Epilogue 4 - You Are Here
And now it's Holly's turn to address life after careers. I need to warn you, this was the hardest chapter I've ever written. It's the last POV from Holly for the series.
"I don't like her," said Gail finally.
"Well, good thing you're not dating her." Holly shook her head and turned on the dishwasher. She'd been hearing one variety of that or another for a few days now. This was the first time that Gail outright stated anything, though, so that was an improvement.
"Bite me."
"Maybe later, if you're nice."
Gail blew a raspberry and dropped onto the couch. "I'm supposed to be all hip and cool and happy my kid has a girlfriend, and fuck it, I do not like Sylvia."
Holly walked over and sat down on Gail's legs. "It's not going to last, and Vivian knows it, honey," she noted, and ran her fingers through Gail's white hair. Why was Gail's white hair so beautiful?
They had not actually been introduced on purpose to Sylvia Walsh, a scientist Vivian had met on a case. Of course. But by accident they'd all bumped into each other at an open air market. Vivian had taken it with good humour and introduced everyone all around. They had known about Sylvia, but it was a relationship of a couple months and she was not someone Vivian felt like introducing to her parents. Which was telling.
Her wife squinted up at Holly. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, oh great ex-detective, Vivian likes her, but this is not a great love." Holly shrugged. "It's a bit more serious than her summer fling with Kate, though."
"I liked her and Kate," muttered Gail.
"They were too similar."
Gail grumbled. "Sit with me, old lady."
Holly rolled her eyes and looped her arms around Gail's neck. "I am sitting with you."
Her wife smiled and kissed her softly. Those bright blue eyes were shining at her. The eyes Holly had fallen for, hard, when they met. Okay, the ass too. But the face and the platinum hair and the eyes. All of it. Holly beamed and touched Gail's hair again.
White. Gail had stopped dying it bleach blonde when Tyson was officially adopted. But she'd continued with a more natural dye job for years after. When Tyson was sixteen Gail had taught him to drive and the day he got his license she stopped dying her hair at all. In no time at all, the ginger brown had become a faded ginger grey, and then that had washed to a beautiful white. All natural.
"Are you admiring my hair?"
"I like it." Holly's own hair had gone steel grey, which was amazing on its own, but still. "It looks like you."
"Of course it does, it's on me." Gail grinned and gave Holly's waist a little squeeze.
Smiling, Holly snuggled up against Gail, resting her head in the crook of her wife's neck. "You don't have to like our daughter's girlfriends, honey. Just be happy she's getting back out there."
"I guess," muttered the grumpy woman, arms comfortably holding Holly in place. "I just want her to be happy."
"She is," promised Holly.
"But —"
"Her happy doesn't have to be like ours, honey."
Gail sighed and her body slumped a little. "I know. I just … I wanted her to be safe and successful and happy and none of that shit from her birth family."
"Arguably she's more successful than you," pointed out Holly. "Superintendent Peck."
"Ugh! And she likes that!" Gail sounded disgusted. "I liked Divya better."
"Divya didn't want to be a parent."
Actually Divya had been concerned with people thinking she was the biological father. A fair concern, Holly had to agree, as Tyson looked a hell of a lot like her. Just coincidence. The boys acted like Vivian, a lot, and had her physical mannerisms, so naturally they looked like Viv.
That said, Divya was smart and stunningly gorgeous, and funny as hell. Everyone had liked her. Vivian and Divya had dated for just under a year when things crumbled. For all Tyson had complained (he'd really liked her), Vivian had taken it with the casual shrug she'd been given to.
But that was a few years ago. After the fling with Kate, after Kate's wedding in fact. And it was really Vivian's only serious dating before Sylvia, of whom Gail clearly was not a fan.
"Still. I liked her. Sucks." Gail stuck out her chin.
"You're a child." And Holly smiled and kissed Gail softly. "But since this is clearly bugging you, why do you not like Sylvia?"
Gail was quiet for a moment. "She's not smart enough."
Holly blinked. Sometimes her wife could be a little bit of a snob, but that sounded like Lisa more than Gail, really. Time to reset her wife. "Wow. Too blue collar?"
And the barb had the desired effect. Gail flinched. "Not that. She's book smart, but she's not intellectually stimulating. She's dull, Holly, and maybe the sex is great, but she's not interesting. At all."
"To you. Vivian has some tastes all her own, sweetheart."
Gail made a face. A disappointed face. "It won't last."
Holly sighed and leaned back into Gail, making herself comfortable. It was so simple, so easy to snuggle like that. Gail's arms were safe and warm and protecting. "And I said, Vivian knows that," said Holly, closing her eyes and relaxing into her wife.
Silent for a while, Gail didn't move either. Then. "I wanted her to have this," she said softly.
This. Love. A wife. A family. Happiness. All the things Gail herself had said she would never have, and yet.
It wasn't that Holly didn't know about Gail's self esteem issues. She'd known them before they'd dated, thanks to many late nights talking to her depressingly straight, super hot, friend, Gail Peck. They'd talked about a lot of things, including Gail's morose admission that she was expected to marry an upwardly mobile or at least socially acceptable man.
Having met a handful of those men, Holly was never quite sure Elaine hadn't been trying to drive Gail into coming out. Seriously, though, the guy with the English accent? Gail had done a great imitation of him every time she and Holly had gotten drunk together.
Why had that ended? Oh right, then they kissed, and they didn't talk about men or exes for a very long time. There was too much else to do.
"My dad told you how I never wanted to be married, right?" Holly didn't move from her comfortable spot.
"I remember. Because lesbians couldn't marry back in the Stone Age."
"Bronze Age," corrected Holly. "It wasn't just that. I didn't think lesbians should marry."
Gail made a surprised noise. "Self loathing?"
"TV and media are killers," said Holly, agreeing. "I didn't think I was worthy of it. And by the time it all came around and was legal, I'd screwed things up with so many exes, it hardly seemed to matter."
"And then you asked me."
Holly sighed. "You have a remarkable tendency to mess up my plans."
Gail laughed a little and held on to Holly in the quiet. "I was scared of marriage. Thought I'd get stuck with someone old and dull."
"We don't start out old," teased Holly.
"And you aren't dull at all." Gail kissed her forehead. "Turns out I just hate men."
"Funny how that works."
They both chuckled and Holly slid off Gail's lap to snuggle beside her on the couch. It was nice, quiet, and a slice of calm. It was the happiness fourteen year old Holly didn't think she'd deserve, and the life thirty year old Holly hadn't expected. It was with the most remarkable woman she'd ever met. It had led her places in life she'd never foreseen.
There was only one world for it.
Happy.
