Skyler got home from her evening shift to find that Flynn was gone again. The first thing he had bought when he got the money, of course, was a car. This, combined with his newfound status as a footloose and fancy-free college student, meant that he was almost never home. Flynn had nearly missed that particular boat when his family had had no money, something that had hit him particularly hard, and he'd been offered a scholarship at the University of Massachusetts but it didn't come with a living allowance, so there would have been no practical way for him to live up there. The money from Gretchen and Elliott had saved his entire future, and no-one felt the relief or the excitement more than him. He could therefore have taken UMass's offer but, wanting to stay close to his friends and family, he had decided to enrol in a full fee-paying course at New Mexico University.
If it weren't for his family circumstances, Flynn didn't think he would have done this, but he just couldn't bring himself to leave his mother on her own. It wasn't that he thought she would hurt herself exactly, at least not with Holly there, but he found he couldn't trust her to do basic things like eat or leave the house without encouragement. She never smiled, she talked far less than she ever had before, and she was so thin she looked like she was fading away. She had rallied a bit a few months ago, but now she seemed to be deteriorating again, presumably because of the stress of the upcoming trial. She had regular meetings with her lawyer, after which she would not be capable of much conversation for the rest of the day and would always seem to want to go to bed early.
This was very difficult for Flynn to witness, so he relished his time with his friends as much as he could. If he had recognised the irony that he had stayed in Albuquerque for his family but was now spending barely any time with them, he would have felt guilty. But his mother encouraged him to get out and enjoy his youth as much as possible, and this, combined with the fact that she was often working, that Holly was often with Marie, and with his subconscious psychological need to get the hell out of the apartment he hated as often as possible, meant that these days, he was away more nights than he was home.
Not bothering to turn on the lights, Skyler shuffled to the kitchen sink and drank a glass of water. Then she slowly climbed the stairs to her bedroom, not even having the energy to brush her teeth. She kicked off her shoes and pants and sank gratefully into her bed, pulling her knees towards her chest and the comforter over her head. She closed her eyes, but her mind would not be still.
...
"So what's she like?"
"You're about to find out." Skyler filled the coffee machine with water and turned it on.
"I know, but what's your impression of her? You said she wants to get to know me, apparently. Let me get to know her."
"You will in five minutes."
"Oh, attorney client privilege goes both ways, does it?"
There was a knock at the door of the apartment. Skyler went to open it.
"She's punctual, I'll give her that," said Marie.
Kim entered, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase.
"Kim, this is my sister Marie," said Skyler.
"Hi," said Marie.
Kim extended her hand. "Nice to meet you, Marie."
"Ah, coffee?" said Skyler.
"Sure, thank you," said Kim.
"Have a seat," said Skyler, and moved away into the kitchen.
Kim placed her briefcase on the small table, took out a notebook and sat down. Marie looked at the table and then at the sofa, and finally sat down at the table opposite her.
"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me," said Kim.
"Of course."
"Just to be clear, I know you're a prosecution witness and that's not why I'm meeting with you - I'm not permitted to ask you any questions about that. I'd just like to have a talk with you to get your perspective on things. The reason I didn't wanna meet at your house is I didn't want it to look like I was trying to lean on you in any way. I'm not. It's your decision to me with me and you can leave at any time."
"Well, I would like to be a defence witness."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Can I do both?"
Skyler brought two cups of coffee to the table and then a small plate of graham crackers, which Kim had to move her briefcase to make room for.
"I'm gonna take Holly for a walk," said Skyler. Holly was already prepared for this, being asleep in her pushchair in a corner of the room.
"Thank you, Skyler, sorry to take over your living room."
"That's fine, no problem." Skyler pushed the pushchair out the front door, and Marie and Kim were alone.
"Unfortunately no, you can't do both," said Kim. "I am glad that you want to, though – does that mean that you might be willing to plan out with me the questions I'll ask you in the cross-examination, and your answers to them?"
