A/N: So.
I've been gone for awhile. A lot has happened since the last time I wrote and uploaded a chapter. I resigned from my old job and got a new one. My Boyfriend was rushed to the hospital and it was touch and go for a bit. I went travelling to visit him and attend a wedding. I started my new job. Stress had gotten me down and this story, my very lovely story, got tiring for me to think up of and it was hard trying to complete this. I had to leave it for a bit to work on my other story, a lighthearted one that had more flirting and humour than this behemoth I accidentally created.
This chapter is less funnier than I wish it was but I promise it is part of an arc, and think of this as us entering the end of the second arc and going near the beginning of the final arc.
I will be slower uploading chapters, once a month. But I promise I will do it. All I'm asking for is for you guys to keep reading with me.
"Okay, so let me get this straight, because for some reason I feel like I've been missing out on a lot, almost like months." Helga said.
"Mhmm?"
"You dated and married a man, aka a soldier who enlisted in the Army."
"Mhmm."
"You married young, at 20, and you both have a son, Sawyer Thompelstrom Tom Sawyer."
"Sawyer Thomas Sawyer- Thompkins, actually," Lila said, taking a sip of of tea.
"Right, that monstrosity of a name-"
"I think it's ever so sweet. And he's never forgotten his last name for school."
"I'll be honest, I was never worried about that." Helga said, very drily. "In fact, it never made the Top Ten List."
She raised the other glass of mimosa to her lips, taking a sip of the drink through the long flute. "So, then, what happened?"
Lila sighed. "The war, unfortunately. He was shipped to Iraq for a period of time…""Oh." Helga said slowly. Well, that explained some things. Lila as a war widow was something she didn't realise would come as a shock until it did. She should have known, of course, what with him in the army and all. "He did so well, though." Lila said, "He saved his unit from an attack, and was awarded a Purple Heart out of it…" She smiled, though Helga could see the glimmers of sadness in her eyes. "I was so proud of him, we got to see him get the award and everything."Helga felt something that she could honestly say she had never felt for Lila before. Was it pure, unadulterated sympathy? Admiration for her strength against adversity? A combination of both? Really, it was something she'd never felt with relation to Lila Sawyer before.
"Wow." Fuck, she'd never felt so …un-eloquent before. That was a word right? To cover up the fact that she was about to make her debut as an Owen Wilson impersonator, she quickly followed that up with, "He sounds amazing, Lila."
Lila looked up and it was clear that she was softly smiling, despite the abject sadness in her eyes. "That's really rather sweet of you to say, Helga."
The both of them looked down at their drinks, both pretty sure that the other was blinking back tears rapidly.
It took a few seconds for Helga to slowly try and steer them back to the topic. "You're brave, you know, Lila." She began, feeling very self-conscious. This woman was the same age as her and yet she had braved poverty, childbirth, a spouse being in the war and his subsequent death, as well as raising a child on her own while starting her own business. If Helga were not feeling bouts of shame for her thinking horrible thoughts about Lila, she would be unabashedly declaring that Lila Sawyer-Thompkins was one of her heroes. "I couldn't dream of imagining having a husband die while in service to the military…"
"Oh, he didn't die when he was in active service, Helga." Lila said, smiling serenely. "He was about to come home, and he and his mates had a layover at an airport, so they decided to stop over at London for a few days…they were having fun at the carnival when one of his mates dared him to eat ten hot dogs at one go."
Lila looked at Helga, and the blonde was surprised to see her, still smiling. "That was my Thomas, always eating so quickly like there was no tomorrow."
Helga, who was now on her third mimosa, was struggling to make sure she got what Lila was saying properly.
"So…you're saying that Thomas, your husband, and a man in the military who risked his lives for his platoon…died while choking on a hot dog?"
