Skyler stepped through her back door, a cigarette already hanging from her lips. She placed her phone to her ear as she lit it. "Hi, it's Skyler Lambert here, can I please speak to Dr Jensen urgently? There was an incident that happened today with my daughter."
"Hold on, I'll just see if she's available," said Dr Jensen's receptionist.
Skyler sucked deeply on her cigarette as the hold music rang in her ears. The syncopated thudding sound of Holly and Flynn playing Hungry Hungry Hippos floated through the window. Then Holly yelled triumphantly.
"You're so good at this!" said Flynn.
"Yeah!" Holly put her arms up in the air and grinned. "Play again?"
"But then you'll…beat me again!"
"Yeah." Holly nodded and began setting up the game again.
"M-maybe I don't wanna play again!"
"Come on Finn, don't be scared!"
Flynn laughed.
"It's not scary."
"Alright."
"Good." Holly handed Flynn the bat just as his phone rang.
"Just a second, Holly," he said. "Hey, Michael... Really? C-cool... I can't tonight, sorry… Th-thanks for inviting me, though... No, sorry, I can't… Ha, awesome. Good, y-you have a great time... Alright, bye."
He hung up the phone to find that Holly was holding her bat ready over the top of the Hungry Hippos. She seemed to be wearing the most intimidating look she could muster, and she looked like a spring about to fire. Flynn held her eyes and made his eyes go wide. Then, very gradually, he poked his tongue out. Holly didn't react, but he could see that she was fighting the urge to smile. He poked his tongue out further, turned his head to the side and rolled his eyes. Then he pulled his nostrils open with his hands. Finally, Holly laughed.
"Haha, I got you!"
Holly kept giggling as Flynn picked up the Hungry Hippos bat and imitated Holly's ready stance. She laughed more.
"How can you play H-Hungry Hippos when you're laughing?"
Holly collapsed sideways onto the floor, and Flynn chuckled. He leant over and poked her stomach with the bat, and she squealed. "Maybe I'll tickle you, Holly," he said. He poked her with the bat again. "Do you think this works for tickling?" He moved it across her stomach. "Y-you're laughing, so I guess it's working."
"No!" She squealed breathlessly.
"No? It's not tickling? D-do you mean I have to use my fingers to tickle you?"
Holly tried to move away, but Flynn caught her and started tickling her. She squealed and laughed and so did he.
Skyler watched them through the kitchen window, crying tears of relief. She leant on the wall, her body shaking with sobs. She breathed deeply, in and out, ten times, and then went back inside. Flynn was now playfully banging the Hungry Hippos bat on the floor next to Holly and moving it towards her until she rolled out of the way, laughing all the while.
Skyler walked towards them. "I don't think she's a hippo, Flynn," she said as she sat down on the sofa.
"Oh, is she not? What?" Flynn put out his hand and rolled Holly over so he could see her face. "Oh my god, it's my sister!" He looked up at his mother with an overdone look of shock on his face. "It's not a hippo! I'm s-so sorry, Holly, I thought you were a hippo!"
Holly pealed with laughter. Skyler smiled for the first time in weeks. She watched them for a while, trying to commit every last detail to memory. Holly gradually calmed down, and lay on the floor looking up at her. Skyler leaned forward and stroked her hair. "Do you wanna go to the aquarium tomorrow?" she asked.
Holly's eyebrows rose and her mouth fell open. "Really?"
"Yeah. You said you wanted to go a while back - I'm sorry it's taken me so long."
"YAAAAY!" Holly yelled, and both Flynn's and Skyler's heads moved involuntarily away from the noise.
"I can't believe someone so s-small can make such a big noise!" said Flynn. "That's why I thought you were hippo!"
Holly giggled again.
"You too, Flynn?" asked Skyler. "Don't feel obliged, but…"
"No, that'd be great. I-I'd like that." He smiled.
"And, ah, money-wise, could you…"
Flynn smiled. "Yeah."
