. As I've said more than a few times, Teddy was mature beyond his age, and maturity brought the knowledge that poorly chosen words had a tendency to send situations spiralling back to square one (if you were lucky). The problem was that he didn't have any life-experience, no experiments to draw on. Here was a woman he had known for his entire life, and nothing stored away in his mind could help him decided if he was supposed to hate me or pity me or choose some alien option C. Note the specific phrase: supposed to. I'd be surprised if at any point in our conversation that Sunday, Teddy had the slightest thought as to what he wanted to feel.

Of course, in fairness to Teddy, I had thirty-seven years of life experience to draw on, and as you've seen so far, it only became helpful when I was staring a psychotic break in its oh-so-welcoming face. But now I'm just stalling in the future like I was stalling in the past.

Back in said past, Teddy had finally found a sentence that seemed passible enough to let out. He said, "How'd you guys get here?" and then stared at us, hoping that we'd ignore his bluff and pretend that was a logical next-step question.

Jane bit back a comment, knowing full well that I should be the one making conversation. I appreciated that a great deal, and I certainly would have told her as much if only the Earth hadn't opened up just then and dropped us into its magma filled hole. Too bad, the end.

"We hired someone to give us a piggy-back ride," I said, trying on a smile (not too big of one you dolt, being happy will just confuse him more). "They're tied up outside."

Teddy's face lightened just enough to allow me a moment to breathe. I'd been holding oxygen hostage for far too long, and had only just noticed how my lungs were on fire. But as I let out a stale puff of air and drew in a fresh breath, his eyes drifted off towards the carpet and his mouth remained closed. I suppose I could have asked if Quinn was in and then hoped that any potential happiness trickled down to Teddy, but if I had done that I doubt I would have written about any of this. Teddy deserved closure—if not quite as much as his mother than of a comparable enough amount—and doing anything else would have likely lead me face-first into a subway track sometime in the middle of the night. Figuratively speaking, I think—hindsight makes the suicide jokes easier.

So, with all that in mind, I motioned to Jane that I was going to take a seat, and she was welcome to join me. She did, of course, and before Teddy could take his eyes off the red/gold nightmare pattern on the carpet, we had taken up seats on both of his flanks. All that was needed was for me to start the conversation back up again.

"Um," I said, forcing myself to look at Teddy, "I'm here…because of what you saw. A few days ago, I mean."

Teddy did look up at me that time, and he nodded too. "When Mommy looked sad, right?" he said.

"Yeah," I said, nodding my own head. "When Mommy looked sad."

A searching stare, deep silence, increasing tension. Then: "Why'd she look that way?"

I didn't know how to respond to that right away, to make an answer that didn't sound like I was covering something up but also took into account how adults being stupid might be a new concept to him. Mature though he might be, very few parents let their kids be exposed full-force to that kind of thinking before they've been given the chance to see the opposite. Quinn was a positive enough person—I doubted she'd be an exception to that.

The search for the right words on my end lasted long enough that the tension didn't just increase, but became practically rancid. And I was still struggling—rancid smells don't usually make me work faster.

I had back-up though, and the back-up said, "Well, you see, she told your Mom that Santa Claus doesn't exist, and boy oh boy, she didn't take it well. Ruined Christmas forever!"

Despite the situation he was in, Teddy giggled and shot Jane a look. "Mom knows he's not really real!" he said, as though his Mother's very honor was at stake. Jane feigned shock—hand fluttering above her heart, lips pulled back into a gasp, eyes wide, that sort of thing.

"She does? Then, Daria, what in the world could she possibly have been upset about?"

I had been giving Jane thankful looks up until that point—immediately after that point, however, they turned somewhat annoyed. Her intention, she would say later, was to give me enough time to get my thoughts strait. I informed her that if she really wanted me to do that, she would have stalled for longer than half a second. It was pistols at dawn after that.

In the lobby though, Teddy's eyes turned back to me. Something needed to come out of my mouth fast, and if I didn't think of a mildly acceptable answer it was likely going to be vomit. Hotels don't like that (frankly I don't like that either), so with my hand forced, I went as direct as I could.

"I said something to your Mom that I shouldn't have." Teddy's expression changed slightly. The slight change was the rise of disappointment. "I don't know if your Mom told you or if she tried to just bottle it up, but I really hurt her feelings." I stared at his disappointed face and wondered if I should ask about how much he knew—much like my nephew, I came up with exactly zero answers.

But, again, I had back-up.

"Teddy," Jane said, giving his knee a slight tap with her knuckle. "Did your Mommy fill you in? You look a bit confused, so I'm just curious."

That time I let my appreciative look last long enough for Jane to see it.

"I didn't ask," Teddy said, staring into his lap. "I didn't think I was s'pposed to ask."

"You just saw how hurt she was when you were leaving, right?" I said. Teddy nodded again.

"Well, sometimes it's ok to ask and sometimes it's not ok to ask," Jane said, tapping his knee again. "Hard to tell which, but we don't blame you for being unsure."

"It sucks not knowing," Teddy said. Jane and I both nodded vigorously.

I shifted my position in the chair so I could look at Teddy more fully. "I'm here because I want to apologize and make sure she's alright," I said. "But you saw enough to have your own concerns too. Are you alright?"

"You're allowed to spit on her if you want," Jane said, attempting to inject some levity again. I saw disappointment on her face when Teddy didn't so much as show a tooth.

Instead, Teddy thought for a very long, very silent, and very uncomfortable minute. In that time I thought the entire lobby was staring at us, like if the gossip was juicy enough they could afford to skip an expensive meal. I've always been a little bit weary of open spaces (people could be hiding just about anywhere), but that many eyes, prying or not, left a noticeable presence on the conversation all the same. If Teddy took any longer than he had I might have bolted up and shoed everyone away like crows.

Eventually, Teddy put enough words together to try them out on us. "How bad was it?" he said. It was like we were in a hospital and I had just told him his son was in an accident.

"How upset was Mommy?" I said. That was what I was here to find out, partially anyways, though I felt somewhat dirty bypassing Teddy and going straight to Quinn. But, I suppose, it was the only way to really give him an answer—context is important, after all.

But Teddy's answer surprised me. It surprised me quite a bit, actually. He said, "She seemed really sad when we got back to the hotel. And a little bit the day after. But she's better now, I think. She was laughing with us at the pool and her and Mrs. Noonan had a really nice talk this morning at breakfast. So I think she's ok…"

She's ok? I thought. That's…that's fantastic, I think, if Teddy is right. I hope he's right. And I did hope he was right, for reasons you can probably guess quite easily. Of course there was another thought in my head at that moment, and a powerful one at that. It said: ok, but how is she alright? Should she be alright? Oh god, she's not just putting on a forgiving face because she thinks she has to, is she? Because that's how you get tumours and Dad'll have an actual stroke if Quinn gets a tumour.

Any and all snark aside, it did surprise me and I was worried—worried about things you don't even consider when you start out on these adventures. But as many questions as Teddy's answer raised, I still didn't know how Teddy himself felt. More-over, he was looking as confused as ever.

And then he said, "Mommy's pretty happy whenever she leaves your place…or you leave our place." There was more he wanted to say, but something inside him held it all back. And me? Well, I think I understood where this conversation was going to lead, where Teddy's mind was going to lead us. I expected it to hurt, but there wasn't any going back for me. Now or never, and I wanted it to be now.

