DECEMBER 27th, 1998, OLYMPIA, WA

THE ABNER HOUSEHOLD was relatively empty for a Sunday afternoon. It almost left Reagan feeling anxious, unsure that she'd found herself in the right house when it was void of the bickering, laughing and general noise that she'd grown up around.

That Sunday had set into motion her understanding that things really had changed. It wasn't just the gray hairs she'd noticed streaked on Richard and Kimberly's heads, or the lines growing more prominent in their faces. It was the absence of her siblings in a space that had always kept them niched close.

Kate had been in town for Christmas but had left the following day, needing to get back to the firm she was working for in Seattle. Robbie was fulfilling a noonday shift at the record store and the twins had taken their pair of bikes, gifted to them by Reagan on the twenty-fifth, to a nearby park.

That left Reagan alone with her parents, which she'd hopefully intended for even though it was strangely awkward. It made her feel lonely, even though Richard and Kimberly were nearby, the three of them watching adoringly as Gracie combed the hair of her new Barbie dolls on the living room floor.

It had been a good holiday, all things considered. Reagan and Gracie had spent Christmas Eve with Dave, allowing for Gracie to open her presents from Santa and them both by the tree. It hadn't gone unnoticed to Reagan that she and Dave had sat far apart, watching Gracie squeal in delight with tense smiles on their faces.

Of course, Dave had given her the best gift that year — a bass guitar that she'd taken to plucking at from the moment it had been unwrapped. Since Gracie had given up on the drums earlier that year, he'd introduced her to another instrument that he'd had in mind for her.

It had devastated Reagan to the point of needing to leave the room.

That was why she'd escaped to Olympia early the next morning, whisking Gracie and herself away on a fifteen hour drive with Dave's blessing that they leave. She'd assumed that he wanted to be alone too, even if it meant being alone on Christmas. It was too hard to pretend that they were still a family when he and Reagan's imminent divorce was looming. Gracie had needed to see Richard and Kimberly anyway, and Dave hadn't seemed all that perturbed when he'd declined on the offer that he join them.

The original plan had been for Dave to come to Washington since Ginny had let them know in advance that she wouldn't be able to make it out to Los Angeles, but that had obviously fallen through. When Reagan and Gracie had left, he'd been holed up in his room of miscellaneous instruments, losing himself in an acoustic. His only protest to the trip, a lifeless one made after Reagan had gently told him of her plans, was that they ought to fly.

Reagan had wanted to drive. She'd thought that driving would soothe her, help her further sort through the myriad of feelings that she was still continually sifting through, and that was why she'd opted to take their SUV to Washington instead of hopping on a plane. Gracie hadn't minded that the trip was occurring on Christmas Day, proving to be thrilled rather than disappointed by the long drive that had laid ahead. They'd gotten to Olympia by nighttime.

It was supposed to be the time of year when there was no bad news, no heartbreak to dampen any moods. But Reagan had gone to Olympia knowing that she had to tell her parents that she and Dave were getting a divorce.

Not only did she have to tell them, but she needed a scrap of comfort from someone other than Kate or Chris. Mostly, she wanted her dad. She had never needed Richard's consolation more than she did then.

"How many Barbies do you have now?" Kimberly cooed from her spot on the other end of the couch. She flashed Reagan a sharp side-eyed glance.

"Did you get her the Barbie house we talked about?" she asked through the corner of her mouth.

Reagan sighed. "Yes. Santa brought Gracie a brand-new Barbie dream house. She loved it."

"I bet Santa's sleigh is out of commission thanks to this one," Richard said, leaning back in his recliner with a chuckle.

"Grandma?" Gracie said, looking up with round eyes. "Can I play with RaeRae's old Barbies, too?"

Reagan automatically smiled when she heard Gracie's chosen nickname for RaeLynn.

"Of course you can!" Kimberly exclaimed.

Gracie beamed and scooped her dolls into her arms, scampering off to snoop through the designated closet of the twins' old, forgotten toys. Kimberly made a move to get up and follow her.

An electric shock pulsed its way down Reagan's body as she realized that this was the moment. This was the time that she had to tell her parents, without Gracie in the room.

"Wait," she said, touching her hand to Kimberly's arm. "Can you stay? I . . . I need to talk to you and Dad. Alone."

Black suspicion immediately rolled across Kimberly's face like a storm cloud.

"About what?" she asked.

"Sit down. Then we can talk."

