A/N: Speediest update ever! I didn't want to leave you guys hanging for too long. This entire chapter basically shows the events leading up to the cliffhanger from last chapter (and, the resolution, because I don't want anyone coming after me with pitchforks and torches!). Thank you so much for all your lovely comments and continued support of this story :).

No Such Thing as a Perfect Family (18)

Under the pretext of going to wash her empty water glass, Sharon had slipped out of the living room. Her steps slower than normal and her head heavy, she'd made her way over to the kitchenette, where at least the nauseating murmur of the crowd of mourners was no longer audible.

After a couple of hours of constant noise and a stream of people, she'd lost interest in – and the ability to – hold up her end of the social obligations of the after-burial gathering. And she hadn't been the only one, either… the afternoon was stretching on too long and wearing on everyone in the family.

So there she was, some few minutes later, water running loudly from the tap, both too loud for her exhaustion-enhanced senses, and somehow not loud enough, streaming in lukewarm rivulets over the glass that really was more than clean by now.

She heard the footsteps after turning off the water. Looking over her shoulder, she saw her sister, who had stopped hesitantly in the doorway, seemingly torn between staying and going.

"Oh – I thought Mom was here."

Sharon tiredly reached for the kitchen cloth. "I sent her upstairs to get some rest…"

Stephanie's shoulders slumped slightly, and she rolled her eyes and muttered, "Of course you did."

Sharon's eyes flickered up from the glass she was wiping, but she refrained from any comment. Her sister watched her silently for a few seconds, one shoulder leaning against the wall, then she shook her head and half-turned to leave the kitchenette.

"I'm just trying to take care of her, same as you," Sharon said, even though she knew she should have stayed quiet.

Irritation flashed briefly over Stephanie's features, and for a moment she looked like she was trying to abstain from making a reply, but she failed: "Do you ever consider 'taking care' of someone on their terms, not yours?"

This time, Sharon bit her lips to keep from replying. She put the glass away with deliberate movements, then turned to leave; to do so, however, she had to walk past Stephanie, who on reading her intentions, darkly pointed out:

"Guess you've decided for both of us that this conversation is over."

Sharon paused. "What do you want to me to do, Steffi – apologize for wanting my mother to take a break after today? She's eighty-five years old."

"I'm aware of Mom's age," her sister retorted, "and I don't want you to apologize, just maybe for once," her eyebrows arched in annoyance, "let someone do their own thinking instead of doing it for them!"

"Mom just buried her husband of sixty-five years! I don't think she wants to be doing a lot of thinking right now."

"Well, lucky she has you to step in for her, then."

It was always like this, when it happened. She really should have stayed quiet.

Sharon let out a long breath, her eyes closing briefly. When she spoke again, her tone had lost its sharp edge. "Steffi, I'm not doing this right now. We're both…" she sighed, "You know it's not a good time."

Her sister rolled her eyes again, and sighed as well. "I just can't believe you, Sharon," she said. "You haven't changed at all – you're… I forgot how frustrating it was to watch you try to march in and take charge. Last night, this morning, in church – all the time…!"

"I'm not trying to take charge of anything," Sharon reverted to her aloof voice, her gaze turning irritated, "I'm just trying to…do what's best for everyone, in an awful situation."

"Oh my god – what you think is best! That's the problem! You're so convinced you can always find the right thing to do, for everyone!" Stephanie threw her hands up. "Mom didn't want to take the car to church. She didn't want to leave the cemetery when we did. And I bet she didn't want to 'go upstairs to rest' – you just browbeat her into it! And she went with it because she always does everything you want," she finished bitterly, and her sister's expression melted into outraged disbelief.

"Everything – I hope you're joking," Sharon's voice came out in a shocked gasp. "Mother does everything you want, Steffi, she always has. Every single thing you ever ask for, no matter how crazy or immature or just. plain. stupid, she goes out of her way to give you. Everything! For fifty years –and you're angry because she did what I asked this time, and went to get some rest?" She was a mixture of disbelief and fury.

"I'm angry," Stephanie retorted, "because you spent every second since you got here pushing everyone around, especially Mom, who can never say 'no' to you! Take a goddamn break, Sharon, would you?"

"She can never say no to me?" Sharon's voice was again a low, incredulous murmur.

