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Carol Holiday sighed as she pinched the bridge of her snout. The first stirrings of a tension headache had been thrumming hot and angry under her temples for a good half-hour or so. At first, she’d just grit her teeth and forced her way through it, tried to focus on the damnably tiny print on the form in front of her.
That, of course, had just made matters worse.
The pain had spread out to the back of her skull and up through her stubby antlers, off-color spots dancing in the corners of her vision until she finally gave up and tossed her pen onto the desk. She leaned back in her chair, staring blankly at the shadowed ceiling above her as she used one hoof to slowly rock herself back and forth. The throbbing in her temples slowed as she closed her eyes, but didn’t stop.
The office of the mayor of Hometown, her office, was dark and quiet. The stuffy silence that surrounded her was broken only by the creak of her chair’s leather upholstery and the steady tip-tap of rain against the window. The sun had long since set, and now the room was lit only by the dim yellow glow of her desk lamp. The fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling were off, as they usually were this time of night. They were too bright and ran with a buzz that set Carol’s teeth on edge, one that made her headaches worse and her temper even shorter. They stayed off whenever she thought she could get away with it. The eyestrain from squinting to read through the gloom beat the alternative, in her opinion.
It was late, though Carol neither knew nor cared exactly how late. She had worked late nearly every night that month. Teetering piles of paperwork cast long shadows across her desk, monolithic reminders that there was always more to be done. A festival to be arranged, an internet outage to be investigated and, as always, a mind-boggling array of papers that needed her name on them.
Pointless busywork? Probably. But while Carol Holiday’s name was on the forms and on the door and on the plaque on her desk, the people of Hometown had someone to blame when things went wrong. She was content to be that someone, if not exactly happy about it.
It has to be somebody, she would remind herself, from time to time. It may as well be me.
A muscle twinged in her back, sending a sharp tug of pain all the way up her spine. She winced, then sat up, searching the drawers on her desk for an aspirin. Pens, unfinished packs of spearmint gum, day planners she had put one entry in before promptly forgetting the existence of… the contents of the drawers rattled and banged against one another, the din only making her head pound all the harder. The ache coalesced into a hot, tight agony, the spots in her eyes flashing strange, alien colors.
In her haste, in her pain, she made a fatal error.
She struck out with her right hoof, caught the handle of the lower right drawer of her desk, and wrenched it open without thinking.
Instantly, her stomach turned as she realized her mistake. She squeezed her eyes shut a second too late, the image of the drawer’s contents still dancing on the inside of her brain. With a furious growl, she kicked it shut again, the hollow clatter echoing off the walls. A cold, empty ache filled her chest like ice water, one hand pressed to her eyes as she cursed under her breath.
God damn it.
She groped for one of the half-empty coffee cups that dotted her desk, finally remembering the little tin of headache medicine. It was in her purse, right where she had left it for the last ten years straight. She swallowed the pills dry, chased them down with a mouthful of cold, bitter coffee. A grimace creased her muzzle as she stalked to the window and stared out at the town.
It was quiet for a Friday night, even considering that Hometown’s nightlife consisted of a single novelty p”e”zza joint. The sky was cloudy and starless, the streets empty but for the clusters of steadily growing puddles. The distant, fuzzy halos of the streetlights glowed amber through the mist. Raindrops darted through the columns of light they cast on the sidewalk, blown this way and that by the wind as it howled through the alleyways, thumping now and again against the glass.
After a moment, Carol leaned her head against the window. She let the steady beat of the rain drum through her skull, her frown easing ever so slightly as the cool condensation wet her fur. For a moment, she felt almost normal.
The moment was swiftly interrupted by an electronic, droning buzz, just barely loud enough to be completely intolerable. With an irritated sigh, she strode back to her desk, smacking the intercom as she sat back in her chair.
“Yes?”
“Someone here to see you, Mrs. Mayor.” The voice of Index, her long-suffering secretary, rasped through the elderly speaker.
“At this time of night?” Fantastic. Carol adjusted her glasses, tried to blink some of the exhaustion out of her icy blue eyes.
“I’m afraid so, ma’am.”
“Who is it?” She tucked a strand of grey-blonde hair behind her ear, then smoothed a few wrinkles out of her shirt.
“The Dreemurr boy.”
“Asriel?” Carol rubbed her temples, scowling as the headache stubbornly refused to fade. She didn’t know the college break schedule, had never had a reason to learn it, not after… “He’s back in town already?”
“No, ma’am,” said Index patiently. “The other one.”