The young man driving her car looked far too serious. Also far too terrified. "Lane, you're going to give yourself a headache."
"M'fine, Gramma." He scowled though, turned on his blinker, and came to a stop at the light very carefully.
Holly sighed and pressed three fingers to the bridge of her nose. She loved her grandson dearly. Up at the cabin, Lane had been her nap buddy for the first years of his life. But of her grandsons as young men, it was far easier to connect with Tyson than Lane.
From day one, Tyson was her special grandson. He idolized her and, in turn, she doted on him. They spent hours talking about science and the world. Those same subjects bored the hell out of Lane. Once he was verbal and active, he was super active. Vivian spent hours trying to wear him out just to get some sleep, and Lane was just too hyper for his aging grandparents.
It wasn't that Lane and Holly didn't get along. It was just that around the time he turned into a person, they had little in common. Oh he loved her, but they probably wouldn't hang out if they weren't family. He never showed up just to hang, like Tyson had done, and Holly rarely thought much of that. Lane was his own kind of person.
So of course the only family member available to pick Holly up from the hospital had been Lane Oliver Peck.
"Did you miss any classes?" She tried to find at least something to talk about.
"Just one," said Lane, almost absently. "I'll take a make up test."
A test. Holly grimaced. "Lane..." She didn't know how to express that his education was more important than her being picked up right away.
"Sorry, I'll slow down." And Lane carefully eased the car down. "I thought the Quay'd be better so you didn't have all those stop lights."
Holly blinked and squinted at her grandson. "What?"
"The doctor said you hit your head. I always get car sick after that." Lane pulled over a lane and drove at a disturbingly sedate speed for a Peck.
"Honestly, I'm fine. I just can't drive without my glasses, Lane."
The boy... the young man glanced over. Lane was giving her a look that was pure Gail Peck at its most annoyed. Even without glasses, Holly could see it.
"Seriously?"
She smiled faintly, amused and a little confused by the sideways display of affection. "I've had worse. Sam Swarek cleaned my clock at a softball game."
"You played against the cops?" He sounded surprised. "Gramma hates sports."
Holly blinked a few times. How had they not had this conversation. "Uh, hello, buddy. Who did you think taught your mother everything she knows about sports?"
Lane glanced over and made a weird noise. "For real?"
"I even boxed," said Holly. "I'll show you the pictures when we get home."
Lane made a sound like he was sucking on his lower lip. "Yeah. That'd be cool."
It wasn't the answer Holly had expected.
So, when they got home and Holly dug out her spare glasses, she also pulled out the old albums of her and Gail back in their pre-married life. Lane was highly amused to see Gail in a uniform, but he was more enchanted by Holly showing her own photos. That led to them sitting in the living room with a dozen albums around them.
"Nice hat, Gramma." Lane held up a photo of Holly in her bespectacled bear hat.
"I think I was six," she said, and laughed. "We have one of your mother in it."
"This is, like, the only photo where you're clean, too."
"I'm what?" Holly leaned over.
"You're always dirty, scraped knees, and happy."
"I think I'm still happy."
"Sappy," countered Lane. "But... these kinda look like me." His blue eyes were wondering, looking up at Holly with a searching, questioning expression.
Holly knew what he meant. She'd seen all his photos, where he was a filthy hoyden, playing in the dirt. If it was active, he did it. But she also knew the expression, because Vivian had worn it a few times in her childhood.
Her grandson was looking at her to find himself in people he shared no blood with.
"That's because you're my grandson too, goof." Holly smiled at him.
Lane gave her a cautious smile. "I'm sorry Ty couldn't pick you up."
Ah. Holly leaned back in the couch. "I think I'm not," she replied, and watched her youngest grandson's face carefully. "Lane, honey. This is my fault."
The bright blue eyes that looked so much like Steve's widened.
They didn't know who Lane's biological father was. Vivian had asked if he wanted to find out, and Lane had been emphatic that Jamie and Vivian were his parents. It reminded Holly so much of Vivian when pressed about her biological parents, it was painful. But Lane, tall and lanky like Vivian, was a blue eyed blonde.
The colour similarities to Pecks ended there, as the boy had a much more tanned skin tone than nearly anyone else with that name. But still, where Tyson was obviously of Indian descent (they'd run his DNA as a Christmas present once), Lane was Caucasian through and through. That didn't mean he didn't look like his family, though.
Just like Vivian, he'd picked up the mannerisms of his adoptive parents. He laughed like Gail, smiled like her too. He framed a doorway like his mother and Gail and Steve and Elaine, whom he'd barely met. He moved like Vivian who, in turn, moved much like Gail and Holly did.
Just like Vivian, too, he clung on to Gail for reasons he had never vocalized. Oh, Holly knew why. She'd watched it start and, understanding the why, let it happen. But that had led to a teenaged, driving grandson who didn't really know his other grandmother.
"Come here, Lane," she said, and patted the couch. The boy sat down, dutifully. "When we fostered Viv, before we adopted her, she attached herself to Gail."
Lane screwed up his face, much like Tyson had a few years ago when Holly had tried to explain this to her nerdier grandson. "Mom and Gail?"
All his life, Vivian had leaned more on Holly than Gail. Holly smiled. "When your Mom was a kid, really up until your age, she was scared and hurt all the time. Her, ah, biological parents did a number on her."
The boy's face darkened. "She won't tell me about that."
"It's her story, sweetheart," said Holly, gently. "But Gail... Gail lived through a whole lot before she met me. Your great grandmother, Elaine, was a cold bitch. Bill, Gail's Dad, tried to destroy her. And she was ... Gail was kidnapped by a serial killer when she was in her twenties."
Silence from Lane. His face went a little ashen, his eyes wide. Holly could hear his stomach roil. "But ... I mean ... she lived. She's here."
"She didn't walk away unharmed." Holly sighed. "I met Gail when she was still ... well, Gail would say fucked up. She was still hurting from all that. See, when she was saved, her parents never visited her in the hospital."
"What?" Lane sat up straight. That just didn't fit into his world view, clearly. "But .. But Mom named me after Elaine! She couldn't be that terrible!"
"Elaine also spiked my Visa when I was trying to move to the US." Holly shrugged. "She came around, eventually, but Elaine was not a great person for a long time. Vivian doesn't know that Elaine, though. She knows the one who showed up for Gail when I was in isolation." Off Lane's confused noise, Holly elaborated. "I was exposed to a deadly virus. Obviously I'm fine, but I got meningitis while I was in the hospital and ... well. Gail did not handle it well. And she had a surly six year old."
"Honestly, I can't imagine Grandma ...doing all that. She's such a goof."
Holly smiled. "She is, and I love her for it. But... honey, why do you think you always wanted to be around her when you were little?"