"Sure, yeah, I mean I do have things I need to say for the Prosecution, like I do need to report what Skyler did, truthfully because I believe in saying the truth and she did do the wrong thing, but I wanna also be able to say that Walt made her do it so it's not like it was… Like, a lot of it wasn't her fault. I mean, she could have done a lot better at stopping it, but she couldn't have prevented it. He put her in a really awful position and he just… it was just, it – it was his choice, not hers."
Kim wrote something on her notepad. Marie tried to read it upside down.
Kim looked up. "Ok, I have a few questions I'd like to ask you, a few things I'd like to get your perspective on. They're gonna be pretty direct questions, so please forgive me for that. The first one is, what kind of sentence do you think Skyler deserves?"
Marie's head moved backwards in surprise. "Direct indeed. Um. I haven't really thought about that. I've just been hoping she'll get something at the lower end of the scale."
"The term I used there was 'deserves'. What does she deserve?"
"You know you're the defence lawyer, right?"
"And you're a prosecution witness. Put yourself in that headspace. If it helps, don't think of her as your sister - try and be objective about it."
"Objectively…. she laundered hundreds of thousands of dollars through a business and lied about it. I mean she deliberately constructed a false story about where the money came from. She concealed knowledge of ongoing felonies for a very long time. She also refused to co-operate with my husband when he found out about it, and then she and Walt blackmailed him. And then he and another agent got killed, so. It was all pretty bad."
"Well, she's only being tried for money laundering. The minimum prison sentence for the amount that she is alleged to have been laundering is one year, and the maximum is nine years. So if you were the judge and you had to decide fairly on what sentence to give her, what do you think you would pick?"
"Are you pushing for one year?"
"I'm pushing for it to either be knocked back to a misdemeanor or a not guilty verdict. Based on coercion."
"She is guilty, though."
"How much coercion do you think there was?"
Marie frowned. "Walt was a really manipulative guy," she said. "Skyler will tell you that she made these decisions on her own, that buying the car wash was her idea, that the cover story about the gambling was her idea, and that she was the one who did all the actual laundering. And that's true, I know her very well and I knew Walt pretty well too, and he couldn't have done any of those things. But he did put her in a position where she felt she had to do them. For some stupid reason, she didn't have the strength to go to the cops about him. She will tell you that, while she didn't know the extent of what Walt was doing and was absolutely horrified when she found out, she will tell you that the decision to get involved was hers. She really believes that she had some kind of agency in it, rather than having been thrown into it by him. But the thing about Walt was that he was a puppet master of manipulation, and he knew how to say and do just the right things at the right times so that she would arrive at that decision. She was also afraid of him and she was also in love with him, so... she's gonna do exactly what he wants her to do."
"Do you have any examples of how Walt did this?"
"Oh, loads. I can make you a list if you like."
"That would be very helpful, thank you."
"Of him doing it to Skyler, or just in general?"
"Particularly to Skyler, but anything else that shows that aspect of his personality would be very useful." Kim wrote something down on her notepad.
"Ok."
"So, misdemeanor or felony?"
Marie screwed up her nose. "It's difficult, because you know that adorable little girl who was asleep in the pushchair just now? I love her with all my heart, and she really needs her mom to be around."
Kim shook her head. "You can't consider that. If that was a factor in criminal sentencing, all the childless people would be in prison and all the parents would be out, no matter what they'd done!"
"Felony."
Kim nodded. "What sentence?"
"Minimum. One year."
Kim nodded and wrote something in her notebook. "Do you want to get justice for your husband?"
"Jesus, you don't pull any punches!"
"It'll be worse in the courtroom."
"Do you think they'll ask me that?"
"They'll certainly try."
"Yeah well course I want justice for Hank, but I'm not gonna get it - the guys who killed him are dead! Sending Skyler to prison for longer is not gonna do anything, that's not what he would've wanted!"
"You don't blame her for his death?"