Lila nodded, eyes watery but still smiling. "The man was always eating so quickly during mealtimes, and I was just happy that he had such a good appetite. Even back when he was in the diner-"
Helga was not listening. "He didn't die in service?!" she said, feeling every bit of the ludicrousness of the situation. Fuck, was this fiction? Is that what was happening right now? "I mean-"
"Oh, I understand your reaction, Helga." Lila said, still serene. "When I first found out, I too was overwhelmed with the feelings, the lack of reason, not understanding how something like this could ever happen… death just seemed so senseless-"
" I have reactions, alright." Helga muttered, deciding that downing another glass of mimosa would be appropriate in this situation. The alcohol was giving her a fun buzz, which may actually shield her from the apparent madness that was taking place in front of her.
"Why aren't you more upset about this anyway?" She asked. " Shouldn't you be all mourning widow at the top of a lighthouse seeking the horizons out for your lost love or something?"
Lila was so quiet that Helga was about to backpedal and apologize, feeling that she had finally gone way too far on something Lila-related, when Lila finally said, " I did, at first."
The redhead was still smiling, but mournfully now. " When it first happened, when I heard the news, I spent weeks crying at night, unable to figure out how to move on." She stirred her tea using a straw, sighing. "It's a bit hard, thinking back on it, especially when I had a 5 year old son to think about. I tried to be strong for him, pushed down on the feelings of anger and sadness. And it worked, for a short period of time."
Confused, Helga asked, " What do you mean?"
Lila looked up from her drink stirring. " When I was young…I was ever-so relentlessly cheerful because I wanted to be strong for daddy, especially since he was so broken up when Mom died. We had no one to rely on, we were ever so poor…Looking back, I'm surprised I didn't drive all of my friends mad with my attitude, I must have been a right-old fright!" She took a sip of her tea, laughing a little.
" Uh….huh…." Helga said slowly. She did remember what Lila was taking about, vaguely, but now, when absorbing the facts as an adult, it had finally sunk in, the full monty of everything Lila had went through. " And you tried to do the same for your kid, being all cheerful and strong and shit?"
" Yeah, it didn't work after awhile." Lila replied, ruefully. "After the first year, the lowest point was when Sawyer got sent home from school, after biting another boy in his year when fighting. When I tried to explain to him that fighting was bad and talking about your feelings was the way to go, he yelled back at me and told me I was doing the same thing." Lila sighed again, her eyes looking ten years older than earlier, and then laughed. "It's ever-so ironic when your child accuses you of the same thing you're doing."
Helga, who had just received the news that her old school-chum was probably raising a cannibal, mentally decided that perhaps ordering red meat today would not be a good idea.
" In any case, though. I have to thank you." Lila said, looking up at her. " This was part of the reason why I asked you out today."
" Grzzlp?" offered Helga as she had at that moment started eating fries with abandon, trying to get the image of a flesh-eating child out of her head.
"It was tough, trying to handle Sawyer on my own for the first three years after Thomas died." Lila admitted. "He was sullen, angry, moody. Never talked to me unless he needed something. Constantly talked back to me. It was like this for ages. I thought that we were never going to be able to be close again, and that nearly killed me, he was the only thing of Thomas I had left. Then one day he started reading your books. Got it out of the library, during a reading session with his teacher."
" Say what now?" Helga said eloquently.
" I don't know what to tell you, but he loved reading your books so much, I just had to read one for myself." Lila said, looking at Helga with shining eyes. " The issues the kids go through in those Our Gang books…you have a gift, Helga!"
Helga, who did not expect this level of praise being heaped on her, decided to choke on her mimosa.
"I- *COUGH* what?!" she spluttered.
"Oh, Helga." There was that voice Lila had, the voice that sometimes reminded her of Olga (stop thinking about her, stop stopstop). "You were always an inspiration to me, especially during horrible times. I really hope that you understand that, how much you and your books have helped me and my boy, especially in the last few years. I know that we have never been the best of friends-"
Helga, who had managed to recover from her recent coughing spree, only offered a small croak in reply to Lila's confession.
" But I need you to know this." Lila locked eyes from across the table, and making sure Helga did the same, she said, " I want you to know that even if we are never good friends, I am glad that I know you. I am glad you are here because you helped my son when he was angry, and him doing so encouraged me to do the same thing and it's because of you that I am the person I am today. And for that, Helga Pataki, I am ever so grateful, and I am thankful that you are in my life."
The blonde woman at this point didn't offer any more sounds or discernable words, staring at Lila with widened blue eyes, in shock.