Lane blinked a few times, trying to think through the question. "I ... I don't know. Because she was a cop?" He frowned. "No, that's not it. I just ... don't know."
"I do," said Holly. "And so does Vivian. And Gail." She put a hand on Lane's knee. "I know you hate talking about your birth mom, Lane, but that's why."
Predictably, Lane stiffened. "Gramma." His voice shook. The poor boy never wanted to even mention Maisie's name.
Holly soldiered on. "You, my darling boy, you needed someone to show you how to survive. Just like your mom did. And there's no one here on this planet who could help you more than Gail." The blue eyes narrowed, and Holly went on. "I knew you needed her more than you needed me, just like Vivian did. But ... I got it right with your Mom, I think because she lived with us. She knew I was here for her too, so when she didn't need Gail all the time, she had me."
Unspoken was that Lane didn't really know that Holly was there for him too. And that was entirely Holly's fault. That extra distance, the room she'd given Vivian, was too much for someone who didn't grow up hearing her, seeing her every day.
Lane just looked at Holly. His expression was closed off, just like Vivian still did when anyone asked her about her birth parents, and just like Gail if the topic of Ross Perik came up. It was hard not to smile, seeing her wife and child reflected in his face.
And just like his mother, Lane's question surprised her. "What happens ... after?"
"After?"
"After I figure out how to survive. What's next?"
Holly blinked a few times. That was something Vivian had never outright asked. "Life," said Holly, simply. "Maybe you get married, maybe you don't. Kids, or not. A job. Adventures. Love. The inevitable heart break."
Lane snorted. "I've been there."
"I was sorry about Carlos, honey."
"You knew?"
She finked on her kid. "Your mother freaked out and called me."
That made Lane laugh. "Mom freaked out?"
"Your first real heart break? She was really not prepared for that." Holly shook her head. "Sick kids, no problem. Teaching you to drive or shoot? That she can do. But romance? Love? Your mother is horrible at it."
Lane looked torn between a few emotions. "Mom loves us, though."
"Oh sure. Sure." Holly smirked. "When she was seven, she announced she was pretty sure she loved us. This was months after she asked Gail what love was."
"Not you?"
"No. That was right around the time I was in isolation." Holly shrugged. "You missed all the fun drama."
"Uh, except all the horrible stuff." Lane ticked off on his fingers. "Aunt Noelle had cancer, Aunt Andy died in the line of duty, Uncle Dov had that heart attack, and whatever happened with Gerald that Mom still doesn't want to talk about. That's just the stuff from the Force, too. There's Mom and all her crap with Gramma Angela."
Holly smiled sadly at her grandson. "You are disturbingly perceptive."
"I wanna be a cop. I have to pay attention."
There was that too. "You don't have to be a cop, Lane."
"I know," he said calmly. "But I want to be one." Lane flipped through the photos and found one of Gail, her hair a short bob, drinking from a mug that said Dad. It was well before Holly had met Gail, and Gail even had a tie on, so it was probably from her rookie year. "It's important to be a part of something bigger than yourself, Gramma. And ... I think I can do it. For the right reasons." He ran a finger across the word PECK stitched on Gail's shirt. "I'm not smart enough like Ty to do what you do."
"Would you?" To the best of Holly's knowledge, Lane had never been interested in science.
"Maybe? I'm not even as good as Mom at that sort of thing. But ... I want to try. I just feel like, like it's important."
Holly wrapped an arm around Lane's shoulders. Mostly. Somewhere along the line he'd gotten a little broader. He was a young man, not a little skinny boy. "Yeah, it is."
Lane startled a little but leaned into the hug. It was nowhere near as awkward as Vivian's still were. "Mom is still pissed about it."
She knew he meant Jamie. "She worries you'll get hurt."
"I'll try not to get kidnapped by serial killers," he quipped, morbidly, but immediately looked stricken. "Oh, shit. I'm sorry."
That broke her and Holly giggled. "Oh god, you are such an ass."
Lane, confused, eyed her. "What?"
"That was funny, you little shit." And Holly kissed his cheek. "You don't honestly think I live with Gail and don't find that stuff funny too, do you?"
Lane touched his cheek. "I ... I don't know. I think I missed out on a lotta cool stuff, not hanging out with you, though."
"Well, that isn't your fault, honey." She gave him a squeeze. "And I'm here now."
The young man wrapped his arms around her without warning, enveloping Holly in a warm hug. "Okay," he said firmly. And when he let go, he had the most peculiarly serious expression. "I always thought Mom was more like you, but I think she's both of you."
Holly felt a warmth inside her. She'd always wondered when she'd know if she'd been a good parent. Now, when her youngest grandson had hugged her, she knew the answer.
She had absolutely been a good parent, and hopefully now a better grandparent.
"I worry too," said Lane, interrupting her thoughts.
"What?"
"About being a cop. I mean... I know what happens with all those fucked up guys. The neo-Nazis. We fought two wars about that!" He shook his head. "I know a lot of people do this job for the power trip. I just ... I want to be like Mom, and Uncle Oliver. I want to help and protect people."
Unlike Vivian, Lane had grown up with a mother who had been actively dismantling the paramilitary hold on the police. When Vivian had stepped up as an Inspector in IA, that had been her target. Get rid of it. The cops didn't need battle tanks and armour like that. It set a bad precedent, said Vivian, and it didn't make anyone feel safer.
The police were not military, after all. She worked hand in hand with SIU to enforce the rules and regulations. Uniforms that had gotten sloppy came back as required. Name tags included the initial of the first name again. Individuality was frowned upon when it came to attire and grooming. Beards and hair length, male and female, were regulated. Even tattoos had some rules.
Holly found the last one a little amusing, seeing as Vivian simultaneously argued for them but against their display. The popular rumour was she'd ripped her own shirt off at a meeting to show her tattoos. Holly was pretty sure she'd just pushed her sleeve up. But then again, Vivian did always make sure her tattoos were not visible when she was in uniform.
At some point, Vivian had appointed her classmate, Rich Hanford, to work with her on the matter. He had a remarkable affinity for the job, and slowly Toronto turned its back on the over armoured enforcement of the city. Other large cities in Canada did the same, and it had begun to filter down to the United States at long last.
This was not to say things were perfect. There was still a massive fascist faction in the police. And the Right Wing would latch on to tall, white (probably), blonde Lane Peck. Plus he was a Peck.
"You have the look," said Holly, softly.
"I know. Gramma warned me." He sighed. "But ... I want to help Mom keep this work going. I don't want us to go back to what happened in the States in the 2010s. Race Riots? Nazi gatherings? God help us, what if some dipshit like Ford gets elected again?"