"Oh I know Mom always tries to give me what I want – for myself," said Stephanie, "but when was the last time she actually took my opinion over yours? She didn't go to see the doctor for her arrhythmia until you told her to. And when did she decide to retire from the foundation? When did they sell the condo – even though I thought they shouldn't? Who first mentioned the idea of selling this house?"

"I am not going to apologize," Sharon said coolly, "for offering my opinion on the best course of action, especially not when that opinion is asked for."

Stephanie scoffed, rolling her eyes. "I hate to break it to you, but don't 'offer your opinion', Sharon. You deign to impart the ultimate uncontested truth of things on the rest of us!"

Sharon's eyes narrowed. "I'm not having this argument with you again. Not today."

"Fine," her sister agreed, "then stop bossing Mom – and everyone else, for that matter – around. You don't know what's best for everyone, so for one day would you stop acting like you do."

Sharon opened her mouth to argue back, then forcefully cut herself off. She put a hand against the counter, and let out a deep breath instead. "Steffi, I know you're upset about…" She swallowed. "I know you're angry, but this isn't making anything better. Let's just… let's just take a few minutes," she suggested wearily, "have a chance to calm down. You can go upstairs and check on Mom if you want, I'm sure she'll –"

"Oh my god, you're doing it again!" Stephanie slapped a hand to her forehead, in exasperation. "Stop trying to fix everything and come up with solutions for everyone! This isn't your goddamn police station!"

Sharon gritted her teeth. "I'm just trying to avoid an unnecessary. argument," she said with forced calm. "We're both upset, and taking it out on each other isn't going to help, since none of what's happening is actually your fault or mine… "

"What's happening is that you're incapable of walking into a situation without trying to take over and make it into what you think it should be!" Stephanie's eyebrows drew into an irate scowl. "Dad's funeral isn't about you, Sharon, and he would've been furious to see you bullying mom into doing whatever you want!"

"I'm not bullying my mother into anything," Sharon retorted in a quietly angry tone, "I've barely even gone near her, trying to give her the time she wants with you, because she's always so happy to see you and I thought it would help –"

"That's the point," Stephanie's hands waved wildly in her indignation, "did you even bother to ask Mom what she actually wanted or needed? No! You just marched in here and decided you know the best way to 'help' and tried to take control of everything! For god's sake Sharon, you went to check the property tax forms and the goddamn electric panels before you even went to your room and changed!"

"Mom asked me to check them!" Sharon defended.

"No, she asked if they were taken care of, and Paul had already done that, but no, you had to go and do it over…!"

Sharon pressed her lips together, letting out a slow breath to force her tone down a notch. "Mom was feeling anxious about them so yes, I went and took a look," she acknowledged, "so I could tell her that it was all fine, and that helped her stop worrying so I'm not going to feel bad for putting her mind at ease."

"You weren't doing it to put her mind at ease," groaned Stephanie, "you were doing it because you can't conceive not fixing every problem, finding the best way do to everything! Look at today," she exclaimed when Sharon was about to protest again, "you spent the whole day telling Mom what to do, where to go, where to sit, when to leave, when to rest –"

"I'm trying to take care of her."

"No, this is what you do, to everyone, all the time, and they all let you," another furious hand wave, "because you're so goddamn convinced that you know what's best for everyone, that you've got all of them convinced, too!" She glowered. "Not everyone has to do things your way, okay?"

"I don't care how you do things, Steffi," Sharon retorted tiredly, and replacing the dish towel on the counter, she again made a move to leave the room – and the conversation. "And I don't think it's fair for you to be taking your anger out on me."

"You're unbelievable, Sharon." Stephanie didn't try to stop her, but instead only shook her head, with a horrified sort of wonder. "You actually can't even entertain the notion that you might be wrong here."

Sharon paused in her tracks again. "I'm perfectly capable of seeing when I'm wrong," she replied in a forcedly patient tone, "but in this instance – we're not arguing because we're angry at each other, Steffi, we're doing this –"

"I am angry with you!" Stephanie erupted, and her fists clenched as she glared at her sister. "You were going to miss dad's funeral!"

"I can't believe you're still standing here arguing that you don't have everyone falling in line at a snap of your fingers."

Sharon's arms had wrapped around herself when her sister had brought up the funeral, and she'd leaned back instinctively.