"That's something you felt too, isn't it?" I said, giving Teddy as warm a look as I could, as understanding a look as I could. "Right up until I made your Mom upset, you felt the same way."

He paused and, eventually, he nodded. "Brothers and sisters aren't supposed to fight when they're older. That's what my friends Mom said."

"And they're not supposed to look that devastated even when they're young, right?" That brought back a vivid image of Quinn's face after I said what I said. It stung, like touching a live wire.

Teddy nodded again. "But you guys are always really nice to each other, so…"

It was Jane who put all the pieces together for Teddy. She said, "So you don't know what happened to make that not the case, and because of that you think it must've been pretty awful, but you can't for the life of you imagine dear old Aunt Daria doing anything so mean, so you're caught between what you know Daria is like and what you're afraid Daria might have become. Right?"

Teddy was still for a while, staring off at Jane. So she shrugged and said, "How'd I do?"

For a brief second I could see a lot of confusion clear in Teddy's face, tinged with a glow of relief. There's an almost narcotic rush associated with having all the answers or putting your mind at ease or at the very least having someone else articulate your questions for you, if you're struggling to do that yourself. Teddy was very much basking in that positive feeling, right up until he suspected that Aunt Jane had invaded his head and was currently feasting on his brain waves. He gave me a questioning glance.

"I promise that it's perfectly safe to have Jane inside your head," I said, shrugging but also feeling the air become much more breathable as Teddy's behaviour resumed normal operations. "Of course, I can tell dear old Aunt Jane to cut it out if it's bugging you."

"What can I say?" Jane said.

"You have a big thinker machine?"

"No Daria," she faux-snorted, "that sounds childish."

Teddy wisely decided to ignore our ramblings and focused in on a separate part of the conversation, one he could actually follow (or one he figured might actually lead somewhere productive). He said, starting in an incredulous voice, "You're not old…but…mmhmm."

That was all he was willing to let himself say—just an affirmative noise. The poor kid was trying his absolute damndest to keep from offending me, and even saying outright that Jane might have been on to something seemed too much like a targeted attack in his mind's eye. But, he had said enough, thanks in no small part to Jane. Because of that, I had an opportunity available to show that he didn't need to worry about offending me—I was here to apologize in the first place. If it was impossible for him to look at me in the same light as before, he would be more than justified in thinking that—but he didn't need to feel ashamed about it.

"We are getting older, Teddy," I said, "but that doesn't mean we're perfect. We still make the wrong calls far too often, just like kids. The problem is that most of us don't have parents to yell at us and tell us what we did wrong—if we don't know right away, we have to find out for ourselves."

"Did you know right away?" he asked. I nodded.

"Yeah, I did. The moment what I said left my lips I knew I had made a mistake."

"What…um…what did you say to her?"

Honesty was important. Honesty was, in fact, a virtue. But all the same, I hesitated. Eventually, I said, "Your Mom and I were discussing my views on work, my work specifically. And…I told her that if there was any discussion to be had, I'd do it with Jane, not her."

He blinked, he stared, he fumbled thoughts through his brain. I hadn't a clue what his reaction would be, could be, or should be—Jane and I both watched him like he was a breaking news bulletin. Then, he appeared to have reached a conclusion, and this is what he said:

"Oh. Well, that's not that bad, I guess."

Jane and I both blinked. Or, at least, I was blinking—furiously enough that I thought I was staring through a broken projector. I managed to reach a conclusion myself: "What I said isn't great, Teddy."

"Whose side are you on, Daria?" I heard Jane ask. I shot her a less-than-kind glance.

"I mean," continued Teddy, oblivious to us yet again, "I get why Mommy would be upset at first. I think I'd be pretty upset too and I'd probably swear at Tommy or Timmy if they said something like that to me. But I also get why she's feeling better now that a few days have passed. She said she wanted some time to think and let her emotions come and she got it, so—"

"It doesn't seem so bad, huh?" Jane said. Teddy nodded his head.

"Nope!" he said cheerfully. I was busy attempting to make Jane put a kybosh on a cross-bread of a face she was giving me—one that was partially entertained and also partially knowing, as if she was taking credit for having told me so all those hours ago (which is a load of bull)—and I didn't notice Teddy's brow quirk up towards the ceiling. "What was your work discussion about?"

"Oh don't get her started," Jane said, smirking but, I think, reacting mostly to my attempts at wiping that melted mask off her face. I felt my eyes narrow.

"Seriously?" I said. "Time and place."

"What?" Jane said, a little exasperated. "Context is important! You said so yourself!"

"I'm trying to get my bearings here and sh—stuff like that isn't—"

I paused, and Jane—who was halfway into launching her own counter-point—paused with me. Teddy was staring at us in complete confusion again, and I understood why: it seemed like I was itching for an argument and dragging Jane along for the ride with me. Why? Well, I think the answer is simple, and I'd articulate it to Jane in a short amount of time.

What I said after the pause though was this: "Um, sorry, I didn't mean to shout like that…or about anything, actually." Looking around the lobby, I realized then that the old-money walking around couldn't have given less of a care about us if we were street urchins. I sent an apologetic glance over to Jane, sighed, then focused my attention on Teddy. It was apology time.

"I'm sorry that I upset you. All of you. No matter what you think, what I said caused you guys a couple of days-worth of grief, and I really wish I hadn't done that. I—"

He threw his arms around me then, squeezing as tight as his little arms possibly could. The action was quick enough that my base instincts took over immediately, and I made a face like something slimy had just crawled into my shoe. Teddy didn't see it luckily—he pulled away slowly, leaving me enough time to work my features into something presentable—but Jane did, and she looked amused (damn her).

It wasn't just the sudden squeeze that caught me off guard, though—it was the context. I looked down at the now smiling Teddy and said, "So you're not mad, huh?"

He shook his head. "I wasn't mad!" A lot of oomph had returned to his voice. "Things…things just didn't make sense."

"That's old age talkin'," Jane said, mimicking a Maine farmer somewhere.

"Do things make a bit more sense now, then?" I said. You help me understand, I help you, right?

But Teddy shook his head again, which in all honesty was the mature and truthful thing to do. No sense lying now, not after all the nonsense that had kept the three of us up at night.

He said, "Um…no…but I can see why Mommy is feeling better and, even if she wasn't, you're here to make her feel better anyways. Right?"

Yes, I'm from the government and I'm here to help, I thought, but Teddy didn't need to know about my own self-doubts—self-doubts that were doubling back and dropping a second payload now that reports were coming in on Quinn's happy mind-set. It sounded too good to be true, and I wasn't going to let myself feel happy about mere speculation and hearsay. I'd learned some lessons, and that included the wisdom I had received at age five: trust no-one and nothing, especially happiness.

All that stayed locked in my head and would until I set down to write this. I looked at Teddy and said, "That's right, I'm here to make Mommy feel better," followed by, "Is she up in her room?"

"Yep!" Teddy said. "Tommy and Timmy are with Mrs. Noonan and Jason and Lisa at the pool, I think."

"And you just wanted to stay down here and read, I'm guessing?" Jane said with a smirk.

"Yep!" Teddy repeated. He showed off his book like it was a diamond.

