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If someone asked Trixie what she wanted most in the world she’d probably tell them a never-ending chocolate cake, or a personal zoo in her back garden, or a trip to Disneyland. Or if she could have literally anything she’d so ask for a spaceship to fly her to Mars. With a cupboard full of the never-ending chocolate cake for the journey.
But if she were being truly honest, cross her heart and hope to die serious, all she really, really wants is for her mum to be happy.
She doesn’t remember her mum ever being happy. Not properly, not all the time. Sure, she’s happy when the two of them are together. She always smiles and laughs and acts like she doesn’t need anyone else in the world, but she still gets this look on her face when she thinks Trixie isn’t paying attention. This look like she’s sad and hurting on the inside all the time, like she’s somehow alone even when Trixie’s right there. Trixie hates it. She hates how tired and grey it makes her mum look. And she double hates it for being even worse when her dad is around. All her books and stories make out like love is forever. The prince and the princess meet, fall in love, get married, have babies and spend the rest of their lives happy together in their big fancy castle. She’s old enough now to know that that’s a fairy tale, that real life is a lot harder and sadder, but seeing the lie of it in the way her parents fight and shout and hurt each other still makes her stomach feel like it’s full of needles.
The worst of it had been her mum’s face that one night, when the shouting between them had gone on longer than ever before and Trixie had hidden her head under the pillows and pressed her hands over her ears but she’d still heard the front door slam so hard it seemed like the whole house echoed with it. Then there’d been this long silence, so long she’d sat up in bed and stared at her door, wondering if everyone had gone and she was alone and wondering what on earth she was meant to do, and she’d felt like her stomach was going to turn inside out she was so scared, but then her mum had come and opened the door and for just a moment everything was fine until she saw her mother’s eyes.
She’d hoped for a long time after that that things would go back to normal. She’d hoped daddy would come home and they’d all live together again like they always had until mummy had made her pack her things and they’d gone to live at grandma’s house. Without daddy.
She’s used to it now. She knows her parents both love her, they just can’t love each other anymore. That happens sometimes between adults. And mostly that’s fine. But she hates that it still makes her mother look so sad.
***
She’s not sure what to think of Pierce. He’s so… so… she doesn’t even know what the word is she feels about him. Her mum says he makes her happy. She smiles more when he’s there. He brings her things sometimes and she looks at him with her face all bright, but her eyes still look the same as they did before. He never makes her light up from the inside.
Lucifer does. She remembers catching them talking on the doorstep once. Lucifer had been leaning on the jamb, jacket slung over his shoulder in the heat of a summer evening and the glow of the porch light outlining his head. He’d pointed at Trixie, head tilting close to her mum, and her mum had turned around to look at her with a face so happy it was alight.
She’s pretty sure she shouldn’t mention that to her mum. She thinks that maybe something horrible happened with mummy and Lucifer because he never just turns up any more. He’s never there in the kitchen making comments that Trixie doesn’t understand but make her mum twist her face like she’s trying super hard not to laugh, or being all awkward and stiff around Trixie in the way he does that’s one of the funniest things she’s ever seen. He’s never there to sit and play games with them in the evening and protest that he can’t have a glittery unicorn on his face, he’s the Devil, but then let her do it anyway.
Lucifer acts like he doesn’t care, but the memory of him being there when her mum saved her from Malcolm is etched into her memory. The way his hands shook slightly before he hid them in his pockets. The way his expression flashed so much relief before he smoothed it away. The way just seeing him made her feel safe.
Pierce never does that. He tries to be all friendly and relaxed around Trixie, like he’s trying to show her he’s cool. He tells her to call him Marcus while he ruffles her hair and plays with her for a while, but he never talks to her like he cares what she’s saying. She bets he’d never let her accidentally get pink glitter all over his hair and only pretend to be annoyed.
He’s never made her feel like she can call him Marcus, no matter what he says. He’s never made her feel like his friend.
Trixie sits at the dining table, crayons strewn around her paper in a rainbow of possibility, and watches her mum and Pierce on the other side of the kitchen counter out of the corner of her eye. He’s leaning against the worktop, arms folded across his chest, while she stirs something in a pan. Her mum is talking, too quiet for Trixie to hear, but her mouth is turning up at the corners so it’s got to be something funny. Pierce is watching her and he’s clearly listening, but his face is so calm. He’s not smiling with her. He’s leaning back, almost away from her. When Lucifer listens to mummy his whole body tilts towards her and his eyes never leave her face. His face does this thing where it goes gentle and his eyes go all soft and warm and shiny. She can’t see Pierce’s eyes from here, but she knows they won’t look like that.