“Kris?” That made even less sense. “Why?”
A hushed conversation hummed through the intercom, an unintelligible murmur tinged with barely perceptible annoyance.
“He won’t say, Mrs. Mayor.”
Of course. Of course he won’t. The ghost of a smile skittered across her face, so quickly she herself didn’t notice it. A long-forgotten ember of nostalgia flared inside her. A distant memory of trying to convince the quiet little human boy to show her what he was hiding behind his back, only to be confronted with a handful of grubs or melted chocolate or rocks he was completely convinced were dinosaur bones.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Index’s clipped, professional cadence snapped her back to the present. “I’ll send him on his way. Sorry to bother you with this.”
“No, that’s…” Carol tapped one black hoof-nail against her mug, propping her chin in her other hand.
She had told Index in no uncertain terms not to let anyone up to see her unless there was a serious crisis. So either Kris wanted to speak to her, a woman he’d barely seen for the better part of a decade, so badly that he was willing to argue with Index about it, or…
Or, perhaps, he had planned his own crisis.
Another memory, of another rainy day many years distant. Noelle, bawling her eyes out in front of the bathroom door. Kris, clutching a plastic bucket and staring at his shoes. Carol had not, until that day, realized how shockingly expensive it was to arrange for the safe disposal of a bathtub’s worth of live minnows. Especially on short notice.
It was not the kind of lesson one forgets in a hurry.
Carol sighed as she set the mug on her desk. Either way, she would much rather know what was bothering Kris ahead of time than find out the hard way.
“It’s alright, Index. I can spare a few moments for him.”
The intercom hissed with white noise as Index fell silent for a moment.
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll send him up, then.”
Carol’s gaze wandered across her desk, across the great towers of paperwork and the moldy, forgotten mugs bunched like little ceramic fairy circles.
She coughed, then lowered her voice. “…Stall him for five minutes or so, would you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The intercom cut off, and Carol mentally shortlisted Index for a raise as she hustled an armful of mugs to the break room dishwasher. The paperwork wasn’t going to move without the aid of a forklift, so she settled for shuffling some of the incoming forms into the much smaller outgoing pile. Partially to make herself look more productive, and partially to make sure neither pile was big enough to crush Kris to death should they tip over.
So prepared, she sat back in her chair, folded one leg over the other, and did her best to look at least somewhat better than she felt. She’d nearly managed it by the time a knock rang gently through the room, so quiet it almost sounded embarrassed.
“It’s me, Mrs. Holiday.” The soft voice on the other side of the door paused for a moment. “Um. Kris, that is. Kris Dreemurr.”
Mrs. Holiday, is it? Not Auntie Carol anymore, it seems. It wasn’t a surprise, not as such. It had been a very, very long time since the Holidays and the Dreemurrs were close enough that Kris would think to call her anything else, and yet…
And yet hearing him say it was lonely, somehow.
Carol shook her head, the feeling passing as quickly as it came. “Come in.”
Kris Dreemurr shuffled through the door, his eyes downcast and his chestnut hair lank with rainwater. His striped sweater was completely sodden, and his shoes left a dark, wet trail on the carpet as he slouched towards her desk.
Carol pressed a palm to her forehead, the pain finally giving way to an acute, exasperated weariness. I should have known, she thought. Never a fan of umbrellas or raincoats, was he? Always tracked mud on to the carpet, always dripped all over the floor.
“Kris. What a pleasant surprise.” Her brow furrowed as she realized some part of her actually meant it. “Have a seat, please. What can I do for you?”
Kris eyed the horrible little folding chair on his side of the desk suspiciously, and did not sit.
“Mom made too much food for dinner tonight. She thought you might want some of the leftovers.” He hefted a plastic grocery bag and set it on Carol’s desk with a satisfying thump. “Vegetable quiche and a thermos of coffee.”
“That’s very thoughtful of her.” Carol tried not to stare too openly at the bag, even as the savory aroma started to hit her. It had been a very long time since she had eaten a proper, home-cooked meal, and Toriel’s cooking was a rare treat. Rarer still these days. “Tell her I appreciate it, sincerely.”
“I will.” The puddle around Kris’s feet grew larger, a sudden and violent shiver running up his body.
She frowned as he barely held back a sneeze. “…That said, couldn’t this have waited until morning? And for Heaven’s sake, couldn’t she have driven it here herself?”
He avoided her gaze, his carmine eyes staring past her, out the window and into the storm. “I volunteered.”
