Staying Straight

Author Notes: Another bonus chapter. We got a glimpse into Dan's backstory, but I wanted to cover Yana's and Ken's, as well. Plus, I wrote up Rosetta Maoh, and she's awesome, and you all deserve to know how awesome she is. Without further ado!

23.5: Three on the Precipice

With her last appointment for the day complete, Yana had been settling in to her paperwork when she noticed her phone flashing. She flipped the screen on, and felt a warm smile come to her and instantly hit the redial. The other end picked up before the first ring finished. "Yana, hey, I-"

"Danny, what's up?" She leaned back in her chair. Her fingers wandered up into her hair and twisted a lock around her index finger.

"Hey, how ya doin'?" Dan sounded a little breathless on the other end, and Yana frowned a little.

"Something wrong?"

"Just got off the phone with- sorry, sort of..." Dan groaned, and Yana winced, her shoulders falling.

"The person finder? Another lead fell flat?" Dan was quiet, and Yana could hear him rubbing at the wrinkles in his brow. She crossed her arms. "Danny, if you keep rubbing your elbows against your desk like that, you'll wear them out."

Dan actually chuckled at this, and she heard his chair creak as he sat back. "It's been a day. Look, you know my odd three-thirty? My ghost? You're still seeing his roommate, right?"

"In a manner of speaking." Yana felt her lips purse, but pushed the swell of disappointment from her voice. "Why?"

"I need to talk to him. My parolee's having a rough time of it, and he told me they weren't speaking. I thought I might speak with him and see if I can motivate a reunion of sorts."

"Oh Danny, I can't, you know I can't. We'd both lose our jobs."

"I really need to talk to him." She heard Dan lean forward again, and sighed off the receiver. Dan was so good at acting warm and relaxed for his parolees, only getting tense when he had someone who he felt safe in releasing tension.

"I wish I could let you. Honestly, I wonder if you and I shouldn't switch parolees." Yana released her hand from her hair, then tucked the loose strands back behind her ear. "I tried to call mine earlier myself. He missed his appointment. He's never missed one before. But he didn't pick up."

Dan sighed deeply, his voice heavy and hard. "So mine's gone off the rails, and he's no better. All this, all our parolees getting expunged, and the crime rate climbing like a goddamned rollercoaster. I don't even wanna see where this is gonna drop us. I feel like the world's gone crazy."

"I know." Yana cradled the phone to her ear, wishing she could reach through the phone and give Dan some kind human contact, but Dan had never quite liked hands on his face or back. "Look, maybe we just need to get our minds off work. Have you heard from Kenny lately?"

"He's texted me back a few times, said things are rough and he can't talk about it right now."

"Hmm. I'll call him, and we can all meet up tomorrow night."

"We'll see." Dan sounded disbelieving, but he murmured a farewell, which she warmly returned before hanging up. She then dialed Ken. His phone rang four times, then went to the voicemail.

"I swear to God, Kenny." She hung up before the voicemail started recording, but almost as soon as she did, her phone rang again, and she answered. "Hello?"

"It's me!" Lily's strident voice echoed back. "It's been forever! You been busy, Yana?"

Yana giggled. "Not as much as I'd like, sweetie. How have you been? How's school?"

"Eh." Yana could clearly see Lily scrunch her nose as clear as if she was in front of her. She'd known her since she was barely in kindergarten, she knew exactly what Lily was like on the phone and in conversation. "Science isn't as much fun as it was last year. It's all about cells and not as much about animals."

"Just be patient, you have to start with the little things first." Yana pinched her fingers. "And what's littler than cells?"

"Ions!" Lily laughed raucously, and Yana giggled along with her. "Are you stuck on little things too?"

"Something like that." Yana exhaled slowly, but before she could try to brush Lily off and away from that topic of conversation, Lily jumped tracks.

"Kenny says he's stuck on nothing. I ask him what's wrong, over and over, he says 'nothing.' And he si-i-ighs-" Lily groaned, imitating her brother's tone- "And he's all sulky, and he's making more wrinkles in his face, and every time the phone rings, he jumps! He's been meaner, too, and then he gets all mad at himself-" Yana heard the soft creak-creak of Lily rocking from foot to foot. "I don't get it, he's too upset for it to be nothing. Then I thought, maybe it's nothing he wants to tell me. So, do you think maybe he might tell you?"

Yana blinked a few times, taken aback with surprise. Lily spoke fast, her mouth trying hard to keep up with her meandering mind, and though everything she said made sense, it took Yana a moment to catch up. Then, she realized Lily was giving her just what she wanted. "I'd love to talk to Kenny, but he won't pick up his phone when I call."