Trixie bites her lip and looks down at her paper. She’s drawn her and mummy again. She always does when she’s unsure. It feels like reassurance to put them there on the paper, as though a couple of scribbled doodles, barely recognisable as the people they are, will make them safe together.
Would it make mummy happy if she drew Pierce on the other side of her? Mummy has asked Trixie a few times how she feels about him being around. How she’d feel about him being around for a long time. She wrinkles her nose and casts a quick glance back at the kitchen. Mummy is leaning over the pan, hair glowing gold in the spotlights like a halo. She looks so pretty. Like an angel.
Pierce isn’t even looking at her. He’s checking his phone.
Turning back to her drawing, Trixie considers. Then she picks up her crayon and carefully adds hands to her little mother and daughter, joining them together as tight as she can.
***
Pierce asks mummy to marry him. There’s a sparkly ring and mummy has a party with Maze and Linda and Ella where she wears a tiara and looks like a princess and Trixie feels strange and sad in a way she doesn’t understand.
Then there’s no sparkly ring. Trixie notices immediately when it’s gone. She knows mummy was wearing it when she dropped Trixie off at school. Now mummy’s paying the babysitter at the door and Trixie’s meant to be doing her science homework, but she can’t stop staring at the empty space on her mum’s left hand where there used to be a diamond.
She means to look away before her mum turns around, but she’s too slow. Her mum drops her bag on the side table and swings around just in time to catch Trixie’s fixed stare burning into her. She sighs and hugs her arms around herself with her hands tucked under her jacket.
“All right monkey, I know you’ve noticed,” she says softly. Trixie blinks at her, aiming her face for innocent. From the slight smile and shake of the head she gets in response Trixie’s fairly sure she ended up squarely in guilty instead. Her mum looks away for second then toes off her shoes, pushes them to the side and pads across the room to sit at the table next to her. She clasps her hands in her lap for a moment, then rests them on the table by Trixie’s worksheet. Leaning forward a little, she catches Trixie’s eye.
“I gave the ring back to Marcus,” she tells Trixie in what Trixie thinks of as her gentle mum voice. The one she uses when Trixie’s upset or she has to tell her something really serious. “I’m not going to marry him,” she explains. “I decided it wasn’t a good idea.”
Trixie looks down at the glaringly empty finger. Her mum rubs her thumbs across the space, back and forth without stopping as though she’s doing it unconsciously. Trixie pulls her eyes away, back to her mum’s face. She’s watching Trixie calmly. She’s not crying, but she’s not smiling either. Her eyes don’t look like they did in the days after daddy left. She doesn’t look cracked like a dropped plate. But she looks…
“Are you sad, mummy?” Trixie finally blurts. She stops, presses her lips together. She hadn’t meant to ask her quite like that. If she is sad Trixie doesn’t know what to do. She never knows what to do when her mum cries. When she sits on the sofa and stares into the distance and the sadness comes out of her in rivers.
Her mum twitches the tiniest of smiles. She reaches out and wraps her arm around Trixie’s shoulders, pulling her in to cradle her against the beat of her heart. She drops her head down and Trixie feels a kiss land in the curls of her hair. They sit in silence for a long moment before her mum finally sighs again and tightens her embrace.
“No, monkey.” Her mum’s voice is a whisper. “No, I don’t think I am.”
***
It’s still dark when Trixie opens her eyes. It doesn’t feel like she’s been asleep long. Rolling over, she squints at the luminous hands of the clock on her wall. Half past one. Her star lamp is still gently turning on her bedside table, casting tiny jewels of light across her ceiling, so she draws the duvet up to her nose and rolls onto her back to watch them spin and imagine that they’re real galaxies swirling over her bed. Lucifer told her once he lit the stars. She wonders sleepily what it would really be like to be up there among them.
There’s a noise from outside her room. Trixie blinks, coming more awake. Was that the front door? Maybe mummy’s home. The thought makes her smile. It’s Sunday tomorrow. If her mum’s here in the morning they can have breakfast together. Make pancakes and curl up on the sofa and watch cartoons in their pyjamas. She wishes they could do that more often. Wishes her mum didn’t work so much on weekends.