And I suppose that’s all the explanation I’m going to get. “I see. Well. Thank you, I suppose.” A few moments passed in awkward silence. Kris made no move to leave. “You know your way out, I assume? Index should have a few umbrellas behind the desk. Tell her I gave you permission to borrow one.”
“I’m good.” Carol’s eyes narrowed, shining an unpleasantly cold aquamarine. She took a sheaf of paperwork, straightened it loudly against the desk, but Kris stubbornly refused to take the hint. “Actually, I was hoping I could ask for your advice. Regarding a, uh… personal matter.”
Kris’s voice was gentle, soft, and completely free of any hint of humor. For a moment, Carol wondered if she had misheard him. Of all of the things Kris might ask her… No, of all of the things anyone might ask her, this had to be the most improbable by far. “Excuse me?”
“It’s not important.” The words tumbled past each other as his hands started to shake. He cleared his throat, coughed. “If you’re too busy…”
“You want my advice?” She snorted, shaking her head as she pretended to read the forms before signing them. “And here I was under the impression that you were a generally sensible boy.”
“I’m not sure where you got that idea.” Carol thought she saw a grin shoot across his face, comet-like, gleaming for just a heartbeat before it vanished like it had never existed.
“Yes, yes. Very funny.” Her chair creaked as she leaned back, setting the papers on her desk. “Look, unless you’re planning on going into politics —which, if you are, my advice is do not— I really don’t know how much help I’ll be.”
“I wasn’t planning on it, ma’am. It’s actually… it’s about Noelle.” Kris fell silent for a moment, a slight flush rising in his pale cheeks. The sound of the rain filled the space between them, the air growing cold and damp. “She did me a favor recently. Something that meant a lot to me, something that I really appreciate her going out of her way to do.” His crimson eyes flicked down to meet her gaze, one of his shoes tapping a squelchy rhythm against the soggy carpet. “I wanted to get her something nice to thank her, but I wasn’t sure what she’d like. I was hoping you might have an idea.”
“A favor?” Carol’s gaze softened almost imperceptibly. Kris and Noelle’s recent rapprochement was not news to her; Noelle was always sure to text her to ask her permission when she had friends over, and the friend in question had been Kris much, much more often of late. “What kind of favor?”
The tapping of his shoe accelerated, nervous and off-beat. “Oh. She… made me a snack, I guess. From scratch. It was really good.”
“You guess?” Is a snack really the kind of gift worth agonizing over? Noelle’s a rather good cook, but even so-
And then she remembered the empty containers of cocoa powder and sugar and butter in the kitchen, and the chocolate-spattered bowls and utensils that clogged the sink, and the half-used spool of pink ribbon in the garbage.
Valentine’s Day wasn’t all that long ago, was it?
Well, she thought, as a sly grin spread across her face.
Well, well, well.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. They’ve known each other for long enough. Besides, it isn’t as though I have anything against it. Kris is… He’s not a bad kid. Odd, yes, but then there’s no accounting for taste. I felt the same way when December-
The smile vanished from her face in an instant. A lump rose in her throat, so thick that it made her nauseous. The headache returned, worse than before, a livid pain that itched at the inside of her skull, beating faster and faster as her heart started to race.
“That’s very kind of you, Kris. That said, don’t you think this is the sort of thing you should figure out on your own?” It was a poor excuse, and she knew it. Her voice shook, each syllable weaker than the last as the old, too-familiar dread swelled under her ribs.
Kris twisted a strand of hair between his fingers, a thin stream of water dribbling down his wrist. “I know. I know you’re right, but… It’s important to me that I get this right. If there’s anything you can tell me, even just a hint-“
She hated it. Hated his persistence, hated it all the more because she knew she didn’t have an answer for him. “You’d probably be better off asking Rudy. I’ve been so busy lately that I-“
The expression on Kris’s face sent a horrid chill down her spine, knocked the air out of her lungs. His jaw worked for a second before he spoke, like he was trying to shape the words into something he could say, something she could hear. “I thought about it. I actually went to see him earlier, after school, but, uh… They wouldn’t let me see him. The nurses, I mean. I guess it… wasn’t a good day for him.”
Carol knew it was her fault.
She knew she was only hearing it because she had mentioned Rudy in a cowardly gambit to avoid a difficult conversation.
She knew that she should have known how sick her husband was well before Kris told her.