"You were going to miss Dad's funeral," Stephanie repeated incredulously. "Me, I'd do that and get disowned but you do it and suddenly everyone's going out of their way to accommodate you and your drama! And then you have the nerve to show up and still try to take over, you didn't even apologize!"

"I –"

"Do you have any idea what was going on here while you were too busy with your all-important job and your major crises? It was chaos, we had to find rooms for two dozen people from one day to the next, everything had to be rescheduled, Father Connelly had to put in a word with the Bishop, Paul sent a goddamn military airplane after you?!"

Sharon let out a short breath. "I didn't ask – I didn't know about… I didn't mean for…" She paused, swallowed hard, and recovered. "I only found out that Mom and Paul moved the funeral after the fact. It was never my plan or intention for any of that to happen."

"No, your plan was to miss the funeral altogether," Stephanie said bitterly. "You weren't even going to be here. How do you think Mom felt about that?"

"Do you think I wanted that, Stephanie?" gasped Sharon. "I had no choice."

"And yet here you are, a day later, only after making everyone dance to your tune. What the hell makes it okay, Sharon," her sister demanded angrily, "for you to expect everyone to wait for you like this?"

"I don't –"

"All the time!" insisted Stephanie. "You're always expecting everyone to mind you, everyone to wait, everyone to listen – when's the last time you stopped to listen to someone else for a change, instead of charging ahead like a goddamn prize bull!"

Sharon's patience evaporated into incredulity again. "I never listen? I have a – a stable job, a house, a… retirement fund! I don't traipse around the globe like a hippie…troubadour in a perpetual midlife crisis! And don't talk to me about not being here!"

"Oh, that makes it okay then to tell everyone what to do," Stephanie retorted sarcastically, "the perfect Sharon Raydor, with her respectable job and her bank account and her oh so adult decisions! I'm sure mom and dad made the comparison at holidays and you always came out on top."

"Me! Every single holiday Steffi, every single one they'd wait for you like for some sort of.. Messiah! Looking at the rest of us and praying that you'd make it, from whatever hare-brained trip you were on! They'd wait –"

"Because I didn't make it home so often," her sister retorted, tears in her eyes, "but how many times did they put off a single holiday for me! How many times did they wait even a single extra day so I could make it for the main event! But you," she railed, "you get stuck at work and they move Christmas! You decide to have some sort of … hysteria attack this week and they move dad's funeral! To wait for you! Because nothing can happen with you to preside over it! I bet you were just pissed when dad didn't die on your schedule! Maybe we should tell mom to plan better next time!"

Sharon burst into tears.

The raw, disconsolate sob ripped out of her throat without warning, and then she couldn't stop it. She turned on her heels, one hand flying to her mouth and she tried, tried to contain herself, but her body just refused to listen. Long, racking sobs wrenched from her despite the hand pressed hard against her mouth, and she gripped the edge of the counter and doubled over in an attempt to silence the anguish that seemed to be bursting out from the very core of her being.

To no avail. Even as she locked her throat and gritted her teeth, the spasms and tears kept coming, and the effort of trying to curb the uncontrollable crying sent her body into near-convulsions. She let herself slide down by the sink, one arm going across her stomach, and she bunched up the dish towel and buried her face into it in an effort to at least be quiet...

"God. I'm a vicious old woman."

Another sob came out of Sharon, because that wasn't true at all, and –

"Don't you shake your goddamn head," Stephanie said quietly. "I'm a nasty old cow." There was a pause, then: "I hit menopause, you know."

And Sharon couldn't hold back a choked sort of snort at that, even though her body was still shaking, and Stephanie lowered her face in her hands and then they were both laughing and crying at the same time…

Sharon kept both hands clenched tight around the kitchen cloth, her face still buried in it as the sobs continued, and even though they were muted now, she couldn't stop, she didn't understand why but she just couldn't. Time after time she tried to take a breath and cease but each time it only got worse, as though with every breath there was more inside her trying to make its way out…

Stephanie let herself slide down next to Sharon, knees to her chest, and she just sat there for a few seconds, then quietly leaned her temple against Sharon's arm, and Sharon let out another strangled sob and half-turned toward her, arms going slowly around her sister's neck as she buried her face in Stephanie's shoulder.