There’s another noise and Trixie frowns, sits up. That was a voice. Not her mum’s either. It sounded like a man.
With practised care Trixie swings her legs off the bed and eases herself upright. Padding lightly on the balls of her feet she crosses the carpet, steps over the creaky floorboard. Reaching the door, she presses gently on the handle, lowering it by millimetres, pauses to listen, presses again until it’s down and she can crack the door open. She swings it just far enough to fit her eye to the gap, kneels down and leans to squint through.
Now that her door isn’t muffling the sounds she can make out the murmur of her mother’s voice from near the kitchen. It’s hushed so she can’t make out the words, but again the tone has that gentle mum feel that Trixie knows instantly. Easing the door open a fraction more, she twists slightly, trying to get a better view. A brief blur of motion catches her eye. Her mum rises from behind the kitchen counter holding the bottle of whisky Trixie’s not supposed to know she keeps behind the cleaning supplies under the sink in the cupboard with the padlock. She twists off the top and pours into two glasses on the counter, but she’s not watching what she’s doing. Her head is turned to the side and her eyes are fixed towards the living room window. She’s wearing this strange expression Trixie’s never seen before. It’s worried, seriously worried like it was when Trixie fell off her bike onto the road and nearly got hit by a car, but it’s something else too underneath that Trixie can’t put a name to.
Trixie twists the other way but her door is at the wrong angle. She can’t see what her mum’s looking at. Frustrated, she drops to her knees and lies down, face pressed to the crack between door and carpet. Now the counter blocks her view of her mum, but with a brief shuffle she can see into the rest of the house.
There’s a man standing by the window, back to the room, head bowed, shoulders hunched and arms clutched tight around his body. The pose is so unexpected, so obviously filled with pain, that it takes Trixie a moment to realise she recognises him.
“Lucifer!” She can’t hold in the excited gasp of his name. Instantly she clamps her mouth shut to hold in any more noise. Whole body tense, she waits for an elongated moment. To her relief neither adult seems to have heard her. Lucifer stays motionless, outlined against the window. All she hears from her mum is the gentle clink of a bottle landing on the worktop, then the sound of the freezer door opening. Trixie relaxes, exhaling slowly.
In a mirror of Trixie’s breath, Lucifer sighs. His breath catches on the next inhale, sharp and pained. His shoulders hunch in further and he shudders hard enough that the shake in his legs is obvious a whole room away. Her hands twitch with a sudden desire to reach out and hug him hard. Unwelcome as that might be. His sadness is tangible in the room, so strong she can’t bear it.
The characteristic squeak of the freezer door sounds again. There’s a chink of ice on glass then her mum’s feet appear from behind the kitchen counter. She passes Trixie’s door with quick, purposeful steps. Stopping at the coffee table, she bends to deposit two glasses of whisky before straightening, taking half a pace, hesitating. Then she moves forward properly to stand at Lucifer’s side. She turns towards him, places one hand on his elbow and lifts the other to his face, drawing him round to look at her.
The sight of Lucifer’s profile as he turns makes Trixie’s eyes go wide. He’s pale, face white as his shirt but his eyes are ringed with darkness like bruises. His normally perfectly restrained hair is half-wild. He looks exhausted, sick. Cracked like a dropped plate.
Her mum cups his jaw and strokes her thumb across his cheek. Her other hand sweeps down his arm to catch his wrist. She eases his fingers free from their death grip on his jacket without breaking eye contact and brings their hands to press together against her heart. Even from across the room Trixie hears Lucifer breathe in sharply.
“Chloe,” he whispers, so quiet the word is the barest breath in Trixie’s ears. He rocks forward slightly, jerks back. His head drops.
Her mum ducks to catch his eye again.
“Lucifer,” she says softly, insistently. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
He lets out a noise like a wounded animal. For a moment he doesn’t move. Then his shoulders droop and he sags forward. Her mum’s arms come up immediately, curving around his back to draw him to her. She tucks his face against her neck and rests one hand on his head, strokes his hair once, twice. He shudders, then his arms wrap around her mum’s waist and clutch her close.
Trixie watches them for what feels like an eternity. She doesn’t understand what’s going on, what’s wrong. Is Lucifer sick? He’s holding himself like he’s hurting. But her mum looks so calm, so unafraid. She’s leaning her head on Lucifer’s, rocking them slowly side to side. One hand rubs circles low on Lucifer’s back while the other combs through his disordered hair, tidying its tangles. Her lips are moving, shaping words Trixie can’t hear but she knows from experience are drops of comfort, repeated with a gentle force that makes them impossible to disbelieve.
