Your chest cracks clean open and this is what comes out:

"Please don't leave. Not now."

Piper leaves anyway.

Piper leaves.

You really, really didn't think she would.

The door closes behind here and for some reason that is what brings the tears, a tidal wave rolling up your throat, stinging in your eyes, but you bite the inside of your lip and fight them, don't dare let them fall. If you cry right now, you'll be crying for her, not just your mom, andfuck that, fuck her, she doesn't deserve any part of it.

Instead you scream, just once, sharp and frightened. It might be loud enough for her to hear, maybe she's still standing there in the hotel hallway waiting for the damn elevator. Maybe she hears, maybe not. Either way she doesn't come back.

Your mom dies. Piper leaves.

That turns out to be the answer to a question you will get asked a lot over the next several years: What the fuck happened to you, Vause?

In the end, you have to call Fahri. His voice is crisp and impatient, he's asking about Istanbul, if you have that shit figured out yet, but eventually you string the words together and explain.

For a fraction of a moment, you're worried that you won't get to leave, that this job doesn't work like that, with time off for family emergencies - you've never had occasion to test it before. But Fahri makes a sympathetic sound, changing his tone immediately. He says it's fine, he'll take care of things.

"You two go ahead and fly back, don't worry about things here for a few days."

You don't have it in you to correct him, to admit the other loss. All this, all at once; it seems to reflect badly on you, somehow.

He offers to make arrangements - he likes to throw money around, to be the one taking care of things - but you don't let him because he'd be buying two seats on the plane.

So you book a first class ticket, call your aunt, pack up the hotel room. You have two drinks in the airport bar and order another as soon as you sit down on the plane. You stay awake for the eight hour flight, no earbuds, no open book in your lap, just sitting and still, still not letting yourself cry, because you still can't be sure some of the tears won't be for her.

It's dark when you step outside the airport, and nothing feels quite real, as if you're looking at the world from behind a pane of glass.

Then suddenly your Aunt Clara is there and she's hugging you and messy crying and referring to your mother as her baby sister, and you're too out of it to say what you want: Shut the fuck up, stop fucking crying, you hated her, you never helped when we had no money and you hated it even more when I made sure she had plenty, she made fun of your hair and your boring husband and your snotty suburban kids stop crying stop crying stop crying.

Her youngest son is driving. You haven't seen him since he was maybe seven years old, and now he's a slouchy, shaggy haired college kid who, if nothing else, looks like the type to always carry around weed. You make a note of that for later, just in case.

For all her emotional distress, Clara doesn't stop talking the whole drive, recounting her heroic efforts, which amounted to answering the phone and driving to the hospital, in between prying for information: "You were flying from, where, Paris? Hmmph. Last I heard you were on some island...honestly, I was relieved I was even able to get in touch, God knows how we'd have found you. Di never did explain what it is you do that has you traveling so much..." She trails off, waiting for you to clarify. Getting nothing, she continues, "You know, Ted and I are thinking of traveling to Paris for our anniversary next summer."

At that, you choke on a laugh. You'd flown your mother out to Greece on vacation last year, to spend a week with you and Piper, and a month later she'd called gleefully to explain that, out of nowhere, imagine the fuck out of this, Clara was goading her husband into a Greek vacation.

Unbidden, the thought floats through your head - can't wait to tell Mom this one - and a nanosecond later the laughter freezes in your chest.

It's not that you forgot. You couldn't possibly forget, especially right now, when you've been awake for twenty-four hours and are stuck in a car with relatives you'd never see under other circumstances. The dark knot of knowledge is everywhere - chest, guts, lungs - and yet somehow it hasn't flipped an off switch on your instincts.

They drop you off at your mom's house, the two story Craftsman in - and this is important - one of the nice neighborhoods in town. That had been a point of pride when you bought it. The school bus route that runs through these street is the same one that used to drop off the little girls who used to torture you about your thrift store jackets and off brand shoes.

"Always thought this place was a bit big for her," Clara deems fit to muse aloud as her son pulls up at the curb. "After all, anything would have felt roomy after that dreadful apartment...well, I suppose you'll have to deal with the sell now."

You hate that you have to thank her for anything, but you do it and get the hell out of the car.

Your mom's car is parked in the driveway, probably the oldest vehicle on her block by at least a decade. For the past two years she's been stubbornly insisting she doesn't need a new one, but you've been expecting to get that call any day now that hers had broken down for good, proving you right.

It's bizarre, how the house manages to smell just like the old apartment. You hadn't grown up here, but it smells like home and childhood anyway, in that inexplicable way people's house's carry their scent. For just a second you breathe in too deeply and it nearly brings you to your knees.

You drop your suitcases. You grab onto the frame of the door.

You're okay, you're okay, you're okay.

There's a half full bottle of wine in the kitchen, and you drink the rest without pausing. Your phone died on the plane, so you pull your charger out of a bag and plug it in in the kitchen.

It takes five minutes for the phone to turn back on, long enough to start on a new bottle. When the screen lights up, you wait.

No new voicemails. Not even a text.

That's fine.

