Chapter Twenty-Five: Elizabeth Surprises Everyone

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Whatever Emily had expected to come of her fuck-up, it absolutely wasn't this. It wasn't an unforgettable Christmas in the French Alps with her beloved grandpa, even if she spent it sore and unhappy and curled in a blanket on the couch. That didn't matter, because she wasn't alone. There was Grandpa teaching Spencer how to whittle on the rug in front of the fire and there was Mom right by her side like she'd promised, reading a fiction novel. Relaxing. She was just present like she'd never really been before.

And that continued.

Before they left France, Emily's grandpa pulled her aside, calling her into the kitchen where he sat at the table he'd made himself. "Come here," he ordered her and, when she did, he pulled her down onto his lap, ignoring her squeak of protest. "Don't wiggle. You're too big, girlie. You've gotten too big for this, let me have this one last time. I never did get to cuddle you much when you were small."

She stopped wiggling, falling quiet at the reminder that everything was different now.

"I did the same with you as I did with Lizzy," her grandpa was still saying. "Blinked and missed you growing up… well, I been telling her not to let it happen, but look how that turned out. She's still so busy looking forward that she forgets to notice her family changing."

"You know, don't you?" Emily realised out loud, her heart sinking. "You know why we came here… did Mom tell you?"

"Evidemment, obviously. Figured she weren't just coming to say hello, she hasn't done that since you were five. Always a reason. No, no, stop looking at me like that—I'm not mad."

"I wish people didn't know," Emily breathed, trying to pull away so he didn't see her threatening tears. "It's embarrassing. I don't want people…"

"Thinking less of you?" Grandpa let her stand, but he didn't let go of her hand. "Don't be ridiculous, Miss Muffet. I could never think less of you, you're my little granddaughter, ma puce. No one who loves you values you less because of a mistake."

Emily looked at him, her tears fading a little. "That's what Spencer told me," she realised quietly. "Ages ago…"

"Well, you should listen to him. Smart kid, got a good head. You could use that, instead of pigs like that Jack."

"John…" But Emily still smiled, something sweeter than what she'd known stealing into her emotions and making them kinder, easier. Not as… angry. "Grandpa?"

"Ouais?"

"I'm not a flea, you really need a better pet name."

His laughter reassured her that maybe, just maybe, things weren't as dire as expected.

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More surprises were to follow. They didn't fly back to Rome after France, with Elizabeth informing them both that all of them needed a holiday.

"What about your work?" Emily asked suspiciously, expecting that maybe this was a working holiday Elizabeth was trying to spin as a treat. That had definitely happened before.

"Screw my work!" Elizabeth exploded, both Emily and Spencer staring, stunned at her. "Bother my work! I want to spend time with my family, is that such an ask? We're going to reconnect, all of us—and damn anyone who says otherwise!"

"Wow," whispered Spencer as Elizabeth stalked away to speak to the people at the ticket desk. "That just happened…"

"Maybe they swapped her with a different Elizabeth at customs on the way out of Rome," Emily suggested, just as flummoxed as Spencer. "What do you think reconnecting means?"

"Something terrible, no doubt," he replied with a gloominess that was far more foreboding than what the 'reconnection' actually turned out to be.

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As it turned out, where they were going was a secluded hotel on the edge of Lake Tahoe, ringed by ski resorts and gorgeous snow plains. But, even better than the ski resorts, they got their own hotel room.

"But you said when we're sixteen we get our own rooms," Emily quoted gleefully, tearing around the gorgeously furnished room as she tried to work out which of the two beds she wanted. "We're only fifteen. You're early."

"Honestly, Emily, if you can retain a throwaway comment from god knows how many years ago for this long, tell me again how you failed your classes?" Elizabeth responded wryly. "Spencer, hurry up and pick your bed before Emily picks for you. I have a surprise here for you."

"I'm fine with whatever bed Emily doesn't want," Spencer said, always placid, shifting his suitcase from hand to hand as he waited for Emily's exuberant exploration to end. "What's the surprise?"

"If she tells you, it's not a surprise." Emily paused, turning to look at Elizabeth with her eyes narrowing in a very Elizabeth look. Spencer, wisely, decided not to point out the resemblance. "Wait, why did you put us in the same room? Is this the reconnecting? Are you trying to force us to spend time together?"

"Yes," said Elizabeth bluntly. "I don't regret separating you both for the time following your exams. I do regret the division that came between you both before that. When we return to Rome, I won't pretend that things are going to be easy for you, Emily. You will have to return to school and you will have to face the fact that people have knowledge of what—"

"You're going to make me go back to church," Emily said, horror striking home. "Mom, you can't."

"I'm not going to. If you don't want to return to church, that's your choice. I won't enforce participation in a community that worked to exclude it's most vulnerable—but you will return to school. While Spencer won't be at school alongside you anymore, my hope is that you can find what you both had previously, the friendship that bolstered you both through any difficulties you encountered."

"You told me that growing up meant I had to leave behind childish friendships," Spencer said to her, the atmosphere awkward in that moment. "That was part of what you scolded me for following the exam. Now you want us to be friends again?"

"And I stand by that," Elizabeth said firmly. "Do you think mine and Diana's friendship is the same as it was in college? It is not, because we are older and our friendship is older too. You and Emily cannot have the friendship you had as children, where the only important thing was remaining together—that kind of friendship is what leads to ludicrous displays such as the exam. But you can have a friendship based around something stronger, the acceptance and understanding that you both love and care for each other, no matter what. That kind of friendship is what drove you to come to me for help, Spencer. If you were still clinging to childish notions of companionship, you would have both hidden this away instead of responding like adults and deciding on a sensible solution. That's the friendship I want you to work hard to retain, despite your recent differences. Do you both understand?"

