Gillian paused in the doorway of the smallest bedroom. At least, nominally it was still a bedroom, in that there was a bed tucked into one corner. But its primary function, as shown by the dark shelves bristling with books of law and the double desk placed there, was to serve as an office. It was being used as such now. Antony sat at it, leaning heavily on one hand as he stared at the papers in his other.
He seemed to have aged considerably in the last two months. His hair, which was standing on end from him running his hands through it and currently clenched in the fingers he was leaning on, had gone snow white by the time Gillian had been released from the hospital, her own recovery slowed by shock and grief. Dark circles sat under his eyes like they had been painted with a calligraphy brush. He had pushed his square spectacles slightly askew, which had to make it difficult for him to read the papers in front of him properly, and the hand holding the pages trembled faintly. His shirtsleeves were pushed up to his elbows, his tie undone and hanging loosely around his neck. From the books scattered across the desk—carefully not encroaching on the far half, even though that had never been a problem for either of them before—it wasn’t hard to guess what he was working on.
“Oven’s done,” she said quietly.
“What does she want with him?” Antony asked, his voice hoarse and a little hopeless. “Why is she doing this?”
Gillian had no answer. No real one, anyway. And she knew Antony didn’t want an I don’t know. “It could very well be altruistic. She might genuinely believe he’s better off with blood kin than…”
“Than us?” Antony supplied. “You don’t seriously believe that.”
“No,” Gillian admitted. “But I can’t think of any other reason. Unless it’s spite because we didn’t tell her we were moving.” She paused, then added, “I still don’t know how she found out where we are.”
“Oh, that part’s easy,” Antony said with a dismissive flick of his wrist. “Hire a private investigator or a private process server to get our address, which would have been required to file paperwork anyway.”
Gillian’s eyes, involuntarily, went to the thick sheaf of paper with its seals and stamps. It was innocuous and harmless in appearance, she knew, but it felt menacing and oppressive. The stark black writing at the top seemed to stand out from the page: PETITION FOR GUARDIANSHIP OF A MINOR CHILD.
“But we’re his guardians,” she said. “They both named us.”
Antony slid one of the books closer to himself. “There’s no law that states the court has to approve that. They have to evaluate us against a welfare checklist. There will be a home visit, probably more than one. They’ll look into financials, living arrangements, relationships—”
“Honey, you’re spiraling. And don’t they have to look at hers too?”
Antony looked up. Gillian’s heart wrenched at the raw despair in his eyes. “She’s blood, Gill. And I’m scared. I’m scared it won’t be enough. That we won’t be enough.”
Gillian swallowed, and didn’t try to reassure him. She was scared, too. Worse because she knew he was right.
At least they’d had a little more time to grieve this time around before Mabel Sims had barreled into their lives. It hadn’t helped much, but at least they’d been able to have the funeral without interference. Eventually. Antony, wisely, had insisted on an autopsy, not to mention a full investigation into the circumstances surrounding it. The former had been satisfactory—or at least explicable—while the latter had decidedly not. According to the death certificate, duly filed with the courts and probate, and couched in a number of highly scientific terms that even Gillian, accustomed as she was to medical terminology after being subjected to decades of it, had trouble parsing out, cause of death was a stroke, resulting from some kind of issue stemming from either the surgery itself or the anesthesia. She’d gone into a coma and been placed on a ventilator, and the doctors had tentatively expressed hope that, if allowed to rest and recover, she would come around and they would be able to remove the ventilator.
The part nobody—from the hysterical nurse who’d called in the code to the highest administrator who could access the records to the stolid security guard who’d watched the cameras—had been able to explain was who had authorized that removal. The doctors had insisted they wouldn’t have done it without discussing it with Antony first at the very least; the security team had sworn nobody had been near her room other than the staff assigned to the ICU. The head nurse had grilled every single employee seen on the camera for the entire day, emphasizing that none of them were qualified to remove or turn off that kind of equipment, and they all insisted they hadn’t. Gillian knew the administration was worried about a potential malpractice suit, but without some kind of evidence that it could have been avoided—or that the hospital was strictly responsible—they weren’t even considering that. She and Antony had agreed that all an extended court case would do would be to draw out the trauma and draw out the grief.
And then, of course, Mabel had struck. Or more accurately her solicitor.
“I can’t believe anyone would actually think he would be better off in Bournemouth with…her…than with us,” Gillian said. “You said ‘relationships’. We’ve been part of his life since day one. Literally. He’s been living with us since he was two. How many times has he actually seen her?”
“It would be so easy to spin it that we kept him from her,” Antony said. “Or that Sue—” His voice cracked, and he rallied before pushing on. “Or that Sue did. That she would have had a good relationship with him except for us. She’s not all that old, so age likely won’t be a factor. God alone knows what her financial situation is, but if she has fewer expenses than us, that might go in her favor. And Jon doesn’t even have his own bed here, let alone his own bedroom.”
Gillian frowned. “He doesn’t want one.”
Antony shook his head. “I know, but you never know. Depending on what judge we get—and the case almost certainly won’t be heard Manchester, so it’s not like it’s even going to be a judge I know anything about, even if I did do family law much—they might come down against us because he doesn’t have a space of his own, or because he has to share with Melanie.” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, pushing his glasses up again, and leaned against the desk. “I don’t know, Gil. Family law isn’t my usual bailiwick. I can’t even begin to imagine how this might shake out.”