"Did… someone bribe you or something to tell me this?" was what she finally managed to muster.
"Oh, Helga." Lila said, beaming. "You have to believe me when I say that you are truly amazing."
The both of them sat across each other, in an awkward, long silence.
" Out of curiosity." Helga said, deciding that it made sense for her to break the tension. " How did you …you know. Move on? From the past?"
Lila looked pensive, the earlier brightness of her eyes dimming down by just a bit, " I'll be very honest." Lila said slowly. " Ultimately, I'm not super sure if I will ever get out of it. Mourning Thomas… Helga, you have to understand, this was the only person I have ever gotten close to, besides my son, and ultimately this means that I might not be able to do so for any other person, friend, family or lover. It's ever so lonely, and so tiring."
That sounded…pretty horrible. " So what are you doing right now?"
" Why, making sure that I keep trying, of course." Lila said simply. " While I recognize that Thomas was the love of my life, and the only person I ever trusted, I also have to remember that I have to stay connected to everyone else in my life, and I have to keep trying no matter what."
Lila took a sip of her tea, letting Helga mull over what she said. "How does that…help you move on?" Helga said, confused.
" Why, don't you know this, Helga?" Lila laughed a little. " Relationships are what ties us. In order to move on, we have to make sure we keep trying, we keep moving, and we meet people that will teach us new things, new perspectives. And then when you add that to time… That fades the scars, a little, a lot. And then one day you wake up and you realised that what you're feeling back then? It's gone." Lila shook her head ruefully. "I'm not there yet, and I worry I might never be. But that's not going to stop me from trying."
Helga had no time to react to what Lila had said before her phone started ringing, and the screen flashed a name that she recognized.
Quickly, Helga apologized to Lila before she accepted the call, and what she heard next left her reeling.
An hour later saw Helga and Lila walking out of a fancy mall's security offices, with a very grumpy blonde child in tow.
" It was ever so lovely of you to let us off like this, Mr Poole!" Lila called out as she turned back to look at the Head of Security of Hillwood Mall.
"Well, if it's a friend of yours, Mrs Sawyer-Thompson, it's all good." The security guard, who was a few minutes ago stern and foreboding, was now waving back at Lila cheerfully. "I suggest you keep an eye on troublemakers like her, ma'm." he addressed a quietly furious Helga. "We're letting her off without a record on account of her age and Mrs Sawyer-Thompson here, she's the reason why my daughter has a whole new life and everything-"
"Suck up." Muttered a sullen Ophelia Pataki-Johnson.
"Hey!" Helga growled. "Don't you start, missy. You're lucky I'm not your mother-"
"Please, you're PRACTICALLY my mother, except you know….absent!" Phi growled back.
Helga, who never really outgrew her old insecure self, was about to retort when Lila placed a hand on her shoulder and the woman realised that she was a 30-year-old woman about to argue with a ten-year-old child. She pushed down the anger, taking deep breaths.
Get it together, Pataki. Small child here, be a role model, children are the future, teach them well and let them lead the way-
" Well, I should get going." Lila said, her eyes full of concern as she turned to look at the two blondes. "I don't want to bother during a family crisis and all-"
"Lila-" Helga began, then closed her mouth, having no idea exactly how to express her thanks to the redheaded woman for helping her bail Phi out with no consequences. "I don't- I."
" Helga, " Lila smiled gently. " It's okay. We'll have lunch again soon, I hope?"
Helga nodded dumbly.
"It was good meeting you, Ophelia." Lila turned to look at the younger blonde, but received no reaction other than a sullen scowl, bottom lip jutting out.
Somehow though that seemed to make Lila smile wider. "So alike at that age." Lila chuckled and left. That left Helga alone with her niece, and in all honesty Helga had no idea how to proceed from that point.
WWVBD?
What Would Vivian Bliss Do?
Helga closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and loosened her shoulders, then turned to look at Phi.
" Pancakes?" Helga asked.
There they were, back at the diner where she and Ophelia had lunch a few days ago, and so far neither one of them had said a word beyond confirming their food orders.
