Archive of Our Own ^beta

The first letter came three months after the sentencing. It was written on lush stationary, monogrammed, with the envelope to match. The stamped prison return address sort of ruined the effect, but no one could say Ransom didn’t put effort into appearances.

Marta almost threw it away. Or she told herself that, at least. It sat on Harlan’s desk - her desk - for a few days. She was busy, after all; she had other things to do than read the letter of a convicted felon. Particularly when the felony in question was trying to murder her and successfully murdering her friend and boss. But she did open it, in the end. In case it had information. But also, for the memory of those twelve hours when she thought Ransom was her only friend in the family. He’d been a comfort to her. Only to use her, yes, but still. Mr. Blanc would say something about her kind heart, she felt certain, but that was fine. It cost her nothing to read this letter.

Ransom’s handwriting was all caps, straight lines. It looked fast. Confident. Obnoxious. Nothing like Harlan’s looping script, though Marta wasn’t sure why she thought it might be. It covered the page in even, straight lines.

MARTA-

DON’T READ TOO MUCH INTO THIS LETTER. IT’S BORING AS HELL IN HERE, AND I ONLY KNOW THREE ADDRESSES OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD, AND I’D RATHER WATCH PAINT DRY THAN SEND LETTERS TO MY PARENTS.

ENJOYING OUR HOUSE? I BET YOU’VE MOVED YOUR FAMILY IN BY NOW. CAN’T IMAGINE THE HERNIA IT’S GIVING UNCLE WALT. ONLY OPTION IS TO IMAGINE, THOUGH, SINCE HE’S SHUNNING ME. BUT THAT’S NOT A HUGE LOSS.

I DO REGRET MY ACTIONS TOWARDS YOU, IN A WAY. NOT JUST A ‘TRYING TO GET OUT ON PAROLE, SHOW REMORSE’ WAY, THOUGH THAT’S CERTAINLY A MAJOR FACTOR. SHOULD PROBABLY THANK YOU FOR REFUSING TO GET ON THE STAND - IF YOU HAD, I’D BE HERE FOR LIFE FOR SURE. A COUPLE TEARS AND YOU’D HAVE THE JURY IN YOUR POCKET. SO, THANKS. SEE YOU IN TEN YEARS.

-RANSOM

So the letter cleared up nothing. Marta read it once, and read it again, and then she noticed the amount of blank space on the bottom at the letter. Ransom was always the most like Harlan, and Harlan loved a secret message. In this case, Ransom had carved in another message, with the tip of something else. She had to rub over it with a pencil, lightly, for the last sentence to appear. 

THIS PLACE BLOWS - ANY CHANCE OF TRANSFER?

The nerve of him. Marta almost couldn't believe it, except for everything she'd seen from the Thrombeys in the days following Harlan's death. It was not that unbelievable, with that in mind. His entitlement made perfect sense, and gave her the freedom to put that letter in a drawer and forget about it.

In retrospect, she was very glad she hadn't paid for Ransom's defense. Linda paid the exorbitant lawyer fees on her own. And Marta had nothing she needed to atone for.

He was right, though. Marta had moved her mother and sister into the house while she figured out how to handle what was now her estate. Walt had shown up at the gate when he found out, and tried his code. No doubt, he meant to try and intimidate her again. But she'd had all the locks and codes changed. His son was more trouble - he had tried to send the police in, calling in several false alarms about armed robbers. But Detective Elliot had taken care of that.

"We'll call you first, before sending anyone," he promised on the phone. "We've seen this before. Kid's gonna get bored and forget about it."

Marta wondered how much longer the Thrombey family members' boredom would be her problem, how long she'd be their favorite pastime. Walt continued to email with unsolicited and largely incorrect advice about the publishing company, for which he clearly wanted to be rewarded. Linda called regularly, to try and talk Marta into letting her sell the house. Joni kept tagging Marta's rarely-used instagram in her posts, for no apparent reason besides performative friendliness. Meg felt beholden, clearly, for the final year of tuition Marta had agreed to provide, and tried to keep in touch regularly. Things were still strange between them, though. It was hard to forget her betrayal. And Ransom didn't stop writing.

