Chapter Twenty-Nine
The flat was too quiet. Which was ironic, because Mo had been stomping around it for the better part of an hour like a very small, very angry elephant, but somehow the noise only made the silent parts louder.
Maeve was gone.
Not just gone from London. Gone gone. Checked out of the hotel, phone going to voicemail, probably halfway back to Scotland by now to feed that horrible sheep and glare at the loch and pretend the rest of the world had ceased to exist. Which, knowing Maeve, was exactly what she'd do.
Retreat. Barricade. Convince herself that she'd been right all along, that getting close to people only led to getting hurt, that fifteen years of isolation had been the smart choice after all.
Iona sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea she'd made forty minutes ago and hadn't touched.
It had gone cold. A skin had formed on the surface, which was disgusting, but pouring it out would require standing up and walking to the sink, and she just didn't have it in her.
Her whole body felt heavy. Like someone had filled her bones with wet sand while she wasn't looking.
She should have told her about the punch.
The thought kept circling back, a vulture that wouldn't land. She should have told her. Years ago, maybe. Or when Maeve first came back. Or at any point during the weeks when they'd been circling each other, testing the waters, falling back into something that felt terrifyingly like hope.
But when? When exactly was she supposed to have said it? Over breakfast? In the middle of rehearsal? Hey, by the way, remember that night you don't remember? You hit me. Just thought you should know.
What purpose would it have served?
Iona had known, even then, that Maeve hadn't meant it.
She'd known that Maeve was drowning, that the alcohol had turned her into someone else, someone desperate and thrashing and lashing out at anything within reach.
It had hurt. God, it had hurt. Not just the physical pain, though that had been bad enough, but the look on Maeve's face afterward.
The blank confusion. The way she'd stumbled back and then just…
left. Without a word. Without even knowing what she'd done.
Iona had carried it for fifteen years because it seemed kinder than making Maeve carry it too.
But she hadn't understood. She hadn't realized how much honesty mattered to Maeve. How the not-knowing was worse than the knowing. How finding out from Cam, in the middle of everything else falling apart, would feel like the final proof that everyone had been lying to her all along.
She'd screwed up. And now Maeve was gone.
Her phone rang.
She stared at it for a moment, heart lurching stupidly, but the name on the screen was Shepherd, not Maeve. Of course it was Shepherd. Maeve wasn't going to call. Maeve was probably busy feeding her stupid sheep.
She answered. "Hey."
"How are you holding up?" Shepherd's voice was careful, the way it got when he was worried but trying not to show it.
"Brilliantly. Never better. Having the time of my life."
"That bad?"
"That bad." She rubbed her eyes. She heard Mo's footsteps thudding from her bedroom to the bathroom and back again, a small thunderstorm of adolescent displeasure. "What's going on?"
Shepherd sighed. "I've just got off the phone with the Lakeside organizers. They're nervous."
"Nervous about what?"
"All the press coverage. The leak. The photos of you and Maeve that are apparently everywhere now.
" He paused. "They're worried about the optics of having a band that's either sleeping together or falling apart in public all the time.
The whole narrative has shifted from 'nostalgic reunion' to 'messy drama' and that's not what they signed up for. "
Iona laughed, though nothing was funny. "We're not falling apart in public. We're falling apart in private. Much more dignified."
"I'm fighting for the slot," Shepherd said. "Calling in every favor I've got. But I can't make promises, Iona. If they decide the risk isn't worth it…"
"I know." She didn't have the energy to argue. Didn't have the energy for anything, really. "I know. Just do what you can."
"I will. But I need you to know that this is serious. I've put my reputation on the line for this reunion. If it falls apart now…" He trailed off, which was somehow worse than if he'd finished the sentence.
There was a pause. Then, more quietly: "So, did you have to drag Maeve out of a bar so drunk she couldn’t walk?"
Iona's stomach clenched. "No, of course not." Which was the truth, of course. Except there was more to that truth. Like the fact that Maeve was completely gone. She didn’t mention that part.
"Right."
"She hasn’t been drinking." Iona crossed her fingers as she said it, hoping like hell that it was true. She took a breath. "She's fine. We're all fine. Everyone just needs a break. A few days to cool off."
"A few days." Shepherd sounded skeptical but willing to accept it. "Alright. I'll check in with you next week. In the meantime, try to get everyone on the same page. If there's any chance of saving this, we need to present a united front."
"United front. Got it."
