Balancing Act

114

It was perhaps an hour or so later and Rory was setting Finny at the junior chair by the dining table table, while Cathy continued to play with the twins upstairs, Celeste having been there too just now, helping out. It had been good for her to keep herself occupied, the letter still remaining unopened. It was almost easy to forget anything was going on at all as long as it remained sealed.

Rory had just texted G for the second time, telling her dinner was ready and was frankly becoming a little curious to what was taking her so long. Was she really that upset at them, she would just skip dinner? Having breakfast and dinner together had become their thing, at least at most evenings, unless of course she'd decided to order in herself. But she usually always let her know if she did or if she had other plans, but then again that entire afternoon had had very little usual about it.

"Do you want me to go check?" Celeste read her thoughts, but felt like she didn't want to just assume that Rory wanted her talking to G about G's issues alone anymore, feeling like the trust between her and Rory was still frail in that department. Rory seemed to understand why she'd done what she had, but she could sense she was a little hurt just the same, and perhaps more importantly she could tell Rory wasn't feeling very good about herself when it came to actually helping G.

"Would you?" Rory said, already seeing that Finny definitely needed her help with the chicken that they were having for dinner. Celeste was right about most of her thoughts, though at the same times Rory was becoming rapidly quite angry at Finn too. This was so typical of Finn - he wasn't emotionally very mature, and frankly in her experience, he often just decided to not deal with his relationships at all, simply ghosting a lot of them. But as she'd said and thought a thousand times before - Finn was easy to like and very easy to forgive, almost like forgiving a child. She also scolded herself for not keeping better tabs on them before, having in the summer been the one to point out she suspected G developing some attraction for Finn. She'd told Logan about it and Logan had promised to have a word with him. But as this was just before the babies came, the months after had just been a blur. She didn't feel like she was equipped to handle this, yet picking up the phone to Christopher or Sherry, felt like betraying G all over again. She didn't just want to ship G off to anywhere because she didn't know what to do. That would've made her just another person who admitted they couldn't handle her or did want her around.

Celeste rose from her seat and got into the elevator, which took her to the sixth floor. As she got there, she found the place empty and dark, the door left ajar. Yet she called out for her, just in case. She even stepped out to the rooftop balcony for a second to make sure G wasn't there - but she wasn't.

She was just about to panic, imagining all possible scenarios just like any mother would - if G was anything like her running off to her friend's at the time would've probably been her first reaction too - when her phone rang, distracting her.

"Noah?" she asked in confusion, having really not expected to hear from him.

"Hey," Noah began.

"How can I help you, Noah?" she asked. She hadn't spoken to him in months, except for a few brief e-mails. She generally knew Noah wasn't very understanding of her not pulling her 110% on their joint book after it was published, and while she felt a little guilty for it she wasn't really up to changing much in that department. But he really hadn't done anything other than complain to Jess about it, he wasn't a threat or someone to hold a very deep grudge as far as she knew him.

"I just wanted to let you know that there was a PI asking around about you today, he had your both names," Noah said. "I didn't say anything, but they talked to Bilal too, I don't know what he said," he added.

That certainly explained a few things - it could possibly have been someone her mother hired, though again this made her think about why her mother would have done something like that, and done it now, but at least setting the timeline even further in the past, definitely earlier than Celeste herself had sent out the letter to her.