"I can't believe she wants to sell the place," Alberta repeated disbelievingly, fumbling for her fork for the umpteenth time. "I knew Susan was flightier than her siblings, but-"

A hundred reasons arose in her mind, diffused through the lights, the windowpanes, the panels of the door, the carpet strands.

"- at the very least, it's a poor investment move," she finished lamely, knowing that it was not quite what she had meant to say. Harold raised an eyebrow at her and she busied herself with the lentil salad.

If one blurred one's eyes enough and pushed the sweet potato mash just so, it looked vaguely like a Rothko abstract; Slow Road to Abstraction had always been one of her favourites, with its visionary division of the compartments of that vivid rusty brown.

Rusty brown, just like Eust-

The food in her stomach churned like a palette of cold paint.

Eustace Clarence, are you there? I do think of you, I do!

"I sometimes- also- forget," Harold said, haltingly; and blinking, she realised that a silence had (once again) enveloped the room. "Just for a moment, here or there- when you were out, and I was reading that abstract Phillips wrote about that machine he's working on. Or when I wake up, and I don't even think-" He swallowed and his eyebrows quirked inwards, his left cheek muscle twitching.

Alberta pushed her lentil salad away. Food had rarely looked so unappetising.

"I just want him to come home," she whispered, and now that she spoke, she knew that this was what she had meant to say, all along. "I just want him to come home and clean his room. I don't want to remember that I- snapped at him, the day before he went away- because he called me 'Mother'- and he mentioned that Pole girl in some sentence- I just want him to come back."

And staying here helps me think that he's still here, that I haven't just forgotten him.

Because Eustace Clarence was in every pore of this house; he had spilled tea at this table, drawn diagrams on that wall, carefully pinned butterflies by that sofa; he had stumbled down the stairs, bleary-eyed, had hidden unopened confectionary jars in the laundry. He had sat on this chair, had even helped buy the lentils she was eating right now; he had been here.

And even if he wasn't here now, being here made him feel so much more real, reminded her that he had been- was- her son, that she was his mother, that it hadn't been some fantasy or dream. And that was why, oh, why it burned that Susan could simply want to sell her house. How could you want to lose all those memories, forget those shared realities?

"Maybe Susan isn't like us, Alberta," Harold said gently, and she wondered why she was so surprised that, at times, it seemed that he could read her mind. Force of habit, perhaps, but even so she felt that little thrust as her focus was torn from herself to Harold.

"What do you mean, Harold?" she asked, unsure of whether her voice was more fearful or more biting. "Do you wish to sell the house, too?"

Harold furrowed his brow, seemingly unconcerned by her harsh tone.

"It's not that I want to sell the house," he said slowly, as though sounding out his thoughts. "But perhaps it would do Susan good to- be away from it."

Alberta turned her head to him. Did he mean-

"A lease?"

Harold drummed his fingers on his knee for a moment.

"I'm not sure," he admitted, "I'd have to speak with Mark or Simon first. Preferably Simon, he's one of the branch managers of Hamptons- but Mark did call asking if I was up to having lunch with him tomorrow..."

She let him continue talking aloud, his words forming a comforting drone that blended with the walls, framed the tall, narrow windows.

It could work, she thought; leasing the house; it would change things, but all would not be lost, at least; and with tenants there came the possibility of subsidising living expenses elsewhere- and Harold did have the right friends to speak with such matters about. It could work, and she would not have to let go of the house where she had grown up with Victor, where he had come home from boarding school with such amusing tales and impressive results, where she had brought Harold to meet her parents for the first time. And she could still tell Susan that she would help, as she had promised.

"Yes," she murmured, as Harold drew breath; "yes, I think that you should meet up with Mark tomorrow."

"Will you be all right, Alberta?" he asked, and she could read the concern etched into his face. Resentment mingled with fondness and some strange, pleasing sensation she could not quite put a name to as she laughed.

"Oh no, Harold, I couldn't possibly survive one lunch without you," she said, but her tone was more playful than scornful, and he smiled at her gratefully.

He was oddly gentle with her for the rest of the day, offering to clean up after dinner and making her camomile tea before bed. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought that her feminist sentiments should be riled about this, but it was nice, so nice, being looked after just for a little, that she did not complain, but only smiled and took Harold's hand in hers, giving it a gentle squeeze, after he climbed into bed.

She would go to Susan tomorrow, she thought, dimly, as Harold turned the lamp off. Susan was probably less likely than even she was to go to church, so it would be a fairly safe assumption that she should be home before noon. Se would go to Susan and explain exactly what she and Harold were planning, and then she could start discussing suburbs, perhaps, that her niece could move into.

Kilburn, perhaps; it was in the area, but it was further out from the city and was thus likely to be more affordable. Or, failing that, Putney was quite a charming area; completely in the opposite direction, but Harold had grown up there, and it was a very forward and progressive area. She should not mind visiting family there.

Family.

That was what Susan was, wasn't she? It was strange to think that, though, for what a strange, prickly young woman she was! (Here she shifted to rest on her left side, drawing her hand away from where it lay under the pillow in an attempt to prevent that aching numbness she so often awoke to). How stiff and brittle, and almost (here it felt like a family betrayal to admit it) boring Susan was.

And yet- she remembered that strange light in Susan's eyes when she was talking about Edmund's Turkish delight. Then there had been that strange light in her eyes, and the rapid change in her tone, when she had seen the painting.

"Where did you find that? - Aslan?"

As though flooded by a pulse of electrons, Alberta sat bolt upright.

"Aslan," she whispered. Beside her, Harold shifted. "Aslan."

"I haven't told you about Narnia- or Aslan, the great lion- Alberta!"

There was something there, some frayed thread, and Alberta reached out to grasp it, but it fell between her fingers, splayed across to the cornices of the room, diffused through the walls.

Aslan, she thought, and felt, for the first time in over a week, that same jolt of purpose that she often felt before embarking on research for one of her articles. Susan.

And as the night flickered by, she sat upright in the still silent darkness until sleep arched its back, curled up against her, and gently shut her tired eyes.