"What's the point?" Mrs Sullivan seethed through the line, "You're all grown up now - you have your own life. It's not that we don't want to see you - but so much has changed. I don't even think your father has anything to say to you. Or me even, for that matter."
The words usually would've spilled from her mouth. How dare you treat your daughter like a piece of trash. Blinking away tears of humiliation that she had to beg her mother for Christmas plans. It'd all been one crock of shit after another. Outstation: Geneva. Then Tokyo. Then Belize. Before Mrs Sullivan stopped lying altogether and just said she wasn't interested in seeing her anymore. Dad wasn't even contactable. She heard his voice more often on Air Force Times interviews than over the phone. A part of her wondered which was worse: that they'd gotten divorced, or gotten divorced and not told her.
Years ago the garbage voices would've gotten into her head. Just what the hell is wrong with me? What about me is so loathsome that even my parents don't want anything to do with me? Then years marched on and she stopped listening to her own voice and filled her head with the voices of others. ROTC running cadences which gave her a fickle sense of family. Drill Sergeant's hollering voice as they cleaned rifles and scrubbed latrines. Ear-splitting roar of jet engines and screaming civilians in Ukraine, haunting her in a foreign language only she could understand.
Fort Bragg's counselor had asked Anna, in no gentle terms, whether she was deliberately punishing herself. Whether the pain and noise she put herself through each Christmas was some form of self-flagellation meant as penance for falling short of her parents' affections. She mused on the morsel of wisdom dispensed in the silent office filled with West Point honors' certificates and teddy bears in smart blues. Looked up from her boots and said, "Yea - I think I am."
Before promptly heading out after work and getting sloshed at the nearest bar.
Next year, she'd learned instead to fill her ears with other people's voices. Loud, banging hiphop music. Strange women's flirtatious whispers, hips and bodies pressed together on the dance floor. Their inevitable cries of pleasure in bedrooms she had to stumble her way out of in the morning. There were probably a tonne of queer women in North Carolina estranged from their families with nothing to do over Christmas. A mini-community of the heartsick she could fall back on. All of them also fucked in the head. Because there had to be something wrong with all of us to be alone over a holiday season while everyone had families, right?
This year, the inevitable sense of impending dread she'd usually ignored failed to make a reappearance. The NSA's integration plan had mercilessly extended over the entirety of December and January. Longer and harder hikes in the freaking cold - each item of Elsa's clothing catalogued and inventoried, down to her unmentionables. Anna reckoned they must've figured how to thermal scan her from afar, since Hans had stopped getting his panties in a twist over her temperature readings. Within the NSA - silence was usually a bad thing. She'd started to fear the silences more than Hans's tirades. Shadows from afar over that glint of a laser pointer through their windows. As much as the incoming storm filled her with unease - Elsa's programme had shown a considerable uptick in autonomy. She was scheduled for social events which allowed for cordial interaction with other people. Anna was tasked with running through every little detail of her cover story a thousand times over to ensure she could answer them in casual conversation. Once again, Anna had no idea what the NSA's intent was for Elsa. Her questions went around in one big circle of silence that wore down her nerves the closer they got to Christmas eve.
Without an end-goal in sight, Anna found it easier to fall once again into the gentle company that a life with Elsa allowed. Three homecooked meals a day. Outings to restaurants on the weekends. Even exotic cuisines from far off places that heated Elsa's delicate Nordic tastebuds and turned her face red. They'd attended baking classes and figured the intricacies of Christmas pastries under the pretense of being sisters. More films had been whitelisted by the NSA and Elsa found joy in an old Cinema showing Audrey Hepburn's Classical films from the 50s. They'd even let them cross state lines into DC just to attend a Symphonic Orchestra performance that moved the Queen to near silent tears.
Six months had passed. She'd never spent this much time with a single person her entire life. Not even her parents. She could read Elsa's emotions better than her own. And right now, she could tell that listening to a performance of Bach Concertos had affected her deeply.
"Y'know - there's something called Spotify right?" Anna switched the playlist on her phone before connecting the car's stereo. Light violin music filtered through the speakers above the car's hum. Elsa turned in her seat. Eyes reddened.
"I-it's not the same," Elsa whispered, "it was like - they were playing the music for me."
"Wow - you really like music, huh?"
It gave Anna an idea. A few quick text exchanges later and a violin showed up on their doorstep the next day. Now, Anna had the privilege of listening to the majesty of Elsa's violin playing for a good half-hour each day. It'd taken no time at all to display her prowess with the instrument. Apparently her only source of mental escape during the long years she'd been kept in isolation by King Agnarr for god knows what reason.
On their last check-in before Christmas, the committee asked Anna point-blank if the violin helped Elsa handle her emotions well enough. Such flagrant insolence. Every gift and privilege a means to an end.
"I didn't know you were actively trying to control her emotions," Anna shook her head, "can't a woman just have nice things without worrying about your motivations?"
All three panel members and Hans stared at Anna for a good twenty seconds.
"You're, you're getting attached to Elsa," Hans's voice lowered, "emotionally."
She shot a gaze. Daring him to confront her through the rage in her eyes.
"I'm not," she snarled. The harshness in her voice weighed down each word. As though it might further convince them she's telling the truth.
Hans just got up and left. It'd been their shortest check-in. Ever. And when Elsa emerged from hers - the weird mess of topics she'd been exposed to only raised more questions than answers. A huge blimp in the idyllic life she'd gotten so used to, even discounting her enormous paychecks she hadn't the time to spend a single cent of.
"They brought in an esteemed group of weather experts and gave a lecture on wind patterns in the North Atlantic," Elsa threw up her hands, "chemical compositions in the atmosphere. I had to take a whole test and everything, like I was enrolled in a university."
As usual, Anna only had one question, "But, did they - hurt you?"
"No, they wouldn't dare," Elsa got into her car, "this whole thing just didn't make any sense."
Anna looked at the sky, hesitating on the engine. Pieces of a puzzle clicked together and she saw a picture through the fog. A long time ago, she'd promised Elsa her honesty. But was it really lying when she didn't know the whole truth either?
"No, it doesn't make sense," Anna said. Pondering whether to tell Elsa when it eventually did.
Or if she'd even have time to say anything before this whole house of cards came tumbling down.
And Elsa would figure out what ride-or-die really meant.