Chapter Twenty-Eight: A Terrible Choice

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Nineteen eighty-one flew by, mostly because the month they were dreading made it seem faster. September was five months away, then four, then three… then two.

School ended and neither Emily, nor Spencer, nor Ethan, was all that pleased about it.

On this day, Spencer and Ethan were sitting on the pier—no danger of broken legs today, only bloody thumbs as Ethan tried to teach Spencer to fish and all Spencer learned was how not to bait a hook. Ever since they'd run away, they'd been given a lot less space to roam—mostly by Diana, since Elizabeth had never agreed with giving them space in the first place—and Spencer kept checking his watch miserably. He had two hours and then he had to check in at home, which was just about when Emily would be back from church anyway, so it would cut into their limited time left together.

"Don't worry, Specs. It'll be lonely, just the two of us, but we managed it before. And we can send her presents. I'll make more pinecone animals."

"She'll like those," Spencer admitted, dangling his legs over the side and watching dragonflies skim around the surface of the water. "I don't know, Eth… it just doesn't feel like it could get worse…" Emily was leaving. He was being shifted up into the junior classes, skipping over Ethan's grade. His mom was looking tired again, which meant she was on a downswing. Balthy was being mean too, hiding away instead of coming out to share lunch and chess with them, like she didn't even care or conceptualise that Emily would be gone soon. It was like before all over again, and he knew being eleven was going to be as awful as the beginning of being ten had been… except this time, it would linger on, to twelve and thirteen…

"Maybe Em will think of something," Ethan suggested, sucking at his thumb now he'd gotten the hook out. Spencer eyed it and sighed, standing to go and get the first aid kit before sepsis set in and Ethan's arm fell off.

"I don't think so," he said sadly. "Not unless it involves defenestrating her luggage again…"

"Defen—what?"

"It means to throw someone or something out of a window," Emily yelled in the loud kind of voice that meant she was really excited about something, jumping onto the pier and skipping the last few feet to them, arms swinging. "Spencer read it out to me in a book."

"The Defenestration of Ermintrude Inch," Spencer explained, "a short story in Tales from the White Hart, which you should borrow and read, it's super—"

"Pass," Ethan said quickly. "Why are you so bouncy?"

But Emily wasn't listening anymore; she'd leapt forward to grab Spencer by his shirt, shaking him a little before dragging him along the pier and back to land. "Come on, come on!" she yelled. "You have to come with me, quick! And quietly."

Spencer glanced back at Ethan, who shrugged and laughed. "Have fun," he yelled after them, going back to his fishing.

"Where are we going?" Spencer asked, but Emily refused to answer.

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Where they were going, it turned out, was to eavesdrop on their mothers having a Very Important discussion in Elizabeth's office. The conversation happening in wasn't the first of its kind to be had in the big house—the first had been almost seven months ago, when Diana had recovered enough following Spencer's broken leg to be summoned into Elizabeth's office about it.

That conversation had gone very much like this:

"I'm concerned about Spencer," Elizabeth began, which made two of them in the room. Diana was, as always, concerned for her son and his wellbeing. "I asked Emily and she says that you didn't tell them to play in the library that day, Diana. She says they barely saw you to speak to you at all."

Diana closed her eyes, sinking into her chair with her heart sinking too. "I remember conversations I've never had, as though they happened so clearly," she murmured. "I have a detailed memory of discussing horse racing with you, despite some part of me knowing that you despise the sport."

Elizabeth frowned. "It was always Michael's vice, not mine. Can these false memories be handled?"

Diana was forced to answer much the same as her doctors had told her when she'd told them of this: "I don't know."

In 1981, no one really knew.

There was a quiet pause in the office; quiet, but not awkward. Not awkward, but very sad.

"I've taken a three-year posting in London when the current ambassador there retires," Elizabeth said finally, before asking the question that would become their main concern over the next seven months: "What's to be done about Spencer?"

Diana tensed, fingers white as they tightened their grip on the armchair. "He can stay with me."

"Can he?"

They didn't really know that either.

And Elizabeth finished the conversation with something private, something shared. A memory that wasn't false at all. A sentence they both held dear: "I told you," she said, "back in college, when you were first diagnosed, do you remember what I told you?"

"Yes," answered Diana. "You said you'd do anything to help me."

"I meant that."

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That was then.

This is the conversation Emily overheard, her ear pressed to the door and listening intently after hearing Spencer's name:

Diana sounded terrified, something that terrified Emily too, because grown-ups weren't ever supposed to sound so scared. "I can't, Liz, I can feel it coming. I'm going to get sicker, get worse, and they can't get the medication right—it either doesn't work or it drives me out of my mind, and I'm… I'm going to leave Spencer with a madwoman for a mother, or medicated beyond reason, and I can't, how can I care for him like that, alone?"

"Childcare is an option. I can help, I told you I would help—hire a live-in nurse—"

"He'll still see it all, he'll still take it upon himself to care for me. I'll be dooming him to… god, I don't even know the day of the week anymore. He's the one who gets me up for breakfast in the morning, reminds me to take my medication, reminds me to even get up… when Emily is gone and I'm all he has, who will remind him to be a child?"

"Plenty of people with schizophrenia raise their children—"

"Plenty of people with schizophrenia lose their children."

Emily, at this point, had been almost too scared to keep listening, but she'd learned something the night she'd run away: always face your fears.

Spencer had taught her that.

"I can't work," Diana was continuing. "How can I provide for him? I have a college fund that won't cover the colleges he needs to go to to thrive. He needs books, stimulation, learning experiences, life experiences… not his teenage years being a caretaker to mother raises the child, not the other way… William doesn't want him, I've tried—"

"My offer still stands."

Emily inched closer, breath fogging the wood, hearing Diana's sharp gasp. And she kept listening.

And she heard.

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This is the now, with Spencer there beside Emily as the voices within no longer discuss Diana's declension, but, instead, just what was to be done with Spencer.

London, they said.

Elizabeth would take him to London, alongside Emily. They would live together, there, but not as they lived here—not in separate homes with Spencer with his mom and Emily with hers, but with Spencer living with Elizabeth and Emily, while his mom remained… here. In America.

Without him.

Emily could barely hide how excited she was, positively vibrating with the effort it was taking to remain quiet beside Spencer. Her best friend, living with her forever? That was amazing! It couldn't get any better, or so she thought.

Spencer could barely hide how terrified he was, his breath coming fast and shallow, his heart beating too quickly to keep track. On the floor beneath them, his palms were clammy; he didn't think he could stand if he wanted to.

His mom was going to send him away. She didn't want him. She was giving him to Elizabeth.

"Will he be happier without me?" he heard his mom ask of him, her voice resigned. He didn't hear Elizabeth's answer.

He found that, in fact, he could stand. He could run.

And it was his turn to run and keep on running, despite Emily calling out his name, despite both mothers shouting after him, the dragon of his fears finally here and not made of the dark after all; instead, the dragon was his mother's illness. His mother's abandonment of him.

There was no way he could face it, not now, not ever—so he ran.