"Oh!" Lily's phone jostled, rattling in Yana's earpiece. "Hang on!" There were thumps, a clatter, and Yana faintly heard Lily: "Here, it's for you!" She heard a few more bumps in the background, the thump of a door shutting, then a quiet sigh.

"Sorry about her."

"Kenny. She's not what you should apologize for and you know it." She crossed her arms, as Kenny's low, deep voice reached her with another sigh. "So, what's gotten into you? You don't actually answer any of our texts, since both Dan and I have been trying to reach you, but you just brush us off. I'm getting awful lonely at aikido without either of you to throw around. Lily's worried too, so I'm not imagining things. What's going on?" She trailed off, waiting for anything, but the silence she got in return was as unnerving as anything he could have said. "Kenny..."

Ken grunted, and Yana heard him struggle to string the words together. "You ever just... look at your life and wonder how you got there? Like, how things got to where they were, and how you just get so stuck in what you're doing, because it works, and then when something gets thrown askew, it just messes you up?"

"Oh, Ken, is your college boyfriend calling you again?" Yana groaned. "I know he always get you angsty, but you know he's dirt."

Ken was quiet, then he actually managed a weak chuckle. "You're psychic. He's not even what's got me..." Ken heaved another sigh. "If only he was the worst of my problems. Don't worry, I'm not tempted. He's all up and excited over some money he came into, inviting me off to Vegas with him when it rolls in, and he totally won't sleep with the showgirls, and if we end up in front of Elvis with a marriage license, he won't tell anyone."

"I'm surprised you still use him. I'm surprised he's not on your list of persona-non-grata."

"Can't do that." Ken shifted (Yana heard the suede of his chair rustle, could almost see him slumped in his office with the lights low like he did when he was moping), and he heaved another deep sigh just off the receiver. "I'd feel... I'd just feel guilty asking anyone but him for tech help. He might have been a piece of shit when we were dating... Jesus, the good old days, when I could actually get a boyfriend." He snorted. "Or a girlfriend. Anyone who'd give me the time of day."

"There's always me and Danny, Ken." Yana felt her hand come up to her heart. It always ached and squeezed when she knew Ken was this down. Then again, it ached just the same whenever she thought about Ken too long. "We're worried. I get worried when you start saying those sorts of things. I mean, saying things like, you don't know how you got here. You're not in such a bad place, are you?" Ken was quiet; Yana could scarcely hear him breathing. "Your mom fought hard to help get you there."

At this, Ken sniffed. "Right, but even so..."

"Kenny." Yana crossed her arms and glared down into the phone. Ken groaned.

"I know! Life just used to be... so much simpler."

"I know." She cradled the phone. "Ken, it's only been six years. I know you still miss her. I still miss her. You were her prince, and she was your pillar- all of our strengths." She let her head fall, let herself fall into commiseration and memories. "She's the reason either of us are here."

Yana recalled her first school day in Chance Harbor. She remembered being forced to wear hot, heavy clothes, a long skirt and sweater, which obscured most of her body but for her face, and keeping her head low. She remembered other students snickering at her as she wandered through the dim constriction of a public school hallway. She had left her last school a veritable pariah, and it seemed that even in a new middle school where her father hadn't assaulted a teacher, her life would be just the same.

She remembered walking home best, because she soon realized that one of her classmates was walking close behind. She took one look at him, and her face burned. He was too cute! Too cute for his own good! She'd been watching him since homeroom, and they shared four classes, and she was starting to worry she was mooning too obviously because her cheeks went pink every time he raised his hand. (Thank God he hadn't noticed!) He was tall, tan, with red hair loose at his already-broad shoulders, his button nose stuck to the inside of a book. She would have talked to him if she weren't worried her father hadn't already told every single one of their neighbors to watch who she was talking to. He had warned her he was watching. She had no reason not to believe him.

"Hey." She stumbled when she realized he had spoken, and jumped to see he'd folded his book partway and lowered it, and he managed a timid smile. "Uh, you're new, right? I'm Ken."

Yana stammered a moment, her teeth clumsy against her thin tongue, and finally covered her cheeks and managed a timid, "My dad says not to talk to boys."

"Oh." He frowned (and oh God why did he have to be so cute when his eyebrows bunched up?) and took a step back. "If you're sure."

She winced, because he'd lifted his book back to his face. Now he was adorable but completely unattainable and in class with her for the rest of the year and he'd never talk to her again, but maybe that was for the best. Oddly enough, though, he waited at the end of her sidewalk when she trudged up the door to her house and reached for her key. All she found, however, was an empty pouch in her backpack, and she dug through the rest of it, gasping at every zipped pouch devoid of her housekey. "Oh no, oh no, oh no!"