"Thank you. Then we'll go to Aunt Marie's for dinner," she said, the shadow of a smile on her face falling.
"Can Aunt Marie come to the aquarium too?" asked Holly.
"No, she'll be working tomorrow. We'll see her after."
"Ok. Are you not working, Mommy?"
"No, I'm not."
"Yay!"
"How good is that?"
"That's really good." Flynn smiled.
...
Flynn, Holly and Skyler arrived at Marie's house the following evening laden with food. Marie opened the door and took a bowl of salad from the top of the teetering pile in Skyler's arms.
"I'm carrying the dessert, Aunt Marie," said Holly proudly, holding up a bag with a square tub inside it. "It's chocolate icecream!" She grinned.
"Oh wow, that's awesome!" said Marie. "I think I have some frozen raspberries we can put with it."
"No, I just want chocolate icecream," said Holly, taking Marie's hand and walking towards the kitchen with her. "Guess what we did today!"
"What did you do today?"
"We went to the aquarium, and we saw fish and squids and turtles and sharks and ocopuses," Holly took a big gasping breath, "and seahorses and crabs and stingarays and jelly fish!" She gasped again.
"Wow! Aren't you lucky!"
"It was awesome."
"It really was," said Flynn, opening the freezer for Holly to put the icecream inside.
"Wow, did all of you go?" Marie raised her eyebrows at Skyler, who nodded.
"Wow! Without me?"
"You were at work," said Holly.
"Yeah, I was." Marie sighed.
"I don't like work. I think all the grown-ups shouldn't do work."
"Yeah, you might be on to something there, kid."
"Can I show Finn the sparky rocks?"
"Ok."
"Come on, Finn!" Holly yelled and tore out of the room. Flynn followed her.
Skyler and Marie set about preparing the food.
"Are you sure we should do it tonight?" said Marie. "It's just yesterday was so…recent."
"We're running out of time."
"I know, but is she ok now? She got triggered yesterday - that was a big deal, that can take a while to recover from, and -"
"Does she seem ok to you?"
"Yeah, but -"
"I've been watching her all day. Dr Jensen said that since she is not mentally unstable there's no reason why she wouldn't bounce back from it quickly. So she said to go to the aquarium and -"
"The aquarium will make anyone happy! Take me to the aquarium, I wouldn't care if my dog just died - the aquarium is distracting, it won't let you know how you really feel!"
"Dr Jensen said to go there in the morning: we were there for three hours, then we had lunch, then we had a quiet afternoon. She had a nap, and she played quietly by herself, happily by herself."
"By herself? Did she seem withdrawn?"
"No, she played happily by herself. I was watching her all day - I wasn't far away from her but she wasn't snapping around my ankles, she wasn't being clingy, she wasn't withdrawn, she wasn't grumpy without cause, she wasn't tired without cause, she didn't have any mood swings, she didn't show any fear - these are all things we have to look out for!"
"Yeah yeah I know, I was there when Dr Jensen said that."
"Ok, well when I spoke to her last night she suggested going to the aquarium in the morning and then having a quiet afternoon and just watching Holly to see how she was. And she was fine."
Marie nodded, and took a deep breath. "Ok."
Skyler took the Saran Wrap off two bowls of salad and picked them up.
Marie stood still, staring at her. "So we have to rip off the band-aid now."
Skyler stopped moving. "Yep." She swallowed.
"Ok, well, it'll be fine. We'll have dinner first and then dessert with chocolate icecream and raspberries - it'll be great, it'll be fine." Marie picked up a casserole dish and followed Skyler to the dining room.
...
Flynn sat alone on the purple stripy armchair in the living room, staring straight ahead.
Skyler stood on the front porch smoking and anxiously jiggling up and down. Pull off the band-aid, she thought. She finished her cigarette quickly and went back to the living room.
"You stink," said Flynn as she passed him.
"Sorry," she said, sitting down on the sofa.