Kimberly dipped back down into her seat on the couch and Richard sat forward, pressing his elbows into his knees and clasping his hands. They both tuned their attention onto Reagan, falling silent as they waited. From somewhere down the hall, Reagan could hear Gracie talking to herself, threading a make-believe conversation together between her Barbies.

She took a deep breath and linked her fingers, toying them together in her lap. It was useless to lead with a prelude. As she'd done with Dave when first giving him the news of her choice, she had to bite the bullet and make it fast.

"Dave and I are getting a divorce," she said.

Again, just as it had been with Dave, she was met initially with silence. She looked between her parents with a pained expression, waiting for a sign that they'd heard her and understood.

They hadn't been as present in her and Dave's lives as most parents naturally would be. She'd always wished that at least Richard could have been more frequently around, but it had never panned out that way in lieu of her being married to a rockstar.

Nonetheless, she craved their sympathy. More than anything, Reagan wanted her family to embrace her, to understand. She was tired down to her bones and sick of pretending that things were fine when they weren't. The only romantic love that she'd ever known had dissipated and in that moment, she needed her parents.

"Oh honey," Richard said, his face falling as he leaned forward to grasp Reagan's knee.

"Divorce?" Kimberly uttered. Her voice was strained. "He's leaving you?"

It was as if a record scratch had blared from somewhere in the background, crushing Reagan's expectations of comfort. She slowly turned her head to look at her mother.

"I'm the one filing," she said, enunciating the words. "He didn't ask me. I asked him."

"Sweetheart, what happened?" Richard asked. He gave Reagan's knee a squeeze before taking her hand. "You were both so happy together."

She took a quivering breath. "A lot happened. It was hard, trying to adjust to him being away all the time. It was different than we met. Then we lost the baby in January. I was a mess, but . . . he cheated on me. He slept with someone else."

"He cheated on you?" Kimberly demanded, parroting Reagan for a second time.

There was anger in her voice, which sparked Reagan's hope that maybe for once in her mother's life, she was going to offer a semblance of sympathy.

She didn't need to be told that she was right. She especially didn't want to be painted as a scorned wife with Dave playing the role of a villain. Reagan had never wanted that and from the start, she had planned to only offer the facts to anyone who learned of the divorce.

Her love for Dave willed her to protect him, even when they'd lost the intrinsic flame that had bonded them together.

He wasn't a bad person and Reagan believed that wholeheartedly. It would have been a nightmare to present him as so when all she wanted was comfort, another shoulder to cry on as she processed the loss of her marriage.

Maybe Kimberly was going to finally be that for her.

"Yes," Reagan said quietly. "In October."

Kimberly looked aghast, sputtering over her reply.

"Well, what did you do?" she asked haughtily.

The blood coursing through Reagan's veins went cold, freezing into jagged rivers of ice as it pulsed to her heart.

"What?" she whispered.

"I mean, what did you do, Reagan?" Kimberly demanded. "He obviously cheated on you for a reason. What in the world did you do to make him do it, for god's sake?"

Everything in the living room appeared to distort and time slowed to a sluggish rate as Reagan replayed her mother's voice in her head.

What did you do? What did YOU do?

"I don't understand what you're asking me," Reagan said blankly, surprised that she'd still managed to speak aloud.

Kimberly sighed impatiently, sneering as she slapped a hand impatiently against her thigh.

"This is absolutely ridiculous. You do realize what you'll be putting Gracie through? She's too young to watch her parents get a divorce!"

Kimberly said the word 'divorce' as if referring to something far more sinister than legal separation. She said it in the same tone that she would have used to discuss a murder, or the use of illicit drugs.

And she was blaming Reagan while doing it.

"Kimberly," Richard said, sharpening his voice.

"Don't Kimberly me, Richard! Are you hearing your daughter? After the upheaval she put us through to be with this man, she's divorcing him after putting in the bare minimum for a marriage to last? Think about Gracie!"

Reagan's vision began to tinge red around the edges. Her heartbreak was morphing into something else, a visceral anger that she hadn't even felt upon finding out that Dave had cheated on her. It was a buzzing sensation, ebbing and flowing off of her in near-palpable waves. She felt her hands start to shake with rage.

"So that's why he isn't here," Kimberly continued bitingly. "You left him alone in Los Angeles on Christmas. You should be there trying to fix whatever mistakes you made. This isn't the way to act in a marriage, Reagan, especially around the holidays."