"No, I…. I used to, but… I… that hurt too much! I mean not that it's ever not going to hurt, but… I…" Marie swallowed, and her hands flailed around. She paused. "I could have lost both of them on the same day, but I chose not to. I chose to keep Skyler in my life – it was hard at first, but I… I mean it's not like I'm a pushover or like I'm needy or… I'm not, I would've cut her out of my life if it was directly her fault or if she had been actively working with Walt or if it had been her idea to con us all and cook meth… But I talked about it with my therapist a lot, and I decided that I wanted to try and keep her in my life, so I went to her and I said I'm mad at you and I want you to tell me everything. I wanted to know her reasons why for everything. And she told me and I assessed that and…. I found that… while I wouldn't have done it myself, I could understand her reasons why. She was in a difficult situation, she was put there by Walt, and she believed she didn't have a choice.
"And more than that, the thing that was immediately obvious was her regret. She is a shadow of what she used to be. She's depressed, she's anxious, she hates herself, she speaks in a monotone all the time, she shows no enjoyment in anything - in the last year and a half I have seen her smile, like a proper genuine smile, once on her daughter's birthday. She is broken by what she has done. She knows she did it and she blames herself for all of it, which makes it very clear one: that she didn't mean to hurt anybody, and two: that she's already suffering enough. So I would blame her for my husband's death if she was jumping around on his grave, but she's not. The one who has been hurt the most by all of this is her. Now I have the choice of whether I should cut her out of my life or not and I choose not, and she questions me over and over again on that decision because she doesn't think she deserves to be around me anymore. She treats me completely differently. Part of that is that she just is different, she has no energy or enthusiasm or drive to even say anything very much, let alone do much, but there have been so many times when I've said things and then I've thought, You would've argued with me about that. Why are you not arguing with me? Or if I've asked her to do something and she's just done it, and I've thought hang on a minute, she wouldn't have done that before. Not without questioning me or telling me I'm being unreasonable - she never tells me I'm being unreasonable anymore. I am unreasonable quite a lot of the time, and she just takes it. She thinks she deserves it."
Kim nodded, and turned a page in her notebook. "Thanks, Marie. This is very useful. So what do you think you can contribute to the Defence case?"
"Well I can tell the court that, how remorseful she is. And what I witnessed. When it was happening."
"What did you witness?"
"I was so worried about her, she wasn't right - she wasn't herself then either. She had a lot more energy than she does now, but she was not right. One time she just started screaming in her office at the car wash, she was yelling - this is when she used to yell at me - she was yelling, "Shut up shut up shut up!" at me, and then she just burst into tears - she couldn't control anything, she couldn't speak, she couldn't think properly, and I just had to take her home. She'd been at work, and she's always been a very focused person at work, always very capable, and all of a sudden she wasn't capable of anything and I had to take her home and put her to bed. Then fucking Walt told me she was seeing a therapist when she wasn't. Asshole. And then there was the time she got in the pool - you know about that, right? That was like self-harm, that was really scary."
"No, I don't think I've heard about that."
"It was the most harrowing thing I ever saw. It was absolutely horrible, and my heart was breaking for her, and I just didn't know what was wrong."
...
Skyler and Holly walked through the suburban streets for a while. Holly was still sleeping, and Skyler was quite glad of the peace and quiet. She walked to a small park about five blocks away, sat down under a tree and took a book out of her bag. She didn't open it. Instead she closed her eyes and felt the breeze on her face, then looked up at the canopy of the tree with the sunlight sprinkling softly through it, and then she looked across at the sleeping face of her daughter and wished she had more time to do this. The feeling was both liberating and stifling, because she knew that soon she would be locked away in a concrete cell.
Skyler leaned her head against the tree and tried to relax. She focused on her breathing. In and out. The book remained unopened in her hand. She pulled Holly's stroller closer so that she could hold her arm around it, and closed her eyes.
Skyler was woken by a ball hitting the trunk of the tree above her, and the sound of a child's feet rustling through the grass to pick it up.
"Did you say sorry to the lady?" came an older woman's voice.
