Marie pulled the purple stocking over the coat hanger and attempted to connect it with the glue she had placed on the other side. It wouldn't reach, so she pulled harder. She got it there, pressed it into the glue and let go, only to have it snap back with a twang and splash glue onto her face. "Oh, shoot," she said. The other side had turned out perfectly, but somehow she had ended up with less material for this side. She picked up the spare piece of stocking she had cut off and discarded and wondered if she could reattach it. Then she heard a knock at the door. She opened it with her creation still in her hand. It was Flynn. "Hey! Check it out, I'm making fairy wings for Holly's party. Although these ones aren't going too well, so they can be for me - I'll make more for Holly once I know what I'm doing. Do you wanna be a wizard? Or an elf? Oh my god, you would be the best elf! The magazine that has the wings instructions in it also has the best instructions for making elf ears!"

"Oh." Flynn nodded unenthusiastically. "Ok."

Marie led him through to the dining room and picked up a magazine off the table, which was also strewn with glitter, purple tinsel and various craft products. Marie began flipping through the pages. "Oh where was it, it was in here somewhere. Ah!" She held up a picture of a boy in an elf costume. "That would work for you, right?"

"I guess."

"Oh, of course. I should have known you wouldn't be enthused with the idea of dressing up for a fairy party. That's fine cos I'm loving it, and your sister is gonna go crazy! Oh my god, I can't wait to see her little face!" Marie grinned.

Flynn nodded half-heartedly.

"What's up with you?"

"I had a f-fight with Mom."

"Oh."

"Can I stay here tonight?"

"Of course! Ah, take a seat, do you want a drink or something?"

"Can I have a glass of w-wine please?"

"Umm."

"Are you gonna treat me like a… baby too?"

"No, it's not that, I'm fine with the idea in principle, it's just are you asking me because you would genuinely enjoy having a glass of wine with me, or because you wanna get back at your mother?"

"No, I'm asking because I'm an… adult and I wanna have a glass of wine w-with another adult - is there anything wrong with that?"

"No, there's nothing wrong with that. We can do that." Marie walked over to the bar. "Red or white?"

"R-red. Thank you."

"You have mature tastebuds, don't you?" Marie pulled a bottle from under the bar and began pouring. "Now just to be clear, we are only gonna have one glass each. Because it is also mature to be controlled about your drinking."

"Yeah, unlike Mom, who's probably drunk a wh-whole bottle by now."

Marie winced. "Oh. Sorry to hear that. Is that why she was upset?"

Flynn sighed. "To be fair to her, I pr-probably made her drink faster by continuing to talk about… s-something she was trying to run away from."

"Oh ok, yeah. She's good at that." Marie put the bottle away and carried the two glasses to the coffee table. Marie sat in the armchair that Hank once sat in when he was talking about tagging trees.

Flynn sat on the sofa opposite. "Sh-she said I'm not allowed to watch the trial in… the public gallery. E-even now, after so much time, she's s-still trying to prevent me from… knowing stuff. Which won't even work, because it'll all be in the media, a-and she said she's ok with you being in the public gallery, sh-she said I can ask you and you can tell me! S-so preventing me from being there doesn't… achieve anything at all! W-what's the point?"

Marie took a sip of her wine, frowned and nodded. "That's fair enough, actually," she said.

"What?"

"It's a fair enough thing for her to want. I mean, all of the most intimate details of her life are gonna be laid out there for everyone to see. If I was her, I wouldn't want my son to see it."

"I understand that that's aw-awkward and everything, b-but I'm gonna find out anyway. It'll be on the news, it'll … be in the newspapers, it'll be on s-social media, e-everyone I know will be talking about it - y-you will be talking about it! I get why she's uncomfortable with this… happening, but sh-she can't actually control it. I'm gonna find out either way. I'd rather be given the dignity to f-find out on my own rather than having to be… told by a newsreader or my best friend's girlfriend!"

"That's not what the problem is, though. I mean yes that is a problem for her, you finding out all her personal information, but she can't control it, you're right. I think it's more likely that she just doesn't wanna see you when that happens. She doesn't wanna be sitting there in the courtroom watching your face and trying to figure out what you're thinking. And worrying about you. Which is what she always does all the time, by the way. Anytime you or Holly are in the same room, she is not focusing on her own thoughts and feelings at all, which when she's on trial is a problem. She needs to hear what's being said, she needs to react appropriately, she needs to appear focused and committed to the process. Otherwise she'll look bad in front of the jury."

