TW for minor swearing
As worried as Bobbi was about, well, pretty much everything to do with her situation, it was hard not to get caught up in the enjoyment of the holiday that permeated the whole Maximoff house. Pietro woke them all up Thanksgiving morning with a box of doughnuts he had been given at one of his last deliveries, which they ate happily, all still in their pajamas. Natasha decided that everyone needed a place card at the table for later, so she pulled out a set of paints and got to work carefully painting tiny turkeys and autumn leaves onto little cards while Clint sat beside her, glued to the dog show they were showing on TV and handing her the occasional pinch of glitter or lace to adorn the place cards with.
"I just think it's kind of weird," Natasha said, frowning down at her work with total focus. She was trying to give the turkey on Wanda's card an apron, not unlike the apron Wanda had donned before she disappeared into the kitchen a few minutes earlier. "They breed the dogs to look as bizarre as they can, then walk the dogs around while an old person checks to see if their snout is long enough or their legs are bowed or not. And don't get me started on the haircuts—"
"Sometimes people just want to look at cute dogs on TV," Clint pouted. Natasha held out a hand, and he gave her the bottle of glue she needed. "Look, the Golden Retriever's up next."
"The dogs are cute," Natasha conceded. Her concentrated frown melted into a smile as she looked up at Clint. A very happy face. Bobbi was noticing that Natasha wore that face a lot here at the house. "I can't wait for the day when you can finally get a dog. You're going to lose your mind."
"You have no idea," Clint grinned. He slid off the couch and scooted closer to the TV, reaching out to tap his fingers against the screen, like he was scratching the dog being shown at the moment. "Any dog that I have is going to be the luckiest dog in the world, because I'd spoil it rotten. Belly rubs any time of the day or night. The best tennis balls for chasing. I'd even let it have all my pizza crusts."
"That can't be good for the dog," Natasha laughed. "Maybe you should stick with milk bones."
Bobbi left them to continue daydreaming about Clint's future dog after that, getting up to stretch her knee. It had started feeling better, especially once Miss Hand had brought over her brace along with some of her other things from May and Phil's house. As much as Bobbi resented having to put the brace back on again, she reasoned that it would probably help to wear it after all the strain she'd put on her knee earlier in the week, and it wasn't really such a pain to wear around Natasha's house. She wasn't sure when she might be able to go back to see Dr. Gambhir, so for now, the brace seemed like her best option while she rested her knee.
"Looking for something to do?" came a voice from the kitchen, as Bobbi wandered back that way, with deliberate, stretching steps that loosened up the muscles in her leg. Wanda poked her head around the doorframe and smiled Bobbi's way.
"Do you need help?" Bobbi asked. It had been a while since she'd done the full Thanksgiving thing – her mom had never been big on cooking big, fancy meals, and Bobbi wasn't quite skilled enough at cooking to pull off a formal dinner for just her and her dad. Usually they opted for the frozen Thanksgiving TV dinner in front of whatever football game her dad insisted on watching. Still, she knew there was a fair amount of work that went into it, and she figured Wanda might not want to do it all by herself.
"Only if you want to," Wanda said kindly. "We are not having anything too lavish, but if you would like something to keep busy with for a while, I could always use a hand."
Bobbi followed her into the kitchen and inhaled deeply, savoring the intermingled spices and aromas of a kitchen already in full swing.
"Since we are only five, I thought we could roast a chicken," Wanda said, gesturing to the bird waiting in a pan on the counter. "Do you like rosemary?"
"I think so," Bobbi nodded. "It smells good."
"I think so, too," smiled Wanda. "It is one of my favorite smells. Pietro always tries to save me a sprig or two when he delivers fresh rosemary because he knows I love it so much. Also because he knows he will usually get a chicken out of it."
"Do you usually do most of the cooking?"
"I do." Wanda slid a cutting board in front of Bobbi and indicated that she should start to chop the assortment of red potatoes, carrots, and onions that were resting on the counter in front of them. "I like to cook. It is calming for me. My mother taught me to cook when I was young, so it brings back fond memories."
