Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
By the time Fiona got back from her walk, something had shifted.
Stella could see it in the way her mother moved through the front door—lighter somehow, like she’d set something down on the beach and left it there. Her eyes were red-rimmed but calm. Whatever had happened in the hour she’d been gone, it had loosened something.
“I’m starving,’ Fiona said, heading straight for the kitchen. “Is there food? Actual food, not just tea and biscuits?”
“Margo always has food.”
“Good.” Fiona opened her door. “I want to watch something easy. Do you want to watch something easy with me?”
Stella blinked. This was not the mother she’d been bracing for.
“Define easy.”
“I don’t know. Something we don’t have to think about. Something with too much talking and not enough plot.”
Stella held her breath, still waiting for the other shoe to drop. The lecture. The processing. The inevitable conversation about what happens next.
It didn’t come.
Instead, Fiona and Stella raided Margo’s kitchen. Cheese. Crackers. Grapes. A jar of olives that looked like it had been there since the Reagan administration.
“These are probably fine,” Fiona said, squinting at the olives.
“Margo’s had those forever.”
“Olives don’t go bad. They just become more... olive-y.” She opened the jar, sniffed, shrugged, and added them to the plate. “Popcorn?”
“I can check.”
Stella found microwave popcorn in the pantry and, in the back of Margo’s fridge, a small container with a sticky note in Meg’s handwriting: HONEY LEMON BUTTER — EXPERIMENTAL. TELL ME IF IT’S WEIRD.
She pulled out her phone.
Can I use your experimental butter? Fiona wants popcorn.
Meg’s response came in seconds.
Go for it. Report back. Is it weird?
Haven’t tried it yet.
It might be weird. Luke said it tasted like “confused breakfast.” But he ate it so who knows.
Stella smiled and set her phone on the counter.
“What’s that?” Fiona asked, peering over her shoulder.
“Meg’s been experimenting. Honey lemon butter. Might be weird.”
“Weird sounds interesting.” Fiona took the container. “Better than boring.”
They made popcorn. Melted the butter—which smelled like sunshine and something floral that Stella couldn’t place. Drizzled it over the bowl. Fiona took a handful, chewed thoughtfully.
“That’s not weird,” she said. “That’s actually brilliant. What’s in this?”
“I don’t know. Meg’s been trying stuff lately.”
“She should sell this.” Fiona took another handful. “Tell her I said so.”
“You can tell her yourself when you meet them all tomorrow.”
Fiona looked up, her eyebrows raised. “Oh, right. That’s tomorrow.”
They settled on the couch in Margo’s small living room, the plate of random snacks on the coffee table, the popcorn bowl between them. Fiona had the remote and was scrolling through streaming options like she had no idea what she actually wanted.
“There’s too much,” she said. “How is there this much television? Who watches all this?”
“Just pick something.”
“I’m trying. Everything looks exhausting.” She scrolled past thrillers, true crime, prestige dramas. “I don’t want to think. I just want to sit here and not think.”
“So pick something we’ve already seen.”
Fiona’s scrolling slowed. Stopped.
Stella saw it at the same moment she did.
Anne with an E. The thumbnail showing Anne on the bridge, hair wild, face full of desperate hope.
Neither of them said anything for a moment.
“We never finished this,” Fiona said quietly.
“I know.”
“We got to pretty far in and then...” She trailed off. They both knew what happened then. The twins arrived. Everything got loud. Stella started pulling away. The show sat there, close to the end, waiting for a night that never came.
“We could,” Stella said. “Finish it, I mean. If you want.”
Fiona looked at her. Something moved across her face—not quite sadness, not quite hope. Something in between.
“We stopped somewhere in season three,” Fiona said quietly.
“Anne had just—”
“Don’t tell me. I’ve forgotten everything.”
“You cried at this episode.”
“I cried at every episode. That’s not a clue.” Fiona pressed play. “We’ll pick up where we left off.”
It wasn’t long before Stella had forgotten she was waiting for anything.
The honey lemon butter was gone. The olives had been deemed “fine” and abandoned. Fiona had migrated from her end of the couch to the middle, close enough that their shoulders almost touched.
On screen, Anne was being dramatic about something. Anne was always being dramatic about something. That was the whole point.
“She’s so much,” Fiona said, not looking away from the screen.
“That’s why you like her.”
“I never said I liked her.”
“You cried three times in the first episode.”
“I had something in my eye.”
“For forty-five minutes?”
“It was a very persistent something.” Fiona threw a piece of popcorn at her. Stella caught it in her mouth, surprising both of them.
“When did you learn to do that?”
“Bea and I practiced. She’s better than me.”
“Ah. That girl is alarmingly coordinated for someone so...”
“Artistic?”
“I was going to say chaotic.”
“People use that word a lot about Bea. Same thing, according to Anna.”
Fiona laughed — a real laugh, the kind that crinkled her eyes and made her look younger. Stella couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard that laugh. Before the twins, maybe. Before everything got complicated.
“I missed this,” Fiona said, still watching the screen.
Stella didn’t ask what “this” meant. She didn’t have to.
“Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”
Somewhere mid-episode, Fiona paused the show.
