A plan had been stirring in Shell's mind since the Thropps' return from the Vinkus. If Nessa had formulated a coup against Melena for wronging Frex, who was going to formulate a coup against Nessa for wronging Elphaba? He had been keeping a watchful eye – mind you, one eye was still trained on the television - on his family and consequently decided that change was to be instituted sooner rather than later.
A family meeting was called. Fiyero was told Elphaba wanted to see him in the living room, Elphaba was told Nessa wanted to see her in the living room and Nessa that a marathon of her favourite dramedy was running.
"What the hell is this?" Fiyero exclaimed, the first one arriving to the scene. Elphaba wasn't far behind, her forehead creasing. Nessa was stunned.
Taking advantage of Fiyero and Elphaba's work schedules and Nessa's assignment load, Shell had tactfully set about packing his things. Now all the sports bags he had moved in with were displayed across the carpet, stuffed to the limit with his belongings. And a few snacks he had filched, but no one needed to know that.
"I'm moving out," Shell declared. "No one cuts my meat for me around here."
"To where?" Elphaba narrowed her eyes.
Shell pulled on his favourite red hunting hat. "Dad's picking me up right about..." He glanced at his phone for reference. "Now." He didn't think it was possible to feel so free announcing that he was moving back in with his father. A good side note for future situations.
Nessa was livid, but struggling to obscure it. "Daddy shouldn't be driving in this weather."
Flicking open the drapes behind the couch, Shell revealed the lazy cartwheels of a few snowflakes. "You're right. A snowflake could knock off one of his eyelashes."
Rolling up her sleeves and rubbing her elbows, Elphaba scolded, "You should have told us! We wouldn't have said anything!"
"Right, I'm sure." Shell smiled at Nessa. "I'm going to sleep in a real bed tonight!" He shrugged on his coat and threw his bags over his shoulder.
The first send-off was directed towards Fiyero. Shell embraced him. "Maybe now you can do what you've gotta do." He proceeded to press a ten-dollar bill into Elphaba's hand, hugging her and saying, "A little something for your trouble."
"I can't accept this," she said softly, forcing it back at him.
"That's alright. I stole it from Fiyero's wallet anyway." Then Shell stopped at Nessa. "Shit, Ness, you're looking a little nauseous. You're welcome to stay with daddy too, you know. He explicitly stressed it."
The jealousy didn't affect Nessa so badly as the knowledge that Shell was doing the right thing. She never thought Shell capable of throwing down a wild card that could surmount her multiple rounds of success. "Enjoy your mattress," she snarled.
"I love you too, Ness," Shell said cheerfully, taking the revulsion as a compliment. He nodded at Elphaba and Fiyero and disappeared; the only thing remaining of his presence being the imprint he had left on the couch.
"IT'S LOCKED! YO! WHAT'S THE HOLD UP? BRAIN-LAG. BUFFERING...BUFFERING...BUFFERING. UNLOCK. THE. DOOR." Shell gestured wildly in front of Elphaba's face. "INTERRUPTION!" He clutched his heart. "ELPHABA, I THINK I'M HAVING A HEART ATTACK!" He sat still. "I give up." He began pressing buttons at random – rolling down windows, increasing heat, setting off windshield wipers.
He switched the volume notch for the radio on too quickly and music blared through the car, assaulting their ears. Elphaba snapped out of her trance and flipped it off. She realized their stationary state and corrected it. "You should have told me it was locked."
"I guess it never crossed my mind." Clutching the handle to let himself out, Shell paused halfway. "You good?"
Elphaba pressed her forehead against the steering wheel. "I want to go home."
"Elpha-bum! We are home!" He slammed the passenger door and rounded the car, wrenching open Elphaba's side and dragging her to her feet. He bounced around to shake off the restlessness of the forty-five minute distance from Frex's bungalow. "Look! Remember the time I broke my arm? It was falling out of that tree! And Nessa's birthday party when we drew faces on the balloons and let them go? We were standing there!"
"Please, contain yourself." She squinted through the glare of the snow at the number of the house. Her arm suddenly became too heavy for her body as she went for the doorbell. How many innocent-not-so-innocents had been in this exact position?
