Marie put her key in the lock of her front door to find that something was missing. Holly wasn't yelling with excitement. Her heart jumped into her throat, and she quickly opened the door to find Holly standing behind it with a smile on her face. Marie breathed. Holly held up a finger in front of her mouth. "Mommy's still asleep," she said.
"Oh. Ok."
"She's been asleep for a really long time."
Marie's heartbeat rose again. "That's ok, she's sick, honey, she needs a lot of sleep. Are you ok?"
"Yeah. I had a long cuddle with Mommy. She was asleep but that was ok."
"Good."
"Can I have a hug?"
"Of course." Marie knelt down and gave her one.
A loud but smooth engine revving signalled the arrival of Flynn in the driveway behind her.
"Finn!" yelled Holly, then clapped her hands over her mouth. "Oops." She looked at Marie with wide eyes. "Did I wake Mommy?"
"I'll go check on her. You wait here for Flynn. Don't go outside, ok?"
"Ok."
Marie hurried along the hallway to the guest bedroom. The door was open. Marie looked at Skyler's sleeping form until she saw it move. Relieved, she hurried back to the kitchen.
...
Skyler didn't emerge until the family were halfway through their dinner. Flynn saw her first, and he got out of his seat and walked towards her.
Marie looked up. Holly, the last to notice, finally turned around and yelled, "Mommy!"
"Inside voice, Holly," said Marie, and then, looking back, saw that Flynn was giving his mother a long hug. Holly ran over and grabbed hold of their legs. Marie watched all this, and swallowed. Then she slowly stood, walked into the kitchen and served another plate.
"Are you ok?" Flynn asked his mother.
"Yeah. You?"
"I-I'm alright."
"Here," said Marie, holding out a plate of food to Skyler.
Skyler took it, looking surprised. Marie didn't make eye contact and walked around her back to her seat at the kitchen table. Skyler opened the cutlery drawer. "It's on the table," Marie said. Skyler looked to see that there was indeed a place set for her at the table. She followed her children there.
"Would you like to sleep with your mom tonight, Holly?" said Marie. "In her room?"
Holly gasped with excitement.
"You can be the special night time doctor."
"Yeah yeah yeah! I love sleeping with Mommy!"
Skyler reached out and stroked Holly's hair absently.
"What does a night time doctor do?"
"Well," said Marie, "The night time doctor sleeps too, but they also keep an eye on their patient. They just make sure that they're still in the bed. If the patient gets up, the night time doctor follows them. It's ok if they go to the bathroom, but if they go to the bathroom the night time doctor just waits around and checks to make sure they get back to bed safely. Can you do that, Holly?"
Skyler looked guiltily at Marie. She knew exactly what she was doing. Part of her was annoyed, the part that said there is no way I would do anything with my children here and how dare you even consider it. The other part of her said, exactly. Good idea. Thank you.
Marie didn't meet her eyes.
...
After reading Holly a bedtime story and explaining that the night time doctor had to go to bed earlier than the patient so that she could rest up in time to be a night time doctor, Skyler went out onto the balcony and lit a cigarette. She took her phone out of her pocket and began to compose a text to Kim.
There is something I need to tell you. I've thought long and hard about it and I have made a decision. You will say that this decision is not in my interest, but I say that it is, because if I am not punished properly I will not be able to live with myself.
The back door clicked open behind Skyler, and she looked around. It was Marie. She saved the message as a draft, put her phone back in her pocket and leant over the railing, taking a long drag of her cigarette.
Marie stood next to her and looked out at the blinking city lights far below.
"You didn't tell him, did you?" said Skyler.
"Who, Flynn? I told him what you told me, yeah. I didn't tell him what you did to yourself, I'm not putting that on him. But I told him the rest."
Skyler frowned. "Why's he being so nice to me, then?"
Marie met her eyes for the first time since her confession of the night before. "Yeah, I know. I'm jealous of him. His reaction was just concern for you, he said you must have been really scared, and…. And he feels bad about that. And so do I, but then it's immediately ruined by your ridiculous decision-making processes!"
Skyler's shoulders slumped.