"Well then," Jane said, turning the smirk on me and then rising to her feet, "why don't you tell me a bit about Mr. Gaiman's sick fantasies while your Auntie goes off to grovel at your Mother's feet?"

"Thanks Jane," I said sardonically, though a small smirk was present too.

Teddy turned to me, a bit confused. "Are you gonna grovel, Auntie Daria?" he said.

"We'll play it by ear," I said. I did what all adults are supposed to do in situations like this—I tussled his hair and made him embarrassed to be seen with me in public. I didn't lean down and plant a kiss on his cheek though—that I was saving for his first special relationship or something involving a lot of friends…unless he adequately convinced me to keep up the 'cool Aunt' routine, that is—perhaps with a price to be set at a later date. I got up and waved and said, "It was nice seeing you again Teddy," then stopped. Jane and Teddy had already congregated, heading straight for the door.

"Um, Jane?" I said, "Hold on a second." Jane turned around, saw that I was just uncomfortable-looking enough to know that I was serious, then told Teddy she'd be back in a second, Auntie Daria needed to have the key in her back re-wound. Accurate enough, I suppose.

When she was back on the same ugly red/gold carpet as before, I pried my eyes off the floor and said to her, "Sorry for getting snippy—I'm anticipating an argument, and every second it doesn't happen I decide to make one up on the spot."

"Don't sweat it," Jane said, shrugging. "Things took a…well, an interesting turn." She paused, turned briefly sheepish herself. "Oh, and I, uh, wasn't exactly helping, of course."

"Heat of the moment," I said, letting my own sheepishness dissolve away into that smirk I fancied so much. Lots of smirking—it's a valuable substitute for verbal communication in these parts.

Jane's smirk grew devious, however. "So, 'Mommy', huh?" she said.

I frowned. "Just say it now so I can dump your body in the elevator shaft."

"Nuh-uh," she said, "I'm saving that for when I know you can't hurt me. Besides, you have some place to be, don't you?"

I did, and I sighed because of it. You would think that hearing Quinn's very own son say that she was alright would put me in a better mood, or at least a more confident one. But that's not how my brain works. At that moment I was trying to decide whether I thought Quinn was actually over what I had said, or if she was pushing through it for the kids. Mature as he was (still is), Teddy's youth might very well have meant that he was incapable of understanding the enormity of my screw-up. It may seem normal for a six-year old to tell their siblings to bite it, they have friends, but once you reach the age of, oh, probably twenty at the least, a statement like that carries far more bite. Enough to leave nasty-looking marks, I would wager.

Deep in the back of my mind, there was a third possibility that I was considering, had even nearly hinted at the moment I started talking to Jane again, but the barrier between my conscious and subconscious mind was doubly guarded that day—Checkpoint Charlie was not open for business. It was those two options, and I was leaning noticeably towards the second.

I said to Jane, "I don't suppose you could give me your view of the forecast, can you?"

It was Jane's turn to sigh and look downward. The toe of her boot scratched at the carpet's pattern. "I really wish I could Daria. But…well…" She paused, scratched harder. "What would you say if I told you to just have faith?"

"That I have much more faith in my latent ability to screw-up than anything else," I said. I can't remember if it was on instinct or that was just an easy enough response for me to think of. Likely doesn't matter either way.

Jane said, "Yeah, I figured as much," without much mirth or condemnation. An acceptance of reality, that's what it sounded like.

"Alright," I said after another brief pause of my own, "well…whatever. I guess. That hurts coming up, but it's the only thing I can say."

"I'll be waiting down here for you when you're done," Jane said, smiling, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Don't know if that helps, but—"

"I've already had my sentimental moment," I said, tapping at her hand and then taking it off. I wore a smile that was sincere enough in its appreciation of friendship that I thought it would do. "I'm leaving right now before we cry in front of the kid."

"Good on ya," she said. Then she turned around, tapped Teddy on his shoulder, and crossed the lobby. It was just me and the elevators now—me and the thirteenth floor.

Figures, I said. The one damn building in this entire city that has a thirteenth floor, and Quinn decides to stay in it. But that was all the extraneous thinking I allowed myself to do then. Nothing productive was bound to come from it—I knew what I was there for, I know what I wanted to do, I knew what my plan was.

I stepped into the first open elevator I could find, and up I went.

17.

There was shouting again, exactly like when I rode the elevator up to Jane's apartment. And like at Jane's apartment, the origin of the commotion just so happened to be exactly where I was going. It was as though I had made a habit out of interrupting every argument in the city—a nice change of pace from the last two days, where I'd made it my mission to start every argument in the city. Unlike at Jane's apartment, however, the words were clear and easy to parse from one another, on account of the fact that my sister's door was wide open. Everyone within nine miles that had a decent set of ears could hear my sister and her opponent bang pots and pans together, whether they wanted to be Peeping Toms or not. I had a compulsive need to be a Peeping Tom, at least for the amount of time Quinn could stand to look at my face, so I walked forward undaunted, through the fire and the flames and all that. I passed an elderly man leaning out his door, but I could clearly tell he wasn't about to complain. This was early morning entertainment to him—a nice order of fierce words to chase down his eggs benedict with.

"You'd better step inside sir," I said as I passed.

"Are you the police?" he asked. I shook my head but didn't look back.

"I can't confirm or deny, sir, but either way, I was never here." I stopped and looked back. "Right?"

He nodded like he was trying to wiggle his head off and slammed the door shut. Privacy established—my uncanny ability to spew complete lies payed off yet again.

By that point I could see the two combatants clearly—my sister (obviously) and a skinny maid in a stereotypical outfit. She was paler than a polar bear with the stomach flu though, at the very least, so I didn't get the impression that the hotel went out of its way to mimic lazy movies. Still, the white frills were a bit much.

I heard my sister say: "Oh my god! Just take the freaking tip already!" and stopped to listen. For just a second, you understand—the old man was right to be interested, but as a family member I was allowed special privileges to be rude and eavesdrop. I'm sure that's written in a book somewhere.

The maid in the white frills scoffed and held her hands up to the roof, as though she was waiting for God to strike one of them down. "Alright, one last time," she said, "I take that tip, I lose my head. Manger says that's embezzlement and the last friggin thing I want to do is get grilled in that little pricks office."

Quinn also scoffed, as though the whole thing was unbelievably silly (she might have had a point). "Then hide it in your bra or something!" she said. "Like, what's the big deal with this?"

"They've got detectors lady!" the maid said. "Are you trying to get me fired?"

For a second, Quinn stuttered and couldn't find anything intelligible to say, which is understandable as that sounds like it violates four or five state labour laws, at least to my socialist ear. Eventually she smacked her forehead with her open palm and said, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard, and I have triplets lady! I'm, like, trying to do something nice here!"

Another scoff from the maid. "Yeah, punting me into the unemployment line for two lousy tens. When's the statue supposed to be built?"

"Rrrrragh, God!" Quinn roared, and I took that as my cue to intervene. For the sake of her sanity and the maid's measly, possibly money-laundered paycheck (she had a name-tag but I'm omitting it to protect the identity of the innocent). As I passed through the red-brown doorframe I saw Quinn, whose eyes darted to me halfway through her sentence.