"You sound like Phil," Bobbi said as she pumped the knife over the vegetables, feeling the chunk of the blade as it snapped through starchy potato and sweet carrot. "He likes to cook, too. He uses his mom's recipes."
"Phil is your foster father, yes?"
"Yeah… or was, I guess. He did most of the cooking. Skye would help him a lot. She always acts like she doesn't like learning new stuff, but I watched her face when they would cook together." Big smile. Concentrating eyes. "She was always really happy when he was teaching her." Bobbi paused, the knife blade hovering over a half-cut onion. Something in her eyes stung, although she suspected the onion had little to do with the feeling.
"That sounds nice," hummed Wanda. She finished with the herbs she had been mincing – the rosemary, plus some parsley and garlic cloves – and began working them into the chicken, politely ignoring Bobbi's shining eyes.
"A nice memory, at least," Bobbi murmured. She chopped the last of the onion with a little more force than was probably necessary, but it felt good to send some of her emotion into the cutting board.
"It does not have to be just a memory," Wanda said gently. "It does not have to stay in the past. I have a feeling it can be a part of your future, too. I know it is difficult, but you cannot give up yet."
"I haven't given up." Bobbi felt her jaw tense, and she stood up a little straighter. She stared down hard at her hands on the counter as her fingers stiffened and curled inwards, bunching up into determined fists. "But I have to be realistic. I don't want to be surprised or caught off guard if it doesn't work out. It might not. When I went to that hospital the first time, for my knee and my ribs and everything, the staff there reported my dad and I haven't seen him since. They saw what happened to Jemma and Skye and they reported May and Phil. I know it's not exactly the same, because what happened to me was my dad's fault, and what happened to Jemma and Skye wasn't May's or Phil's, but I don't know if everyone is going to see it that way, or if it's just going to play out like it did last time. I want to go back to May and Phil's, but I have to be ready for the fact that I might not ever see them again, either."
"That is a logical way to think of it," Wanda conceded, "but it is a hard way to live."
Bobbi didn't have anything to say to that. Most of her life had felt like a hard way to live, but a hard life makes for hard callouses. Hard work strengthens muscles, toughens skin, firms up a resolve. One of her old soccer coaches used to say, "when the road gets tough, you get tougher." He meant it as a way of curbing their complaining when it was hills day during conditioning, and their legs ached and lungs burned from charging up the twisty, sloping paths that cut through the trees at Woodland Dunes, but Bobbi had taken it much deeper to heart than that. Her dad was always telling her to toughen up, to take her licks and stay stone-faced in the face of the stones and sticks life hurled her way. Bad things happened, the road got tough, but she would never break. She would only get tougher.
Her mom left, so Bobbi learned to take care of herself. Her dad stopped loving her, so Bobbi learned to get by without it. Things hadn't been so tough with Phil and May, so the callouses on her heart had softened up. She was paying for that now, and life had taken a sharp turn that rubbed her heart raw, opening up the once tough places like blisters that had burst under a new pair of cleats. Maybe preparing herself for the worst was a hard way to live, but she couldn't afford to let herself go soft.
"Did Natasha ever tell you about the time we almost lost her?" Wanda asked, pulling Bobbi out of her trailing thoughts and back to the kitchen.
Bobbi shook her head. "No."
"It was not very long after she had finally come to live with us. You know that we were in foster care for about two years, until Pietro and I turned 18?" Bobbi nodded. That part, she had known.
"After that Miss Hand helped you find Natasha and get custody of her."
"Yes," nodded Wanda. "We were so relieved to find her, and so happy to have a piece of our family back. We were very unsure of ourselves, though. Pietro and I were very young, we did not know how to raise a child, and Natasha is only eight years younger than us – much closer to a sister than a daughter. Pietro and I, we had not enjoyed foster care, but it had not been so bad for us. A few well-meaning families cared for us, and we spent some time in a group home, since it is not easy to find families who want two 16-year-old immigrant children. But we had each other, and we were looked after by Miss Hand. Natasha was not so lucky. She was so young to see the things we saw back in our home country, and in America, she was in several places that were not good for her. Her previous social worker was not like Miss Hand. By the time she came to live with us, she was not the same silly, cheerful little girl we had once known. She had not learned much English, and she did not trust people, even me and Pietro at first, even though she was happy to be with us again. She had not met Clint yet, either, so she did not have any friends. She was unhappy, and she kept telling us that she wanted to go back, to go home. Of course, we could not do that. We had no home to go back to."