Even so, the guilt and the shame and the fear of it all boiled inside her, faster and hotter and ever more senseless until it turned to a blind, defensive fury. It burned at the inside of her mouth, scratched and screamed as it tried to force its way free of her and snap at whoever was unlucky enough to be nearby.
Kris didn’t deserve it. Directing that anger at him would be stupid, pointless, and cruel.
But there was nowhere else for the feeling to go.
Carol was already angry at herself. Always. Forever.
The only alternative would have been to admit that being angry with herself, being angry with anyone was useless. That no matter who she hated, no matter who she yelled at, things couldn’t go back to the way they were. That this, this horrible, unfair world was all there was.
She couldn’t accept it. She’d never been able to.
So instead, her voice became sharp and cold as she slammed her hand on her desk so hard her palm went numb. “Then why the hell are you wasting your time asking me?! In case you hadn’t noticed, Kris, I’ve got more than enough on my plate as it is! I’ve got much better things to do than advise you on the most expedient ways to woo my daughter. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s very late. Get out of my office and go home!”
The blood drained from Kris’s face, sweat beading across his forehead as he stuffed his quivering hands in his pockets. “Right. Yes. I’m really sorry for bothering you. I’ll just get out of your hair now, Mrs. Holiday. E-Enjoy the quiche.” He scuttled towards the door, head bowed.
The regret came instantly, so total that it made Carol feel lightheaded and sick.
I’m always like this, she thought.
Hurting people. Saying these kinds of things to them. There’s no reason for it. It’s just how I am.
No. Her fingers twitched as she bit down on her lip, the skin going bone white under her buck teeth. It’s not. That’s an excuse.
A worthless attempt to justify my actions, a lie I tell myself because I’m scared to admit the truth: That I can be better than this. That I have been better than this.
Because if I admit that, then I admit that the things I said to December on that cold, rainy night all those years ago weren’t an inevitable consequence of who I am. It was something I chose to do, words I chose to say that I can never take back. An incalculable error of judgement that my daughter paid the price for.
“Kris. Wait a moment, please.” Her voice was low, sad, and very, very tired. “I… may have overreacted. I apologize.”
Kris stopped, glancing furtively back over his shoulder. “Oh. That’s… It’s okay.”
It wasn’t. Carol knew it wasn’t, which was why she leaned down to open the bottom-right drawer of her desk. “Regarding a present for Noelle… there is one thing that comes to mind.”
Her dusky-furred fingers came back coated in the dust from the handle as she sat up and forced herself to look inside. A hoard of tchotchkes glittered in the light from her desk lamp. An almost-complete set of ICE-E’s collectible pins, a handful of pebbles worn smooth and round by lakewater, guitar picks of every color imaginable lined up in teardrop rainbows. Photographs of a family that no longer existed, faded and worn at the edges.
Memories of a time she took for granted until it was far too late.
She closed her eyes until the tears no longer threatened, choked back the sob crawling up her throat. Slowly, she reached into the drawer, her fingers creeping all the way into the back until she felt the cold, slick plastic beneath them.
“Here we are.” A slip of glossy magazine paper, cut with exacting precision and laminated with obsessive care. “Why don’t you try this?”
She pinched it between finger and thumb, held it out to Kris. “It’s a recipe for chocolate cookies with candy cane chips. Something you can both enjoy.”
Kris nearly sprinted back to the desk, his crimson eyes widening as he scanned the text. An incredulous grin spread across his face as he looked up at her. “This is perfect! Have you made these for her before?”
“No, I…”
The memory surged forth before she could stop it. A late autumn afternoon, sunlight pooling golden on the living room carpet. She slumped into the armchair, stress and exhaustion fogging her brain.
Hoofbeats clattering down the stairs. Dess, waving a magazine and grinning while Noelle clasped her hands together, her eyes emerald green and pleading.
“Mom, Mom! Look!”
Carol blinked blearily at the recipe, at the glamor shot of the plate piled high with cookies, shattered candy-cane chips gleaming like alabaster against the luscious chocolate.
“Can we make these together sometime?”
There were many, many things from those days that Carol regretted. This, however, was the one she thought about the most often. The moment when she looked at the recipe, at the smiling faces of her daughters, and thought:
That seems like a lot of trouble.
And so, she smiled wearily, ruffled December’s dark, messy hair and said “Maybe someday.”
Someday never came.
It probably never will.
Carol stared at her reflection in the hardwood. “I’m afraid I was never able to make it work for me. I’m hopeless when it comes to… well. Just plain hopeless, I think. I suspect you’ll have better luck with it than I did.”