Reagan jumped up from the couch, ripping her hand away from Richard's so that she could squarely face Kimberly. Although her anger was rippling fast towards a permanent hatred, she spoke in a dead calm, her voice low.

"Fuck you, Mom," she said.

She didn't pause to see the confusion that blended into shock on Kimberly's face within seconds. Whirling on her feet, Reagan speed-walked down the hallway and into the next room where she found Gracie.

"Come on, G," she said, trying not to let her fury betray her in front of her daughter. "We're leaving."

Gracie's forehead wrinkled. "But Mommy, you said we weren't driving back home until tomorrow."

That was right. Their scheduled return home wasn't until the following morning, but Reagan didn't care. She would go to Chris's, or take shelter in a hotel if she had to. She would even drive to Seattle to see Kate, delaying their drive back to L.A. for another day.

She wanted to be anywhere but there. If she stayed a moment longer, she was afraid that she would do something irrational, perhaps even something that would land her behind the iron bars of a cell.

"I know, baby, but we have to go. Come on." Reagan bent forward and took Gracie into her arms, resting a hand on the back of her head to keep from slamming her fist into the wall.

"What about my presents?"

"Mommy will make sure they come home with us. But we have to leave. Right now."

She stalked out of the room and ran into Kimberly who stood in the doorway, opening and closing her mouth though no sound escaped. Shouldering past her, Reagan snatched her purse and car keys from the tiny entryway table and threw the front door open.

If she hadn't been so blindingly angry, she would have considered that her and Gracie's luggage was still upstairs. They would need their suitcases to go home, but Reagan decided that a game plan for working out the retrieval of their things could wait. Chris would help them if it came to that. Reagan was sure that her no-nonsense best friend would happily take her place in handling another confrontation with Kimberly.

For all she cared, the house could have been burning to the ground in a thicket of flames behind her. Nothing would have slowed her as she hurried down the driveway, unlocking the SUV and opening the back door to slip Gracie inside.

As Reagan fumbled with the seatbelt over Gracie's booster seat, trying to still the tremble in her hands, she heard Kimberly shouting hysterically behind her.

"Wait! Wait!"

She clicked the seatbelt into the latch and closed the car door. When she turned, Kimberly was in front of her, her face panicked and stricken with tears. At the front door stood Richard, looking on after trying and failing to contain Kimberly to the house.

"You can't just take Gracie away like this," Kimberly blubbered. "It's Christmas."

"Christmas is over. And you're not seeing Gracie anymore. Not until I decide that you can."

It was one of the harshest things that Reagan had ever said to another person, definitely the cruelest thing she'd ever said to her mother, but she was too upset to feel any instant regret. She hadn't wanted to use Gracie as a pawn, but it had come out like that anyhow, the only means she knew of to make Kimberly fall to her knees.

As Reagan had predicted, Kimberly's eyes bulged and she let out a shrill grasp.

"You can't do that to me. You can't! I'm her grandmother!"

Over her shoulder, Reagan stole a glance at Gracie through the car window. Her small face stared back, afflicted with a worried confusion that she was too young to know.

Reagan dialed back the intensity of her anger, taking a deep breath and lowering her voice as she leaned in closer to Kimberly's tear-streaked face.

"You can hate me for this. You can think I'm a heartless bitch, just like you think I'm the heartless bitch that ruined her marriage. You've always thought that of me, right? Ever since I left to be with Dave?"

Kimberly was gagged by her sobs, staring wide-eyed at Reagan as she listened.

"Let me tell you something," Reagan said after taking another controlled breath. "You made my life a living hell. You were the worst mother imaginable and not just to me, but to Kate, Robbie and the twins. You've always been a pathetic excuse for a parent and I've waited for years to tell you so."

When Kimberly remained silent except for her stuttering sniffles, Reagan persisted.

"The lowest thing you've done yet is blame me for my marriage to Dave ending. You didn't even get the full story before you started blaming me, and that was after I told you he fucking cheated on me."

Kimberly started to speak, but Reagan cut her off, her grievances flowing freely as the dam that had sheltered them back broke loose.

"Maybe I am a bitch for saying you can't see Gracie anymore," she said, "but you'd deserve it. I don't know what bullshit you already feed her about me when I'm not around, but I refuse to have you tell her lies for the rest of her life regarding why me and her daddy aren't together anymore."

"I-I-I'm sorry," Kimberly gasped. It was the first time Reagan had ever heard her apologize. "I-I-I was wrong. I shouldn't have said that. You were j-j-just so happy with him, this whole time, I-I-I couldn't begin to understand . . ."

