Chapter 3
“Would you stop that, you’re not the housekeeper.”
Angie scowled at Carol, made a show of straightening the last pillow on the sofa. “I’m crashing here. Crashers help out.”
“You’re a guest,” Carol corrected with a huff, “and you—”
“Have a kid that doubles as a hurricane.”
Carol waved a hand. “At least half that mess is Rindy’s, they can both clean it when they get back.”
“Small children as labor. Wouldn’t have thought it from you.”
“Take the damn shower you said you were taking fifteen minutes ago. And for God’s sake don’t be so obsessive about the towels.”
Angie waved and walked off down the hallway and may have flipped Carol off, it was too fast for Therese to see as she looked up from sorting photos on the kitchen table. “You do realize you’ve been having the same argument for three days.”
“Hmm?”
Shaking her head Therese stood, joined Carol at the sink where she was rinsing dishes. “Same argument. Over the pillows, the towels, the dishes, the dusting, the—”
“She’s here to rest, not pick up after us. If we wanted a maid we could hire a damn maid.”
“You know we couldn’t. A stranger in here, the one bedroom that’s not a kid’s, the—”
Carol turned enough to glare at Therese. “You are deliberately missing the point.”
“Oh am I?” Therese asked, matching her tone. Then she splashed Carol with a bit of water from the sink.
“You should’ve gone to the park with the other children.” The arm Carol hooked around Therese’s waist to pull her closer didn’t match the words.
“Why would I do that when the two children here now are just as entertaining?” Carol pinched her side for that and there was a light skirmish until she ended up with both Carol’s hands around her waist, leaving damp fingerprints on the back of her shirt. “Let her clean, maybe it’s coping.”
Carol sighed. “She shouldn’t have to cope, not with this.”
“No,” Therese said carefully, “she shouldn’t. But have you thought that maybe you’re a little close to it too?”
Carol’s baffled look was answer enough.
“A child, even one that may not be there, taken from one parent by another, no choice in it for Angie or the baby?”
Carol made an annoyed sound and handed Lizzie’s plastic cup to Therese to dry. “I don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“You’re deliberately missing the point.”
“This is not the same thing.”
“No,” Therese said. “It isn’t.”
Carol went quiet after that, only handing her dishes to finish. Therese sighed and took the silence, the distance for ten more minutes, until there was a knock at the door. Taking escape where she could, Therese crossed the apartment quickly, then lost her breath a moment when she opened the door.
There were Steve and Peggy, looking tired and like they’d rather be somewhere else, but there. Steve had a line of stitches running halfway across his forehead.
“Therese,” Peggy said. “Sorry to drop by unannounced.”
Therese waved that off. “It’s nothing. You’re back?”
“That we are.”
“I’m glad,” Therese said. “How, how are you?”
“Fine, fine, always. Would you happen to know where Angie is?”
“She’s here,” Therese said quickly, despite the ease Peggy seemed to have asking the question. “They both are. Well, Lizzie’s at the park with Rindy and Abby but…”
She saw a small relaxation in Steve’s shoulders at the same time a muscle clenched in his jaw.
“Getting spoiled rotten no doubt,” Peggy said. “I don’t suppose we might come in?”
Therese apologized and stepped back, watched them both as they studied the room littered with toys that weren’t all Rindy’s, Lizzie’s cup on the counter by Carol. When Carol turned to greet them, the usual warmth was decidedly lacking. She used the same tone she once had when they’d run into an old business acquaintance of Harge’s and been forced to say hello. Peggy’s response remained polite but distant. Steve just nodded in Carol’s direction.
“Work go well?” Carol asked after she’d offered them something to drink and been turned down.
“Well enough,” said Peggy.
“Find who you were looking for?”
Therese gave Carol a look, which was ignored. Something flickered over Peggy’s face for half a second, then disappeared. Steve was pretending to study one of the photos on the table, and bending the edges. Peggy crossed to him, squeezed his arm and he put it down. Therese noticed then that Peggy was limping a little, favoring her left foot.
“There’s always someone else to find,” Peggy said. Then she studied the photos too and pretended to care what was in them and asked Therese about the paper.
That farce lasted a few agonizing minutes before Angie’s voice drifted in through the hallway, warning Carol they were almost out of shampoo. She was dressed in loose clothes, damp hair wetting the back of her neck, very much the opposite of the Broadway star Angela Martin was fast becoming. She froze when she saw they had company.
The emotions that flashed across Angie’s face were too many and too fast for Therese to even begin to decipher. She saw relief there somewhere though, amidst all the others.