"You don't believe in god," she teased, trying to make light of it.
"I don't," he agreed. "Can't believe in a god that punishes kids, Gramma."
That was her family, alright. "I support you doing this, Lane. You know that, right?"
He looked surprised. "Oh. I thought..."
"My wife was a cop, honey. I fell in love with her because of the... that fire that made her do a job where people hated her." Holly sighed loudly. "I hated it when Vivian put on the uniform, but I understand the choice."
"Mom doesn't." He again meant Jamie.
"No, she does," disagreed Holly. "She fell in love with your Mom because of that choice. It just .. stopped being her choice for herself one day."
"You can stop choosing this?"
"Life is a series of choices, Lane. Every day, your mom wakes up and chooses to put on her uniform. Every day for years so did Gail. Then one day, Gail woke up and realized she didn't want to anymore."
Lane arched his eyebrows, just like Gail and Vivian did when enlightened. "Was that the same for you?"
"I got tired of politics," Holly said. "It was never my thing."
"Mom's really good at it." Lane made a face. "I guess I'll find out if I'm any good at it."
"Yeah?" Holly smiled. "What's the fallback plan?"
"What was yours?" He gave her a smirk though, telling her he already knew the truth.
Holly snorted. "You're funny." There was no backup plan for Holly, nor for Gail though she could have been a lawyer. They both knew where they were going.
"Worst case scenario, I'm like Uncle Nick. A uni until I retire. Best case? Oliver."
"That's a hell of a goal, kid."
"I know. He tried to talk me out of it."
How unexpected, realized Holly. Oliver has been fully supportive of Vivian when she'd made similar declarations. "Well I won't. And if you want, I'll talk to Jamie about this."
"Maybe ... just back Mom up when they argue?"
That, Holly could do. She nodded. "Graduate college and you have a deal."
The young man laughed. "Fine. Can't let down generations of over educated cops, after all."
As fundamentally terrifying as it was to know her wife, daughter, and soon grandson faced the dangers of police work, Holly had more solace than the common person. The brothers and sisters in blue would protect Lane. Gail had seen to the initial dismantling of her family's grotesque stranglehold over the police. Vivian had taken the majority of the problems down and was continuing to take on the Right Wing.
It hadn't always gone well. When Lane was a teen, Vivian had nearly lost her job. When Tyson was a toddler, she'd nearly died. Actually, Holly was pretty sure the first time Vivian nearly got rung up and fired was what really caused the divorce. And there were a million missteps along the way besides those.
Yet Holly had seen, first hand, the good they did.
"Promise me something," she said quietly.
"Besides college?"
"Promise me you'll do good."
"Don't you mean do well?" Lane canted his head to the side.
"No. Do good things. Protect and serve, but do the right thing, even if it costs."
Her youngest grandson gave her a serious nod. He heard what she said and agreed. "That I can promise."
Holly smiled. "Good." And then she pointed out the obvious. "You know, I'm fine. You can go home."
"And face the wrath of Peck? You broke your glasses because a teenager ran his skateboard into you and knocked you down."
"If you make a crack about how I could break my hip, I'm kicking you out."
"That depends on if you were riding the skateboard."
Holly sighed and rubbed her forehead. "You can't tell Gail."
Lane laughed. "They would never believe me," he pointed out. "Honestly, Gramma. You fell off the skateboard?"
"It's been a couple years," said Holly, peevishly.
And Lane laughed more. "Now I have to stay. Gramma will kill me if I don't, and Mom'll help. Ty'll hide my body." Lane smirked. "You're stuck with me till Gramma comes home."
That prospect didn't sound quite so daunting as it had a few hours ago. "In that case, do you want to make dinner?"
Lane rolled his sleeves up. "Only if you tell me how the hell you got Gramma to play softball."
"I asked her out," said Holly, impishly. But as she pulled up a stool, she began the real story. "So you have to remember, Gail thought she was straight back then."
He snorted his disbelief, but Lane did not interrupt.
They watched the doctor carve the serial killer's head open and remove the skull. It wasn't medically accurate, but Holly had long since given up arguing about that. Beside her, Gail was far too still. Her face looked calm and probably anyone else would have though her to be so. But to Holly, who had now spent over two thirds of her life in lockstep with the woman, she could tell.
Gail's body was literally humming with the tension. It came off her in waves, emotional anguish washing over the dams Gail had so tediously erected over fifty years. Her blue eyes stayed quiet, giving nothing away of the storm obviously raging inside.
Finally, the doctor removed the brain of the killer. She held up the brain and carefully placed it on a tray. There, the character on the television smiled at the macabre scene. The mind of her genius tormenter lay bare before her. And she smiled.
The music swelled. The credits rolled. Gail snapped the television off with disgust.
They sat in silence for a moment. Experience told Holly to gently lower the pressure. "That is not how one performs an autopsy," she said, acerbically.
Her wife snorted a laugh. "That's not going to chase away the demons either. He buried her alive."
"That was four seasons ago," murmured Holly.
"Forever on television," said Gail, giving nominal concession to the point. She tossed the remote onto the coffee table. "I need a break from that."
Holly made a noise of agreement and reached over to catch Gail's hand before the blonde could rub her temples. "There's a sports ball game."
Gail gave her a droll look. "Really?"
"Honey, in fifty fucking years, has anything actually gotten your mind off it?"
Her wife looked rueful. "No. Not even sex," she added, mournfully.
Holly had to laugh at that. She tugged at Gail's hand and kissed her softly. "You could try the new book the kid got you, while I watch a game?"
"I caught you watching that Make a Deal show the other day," Gail teased.
"I like the math and percentages." Holly opted not to point out she'd been reviewing her latest book while watching. "And you watch reality TV."
"Ugh. I should have married a stupider woman."
There was no venom in their well worn routine. There was no real bite to the jokes that made themselves at home between two women who had told them for most of their lives. There was a comfortable push and pull, an ebb and flow to the teasing.
Finally their humour came to rest, as Holly settled against Gail's shoulder and the game took over the visuals before them.
Nothing really worked. As depressing as the reality was, the pain never left Gail's mind. She still woke up in cold sweats, shaking, unable to speak. The night came for her, less often than it had, with little claws. Ripping and snarling, it continued to render her raw, as it had since the first night they'd slept under the same roof.
Because Ross Perik never truly left Gail's mind.
Gail had to look at so many things, her career, her rank, her achievements, and know that nearly all of it stood on the shoulders of a man who wanted to rape her and kill her.