A frown twitched at the corners of Kris’s lips. “…Are you sure it’s okay for me to borrow this?”
There were a great many things she wanted to say. That she was sorry. That she hoped he and Noelle would be happy together. That she wished she could do more than she had, be better than she was.
But she had tried to say those kinds of things before, to Noelle, to Rudy, to December, and every single time it had come out wrong and done more harm than good.
So instead she cocked her head, the light sparking bright off her glasses.
“Kris. I know you can do this. I wouldn’t have given you that recipe if I didn’t trust you to be able to… If I didn’t trust you. So please, don’t make me regret it.”
Kris nodded and straightened up out of his habitual slouch just a bit. “I’ll do my best, Auntie Carol.”
It took them both a moment to realize his mistake.
Kris was first, a truly magnificent blush blooming scarlet across his cheeks, down his neck and all the way out to his ears. “Um. I should get going. Thank you for everything, A- Mrs. Holiday.”
Carol chuckled, her ears fluttering lazy and slow. “Fahah. Of course. Be careful on your way home, Krismas.”
He bowed his head awkwardly, hurrying towards the door. Just as he put his hand on the knob, though, he stopped. “Mrs. …Carol. I probably don’t have any right to say this to you. If what I’m about to say is stupid, or just me rambling or whatever then just forget it.”
There was a strength in his voice that Carol had never heard before, a certainty that she couldn’t quite fit into her image of the shy, silent human boy. She folded her arms as she settled back into her chair. “I’m listening.”
Kris nodded to himself, rocked back and forth on his heels for a moment before he spoke. “It’s just… the things you were saying earlier, about being hopeless, it reminded me of… me, I guess. It’s easy to make mistakes, to look at the end result and assume that it’s a failure. That you shouldn’t even try because you’re a total failure and it’ll always end up that way.”
Carol didn’t trust herself to speak. The moment felt fragile, ephemeral, like a spiderweb dancing on the breeze. Any sound, any movement could break it, make it as though it had never happened.
He rubbed the back of his neck, grinning shyly. “I actually gave up for a while, until Mom and Dad and Susie and Noelle and everyone got me to give it another shot. Even when things don’t turn out just right, or when they just go completely wrong… I’m glad I tried.” His hair fell to the side as he tilted his head, his carmine eyes meeting hers, and a gentle, easy smile spread across his face. “I don’t think you should just give up, Mrs. Carol.”
Part of her felt ashamed. Ashamed that she had to dance around the words she wanted to say, ashamed that this child’s advice was moving her so deeply. But another part, a bigger part, tamped that feeling down, forced her to ask the question she so desperately needed the answer to.
“You don’t think it’s too late to try again?”
“It’s never too late.”
She spun her chair away from him, stared out the window so he couldn’t see the expression on her face. “…For the record, I was talking about learning how to bake,” she lied.
“Really? Then so was I.” She watched his reflection in the glass, saw him wave cheerily and trot out the door. “I’m off. Thank you for the recipe, and sorry for bothering you!”
Carol waited, clutching the arms of her chair so hard her knuckles ached. She listened to Kris’s footsteps, listened as they clattered off down the hall, echoing through the emptiness of the stairwell and dimly sounding up through the floor as he crossed through the lobby (pausing only briefly to grab an umbrella, she presumed). She listened to the front door slamming shut and tracked him through the window as he strolled off into the night.
Her fingers shook as she took off her glasses and set them gently on her desk, as she walked, expressionless, to the door and turned the latch. She stood there for a moment longer, her hands balling into fists, the pressure inside her growing and growing until finally, for the first time in years…
It burst.
And then, at long last, after what felt like hours, she was done. Her body was sore. Her eyes ached. Her nose ran freely and her mouth was sore from screaming and her head felt stuffy and dizzy. But as she clambered to her feet, as she stumbled back to her desk and pressed the call button on the intercom, there was a faint hint of a smile on the edges of her mouth.
“Index?” Carol’s voice sounded miserable, raw and clotted with the leftovers of her outburst. She didn’t care. Index had heard worse from her, would probably hear worse from her in future.
“Yes, ma’am?” Index responded, prim and professional as always.
“Could you…?” Carol froze, her fingers twitching on the call button. She realized that no matter how much she wanted what she was going to ask her secretary for, it was selfish. Irresponsible. She was just going to be pushing her own problems on Index, and how was that any better than-
“You don’t have any appointments this weekend,” said Index, her voice low, almost gentle. “I made sure of that.”