“Hello, my darling,” Peggy said, crossing to Angie and taking her hands.
“You’re back.”
Peggy smiled softly. “Indeed.”
“Are you okay?”
“Always.”
Angie stared. “You’re limping.”
“It’s nothing.”
“When, when did you get home?”
“Not long ago.”
Therese wondered if she was imagining it, imagining the ‘You weren’t there’ hanging in the room. She didn’t think so.
Angie looked past Peggy to Steve standing a few steps back. “What happened to your head?”
“Nothing. It’ll heal soon.”
“Whole lot of nothing, huh?”
Steve went to Angie. His arms wrapped around her and stayed there. “Don’t ever do that again.”
His voice came low and muffled against Angie’s shoulder. It was hard to tell whether that was possessiveness or protectiveness.
“Steve.” Peggy said.
“You didn’t leave a note,” Steve said, pulling back.
“No? Thought I had.”
Therese shot Carol an uncomfortable glance. She wasn’t sure if Angie was acting or not, and Carol’s face was impassive.
“You didn’t,” Peggy said. “We looked. So did Mr. Jarvis.”
“Oops.”
The muscle in Steve’s jaw became more prominent.
“Do you know when Abby might be back with the girls?” Peggy asked.
“Why?”
Therese shot Carol a look at the question, the tone. “Carol—”
Her warning went incomplete. “Because we’d like to see our daughter and get home,” Steve said with nothing beyond civility.
“We’ll be out of your hair when Abby gets back,” said Angie.
“That’s not necessary,” said Carol.
“It’s fine, Jersey.”
“Is it?”
“You didn’t leave a note,” Steve said again, an odd mix of anger and desperation. “You knew exactly what that would do, and you still—”
It was Angie who tensed this time, stood taller despite being dwarfed by him. “You two love a mystery so much, and obviously you figured it out, what’s the problem? Don’t like how it feels, not knowing where your family is? Join the club.”
“Now you’re just being petty,” Peggy said.
“Sure, you can call it that.”
“I’m sure I can, by any definition. We left because we had to, to protect people, save lives. You walked out with our child and not a clue as to where you were going, if you were safe, just to hurt—”
“Is she our child now?” Angie asked. “Because she came from Steve and I, from my body, so is she really our child?”
Therese wondered if her mouth was hanging open, felt her stomach roll. The only thing that shocked her more than Angie’s words was Peggy’s reaction.
Peggy closed her eyes a moment, her expression betraying her emotions while her voice stayed calm. “You know I didn’t mean that. You know—”
“I know. I know you’re unbelievably cold sometimes and you’ll say whatever you need to to shut me up, push me away. Not fun, is it?”
“Angie…”
“You didn’t’ have to go. You have a whole agency of people handpicked to do this shit for you, it didn’t have to be you this time.”
“Yes, Angie, it did. This time it did.”
“Why?”
Peggy didn’t answer. Carol laughed softly, a hard edge to it.
“Something funny?” Peggy asked.
“Not remotely. You two abandoning half your family and putting the rest of it in danger to chase a personal vendetta isn’t funny at all.”
“Carol!” Therese said, actually yelled this time.
Peggy’s laugh in return was decidedly colder. She ignored Angie’s words of intervention the same way Carol had Therese’s. “A personal vendetta, is it?”
“Looks that way, yes.”
“I’m sure it does, to the ignorant, the uninformed.”
“Where do you get off, dragging your child, her child into a warzone?”
Peggy’s eyes flashed. “I suggest you change the subject.”
“To what, your wife? How decimated she’s been since you—”
“Decimated? Angie is alive, as is Therese, as are you and your child precisely because Steve and I go into those warzones. I assure you, you know absolutely nothing about decimation, about the costs we and others have paid so you don’t have to. So you can be safe to stand here and spout nonsense.”
“What about your family? What about that cost? Do you have any idea what your wife, your child have been through while you—”
“I do not. I’ve been busy preventing war and death on a massive scale while you’ve done, what exactly? Sold a few coffee tables?”
“Helped your family. Helped them because you weren’t.”
Therese knew it’d gone too far, truly knew, when Steve stepped forward after staying mostly in the background as this train wreck unfolded. The blue of his eyes was icier than she’d ever seen it.
“Enough,” he said, standing to his full height in front of Carol.
His voice was even but dangerous and Therese must’ve been right in her sense that there was more going on here than she thought because Peggy put a hand on his arm again.
“Steve.”
He shrugged her off without losing Carol’s gaze. “You don’t get to talk about personal vendettas.”