"Pietro and I did not know what to do for her," Wanda continued. As she spoke, she tipped the vegetables Bobbi had cut into the pan with the chicken and covered them with the remaining spices. Her movements were careful and deliberate, and Bobbi found herself watching Wanda's hands. They looked so sure of themselves, like every motion was happening on autopilot, without a second thought. They didn't match the sound of Wanda's voice, which was growing sad and hesitant. A remorseful voice. "We did not know how to explain to her that the only way for us to go was forward. That this was our home and our life now. How do you tell someone that you cannot change the things that make them unhappy?" Unhappy. Unhappy. Why was it always the unhappy things that were hardest to change?
"She seems happy now," Bobbi said tentatively. She hoped she hadn't misread every expression of Natasha's, everything Natasha had told her about her life.
"Yes. I think she is." Wanda slid the pan into the oven and crossed to the sink, washing her hands. "Things got better for all of us in time, as things often do. No bad thing lasts forever. But at the time, it felt like it might. She ran away from home about a month after she had come to live with us."
"What?"
"Slipped out in the night. Packed a bag and left. Pietro and I were panicked. We did not know what to do, so we called Miss Hand. She contacted the police on our behalf, and eventually an officer found Natasha at the Greyhound bus station. She was trying to get to an airport, to leave America. He brought her home, but she put up a fight, hit the officer, and a file was opened."
"She hit a cop?"
"She was only ten, and she spoke very little English. Wouldn't you be afraid if a strange man speaking a language you did not know tried to take you away from where you were trying to go?" Wanda asked with a wry smile. "He was not hurt. Natasha is strong, but even she could not do much damage at that age. The real damage came from the file. There was an investigation to see if Pietro and I were fit to be Natasha's legal guardians. It was a very frightening time for all of us. Miss Hand fought on our behalf, though, and Natasha was able to make it clear that she had not been running away from us, just that she had been trying to run back to something that no longer existed. The investigation concluded in our favor, and we were so grateful that everything turned out all right. We learned from it, and Pietro and I became better at helping Natasha adjust. We began to speak more openly about the things we had gone through, about what our new life must look like. And I am so thankful for the new life that we made together. It is like the books say, we made our happy ending."
"Happy, happy ending," Bobbi echoed faintly. There was considerably less conviction in her voice than Wanda's.
"That is why I believe things will turn out all right with your family," Wanda finished. "If those investigators could decide that a pair of frightened 18-year-olds were fit to care for Natasha, could see that our love for each other was stronger than our fear, then surely they can see that the love in your foster family is stronger than your misfortune."
"You think so?"
"I do," Wanda said firmly. "A good family is a gift. It would be foolish to take it away from you and your sisters."
Bobbi lifted her face slightly and offered Wanda a weak smile. Even if she herself was having trouble believing that everything would turn out in a perfect happy ending, there was something comforting in knowing that there was at least one person out there who was sure. Bobbi didn't trust that things would work out the way they wanted them to, but Wanda could believe for the both of them.
Before either one had a chance to speak again, Clint loped into the kitchen. He inhaled deeply and his face broke into a grin at the aromas that were slowly filling the room.
"Smells good in here," he remarked. "Anything ready to eat right now?"
"We just started," Wanda chided with a small, cascading chuckle. The sound reminded Bobbi of water tripping over stones. "We have several hours to go. Did you not just eat half a dozen doughnuts not so long ago?"
"You can't prove that," smirked Clint as he popped open the door to the refrigerator and hauled out a carton of milk.
"Maybe not, but the powdered sugar on your shirt can, myshka" Wanda teased. Sheepishly, Clint brushed a hand over the white dust that gave him away.
"Do Mack and Hunter know that your nickname here is 'little mouse?'" Bobbi asked, failing to conceal the playful twitch of her mouth.
"They do not, and they will never find out," Clint said seriously. He started to bring the milk carton up to his mouth to drink, but was stopped short by a tut from Wanda.