The first time Holly heard the story, it hadn't been from Gail. She hadn't known it was even about Gail. It was just a story of a cop who'd been kidnapped by a killer, but she lived. It wasn't for years, long after Gail herself told Holly the gruesome details in a detachedly clinical monotone, that Holly connected the stories. After all, they'd said killer. Gail said rapist.
And then, years later, Holly herself performed Perik's autopsy. She made the incisions that separated skin and sinew from bone. She turned the body, the corpse, into something less than what it had been. She consigned him to eternity and the hereafter. The whole time, Gail and Traci and Steve had watched. Steve in barely checked anger, Traci in visible agony, and Gail ... Holly remembered Gail's eyes burning every single step of the process to her phenomenal memory.
Not a goddamned bit of it had helped.
In the here and now, Gail's arm draped around Holly's shoulders, her hand toyed with Holly's hair. "I was trying to melt his brain," said Gail as the players took a timeout.
"What?"
"At the autopsy."
"He was already dead," Holly pointed out, though she wondered if Gail was reading her mind.
"I know. I wanted to be sure. I wanted... I wanted his soul to be destroyed."
"I'm not convinced he had one to begin with."
"You're an atheist."
"Oh and you're not?"
"I'm nominally a Protestant," muttered Gail.
"Who went to Catholic school." Holly grinned.
"For the education." Gail did laugh though. "I did... I do wonder. About the whatever."
Holly peered up at Gail. "The whatever?"
"Yeah. The whatever. The big whatever. The mystery. The next." Gail waved her hand in the air. "What's next. What's after all this?"
"Energy," said Holly firmly, "does not vanish. You just become a different kind of energy."
"Well right. I wanted his energy to be... not him."
Holly pursed her lips. She could understand that. If the energy existed, might it possible recombine in the shape of evil yet again? "That's a very metaphysical concept. Does evil attract evil, on an empirical level? Would the energy of, say, Dahmer be attracted to someone like Perik? Or does it behave like dust. There's a little Julius Caesar in all of us, after all. Even so, does that attract like? It's not my field of study of course, but I think I have a book on it in the office."
Stopping, Holly looked at Gail, whose face had quirked into an amused smirk. "You are so weird, Holly."
"Sorry?" She honestly wasn't sure if she'd walked down the path the wrong way or not.
Gail shook her head and kissed Holly softly. "Never change, Dr. Holly I'm-too-cool-for-a-middle-name Stewart."
"My parents were too lazy," corrected Holly. "Couldn't agree on anything except Holly."
"It suits you. Can you imagine if I'd ended up Abigail Hermaine?" Gail made a disgusted face.
"Lucky you, nearly dying as a baby."
The morbid humour was theirs. It was old and comfortable and worn into its paths.
It was them.
Watching her daughter on the news was always amusing if depressing.
Vivian was in her white shirt, her hat on, talking about the current high profile missing persons case who still had not been found. That was the depressing part. The amusement came from Vivian relating a story about the duct taped refrigerator containing nothing more than some frat boy's culinary regret.
Alas, the explanation of what the regret was went unsaid. Instead, Vivian talked about the work they'd done, looking for the missing person, and spoke to the person. Holly wondered what actually was going on with the case. For Vivian, and IA, to be involved, there was something shady.
After Vivian ended the interview, Holly's phone rang.
"Hey, Mom."
"Looking good, sweetie."
"Oh good. You watched."
"Any actual leads?"
Vivian hesitated a moment. "Yes." And she said no more.
"Your mother always folds when I ask," said Holly, mock petulantly.
"My mother wants to get in your pants," sassed Vivian. "I was calling about the fridge, actually."
"I did not put Gail in ours."
They both giggled. "I thought you'd like the story."
"Second hand?"
"I was actually there... hang on." Vivian's phone muted for a brief moment, and then she came back. A door was closing. "Christian says hi. Okay, so yes, I was there."
Holly huffed. "You know I hate when you get into dangerous situations, sweetie."
"Mom. I'm a grown ass woman. I have two kids!"
"You're a somber six year old who calls me Miss Holly."
It was funny, but she could hear Vivian smile. "Wanna hear the story or not, Miss Holly?"
"You know I do!"
If it was remotely science related, Vivian always called her. If it was super gross, Vivian called her. If it was just plain weird, Vivian called her. And Holly loved it. She loved how Vivian always thought about her and made sure to include her on weird cop stuff.
The story was amusing. They had found an abandoned refrigerator in a back yard, which wasn't too odd. It was a shitty part of town. But with a missing person who happened to be an important person, ETF was rolled out with Vivian around. She was, after all, one of their finest products.
When the fridge was deemed too heavy to move, and too thick to scan, so they brought in the robot. Robbie took a sample but nothing came up, so they set up blast protection and cut it open.
The most putrid smells wafted over to the van, where Vivian was stationed, stunning even her.
Apparently some fellow's roommates had, while he was away, quote "ruined the refrigerator." It had picked up that horrible smell in just a week. Unable to clean it, he duct taped it and got a friend to help him haul it down to the yard.
"He came and turned himself it," said Vivian, giggling. "They brought me to him and the guy was whiter than Mom."
"Picturesque." Holly smiled. "How bad was the smell?"
"I showered in lemon before the press briefing."
Holly laughed. "Honey, I do not miss that one bit."
"How the hell did Mom put up with it?"
"I think she found it a little bit of an aphrodisiac. But Gail is ..."
"Weird. Mom's weird." But Vivian was laughing.
"So who's missing?"
Her daughter groaned. "This is what I get for telling you a gross story."
"You're IA, sweetie. You have no business on missing persons."
"I do when we think a cop kidnapped the kid."
"Oh ew."
"Right? It's possibly a sex thing to boot, so yay, yours truly has to be point."
"Lucky you. Will we get details on Friday?"
"That's actually why I called. Can we do Saturday?"
Holly glanced at her tablet and pulled up the calendar. "That's fine. Gail will be annoyed. Do the boys have a game?" Normally Holly tried to go to their sports games, but there was nothing on her calendars.
"No, they're with Jamie for the long weekend. I have, uh, a date."
Smiling, Holly leaned on the table. "Oh really? Do I get details?"
"It's just a friend from the museum. I don't know if there's anything at all."
Her trained ear heard a different story than what Vivian told. The girl was blushing. Gail would have teased Vivian mercilessly, which was why Vivian had simply stopped telling Gail about her dates. "You know," said Holly carefully. "The boys wouldn't mind if you dated a little more."
Vivian exhaled loudly. Right on the nose. "Ty doesn't mind. Lane gets ... weird."
Holly knew that wasn't true, but now was not the time to press. "He's almost in college. You should get over it."
"That's terrifying, you know. Two kids in college, what was I thinking?"