"What's the matter?" She realized Ken had approached again, hands on his knees over her, and fell back onto her legs in an awkward split.

"I... ah... my key..." She bowed her head. "I forgot my key and now I can't get in! My dad won't be home for another four hours, and I'll get in so much trouble if my folks find me just waiting outside, so-"

"Do you have a cell phone?" She shook her head, and he puzzled and rubbed the back of his head. "Me neither. Come on, you can come to my house and use our phone." He held a hand out to her, and she turned pink again, tentatively lifting one hand.

"Are you sure?"

"For sure." Ken cracked another (way too cute, Yana wasn't sure she hadn't melted on the spot) smile. "My mom says to help people who need help."

Ken escorted Yana a few blocks east and north to a three-story rowhouse next to a garage, with a few maroon cars parked out front. The door wasn't locked, and Ken quickly pointed out the bathroom and where she could hang her backpack, then showed her to the phone. He graciously stayed in the other room as she dialed the mall where her father worked as a security guard, then the laundromat where her mother worked, but the mall couldn't get her father to the phone and the laundromat didn't pick up. "It's no good," she told Ken in a timid whisper when he peeked in on her. "I guess... if you don't mind..."

"Did you understand any of the questions for today's Honors Algebra homework?" Ken reached into his backpack and took his textbook out. "I think I kinda got it, but maybe if we both looked at it, it'd be easier."

Fifteen minutes ago, Yana had worried she'd never be able to talk to the boy of her dreams. Now, she was doing homework with him.

It was about thirty minutes later the door opened and shut again, and a deep sigh settled through the house. "Sweetie, I'm home!" Yana turned from the stiff wooden kitchen chair to see a shapely shadow in the door, as Ken's mom entered. She wore a skirt to her ankles, maroon and black (and which Yana learned was a favored style). Her long black hair was all pinned up in a sloppy bun, her makeup was simple but immaculate, and when she stopped at the door to take her shoes off, Yana realized they were combat boots. She had a stern air about her, but a soft smile for her son. "How was school, baby?" Ken dutifully bowed his head when she kissed his hair.

"Just fine." He gestured across the table. "This is Yana, she's in class with me. Can she stay 'til her folks get home? She forgot her key."

Ken's mother snapped her focus over to Yana, and Yana could almost feel her dissolving her with a laser-sharp gaze. Then, she smiled. "It's nice to meet you." She thrust her hand out. "I'm Rosetta Maoh." Yana timidly took and shook her hand, and Rosetta released her gently. "You can call me Rosie. Kenny doesn't bring home friends very much. In fact, I think you're the first one. Be nice to him, okay?"

"Mom." Yana noticed that Ken's cheeks had turned ruddy like rust, and he tugged at his collar. Rosetta laughed under her breath, a warm, molasses-thick sound, and patted Yana's shoulder.

"Any friend of Ken's is family." Yana felt Rosetta pull her collar aside, and tried not to look at the purple bruise hidden under her hair. She saw Rosetta's gaze travel to it, then back to meet her eyes. "You're always welcome here, okay?"

"I guess it was lucky that she liked you, but you really were my first friend." Ken was smiling, which was progress, as far as Yana could tell. "She liked you for that anyway."

"I have a feeling I'm lucky for that alone." Yana eased back into her chair. "Hearing how she talked to some of her employees?"

Ken chuckled. "Mom had claws. But I guess that's kind of what you meant..."

Yana ended up at Ken's door more times than she ever intended. She didn't want to go home some days, so she would "forget her key" and end up at Ken's door. Ken was always happy to have company, and Rosetta would greet Yana with warmth and genuine concern for her welfare. After about three weeks where Yana was at her house three of every five school days, Rosetta took Yana's shoulder while Ken was out of the room, if only to confide:

"Kenny said your dad was a bit strict about you talking to boys, but you can always talk to me, alright?"

Ken only knew that Yana would sometimes come over some nights just to talk to Rosetta, shut up in her office, and visit with Ken only for a few minutes. Rosetta would tell Ken, "We're just talking about girl stuff," then pinch his cheek.

It was when Yana showed up at their door during their second year of high school with tears in her eyes that Ken realized it was much more than that. She had an envelope in her shaking hand, and before Rosetta could usher her up into her office, Yana spilled it all out. "I applied and was offered a scholarship. I was going to start taking college courses. My... my father got the mail first." She sobbed, and Ken hurried to bring her a tissue. "He... he got so angry... He said he'll send me to Chicago, to marry a friend of his. I... I don't know what to do!" She sobbed, and Ken grabbed her arms and held her tight.