She said, "Why can't—Daria?" and then paused. She stared at me, the maid stared at her, likely thinking she had broken down or something. The maid did eventually look behind her, but obviously her main focus was getting the hell out of that room with as little trouble as possible, something that had already been flagged as impossible likely long before I had even stepped into a car. Eventually, Quinn said, "Fine, whatever, skip the tip. Just leave then, alright?"

Which was good enough for the maid. "Yeah," she said, "my pleasure. Hope you enjoyed your stay…" She passed by me briskly, and I heard her mutter, ya rich, stinking…first one up against the wall, that's what you are…" before she left the range of my ears. So, to take inventory: I'd had one of the oddest conversations of recent memory with the receptionist, the hotel looked like it wanted to physically attack anyone who walked in, and apparently senior management had gone to the Kim Jong-Il School of Authoritarianism and Paranoia before shaking up at this establishment.

And now I'm wondering about the lounge, I thought.

Or if Mr. Grady told Quinn to 'correct' her kids, I also thought, before deciding that that was one reference too far and I'd best go back to reality, if this hotel could be said to exist in reality at all. Getting my bearings would be an intelligent move, I confirmed for myself, I have a long road ahead, and the fact that I haven't cried at all this weekend is a bad sign. Like Yosemite, except everyone will be embarrassed instead of on fire…

I shook my head, then stared at my sister. "Quinn?" I said. "Where the hell did you find this place?"

Quinn's turn to shake her head. "Some travel agent or whatever set this all up." Her voice dropped to a mere mutter. "And he's not going to get a good review from me."

I stepped inside the room, and was relieved to see that the garish patterns and colours apparently ended in the hallway. Teddy and the gang wouldn't have been brainwashed or permanently damaged just by staring at the floor. It was a nice enough room actually—spacious with a view of the city that sure beat steaming rooftops and metallic air ducts. Even if the hotel proper was a 19th century freak-show in the middle of 21st century Manhattan, the room would have likely cost Quinn more than enough to severely hurt Jane or I. Unless she was buoyed by a large discount, which made me think of the reason Quinn was in town for the first time in two days.

Oh God, I thought, if I ruined a big moment for her I'm making myself sleep outside. Regardless of whether or not I think her Youtube show is as intellectual as a McDonald's commercial.

I won't draw attention to that unless I need to, a voice said in my head.

Go away, I answered back. I'm well aware of how horrible I am. It's why I'm here in the first place.

Of course. But I'll be here if you need an extra reminder, just in case.

In my mind I grunted, but in the outside world I had been standing like an idiot and staring at a pigeon for what was probably an uncomfortable amount of time. I shook my head again and cleared my throat, prepping it to speak.

"Um…" was the eventual product of all my labours. Luckily, Quinn was just as engaged as I was.

"So…" she said.

Yet another pause.

"Um…I have some…things that I need to say." That sentence came out in as unsure a voice as I could possibly produce, which made perfect sense since I felt like I was standing on a bog. All the thoughts and planning I had gone through seized up and became irrelevant the moment I tried to step forward, because what else could possibly have happened? No battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy, as one of the few German war heroes who didn't happen to be a war-criminal once opined. Of course my enemy in this case was certainly not my sister, but it was formidable none-the-less: it was the totality of everything that I had done, everything I had said, and every possible future that could come about because of one off the cuff remark. Yes, formidable—I even had to use purple prose just to describe it.

But then my sister opened her mouth, and the whole conversation fell down a waterslide that had the pressure on twice as high as it should have.

"Oh god…" she said. I could only blink.

"Oh god? What do you mean 'oh god'?"

"I mean," Quinn said, her hands crossed uneasily over her chest, "you're about to apologize aren't you?"

I almost shot back a retort like it was a broad-side barrage, something like "Of course I'm going to apologize—what, was I supposed to bring a parade too?" but I managed to grab that thought and throttle it before it could cause any more trouble. I had a plan, I was going to stick with it as best I could, and getting defensive about the reason I was here in the first place would be a lot like eating a bag of candy before going to the dentist. Besides, she was trying to tell me something—another part of my plan was that I was actually going to listen.

So I said, "Um…is…is that going to be a problem?" and waited for a response. Quinn didn't at me for long enough to get my heart pumping in a sickly fashion, and absentmindedly she said, Well…" before pausing.

Then her eyes lit up like an eruption and panic overtook all her features.

"I mean no, not that way!" she said. "I just mean…" a brief pause where she looked around the room like she had stashed away cue-cards, "I just mean, why don't we let bygones be bygones, right?"

Then it was my turn to look for cue-cards. "Bygones be bygones?" I said, sure that I was mishearing something thanks to a very desperate set of ears attached to a very desperate brain. Out of all the responses I had expected, this didn't even rank in the top 500.

But Quinn made no move to indicate I had horribly misheard her. In fact, she looked positively beaming, in the way you'd expect to see from someone who just heard their prognosis went from dead in five years to ten.

"Then it's settled!" she said, clapping her hands. But it was not settled, not as far as I was concerned. Settlements came after blood, sweat, and tears. This was like we had finally decided on a restaurant for the evening.

So I said, "What? Quinn, nothing is settled right now," and in my mind the only thoughts that were present all chattered about how ludicrous a statement that was, how insane it would be to say the matter is settled when our conversation hadn't even really begun. I felt like a Naval Captain that had sailed into enemy territory and found only a fishing boat, or maybe Marvin the Martian—where's the Earth-shattering kaboom?

In front of me, though, Quinn merely uncrossed her arms and placed them on her hips. "Isn't that, like, my call or whatever?"

I was about to scream out No!, but some lone, hard-working neuron in my brain sealed my mouth and forced me to look at the mess I was in the process of making. Ludicrous? it said, sounding oddly British in my head, you think she's being the ridiculous one? Pray tell, how is this not her call or whatever? And why are you trying to force an argument the other party simply doesn't want? I dare say you're acting like the lunatic here.

And so my body fell still, with nary a pigeon to stare at. It was true though—I was about to push us into an argument even though Quinn had made it clear she wasn't interested. Anyone else in this circumstance would have been relieved to hear what Quinn had said to me, and while that likely wouldn't have been the smartest decision (people do say things they don't mean, after all—like when you tell your boss "of course I'll work double overtime with no pay! I love working extra for free! Say, want me to shave your cat's asshole for you? I love being covered in ass-fur almost as much as I love slave labour!"), what I was doing was a level of stupid that existed on a whole other plane. And it dawned on me that I knew the exact reason why I was doing this—I'd hinted as much in my plans and talks with Jane and the feeling of dread I carried around like a malignant tumour. The walls of my stomach got slapped with a violent round of acid reflux, and I grimaced noticeably.

"I'm an idiot," I said. A voice in my head rang out: Hey, at least you're getting better—maybe by next week you'll be able to count by twos, in about as consoling a tone as the Emergency Alert System.

Quinn, on the other hand, let her hands fall to her side and grew a concerned look on her face. "Oh, no Daria that's—"

"It's true," I said, holding up a hand, "I'm an idiot." Feeling no other alternative, I helped myself to a seat and sighed. Quinn stared and then joined me.

"I'm under the impression that you should still be mad at me," I said.

"Mad at you?" Quinn said. "Why would I be—"

The look I shot her way made her reconsider.

