Three days later, I get home from work at eight to find my apartment totally devoid of Larxene. The first thing that comes to my mind is, of course, the most terrible possibility: that someone came in and kidnapped her while I was at work, but just as I am ducking out of the kitchen I realise that her coat and shoes are gone, which means she must have left of her own volition.
I wonder why I thought that I could successfully leave Larxene alone for eleven hours without her disobeying one or more explicit orders. I check that she isn't hiding under the bed, then leave again, battling through the snow, which as been coming down in drifts for the last half hour. She's probably at the park: after all, where else would she go? But I'm still panicking by the time I reach its padlocked gates, crying out Larxene's name without care for the unfeminine depth of my voice. What if she isn't in the park? Where do I go then?
Climbing over the fence to get into the park is, quite simply, hell. Physical exercise is hard enough when you're heavily pregnant, let alone the kind of physical exercise that requires pressing yourself flush against a chain link fence. But through some mean feat of desperation I manage to fall over the other side and into the bank of snow on the other side. I peer around for footprints, but even though I can't see any in the snow that doesn't mean Larxene isn't here. So I tramp towards the playing field (empty), then the playground (no small children rocking solemnly on the swings or hiding under the slide) and finally the pond, just beginning to glint icily in the moonlight. I am already shivering; if Larxene's been here for hours she's probably hypothermic.
I wander around the park for ten, twenty minutes, then head up to the waterways in case Larxene decided to hang out there. By now I am seriously worrying that she decided to curl up in a little cubby hole and froze to death. The entire length of the canal that I run down is deserted. I wander around the town for a while, my shoes soaked through and my toes numb, but Larxene is nowhere to be found. Finally I return home, hoping only to thaw out before I go out hunting again. I'll have to call the police: so I plan to take some small change for a phone box some time.
I take the crickety old lift because my legs are protesting at every step I make, then wobble fatly down the corridor to our room. The light is on. And sure enough, when I unlock the door and go inside, Larxene is sitting on the bed in her clothes, dripping wet and shivering.
Before I can so much as open my mouth she says accusingly, "Where did you go?"
"Where did you go?" I shout back, running a hand through my cold, wet hair. "I've been looking all over town for you!" My fear and panic has transformed into fury. "I told you to stay here! What part of that did you not understand?"
"I was bored," Larxene says sheepishly, dodging my gaze. I pick her up off the bed, suddenly also angry that she's left a huge wet patch on the mattress - a huge wet patch that we're going to have to sleep in - but I manage to show enough self-control to not call her up on it just yet.
"I told you to stay here to keep you safe!" I snap, "You could have been seriously hurt out there! What were you thinking?" I pull her coat off so roughly that her sleeves catch and her arms jerk backwards painfully, but I can't quite bring myself to apologise. "You can't just go out on your own! Do you know how scared I was?"
Larxene starts crying. She says pathetically, "I wanted to play in the snow."
"You can play in the snow when I'm here to look after you," I growl, towelling Larxene down. "What did I tell you about rules on Friday? You have to follow them. We didn't just make them up, they're there to protect you."
After that, Larxene doesn't complain any more, except to say that she's hungry: even though I already made her both lunch and supper before I left this morning. It turns out that she ate both of them at lunch time, which is one more thing to scold her for. It isn't long before I am at the point of arranging for her to have a babysitter over the holidays, even though I know full well I could never afford it. Four-year-olds are not designed to be left alone for any length of time, even with careful instruction and plenty of distractions. I wish I had a TV I could just sit her down in front of for hours on end: the problem with paper and building blocks and Barbies is that if Larxene doesn't have an audience, she gets bored.
Our relationship for the rest of the evening is strained, so much so that Larxene decides that she wants to sleep at the end of the bed - and even stays there for a full four minutes before admitting that it's too cold not to curl up in my arms. Her cold fingers and toes make me spasm as she needles against me, wriggling under my shirt in her search for heat.
"I was lonely without you," she says huffily once she's settled down. I'm not sure if she meant at the end of the bed, or in the flat on her own today. So I hug her tight and reply vaguely; "I'll be with you as much as I can." I wonder if I could find a club or something for her over the holidays, just to get her out of the house sometimes. But clubs cost money, and money is in short supply… "It's not for very long. Only until you go back to school." I suddenly remember my conversation with the Headmaster. If Larxene goes back to school...