The little boy, who had already run away from Skyler, turned back to face her. "Sorry!" he called.
"That's alright," she said. Stretching, she checked on Holly, who was starting to stir. Then she became aware that the older woman and the boy were still staring at her. A man joined them, and she saw the man and woman speak, and the woman point in her direction.
"Time to go, Holly," said Skyler, quickly jumping up and leaving the park.
She walked briskly back through the streets, looking behind herself to make sure she wasn't being followed.
"Are we going to the park, Mommy?" asked Holly.
"No, honey. We're going home."
"Were we in the park?"
"Yeah, for a little bit but now we have to go home."
"Why?"
Skyler's phone began to ring.
"Why, Mommy?"
"Hang on, darling, the phone's ringing." Skyler answered it.
It was Kim, who was just getting into her car. "You can have your house back now, thank you."
"Ok, sure."
"I think Marie will be helpful for your case, but I'd like to talk to her a bit beforehand. She has some very useful things to say, but I would need to make sure that she stays on topic. And I would want to set the topic pretty firmly. Some of the things she says are beneficial for you and some of them aren't. She said she does want to help your case, but she wants to do that because she cares about you, not because she thinks you're innocent. She thinks you're guilty."
"I know."
"Ok, well, I'll plan out my questions and I'll go through them with her beforehand. I'll design them so that she can explain things in her own words, but only on certain topics."
"Like what?"
"Primarily things to do with your relationship with Walt. I think she can add a lot to the coercion argument."
"Oh. Really?"
"I took notes on it, so I'll write it up and I can go through it with her again later."
"Ok. Thank you."
"I'll be in touch. And like I said before, if you could please keep trying to think of anyone else who could be a defence witness, anyone with knowledge of yours or Walt's personality or your relationship, or how things were for you when it was all going on - are you sure you don't want your son to testify?"
"Absolutely sure."
"It's just that I read his police statement, and the information in it would be really useful in court, but I can't turn in a written statement, I have to have him deliver it. As his parent, you can authorise that."
"No."
Kim sighed. "Alright. I'll be in touch."
"Thanks, Kim."
Kim turned her ignition key and drove away just as Skyler was entering the unit complex from the other side. She opened her front door to find Marie sitting on the sofa with her handbag over her arm. She stood up when she heard the door open.
"How was it?" asked Skyler.
"She doesn't pull any punches. When I asked you to describe her to me, if I was you, I would've said, 'She doesn't pull any punches.'"
"Well, she just called me to tell me she was impressed with you."
"Good." Marie nodded, bending down to help Holly out of her pushchair. Holly held out her arms, and Marie picked her up for a cuddle. "Good to see you, darling. I gotta go." She put Holly down on the sofa and moved towards the door.
"You ok?" asked Skyler.
Marie turned, her hand on the doorknob. "Yeah," she said expressionlessly. "See you later."
...
The next day, Skyler happened to pull up at Marie's house at exactly the same time as Flynn did. "Hey, stranger!" she said, moving towards him.
"Hey Mom," he said, hugging her. "Sorry, I ha-haven't really been around much lately, have I?"
"That is not problem at all. You're young, enjoy it as much as you can."
"I am. But i-if you need my help, just let me know. Anytime."
"Thank you." Skyler leaned into the back of her car and unbuckled Holly, who yelled "Finn, Finn!", jumped out of the car and hugged Flynn's legs.
"Hey Holly," said Flynn, patting her on the head. "A-are you here for lunch too?"
"Yeah!"
"I'm just dropping her off, I gotta go to work," said Skyler.
"Actually no, you don't got to."
"I've asked them if I can reduce my hours a bit."
Flynn rolled his eyes and knocked on the door, and Marie let them inside. Skyler was barely in before she was gone again.