"Alright so you said something that kinda bugged me, but—"

"Kind of bugged you? Quinn I—" Then it my turn to interrupt myself. I was doing it again, inching my way towards an argument. Soon I would sprout a pink suit and start my applications for law school, I could feel it.

I pulled myself back, took a calming breath, and then said, "Quinn, I know what I said and I know how it made you feel. I'm just worried that you're still hurting and only saying otherwise because of…I don't know, the kids? Because we're sisters?"

"Pfft," Quinn said, immediately her eyes bugged out and she covered up her face in horror. It was all for naught though—I was smiling visibly, and even let myself emit a small chuckle.

"Alright, bad example." My face became serious again. "Be honest, please. Are you mad at me?"

I couldn't exactly tell what kind of look she gave me, which made me incredibly nervous when I was sitting on that couch. A second's pause dragged on for eternity before she shifted in her seat and said, "Should I be?"

Yes, I thought, Because that's what this is all about, isn't it? I expected you to hate me, I thought you should hate me, and since I keep getting told that you don't, I'm confused as all hell and trying figure out what's wrong with you. Boy, gee, I sure have positive opinions about my sister, don't I?

I forced myself to dissect that thought and discard the unhelpful stuff for the time being—plenty of time for self-loathing when I'm working on the comic book, that was my view. Instead I reached for a glass of water that did not exist—had not ever existed—tried to cover, failed horribly, and then sighed for the three millionth time and said, "If I was in your shoes, I would have thrown them by now."

Quinn smiled slightly, at what I thought was my joke. It wasn't the joke, I soon discovered—this was the kind of smile you would give a kid if they handed you an apology in the form of a macaroni picture.

"I put myself in your shoes," she said gently, "that's why I'm not mad."

I blinked, and stared, and tried to get my body to work. "Huh?" I managed to get out, as graceful as a collapsing tower.

"Well," Quinn said, "it wasn't just your shoes, actually. It was Stacy's shoes too. That's kinda what started the whole thing, actually."

I should have learned to expect the unexpected at this point. At that point though, I felt like I was in a dream—the kind where you're in school one minute and The Castle of Otranto the next.

"Stacy?" I managed to stutter out. Quinn nodded her head.

And then she didn't say anything. There was just thick, awkward silence. Silence can be enjoyable in the right circumstances (God knows I'd take it over most things)—but in the middle of conversations such as the one I'm describing right now, silence is about as enjoyable a dinner companion as a skinhead on mescaline.

"Quinn," I said, "I'm seriously going to need more information than that."

"What?" she said, blinking. She seemed to be under the impression that she had already told me everything. I suppose it's possible that she did—I felt very much out of it at that point.

"I said: some annotations would be appreciated." I stood up from my seat and moved closer to Quinn. I needed to stand and I needed to be close to Quinn in case my dream hypothesis was correct and she turned into a snake or something. Amazing how some loose conversation can make reality bend like a plastic spoon.

Quinn said "Oh," and then looked as though she was gathering her thoughts. I found a place to stand—right next to one of the windows, which had a nice view and a pleasant, mid-afternoon breeze sloughing in—and let the thoughts come to her. The thoughts found a publisher and became a book right in front of me, which is a mean way of saying that my sister's reasoning went back into older and more complicated woods than I had anticipated.

But I listened all the same, and I listened very intently. The cadence of her voice was solemn, reflectional, and utterly demanding of my attention without her even being conscious of it. And—thanks in large part to reflection, even though it was readily apparent when I heard it for the first time—there was, in fact, a very good reason to pay attention too.

She said, "So Stacy, um…Stacy's been having a rough time since we, you know, graduated and everything. I don't…I don't want to, like, get too much into it because this is her thing and I'd feel like I'm talking behind her back because she's not here, but…yeah. She's been having a rough time lately. I guess there's a reason why she was, you know, um…what's the word…deferential?—I think that's it—towards Sandi when we were in the Fashion Club. And no, it's not a romance thing—I wish it was because it's less…no, it wasn't a romance thing. I thought that too but it's not. It's something about how she's used to being treated.

"So Stacy got a job after Community College and since she's…you know…she got this boss that was a total freak. Like, a monster—I don't know if half the stuff he did to his people is even legal or if she can like sue or anything. I'm kinda afraid to talk to Mom about this because it's Stacy's call, right? And Mom would go hard on this guy no matter what. Maybe she should…I don't know. All I do know is that Stacy was miserable—more miserable than she usually is, and I found out way too late that she's already miserable enough—and she wasn't going to do anything because she felt she couldn't, you know?"

I did, very clearly, but I didn't say anything? What could I say? Anything that came out of my mouth would seem completely inconsequential at best, intrusive at worst. I kept listening.

"We were talking one night," Quinn said, "at this restaurant that her and I started going to. She lives in Lawndale still, um, though I guess you probably knew that already."

I nodded my head.

"And, so, I noticed when we were there that she seemed…like, really calm. Not, you know, happy or anything, but…calm. I just thought she had a better day at work, like maybe she met someone there that she could talk to? And so we had a really great night and then the next day…"

She trailed off, and at that point I started to sweat uncontrollably. There was an increasing likelihood that this ended up turning tragic, and that Jane and I were just so far out of the loop in New York that it never got back to us. Or the people we knew figured that we wouldn't care—during Quinn's pause, I had a hard time deciding which was worse.

Quinn's seemed to realize that I'd made a connection in my mind as well. She shook her head and started speaking again quickly, but it was like she was running on low-battery power—not quite sluggish, but still somewhat distant.

She said, "She's fine now, or at least she's being taken care of. I don't really want to say much more about it because, well, it's like I said. But it scared me Daria. It scared me a lot."

"That's..." I had to swallow a lump of something foul before I could keep talking, "…that's understandable, Quinn. Anybody in your situation would feel scared too. She's your friend."

"Yeah," Quinn said, "and a big part of it was, like, what was I supposed to do?"

"You felt powerless," I said, and my stomach quivered. "That's it, right? You thought there was something you had to do, but you had no idea how to actually do it?"

Quinn nodded. "Yeah." That was all she said, and it was very quiet.

I moved from my spot and, unsure myself of what to do but figuring I had to make some sort of gesture, lightly placed my hand on her shoulder. She smiled, but soon I found her fingers grabbing on to mine as she peeled my hand away. "It's alright Daria," she said, "I'm good. You can sit down though, if you want."

Again, unsure of what I should do, I nodded and sat down on the chair across from Quinn. Already I missed the breeze—even though it did me know favours when I was sweating.

She took her time restarting her story, and I didn't push—she could take as long as she needed to, even though I was dimly aware that Jane and Teddy would run out of things to do eventually (in theory—this is Jane we're talking about here). There was another thing I was dimly aware of: that this whole thing was familiar, oh so familiar, and while I thought I was focusing mostly on Quinn and where she was and what she was saying just to be polite and attentive (after all, being the opposite had gotten me into this mess in the first place), the truth was that the feeling was increasingly uncomfortable, and I was doing my best to ignore it. Like normal, I realized, and with a sigh that I managed to keep inside myself this time, I let the thought balloon and take centre-stage in my parade of thoughts. It quickly drowned out everything else.

Stacy sounds a lot like me, the thought said, and after that I could easily guess the direction of the conversation.