Eventually Lucifer draws back. His hands stay at her mother’s waist as he straightens and her arms lift with him, her hands not leaving his shoulders. He blinks a few times, eyes red-rimmed and bright with crying, but despite the tears he smiles down at her mum with something like wonder. Her mum smiles back, her eyes lighting with the inner glow that Trixie hasn’t seen in the longest time. She lifts her hands to his face. Her palms sweep from his temples to frame his jaw then her thumbs brush tenderly over his cheekbones. His arm slides around her back again, tucking her close to him.
They both move at the same time. Her mum rolls up onto her toes, head tipping back. Lucifer’s hand comes up to cradle the back of her head and he leans down. Their eyes close. For a second they’re still, lips millimetres apart. Then they come together.
Trixie presses a hand to her mouth to hold in her gasp. Her stomach fizzes with bubbles of swallowed delight. Her heart beats hard and fast in her chest in rhythm with her internal yes yes yes.
The two of them break apart, but not by far. Lucifer’s thumb smooths across her mum’s temple and he laughs a little breathlessly against her lips. She shakes her head without opening her eyes, wraps her hand around the back of his neck and pulls him back down to rest their foreheads together. Her tiny smile illuminates the whole room.
Trixie rolls away from the door. Much as she loves to see her mum happy, she knows a private moment when she sees one. Hopping back into bed, she pulls the duvet up to her nose and closes her eyes. Summoning up the image of her mum’s face, radiant with a happiness that outshines every light in the room, Trixie smiles herself to sleep.
***
Trixie wakes up late. The morning creeps in around her blinds and across the bed onto her face. Fingers of light tickle her eyelids and she finally stirs, yawns. Opening her eyes, she blinks to clear the sleep from her sight. Her room comes into focus in front of her and the first thing she sees is her lamp still turning, casting the faintest of starry spirals across her sun-tinged walls. Tiny galaxies.
A connection sparks in the depths of her memory and she sits bolt upright. Did she dream it, or had she really seen...?
Heart in her mouth, Trixie shoves the duvet aside and tumbles out of bed, is at her door in one jump. She pulls it open roughly and sticks her head out. Her gaze is immediately drawn to the living room. It’s empty, tidy. But there’s a jacket slung over the arm of the sofa. Her head whips round towards the front door. There’s shoes by the wall. Shiny black men’s ones.
Her heart leaps.
Creeping out into the main room, she peers cautiously over the back of the sofa. It’s empty. Not that she’d expected Lucifer to be sleeping there. Not after the look on both of their faces last night. They’d been looking at each other like they never wanted to let go of each other ever again.
Trixie means to grab herself some cereal and sit down to virtuously watch cartoons. She even turns and steps towards the kitchen, but her eyes are drawn inexorably towards her mum’s bedroom door. It’s slightly ajar. Cracked just wide enough to peer through. She pauses, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. She shouldn’t. She might see something private. Or, even worse, she might not see Lucifer at all. She really shouldn’t.
But.
Her mum had looked so joyous. And despite the jacket and shoes as evidence, Trixie’s still not sure.
She has to know.
Before guilt can change her mind, she slips across the room and up to the door. She wavers again for a moment before leaning forward in a rush and pressing her eye to the gap.
They’re lying so tangled together under the covers it takes Trixie a minute to work out the shapes of them. Lucifer is curled forward, head tucked into her mum’s shoulder. His left arm is draped over her, fingers tight in her t shirt even as he sleeps. One of his legs is sticking out from under the duvet. As Trixie watches, her mum stirs and her foot appears over Lucifer’s knee, hooking over his leg protectively. He twitches in response, arm tensing around her ribs, and she murmurs something incomprehensible till he quiets.
Trixie looks back up at her mum. Her head is bent forward, cheek resting on Lucifer’s hair. Her arm is tucked up under his, palm flat against his spine between his shoulder blades. The placement looks deliberate. A studied motion of comfort.
Her expression is the most peaceful Trixie’s ever seen.
Biting her lip to hold in her sigh, Trixie backs away. She fetches her cereal, curls up on the sofa and tries to lose herself in the colour and sound of the TV. But she can’t stop herself glancing back at the door every few seconds and smiling till her face aches.
