Minutiae

Todays

There were moments when she really was glad she'd never had children of her own and this was undoubtedly one of them. She could understand how toddlers and small children could make so much mess but teenagers? Wincing, she removed the DVD that was currently poking into her back and placed it on the precariously stacked pile on the carpeted floor. The house was completely silent and, after two days of enjoying the constant chatter and noise when she came up to the main house, she found it unnerving. Kristen was picking the kids up from school and Lindsey had told her he'd just be a minute, that he needed to check on something in the studio. That minute had turned into ten and she was getting increasingly twitchy sitting here doing nothing besides waiting for her partner. Her eyes kept being drawn to the family portraits on the wall and she didn't like that her brain protested at their very existence.

Squinting at the daylight pouring into the room, Stevie sighed and sat down on the floor instead, stacking the DVDs into three smaller piles. She may as well do something useful while she waited. Besides, it was more than a little amusing to imagine Lindsey's daughters forcing him to watch some of these films... Occasionally glancing at the door (when would Lindsey remember she was still here waiting, for god's sake?!), she kept cleaning up the living room, bit by bit, item by item. The housekeeper was due in a few days according to Lindsey but it wouldn't hurt to just make things a little more organized for when the other Buckinghams got home. Besides, she liked feeling useful. Out of the realm of music, she rarely was, and though it caused her life to be much more relaxed and stress-free than it could otherwise be, it also made her feel purposeless at times.

When they'd lived together, cleaning was a regular thing, partly due to the fact that Lindsey and his friends apparently didn't know how to pick up after themselves at all. Their bedroom had always been the worst, however, with her boyfriend simply dropping things to the floor when they'd outlasted their usefulness of the moment. She found herself wondering whether that had changed at all and quickly walked to the home's master bedroom, listening out with nervous anticipation for the sound of Lindsey or Kristen and the children returning home. The door was open and Stevie slipped inside, drinking in the sight of the bedroom, trying not to let herself be affected by the sight of Kristen's things in this comfortable shared room.

A pair of jeans and an old, ratty T-shirt lay on the unmade bed, tangled up with a purple blouse and a lacy bra and Stevie found herself swallowing down her immediate reaction of how *wrong* that was. Smiling at the acoustic guitar propped up against the bed and a cassette desk sitting on the floor, she ran a hand along the comforter, soft shades of blue and white calming her. Photos of the children sat on the dresser along with a large collection of jewellery and an enviable amount of nail polish. Kristen had expensive taste, apparently.

A photograph of Lindsey with his arms wrapped around a beaming Kristen demanded her attention - right next to his bed - and she found herself drawn to it, trying to explain it to her protesting brain. It didn't need explaining though. It was a picture of a husband and a wife, a happily married couple. And that was that.

She left their space, closing the door softly behind her.