"It's gonna be okay!" She cringed, and he realized he'd inadvertently shoved her sleeves up to reveal thin red welts across her forearms, as if struck by a cane or a switch. He immediately dropped her arms and turned around to Rosetta. "Mom, we—"

Rosetta held up a finger to Ken, her steel-gray eyes set and lingering on Yana, and her phone already at her ear. "We're going to fix this, sweetie." She turned on her heel. "Mr. Nenevich? Yes, my name is Rosetta Maoh, I'm a friend of your daughter." She paced slowly towards her office, red-satin lips pursed, her skirt slinking around her legs with each deliberate motion. She was the very embodiment of a steel fist under a velvet glove, and even Ken shivered at her chilled tones. Yana grabbed onto his shoulder, and he put his arm around her. "Yana will not be coming home to you tonight. Or ever again. You will not be shipping her out of state. You will not stifle your child's future, no matter what your reasoning. I am going to ask you, politely, to cease all contact with your daughter. You will hear from my lawyer shortly." Yana heard her father wind up into a tirade on the other end of the line, but Rosetta hung up and immediately dialed again. The phone picked up, and Rosetta was exactly as cool but nowhere near as livid when she spoke this time: "I'd like to make a report of child abuse."

Ken urged Yana to sit and made her a cup of cocoa as Rosetta made a non-emergency report. She sat across the table from Yana once she was done and took her hand. "Tomorrow, we're going to file emancipation papers. I'd like to take some photographs of your bruises. I'm sorry to force the issue, but someone had to save you." She squeezed Yana's hand. "I'm going to need your help, okay?"

"Okay," Yana sniffled, and Ken handed her another tissue.

"I wish I'd known." He shivered, and patted her back as she dried her tears. "I'll never let him hurt you again."

"I still can't believe just how strong she was when she told my father off, but looking back, I don't blame her." Yana drained her teacup, but winced at the aftertaste. Sometimes, she wondered if she was as good as brewing poison with her tea blend experiments. It didn't stop her from rising to make another cup. "The guy my father said he was selling me off to- Ekato Ysidro- I later heard he was arrested as a leader in the Hand of Isis gang." Yana shivered, even with the warm cup in her hand. "I dodged a bullet. You and your mom saved my life."

"We only did what was right, and really, it was all her."

"You helped."

"It's not so hard to be a decent person." Ken sounded, at the very least, less depressed on the other end, as Yana returned to her office chair and relaxed into it again. "Mom made sure I knew that. She wanted make sure I saw the world the way she did, and understood why she was how she was. That's probably why she insisted all her employees do volunteer work once a month... and me, every Sunday."

"But Mom, I wanted to go play soccer in the park with some guys!" Ken groaned, in the dying-whale way that only twelve-year-old boys could, as Rosetta escorted him from her little maroon sedan up the steps to K-One River Mission.

"You can play soccer on Saturdays." Rosetta did not release the vice grip she had on Ken's arm even as she knocked on the door. "I think you're old enough to gain some understanding of how the world is outside of your backyard."

Ken moaned again, just as the door opened and a fair-haired main in a priest's cassock answered, and his pale eyes sparked with delight. "Rosie!"

"Connor!" Rosetta leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek, and he clasped her hand.

"Always a pleasure to see you! And this is your boy?" Connor crouched a little then held a hand out to Ken. Ken, reticent but knowing better not to be impolite in front of his mother (because she would pull his ears out until he looked like an elf), accepted and shyly shook his hand. "Pleasure to meet you, Ken."

"Mhm." He shrank back, and Connor waved them in.

"Rosie, would you like to step into the kitchen?"

"Oh, you don't want that, not unless you want me to poison your tenants. I'm lucky Ken's figured out Hamburger Helper." Rosetta laughed and put a hand on Ken's back to usher him forward, and Connor followed them in.

"Resume building it is. And for young mister Ken, my ward is cleaning the bathrooms, perhaps the two of them will get along?"

"We can certainly find out." Rosetta leaned down next to Ken's ear. "Be nice."

Rosetta ushered Ken to a row of showers, where a boy a few years younger than Ken was scrubbing the walls with a long handled broom, donning an oversized shirt knotted at his waist and pants hiked up into culottes. He took Ken in with a languid stare, then returned to brushing down the tiles. Connor, however, gave Ken a gentle push in his direction.

"Corey, this is Ken. Ken, Corey. Corey will tell you what to do."

"It's Gabe," he muttered, and continued scrubbing. "There's spare clothes in the closet in the hall if you don't wanna mess yours up."