Phi was leaning back against the cushion of the booth, arms folded and sullen. Helga was sitting up, quietly looking down at the menu, even though the both of them had already made their orders.
The tension was growing thicker, Helga felt like she was suffocating.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Helga began, not looking at Phi.
The girl didn't reply, still looking sullen.
Helga audibly sighed. " Look, I'm really glad you called me-"
" Let's get this straight, lady." Phi snapped. " I only called you cause you're the only person I know who won't rat me out to the rents, and who's willing to suck up to me just because I know you're desperate for children and some sort of family-"
Helga felt something snap inside. Maybe it was the mimosas taking effect. She thought the experience of picking Phi up from mall security for shoplifting had sobered her up but nope.
Fuck WWVBD, it was time for WWHPD.
" Alright, that's it missy." Helga retorted. " You're lucky I like you, cause I am spilling the hot t all over your lap right now, and no shade, henny, but you should be THANKFUL you're dealing with me instead of your mother right now-"
What followed next was a long, lengthy diatribe about the fact that ultimately, the fact that Ophelia called a woman who she had only met twice before to bail her out of a potential police situation was testamount to how they were fucking bonded, fuck you very much, and technically she could have jolly well left Ophelia in that place and called her mom instead but Ophelia needed was a calm cool head that would be able to resolve the situation.
At some point Helga was dimly aware that she had more or less lost the plot or the thread of the situation but that was not the point, the important bit was trying to get across to Phi that she was trying, she was on her side, and she had to stop being an entitled selfish child who pushed people away like a scorpion who was on the back of a frog that was swimming it across the lake.
When that was finished, and the red crimson wave of what Helga had felt lifted, she was very aware that Ophelia's mouth was gaping and she was openly staring at her.
Okay, she felt super guilty. That was clearly not the way to handle kids. Fuck this entire situation. She was pretty sure swearing at a child was not a good idea.
"I'm sorry." She replied, quietly. "I am very frustrated over the situation and the swearing was uncalled for. This-"
"It's okay." Phi replied, just as quietly. "I needed someone to call me out-"
"A nine year old should not be called out by an adult who thinks she knows better." Helga said ruefully. "I'm near 30, ancient by your standards, I should-and I do-know better than that. I shouldn't be cussing you out like you were a drag performer in a bar."
"What's drag?" Phi asked.
" ...okay I'll explain that bit later, but I'm trying to say something here." She grabbed Phi's hand that was on the table, grasping it in a gentle but firm grip.
"I like you. And I like to think that we're friends. So we're related by blood, and I'm actually your mom's Sister. So what? I don't even consider her my Sister anymore, and I don't have any authority over you, other than the fact that we're related. However," and here she made sure she looked at Phi in the eye. "Shoplifting? Leads to a road of extremely stupidity that frankly, with you and your smarts? You can do without- why did you do it anyway?"
She made sure to keep her voice a little lighter so that she didn't come across as judgy adult but as a curious, non-judgy friend.
Phi didn't answer, which was honestly something Helga expected.
" You don't have to answer if you don't want to." Helga said, just as calmly, patting her hands and letting go, so that she could nonchalantly wave her hand to show how Phi didn't actually have to answer if she didn't want to. "I'm just saying... when I was older than you? I did a whole bunch of things I'm honestly not proud of, and if I didn't have someone that was able to talk everything out and help me? I would have gone spare."
That got the girl's curiosity. " Like what?" She asked.
Helga leaned back, stretching comfortably. " Well, I beat up a few guys, broke a couple of faces, shoplifted a few times, but I was hungry that one time, so it was easy to justify that... got arrested a few times-"
"You got arrested?" Phi breathed, and it was clear that reluctant as she was, she wanted to know more about Helga's experiences. "What for?"
"It was nothing." Helga waved a hand again. Did it make sense to explain to a nine year old who was raised by a very conservative family the issues of politics and social matters, considering the fact that Helga might not ever see her again? "It's just ...work you know."
"You have a job that gets you arrested?" Phi asked, looking perplexed. "Aren't you some sort of pamby book writer?"
