The Start Of Something

10: damp and darkness

♫ Grand New Spin – Gold Celeste ♫

Maggie was waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was evident in the quick glances she cast between Marion and Georgia as she leaned back in her kitchen chair and pressed the coffee cup to her lips. It should have been obvious now, three days after Georgia came to stay with them, that any tension between them had been mended. There were other things to worry about, though only Marion knew that their worries diverged on planes of reality. She looked at them from where she stood at the griddle, her aunt and their guest, and wondered at just how normal it felt to have another person join them for Sunday breakfast. It had always been a private event, something even Queenie hadn't come to, and yet she didn't really mind that Georgia was the one to break the trend.

The day after the break-in, Georgia had finally said aloud that she planned to leave Suffolk, and Maggie nearly had a fit. She insisted that Georgia stay with them for awhile longer; no one knew that she had come home with Marion that night, and after word spread through the regulars at the cafe that someone had broken into the apartment, there was little risk that anyone would divulge more details about her. It was Dave Anderson who showed up in the cafe kitchen two days later with his hat in his hands, nearly in tears as he told Maggie that he was approached by a young man with brown hair and black-framed glasses who asked him where he might find his sister. He'd explained that they had planned to meet at the cafe, but she didn't seem to be working, and Dave didn't think anything of it when he told him that she lived upstairs. He didn't have the balls to tell it to Georgia herself, but with her usual niceness—in a manner that Marion would have found grating before—she sought him out herself to let him know she didn't blame him. But Marion did blame him, and when she expressed that to Georgia the other woman only smiled slightly at her and said nothing.

Between Georgia and Dave, the cops should have had enough to go on, or so she thought. But they'd heard nothing, not even a whisper out of Rob and Miranda. Maybe it was because it was the weekend, or maybe they'd already written off what she told them before Dave could confirm that someone really was looking for her. She'd even shown him a picture of the ex and he'd nodded vigorously, looking like he might pass out.

Georgia had said she would go, and she refused Maggie's offer at first, but then she stayed the night again, and then again, and now they were eating breakfast together as if she'd always been a fixture here. Where would she go, anyway? And why would that place be any different to her? She was safer here, where she'd already started to build a community, and where she had someone like Maggie to take her under her wing.

"The pancakes, Marion." She looked down at the sound of Maggie's voice and saw that the edges of the cakes were beginning to turn brown. Flipping each one over until the air filled with the sizzle of batter, she glanced to where Georgia was looking at her from the table.

"I think you should stay here," she said, and Georgia's gaze dropped to her cup of coffee.

"Marion," Maggie warned gently. "Just let her have her coffee."

"You've been worrying about what to do next for three days, and I think you should just give Suffolk a chance. You like it here, and you have people who look out for you here." She set the spatula on the counter and came around the other side of the island so Georgia couldn't avoid her quite as easily. "Maggie and I want you to stay here, but you don't have to if you don't want to, it's really okay. Queenie offered her spare bedroom, and even Bob and Lorraine said they'd clear out their loft for you."

"I don't know," Georgia shifted uncomfortably in her chair and looked between her and Maggie.

"What don't you know?"