"Are you gonna be able to do that in prison?"
"Don't know."
...
"How does it work?" asked Holly as Marie pushed the buttons on the dishwasher.
"It squirts lots and lots of soapy water around until all the dishes are clean."
"Really? There's water in there?"
"Yeah."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Wow, you have great things at your house, Aunt Marie."
"Do you think?" said Marie, taking Holly's hand and leading her along the hallway. "Would you like to live here?"
"Why, are you lonely?"
Marie cleared her throat. "Yeah, maybe."
"It's a big house just for you."
"Yeah, it is."
"Can I play with the sparky rocks again?"
"Not now honey, there's something your mommy has to talk to you about."
They arrived in the living room. Skyler beckoned to Holly, and she ran over to her. "Mommy, can we all come and live with Aunt Marie? She said she's lonely in this big house all by herself."
Skyler stroked her cheek ever so gently. "You can," she said.
"Really?"
"Yeah. But there's something I have to tell you."
Holly looked at her mother.
"Come here," said Skyler and pulled the child onto her lap. She positioned one hand behind Holly's back and began stroking her face with the other. "What I have to tell you," she said slowly, "is that very soon, I'm going to have to go away for a while."
Holly's mouth fell open. "Why?"
"I don't have any choice. I have to go. Remember what I said to you the other night? If it was up to me I would stay with you forever, but I don't have any choice."
"Why?"
"Because a little while ago now, I did something bad. And you know that when you do something bad, you have to be punished for it. And if you're a kid, that's not too much of a big deal - maybe you have to go to your room for a while, or maybe you have to clean up the mess if you made a mess. And you have to apologise. But for grown-ups it's a bit different - if a grown-up does a bad thing, the punishment is that they have to be taken away for a while. It's a bit like going to your room, but it's a little bit further away."
Holly frowned. Skyler could see the cogs in her head turning, could see the confusion.
"It's not your fault. It's my fault, and I'm so sorry."
"You didn't do a bad thing, Mommy."
"I did. I did. I'm sorry."
Holly blinked.
Flynn frowned.
"Tell her more," whispered Marie.
Skyler looked at her warily.
"What did you do, Mommy?"
"I did something bad with money. It's a bit hard to explain, I'll tell you more about it when you're older."
"Are you a robber?"
"No." Skyler shook her head. "I'm not a robber - I didn't steal any money, I hid some money. In a way that you're not supposed to do."
"Why?"
"It's hard to explain. You're very little and you're very confused right now, and that's ok. I'm confused too. I don't know why I did it, it was a very stupid thing to do. And I have never been more sorry."
"Well can you... Can you say sorry to the people that do the punishment? If you say sorry and clean up the mess, they don't have to punish you."
"It doesn't work that way for grown-ups. I have to go away. For quite a long time."
The expression on Holly's face moved away from confusion and towards fear. Skyler tightened her arms around her. "But you'll be ok. You're gonna live with Aunt Marie. She'll look after you. And I'll call you on the phone and we can talk. Sometimes you can visit me. It's not a very nice place to visit though, it's not very fun. It's safe, I'll be ok, but it's better for you if you stay here and not worry."
"Are you going to jail?"
Skyler was taken aback. She hadn't known Holly knew what that was. She turned to Marie.
"She knows what jail is, we watched 102 Dalmatians the other week."
"You didn't tell me that."
"Mommies don't go to jail," said Holly firmly. "Only bad people go to jail."
Skyler wrested her eyes from Marie back to Holly and took a breath. "Sometimes mommies do go to jail. And sometimes good people go to jail if they've done a bad thing. Sometimes grown-ups make mistakes, mommies too."
Holly's eyes filled with tears. "You don't. You're a good mommy."
"It wasn't her fault," said Flynn. "Sh-she didn't mean to do anything bad. So yes, M-Mom is a good person, but sometimes g-good people do go to…jail because sometimes good people get made to do things by…bad people."