You're okay, you have a plan: drink more, let the phone charge, sleep in the guest room like always, wake up and go to the funeral home, just get this done, just get through it, you're okay. You keep the wine in one hand and the phone in the other, like you're waiting for something, but it never rings.

But a bottle of wine later, the alcohol sloshing around on top of nothing else in your stomach, you have to stumble, phone in hand, into the closest bathroom, through your mom's bedroom. You crash onto your knees on the tile, and the last thing you think before emptying the liquid contents of your stomach is that it smells even more like her, like the cheap Wal-Mart perfume she's been using for decades, since she was able to use her employee discount to buy it.

Your stomach clenches and unclenches, chest heaving. You're making dry gagging noises that slowly start to thicken into something worse, something awful, dying animal sounds. Your eyes are hot and your face is wet and you're crying, finally crying: big, gulping baby sobs that slice through you like hot blades.

You're on the floor of your mother's bathroom, crying and drunk and alone. Your phone's somehow ended up between your knees, and it still won't fucking ring.

You sleep in your mom's bed, and the next morning you go to the funeral home and spend the money you'd set aside to buy your mom a new car on a casket and flowers and embalming fees.

The somber faced funeral director asks if you want an open casket, and your mom's voice comes back to you, ten years ago, whispering in your ear at some funeral visitation for one of her friends' mother. Al, did you see the fucking make up caked on that old woman? Babe, don't ever let every goddamn person we know parade by to look at my dolled up corpse, yeah? I mean it, I will haunt your ass for eternity.

"She wouldn't...I, I don't want an open casket visitation."

"That's perfectly fine. Would you like to set up a private viewing, just for you and any other family, before the funeral?"

Without even thinking about it, the answer slips out. "Yes. Just...just me."

He takes the photo you brought and promise you'll be pleased with how she looks, and a scream curls and sticks in your throat at the idea. You don't want to see her like that, of course you don't, but you aren't going to explain to this man that you haven't actually seen your mother in six months, and you can't deal with the thought of not getting one more look at her.

You drive back to the house and smoke on the porch, just giving yourself an hour. You don't want to do shit, you want to buy up a liquor store and turn off your fucking phone and not think, but you've got to call the lawyer and figure out food for the wake and deal with all the other details they don't tell you that come packaged with death.

The phone still doesn't ring, and you're sick of holding it in your hand doing nothing. There's one saved voicemail from your mom, from five days ago, so you lift it to your ear and press play.

Hiya, kiddo. Just callin' to check in. And to tell you I ran into Darla Wedge at the grocery store, you know, whats-her-face's mom, the bratty cheerleader looking one. I'll tell you all about it, you'll love it. Just gimme a call whenever. Love you, babe. Be safe, and tell Piper I say hi.

Your throat is tight and your eyes are wet, but by the end it's all you can do not to hurl the phone onto the sidewalk.

This is all you have. There are no home videos, and her own voicemails are always automated. Which means you'll never be able to hear your mother's voice again without thinking of Piper.

The funeral home's interior is stiff and floral everything. The funeral director leads you to a large room filled with antique couches and chairs, arranged in perfect symmetry, boxes of Kleenex on every end table. There's a small viewing room offset from the larger one, and your legs turn to water just at the thought of what's in there.

"We've got forty-five minutes until we should leave for the cemetery," the undertaker says solemnly. "So take your time."

Then he leaves you alone.

It takes ten minutes for you to work up the nerve to walk into the small room where the half open casket is waiting. You're okay.

You just get a glimpse - she's in the position you know from movies, eyes closed, hands folded formally over her stomach - and a strangled sound lurches out of you, the word Mom rounding in your throat like a sob.

Something's crashing against your chest; an anchor, gravity, your own heart. You spin out of the door frame, back to the waiting area, and your knees hit the ugly dull carpet. The air is slamming against your lungs and ricocheting out again, too fast, not settling. Your vision goes white at the edges.

You were wrong, you can't do this, not by yourself. Your phone is in your hand, it's always in your hand, and your fingers are trembling as you scroll through contacts.

It rings once and dimly, crazily, you think they're gonna have to push back the funeral they're gonna have to give her time to get here it'll take a few hours. But the second ring hits your ears and you hang up before it quiets, the abrupt recognition of your own weakness shocking you out of the panic attack. You're disgusted with yourself, for needing her, for wanting her here, but you still stay crouched on the floor for five minutes, waiting for her to see the missed call and dial back, to put it together in her goddamn college brain what today must be.

She doesn't, and you're so fucking furious at yourself that it makes it easier to pull it together, to stand up and leave the phone on the carpet and walk back into the viewing room and this time get all the way up to casket. The tears come, silent and steady and under control, the sort of crying you're supposed to be doing right now.

There's a smattering of unfamiliar family at the funeral. Clara and her husband and kids (all of whom are younger than you because she waited until marriage and a respectable age to have children), a smattering of your mom's cousins, an occasional great aunt or uncle.

Better than them are your mom's friends, the parade of women with hunched shoulders and chapped hands from decades of cashier and restaurant work, women you recognize from weekly poker games your mom always brought you to.