Marie gripped the railing and fiddled with it with her fingers. "I want you to explain it away like you did before. I wanna be able to talk myself out of it, talk myself to forgiveness, talk myself to be free. But I realised when I did that the last time, I was just telling myself what I wanted to hear. And I got it wrong. The way I got over it was to tell myself that Hank would've died anyway, because even if you had talked to him, it wouldn't have been enough. Because you barely knew anything. That's what I thought. You barely knew anything. Because I thought you were a victim. So I told myself that he still would've gone after the money in To'hajiilee and he still would've died. But in thinking about it today and talking about it with Flynn, I realised that I was wrong!" Marie's voice broke. "Because Hank met with you right after he confronted Walt, he asked you to talk to him on the same day, and that was before Walt buried his money! The big guy and the conman guy went and got it from the self-storage unit later that day, but if you had talked to Hank when he asked you, you could have told him where it was and he could have got it right from under them. And it never would've been buried in the desert at all, if you'd just helped him when he asked you!"
Marie swallowed and looked out at the city. "So now I realise that the excuse I used to convince myself I could forgive you was a lie."
Skyler leaned on the railing next to her, too depressed even to lift her cigarette to her lips. Its flame slowly died.
"Skyler? Are you listening?"
Skyler's head whipped around. "Of course!"
"Talk to me, then. You said you can't explain it away, but that's not true, you've done it before. And so help me I am trying so hard!"
"Thank you. I really appreciate you trying. I don't deserve it but I really appreciate it. Everything you've done for me." Skyler turned and looked out again, breaking eye contact.
"So is that true? When you met Hank in the diner it was before Walt buried the money?"
Skyler spoke slowly. "Yeah. Not by much. I didn't see Walt after that until after he'd buried it. He came home at two in the morning covered in dirt. And he straight away collapsed, he passed out on the floor of the bathroom."
"And you chose to go home to him rather than talk to Hank."
"I was scared, Marie. Scared of this. What's happening right now. Ironic, right?"
"Did you wanna talk to Hank?"
"No. And I certainly wouldn't have given him the money. I went through a lot of pain and hard work for that money, I wasn't gonna give it up easily."
"It was blood money! Did you know then how much blood was on that money?"
"No. No, I knew barely anything then. But I knew enough. I knew it was blood money."
"And you wanted it?"
"Yeah."
"Is that why you didn't talk to Hank?"
"I didn't want all of Walt's shit to have been for nothing."
"You wanted the money and you didn't want Walt to get caught."
"Yeah."
A sharp crack echoed through the night air as Marie slapped Skyler hard across the face. Skyler lost her balance and grabbed the railing with both hands. Her cigarette fell into the yard below.
The door opened. "Hey hey, no! Don't do that!" said Flynn firmly.
"She just said that she wanted the money and she didn't want your father to go to prison!" Marie ran towards Flynn, angry tears in her eyes.
"Hey hey no!" A sudden energy activating her previously lifeless form, Skyler ran after Marie and placed herself between her and Flynn. "Don't involve him."
"You always say that," Marie spat. "He has a right to know. You're just scared he'll turn away from you."
"That is not true."
"Aunt Marie, w-we already knew that."
"Knew what?"
"About the money. Th-that she wanted the money - we knew that, y-you asked her about it like…a year and a half ago. Y-you were like, 'If it was me, I…would've wanted the money,' and sh-she said yeah, she did! A-and-"
"No, that's not what we were talking about. We were talking about Hank." Marie's voice broke. "She said she wouldn't have given Hank the money so that he didn't have to go to To'hajiilee!"
"Marie, can we please not involve Flynn in this?"
"How could M-Mom possibly have known about that? Mom, if you…had had a crystal ball that…had told you that if…y-you didn't talk to Uncle Hank and give him the money, he would've gotten m-murdered in To'hajiilee, w-would you have talked to him and…given him the money?"
"Of course," Skyler gasped.
"A-alright, well listen, the way you phrased what you said before was r-really misleading and stupid. 'I di-didn't wanna talk to Hank and I…certainly wouldn't have…given him the money.' O-of course you would have if you'd known that h-he would've died otherwise!"
"There's no point talking about hypothetical scenarios. I didn't have a crystal ball. God knows I tried to plan and act to prevent bad things happening to our family, but I failed. Worse than that, I actively caused further damage, so..." Skyler breathed in. "I-I'm gonna remove myself now. You two can support each other through it."
Skyler stepped through the back door and closed it behind her. She began to stride across the living room, but the door quickly clicked open again as Flynn followed her. "Mom! Stop! We-we all need to just…calm down and talk about this!"
Skyler turned around. "I think your aunt probably wants me out of her house now," she said defeatedly. "Will the two of you look after each other please?"