"Can't you stay at home?" Larxene asks. In the darkness, her unpracticed voice sounds louder, bouncing around the room. I sigh, wishing that I could. I'd much rather play with Larxene than spend all day tagging clothes for well-off mothers to buy in boutique stores. The company, in an effort to make their clothes look less factory produced and more "personally home made", has indroduced handwritten labels, which are in reality just another excuse for my manager to shout at me, because being a school drop out I don't exactly have the best handwriting.
"I have to go to work, you know that." Of course, the best solution would be to take Larxene to work with me… But I quickly face the fact that that is never going to happen.
"You didn't go to work when we moved here," Larxene points out. "Yes," I agree, "But that was because I didn't have a job. And if I quit my job now, we wouldn't have any money." Even though I can't see her face, I know that Larxene's scowling, because her hands clench into fists and my nose presses against my cheekbone. "And we need money to do things like buy food and pay rent. If I couldn't pay rent, we wouldn't have anywhere to live."
"We could just stay at someone's house," Larxene says, not understanding that there is no equivalent to the haven that was Hollow Bastion's soup kitchen here. Often when I needed some time alone she'd stay with Aqua there, or we'd share the lumpy, comfortable sofa in Xigbar's flat if we couldn't be bothered to go home late at night. Larxene probably assumes that any acquaintence would take pity on us if we ran out of money: it's only through experience that I know better.
So I say: "When you were born, I didn't have enough money to pay for a flat, so we had to live in my car. It was cold and dirty and it made you sick all the time." I squeeze her against my chest. "I'm not letting that happen to us again. So I have to go to work."
Larxene yawns loudly and doesn't say anything. Ten minutes later, she's asleep. I settle down too, and wake up the next morning with a terrible cold that only gets worse. Larxene is ecstatic, failing to make the connection that by Wednesday I am not going to work because I am physicallly incapable of getting out of bed. She wants me to play games with her: I want to sleep.
"I'll be a doctor," she says when I explain that I'm ill, climbing onto the bed and pressing her face against my chest. I push her away, saying "Don't do that, you'll catch my cold." But since she's willing, I get her to pour me a glass of water and give me my pregnancy book. The gist of the pages I skim tell me that I just need to take care of myself. Lots of hot, bland, nutritious foods. Great, but I can't even get up to put the kettle on, and I am not putting my four-year-old in charge of anything that could seriously injure her, because I am kidding myself if I think there's a chance it won't.
"Being a doctor is boring," Larxene says three glasses of water and one glass of milk later. I suggest that she helps me get up to go to the toilet, which makes her wrinkle her nose in disgust and come up with an excuse that is actually ingenious: "Nurses help people go to the toilet, not doctors." I can't fault that. But I also can't wet myself, so in a feat of great strength I heave myself out of bed and waddle over to the bathroom. Then I have just about enough energy to wet a tea towel with hot water and make a mug of packet soup before I collapse back into bed. Larxene, sitting on the other side of the room with a blanket wrapped around her, watches me beadily. Occasionally she says "Are you better yet?", my reply to which is a very clogged up "No".
I go back to work on Friday, not because I am feeling any better but because if I want to take three days off of work I have to have a note from the local doctor, and if I go to the doctor my pregnancy is probably going to come up and there are going to be a lot of questions I won't be able to answer, and in the end it's really not worth it for just a cold. My productivity is at about a quarter of its usual levels, but thankfully my coworkers are too busy discussing the imminence of Christmas to notice me almost falling asleep every five minutes. I wobble home, stopping every few hundred metres to sit down and rest, shivering and sneezing and generally feeling so terrible by the time I finally push the door open that I don't even realise it isn't locked. Inside, I immediately look around for my daughter, but there's not one but two girls sitting on the bed, one braiding the other's hair.
I try to say; "Naminé? What are you doing here?" but I sneeze halfway through. The teenager gives me an unimpressed look and replies somewhat judgementally; "I'm looking after your daughter."
Even though I just want to crawl into bed, I force myself to fetch a glass of water instead. It's testament to how cold I am that this water, which has travelled through freezing outdoor pipes to reach me, feels warm.