I said, softly, "That's why you came to New York, right? Because you thought the same thing was going to happen to me?"

For what felt like decades, Quinn remained still. Then, slowly, she nodded—but this wasn't a relieved nod, she wasn't thankful that I had helped her get the elephant in the room out the door. She nodded as though she was bracing to be yelled at, and it became very clear to me just how deep into my mess she thought I had fallen.

And, of course, that thought brought forth another one: if it had been a day ago, and I hadn't gone through a life-saving experience with Jane and Trent and Huey, it's entirely likely that yes, I would have kicked and shouted at the idea. I realized then how much like an addiction this misery of mine had been, and I felt like I had just walked into the planning stages of my own intervention by accident.

So, hunched over my knee, twiddling my hands, forcing myself not to stare at the floor, I said, "You're not that far off, I guess."

Her eyes became alive, and this time it did look like she was, if not relieved, at least surprised by the fact that I had caught on to her train of thought. But, unlike her sister—who has a compulsive need to get words in even at inopportune times—Quinn merely stared at me until she decided she had looked shocked enough. She nodded then, still looking like she was walking on invisible eggshells but, at the very least, in a noticeably less tense way…if that's possible (thank god I'm not a writer, right?)

She said, "We…I could tell that you stopped being happy in New York a long time ago. I…it sounds stupid, but at first I thought it was just because there are like a lot of people around and you don't get along with people very much."

"Some people," I said, though any and all defensiveness drained out of my voice a second later. "Most people." I sound like my mother, I thought.

"But after Stacy I started to think…no, I started to notice that, you know, we never talked about work when you were around, we never talked about your show, we never talked about David or any new friends or how you got this hot new assignment or whatever. And we stopped talking about your other stories. I mean, when I said that you hadn't written a short story in so long, I shouldn't have said that, but I remember when you'd, like, write a short story a week, even if you didn't want to get it published. Like remember that time you were up until six in the morning writing a story and Mom was chewing you out while you were writing it?"

Despite the situation, we both smiled. "Yeah," I said. "I had an exam that day too. But you don't disembowel someone without at least finishing their death rattle."

"See though," Quinn said, a little more animated now. "You used to love writing! And when I found out there was like this unofficial rule about no talking to Daria about writing and…" She had dropped into a mock-serious voice with that last bit, like someone doing an R. Lee Ermey impression, and caught herself before she got carried away. Which was fine—there was no doubt in my mind an unofficial rule regarding my career, because why wouldn't there be? I'd been doing my damndest to embed it in the Constitution for so long. Hell, this whole problem with Quinn came out of my desperate attempt to stymy any and all career-talk before it could mutate and bring out cold, jealous feelings. All the same, Quinn looked embarrassed, coughed, then continued on in a normal voice: "So I just…got worried. I didn't want what happened to Stacy to happen to you."

"Did what happened to Stacy happen to me?" I said. "I'm genuinely curious."

"No," Quinn said. "There was no bail money involved with you."

I blinked, despite myself. Since I was edging back into the writerly groove, part of me blared out that I had a sure-fire weird tale just waiting for me to exploit, but more important matters were at hand. I kept quiet.

Quinn said, "So…when I got a call from this producer or whatever, saying they wanted to meet up in New York, I thought: I'll be in New York, I can talk to her then, I can, you know…"

"Try and do something?" I said.

"I…I don't know. I don't think I thought that far ahead."

"Hmm," I said, "welcome to my nightmare."

The little bit of old me brought out a small smile on Quinn's face, so that was good. Carrying on, Quinn said, "The kids really wanted to come, so we made a family vacation out of it. I got kinda busy with this producer guy because he thought this meant I was signing the contract the moment we got to the airport—which I wasn't—so I ended up needing Mom and Dad to tell help set this up. That…um, that should have been an omen or something, I think.

"When we ended up coming back to your apartment I couldn't think how I was going to actually bring this up, and so I ended up talking about something that…well…"

"About the way you treat the kids," I said. "That's what you mean?"

She shook her head. "It was stupid. I was stupid. I mean, that should've been an omen too."

"What do you mean?"

"I was like legitimately concerned about that, but, you know, I was stupid. Here I was trying to help you, and the best thing I can think of is to make the conversation about me? Like, it's stupid right?"

I didn't know how to answer that, but luckily Quinn wasn't stopping for a pause this time.

"I wasn't going to bring that up with you until like, later. Much later. When I figured you were on better ground, I guess. Of course I started thinking that you might feel like I had only helped you to get a favour for later and that would suck so, I don't know, I guess I just got confused. Or nervous. Maybe that's why everything went downhill so fast."

"I think everything went downhill," I said, "because I blurted out something I shouldn't have."

Quinn shook her head, and I couldn't tell if there was a tense smile on her lips or they were otherwise pursed, but she looked like she was about to laugh. "That's the thing though," she said. "All the stuff I told you about Stacy is exactly why that's not what happened."

Again, I kept quiet.

"You see what I mean, Daria? I understood why you said that."

"That still doesn't—" Again I caught myself, calmed down, then said, "That shouldn't be used as an excuse."

"Why not?" Quinn said. "I thought you were like a day away from a mental breakdown—you even said I wasn't that far off. So why shouldn't I cut you some slack when you were in the middle of a rough spot? Wouldn't that be kinda cruel of me?"

Not as cruel as plucking chickens, but we still do that anyways, I thought. There's that cynicism for you—what Quinn just said sounded as lovely and idyllic as a pollen-filled field of flowers, and I had a severe allergy to both. The problem was that it also sounded completely reasonable, except for that part where it let me get away scott-free.

I got up out of my seat and started pacing the room, just like I had paced my apartment when I was in the middle of soul-searching the day before. Quinn—God bless her—seemed content to let me wear a hole in the carpet. Maybe she hated it too.

I wanted to say something like, 'You can't possibly have forgiven me that fast,' but throwing out a back-handed comment like that would only defeat the purpose of why I was there. Still, something felt like it needed to be amended—something I did needed to be accounted for. So I said, "Quinn, I honestly can't think of too many things that were more insulting than what I said. You have every right to be hurt."

"Well," she said, following my still-pacing footsteps from the couch, "I'm not saying I wasn't hurt, just that it didn't take me long to understand. Um," she swallowed just as hard as I had swallowed previously, tracked her eyes to the ground, then said, "besides, it's not like it was completely untrue…"

"Oh, Quinn—" I couldn't keep a touch of exasperation from leaking into my words.

"No hear me out!" Quinn said, now standing herself. "Jane's been with you since, well it feels like forever. And not just with you as like, she hangs out with you or whatever, I mean she's done things for you that…that sisters are supposed to do."

"You've done those too," I said.

"Yeah but not as much! And it took forever for us to get to that point. With Jane it was like, you just met, then bang, you're BFFs and you know more about each other than anyone. The rest of us had to play catch-up to her."

We both fell silent then, unsure of what to say, not fully convinced that there was anything left that could be said. A bird fluttered past the window. It looked like it was on a collision course at first, but it pulled away before the end. I'm not sure if it flattening itself on the window would have helped or not, so it's hard to chalk that up as a missed opportunity.

But the gears in my brain were slowly chugging, and a thought was brewing, and Quinn seemed to realize it rather quickly (it was almost like we were blood relatives). She said, "Don't feel guilty about that. It's on us."