Holly laughed. "Tyson is going to graduate. Eventually."
"He applied for a masters study," said Vivian, somewhat despondent.
"On scholarship?"
"Thank god. But I'm trying to convince him to move out."
"Oh you want an empty nest?"
Vivian was quiet for a while. "I've never actually lived on my own, Mom."
That was startling. "Well." And Holly stopped right there. Vivian was right. She'd always had adults in the house. Even now, Matty had moved out once Tyson got into college, but the boys were grown. Men. Vivian had always had other grown people around. "You go up to the cottage by yourself," said Holly, temporizing.
"Mom." Just that. One word. Vivian expressed a lot in that word. "It's fine."
"I know. You can stay here if you want. After the boys move out."
"No. I'm going to downsize. Goofus and Gallant can share a room."
Holly grinned. "The offer is always open."
"I appreciate it." On Vivian's side, a door was opened and someone apologized. "I gotta go. Love you, Mom. See you Saturday."
"Love you too, sweetie. Solve crimes."
Vivian laughed as she hung up.
How many years had Holly had conversations like that? Talking about life, love, and work, interweaving threads of existence. It had been forever. Her whole life, the streams crossed and crissed and crossed again and again.
She texted Gail, letting her wife know that family dinner was moved. Gail's reply was a thumbs up. The poor retired cop was at a fund raising planning meeting, and would be grumpy when she got home.
But that was a later thing. Holly settled her glasses on her face and eyed her laptop again. She had things to write.
Her whole family stood around her as she stared at the box.
A wife. A daughter. Two grandsons. They all looked at the box with varying expressions. Gail was excited and nervous. Vivian had that placid calm she'd worn ever since her divorce. The boys looked like impish bookends.
This was it. This was something bigger than all the papers and the presentations. This was a real, honest to goodness, true crime book. A novel. It was already being touted as the next Helter Skelter, which frankly Holly felt was a bit much.
Her oldest grandson grumbled. "You're going to stare at this forever, Grandma." And he promptly pulled a knife out of his pocket and cut the box open.
Lane and Vivian laughed, while Gail's hand suddenly became sweaty. It was a comfort to know her wife was as nervous as Holly was. "God, I hope the jacket picture looks okay," muttered Gail.
They all stared.
The cover was a smashed in skull, a model of a real one that Holly had in her office still. Beside it was a bone, a femur, wrapped in leather on one end. Blood stained the other.
"Beyond the Bones," read Vivian, eagerly picking up the top copy. "Seriously? That's the title you went with?"
"They said it would sell better," pointed out Holly, peevishly. At least the subtitle of how it was a true story omitted the part about Holly being the most celebrated forensic pathologist. Instead it just read that it was a true story of a mystery spanning over a hundred years.
Gail reached in and immediately flipped the book over. "The New York Times says it's … A scientific thriller from start to finish, Dr. Stewart knows how to set the pace. Well that's boring."
"Wall Street Journal is better," said Lane. "The seemingly unrelated, but vaguely similar crimes are obvious in retrospect. Dr. Stewart cleverly draws a picture of how such a mystery could go unsolved, but also how modern science brought the criminals to justice."
"I like NPR." Tyson cleared his throat. "A winner. Just as Helter Skelter gave us an eye into the workings of the law for incredible cases, so does Beyond the Bones for forensics. From inventing new methodology to partaking in the interrogations, Dr. Stewart demonstrates why she is one of the greatest pathologists Canada has ever known."
Holly blushed. "Damn it, they said they took that part off."
Jogging her with an elbow, Gail laughed. "Face it, Stewart. You're amazing." She put her copy down to kiss Holly sweetly.
The sound of a camera stopped Holly from getting lost in the kiss. "I'm sending this to your publisher," announced Vivian, glibly. "Also the picture is great."
Gail oohed and flipped the book open to see the inner jacket. There was Holly, in one of her best court suits. Her hair was on point, her glasses down just a tiny bit. "Man eater," teased Gail.
"Never, not once," replied Holly, laughing.
"Check it out, Mom. You wrote a book! When's the tour start?"
Oh god, the tour. "Next month. Canada and the US." She grimaced. "Can you believe that?"
"Yes," said her grandsons, wife, and daughter, all at the same time.
"Come on, Grandma, you're incredible." Tyson held a copy out with a pen. "I want you to sign it."
Holly blushed and felt her ears go warm. "Ty, seriously?"
"Seriously." He gestured with the book and pen.
"You've read the story a hundred times," muttered Holly, but she dutifully took the items and signed her now well-practiced show autograph and an inscription to her oldest grandson.
Lane loomed over her shoulder to read. "To my grandson, Tyson. Remember, science... geeze, Gramma, boooooring."
That started a brotherly scuffle, with Tyson backhanding Lane's shoulder and Lane putting Tyson in a loose headlock. Vivian cleared her throat but didn't otherwise intervene. Her sons were young men now, living on their own in different parts of the city.
And yet they were still children. Gail and Steve had been the same way, well into their forties. Holly looked over at Gail who was posing for a photo holding the book, and Vivian who was taking the photo. They'd always had a connection, more when Vivian was younger and struggling to find purchase on the uneven land of her life. Gail, the tempest, had shown her a path.
As time had passed, Vivian had gone through her phases where she was gregarious (no, that didn't last long), insular (lasted too long), angry (came and went), stoic (not Holly's favourite), and now calm. Poised.
Gail called it a welcome Holly Phase, though Holly had dismissed that. As Holly watched her daughter take out a book and put a card in it, identifying it was for Oliver, Holly started to see what Gail meant.
It wasn't that Vivian was just like Holly, she was far calmer than Holly had been at the same age. But she had that easy dependability that Gail adored. Vivian was reliable, unlikely to be flustered, excited about the right things, and yes, a little self contained.
In Vivian, Gail saw the reliable pillar she herself had desperately needed in her twenties and thirties. It was no good to point out how terrified Holly had been through all of it, especially the first time Gail had come over injured. And Holly didn't see herself in Vivian, not exactly.
No, Holly saw Lily, her own mother. Or perhaps she saw Lily as that worthy had been distilled through herself. The pruning of some of the prickly thorns resulted in resilience, beauty, grace, and a remarkable amount of menace. Like Gail, Vivian had finally cultivated that damn look that sent people running.
Of course, that was pure Elaine. Vivian had the eyebrow down pat, and Holly had witnessed it first hand. They had been at some event or another and a rookie had mouthed off nearby. Without saying a word, Vivian made her presence known, arched both eyebrows, and the youngster bolted.
Holly had never had that skill. It delighted her to see her daughter grow into everything Vivian was, and demonstrate talents. People never stopped growing or changing, after all.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Vivian asked, smirking a little.