"I dropped by to see how you were doing," Naminé says, sounding genuinely concerned. "I found your address on the school database, before you think I'm a stalker. Anyway, I can't believe you just left Larxene here on her own all day." And as if this telling-off is not enough, Larxene herself adds an accusing "Yeah, Mummy," from the bed.
I sigh.
"I wouldn't if I had any other choice." I pull off my sodden coat and drape it over the radiator, "But I can't afford to take time off work. Or," I add before Naminé pulls out this argument, "A childminder. She knows how to contact me in an emergency." (This is a lie, but it makes me sound more responsible than I really am.)
"She's four, Marluxia," Naminé says insistently. I think to myself, I am being lectured on parenthood by a mere child; this has to be some kind of new low for me. "Look at the time! You can't leave her alone for so long. That's really dangerous."
"I told you, I don't have any other choice," I reply tiredly, pulling out a dry change of clothes and heading towards the bathroom. "Anyway, what are you doing here?"
"I came to see how you were, like I said."
At this stage I literally have no recollection of her saying that earlier. Things are beginning to be a bit of a blur. Vaguely, I wonder how legible today's clothes tags are. Probably not very.
"Well, okay, you can go now," I say, flopping into the bathroom and shutting the door. My clothes are literally plastered to me, but whether with sweat or melted snow I can't quite make out. I peel off my shirt and undo my (now somewhat too-small) bra, grabbing a towel to rub the moisture off my skin. Everything seems to take three times as long with this heavy fog over my eyes, but finally I find myself beginning to thaw. I touch up my make up, or at least attempt to, before leaving the bathroom. Naminé has not left.
"You don't look well," she says with more concern, Larxene now attempting to pull her hair into a plait (literally; every time my daughter tugs on a strand of that soft blonde hair, Naminé's head jerks backward a little). I sniff gallantly.
"Just a cold." I must say this very brusquely, because after that Naminé changes the subject, saying; "Hey, Marluxia, you can leave Larxene with me during the day if you want to. I'm already on babysitting duty for Selphie, so I don't mind doing it. I just don't think she should be left here by herself."
My first reaction is "absolutely not". Prolongued exposure to other people only increases the possibility of Larxene saying something horribly damaging about me and, more importantly, my past. I don't think with a stomach my size anyone suspects me of not actually being "Miss" Braefern, but all Larxene has to do is casually talk about her "Daddy" and Naminé will come asking awkward questions. But under further consideration, I have to admit that it would eliminate the possibility that Larxene will a) run off again, b) seriously damage herself in my absense and c) seriously damage something else in my absense. So I put on my most sociable smile, nod, and say "That would be really helpful, if you don't mind."
"I'll have to check with my parents," Naminé says, "But it should be fine. They're out most of the time anyway." She prises Larxene away from her half-braided, half-backbrushed hair and stands up, smoothing herself down. "Anyway, I'm sorry for just dropping by. I thought you'd be at home, you know, holidays and all." She lets out a one-syllable laugh. "Here, I'll write down my address for you, if you just want to drop Larxene off in the morning on Monday."
The realisation dawns on me that I have just acquired a free babysitter. Finally, something has happened in Radiant Garden that has turned out to be to my advantage. I thank Naminé again and again, and let her out. Larxene, who has already snuggled up in bed, looks at me.
"What?"
"Are you Daddy again?" she asks. I look down at myself: no, I'm still wearing a pink t-shirt that stretches unflatteringly over my baby bump, and a skirt that hits my ankles. "I thought you only talked to other people in a normal voice when you were Daddy," Larxene continues, genuinely confused. My heart sinks like a stone. Shit. Oh, shit. So bogged down by my long day at work and my groggy cold, I had completely forgotten to whisper to Naminé. I pray to the god that I don't believe in that I'll be able to successfully blame my unrealistically deep voice on the cold.
"I'm still Mummy," I say, whispering again. "Don't get too comfortable, you still need to brush your teeth." And I pull a protesting Larxene out of the bed and mercilessly force the toothbrush upon her. I'll just have to keep Naminé at arm's length. She wouldn't seriously think I was actually a man, would she? I'm far too obviously pregnant. And by the time my feminine hormones begin to fade, I can move out of Radiant Garden and leave her far behind.