"At least pretend to use a glass while I can see you," she said with a shake of her head. She still wore an amused face – sparkling eyes, scrunched up nose and curled smile – so Bobbi could tell she wasn't really that upset with Clint's behavior. "I started calling him that years ago. He started to grow like a cornstalk and nearly ate us out of house and home, a little mouse nibbling away at all our stores."
"And here I just thought it was because I was super cute and took a few extra years to grow into my ears," Clint laughed.
"That too," conceded Wanda. "You are the one mouse we are always happy to have in our house."
Clint beamed, then downed the glass of milk he had just poured in a few, quick gulps. "Glad to hear it."
"What time is your family eating their dinner, Clint?" Wanda asked as she turned her attention to a head of cabbage that had been sitting on the draining board next to the sink.
"I don't know, what time are we eating?" he cracked.
"I meant what time are the Bartons eating?" Wanda corrected gently. Clint's face quirked downwards a little, like the milk he had just drunk was sour.
"Probably around 4. Mom has this weird thing about eating like it's the early bird special on holidays. I think it's probably got more to do with the fact that Dad likes to be done early enough that he can take a nap and then catch the last football game of the night."
"Well, while I would like to have you here all day, I am sure she would appreciate seeing you in time to eat," Wanda said. She halved the cabbage and handed a part of it to Bobbi, indicating that Bobbi should start shredding. Bobbi was grateful for something to do with her hands. It made her feel less like she was eavesdropping on a conversation between Wanda and Clint. "And the early hour means you will be finished in plenty of time to still eat with us."
"You'll save me a plate?" Clint asked, some of the sarcasm and humor slipping away and revealing something much more delicate underneath, hope and worry mingled into one, unnamable tone.
"We will not start without you," promised Wanda. "We want to eat dinner as a family, too."
"I guess I better go get ready for battle, then," Clint said with a sad, half smile. "No better armor than nice clothes and combed hair. They're going to try and ask me about college, I bet. They've been bugging me about it for days and I keep avoiding it. Now Barney's home I won't be able to wiggle out of it."
"You still have not told them about your applications?"
"It's not really a can of worms I'm eager to open," he shrugged. "I was kind of just hoping to let it go unspoken until after I got accepted somewhere else, that way I could end the argument before it started."
Bobbi gave him a curious look, hoping he would clue her in, but he didn't seem to notice, so she returned her attention to the cutting board. The cabbage leaves were cold, and a little slippery as she did her best to imitate Wanda's expert shredding.
"I think it's easier if you use a knife," Clint joked. "Bobbi's struggling, Wanda, take pity on her."
"We do it by hand," Wanda said firmly, shaking her head. "That is how I learned. It tastes better when it has not been so finely cut."
"You're braising it?" he asked, plucking a chunk of the cabbage off the cutting board and joining Bobbi in tearing away leaves.
"With a little sautéed onion, just how you like it," Wanda smiled. "For what it is worth, Clint, I think it may be wise to tell them sooner rather than later. They will not feel so blindsided this way."
"Tell them what, exactly?" Bobbi wasn't exactly sure if she was supposed to be a part of the conversation or not, but she didn't like being left in the dark.
"They want me to go to Iowa for college next year, like my brother, but I don't want to. I have no intention of being a Hawkeye, so I'm not even applying there. I haven't told my folks. I'm applying other places. Well, applied, actually. I already turned in my stuff, early action, so they couldn't make me change my mind. UW, Marquette, Lawrence, a couple others."
"All a little closer to home than Iowa," Bobbi remarked.
"Yeah, well, I like Wisconsin," Clint said stubbornly. He was ripping the cabbage a little more forcefully now, scowling down at the leaves as he pulled them apart roughly. "I know my parents can't wait to get us all back to Iowa once I graduate and my dad's job transfers him again, but I don't really want to leave. And Nat's only looking at in-state schools. I know you're not supposed to pick where you go to college based on where other people are going, but I can't help it. I don't want to think about being super far away from her, or you guys," he added, glancing over at Wanda as he pushed his now completed pile of shredded cabbage her way.