"No!" Flynn walked towards her.
"You're not going anywhere, Skyler." Marie appeared at the back door. "That nurse said you shouldn't be left alone. You're sleeping with Holly, you promised her." She had regained her composure, but her eyes were still scathing.
"There you go," said Flynn. "She doesn't want you to leave. Can we just talk…calmly about this, please? W-we need to figure out a way to get…past it."
Skyler looked him in the eyes, and lifted her hand to his cheek. "I'm sorry. You can't explain it away."
...
Kim was sitting in the University of New Mexico law library, talking quietly on her phone. "I know, I'm sorry... Yeah well, it'll be over soon and then I'll be there in your hair all the time and you'll get completely sick of me, and... I don't know yet, it depends how long this adjournment lasts for. If it's Monday or Tuesday then I guess I'll have to wait for the verdict, but if this adjournment goes longer than that I might get done with this before then and be able to sneak a couple days. I won't know until at least Monday, though... Yeah it's kinda weird being here, in particular talking to you being here. I feel like I just went back in time twelve years, but I can't have if I'm talking to you! ... Yeah, I will. Thanks for being so understanding… Love you, bye."
Kim put her phone away and turned back to the pile of books in front of her with a sigh.
...
She couldn't go to her room because Holly was in there asleep. The only privacy Skyler could get was in the bathroom. She locked the door, fell to her knees on the fluffy bath mat and sobbed. Her body rocked so hard that she fell off the side of the bath mat, and her splitting headache got some relief from the cold of the tiles. She could barely think, but she did take note of the fact that she was stuck in a bathroom again, and that somehow now it felt even worse.
There was a knock on the door. "Mom? Are you alright?"
Skyler swallowed her wails and sobbed silently.
"Mom?"
She didn't know what she'd done to deserve him. She really didn't.
There was the sound of footsteps in the hall, and Marie's voice asking, "What's going on?"
"M-Mom's been in there for a while," came Flynn's reply.
"Skyler?" The door handle jangled and Marie's much more insistent knocking was visited on the door. "Skyler, open the door. Do you want me to break it down?"
Skyler pulled herself up from the floor.
"Aunt Marie, c-calm down! Why are you-"
The door opened.
"Mom!" Flynn, seeing her red eyes and harrowed expression, took his mother into his arms. Marie pushed past them into the bathroom and looked around, checking nothing was amiss. She met Skyler's eyes behind Flynn's back, and Skyler shook her head. Marie straightened her expression, announced that she was off to bed and walked briskly to her bedroom.
"Me too," said Skyler, rubbing Flynn's back and pulling away from him. "I'm sorry, I've been hogging the bathroom! You must be wanting to do your teeth."
"R-really? You're gonna talk about…mundane things n-now?"
Skyler forced a smile, went to the sink and picked up her toothbrush.
"Seriously?"
"It's bedtime, Flynn."
Skyler put her toothbrush into her mouth, looked at her face in the mirror and wondered how she had managed to age ten years in less than two.
"I can't sleep at all when…this stuff is running around my head. Can you?"
"No. But ah… I think lying down looking at sleeping Holly will calm me slightly."
"W-why did you even say it? You kept it a secret all this time, a-and…. No-one had to know."
"Yes they did. Marie did."
"Does she look like sh-she's better off knowing than not? I don't think so!"
Skyler spat her toothpaste into the sink. "She has a right to know. I don't wanna mislead her."
"Y-yeah, but-"
"You of all people are not seriously advocating the 'stay silent to protect your family' method? The 'what other people don't know won't hurt them' method? That's funny because I seem to remember you telling me I should have done the exact opposite thing a while back."
"Yeah, w-when staying silent causes bad things to keep happening, and bad people to get…away with stuff they shouldn't get…away with, don't do it. When s-speaking up causes you to have to…go to prison for longer and y-your sister to be really really really upset, m-maybe it's different."
"It's not different. In this case, not speaking up would lead to me getting away with something that I don't deserve to get away with, so. Actually, thank you for reminding me, there's one more thing I have to do. Goodnight, honey."
Skyler kissed him on the cheek and walked off down the hallway, taking her phone out of her pocket.
There is something I need to tell you. I've thought long and hard about it and I have made a decision. You will say that this decision is not in my interest, but I say that it is, because if I am not punished properly I will not be able to live with myself. I don't want you to play the phone call. It's a fake. Nothing he says in that phone call is real.