HI,

SO I ASSUME YOUR LACK OF RESPONSE IS A NO. FAIR ENOUGH.

TELL ME SOMETHING, ARE THERE ANY MORE SECRETS AROUND THE HOUSE? I ALWAYS THOUGHT THERE WAS ANOTHER HIDDEN PASSAGE SOMEWHERE BUT I NEVER COULD FIND IT. HARLAN REFUSED TO CONFIRM OR DENY, THE BASTARD.

HEARD THERE'S ONE LAST BOOK TO PUBLISH. SEND ME A COPY IF YOU WANT.

-RANSOM

WHAT'S UP!

THE DIVORCE IS FINALIZED - DAD'S OUT. CAN'T SAY I'LL MISS HIM. IS YOUR DAD AROUND? I THINK THEY'RE OVERRATED. UNLESS THEY'RE HANDING OUT MILLION DOLLAR LOANS.

NOT MUCH GOING ON FOR ME. HAVE THINGS QUIETED DOWN FOR YOU? I HEARD THE KID'S MAKING YOUR LIFE HELL. WALT SEEMS, UNFORTUNATELY, VERY PROUD. PROBABLY BECAUSE HE DOESN'T HAVE ANY BETTER IDEAS, AND THEY'LL HAVE TO SELL THEIR WEST COAST HOUSE SOON. WHICH, I'M SURE YOU'LL CRY YOURSELF TO SLEEP OVER.

SWEET DREAMS,

RANSOM

HEY

HAD THE THOUGHT - WHAT'S YOUR PLAN TO MAKE SURE YOU'RE NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR OWN SITUATION IN SEVENTY YEARS (SIXTY? I DON'T KNOW HOW OLD YOU ARE). LIKE, DO YOU EVEN HAVE ONE? OR IS THE PLAN TO START A FORTUNE THAT'S PASSED DOWN A LINE OF UNRELATED HOSPICE NURSES. SEEMS LIKE SOMETHING YOU MIGHT DO.

ALSO. ARE YOU SELLING MY HOUSE? MIGHT HAVE ALREADY, I GUESS. BUT I DON'T THINK SO.

I WAS SERIOUS ABOUT THE BOOK.

-RANSOM

MARTA,

NOT TO SOUND LIKE A WORLD WAR ONE VETERAN, BUT I'M RUNNING LOW ON PAPER. THIS'LL PROBABLY BE THE LAST LETTER FOR A WHILE. GOTTA CONSERVE THE MONOGRAMMED STATIONARY FOR THE LAWYERS - I'M SURE YOU UNDERSTAND.

ARE YOU EVEN READING THESE? JUST WONDERING. AS YOU MAY HAVE PUT TOGETHER, I DON'T REALLY LIKE WASTING MY TIME. WHICH IS NOT MAKING LIGHT OF MY MURDER ATTEMPT - THAT WOULDN'T WORK WITH THE WHOLE REMORSE THING I'M WORKING ON. STAY TUNED.

-RANSOM

The second, third, and fourth letters had no secret notes. The fifth did. Upside down on the page, more indented letters.

YOU KNOW, GRANDPA COULD BE A REAL SON OF A BITCH. HOW'D YOU GET HIM TO LIKE YOU? SERIOUSLY, WERE YOU FUCKING? YOU CAN TELL ME. THIS IS A SAFE SPACE.

Marta stared at the letters, light and ghostly on the page. She could practically hear his smirk. It set her blood on fire. Hardly thinking, she pulled out a piece of paper, uncapped one of Harlan's pens, and wrote a response.

I listened to him.

I'm not interested in your narcissistic rambling any more than you're interested in my well-being. Feel free to save your paper.

Marta sealed the envelope, addressed it and put a stamp on it all in a haze of anger. But after she put it in the mailbox to go out, after she got back inside and sat down and truly considered, she thought better of it. He wanted to provoke her, surely. And it was in poor taste to insult a man who was in jail. But by the time she made it back out there, the mailman had come and gone, so her letter was on its way. In its place, all she had was bills, and an inquiry from an agent about writing a book of her own.