That gave Helga pause. "I didn't tell you I was an author." She said slowly. "How did you-"
"I googled, duh." Phi replied. Then she flushed. "I don't like you or anything, but you lied to me, mom wouldn't tell me who you were beyond you being her sister -"
Helga would have originally let the matter rest but her traitorous brain made her blurt out, "How's your mom?"
She wanted to slap her forehead. Or wedgie it. Or punch herself in the face like she used to do for the bullies in the neighbourhood that didn't bow down to Queen Pataki. Why on earth did she want to know what was happening with Olga?
But before she could answer her, Phi replied," Mom's crying a lot more. It's strange."
That... was weird. Helga was not surprised that Olga was resorting to crying again, but the fact that Ophelia found a crying Olga strange defied her own understanding of logic. "In what way?" She asked carefully, trying her best to suppress her own surprise.
"She cries a lot now." Phi said simply. "She never used to cry much. Dad doesn't know."
Helga pondered over this slowly, feeling stupefied. "Oh." This was way different from the Olga of her youth and the Olga of a few days ago during their confrontation, when she cried at the drop of a hat.
"Odie and Orlando don't know too." Phi said, looking uncomfortable. "I only know cause I walked in on her doing it a few times. She told me not to tell anyone else."
She looked at Helga suspiciously, "If you're my aunt, why have I never seen you before?" She asked bluntly.
Helga didn't know how to reply this but she knew Phi wanted her to be straight with her, so she told her a half-truth.
" I did something that your Mother and your pop-pop didn't approve of, and I haven't spoken to either of them for years." she said.
Phi nodded, seemingly accepting of this answer. "Pop-pop gets angry a lot." She replied.
Helga agreed, silently. She had been on the receiving end of Big Bob's rage, whether cold and icy or hot and blustery. She knew what Phi meant.
The both of them mulled over what was said for a short while before Phi grudgingly offered an explanation.
" I just wanted to see if I could do it."
That was something Helga was not expecting.
"Okay, can you tell me what you mean by that?" She said slowly.
" Well, Freddie was a total shitshow-"
"Language." Helga said automatically. It was weird censoring someone for bad language of all things, and Helga, sweary, F-Bomb using Helga, was very well-aware of that.
" I just feel stupid, you know? And then I thought I was smart enough to trust you but then you lied to me, so I stole something."
Helga was feeling that she might have missed something crucial along the way cause there was a jump somewhere.
"You lost me there, Phi." She said, as honestly as she could.
" I feel stupid cause my plan didn't work. Then I didn't realise you were lying, which made me feel even stupider. So I thought that if I could pull off something that no one else knew about I would be smart." Phi explained, looking frustrated. "But I got caught. So I really must be stupid."
Helga was torn. So so torn. On the one hand she thought that this logical thought process was one of the funniest things she had heard off, and wanted so badly to laugh. On the other hand, the dejected face on Ophelia Pataki - Johnson threw her back to the time when she took a standardised test and felt so stupid in comparison to the supposed genius Harold Bergman that she started wearing plaid and wanted to run away to a cabin in the woods.
She could remember feeling humiliated, one disaster after another, and doing big grand gestures to try and compensate for her messes, only to fall further away from her earlier perfect plans, and frustrated because no one understood how much she felt and yet how much was shown lacked the power she wanted to wield on the world. At nine she felt she was perfectly tipped to take on the world and then so upset, angry and frustrated, helpless when she was unable to resolve her problems.
At that age, she thought she was so so smart and yet she was also so so naive, and unable to adequately understand why things happened the way it did.
She saw herself in Ophelia. And if what Ophelia said earlier was right, Ophelia and her had something else in common back when she was nine. They both didn't have a good support system that helped talk them out and explain why they felt the way they did.
Helga had managed to dig herself out of that rut, but that then took loads of time, effort, anger, tears, and therapy. It was something that led to a lot of emotional issues for years, years that couldn't be taken back.
She didn't want Ophelia to have to face the same thing all by herself.
The next few steps of what she had to do had to be done carefully. She knew what it was like for adults to laugh at her and tell her off for being a silly, thoughtless girl, and it made her angry for a long, long time.
"Phi." She said, quietly. "Listen to me."