"I think those are perfectly good reasons to help you decide where to apply," Wanda assuaged. "It is a big decision to go to college, and a big decision to pick where to go. Anything that helps you feel more comfortable is good. Your parents should understand that."
"Should and would are two different things."
"Maybe so, but I think they will still be proud of you. Going to college is such an achievement, no matter what school."
"See, this is why you're the one I want to have Thanksgiving dinner with," Clint said, a glimmer of his usual playfulness resparking. "You say things that make me actually feel thankful."
"Go get changed, we will see you later tonight," Wanda laughed. "It is only a few hours, and we will be very grateful to have you back."
May had never been big on Thanksgiving. Usually the gratitude got lost along the way, and it became a holiday that revolved around cooking – certainly not her strong suit – and around perfect presentation and pointless tradition. Still, she and Phil had intended to do it up right, for the girls' sake. They hadn't talked about it, but they felt pretty confident that none of the girls had ever had much of a festive Thanksgiving. The nuns didn't strike Melinda as particularly celebratory people, regardless of the holiday, and with everything she had managed to piece together about Bobbi's home life, she wouldn't be surprised if the poor kid had tried to make the dinner on her own, only to have it backfire in her face.
Now though, with no kids to put on the show for and very little to feel grateful about, she and Phil just moped around the house, unsure of what to do with themselves. Phil wandered into the kitchen listlessly a few times, opened the fridge and stared like the food was going to magically become something appetizing if he just watched it a little longer, but he never pulled anything out to cook. She tried to straighten up around the house, tried to catch up on some paperwork for work, but everywhere she turned, everything she did, just reminded her of the three lively souls that were missing from their house and the fact that they were still waiting on a call from Victoria that likely wouldn't come for days.
"We should eat something," Phil said eventually, once the sky outside dusted away into dusk. He had wandered into the den and found her sitting on the couch, looking at the TV but not really taking in whatever was happening on the screen.
"I'm not in the mood, Phil."
"Not… not all that fancy stuff. Just something. We can't just not eat. It's practically nighttime and you've had, what, a few mugs of tea?"
"I made toast in the morning," Melinda grumbled. "Nothing sounds good."
"I'll make you anything you want," he coaxed. "A sandwich, soup, ice cream sundae—"
"Phil."
"I'm sorry. There's not a lot I can do right now to help things. Food is one of the only strategies I have left."
"I know, and I love you for it. I'm sorry for snapping. I just…"
"I know," he murmured sadly, sinking next to her on the couch. "Me too."
"I don't know what to do, Phil," she admitted, staring hard at the shiny happy people in the Coca-Cola commercial on the TV. Wouldn't life be so much simpler if they could just crack open a soda and sing a song to make all their problems disappear? "We're just supposed to wait and hope, but I can't. I'm not an optimist. You know that about me."
"I do."
"So I can't sit here and hold my breath and convince myself that everything's going to work out okay. The cards are stacked against us. We messed up with them, with Skye especially. Our kids were kidnapped at gunpoint and ended up in the hospital. No social worker in his right mind would let us try again."
"Hey," Phil said softly, scooping up her hand in his and holding on tight. The strength of his hand drew her gaze away from the plastic reality of TV advertisements and towards his face. He always looked the same to her, no matter how many years passed between them or how many new lines crept away from his eyes and crinkled around his mouth, and she loved how she could always look to him, always know what to expect, always see the love and concern spilling from him. His eyes were heavy with the weight of their situation, but there was a brightness to them, a determination to keep looking for a sliver of hope in the endless sea of gloom she kept getting mired in. "I know you're not an optimist, but you're not a pessimist, either. You're a realist, you've always managed to see things as they are. Right now, things aren't great, but it's also not a lost cause. I know it's easy to get stuck focusing on the things we could have – should have – done differently, but we can't change that now. What we change is how we do things going forward. When we get the girls back—"
"Phil."
"When we get the girls back," he repeated forcefully, giving her hand a gentle squeeze, "because I believe that we will. We love them, and… I think they love us, too. Skye… she told me, when we were alone at the hospital. She told me, Mel. She said it. And Jemma and Bobbi, they have their ways of showing us the way they feel. I have to believe that the fact that we all love each other and want to be together means something. That's not nothing. It has to mean something."