She hadn't sold Ransom's house. Truthfully, she hadn't noticed it amongst the list of assets when she'd scanned them before. She went back to look that evening. A fire crackled across the room, keeping the chill at bay. One of the dogs slept near the hearth. The other was probably with Alice.

It was right there, fourteenth on the list of real estate assets. Two bedrooms, two baths, wine cellar, home gym. Harlan had bought it outright, the year Ransom graduated college. Business degree, Marta was pretty sure. That’d be something to put in a letter, were she writing to him. But they weren’t pen pals. She just answered this one time. It wouldn’t happen again.

HEY THERE.

STRUCK A NERVE? IT’S NOT LIKE IT’S AN UNREASONABLE QUESTION. BUT I’LL TAKE YOUR WORD FOR IT. YOU’RE THE ONE THAT CONFESSED A MURDER YOU DIDN’T EVEN DO.

NICE TO KNOW YOU’RE READING, THOUGH. AT LEAST I’M NOT TALKING INTO A VOID. MOM’S NOT VISITING ANY MORE, AND EVERYBODY ELSE IS PISSED AT ME. AS IF IT’S MY FAULT YOU GOT THE MONEY.

I’D SOUND LIKE LESS OF A NARCISSIST IF YOU GAVE ME SOMETHING TO GO ON. HOW’S YOUR FAMILY? FRIENDS? GOT ANY “RELATIVES” COMING OUT OF THE WOODWORK NOW THAT YOU’VE GOT CASH TO BURN? HOPE YOU AREN’T GIVING ANYONE SHIT - YOU KNOW BETTER THAN THAT NOW.

-RANSOM

Nothing to make rubbings of in this one, but Marta recognized the sheen of invisible ink at the end, under his signature. She held a lighter underneath it, and revealed a single word.

SORRY.

“He must really be lonely,” Alice said, unconcerned. “If he’s writing to you like this.”

Marta scoffed. “He’s not lonely, he’s testing me,” she said. “They like to do that.”

“‘They’ who, ‘they’ men?”

“Thrombeys,” she corrected Alice. “There’s very little they like more than testing people, or coming up with… codes. Games.”

“Oh yeah, the old man did that too, right?”

“Harlan,” Marta said. “Yes. He got more elaborate though. Probably because Ransom’s in jail.”

“Yeah, for trying to stick a hunting knife in your heart, which I haven’t forgiven him for,” Alice said, and hopped down off the kitchen counter to let the dogs in.

"Sure," Marta said. "But he didn't."

"Because he's stupid," Alice said with gusto. "And fate was on your side."

But Ransom wasn't stupid, was the thing. He was smart enough to nearly get away with framing her for a murder that he'd almost gotten her to commit in the first place. Surely, he was smart enough to stab her with a wheel of knives right there. It was a little preposterous. And if Harlan had taught her anything, it was to note improbabilities.

"Whatever he is, he isn't sorry," Marta said at last, and Alicia didn't disagree. But in bed, late that night when she thought about it again, it didn't feel as cut and dry. There was a remote chance Ransom was sorry. He said it privately, just to her. It could be manipulation, she knew that, but. There was a chance it wasn't. There was a chance he was really his grandfather's son, wasn't there?

She was not going to write him back. But she sent him Harlan's books. All of them, since the last one wouldn't be out for months.

A week or so after that, Marta got another letter. She put it in the drawer with the others, unopened. It wasn't that she meant to ignore him, but she was busy with the sale of two yachts and organizing charitable donations to offset her income. Something about taxes. Marta relied on Alan to manage the accountant for now. He'd gotten her mother a temporary visa in two weeks; he could get things done. He was working on permanent citizenship. Even with Alan, though, more things to handle kept popping up, and Marta thought she'd just check the next few letters all at once to save herself the trouble.

And then a month passed, and it wasn't until Marta was sorting through bookshelves and found a series of family photo albums that it occurred to her - Ransom hadn't written again.

"What is it?" Mama asked her, and Marta realized she'd frozen.