Ophelia looked at her, at once suspicious, trusting, aloof and yet eager.
"Proving how smart you are by shoplifting is ...not a good idea." Helga attested. "It's impulsive, it's fuelled by emotions that can cause mistakes. As someone who has always done the opposite of what someone has told me in order to prove them wrong, I have learnt a few things. "
She sighed. "You'll feel a small jolt of happiness that you've proved someone wrong, but that thing, that feeling, it doesn't last. You'll start feeling strange, empty, feeling like the first time was a fluke, so you repeat it again, and again. You have the satisfaction of knowing that you did something everyone thought you weren't able to do and then you try and do it again so that when you eventually get caught, and that's what you really want to do," she added knowingly, because she had been down that road, "When you look at them and tell them smugly that you have been doing it for way longer than expected, and they had no idea because of how dumb they were and how smart you really are... sooner or later what you really want to do is to prove them wrong. And escalate it, just to show that this time was more outrageous than the last. And how much smarter you really are. But that won't make them proud of you. That makes them scared of you. And it's lonely. "
Phi folded her arms, and Helga knew she had gotten to her a little, but was trying to cover it up.
Scowling, the girl retorted,"Hey, it's lonely when you're at the top. It's meant to be. Survival is only for the fittest-"
"And that's capitalism at its finest." Helga said, laughingly. " I've been on the receiving end of that speech from Big Bob himself. But Phi. People live for a very long time, even if they aren't at the top."
A flash of Lila's face thanking her for being in her life earlier that day popped into her head, and so did Arnold's face, from all those months ago in that bar after the book signing, when she thanked him for shaping her moral compass.
"And they'll never forget what you did or didn't do for them." She continued. "And they'll repay you back in kind, whether you did them good or not. No amount of cleverness can shield you from pain or joy, and shitty behaviour isn't always forgiven." She gazed out the booth, at the door that led to Hillwood, the origin of her folly.
Phi was quiet. Both of them didn't say anything for awhile.
Helga took a deep breath.
An hour and a half ago, she had dropped Ophelia off at the street nearby her house, after the girl had promised that she would go straight home and thanking Helga for not ratting her out to her mom. The little blonde girl had then paused, and ran to hug Helga, before turning around and running out of sight. Helga then turned around and walked away, at a nearby cafe.
She had stared at her phone for awhile, at a handle on her Twitter DMs. She picked up the phone, typed in a few lines, then placed it down. Then she took out her earphones and she closed Twitter, opening up a YouTube video. She watched the video without much interest. She was here for a much bigger purpose and the next step had to show itself before she could proceed.
She had waited for a shorter time than expected.
A blonde figure had entered the cafe and spotted Helga immediately. Quietly, she walked towards Helga's table, and stood in front of her.
Helga barely looked up from her phone because she knew who the newcomer was.
" We need to talk." She addressed the figure, still not looking at her. She gestured at the chair across from her and the figure hesitated for only a second before she followed Helga's direction.
Once seated, Olga Pataki-Johnson looked at her younger sister. Helga could practically feel the aura of guilt and regret radiating off her and she rolled her eyes. She was not going to let emotions get in the way of what she was about to do.
She had decided not to look at Olga in the face. She had caught a glimpse of Olga's face when rolling her eyes and was suddenly struck by how similar she was to Miriam. Their eyes drooped and her shoulders were defeated. The skin under the eyes were shadowed, sunken.
Olga had always resembled their Mother, and right here, the older woman a shadow of her self, Helga could see how the two of them were near identical, the past replicated in the present.
She didn't need those sort of thoughts in her head about her Mother at the moment. She needed to keep calm and cool, to do this on her own terms.
"We have unfinished business, you and I." She continued, steeling her voice with cold arrogance, the one that helped her deal with things in a business-like manner. It was something that she had, unfortunately in this case, learnt at the feet of their Father when doing business. " And I want you to understand what I want to do, and we have to do this. You will not say anything for now until I state what I want, but ultimately I want this to work. "
She stopped for a few seconds to let this sink in before she continued. "Before I go on: Do you agree to this?"
The silence was deafening as Helga waited for Olga to respond.