"Of course it means something. But what if it's not enough? Plenty of people who love each other don't get to spend their lives together, Phil, you know that."
"Maybe," he conceded. "But I know those three have had more bad luck than most. I think the universe owes them a win every now and then."
"And you think we can be that for them? You think we can be a win?"
"Melinda, we're the whole damn championship," he grinned. He leaned over and brushed a kiss on her jaw, tickling her slightly as he moved closer to her mouth, kiss by kiss. "We're the champagne-spraying, giant trophy-hoisting, going to Disney World kind of championship."
"You're ridiculous," she told him, fighting laughter and squirming away from him, but not before kissing him back. "And somehow you managed to use a sports metaphor to make me feel better."
"I have a gift," he chuckled. "I'm a bright side guy. You knew what you were getting into with me."
"That's very true," she agreed. She reached up and ran her hand along his cheek lovingly, savoring the feeling of his warm skin, the places where his face bunched out to accommodate his radiant smile. "I knew. I know. And I love Mr. Brightside, even when I'm being Mrs. Doldrums."
"I love Mrs. Doldrums," Phil promised her. "And I love Mrs. Pragmatism. Mostly I just love Melinda May."
They moved to the kitchen not long after, Phil successfully cajoling her to at least make an effort to find something she was willing to eat, but their search for a meal was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell, startling them both.
"Were you expecting anyone?" Phil asked, making his way to the front door.
"No." Melinda was right on his heels, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Phil stretched to peer through the window at the top of the door – the window she couldn't see through, much to her chagrin – and when he returned to his regular height, his eyebrows were skyrocketing towards his hairline. "Mel, you're not going to believe…" He shook his head. "Don't be mad."
"Mad? Why would I be mad?"
Phil slapped a massive smile, maximum charm, on his face and opened the door. Standing there, in the cold, with a suitcase in one hand and a grocery bag in the other, was—
"Mom?" Melinda's mouth fell open. "What are you…? I mean… this is quite a surprise." She wheeled around on Phil and shot him a look that she hoped clearly communicated the levels of 'what the hell?' and 'please explain what's going on' that she was feeling at the moment.
"I called her," Phil explained slowly, stepping back so Melinda's mother could come into the house. "Yesterday. I felt like she needed to know what was going on." He paused and cleared his throat carefully. "But I, um, didn't expect to see you, Lian. Not that I'm not glad to see you, but—"
"There are times in life where a person needs her mother, even after she's grown," Lian announced as she set her suitcase down. "I think losing all three of your children in a day counts as one of those times. I would have been here sooner, but it's impossible to get flights this close to Thanksgiving."
"How did you get here from the airport? If we had known we would have picked you up," Melinda spluttered. She took the grocery bag from her mother's arms and peeked in, spying, as she suspected, a collection of ingredients that would eventually be turned into jiaozi.
"I took a cab. Stopped by the market. I'm sure you haven't had anything decent to eat today. You never did get the hang of Thanksgiving."
"We do Thanksgiving fine, Mom," Melinda grumbled. She didn't complain too much, though. The scallions poking out of the top of the bag smelled good; sharp and earthy. It was the first thing that had struck her as remotely appetizing all day.
"I'll take your suitcase upstairs," Phil offered. "I hope you don't mind that the guest room has belonged to Bobbi for several months now. I'll get you clean sheets."
"Don't be silly, I'm not taking my granddaughter's bedroom. Your couch still pulls out into a bed, doesn't it?"
"Mom, you know that sofa bed will be bad for your back."
"It's fine, Melinda, really, I insist."
"I don't think Bobbi will mind sharing," Phil smiled. "She's not using it right now. You'll be more comfortable up there, Lian."
"You two are so stubborn," her mom tutted. Phil bit back a laugh as he headed for the stairs, and Melinda had to force herself not to roll her eyes.
"I learned it from the best, Mom."
"Oh, hush, you." Her mom's breezy demeanor slowly faded as a tight silence fell over the two of them. She looked hard into Melinda's eyes, searching for what, Melinda wasn't exactly sure. "You feel like telling me what's going on?"