"W-what, you think I'll distract her?"

"Yeah. The entire time she'll be thinking, 'What's Flynn thinking, what's Flynn feeling?' And if you're in the public gallery then she can see you, and if that was me, I would be trying to read the person's face the whole time. I've caused myself so much grief by doing that - you see things that aren't there, you talk to the person later and they're like, 'No, I wasn't thinking that,' but in the moment when you see their face, you can't help wondering. She'll probably be wondering if you'll ever speak to her again."

Flynn frowned. "But I'm not gonna… I mean, I wanna know more about it, but I'm not gonna… reject her."

"You rejected your father."

"Sh-she didn't do what he did. Do you think the trial is going to... d-do you think she did?"

"No, I don't. I think there are some things that are gonna come out in the trial that we don't know about yet, but I think she thinks they're worse than they actually are. But actually I think what concerns her more than the idea of you rejecting her is the idea of you suffering any pain because of the whole thing. She doesn't care about herself at all, but if she was sitting in the courtroom and she saw you becoming visibly upset about something, or worse still if she was actually being questioned herself and she couldn't bring herself to answer a question properly because she couldn't bear to see your face when she admitted to something that you don't know about yet. What if she compromises her own evidence because of it?"

"Sh-she didn't say anything about that, though. She just kept talking about privacy. It's not… private, it's a trial!"

"It's gonna be hard for her. And as we said before, she does have a tendency to try and run away from anything that's unpleasant, so she's probably trying not to think about it too much now. But it's gonna be hell for her. It's gonna be horrible to hear it all laid out. She doesn't wanna hear it herself, let alone you."

Flynn began feeling a familiar stab of guilt. "I guess I wasn't being very understanding."

"I'm not saying that. It's a reasonable thing for you to want as well. But she really needs to focus on herself, on her reactions, her facial expressions, her stance, the way she's sitting - she said her lawyer is actually giving her instructions about that. How to look, how to sit. She needs to be focused. And if you're there, she's just gonna be thinking about you, not her."

"I ha-hadn't thought about it that way."

"Don't worry, it is very hard to try and figure out where Skyler is coming from." Marie sighed. "I'm just gonna go to the bathroom."

As she walked along the hallway, Marie took her phone out of her pocket and texted Skyler. Flynn's here. Are you alright?

Her message tone beeped while she was in the bathroom, and she opened it after she finished washing her hands. Is he ok?, said the reply.

Marie walked back into the living room and sat on the sofa next to Flynn. "Never thinking about herself, you see," she said, handing him her phone.

Flynn sighed. "I should go back over there."

...

Skyler sat on the floor with her back to the wall, her arms hugging her legs, her head drooping between her knees. She heard the sound of keys in the lock, and raised her head slowly.

Flynn looked down at her, and his heart broke. "W-what are you doing on the floor? Are you ok?"

He stepped falteringly towards her as she looked up at him, her eyes glistening. "No," she said weakly. "In 3 weeks' time I have to go to prison. How could I be ok?"

"Come on." Steadying himself on his left crutch, he held his right arm out to her and tried to pull her up. This took a bit of effort from both of them, but finally Skyler got half upright and Flynn put his arm around her and sat her on the sofa. "How much did you drink?" he asked.

"I only had one bottle. I could only afford one bottle."

"Good."

"You're not gonna give me money for that."

"No, I'm not."

"I set a very bad example for you. I'm sorry. Don't be like me. Don't do it."

"The way that I am l-like you is that I care about other people. I'm… sorry about what I said before. I shouldn't have treated you… like that."

"No, I'm sorry. I yelled at you. I'm sorry."

"Are you scared? About what they're gonna say in the trial?"

"I'm so scared." Skyler began to cry. "I'm so scared."

Flynn pulled her close. "It's ok Mom, I-I won't go to the public gallery. I'll be a witness, b-because that will help. And if there's anything else I can do to help, y-you let me know."

Skyler sobbed.