Work Text:
Rose’s phone rings on top of the piano. She grabs it without looking up from the sheet music she’s been scouring over all morning, brings it to her ear without checking the Caller ID, and says, “Can someone die of Writer’s Block?”
There’s only the briefest of pauses, and then her husband says, “I don’t know off the top of my head, but I’d be happy to call Dr. Weisenbach and ask.”
Rose snorts and finally sets her mostly-blank pages on the music rack. “My knight in shining armor. Did you need something, mi amor?”
“Trevor just dropped Carrie off,” Ray reports. “He’s gotta go back out for another meeting, but I was gonna get dinner started. Can the girls come down there and play by you? I’ve got Carlos.”
“Of course they can.” Rose looks around for anything that two six-year-olds girls might damage, but their townhouse garage that she converted into a music studio can only hold so much—it’s not where they keep their valuables. “Send them on down,” she tells Ray, and then just makes sure her folder of music is close by.
A minute or two later, the door leading into the house creaks open, and Julie pokes her curly head into the garage. “Hi, Mami!”
Rose grins. “Come on in, butterfly, you and Carrie can play in here while Papi cooks.”
Julie’s barely made it over the threshold before Carrie bursts in behind her, announcing, “We’re going to play Princesses!”
“Carrie,” Rose says patiently. “Did you ask Julie what she wanted to play?”
“Yes and she wants to play Princesses,” Carrie insists, and Julie doesn’t protest, so Rose lets it go. Gotta pick your battles and all that.
The girls start sorting through the box of dress-up clothes they keep in here, and Rose mostly tunes them out, letting her fingers dance lightly across the piano keys. But it isn’t long before she gets distracted again and ends up listening in on Carrie and Julie’s pretend game.
She worries, sometimes, about potential consequences of the way the girls were raised. She worries they’ll grow up and won’t want to be friends anymore, that societal pressure will convince them (remind them) that they’re not really sisters. She worries Carrie’s stubbornness and Julie’s shyness will get one or both of them hurt. She worries Trevor will just pick Carrie up and leave someday, and Ray and Rose won’t be able to do a thing to stop him.
But sitting here, watching Julie nod with raptured interest at Carrie’s convoluted princess backstory, Rose can’t help but smile. For now, despite her fears, her family is intact. For now, those girls love each other more than seems possible.
For now, Julie and Carrie are friends, and it warms Rose’s heart.