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Abdication

Marianne, Sixteen Hours Later

Waking up isn't what it used to be.

It's too quiet. This house is too empty.

There are people here, sure. Matt. Alley, maybe. Some of the security could be inside. Certainly one or two of the domestic staff might be about. Out in the South Suites, Street and Rory are home. Maybe Bridget and Dev. Or maybe not. It's hard to tear Bridget away from the babies, and where ever she is, Dev is never far from there, so they might as easily be back at the hospital already.

Oh, my baby girl. Raped, tortured, half a world away, and I never knew.

A mother should know. A mother should feel it when her child is hurting. I didn't feel it.

She was too far away, and she's been that far away too long.

She's home now, but she won't stay. None of them will stay. That's the way of it.

I look up at the ceiling and smooth back my hair, smiling at the memory of them all running into this room, jumping in the bed when they were little. It really wasn't that long ago when Alley used to do that. Eight, nine years.

There is something to be said for waking up peacefully, however. I stretch my muscles, starting at the feet, and working my way up, trying to find pleasure in the quiet.

Yet memories crowd in.

There was a time this house was constantly filled with sound. Squabbling children, raucous bandmates, and two hell-raising lovers. Screeches and screams, bass and drums. Breaking glass and breaking hearts and rock ballads.

Cries of pain.

Cries of love.

Now, we go to bed in the quiet, and I wake in the quiet.

It's not really the time of day to be sleeping, so I'm not surprised that Matt isn't beside me. Even though we haven't had decent sleep in days, and even though Matt once partied all night and slept all day, he's a creature of a more stable routine these days. Not one to be in bed after three in the afternoon, no matter how little sleep he's operating on. I rise, brush my teeth, brush my hair, splash some water on my face—I look tired, but that's okay, I am tired—and go to find him.

Before I go downstairs, I stop by Alley's room. She's not there. I check her status. Her panic button GPS says she's at the gym. I text her, asking her to check-in. I text Lane, too, though I don't ping him.

He's twenty-one years old, and it's a school day, he's probably at work at the high school where he's subbing as the band director. Still, the high school isn't in the best part of town, and Lane isn't always known for getting along with people, so I worry. I worry about random violence, and I worry about Lane angering the wrong student because he is not much older than they are.

He wouldn't have the job that he's more than musically competent to do but not technically qualified for, except the band teacher quit his contract without notice. Lane was supposed to be a crisis fill-in to baby-sit the kids and maybe teach them a little something about music, but he's been since last spring now. He found them funding for instruments—and didn't ask MdM to buy them—and he's got a jazz band coming along pretty well, although he says the marching band is still pretty much a disaster.

I would imagine so—Lane's never marched in step a day in his life.

I find Matt in the kitchen in his standard uniform of jeans and dark t-shirt. Barefoot. Unshaven. He always shaves—he thinks stubble makes him look old and grisly. But not today. Today, Matt doesn't care about his image.