Again she didn't know how long it had been, maybe minutes, maybe longer, or less, she couldn't tell. Her body was still heaving with the silent sobs, and she wasn't even trying to stop the deluge of emotions anymore. It just went on, even, self-fueling, her face turned into the crook of her elbow, hidden by a curtain of hair that blocked out the light and made it even harder to remember that there was a world out there waiting…

Stephanie's smaller body was still curled up beside her, one hand on Sharon's shoulder as both of them sat on the floor by the sink, while the afternoon sun bathed the west-facing room in a copper glow.

"Here, honey." Sharon could feel something being pressed into her hand, some soft, dry paper, and she clenched her fingers around it, but wiping at her tears was proving a Sisyphean effort because they just kept pouring out… and it wasn't even just her father, because at times she'd thought she had that pain under control but then more thoughts would come unbidden to her head, about everything, the funeral and the letters and the fact that soon she'd have to go back and leave her mother and not see her children and deal with the fallout and…

"God," she breathed shakily, bewildered at her own reactions. "I can't– " her voice caught on another quiet sob, "oh my god I can't make it stop…"

Sharon lifted her head from her arms and cleaned her tears again with the soft paper, and gasped and shivered and sobbed again, wiping at her eyes. Next to her, Stephanie blew her nose.

"I think we need a drink," she sighed. "Here…" She handed Sharon another, clean tissue, and grabbed the edge of the counter with one hand to stand up.

Sharon shifted her own body, placing one hand flat against the floor to push herself to her feet; but when Stephanie got a good look at her, the younger woman grimaced expressively and groaned.

"Okay, you just sit there for another second," she reconsidered, "let's not make this day any worse… you know how Mom feels about blood on her refinished floors." Sharon let out a weak huff that might have indicated amusement, and tiredly rested her back against one of the cabinet doors, forehead dropping into her hands again, while her sister walked over to open the fridge door.

Stephanie took a long look inside the fridge, then glanced back over her shoulder at Sharon.

"Crap orange soda, Coke, some toxic-looking blue thing and diet root beer," she deadpanned. "And this is why Jules and Ricky should never be allowed to stock the drinks."

She pulled a can of Coke and poured it into two glasses, filling each only about halfway up, then returned to Sharon's side and handed over one of the glasses. They sat in silence for a long moment, Stephanie wiping her own eyes a few more times, the room quiet enough that they could hear the soda bubbles rising to the surface.

"You're right," Sharon said quietly. "I never did boss dad around. He –" Her voice broke, and she could feel tears pooling in her eyes once more. " – he's the only one whose opinion I thought I could take above my own…" She turned her face away again, the hand that clutched the tissue covering her mouth.

Stephanie stared into her glass. "Yeah, well…" she sighed, "dad's gone now." She sniffled, bit her lips, and turned her head to Sharon. "But if you ever need someone to tell you that you're wrong and they're right, I'm always delighted to oblige you."

They both laughed again, a small, wistful sound.

Then Sharon turned back to face her sister, and her expression was unspeakably pained again.

"I'm sorry for being so… for not knowing how to…." She shook her head, another few tears spilling over. "I'm so sorry that I – I held everything up – and…" her lips pressed together for a moment, but she kept going, "made you feel that I'm disrespecting Dad, and … that I made everyone wait –" her voice broke, " –all the time, I'm so sorry…"

And Stephanie rolled her eyes.

"Please," she scoffed. "They wait for you Sharon because all your life you were there for everyone," she said plainly. "You'd bend over backwards, do a goddamn backflip and land in a handstand to make it when and where you'd said you'd be. Mom and dad, and all of us know that. I knew it earlier, too, I was just…" She shook her head, her expression earnest. "Everyone waits for you because they know you put so much effort to come through, that it's the least they can do to meet you halfway every now and then. And – would you stop with the headshaking," she growled, slightly exasperated again. "God, Sharon. Maybe you should give the 'hippie troubadour' lifestyle a try…I think it might be good for you."

A/N: We'll go back to seeing how everyone else (i.e. Rusty) is doing, in the next chapter. And we will get a couple of scenes with Sharon's mom, including one where she meets Rusty. Any other family interactions that you'd like to see (not counting Sharon/Rusty - they're coming), this is the time to suggest them :).

Thank you for reading! I love your reviews more than Sharon loves the mental health industry ;) (guess who was just rewatching that episode)