My mouth was, in fact, open at that point, and like pushing two springs together, I struggled to close it. But that was it, right? All goals accounted for, what needed to be aired out was swinging in the breeze. Mission accomplished—smoke 'em if you've got 'em, right?

Then why did I feel so hollow? And why did Quinn look exactly like I felt? Something more was needed, something to take it out of the realm of conversation and into a place that felt real. Words are words and they can sting like hell pretty easily, but piece of mind requires something more than just a dialogue. Something needs to drive home the point that everything is going to be ok.

What was my solution? More idle conversation, of course. When in doubt, talk about the weather. That's probably written in a book somewhere too.

"Did you ever talk to that producer?" I asked. Quinn looked surprised, but then smiled.

"No," she said. "He phoned me when we were driving to the airport, and I basically told him that I was happy with what I was doing and didn't want the extra stress. He started chewing me out and saying that all us women are the same and whatever, so I told him to fuck off right in front of my kids. Teddy was so shocked!"

The world spins, history repeats, and just like almost 24 hours earlier, I felt a storm of giggles making their way up my diaphragm. Big giggles this time, amplified by either repetition or a special connection or maybe just that bout of insanity of been starving off for my entire life (and seem to be starving off even now). Giggles burst forth, and I had to stabilize myself on something solid. Quinn looked at me—stared at me—and though through sheer osmosis let out one or two chuckles, I could tell from the way her brow hung over her eyes that she didn't have the slightest clue what was wrong with me.

So I told her. I told her about my run-in with Fred Michaels. I told her about how similar all her worries had been to mine. In the process of connecting the dots of our two respective weekends, I told her about what Jane and Trent and I had in the works, how we felt our spirits being noticeably picked up, how I could actually stand to talk about my career (and how I no longer felt the guilt-inducing ping of jealousy whenever her or Jodie or whoever hit it big and seemed to be having the time of their lives)—how this jolt of possibility finally helped me work up the courage to not just mope about my hypothetical ruining of our sister-sister relationship but actually try to fix it, and then I told her about my plan, about how far I was willing to go to mend it. To top it all off, I told her about my interaction with the rest of the hotel staff. Everything was coming out—be it repeats of the past few days or special things I hadn't told anyone else yet save for Jane—and as it did the giggles turned to laughter. Very quickly, the laughter spilled over into the person next to me.

It was the first time I can remember sharing a good, solid laugh with my sister. And of course a thought like that opened up the dams in my eyes in ways that had nothing to do with a hurting gut. What started as a jolly old laugh about the absurdities of life turned into the first time I had cried in front of a family member, and soon that transferred over to Quinn too. There was the connection, there was the bookends, there was the thing that made the whole conversation feel real. It's just too damn bad we had to blubber over each other for it to happen.

I don't remember how long we cried for. Maybe it was forever. Maybe in some alternate reality we're still crying—all of Manhattan has drowned beneath a salty sea while we float by on a dingy, millions dead, the economy ruined. What a world that must be.

But in whatever reality I live in now, we were interrupted by the sound of yelping. Very loud yelping, in fact. Loud enough that we thought someone was getting murdered out in the hall, to which we realized in horror that the door to Quinn's room had stayed open throughout the entire conversation. There was a pack of people crammed into the door frame, and that damn geezer from before was naturally in the front. We disengaged from each other's (soaking wet) shoulder, mutually wondered if suicide was the only option, then shot our heads back towards the doorframe as more yelping rang-out from the peanut gallery. People started looking over their shoulders, then skirmishing around one another with panicked looks on their faces. That's when we heard something else, and by something else I mean Jane Lane, yelling at the top of her lungs.

"IF I HAD A RIOT HOSE I'D SPRAY THAT WIG RIGHT OFF YOUE SCALP GRANDMA! NOW VAMOOSE! SCRAM! SCAT! BACK TO THE OXYGEN TANK YOU GO! GET THE MOLE CHECKED OUT IT LOOKS LIKE ALASKA!"

The crowd parted like Moses had just puked, and I could see Jane leading a snarling Teddy to the front of the line. She was waving something in front of her face that could have passed for pepper spray. In fact it might very well have been pepper spray—this is Jane, she'd beat up a cop and steal their belt if she felt like it would help in some way.

They came to the front of the line where a wealthy-looking stereotype of a man was leering self-indulgently. As Teddy came to a stop right in front of him—coming no higher than his hips—I could have sworn he tutted.

"I don't see why we ought to listen to—"

Before he could finish, Teddy had driven the spine of The Graveyard Book into the man's groin and then yipped like an attack dog at his grimacing face. "I'll bite you!" he said, and in any other circumstance I'm sure Quinn would have had a fit. Looking over at her, she looked like she was thoroughly enjoying the site. Truth be told, so was I.

The crowd departed after that, as Jane tussled Teddy's hair and said, "Good boy." Teddy smiled gleefully, a job well done indeed. Quinn and I stood up as the two of them walked in, and gratefully they stopped before they got too close. My make-up wasn't smudged on account of how I don't wear any, but having red puffy eyes is enough.

"Cover your eyes child," Jane said, draping a hand over Teddy's face. "They are not decent."

"I saw nothing I can't repress," Teddy said. His smile was large enough to be clearly visible underneath Jane's hand, like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland.

In no time at all we were 'decent'—thanks to my quick ability to put on an impassive face and Quinn's super-human powers. I think she must be a shape-shifter. With that done, Jane's hand came down, but her smirk rose like the flag at a 4th of July parade.

"So," she said, "anything good on TV."

"They had a special on getting away with murder," I said, sending her a faux-intense glare. Jane chuckled.

"And after I saved your life. Teddy, your Aunt is ungrateful."

"I think she's pretty grateful now," he said, still smiling. "Only a thousand people saw her crying."

"Alright you two," Quinn said, coming round to escort Teddy into the centre of the room. "Be nice to Daria. That's 37 years of tears coming out at once."

"Who died and made me the punching bag?" I said, but my own smile betrayed me. I felt good—the closest I could be said to walking on cloud nine in probably my entire life. The greatest stresses I had known in many years were gone or at least diluted. I could breathe again, and by that point even the smog smelt welcoming.

I turned to Quinn as she wrapped Teddy in a hug and then hefted him up onto her arm. "Just remember," she said, "you really don't need to apologize."

"Well," I said, "do me a favour and let me anyways."

"Alright," she said. "Apology accepted. Don't do it again, or I'm telling Mom on you."

"I shudder at the thought," I said. Slipping back into sarcasm after all that emotion felt good, especially since I was back to just being me as opposed to fighting for my sanity.

"Well," Jane said, "I hate to be the begrudging adult here, but you," she pointed at me, "are still employed by a tyrant, and you know how tyrants get when you don't do any of your work."

"Right," I said. A small smirk crept onto my face. "But now with all this nonsense dealt with, I can finally fill Quinn in on just who my boss is. After all, she's been wondering. Right sis?"

"I'm down," Quinn said, smirking like a shark. "Do you guys have time?"

Jane nodded. "Oh I wouldn't miss this for the world. Go ahead Daria, tell Quinn what you think of David."

I nodded, smirked, then turned to Teddy. He was smiling intently.