Skyler closed her eyes. "It's not that simple, Flynn."
"Who are you explaining it to, me or her? Y-you were made to do a bad thing by a bad person."
Holly was becoming distressed. "I don't wanna be made to do a bad thing! Can Finn and Aunt Marie be made to?"
"No, no. I did a bad thing. You won't. Flynn and Aunt Marie won't. They're fine. They're gonna stay here and look after you. I did a bad thing. It was my fault. It was not your fault, it was nothing to do with you." Skyler's voice broke. "You and Flynn and Aunt Marie are good people and you will be fine."
Holly began whimpering. Skyler tried to pull her closer, but her body was rigid. Marie moved forward and put her arm around her. "It's gonna be alright," she said. "I'll look after you. No bad people will come here. We'll be fine."
Skyler watched her daughter lean into her sister's arms, and a shudder swept through her body. She clenched her jaw together as she battled with every atom of self-control she had to keep from breaking down. Flynn saw her shaking and he got up and sat next to her, placing his arm around her. She leaned into him, then shot back up again, realising that if she relaxed an inch she would fall. "Holly," she said. "All you need to know is that I love you very very much and I think about you all the time. And I will think about you all the time when I'm in jail. So if you miss me any time, all you have to do is remember that I'm thinking about you, and we can think about each other together. And we can talk on the phone and sometimes you can visit - I'm not sure how often that would be, I don't think it would be often but it would be sometimes. And then eventually I'll come home. And everything will go back to the way it was, and we'll all be alright."
"How long until you come home?" Holly whimpered.
"I don't know that yet. They'll tell me in a couple of weeks. Maybe three or four weeks from now I should know how long it will be and then I'll tell you, or Aunt Marie will. Probably Aunt Marie will tell you."
"I don't want you to go!"
"Neither do I." Both of them were weeping now, and Flynn's eyes moistened as he gripped his mother's shoulder.
"I told you, I would never leave you if I had a choice."
"But what if a bad person comes and makes me do a bad thing!"
"No no, that's not what happened. That's not how it works. No-one is gonna hurt you."
"It was Dad," said Flynn flatly.
Skyler winced. "Flynn!
"Dad was a bad person. Mom was married to him so sh-she didn't have much choice. He did…bad things and he pulled her into it. But it's not like there are -"
"Flynn, it's not that simple."
"It is."
"But I don't have a dad," said Holly.
"You did. You did have a dad and he died, but before he died he did l-lots of really bad things and messed up Mom's life. And that's why this is happening now. There's been a b-bit of a delay because the way the grown-up punishments go th-there's a delay, there's a time that you have to wait. But that's why this is happening now. And you might meet some people who are…angry at Mom, but it's not her they're r-really mad at, they're mad at Dad."
"I had a dad?"
"Yeah. H-he was both of our dad. And he was a bad person who did…bad things. I hate that. It's really confusing. It's really hard to…understand. You're not alone, ok? E-especially how Mom has to go away now when she's n-not a bad person and we want her to stay here. It's really hard."
"It's ok to be sad about it," said Marie.
Skyler's arms were still touching Holly, but they had gone rigid. Her feet were rubbing together and her mouth was twitching. There was a weight pressing on her chest that threatened to stop her breathing.
Marie could see this, and she mouthed at Skyler behind Holly's head, "Do you wanna go?" She flipped her head in the direction of the back door.
Skyler nodded strongly. Her eyes were wide, her breathing very faint.
Holly began to cry again. "I don't want Mommy to go!"
Marie picked her up. "I know, darling," she said, sweeping her into the next room.
Skyler jumped up and pounded to the back door, which vibrated from the impact of her body tumbling through it.
"Mom?" called Flynn.
Skyler fell to the ground on the balcony, gasping for air. Her body began shuddering with great soundless sobs. She couldn't breathe.
"Mom!" Flynn got up and moved towards the back door. Marie heard this and rushed back into the living room. "Flynn!" she yelled over Holly's cries. "Come back!"