Ken blinked a few times. "Uh. Thanks, then, Gabe." He trudged off towards the indicated closet, and he faintly heard Connor talking to Rosetta as they departed:

"He's so serious, for a ten-year-old."

"Eight. I don't mind! It's actually terribly cute when he gets grumpy."

Gabe grunted and scrubbed a little harder, as Ken rejoined him with an old tee a few sizes too big on. He gestured to a bucket and a spare brush. "The floors. Get good around the drains."

"Sure." He got down on his hands and knees, as directed, with a scowl directed in the general direction of the floor and his mother.

They worked in silence, until the room was clean, and Gabe quietly thanked Ken: "You did good work. Thank you for coming." It was too awkward, to have a boy a head shorter than him staring up into his face while talking down to him.

"My mom made me." Ken couldn't help a petulant sulk.

"Whatever." Gabe's gaze fell, and his voice dropped to a mumble. "If she makes you come back, maybe we can do it again sometimes. I'll do the floors, and you can do the walls. We can switch. I think I'd like that."

Ken wondered how many people had been treated to Gabe's "courtesy," because he got the feeling it wasn't a lot.

When he went looking for Rosetta, he found her on a laptop with a printer, talking to a shabby-looking man, missing both front teeth and the ring finger on his right hand, who could barely string together two words in English. She patiently, slowly spelled out everything she was asking in clumsy Cantonese, then translated it into simple words, the way she used to speak to him when he was a child. He watched as she, grueling to comprehend, typed something for the man, then handed it to him. He understood just enough of what she was saying to catch, "Library on Kennedy at Fourth. Make copies. They will let you do it free if you say you need a job." She waved on the next, but before Ken could watch a moment longer, someone tapped his shoulder, and he jumped a foot, and had to catch himself when he saw it was only Connor.

"Didn't mean to surprise you!" He laughed, and crouched again to take Ken's shoulder. "If you want to watch you may, but if you're bored, I could put you to work in the kitchen."

Chopping onions was better than being bored.

When Rosetta deigned to be finished for the day, Ken shuffled to the car with a sulk that could curdle milk. Rosetta put her arm around his shoulder, smiling through her exhaustion. "What do you think, sweetie?"

"About the shelter?" Ken wrinkled his nose. "I don't see why we have to help. Nobody's ever helped you and me."

Rosetta's fingernails dug into his shoulder, and she abruptly stopped and turned him to face her. She forced him to meet her eyes with a hand on his chin. "It's because nobody's ever helped us that we have to help. Ken, when you and I set out on our own, we nearly were homeless. It's not even true that nobody helped us. It was a stroke of luck and assistance from Connor that kept a roof over our heads back when I left your father, and nobody else would or could help us. But as little as we have, at least we have it." Her thumb caressed his cheek in a gentle motion that clashed with the ice in her expression. "If all we can give the less fortunate is our time, then they deserve it."

"Why?"

"Because we all get something from someone, sweetheart." Rosetta caressed his cheek, the ice melting, and Ken realized he hadn't seen her wearing this soft, wistful expression in a very long time. "People share everything, space, air, this city, we make each other's worlds. We all take from each other. That's what life is. These people, they're people who've had everything taken from them and no chance to take back. It's our duty to give what we can, because nobody else will."

"It was a good experience, in the long run. It's how I met Gabe, anyway, and I wouldn't have known Connor Steele had done my mom a favor back then." Yana heard Ken's chair creak. "But it makes sense."

"I suppose." Yana swirled the honey in her cup, frowning through the steam. "Is... is that where you met Dan, too?"

"No, I thought I told you-"

"I don't think you have, no. I just came home one day, and there he was with his head over a bowl and your mother delousing him." She smiled wryly. "After that, I just didn't ask."

"Oh." Ken chuckled sheepishly. "Well, Dan was homeless when we met him, but we met him outside. It's funny, almost; I lured him in by accident, and Mom sprung the trap."

Ken's high school soccer team was just letting out of their meet in the south end of Founder's Park, and Ken was shaking the sweat from his hair. He could still faintly hear his mother talking with the coach, just in earshot, so he wasn't too nervous going to the main walk of the park under the eyes of a few scattered panhandlers to find a water fountain. He was bent over the fountain when it happened.

Someone seized the collar of his jersey, and before Ken could react, someone grabbed him against his chest and squeezed. Ken choked and cried out, waiting for his feet to leave the ground, but heard a gasping voice crying into his ear. "It's you! It's really you! Thank God, you're alright, you're alive!" A big hand ruffled through his hair, and Ken struggled, just as a dense, bony hand seized his chin and tilted his head up, letting Ken look directly at the face of his assailant.