They both nodded, waiting until Elizabeth informed them to meet her in their private sitting room within the hour and left before looking at each other.

"You know, there's some kind of humour in that she's dragged me out here to recover from an abortion and put me in a shared room with a fifteen-year-old boy," Emily pointed out, picking the bed furthest from the fire to throw her stuff on. There would be more light on the other bed during the night, she'd decided.

"That's not funny." Spencer put his suitcase down carefully on his bed, watching as Emily dumped hers open onto the covers. As always, his eyes missed nothing. "Is that Balthy?"

Emily winced. "Yeah. What about her? I didn't bring her because I was scared and wanted comfort or anything, that would be a totally lame reason to bring a stuffed animal…"

But Spencer wasn't fooled at all. "I missed you too," he said. "Should we go see what the surprise is?"

"I bet it's lame," Emily declared.

It wasn't.

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Emily stood back awkwardly in the doorway of the sitting room, watching Spencer hug his mom and ramble at her about everything he'd been doing lately at such a speed that Emily only just realised how much she'd missed his enthusiasm. Diana, to her credit, seemed to be keeping up just fine with Spencer's rushed recitation about his life.

"I told you," Elizabeth said to Emily, coming up behind her and, after a moment's hesitation, touching her arm. "We're all going to reconnect."

"You said family," Emily said, testing the waters. "That was your exact words. You wanted to reconnect with your family."

"I did," said Elizabeth firmly. "And here you all are. You're not alone, Emily. I'm sorry that I'm not a good enough mother that you believe that. If it's not too late, I want us to be better—I promised Spencer I would at least try."

And Emily, after a brief moment of thinking, turned and hugged her tightly.

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"Mom's sharing a room with your mom," Emily announced when she bounced into the room that night, finding Spencer poking marshmallow bits through the guard over the fire. "You know that unscrews, right?"

"We're not supposed to unscrew—oh you're already doing it, okay." Spencer's mouth twitched as he sat back to watch Emily use a nail file on the screws to get them off, pulling the grate aside and grabbing a handful of marshmallows. "And I know. These suites only have two rooms, where else did you expect them to sleep?"

"Well, their room only has one bed," Emily said intently, looking at him with both her eyebrows raised as high as she could get them.

Spencer paused. "Nope," he replied, making as though to put the marshmallows in his ears. "Whatever you're thinking, I'm not interested. I don't need to know."

"You're not even a little bit interested?"

"Not even a little bit. I've read their letters, I don't want the specifics. That's gross. She's my mom, gross, no." Spencer laughed despite his revulsion at the look on Emily's face. Suddenly, she scurried away, grabbing something out of her bag as he watched with interest. "What are you doing?"

"I got you this," she said quickly, thrusting a paper bag at him. "In France, while Mom and I were waiting for my… thing. Anyway, I saw this and figured you know, long necks like yours… anyway. It's a sorry that I wasn't there for your birthday and I didn't get you anything for Christmas either because of everything, so I know this is shit, really, but—"

It was a scarf, purple and silky and just right. Spencer held it close and said with absolute honesty, "Emily, it's perfect. Thank you." He paused, still hugging the scarf tight, and asked, "Did you ever open my gift to you?"

She nodded, biting at her lip. "Yeah. Before I found out… I went into your room and found Balthy and, I don't know, I guess I realised how hard on you I was being. If it had been the other way around, I would have done the same thing. Spence…"

"It's dumb, I know, but at the time… I don't know. I just wanted to stop fighting." He was flustered and awkward remembering the gift, which seemed so stupidly sentimental looking back. It was the paper Emily had written so long ago, the one on To Kill A Mockingbird still marked with 'accepted for newsletter' along the top. He'd had it framed with a small note added into the frame on the bottom: "You're smarter than you believe and I'm sorry I made you feel otherwise" in Spencer's handwriting.

"Where did you even find it?" Emily asked instead of admitting that she'd hung it next to her bed. "I forgot that thing existed."

"Oh, your mom kept all your school stuff," Spencer said like it was the most normal thing ever, stunning her. "They're in one of the filing cabinets in her office. Hey, do you know what else I found?" He was grinning now, the kind of grin she was only used to giving, not receiving, and she didn't trust it one bit. "A report on your favourite person ever. Want to hear it? I memorised it."

"Oh no," she said.

"Oh yes," said he, before happily beginning to recite it verbatim: "Spencer is my best friend and the smartest person ever in the world, probably even smarter than the man who invented the world. He wears clothes that are Odd but I really like and he is my favourite person because he always knows things I don't—Emily, stop it!" The recitation interrupted by Emily walloping him with a pillow, Spencer fleeing and her giving chase around the room. Despite the danger, he leapt the bed with an ease he'd never be able to emulate if he wasn't being cheeky and yelled the rest of the report at her between helpless laughter: "—and because he's a good adventurer and always listens really well. If I could be anyone else I wish I could be him because he smiles all the time and laughs at things and also he's really good with Hares ow! No fair, you can't go for my legs—ah!"

The dark outside pressed against the windows, the snow flurrying busily, but, within that room, they were safe from everything without, finding one last vestige of childhood in the wake of a very terrible year.

From then on, things were better.