Carol blinked. “I… What? No, that’s not possible. I’m quite certain that-“
“The weather’s supposed to be beautiful for the next few days, I hear. Mid-seventies, sunny and breezy, not a cloud in the sky…” Index chuckled quietly, tapping a pen against her desk with a quick click-click. “Anyone who would try to schedule an appointment with the mayor on a day like that is clearly an idiot who’s simply going to waste your time.”
Carol’s eyes narrowed, the instinctive scolding already on the tip of her tongue… and then sighed, a reluctant grin spreading across her face as she pressed a palm to her forehead. “…I’m surprised to see you showing so much initiative, Index. How independent of you.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Is it alright if I clock out for the night?”
“Go ahead. Have a nice weekend. And… thank you.” She fell back into her chair, mentally shortlisting Index for a big raise.
Carol sat there for a while, listening to the rain as it drummed against the window in hissing waves carried by the wind. She reached into her desk, pulled out a stick of spearmint gum and chewed it thoughtfully as she stared at one of the old photographs from the lower-right drawer.
Finally, when she could put it off no longer, she reached into her purse, grabbed her phone, and made the call.
"Hello?" The voice on the other end of the line was still thick with sleep as it spoke.
Carol winced, cursing herself for not bothering to check the time before she called. “Noelle? …I woke you, didn’t I? I'm sorry, sweetheart."
"'S okay." A quiet hiss of fabric on fabric, blankets shifting as Noelle sat up in bed. "Is this about the locks? I checked them before I went to bed. All the doors and all the windows."
"No, this isn’t about the locks. I trust you.” It was odd how hard it was to form the words. Like exercising a muscle that had laid dormant for years, speaking a language she thought she’d forgotten. “Listen, Noelle… It turns out I have some time off this weekend.”
"Really?!"
Carol smiled as she held the phone a little further away from her ear, the tinny sound of her daughter's voice audible even at a distance. "Yes, really."
"...Really?"
The smile faltered, grew fragile at the edges. “…Yes. Really."
"S-Sorry," mumbled Noelle. "I didn't mean to- I know you're busy at work, so..."
"No, you’re right to ask.” I’ve let you down before, after all. “Don’t apologize. Anyway, if your father feels up to it, maybe we could all do something together? Nothing too crazy, but a trip to the mall, or maybe we could go see a movie… Give it some thought for me, will you?”
And if he doesn’t feel up to it? Noelle didn’t even have to ask the question. The heartbeat-long silence, the momentary pause asked it for her. “...And if he doesn’t, we’ll visit him. Together.” Carol swallowed, took a deep breath, and steadied herself. “Okay. I’m going to head home now. Don’t stay up too late, alright? I…”
It kept her up at nights, sometimes. Wondering if Noelle still believed her when she said it. If the feeling had become just words at some point, and the words just sounds, unintelligible and meaningless.
The thought paralyzed her every time, left her pale and sleepless until the sun rose. It terrified her. More than almost anything else in the world, and Carol Holiday had a lot of things to be afraid of.
So that night, while she still had the emotion burning bright inside her, she clutched her phone. Took a deep breath. And then said the words again, slowly and firmly, with every ounce of feeling she could muster.
“I love you, sugarplum.”
"Mom?" She had stumbled on the last syllable, her voice cracking, and of course Noelle noticed immediately. "Is everything okay?"
“Yes. I'm fine." Carol hurriedly wiped at the corners of her eyes, holding the phone to one side while she turned away to sniffle.
"Promise?" There was still a note of worry in Noelle's voice as she asked.
"Yes, I promise."
"...Okay. 'Night, Mom. Love you." Even though she could tell that the cheer in her daughter's voice was more than a little forced, a tired but genuine smile started to wind its way across Carol's lips.
"Good night, Noelle. Love you too.”
The rest of the night passed like any other. She locked up the town hall, walked briskly to her car, and drove home in silence. By the time she got home, Noelle was already asleep, snoring loud enough she heard it even through the front door. Carol smiled to herself as she tip-hoofed up the stairs, as she changed into her nightgown and sat down on her bed and eventually slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep.
She wouldn’t wake up as the mother she thought she should be, much less the one she wished to be. There would still be bad days. Days where she’d rage at others and then at herself. Days where she’d wonder if Rudy and Noelle might not be better off without her.
But whenever those days came, whenever she felt like giving up, or asking others to give up on her, she’d think back to that night.
To Kris’s easy smile, and his simple words.
And she would try again.