He hadn't expected to see tears streaming down his face, and the man let go and stumbled back, clapping both hands over his mouth. "Oh... oh, God..." He was a big guy, not the kind who looked like he would cry in public. His face was unshaven, black hair overgrown, broad chest hollow under a ragged jacket, and he dropped to his knees. "I... I am so sorry... just, your hair, I..."

Ken felt his mother's hand on his shoulder, and she turned Ken to face her. "Are you okay, honey?" Ken swallowed, but nodded, and Rosetta immediately whipped back around to the man. "Care to explain yourself?"

"I..." The man stammered, and put his palms on the ground. "I thought... he was someone else, someone I lost... From behind, he... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..." He sobbed, and Ken cringed on the man's behalf at all the people staring at the scene. "I'll... I'll just stay here, just like this, if you want to call the cops."

Rosetta took him in, then crouched down. "How old are you?"

"Nineteen, ma'am."

"Did your parents kick you out?"

"D-dead." He held his hands up. "I didn't... know..."

Rosetta pursed her lips and considered him, before settling on a scowl. "Get off the ground!" She seized him by the back of his shirt and yanked him up. Standing, he was much taller than her, but he shrank when she wagged her finger at him. "What an embarrassment! A strong young man like you wasting away like this, losing your mind in a public park!" She seized his ear, but Ken spoke up:

"Who are you looking for?" The man flinched at the question.

"My baby brother," he whispered. "He ran away. I've been looking... two years..."

Ken pursed his lips, then sighed. "Mom, can we not call the cops on him?"

Rosetta frowned, and glowered up at the man. "I was going to invite him home for dinner. When's the last time you ate?"

"After we picked him up, Mom took him into her office and locked the door. They talked for a solid hour, but I still have no idea what was said. When she came out, she told me his name was Dan, that he was going to live with us for a while. It was pretty crowded when you moved in, too, and then Lily a few months later, but it wasn't too bad." Ken actually chuckled, a relief to Yana: Ken was getting out of the dark places in his head and back to where he could laugh. She chose to giggle along.

"I remember how jealous you were that he got homeschooled by your mother!"

"Well, he wasn't going to make up the year of high school he missed unless she did." Ken huffed, but there was a smile behind it. "I remember how shocked I was that she somehow swung a full-ride scholarship for him. The two of them must have scoured for different entries for hours, and I don't think Dan slept for three weeks. I have no idea how many essays she wrung out of him."

"I do." Yana rolled her eyes. "You were the only one of the three of us she saved for, so I got the same treatment just two years after that, and she still made you bust your hump to earn your way through. Still, she showed us how to work the system." Yana sat back again and rested her hand over her heart. "We were so lucky we had her. The three of us lived on a precipice, and she was the one who kept us from toppling into ruin. So many other kids like us, no family, no resources, we would have just fallen through the cracks, ended up in whatever jobs you can get when you're poor and uneducated, or worse."

"Luck had nothing to do with it." Something had come into Ken's throat, something not hard, but very dense. "Mom fought every step for us. If she hadn't, then... I don't want to think what would have become of the three of us. Probably the same as most of the other Shangri-La kids out there, in dead ends. Nobody should have to fight as hard as she did, but damn if she didn't." Ken fell silent. Yana could almost feel him rubbing at his closed eyes, pressing them back as if he could push everything else back in. "Sometimes, I wonder if that wasn't why..."

"Kenny, no..."

Yana knew something had been wrong when Ken glanced at his phone in the middle of their 300-level literature discussion, rushed to the front of the hall to talk to their professor, then ran out. She only knew what it was when she got a text from him at the end of class: "Mom's in the hospital. They won't let me see her."

Yana drove herself and Dan to Mercy, only to find Ken arguing with two of Rosetta's deliverymen in the lobby. "... trying to find out why you didn't call me sooner!"

"We told you, she dropped out of the blue! She was in the middle of reamin' us out, and suddenly she foams at the mouth and eats concrete!" Ken turned purple, and Yana and Dan darted across the room to intervene.

"Kenny." Yana took Ken's shoulders, and found that his cheeks and eyes were red. Dan put himself between the deliverymen and Ken. "What's going on?"

"Rosie collapsed in the office," one of the couriers volunteered.

"She's too young," Ken squeaked, and held Yana tight. "What if... what if..."

"Ken," Dan interrupted firmly, glancing back to him with coal embers in his gaze. "Don't think like that."