"You think I'm okay with this?" Reagan demanded quietly. "You think I'm not completely devastated by the fact that my marriage is ending?"

"He-he-he loved you, Reagan. I s-s-saw it, every time you two were together. How c-c-could he have gone behind your back?"

It wasn't implausible that Kimberly was manipulating the situation, struggling to find purchase in an argument that she'd already lost. Reagan didn't want to believe that there was any true sincerity in what she'd said, but her heart faltered anyways, painfully skipping a beat as she heard for the first time from her mother what other people had been telling her for years.

Dave had always been blatantly, completely in love with her and he'd never once not made it obvious to anyone around them.

Even Kimberly had seen it in spite of the impenetrable wall she'd put up between herself and her daughter.

In the end, Reagan chose to believe that Kimberly was being honest in her first acknowledgment that whatever her daughter had had in her relationship, it had been special.

She inhaled through her nose, attempting to relax and reel back her rage.

"I'm sorry that I threatened to take Gracie away. But I'm not sorry for anything else that I said."

"You don't understand what it was like for me-,"

"I'm not sorry for anything else that I said."

Reagan reiterated her point firmly, staring Kimberly down until she shrank back, realizing that it was fruitless to argue her point.

Feeling significantly steadier than she had only minutes prior, Reagan pulled open the backseat door and undid Gracie's seatbelt, lifting her out of her car seat.

"Is everything okay, Momma?" Gracie whispered in a small voice.

"Everything is fine sweet girl."

"Why is Grandma crying?"

Kimberly dashed her tears away and forced a smile, though the blotchy redness of her face remained.

"Grandma's not crying anymore, honey," she said. She reached for Gracie and Reagan, surprising even herself, slipped Gracie into them.

"Do we have to leave?" Gracie asked, looking back and forth between Kimberly and Reagan. "Why do we have to go?"

Reagan laid a gentle hand on Gracie's back as Kimberly took the initiative to explain, adjusting Gracie on her hip.

"There was . . . a bug," Kimberly said with weak attempt. "We had to . . . leave the house for a moment."

Gracie widened her eyes. "Was it a big bug? Is that why you're crying?"

"Oh, yes. It was very scary."

"Did Grandpa get it?"

"Yes, Grandpa got it."

Reagan snorted lightly. It was a better explanation than the truth, tailored ideally for Gracie's six-year-old ears, but it was such a far stretch from what had actually happened that she couldn't help but roll her eyes. Funnily enough, it was a similar explanation to one that Dave would have come up with to ease Gracie's mind, but Reagan tried not to fixate on that.

She followed Kimberly and Gracie back up the driveway, hanging back beside Richard as the two of them reentered the house. Her adrenaline was still pumping a mile a minute and if she could have had anything to further calm herself down, it would have been of all things, a cigarette.

Richard looked at Reagan hesitantly. "I'm surprised you aren't crossing state lines by now."

Reagan gave him a meager shrug. "I wouldn't have done that to you. Unfortunately, taking Gracie away from her means also taking her away from you. You don't deserve that."

Richard didn't say anything. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his slacks and stared at the ground, seeming to shoulder all the shame on Kimberly's behalf.

Reagan knit her eyebrows together. "I'll never understand why you married her. You know I love you, but . . . she's insane."

"If I hadn't married her, I wouldn't have had you kids."

"You could have left her. She can't possibly make you happy with the way she acts."

Richard shifted uncomfortably on his feet. "There's a lot to your mother that you don't know about. Reasons why I choose to be with her. But I would have understood if you'd taken Gracie away from her."

"I couldn't have, not really. Gracie doesn't need to lose her grandmother when she's about to figure out what's happening between me and-,"

Reagan's voice gave out before she could say his name. She suddenly felt choked by a rising surge of sobs that had been trying to claw their way out of her since that morning. She raised the back of her hand to her mouth, trying to stifle them, but they came anyway. She broke down, dissolving into tears as Dave's face came to mind.

"I'm so sorry, Reagan," Richard murmured, enveloping her into his arms and holding her there as she shook with every whimper.

The only thing that Reagan managed to say in return was one soft whisper of 'Dad,' before she buried her face into his chest and let her tears run fast.

a/n:
No Dave in this chapter unfortunately, which I know is what everyone is here for, but damn. I just really wanted the pleasure of writing Reagan telling Kimberly to go to hell.