"There's not much to say, Mom. We lost them." To her surprise, Melinda felt something go weak in her shoulders, and they sagged in on themselves, a fresh wave of despair crashing down on top of her. Her voice broke when she spoke again. "I messed up and now they're gone."
"Oh, bǎobèi," her mom said softly. She eased the grocery bag out of Melinda's hands and set it down on the ground with care before catching Melinda up in a sharp, tight hug. Neither Melinda nor her mother had ever been big huggers, but in that moment, she couldn't have imagined anything that would have felt more right. Her mom had been right. Sometimes a person just needed a hug from her mother. "I'm so sorry, my love."
They stood there for a while, mother holding daughter, Melinda surrendering to the urge to cry that she had been fighting for longer than she should have been. Having to admit everything to her mom just made it all feel that much more real, that much more painful. To her credit, her mother said very little, opting instead to just hold on tight, rubbing tiny circles on Melinda's shoulder. There were only a few other times in her adult life that Melinda had let herself get like this in front of her mom, but despite the fact that it had been years since she had cried and clung to her mother like a small child, her mom still knew exactly what to do. Some kind of motherly instinct, maybe. Melinda wondered if she'd ever have the chance to hone hers again.
"Come in the kitchen," her mom said quietly, once Melinda had dried her eyes and pulled away from the hug. "I'll cook, you tell me what happened."
They spent the next hour working side by side, Melinda explaining how they had gotten to this point and her mom chopping, mixing, and folding expertly as she listened. Melinda told her about Skye's determination to discover things about her parents, how she had missed the signs that things were getting out of hand, how Skye and Jemma had slipped away in the night, leading to the frantic search and the confrontation at the warehouse.
"Those poor girls," her mom said with a shake of her head. "Children shouldn't have to worry about things like that."
"I know," Melinda agreed. "They were braver than any kid should ever have to be. We were so lucky we all came out of that alive. I still can't believe I let things go that far."
"Melinda, this isn't your fault."
"The investigator from social services seems to think so," said Melinda darkly. "He interviewed me and Phil yesterday. He was pushy, I didn't like him. Asked all these questions about every mistake we made with the girls. Made me feel like just about the worst parent in the world."
"Everything looks bad when it's scrutinized up that close," her mom waved her hand dismissively. "If the man's even halfway good at his job he'll know that. Every parent messes things up. God knows your father and I would have come out of an interview like that looking bad."
"You and Dad are good parents."
"That's very sweet of you to say, shǎguā, but also very untrue. We moved you around too much, we fought in front of you. Your father let you eat all that bittermelon on your ninth birthday, and you made yourself sick. I don't like talking about my feelings, so I probably emotionally stunted you."
"Mom. It's fine. I'm fine. I turned out okay."
"That's what I'm trying to tell you, Melinda. Your father and I made a lot of mistakes while we raised you, but you still managed to become a good person, and a competent and capable adult, even if you can't feed yourself properly."
"Mom."
"The point is," her mother continued, smirking slightly, "those kinds of things don't matter so much in the end. You can't let yourself get so tripped up on being a perfect parent, because the things that do matter are the things that I know you and Phil are already good at. Listening. Supporting. Loving. Any investigator would be a fool not to see that."
"It's not like I gave them the wrong kind of jelly on their PB&Js, Mom. I let them run away, I let them get kidnapped and shot. Those aren't your standard parental mistakes. Those are the kinds of things that make people realize you're unfit to parent."
"They're not standard mistakes, no, but these aren't standard circumstances, and they certainly aren't standard kids, are they?"
"No, they're not," Melinda said, smiling in spite of herself.
"Of course not. My granddaughters are extraordinary. And they deserve to have a home with people who know that."
"Thanks, Mom."
"I'm just being honest, you don't have to thank me for that."
"Not just for what you said," Melinda murmured. "For cooking. Listening. Being here. Being my mom. You were right – I needed you tonight."
"My three favorite words," her mom teased. "'You were right.' Always much better than a thank you." She reached over and gave Melinda a quick squeeze on the shoulder, a gesture that drew another smile from the both of them. "But you're welcome. I love you."
"I love you, too."