"Ring dat bell, girl!" Shell shouted from across the lawn.
"I did!"
"The neighbour still has that creepy statue in the window!" Shell tilted his head, stared at it and then ran for Elphaba. He pressed his ear to the door and listened to the echo of the bell resounding through the house. "Is she home?"
"I'll check my tracking device."
Shell waited. "Well?"
"What?"
"What did the tracking device say?"
"Ugh."
Bewildered, Shell ran off again. Elphaba pulled at her ponytail, returned to her car, retraced her footprints to the door and tried the bell again. Images of the worst case scenario flashed through her mind and her heartbeat stampeded through her body. How long had it been since anyone had actually seen Melena? Had she been starved by her own lack of culinary talent? Drowned herself in the laundry machine? Run herself through the heart with the pencil beside the chore list?
"Shell, heel!"
Withdrawing from his exploration of the backyard, Shell poked his head around the corner of the house. "I'm not your dog!"
Elphaba shot him a look.
"Woof." He relented a few steps, just in time to get the first-class view of a car pulling into the driveway next to Elphaba's. Elphaba grabbed at his sleeve before he could make a run for the driver. The driver – much emaciated, gaunt in the face, walking as if she weren't there – a travelling drawing; a ghost.
Melena showed no emotion as she stepped out into the frigid air, but the dark colours she was wearing had her looking like Nessa after a raid of Elphaba's closet. "The lost ducklings!" she cried.
"Quack?" Shell guessed, exchanging a look with Elphaba.
"Don't just stand there! Come and help!" Melena popped the trunk and began unloading plastic grocery bags into the snow.
Shell trotted over to offer his assistance. Elphaba could make out the movement of his lips, but not of Melena's. This momentous reunion and Melena was acting like she had been gone for no more than a half-hour grocery errand.
"Could you do it for me? You know how much trouble I have with the damn thing." Melena held out the key to Elphaba and then yanked it back, scrutinizing the young woman. "Look! Your hair is all static-ey. It's the weather, I know, but why? Isn't Mother Nature a woman with woman problems too? Oh well, I bought some dryer sheets. We'll do something about it."
"How about letting me in?"
"Well, if you twist my arm." Melena shook away the unneeded keys, letting them clatter along the bottom half of the keychain securing them together, and handed the bunch to Elphaba.
Without meeting Melena's eyes, Elphaba opened the door, remembering just how to jiggle the knob. She pushed it to its limit and stepped back to allow Melena and Shell to pass by.
Melena hadn't touched a thing, inducing Shell to investigate the state of his room. He took the stairs two at a time and left mother and daughter to themselves. Elphaba collected the remainder of the bags and closed the door behind her. Her mother was already in the kitchen. "Did you go somewhere? You're tanned," Melena observed, setting a can of soup on the top shelf of the cupboard above the stove.
Elphaba didn't know how Melena had noticed anything. She hadn't caught her looking. "How can you tell?" she asked, glancing down at her hands.
"I can tell."
"We took Nessa and Shell to the Vinkus."
"We?"
"Fiyero and I."
"Oh." Melena paused. "How is Fiyero?"
Pulling out a chair for herself, Elphaba reclaimed her nearly forgotten post at the table. "Perfect as ever."
"And Shell?"
"Convinced he's god's gift to Oz."
"And Nessarose?"
"Convinced she's god's gift to Oz."
"And...um...Frex?" Melena's back was still to Elphaba, but Elphaba could see the building rigidity in her shoulders.
"I could hazard a guess, but I don't like repetition."
"I suppose you're right." Melena shoved a loaf of bread into the freezer. "And you?"
"Do you suddenly care?"
Melena couldn't keep the lid on her emotions. She whirled around, red suffusing her cheeks. "I always cared! That's why I hid everything! And I would have gotten away with it if not for you meddling kids!"
"If you cared so much, why did we spend a year on our own barely getting by?"
"The first time I chased after you you hated me for it!"