She hung up and let the phone drop onto the table. A united front. That would require having a front at all, united or otherwise. Right now all she had was a cold cup of tea and a daughter who hated her.
Speaking of which.
Mo had emerged from her room and was standing in the kitchen doorway, radiating contempt.
She was wearing an oversized hoodie that Iona didn't recognize and had her arms crossed over her chest in the universal posture of someone who found everything and everyone deeply beneath them.
Her hair was a mess, she had headphone marks on her cheeks, and she was looking at Iona like Iona had personally invented homework and early bedtimes.
"What do you want for dinner?" Iona asked, trying to keep her voice normal. Pleasant. Motherly.
Mo rolled her eyes so hard it was a wonder they didn't get stuck. "Whatever."
"That's not an answer."
"Fine. I don't care. Make whatever you want." She was already turning away, already dismissing Iona like she was an inconvenience rather than the person who had raised her and loved her and would cheerfully throw herself in front of a bus for her.
"I'm asking what you want," Iona said, and she could hear the edge creeping into her voice. Could feel the crack spreading.
"And I said I don't care." Mo's voice dripped with disdain. "Why is that so hard to understand? I don't care about dinner. I don't care about anything. Just leave me alone."
Something snapped. It had been cracking for weeks, maybe months, and Iona had kept patching it, sure that things would improve.
But things weren't getting better. Things were falling apart, and Mo was looking at her like she was the enemy, and Maeve was gone, and Lakeside was slipping away, and she was so tired.
She was so bloody tired of trying to hold everything together when everything kept insisting on coming undone.
"What is wrong with you?" The words came out louder than she meant them to. Almost a shout. "What is actually wrong with you, Mo? We used to have a good relationship. We used to talk to each other. Now it's like we're mortal enemies. Like anything I say or do is wrong, even when I know it's not."
Mo's eyes went wide, then narrowed. "Maybe if you weren't always on my case about everything—"
"I'm not on your case! I asked you what you wanted for dinner!"
"You're always asking me things. What do I want, how was my day, where am I going, who am I texting! It's like living with a detective."
"I'm your mother! I'm supposed to ask you things. That's my job."
"Well maybe you should get a different job," Mo screamed.
"Maybe you should stop acting like a brat," Iona screamed back. "Maybe you should appreciate for once that I feed you, house you, clothe you, that I love you and would do anything for you. Maybe you should try, just try, to love me back." The words came out too fast and left her heaving breaths.
They stared at each other. Mo's face was flushed, her hands balled into fists at her sides. For a second she looked like she might cry. Then her expression hardened into something cold and distant, and she turned and stormed back to her room.
The door slammed hard enough to rattle the pictures on the wall.
A moment later, music exploded through the flat. Something loud and angry and deliberately obnoxious, cranked up to a volume that was probably violating several noise ordinances.
Iona stood in the kitchen, shaking.
She shouldn't have done that. She shouldn't have yelled.
Mo was fourteen, she was going through something, and yelling wasn't going to help.
All she'd done was make everything worse.
Again. Just like she always did. Just like she'd done with Maeve, keeping secrets that weren't hers to keep, and now Maeve was gone and Mo hated her and Shepherd was on the phone talking about united fronts like there was anything left to unite.
She made it to the sofa before her legs gave out.
The tears came without warning, hot and messy and unstoppable.
She pressed her face into a cushion so Mo wouldn't hear, though Mo probably couldn't hear anything over that godawful music anyway.
Her whole body shook with it. Weeks of stress and hope and fear, all of it pouring out at once in great ugly sobs that made her chest ache and her nose run and turned her into the kind of mess she'd spent her whole life trying not to be.
She shouldn't have yelled at Mo.
But for a minute there, Iona had thought her life was finally coming together.
The band was working. Maeve was back. Mo had seemed, if not happy, at least less miserable.
It had felt like all the pieces were finally falling into place after years of watching them scatter.
Like maybe, just maybe, Iona was going to get to be happy.
Now all she could see was rubble.
She'd lost Maeve. She was losing Mo. She was probably going to lose Lakeside too, and Ellie was sick, and Cam was devastated, and the whole thing had been built on lies from the very beginning.
Lies that Iona had been part of, even if she hadn't known all of them.
She'd kept her own secrets. She'd made her own choices. And now everyone was paying for it.
The music pounded through the walls, relentless and accusatory.
Iona cried until she couldn't anymore, and then she just lay there, face pressed into the cushion, wondering how she was supposed to get up tomorrow and do it all again.