"Cover your ears little one," I said. "This is going to get messy."

18.

After that little trip to the circus, there's not much left to say. As much as I could have programmed little Teddy to vomit or scream bloody murder any time the name "David" came up in conversation, I decided to censure myself and let subtext tell Quinn what she wanted to hear. I figured that there wasn't much point in getting myself worked up over David's mere existence, what with the fact that I still worked for him and everything. A smart decision that would ultimately be wasted, but…well, I'll get there.

Jane and I didn't stay that long and, if memory serves, Quinn and the gang were sitting in a LaGuardia terminal only an hour or two anyways, so the rest of the weekend petered out at an acceptable pace. Jane was behind on her commission but had found a wink of inspiration somewhere in the nether realm artists inhabit (though she admitted later that seeing Teddy threaten to bite what looked like the Duke of Edinburg in the shins may have helped). I myself had a script due, and weather reports indicated that it was going to be far more savage than previous editions, whether I was bumped off the page or not. After all, there were maniacs on the loose, and what good is a writer if they don't try and hound these people into an early grave?

We departed on the promise that Tuesday evening would be free to plan this comic idea of ours, even if it was just sketches. It sure beat the bar, that much was true, and for the first time in many, many months, I walked into my apartment with a smile on my face. Godzilla tried to attack me, thinking that this happy-go-lucky person must be an intruder or some sort of Daria android, but whatever—you win some and you lose some. He'd come around eventually.

I still felt like the whole thing had been an exercise in privileged problems for people with nothing more important on their plate, but that wasn't something that was ever going to be "solved", if you can even use that phrase. Upon reflection, the whole enterprise I plus others had gone through did seem to be pulling the old Schrodinger's Life Event paradox. A lot had changed not just in my life but in Jane's, Trent's, Quinn's—enough that we'd likely remember everything fairly vividly for as long as our grey matter was still conductive (so far so good on that front). But at the same time, save for a few bystanders, life in between a few intersecting streets—let alone the world—would go on completely unawares, which was probably for the best since I would have hated to see the comments from someone with real problems when my nerves were still raw (hell, I'm still a little nervous in that regard even now). All the same, the fact that this all took place in only three days was hard to believe. Time isn't just relative—it's a pool noodle that's more than capable of knocking your teeth out if you're not careful.

Anyways, walking into my little office that Sunday night, I noticed the Skype logo on my taskbar was yet again flashing. And just as last time, the missed call happened to come from Lawndale. A little surprised—being that Mom and Dad were supposed to be Down Under at this point—I called them back as I shuffled through the paper-based mess on my desk. Godzilla watched me wearily from the door, but eventually he found his place beside my feet to be safe enough again, at least for now.

After a few rings I saw Mom's face pop up on the screen, and confirming my suspicions, she very much looked like she was at home.

"Oh hi sweetie!" she said, smiling wide. I smiled back in my usual, barely smiling at all way.

"Hey Mom," I said. "Um, did you decide to redecorate the hotel? Or are we planning on suing?"

"Well you know how much of a pack-rat I am, Mom said, glancing behind her, "but actually we've been home for a while now."

"One of those freak Australian snow-storms, I presume."

"No no," Mom said, and again I saw her glance behind her shoulder. "Your father said something to a Customs Agent and it seems as though we'll be grounded until he's a hundred and fifty five."

Had Mom kept a straight face, I think I might have actually fallen for that. But I saw her wide smirk and clued in on the joke just before Dad leapt into view of the camera, like a court jester with a crab in his pants. He clapped his hands and pointed directly at the screen.

"Ha ha!" he said, "Fooled ya kiddo! Little practical joke I just thought up—what's a better to chase away the blues then a good ol' practical joke, right?"

I smiled and chuckled—more appreciative at thought than laughing at the actual joke. "Well, I guess in that case I don't need to tear up the mattress for bail money."

Dad kept laughing as he walked off screen, leaving Mom to shake her still widely smiling head. "Your father thought you could use a pick-me-up. I don't know if it worked but—"

"The thought means a lot," I said, and I returned Mom's smile back at her. My jaw was getting cramped at all this happy feeling I was having, so I donned an incredulous look instead and said, "Why did you skip out on your trip? I thought you two were really looking forward to it." Part of me worried that I'd somehow caused this, but I let Mom give me an explanation first before I started connecting too many dots. As it turned out, the explanation had nothing to do with me or my massive ego at all.

"Oh, we're still planning on making it to Australia eventually," she said, "But we met a couple that just moved in down the street, and in all my years at a law firm I don't think I've ever seen as horrid a schedule as the one those two put themselves through. Your father thought—and I agreed whole-heartedly—that they deserved the trip more than we did. So, we're staying put for now."

"Oh," I said.

"Your father thinks we'll have plenty of time to test all the different bug repellants, so it's not all bad." She paused, seeming to consider a few different sentence options before settling on one that she was completely unsure of. "We…might even be able to convince Quinn to join us if we find the right one."

I picked up on the subtext, and I thought—long and hard, though not long enough to make Mom wonder if my brain had shut off or hard enough to justify three paragraphs of exorbitant length—what I thought my own answer should be. Eventually, letting a small smirk creep back on my face, I said, "Maybe I could work that into my schedule too then."

Mom tried her best to keep a surprised look from shooting across my screen, and followed that up with embarrassment after she realized, no, I had definitely seen it. But that quickly melted away to a very happy, very warm smile—one I hadn't seen her wear in my presence in, well, you get the picture by now.

"I think we would all be thrilled by that, sweetie," she said.

"But only if you promise that the bug-spray works," I said. "I have high standards when it comes to bug-levels."

"As you should," Mom said. "Never settle for a half-assed job when it comes to eight-legged freaks."

She paused again, checked behind her for what I assume was no good reason, then—and I'm putting thoughts in my Mother's head right now—propelled herself forward via this intriguing turn of events to say, "So…Daria, how did you enjoy Quinn's visit? Did anything…special happen?"

Make sure you tell her about the voices, a voice in my head said. I'm sure she'd love to hear about that.

I haven't even decided whether I like you guys still, I answered back. There's no way I'm letting you meet my parents.

Rude.

Life sucks, I said, then got to the business at hand. How much should I tell? What parts were important? Was it allimportant? Will that dingy hotel ever have repeat customers after the Taylors were finished with it? Questions question, so many questions. And so many events too—what had we learned today, children? And how much would a concerned parent actually want to hear?

I leaned back in my chair and consulted the clock. It read: you can finish the script in the morning. I concurred.

"Do you have a minute?" I said eventually. On the other end of the screen, I saw my Mom put on another wide grin.

Outside the clouds let loose a spurt of rain, traffic glowed under its wet film, and somewhere on the other side of town there was no doubt a woman wondering if she'd see my face again on the cover of the New York Post, subtitle: 'Armed Standoff Ends In Gory Tragedy.' But the past was the past and despite a rough patch or twelve, it appeared as though everyone had walked away clean in the end, even people who under no circumstances should have expected to. Change, it's a hell of a drug—no matter where in time it leads you.

At some point during my conversation with Mom, Godzilla leapt into my lap and started to purr. And I thought to myself: Yes, I think this is just fine after all. Just fine indeed.


Just an epilogue to go, and then we're all done.