An orderly retrieved them after a moment, and Ken rushed in at the head of the pack and dropped to his knees at her bedside. She rolled her eyes and patted his head. " Sweetheart, I fainted. I just got a little lightheaded, don't panic." She then pinched his cheek. "Why'd you leave school?"

"I was worried." Ken grabbed and squeezed her hand. Lily, not yet ten, cringed in the door with Yana at her back. "What happened?"

"The ER doctor said I was concussed, but because I was so confused when I woke up, they gave me an MRI." She tapped her head. "I was just a bit disoriented from waking up somewhere strange. I'm sure it's nothing."

It was then that a doctor cleared his throat from behind the crowd gathered at the door, and asked all but Rosetta's immediate family to leave. The door was shut, but Yana, Dan, and everyone heard Ken shout, as a fainting spell turned into a brain tumor.

Ken told them later, hunched over a too-small hospital cafeteria table, shaking and pale, that Rosetta had two months to live. "She had been having headaches, but she thought it was just stress. This seizure was just the first sign she got that it had gotten worse." He sobbed dryly into his coffee, though Dan patted his shoulder and Yana clasped his hand. They'd left Lily with Rosetta, so that he could vent without burning her ears, but he was crumbling to ash before their eyes, his voice cracking. "It's... it's inoperable. And she refused chemo."

"What?!"

"Why?"

"She said it'd be too expensive, even with her insurance." Ken smeared at his eyes, revealing only hard anger underneath. "She said, 'I could live another year or two, maybe, but is that year worth taking all of my son's savings and driving us into debt?' She said it wasn't. I begged her! I'd rather she live than I graduate!" Ken sobbed again, this time spilling tears onto cheeks already chapped and stained with salt. "She slapped me."

Rosetta agreed only to take basic medication, which she knew would only delay the inevitable, as Ken doubled down on his studies. It was as if he thought that by getting the college degree she wanted for him and his future, he might find an answer to his woes within. She survived three months, and attended his graduation in a wheelchair, because she couldn't stand anymore.

She spent the last two weeks of her life in hospice, sunken to her bed in a daze, and Ken never left her side. West Side was run by cellphone from the lobby, with understanding from every single one of Rosetta's employees. Yana and Dan, both already busy with their Master's programs, came whenever they could, Gabe and other longtime volunteers from the shelter, couriers and others who knew them, always offering comfort and condolences, but though Ken forced a smile for visitors, when he was alone with the friends he trusted most, he was broken. He had confided to Yana that watching his mother lose her faculties, the use of her legs, the dexterity of her fingers, and soon patches of her memory, watching her waste away was like watching her turn to stone.

The pain was no deterrent for him. He clasped her hand and talked to her, reminding her of all the good times he could remember with her, playing simple games of checkers when her hands weren't shaking so hard she refused to pull them out from under the covers. When the end was there, though, all four of them gathered around her to see her off. Ken wept like a child at her bedside, grabbing her hand, as the rest of her family bore witness, Yana crying into Dan's shoulder, Lily huddled in a corner with her arms tight to her chest.

"I never... never thought about what life would be like after you." He dried his eyes on her sheet, as she took him in with cloudy, unfocused eyes. "I... I'd thought you'd be here forever, right behind me. Not forever, but at least a little longer. Come to my wedding, met your grandchild, if I ever had children."

"Don't worry about that, Kenny." Rosetta wove her fingers into his hair. He'd forgotten to cut it since she'd gotten sick, and it was long past his ears now. She didn't seem to mind. "I'm not going to regret those things. I loved the time I spent with you, and I trust you'll lead the rest of your life with all the strength I've watched you grow. You'll be a wonderful father and husband someday."

Ken winced. His gaze flashed back at Dan and Yana for a moment, then back to her. "M-Mom. I... I want you to know. Those things might not happen for me. I... I'm not sure I want to marry a woman. I might want to... to be with a man. I might not have children. I hope you're okay with it." He hung his head, and Yana took and squeezed Dan's hand.

Of course Ken would come out now. She deserved to know, even if she wasn't expecting it. Still, he had never had anything to fear from her.

Rosetta, ever the picture of grace under duress, hummed into a soft chuckle, and squeezed Ken's scalp. "That's fine, too. I just want you to live happily. Be who you are, because I have raised a wonderful son, and brought up four amazing children under my roof, and that is my proudest accomplishment." She smiled, and leaned up to kiss his cheek. "Make me proud, darling. It was an honor to be your rock. Go and be that for all of those who depend on you. You're the sun and moon in my sky, my little prince, and your life will be brilliant." She kissed his forehead, then sank back, too weak to hold herself up any longer. "Love your sister, your friends, everyone, the way I've loved you."

