Marie pulled up outside the cabin the following afternoon, got out of her car, and manoeuvred her purple suitcase awkwardly onto the front verandah. The front door of the cabin opened and Holly tumbled out. "Aunt Marie! Hi! Welcome to holiday!"
"Thanks, honey!" Marie leaned down and hugged her. Skyler took her suitcase and carried it through to the second bedroom.
Holly kept talking. "It's so great here, it's in a forest! This house is in a forest and there's no other buildings for a really really really really really long way! And it's so quiet, but you can yell if you want because nobody can hear you! It's really weird. But I like it."
"You didn't come with Flynn?" said Skyler.
"Oh no, I… I wanted to take my own car, and anyway I had to leave a bit earlier than him."
"Ok." Skyler looked at her sister curiously. "Everything alright?"
"Yeah, fine." Marie put on an obviously fake smile. "Did you bring any wine? I mean I did, it's just it's not chilled yet."
"Come see the house!" called Holly from the end of the hallway.
"Ah yeah, yeah I did," said Skyler.
"Aunt Marie! This way!"
"All right," said Marie, following Holly into the first bedroom.
"This is mine and Mommy's bedroom," said Holly, doing a twirl in its doorway and then stepping back into the hallway. "And this is your bedroom here. You can put your things in here. And you can go to sleep in here. Where are your things?"
"I think your mommy already put them in there for me."
"Did she?" Holly looked inside and saw the suitcase. "Oh yeah. Ok, and this is Finn's room, but he's not here yet. And this is the bathroom." Holly opened the bathroom door. "It has a bubbly spa bath."
"Oh my god, really?" Marie looked inside, and her mouth fell open. "That is so awesome."
"Yeah, Holly's been in twice already," said Skyler. "It's pretty amazing."
"Can I go in that right now?"
"Sure."
"Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!" yelled Holly.
"Well hang on, Holly, Aunt Marie might wanna go in there by herself."
"But you said we could wear a swimsuit and go in with everyone!"
"Yes, but one, Aunt Marie might not have her swimsuit, and two, she might wanna go in there by herself."
"I don't have my swimsuit," said Marie.
"No problem. This bathroom is all yours, and the wine will be waiting for you when you get out."
"Actually I would really like to take a glass of wine in there."
"Certainly." Skyler turned and walked briskly back to the kitchen. "That can be arranged!" She quickly poured a glass and walked back along the hallway to hand it to her sister. "Enjoy."
"Thanks." Marie gave a half smile.
"You sure you're ok?"
"I will be after this."
"Alright. Come on, Holly. You wanna play Hungry Hippos again?"
"Yeah!"
Marie was in the bathroom for a long time. The bubbles felt amazing. So did the wine. She didn't even care that it was Skyler's cheap wine, it just tasted so relaxing. She wished she'd brought the whole bottle in. She put her head back on the edge of the tub and closed her eyes.
Flynn pulled up after the fourth round of Hungry Hungry Hippos. Holly bounced around him excitedly and eagerly accepted the chocolate he'd brought her.
"Is Aunt Marie here?"
"Yeah, she's in the amazing spa bath," said Skyler.
"The amazing spa bath!" echoed Holly.
"Flynn found a good place for us to stay, didn't he?"
"Yeah!"
"So n-no problems?"
"No. Thank you, honey."
"Finn, will you play snap with me?"
"Yeah, sure Holly - j-just a sec, I need to talk to Mom about… something."
Flynn lead Skyler into the corner of the kitchen. He looked across at Holly, then dropped his voice low and looked his mother in the eye. "Aunt Marie got arrested."
Skyler's heart rate shot up. "What?"
"She didn't tell me, I s-saw it on the news...last night. She told me not to tell you, b-but I think… I think you should know, because it's worrying, and -"
"What did she - why - what did she…?"
"She attacked an old lady in a park. No, a p-playground."
Skyler stepped back, her mouth falling open.
"I don't know... who the old lady was, but Kim w-was on the news talking about it and she said there... was an earlier incident in that park with y-you and Holly; do you know what she's... talking about?"
Skyler nodded. "Yeah."
"What happened?"
"Oh, this lady just yelled at me. Is it the same lady?"
"Y-yeah. That's what Kim said. Aunt Marie... w-won't say anything, she won't... talk to me about it, sh-she hung up the phone on me last night!"
"Alright, well, let's just give her time and space. What happened then, was she, she wasn't -"
"Charged? No. A-apparently both parties apologised. But it was... all over the news, and w-why would she do that - this... this is the last thing we need, with everything else going on-"
"Ok, no value judgements, alright? We don't know the full story."
"Because she wouldn't tell me the... full story!"
"Well yeah, she can be like that. Let's just -"
The bathroom door clicked open, and Skyler and Flynn went silent. Over Flynn's shoulder, Skyler watched Marie walk into her bedroom and shut the door.
"Just be calm about it, ok?"
"W-what happened the other day?"
"Oh, just the usual."
"Finn, are you coming?" called Holly.
"Not yet, c-can you play with the cards by... yourself for a while?"
Holly sighed loudly. "Ok..."
Flynn's voice fell to a whisper again. "What's the usual?"
"She didn't want me anywhere near her grandson. We just left, it wasn't a big deal, but Marie hadn't seen that happen before."
The bedroom door opened, and Marie retrieved the wine glass from the bathroom and then walked back to the kitchen. The sudden silence wasn't lost on her. She maintained it as she opened the fridge and poured herself another glass. "You want some, Sky?" she asked.
"Not yet. Thanks."
Marie shut the fridge and turned towards them. "I know he told you. You can both stop looking at me like that."
"Are you ok?" asked Skyler.
"Yes."
"Aunt Marie, w-what were you doing? I don't understand!"
"What I did was perfectly reasonable, and I don't have to justify myself to you."
"Alright, alright, go easy, we're all at breaking point here. Not because of that, because of the other thing." Skyler put her hands to her forehead, and Marie and Flynn stared at each other. "Ah, I'm gonna start making us some dinner. Flynn, I believe Holly wants you."
"We're gonna… talk about this some more, right? L-like after Holly's in bed?"
"I dunno, maybe."
"We are." Flynn sullenly walked to the living room, where Holly started talking to him animatedly about the king, queen, ace, jack and all the numbers and what they had been doing together.
Marie gripped the edge of the counter, her head facing down, looking at her wine glass.
"Are you ok?" Skyler repeated, realising for the first time that Marie had a long scratch down one side of her face.
"About which problem in particular?"
"Being arrested."
"Yeah. At first that made me even more angry but it's been sorted out now, so it's fine."
Skyler nodded. "Good."
"I'm less ok about being on the news, because my boss saw that, and this morning I got fired."
Skyler gasped.
"They were just looking for a reason, they haven't supported me for a long time. They didn't want me to go part-time either. Mindy helped me with that, but… she can't help me with this. And they definitely didn't want me to take last week off."
"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I... It's my fault, I put you in a position where…"
"Oh, just add it to the list, Skyler."
Skyler nodded. "Yeah. Is there anything you can do, can you... contest it?"
"Came down from Mr Kleinman himself. And my immediate boss, who's been resisting me for some time."
"I'm so sorry."