"I'm still prouder of you than my book," said Holly.
Her daughter's skin flushed. "Love you too, Mom."
"Good, come here."
Vivian obliged, but snagged a book. "Sign?"
"You want an inscription?"
"Only if you have something in mind."
Really, Holly didn't. She wrote her name and then hesitated. If it was for Gail, she knew what she'd write. Tyson was also easy. She'd been saying that catch phrase to him since he was a baby. Lane, thank god, didn't want an inscription.
But she should write something for her only child.
"You know," said Vivian, jolting Holly out of her thoughts. "I noticed your contract has space for a non science book."
Holly froze. "You cannot tell your mother." She looked over and saw Gail engrossed in conversation with Tyson.
"I won't," said Vivian, a clear promise.
And just like that, the words came.
The next book is for you.
The young man stood taller than everyone in the room. His uniform was crisp and perfect. His hair was, thank god, cut and styled for a change. And he was grinning.
"How do I look, grandma?"
Holly smiled. "You remind me of your mother," she told him, and stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.
"I look way better in uniform," said Vivian, in her dress blues, smirking.
"Uh, hello. Best Peck in uniform? Still my title." Gail, dressed up in a nice pants suit, caught Holly's hand.
"I still have the top score on the driving course." Vivian sniffed, dismissively.
"Yeah, 'cause you cheated!"
"It's not cheating!"
Tyson eyed the three cops. "Jesus, I am never gonna understand them."
"Me neither," admitted Holly. "It's just a driving course. Get over it."
As one, the three Pecks who were (or had been) cops snapped. "It's not just a driving course."
Holly rolled her eyes. She couldn't even be mad Lane was a cop at twenty, younger than both Gail and Vivian, because the boy had busted his ass to graduate early. He'd taken AP classes, begged his brother to help him, and actually had a two year degree before quitting school and applying.
The youngest Peck hadn't even told his mothers first. That had set Jamie and Vivian up for a row. For all their divorce had been amicable, there were still moments they had it out, and their youngest son following the Peck footsteps was often grounds for it. Holly and Gail had not intervened, mostly because Holly threatened her wife to butt out after Vivian had requested they not.
"Its just who they are, Ty." Holly grinned at her older grandson.
Tyson snorted and looked at Jamie. "Mom, back me up here."
But Jamie shook her head. "Sorry, baby boy. I gave up." The firefighter turned florist looked at her ex-wife, who was fixing Lane's tie. "He's happy, Ty. You know that's all we want for our boys."
The young man sighed loudly. "I know, Mom." And he wrapped his arms around Jamie. "But does he have to be happy in a uniform? I mean, Lane could be anything! He's smart and ..."
"We need smart cops too," said Holly, gently.
Tyson scowled. "He's gonna get hurt," he finally said.
Holly looked at the frustrated face before her. "You raised a good kid, Jamie," she told her former daughter-in-law.
"That's mostly your devil spawn's doing," Jamie pointed out, and she squeezed Tyson tightly. "You know Viv will keep an eye on him, Ty-Fighter."
"I know, Mom." He sounded morose. "Can't stop him from getting his heart stomped."
"No, but he'll make it through." Jamie was incredibly confident. "Go take some pictures of them, will you? You're better at it than Gail."
Tyson rolled his eyes and pulled his full body camera out of his backpack. "Fine. Fine. Fine."
Once he was over by the others, Jamie huffed. "I hate that he's right. Lane is too sensitive."
Holly patted Jamie's shoulder. "He'll be okay. Vivian, Christian, and everyone else will watch him."
"If Rich is his TO, I might borrow Viv's taser."
"I'll help," promised Holly, and they both laughed. "I'm constantly surprised so many of her class are still working."
"Most of my rookie class are done," mused Jamie. "It's a different world."
"Pecks are a bit of a different world." Holly tilted her head. Neither she nor Jamie were Pecks, though Jamie had been for nearly fifteen years. "Why'd you go back to McGann?"
It was a question Holly had wondered for years. Immediately after the divorce, Jamie had changed her name and Holly wanted to ask, but Gail had nixed that. It had been twelve years since the divorce, though, and Jamie and Vivian had worked through their problems more or less and reached a place where their friendship was not just sustainable but nice. Vivian teased Jamie about her boyfriends and girlfriends, Jamie encouraged Vivian to date. They were a family.
Families, Holly felt, got to ask awkward questions. Old ladies did too.
Jamie didn't look surprised. "It felt wrong."
"That's it?" Holly felt a little disappointed.
Her former daughter-in-law chuckled. "Holly, we're way past when I shouted at her over this. But it would have been weird to run McGann Flowers as a Peck."
Holly sighed. "They are lovely flowers. I loved what you did for my birthday."
"It's possibly the least I could do, Holly." Jamie grinned at her. "You were very adamant I wasn't allowed to ghost you."
The year following the divorce had been a mess. Vivian had been her stoic, insular, self. The boys had been remarkably trouble free. But everyone knew Jamie and Vivian had been hurting. They weren't happy about the divorce, though both insisted it was the right thing to do.
Still, Holly had reached out to Jamie multiple times, demanding she come over for dinners and birthdays and even holidays. Holly checked in on Jamie that first year, making sure Jamie was holding up with her own mother. She even drove out to Mississauga a few times to help make the house ready for the boys to visit. And it was on one of those visits that Holly had been the sole witness to what Jamie called her assiest moment.
When Lane was eleven, he declared he was going to be a police officer when he grew up. When he was twelve, he asked for a gun permit for his birthday. Vivian had sat him down, discussed the matter, and then went with him and Gail to the range. Her approval was tacit.
Jamie's was not. After weeks of arguing, Jamie blew up at Vivian, who was on speaker phone. Holly had been in the back room at Jamie's, making the beds for the boys. She knew it had been a rough week, but neither Vivian nor Jamie had said why, so Holly had simply made herself available to help Jamie prep for two weeks with the boys.
Just as Holly walked in to see what the shouting was about, Jamie screamed at the phone that she wanted something better for their son than to just be a damned cop. Then, mortified at her own words, Jamie stared at Holly.
To her credit, Vivian handled that a hell of a lot better than Gail had Lisa, all those years ago. She sighed loudly, said she was sorry, and asked Jamie to call her back a little later. And she hung up. If it had been Gail, or even Holly, at that age, they would have made a snide remark about calming down. Vivian didn't. She acknowledged the situation and let it go.
A second after the phone clicked, Jamie started crying about it and Mom Holly was there for a hug and a long talk about those Pecks.