***
It’s almost midday by the time one of them stirs. Trixie is slouched on the sofa, midway through her sixth episode of Gravity Falls when she hears voices. She strains to hear over the TV without turning it down and giving herself away. All she gets is frustratingly indecipherable rumbles with one snippet of laughter in a tone too low to be her mum.
Quiet falls again and Trixie huffs. She turns her attention nominally back to the TV, while really watching the bedroom door intently out of the corner of her eye. It doesn’t take long before it swings open. Her mum appears, scruffy and bed-headed, rubbing at her eye with a loose fist. She turns her head back into the room, says something Trixie can’t catch, then comes out fully, closing the door behind her.
Trixie keeps quiet, studiously pretending to watch the TV, as her mum fills and downs a glass of water at the kitchen sink. The tap runs again, followed by footsteps behind her. Her mum comes around the side of the sofa and flumps down on the other cushion. She puts down her refilled glass and leans back, propping her arm on the back cushions and leaning her head on her hand.
“Morning mummy,” Trixie puts on her best natural voice.
Her mum is no fool.
“All right, monkey.” She reaches out and prods Trixie in the arm. “I know you’re dying to ask.”
Trixie widens her eyes and blinks at her, feigning innocence.
Her mum’s mouth twists in amusement. “You didn’t jump up and attack hug me, baby. Dead give away.”
Annoyed, Trixie pouts. Her mum laughs properly and ruffles her hair up. “And I know you’ve spotted his jacket and shoes from the way you’re very deliberately not looking at them right now.”
“Muuuum,” Trixie complains, half-heartedly trying for annoyed. Her mum just looks at her, lips pressed together and eyes sparkling with amusement.
Trixie can’t keep up the pretence for long. Abandoning all restraint, she jumps up onto her knees and leans forward, throwing her arms around her mum. She returns the hug, falling back against the sofa arm and pressing Trixie to her chest.
“Is Lucifer staying? Are you going to be together? Can I see him? Will he let me give him a hug, I want to give him the biggest hug ever!”
“Slow down sweetie, one question at a time!” Her mum picks her up fully and puts her back on the sofa next to her. Then she turns to face her properly. Trixie almost jumps back onto her before she sees the serious look her mother is giving her. Instead, she settles on her knees and tries not to jiggle too much with excitement.
“I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen,” her mum tells her. “I do know that I like Lucifer very much, and that he likes me. You obviously know that. So we’re going to see what happens. But it’s very complicated, and we’re going to take things very slow, okay?”
Trixie nods. Her mum takes her hands and holds them in her lap.
“There’s a lot of things we need to talk about between us,” her mum continues slowly, carefully, like she’s thought out what she was going to say in advance. “And some things we’ll have to talk to you about too, Trix. Okay?”
Trixie bounces enthusiastically. “Okay!” She looks over at the bedroom door again. “Why is he still in there? Can I go…”
Her mum’s hands tighten on hers. Her face suddenly loses its smile, turns serious. Trixie immediately stills.
“He’s still sleeping, monkey. He’s…” Her mum pauses, glances at her bedroom, forces her gaze back to Trixie. “He’s a little hurt, sweetie. He needs to rest.”
Trixie’s smile wobbles. She’d thought that Lucifer looked all wrong, but hearing she was right still sets off a sickening falling in her stomach.
“It’s okay.” Her mum catches on to the flicker in her expression instantly, immediately putting her hand out to rub comforting circles on Trixie’s shoulder. “It’s not bad, sweetie. He’ll be just fine, you’ll see. He just…” She trails off, takes breath. It reminds Trixie of when she’s scared herself and doesn’t want to show it, so she steels herself to hold it in.
“You can go see him later, okay?” Her mum rubs Trixie’s nose and half smiles. “But no playing doctor till he’s feeling better. Promise?”
The joke finally releases the nauseated tension in Trixie’s stomach and she laughs. “Okay. Promise.”
Her mum smiles again, properly this time. The brightness of it is dazzling and Trixie can’t help but blurt out the question burning in the forefront of her mind.
“Are you happy, mummy?”
A pause. Her mum looks at her intently. Trixie can almost feel her remembering the same thing Trixie is, the so similar question about a so very different man. She blinks, suddenly nervous what the answer will be, but then her mum laughs and shakes her head. She wraps both arms around Trixie and hauls her over into her lap, snuggling her close. Kissing the top of her head, her mum smiles into her hair.
“Yes, monkey. Yes, I think I am.”