She closed her eyes for the last time less than an hour later. Ken stood up from his mother's deathbed with his teeth gritted and his fists clenched, and turned around to face the world with all of her strength in him.

"It still haunts me," Ken admitted. Yana searched her desk blindly for a tissue box, her eyes wet at the very thought. "In a way, I have her ghost still hanging off of me, but knowing she'd want me to be strong helps push me forward. She gave all of us what we needed to move forward... almost. She only gave Lily me. I still wonder if I'll be enough for her..."

Ken, Yana, and Dan were all working on homework after dinner, when there was a sharp knock at the door. Rosetta frowned behind her laptop and stopped only to save her work, before the doorbell began to ring over and over, incessantly. She huffed after the thirtieth solid second of uninterrupted noise, and Ken was compelled to join her as she marched to the door. She reached it first, and Ken stood at her shoulder as she flung the door open and glared out.

And glare she did, directly into the face of a beautiful woman in expensive clothes wearing an ugly expression. She thrust her arms forth, sending a tiny little girl stumbling into Rosetta's legs. "You. You like my husband's whelps. I can't stand this one a second longer!" She seized the girl by the hair. "Lily, you live here now." With that, the woman marched away, with Rosetta, for perhaps the first time in her life, too stunned to speak.

Ken, of course, was right there with her. Even Lily, orange pigtails askew and tottering under the weight of a suitcase that stood at her shoulders, was confused.

"Mama?" She turned, and Rosetta shut the door, because the woman's car was already peeling out with a scream of tires and a roar of overpriced engines. Recovering as quickly as ever, Rosetta crouched down next to Lily.

"Mama's going to be gone for a little while. You can stay here with me, okay?" Rosetta took and clasped Lily's hand. "Your name is Lily, right? How old are you?"

Lily held up five fingers, but her head was tipping around as her gaze roamed the modest little foyer. Finally, her eyes locked onto Ken, and her chubby face spread in a broad grin. "Ooh, you're cute!" She took a step towards Ken, winking in a way that a girl her age should not have known, and put her hand on his thigh. "What can I do for you?" Ken turned bright red, and instinctively slapped her hand away.

"Stupid! I'm your brother! That's not how you talk!"

Rosetta, for the second time in her life, was utterly lost for words. She scooped Lily up in both hands like one would a puppy. "Okay, sweetie, why don't you come with me? We're going to have a very long talk about everything."

"That awful woman stuffed Lily's entire life into a suitcase and dropped her on us, just to make us pick up the pieces." Ken was grimacing. Yana could hear it. "Whatever behaviors she learned, however that woman learned to work people and that Lily had to watch, ten years of therapy haven't completely broken her of it. And of course, not even six months after the custody papers were signed, the witch realizes she could use Lily, parading her out to drum up sympathy for her cause, and the phone calls never stopped. I wonder if that, the stress of taking care of me and her, and running her own little empire didn't..."

Ken sighed again, and Yana cringed. "Kenny..." She could read Ken's every expression from his voice- more than ten years of pining and worshiping in silence built that in her- but she still couldn't reach down the line and put her hands on his face to lift his spirits, or seize his collar to pull him back from the ledge. All she had now was talk. "She wouldn't want you living in misery, with the memory of losing her over your head."

"I know, I know, it's just... it's like she's always there, in the back of my mind, but I can't hear her anymore. When things get hard, I don't know what to do. All I have left is the after-image, trying to think of what she would do is as good as visiting her grave. Worse, the things she did leave me with... I'm never strong enough." Ken's voice was shaking now, and Yana launched up from her chair in an instant.

"I'm coming over. Right now. I don't care if you're not up to company, you need it."

"Yana... I..." Ken choked back emotion. "I should... Christ... I had to fire Jo. He broke DND."

"What?!" Yana nearly dropped her phone, but only dropped her jacket.

"He didn't check the list and made a delivery to Eugenie Katerina Maoh." Now, Yana did drop her phone in shock. When she did grab it back up from the floor, Ken was laughing, a weak, humorless trill. "You see, now? I've been dealing with..."

"Kenny, it's gonna be okay." Yana picked her jacket up and found the shoe that had somehow fallen off of her foot, gathering herself as quickly as she could. "I'm going to call Dan, and we'll figure this out!" She hurried out, leaving her teacup on the table and forgetting to turn off her office light.

In a sense, Ken was her Prince, too, inheritor of Rosetta's strength and will, and she would follow him wherever he had to go, to the ends of the Earth. She knew for a fact that Dan felt just the same, and the two of them owed him as much as they owed Rosetta. She also knew that even if he couldn't do this alone, the three of them together could.