Not that Holly was happy about Lane being a cop, but her distaste was for different reasons. She had witnessed first hand the damage the job did to Gail. Holly had carried her friend, girlfriend, and then wife through grief and agony for years. To that very day, Gail still had nightmares. So did Vivian for that matter, whom Holly had also supported through the trials of the job.
But just like Holly hadn't stood in Vivian's way, she knew she couldn't stop Lane from this choice. It was a calling. To be greater than one's self. And Jamie knew that too, but she was scared for the right reasons. She was scared for her son they teased and called Fast Lane. She worried about her ex-wife's too big heart, having a son in service.
They weren't married, but they still did love each other.
An hour later, Jamie called back and apologized for the shouting. Then they talked seriously about how they didn't get to decide their son's destiny. And no, Vivian didn't want him to get hurt, but she refused to make him smaller.
It marveled Holly at the time, how much more centred and calm Vivian was than she'd been as a youth or even a young adult. But there was her kid, in her late thirties, acting a hell of a lot more mature than Holly felt she'd been at the same age.
And now there was her kid, in her mid-forties, an arm around each of her son's shoulders, smiling for the camera. A scientist and a police officer. Tyson even had a serious girlfriend, Trinh, also a scientist. Lane had been a bit of a lothario, and Vivian had ratted him out on sleeping with two of his Academy classmates. Predictably, Gail had hooted when she heard that.
Right now, Gail was being accosted by other muckity mucks of the policing world. The current Commissioner was shaking Gail's hand, looking in awe of just being in Gail's presence. Christian on the other hand, Inspector of Fifteen, was cheerfully laughing about it.
Some of the younger kids were eyeballing Vivian and Gail, suitably serious in the presence of the head of IA. Previously they had only seen Vivian when she taught a class on understanding illegal orders. It was really more of a one-day lecture, but it had borne remarkable fruit in educating this generation of police.
Vivian balanced, as much as one human could, the need for a disciplined and obedient police force with that of a well trained and thoughtful one. It was impossible, she'd said at dinner once, to have them both in perfect harmony, but she felt that socially aware police who didn't forget their responsibility was possible. After all, Gail had worked out alright.
And now, now there was the latest Peck in countless generations of policing. Since Toronto had the police, a Peck had served.
"Which Precinct?" Jamie glanced at Holly as she asked, clearly thinking along the same thoughts.
Holly just smiled. "Which do you think?"
Her second cup of coffee and Holly's headache wasn't going away. "Why did we drink all that wine last night?"
Gail laughed and pushed over a bottle of pain killers. "Because it was really good wine?"
"I hate you, why don't you have a headache?" She struggled with the bottle and then shoved it back at Gail. Her wife looked smug as she opened the bottle and shook out some pills.
It was annoying that Gail didn't have a hangover. They'd had a bottle and a half of wine and a lovely salmon and watched the stars and lay out on the grass talking about nothing while the world moved through the night.
The cottage was Vivian's now, not theirs, but she insisted they use the master whenever they were in town. Holly didn't regret telling Gail to give the cottage up. After the divorce, Vivian took the kids up all the time. They went hiking and swimming and fishing. Even skiing. Every vacation, every summer, every long weekend.
It was probably a large part of how Vivian had pulled off being a single parent. A few times, Vivian had gone up alone. A lot of times, Gail had dragged the kids up with her and Holly to give Vivian a break. Every time they were all up at once, Vivian would sleep on the couch or outside. It was, she said, her house, so she got to decide where to sleep.
Holly did still love the cottage. She had always loved it. But. It was such a pain in the ass to get up there. And it was so far from everything else. Holly used to love spending weeks up there, and now she could do a couple days before she wanted to be home in her own bed and with her own comforts.
She was old.
Eighty-eight had been old. Ninety was old. Add three more years and she was fucking old.
"You're not old," said Gail.
Holly wrinkled her nose and looked at her wife. It was hard to be angry at her because Gail was still so amazingly beautiful, it stole Holly's breath sometimes. She was a heartbreaker, a heart stopper. Her skin was still flawless, her hair a clear and easy white (all natural to boot), her eyes that shining blue that challenged everyone. And right then, Gail was smiling, with eyes and lips, at Holly in a way Holly knew well.
"Stop looking at me like that," Holly grumbled.
"Stop looking like you look and maybe I will," retorted Gail, sassing.
"I'm old, Gail. I'm over 90."
Gail rolled her eyes. "I know that, you idiot."
"You're not very nice."
"You knew that when you married me."
Holly rolled her eyes and was startled when Gail kissed her. The kiss was warm and lingering and promising. Suggestive. "Hey, I really do have a headache," she whispered.
"This really hot doctor once told me sex was good for headaches."
Laughing, which did not help her head, Holly leaned into Gail and was rewarded by those amazingly strong noodle arms wrapping around her, holding her close.
"I am old," she muttered into Gail's chest.
"So am I," replied her wife, gently rubbing her back. "But I like being old with you."
She smiled. It was so nice to have Gail just there, holding her, comforting her. And she loved how Gail wanted to be with her, in all the ways that mattered. "I feel very lucky."
"I am awesome," agreed Gail. "How about you take that smut novel and go read in the sun."
Holly didn't really want to read, nor be too far from Gail at the moment. "And you?"
"Too sunny for old me. I'll sit in the shade."
They ended up sitting on the deck, under the awning. It was hot, but the breeze off the lake was delicious and welcome. Still, Holly found it hard to concentrate on her book, even after Gail made her a snack.
"My head is killing me," she complained, rubbing her temples.
"Did you take anything?"
"Aspirin. Didn't help."
Gail poured another glass of cool water. "You need a nap."
Holly made a face. "I hate naps."
"Liar." Gail smiled.
"You know what I mean."
Holly did not, in fact, hate naps at all. She just napped best in two places. One was the master bedroom, which was too hot at the moment, and the other was under a tree. The problem with the tree was it was also too hot. For Gail. And naps were best with Gail.
"Well." Gail jiggled the pitcher. "You have the last water. I'm hungry. So I'm going to make a salad and something meaty."
The idea of chewing was not welcome, nor was the idea of listening to the sound of Gail in the kitchen. Holly gave up. "Fine. You win. I'm going to read under the tree."
Gail smiled, clearly pleased to be in the right, and kissed Holly softly. "I'll wake you up in a bit."
Flipping her wife off, Holly took her water, book, and a towel to stretch out under the dappled shade of a tree older than her and Gail combined. And damn Gail, but she started to drift off right away.
That annoying, wonderful, crazy woman was always right. How Holly adored her.
This concludes Holly's story. If you aren't inclined to somber endings, stop reading here. If you want the final wrap up, the next chapter is the last chapter. Vivian will close us out.