Someone's hand lands on your shoulder, and as soon as you turn around you're pulled into a hug by Beth, your mom's best friend. The two of you had stayed at her apartment three different times after getting evicted. She used to sneak you extra fries when you visited at Friendly's. And now she's hugging you, this drawn out, tender hug, and calling you "Lex, baby," she's the only person in the world who calls you that, and it all feels so goddamn maternal you nearly buckle under the touch.

Beth pulls away but doesn't let go of your arms. "I'm so, so sorry, baby. What a shit, huh? An aneurysm. So fucking unfair."

You can't manage an answer, so you just nod. Beth puts a rough, cool hand on your cheek. "Oh, honey. Look at you. So goddamn pretty." Her eyes dart behind you, like she's looking for someone. "Di said you got yourself a girl? That it's pretty serious?"

"She isn't..." The word wrestle in your throat, not wanting to get free. "She's not here." Like it's all a matter of logistics.

"Oh." Beth makes a sad face, feeling sorry for you for the wrong thing.

Quickly, you change the subject. "Come sit up front. In the family pew."

"No, no, I don't wanna give Clara a stress episode. I'll sit with the girls...and we're gonna go straight to your house after the cemetery, get everything set up, alright? Don't worry about a thing, honey, you just take care of yourself."

You don't tell her you always do. You can barely admit even to yourself that for once, you're wishing you didn't have to.

And you hate yourself for the way you keep watching the door.

The funeral is short in the church and short at the graveside, and you spend it gnawing an indention onto the inside of your lower lip and not crying not crying not crying.

The house fills up for the wake, and Beth and the other poker game women play hostess as promised. You just have to stand there, and everyone drifts over to offer condolences. Your voice sounds dull and distant when you thank them, and luckily you seem messed up enough that no one asks any questions about where you live and what you do now.

All at once you notice Fahri, hovering ominously in a corner, drinking wine from your mom's glasses, and for a second the incongruity of seeing him here, in your mother's house, shocks you out of the fog you're in.

You excuse yourself from some neighbor and cross the room. "What are you doing here?"

He lifts an eyebrow. "Paying my respects." He gives the room a pointed scan. "Where's Piper?"

"Gone." Just that, the single word a shard of broken glass lodged in your throat.

He mmm's at that. "Shit timing." He takes a sip, then asks, "She gonna be a problem?"

For a second you want to slap him. "No." You remember to lower your voice to a hiss, "Wasn't that the whole fucking point of the Brussels drop? That she couldn't be a problem?"

"It was." Then, without missing a beat, "How long do you think you'll be here?"

The fog starts settling again. "I don't know."

"You can grieve, Vause. We want that. But you've got work to do." Your face must show how little you can focus on work, because he changes the subject. "Thought I might see Burley here."

You nearly blurt out who? before you realize he's talking about your father. Fuck, that didn't even occur to you. "Right. He's probably nodding out in some shithole van with the other addicts."

Fahri gives a short, low laugh. "Addicts paid for this house, kiddo. Don't shit on the addicts." He squeezes you on the shoulder. "Can you meet us in Barcelona in a week?"

In spite of the phrasing, it doesn't sound like a question. You nod.

The house empties out slowly. When you hug your aunt goodbye you think vaguely that you'll probably never see her again. Actually, that's probably true of all these people.

Beth stays the longest. She's tipsy and tearful and in the mood to reminisce, but after a half hour or so she must notice you're close to losing it because she stops mid-sentence and pats your hand apologetically.

Then she's gone and it's over, this horrible awful day. So you set about drinking everything left in the house. When you're good and wasted it suddenly seems like a good idea to start packing things up, after all you'll be leaving in a week.

Which is how you end up in your mom's closet, crying over a stack of work uniforms, every one still pinned with a nametag, DIANE DIANE DIANE. You're shaking like something seismic has released in your body, chest spasming with violent sobs, and you're wondering why the hell she would keep these.

You drink more and you can't stop crying. Eventually you're drunk enough that your brain starts to get everything twisted: you end up missing Piper and hating your mom for leaving, but no, that's wrong, reverse it. Stop thinking about her. Stop wanting her here. Get a fucking grip.

In the end, you make an impulsive decision and stick to it: you aren't selling the house.

You aren't ready, not now, definitely not within a week. Instead you drive to the apartment in Northampton. You own it, it'll be easier to sell, and really you don't need two home bases. Especially don't need one here.

It feels stuffy and too quiet, but there's something else. Your brain is dulled from the drive, so it's not until you wander into the bedroom that you figure it out: her stuff is gone.

Just like that, rage pools in your gut, hot and bubbling. She was here, less than three hours away, rifling through drawers and stuffing her left behind clothes into bags, removing all evidence that she ever shared a life with you, maybe at the same time you were calling her from the floor of a funeral home, kneeling ten feet away from your mother's body.

Fuck her.

You go into the kitchen and hurl the toaster at the wall, just to watch its poorly reassembled pieces shatter.

A/N: I was going to make this a oneshot, but I decided to space it out into short-ish sections so I could have a little bit of breathing room between writing. Would love to hear what you think so far, I've been wanting to write about this period for Alex forever.