“No?” Carol asked, showing no sign of intimidation as he towered over her, just at the edge of invading her space. “Why not, because Captain America’s above all that?”
“Peggy was nearly killed. We nearly lost her. Of course I wanted the person who did that, who hurt her. Which I don’t expect you to understand, since you’re the one who hurt Therese, decimated her, so what would you know about wanting to protect the people you care about?”
Therese’s eyes widened along with Carol’s. She opened her mouth, about to tell him off for dragging her into this absurdity, but Steve wasn’t done yet.
“Abandonment, coming from you? You left your husband, your child, and then you left Therese. But you, you want to talk about my family, the people I love?”
“I left my husband, my marriage,” Carol said, her voice gone too low, eyes too bright. “But I never, never left Rindy.”
“No? We’ve been gone how long, a couple of weeks? Is that how long you knew Therese, or was it less?”
“I—”
“You want to talk about my child, my children? When you willingly gave yours up. For a fling?”
The crack of Carol’s palm seemed deafening as it connected with Steve’s cheek. There was a bad, horrible moment when Therese thought Peggy was going to do something on instinct, something to hurt Carol. It didn’t happen. Steve touched the red mark on his face, though Therese seriously doubted it could’ve hurt him.
“Enough!” Angie shouted, stepping between all of them and voicing what Therese couldn’t make pass from her brain to her lips. “What the hell is this? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
The question wasn’t addressed to any one person. Nobody answered. Therese had time to share a wild, incredulous look with Angie before hearing footsteps in the hallway, small voices made too loud through excitement and sugar, probably. Abby’s voice came through the din and then her spare key was in the lock.
Lizzie was instantly ecstatic, all shouts of Mommy and Daddy and if she noticed the red mark on Steve’s face she didn’t show it. Rindy, frankly was only slightly less excited to see her aunt and uncle.
“There’s my beautiful, darling girl!” Peggy exclaimed, all traces of who she’d been five minutes earlier gone as she lifted Lizzie up. Therese thought she saw Peggy wince when Lizzie’s legs wrapped around her but it was hard to tell in the chaos. Steve took her though, swung her up to rest on one of his strong arms.
It went on like that for awhile, a mess of hugs and greetings. Smiles were held in place though Therese worried over the look in Carol’s eyes when Rindy threw herself against Steve’s back.
“You’re back, you’re back, you’re back!” Lizzie chanted, hugging Peggy again while Rindy giggled.
“Always,” Peggy said. “Did you have fun with Rindy?”
Lizzie nodded enthusiastically, gave a long but rapid-fire explanation that ended with, “And we had the best sleepover ever, and Auntie Carol helped us make brownies yesterday, and Aunt Therese read me stories every night, Mommy!”
“She did? Well that sounds absolutely marvelous, sweetheart.”
Rindy tried getting them to stay longer, but put up relatively little fuss when they declined. Carol was mostly silent, but took the hug Lizzie gave her with the warmest of smiles. No one talked about the suitcases, the toys Lizzie was leaving behind. Lizzie threw herself at Therese before leaving, hugged her hard.
“Daddy, Aunt Therese still has to show me how she makes her pictures, she promised she would.”
Steve’s smile was strained at the edges. “That’s great, baby. Maybe next time, okay?”
“’Kay.”
Therese kissed Lizzie goodbye, wondered if there would be a next time.
Carol sent Rindy to wash her face with a wry observation that she’d brought most of the park home with her. Then she hustled Abby out before questions could be asked. They talked briefly and Abby scowled, making a promise to call later sound vaguely like a threat. Then they were alone.
“What the hell was that?” Therese said, voice low. She could hear the sink running in the bathroom.
“Hmm?”
“What were you thinking?”
Carol’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t put this on me. Those two were beyond out of line.”
“And you were what?” Therese shook her head, threw up her hands. “Do you feel better now?”
“Fantastic,” Carol drawled, crossing her arms. “What do you want me to say, Therese?”
“You slapped Captain America.”
“Captain America is an asshole.”
“And you’re what right now?”
Carol’s gaze hardened further. She opened her mouth to say something but Rindy emerged from the hallway, attaching herself to Therese’s side.
“Aunt Therese, can we play trains?”
Therese kept her eyes on Carol a moment longer. “You want to play trains, do you?”
“Yes!” Rindy said, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“Well I don’t think there’s any room for the tracks in here,” Therese replied, tearing her gaze from Carol’s and making a show of examining the room. “I think we have to clean up all these other toys before we can play anything else, don’t you?”
Rindy pouted but agreed, taking Therese’s hand. Therese felt Carol’s stare burning into her long after she turned her back.