"Mom -"
"I'll go, you come here and look after your sister, please."
Flynn remained where he stood, frowning, as a strangled gasp was heard from outside. He turned back towards the door.
"Flynn! Come here now. I will go out there. You're just delaying me getting there."
Flynn reluctantly stepped back towards his aunt. "She's -"
"Not a word. And you do not say anything to your sister that isn't comforting. Sit down."
Flynn frowned, sat down in the armchair and accepted his wailing sister into his arms.
"I'm sorry, I... I know I sound like I'm mad at you but I'm not." Her voice wobbled. "It's just an emotion-charged situation." She turned and walked briskly to the back door.
Going through it, she looked around, thinking for a moment that her sister had gone out to the backyard. Then she heard the tiniest of sounds to her right, and she looked down. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realised that Skyler was on the ground.
"Up up up," she said, walking briskly towards her and putting her arms under Skyler's armpits. "Come on." She lifted her into a sitting position. "Open your airway, come here." She placed herself behind Skyler and pulled her backwards, tilting her head back. "Breathe. Listen to my breathing." She breathed in and out. "Focus on it." Marie stroked Skyler's hair and breathed.
...
Flynn pushed the back door open gently, afraid of what he would find. "Mom?" he said softly.
No reply. He stepped forward. "Mom, A-Aunt Marie?"
"Yeah," came his aunt's voice.
He turned towards it but again found he was afraid to look. "Holly wants Mom to…read her a bedtime story," he said.
He heard a gasp, and then some rustling as his mother stood up. "Ok," she said weakly.
His eyes finally found her, and they looked at each other in the dark, both of their eyes glinting with fear.
"You ok?" he asked.
Skyler nodded strongly. "Yeah. I'm fine. I'll be right there."
He stepped back across the threshold, struggling with a feeling of deja vu he couldn't pin down the origin of. Then he remembered he'd left his sister in her bedroom, and he quickly ran back to her.
Skyler cleared her throat, rubbed her eyes and brushed her hair with her fingers. She took a deep breath and turned to her sister. "How do I look?"
Marie nodded awkwardly. "Thank god for waterproof mascara, right?"
"Yeah." Skyler turned towards the back door, took another deep breath and then powered purposefully through it, across the living room and along the hallway to Holly's bedroom. She paused to compose her face, and then entered wearing the kindest, most relaxed expression she could muster. "Hey sweetie! You're in bed already! What a good girl!"
Flynn stood next to the bed, and Skyler's face faltered when she saw his eyes. She was trapped in them for a moment, and then he handed her a book and nodded.
She took it and looked down at Holly, who was also looking at her with an expression fit to break her heart. "Will you get into bed with me, Mommy?" she asked.
"Yeah. Of course." Skyler kicked off her shoes and climbed into the small bed. She put her arms around the child, who immediately buried her face in her chest and held on as tightly as she could. "I don't want you to go," she said.
"Neither do I." Skyler's voice wobbled as she reciprocated the tight embrace, kissing Holly's forehead over and over and stroking her hair. "I'm so sorry."
She looked at the book and found she couldn't see it through the tears in her eyes. She held Holly closer and swallowed over and over as she tried to speak.
Flynn put his hand on her shoulder and rubbed it.
Skyler tried to open the book. Her hands were shaking. Holly couldn't see the book because her face was buried in her mother's chest. Both were silent.
"Can I read the story, Holly?" asked Flynn. "Is that ok?"
He sat on the edge of the bed and put his arms around both of them. There was a rustle as his sister turned her face outwards and said, "Yeah."
Skyler closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. She couldn't understand a word her son was saying - all she could focus on was the warm bundle of innocence that was curled up next to her heart. She heard her speak once or twice, and her brother answer. She heard the gentle, regular tones of his voice as he read the story. She didn't even notice his stutter. His calm voice soothed her as it faded further and further away and she fell into sleep.