"If not for Fiyero two of your children would have ended up on the curb and one in an asylum!"
"Who do you think told Galinda to bring Fiyero with her when she visited you?" Melena's tone dropped substantially – giant to mouse. She rested the heels of her palms on the counter to stabilize herself. "For the past year and a half I've thought of nothing but you and your siblings. Every memory I could bring to mind, every smile you've coaxed out of me. What was the point of coming if you were doing so well for yourself? What more could I possibly have to offer?"
Elphaba threw her arms down against the table and buried her head in the crevice. "Because Fiyero proposed and I said no and I know he's going to leave!"
For a moment the only sound was the thumping of footsteps above them as Shell rediscovered his hiding spots. Melena opened a drawer, drew something from it and took the seat across from Elphaba, cradling the object in her lap.
She caught Elphaba's wrist, wordlessly convincing her to look up. Elphaba noticed a tiredness in her mother's eyes that had never been there before. "I remember when I was in the hospital after Shell was born. I was doped up on every type of drug you could name, but I remember so clearly every person who told me it was miracle I had survived. Probably the event of my survival helped me to realize how much I had wanted to die."
"Don't tell me this-"
Melena tightened her hold on Elphaba's hand. "When a horse breaks its back, you shoot it. When a bird is shot, you break its neck. When a woman's heart is that damaged, what's there left to do? But no one of course, was willing to do me the kindness after all of those complications they had seen me through. Frex had taken Shell home and rarely turned up at the hospital. Nanny was juggling the three of you. I can only imagine what they would have done to me if they had known what was sprinting through my mind. Probably loaded me up on more painkillers. They seem to think numbness is the answer. I did too. By that point I was already cozy with the demons."
She had been staring at the floor, but looked up at Elphaba with renewed warmth. "But then one day you popped into the room all alone. You were only four. You barely ever spoke. Your teachers were always calling me down to discuss selective mutism. Workshops, councillors. Things I thought would only embarrass us more. But you climbed up onto the bed, took my hand and said, 'When are you coming home, Mama?' Later my sister explained to me how you had called her and begged her to come down to Rush Margins to drive you to the hospital because no one else was doing it. All I could think was, 'how does this little girl - who hasn't a friend in the world, who's constantly bossed around by her little sister and whose parents have never told her they love her - have such a big heart?' I figured maybe I was doing something right and I could hold it together long enough for you to grow up. But, Elphaba, if there's one thing I've learnt since then it's that it's better to be bleeding than to be dead."
Elphaba couldn't recall the memory that obviously had such a big impact on Melena, but part of her didn't want to. She didn't like to think of Melena as a broken being. Melena wasn't allowed to be vulnerable. "You can't die."
"Elphaba, darling, listen to the voice that's telling you you're not a hopeless case. If anyone can look common sense in the eye and tell it to fuck off, it's you."
Using the table as support, Elphaba pushed herself up. She floated over to the counter, her hand settling on a wad of bills and flyers. "Did you go away too?" she asked hoarsely, wrestling with the part of her about to betray her emotions.
"I did," Melena replied flippantly, also rising. "I gave up."
"What? Where did you go?"
"Lurlinemas didn't feel like Lurlinemas, so I gave up."
"Nothing's changed. You still scare me."
"I'm a lover, Elphaba, not a fighter." Melena pressed something into Elphaba's hand and grinned at her. "The door is that way." She pointed towards the front hall.
Calling for Shell, Elphaba nodded her head in Melena's direction and barrelled towards the car, which at this point seemed more of a refuge than any other abode. As she settled in the driver's seat, she opened her palm and stared at the shard of green glass cutting a crease into her skin.
Shell opened the opposite door, inviting in a gust of air, and then let it sag against him, conflicted. He slammed it shut and ran back into the house, to where Melena was waiting just inside the front door. Now a head and a half taller than her, his bear hugs felt more like bear hugs.
"You know what?" he murmured into her hair.
"What?"
"The toilets flush counter-clockwise in the Vinkus." He laughed. "You know what else?"
"What else?"
He pressed a sloppy kiss to her forehead. "I miss you."