Gillian sighed and put her hands on her hips. Time, she thought, for a bit of tough love. “So that’s it, then. That’s the end of it. No point in even bothering to go to court, is there? We might as well just withdraw our challenge. Let Mabel take custody of Jon. She can take him back to Bournemouth for good and we won’t have to deal with him ever again. Not our problem. Who cares what it does to him? It’s easier all around.”
Antony shifted like he was going to respond, but there was a barely audible sound from behind her before he could. Her heart dropped into her shoes as Antony’s head jerked out of his hands, and Gillian whirled around to see Jon standing in the doorway. His hair was mussed, his eyes huge and wet behind his new glasses, and he was clutching his well worn old teddy bear in both hands.
“Jon!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing out of bed?”
“You don’t want me to stay?” Jon asked in a small, broken voice.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Gillian said. Guilt lanced through her. She should have kept her voice down better, should have paid better attention, should have thought that it wouldn’t just be Antony listening…
Jon’s lower lip trembled, and the tears brimmed, threatening to spill over. “I have to go away and live with—with Grandmother?”
“No!” Melanie’s voice, shrill and sharp and frightened and angry, cut out like a knife. She suddenly appeared behind Jon and hugged him fiercely, glaring at Gillian and Antony defiantly over his shoulder, her own eyes also flooded with tears. When she spoke, though, it was to him. “You’re not going away without me. Where you go, I go.”
Jon let go of his teddy bear and clung to Melanie’s arms. He was clearly also trying to look defiant, but his fear wasn’t manifesting as anger the way Melanie’s did. Or, to be honest, the way Susan’s always had. He simply looked…lost. It made Gillian feel horrible.
There was a soft scraping noise as Antony pushed the chair back from his desk. His glasses dropped down onto his face properly, and he walked over to the doorway, quiet and calm. He was still pale, his eyes still red, but the despair had vanished, or at least folded itself inside somewhere it couldn’t be seen. Without so much as glancing at Gillian, he knelt down in front of the twins and put his hands on Jon’s shoulders, thumbs hooking over Melanie’s arms as he did so.
“Do you want to stay with us?” he asked quietly.
“Yes!” The word seemed to tear itself from Jon’s throat.
Antony nodded. “Then we’ll fight for that. I’m not going to lie to you, Jon. Grandmother Sims wants you to come and live with her, and we’re going to have to go to court over it. And I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I swear to you, if you want to stay here, we will do everything we can to make the judge see that you should. We love you. We’ve loved you as long as we’ve known you—even longer. Just like we love Melanie. If we have to fight for the rest of our lives to stay in yours, we will. Mama and Papa wanted you to stay with us, and we want that, too.”
Jon scanned Antony’s face, then looked up at Gillian with a slightly worried expression. She brushed his hair gently back from his face. “I didn’t mean what I said just now, Jon. About not caring and sending you away. Mummy and Daddy just got scared too, and I thought if I said what the worst possible thing that could happen was, we would think of ways to make that not happen.”
“Grown-ups don’t get scared,” Melanie said, a little uncertainly.
“Yes, we do.” Antony gathered both of the twins into his arms and hugged them tightly. “We have each other to help us be brave, though. And we have you two to be brave for. We’re here. We love you. Nothing is going to happen to you. We’re family, and family doesn’t give up on each other.”
Gillian swallowed the lump in her throat as she watched Jon collapse into Antony’s arms and, finally, give way to sobs, something between fear and relief. Melanie, too, clung and cried. Antony held them close and rocked them back and forth, and she could see the tears on his cheeks too.
She started towards them to join the embrace, but before she could, Antony took a deep breath and rose to his feet, still holding the children in his arms. They were getting too big for it most days, but they somehow seemed smaller than usual tonight. “Now. Normally I wouldn’t do this, because Mummy put you to bed and you need to stay there, but I think tonight is a special occasion, maybe.” He turned to look at Gillian. “Is it all right if they stay up for a little while to have a treat?”
Gillian managed a smile. “They put themselves to bed tonight. I didn’t tell them to go.”
“Ah, well, in that case.” Antony kissed Jon’s forehead, then Melanie’s. “There are chocolate cupcakes in the kitchen. And I don’t think they’ve been frosted yet.”
Melanie eyed Gillian suspiciously. “Why are there cupcakes?”
“Not because we were celebrating Grandmother Sims wanting to take Jon away. Heavens, Melanie.” Gillian tugged Melanie’s hair playfully.
“Then why?” Melanie persisted.
“Is it for Lucy?” Jon asked softly. “Today is the seventeenth.”
“It is for Lucy,” Antony agreed. “Come on, then. Let’s go wish your sister a happy birthday, and then we can read Paddiwack and Cosy one more time.”
“Are Mama and Papa celebrating with her, Daddy?” Jon asked, nestling against Antony’s shoulder.
At last, the tears welled up in Gillian’s eyes, but Antony only smiled and rubbed his cheek against the top of his head. “Of course they are, Little Flame. Of course they are.”