“I need to do something with my hands,” she announced. “I’m going to braid your hair.”
“What? No.”
“Yes. It’s too long. It’s everywhere. I can’t focus.”
“My hair isn’t the problem. You just want to play with it.”
“Both things can be true.” Fiona was already repositioning, patting the floor in front of the couch. “Sit. I’ll be gentle.”
Stella rolled her eyes but moved to the floor, her back against the couch, her mother’s knees on either side of her shoulders. Fiona’s fingers started working through her hair, separating sections, tugging gently at tangles.
“You’re terrible at this,” Stella said.
“I’m out of practice.”
“You were never good at it.”
“That’s not true. I braided your hair for that concert. The one with the sparkly headband.”
“I looked like a deranged fairy.”
“You looked adorable.”
“I looked like someone had attacked me with craft supplies.” But Stella was smiling. She remembered that concert. Year three. She’d sung a solo about a rainbow and forgotten the second verse and made up words that didn’t rhyme. Fiona had told her she was brilliant anyway.
“Hold still. You’re squirming.”
“Because you’re pulling.”
“I’m not pulling, I’m sectioning. There’s a difference.”
“Tell that to my scalp.”
Fiona tugged lightly in retaliation. Stella grabbed a pillow and swung it backward without looking.
“Hey!”
“You deserved it.”
“I’m trying to beautify you.”
“I was already beautiful.”
“And modest.” Fiona plucked the pillow away and set it out of reach. “I’m starting over. This whole section is wrong.”
“That’s what I said.”
They settled into it — Fiona braiding, unbraiding, trying again. On screen, Anne was frozen mid-gesture, waiting for them to return. The light outside had gone dusky, then dark. Neither of them moved to turn on a lamp.
“Your hair’s gotten so long,” Fiona said quietly. “When did that happen?”
“Gradually. That’s usually how hair works.”
“Smart-ass.” But her voice was soft. “You used to let me braid it every night. Before bed. Remember?”
“I remember.”
“You’d sit right here, just like this, and tell me about your day. Every single detail. What you ate for lunch. What someone said at recess. Whether the clouds looked like animals or not.” Fiona’s hands stilled for a moment. “You told me everything.”
Stella stared at the frozen screen. Anne’s face, caught between expressions.
“I remember,” she said again.
“I miss that.” Fiona’s voice cracked slightly. “I know I didn’t—I know things changed. But I miss it.”
Stella didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say that wouldn’t turn this into the conversation they’d been avoiding. And she didn’t want that. Not tonight. Tonight was about popcorn and bad braiding and a show they’d never finished.
“There,” Fiona said finally, patting Stella’s head. “Done.”
Stella reached back and felt the braid. It was lumpy. Uneven. Probably ridiculous.
“How does it look?”
“Like art.”
“That bad?”
“Take a photo. You’ll see.”
Stella pulled out her phone, switched to selfie mode, and burst out laughing.
“I look like I lost a fight with a rope.”
“You look bohemian.”
“I look like a sea creature.”
“A beautiful sea creature.” Fiona leaned over her shoulder, both of them visible in the phone screen. “Take a photo of us. For posterity.”
“For blackmail, you mean.”
“Same thing.”
Stella took the photo. Both of them looked slightly deranged — Fiona’s hair had gone frizzy from the couch cushions, and Stella’s braid was listing dramatically to one side. But they were both smiling. Real smiles. The kind that showed teeth.
Stella saved it without filtering anything.
“Okay,” Fiona said, settling back. “More Anne. We have at least a few more episodes before I fall asleep.”
“You’ll fall asleep in two.”
“I will not.”
She fell asleep in one and a half.
Stella watched her mother sleep.
Her mum looked different when she slept. Softer. Younger, maybe. She’d curled sideways on the couch, one hand tucked under her cheek, the other still holding the pillow Stella had thrown at her.
On screen, Anne was finally happy. Temporarily, at least. There was always another crisis coming. But for this moment, this episode, she’d found her people. Found her place.
Stella paused the show and sat in the quiet.
She should go back to Tyler’s. It was late. She had her own bed, her own room, her own life not many houses away.
But she didn’t move.
Instead, she found a blanket in the hall closet and draped it over her mother, careful not to wake her. Fiona stirred slightly, mumbled something that sounded like “Gilbert was annoying,” and settled deeper into the cushions.
Stella smiled.
She grabbed another blanket, turned off the TV, and curled up in the armchair across from the couch. Not leaving. Not quite staying. Just... being here.
The front door opened quietly sometime later. Margo appeared in the hallway, keys in hand, and stopped when she saw them — Fiona curled on the couch under a blanket, Stella tucked into the armchair, both of them drowsy in the dim light.
She didn’t say anything. Just smiled and raised one hand in a small wave.
Stella waved back, too sleepy to speak.
Margo disappeared down the hall toward her bedroom, and a moment later, her door clicked softly shut.
The last thing Stella saw before she fell asleep was her mother’s face, peaceful in the glow from the hallway nightlight, and the lumpy braid still somehow clinging to her own shoulder.
Tomorrow would bring whatever it brought.
But tonight had been good. Really good.