She only had four weeks left. The amount of money she could earn in that time was certainly minimal, and her expenses had gone down significantly since both her children had been spending long periods out of her house. But at this point, in light of that, her only options were to work or be alone. The plan to get Holly used to being cared for by Marie would fail if Skyler spent any more time with her. Work was what kept her away. Forced her to stay away, for the good of the child. If she didn't have that distraction, she would either cave and go and spend as much time with Holly as she could, or, if she was to maintain her self-control and stop herself from doing that, she would have to remain alone. Skyler was really afraid of what would happen to her if she did that. When she was alone, her mood fell even further. She feared its associated lack of control over her actions and wits, but more than that, she just didn't want to suffer it. Being alone, for Skyler now, was hell. Going to work, tiring and soul-destroying though it was, was a welcome distraction.
"Did you and Mom have a fight?" asked Flynn as he walked back into the kitchen after seeing Skyler to the door.
"No," said Marie. "Why do you say that?"
"You di-didn't say much to each other."
"Well I never know what to say to her these days. And she was here and gone."
"Neither do I really, but... it... it just feels a bit stunted. The conversation. There's a barrier there be-because she just wants to talk about me, but it's like sh-she can't quite tell what to say either."
"Oh yeah, that's been the case for a long time, but I've been struggling particularly this week because I had a meeting with her lawyer and she made me go through everything, and I was like… oh my god, that happened. Like I think I blocked it out? I mean I know that it happened, but for a long time I wasn't thinking about it, and I think I blocked it out. And the whole thing is as ridiculous as it ever was. Like why did she do that? It was just so ridiculously stupid. And the result was the complete opposite of her intention, it was a B-grade slow motion train crash that exploded all over all of our lives. And I just can't believe that really happened."
"Y-yeah, I know what you mean. I tr-try not to think about it too. What's the lawyer like?"
"I think good. She was really direct and pulling no punches and making me as uncomfortable as possible, and I think that's what lawyers are meant to do. And she was asking me some things that she said we're not gonna talk about in the trial at all, but she wanted to ask me so she knew as background knowledge. Because she wanted to know where I was coming from. Which means she's thorough, and that's good."
"Do you have her…phone number? I wanna ask her about b-being a witness, because nobody has asked me about that a-and I don't understand why, I mean I witnessed Dad… throwing Mom to the ground, which shows a lot about the way that he… treated her, a-and surely the court needs to know that."
"Yeah. The lawyer said she's basing her argument around that, so…"
"W-why has she not contacted me, then?"
"Yeah I don't know, I'll give her a call." Marie pulled Kim's business card out of her purse and dialled.
"Kim Wexler."
"Hi Kim, it's Marie Schrader. I'm just wondering if you would like to meet with my nephew Flynn. He said he would like to be a defence witness, and he was witness to a pretty big incident that happened."
"Oh thank you, yes, I'm aware of that, but as he's under 18 I would require parental permission to call him, and Skyler isn't willing to do that."
"No, he's 18."
"He's what?"
"He turned 18 last month."
"Oh! I'm so sorry, I didn't know that. I… mustn't have researched it properly, I thought he was 17."
"Definitely 18. I was there, and I was there when he was born as well."
"Ok, um, yes, please give me his contact details."
"Well he's with me right now, do you want me to pass the phone over?"
"Sure." Kim began desperately rummaging through her briefcase and all her other notes, which formed several extensive piles on the desk in her motel room.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Flynn? My name is Kim Wexler, Wexler & Wildmann, ah…. I'm your mom's lawyer."
"I know. W-why haven't you called me? I thought someone would've… called me by now."
"You know what, I'm really glad you called me. I've gotta level with you, your mother does not want you to give evidence at the trial. And I… She didn't lie or mislead me or anything, it was my mistake, I had your age wrong and I thought you were a minor, and a minor can't be compelled to testify without the consent of their parents. But your aunt's just told me you're 18?"
"Yeah, I am, and y-you shouldn't listen to anything my mom says. Her speciality is… digging herself into as big a hole as possible and then not l-letting anyone help her out of it. Th-thank you so much for coming to help."
"You're welcome. Can we meet up?"