"It's..." Marta hesitated. "Ransom." She was looking at his face, an old family photo from a Christmas, before she came here. He looked like a normal preppy, private school boy. Meg was in the middle of a goth phase. Jacob was barely more than a toddler. Everyone else looked much the same.

Marta shut the album and got up. On her way to the desk, she put it on the stack of family memorabilia she was gathering. Then she pulled open the drawer, and opened the envelope with one of Harlan's many novelty letter-openers. This one had a handle shaped like a bone - or possibly an actual bone.

The letter was written on normal lined paper this time, and it was short.

THANKS. YOU'RE ON THE LIST IF YOU WANT TO VISIT. I'D LIKE TO SEE YOU.

This was obvious manipulation. Still, Marta mulled it over for days. It could be more than one thing. What was fair, in this situation? She thought it'd probably be fair to ignore him forever, starting now. That was her decision for nearly a week. But then another pang of missing Harlan hit her, so deep in her chest. All she wanted was to see him again, to play one more doomed game of Go.

She called Meg, suffered through the five minutes of awkward small talk that wasn't quite apologetic enough. Finally Marta got to say what she wanted. "I shouldn't trust any members of your family, right?"

Meg paused for a second. "Like who?" she eventually asked. "With what?"

"Any of them, in general. As I'm... sorting through these issues."

"You can trust me," Meg said. Marta let that stand, for the moment, rather than try to lie back. "I don't know. What's going on?"

"Ransom's writing me," Marta confessed.

"Oh shit. He's really not supposed to do that."

"Yeah," Marta said.

"Are you going to report that to the police? It's a violation of the restraining order. It could jeopardize his parole.”

Marta had not considered that. "I'll consider it," she said, and her stomach churned a bit. "He's being nice," she added, and it sounded suspicious.

"Oh," Meg said. "Okay. For real?"

"I don't know."

There was a deep sigh on the other end. "He's an asshole," Meg said. "And he's manipulative and he's used to getting what he wants. But he wasn't killing dogs or torturing ducklings. He's not a psycho."

"Okay," Marta said.

"I mean. I know he tried to kill you," Meg said after a second. "Which is probably the hardest he's tried at anything in his life. But of everybody in the family, I never thought..."

"I get it," Marta said.

"He'd call me a tree-hugger, but then he'd make a donation to the ACLU in my name for Christmas."

Marta couldn't tell quite what the takeaway from that was supposed to be. "Okay. Thanks."

"Of course, any time. You can..." Was she about to say Marta could count on her? She stopped herself, at least. "Let me know if there's anything else I can help with," Meg said instead.

"Yeah. Bye."

"Bye."

Marta hung up and sat back in Harlan's desk chair. That left her more confused. In the end, she did what felt right to her; that worked out well enough in the past. So she thought for a minute, and then put pen to paper.

Nice try. I'll never willingly be in a room with you again. And no Thrombey is included in my will.

The house at 10 Kinoke Dr. has not been sold yet. I hadn't noticed it was now mine. Do you want to purchase it from me?

She read it back. It seemed mean, now, to suggest he buy a house she basically knew he couldn't afford. So she added another paragraph, to hopefully soften the impact. She'd won. She didn't need to gloat.

I'm clearing Harlan’s house out of personal items and photos. If there's anything you want, Linda will have it all.

There. That was perfectly civil. Marta remained firmly committed to sending it all through the sealing and addressing, but then she looked at the letter, there, and she rethought it. This was a mistake. What would Harlan say?

She knew exactly what Harlan would say. A mistake is what gets the plot going, he liked to tell anyone listening, usually her. A mistake like hiring Mr. Blanc to solve a crime she hadn't committed. A mistake like writing back to your own attempted murderer. But if that was the case, she'd made the mistake a while ago.

In for a penny. She sent the letter.

One thing important to Marta was that Greatnana Wanetta had first dibs on any of the family items. It had never been clear to her why the family treated her like an ornamental plant. The few times they'd interacted, Wanetta had been perfectly aware of her surroundings, if not the quickest to answer a question. So Marta brought her back in the spring, when the grounds had started thawing again and there was no ice to slip on.

"Whatever you want, you can take," Marta said, letting Wanetta lean on her arm on the way in. "If it's heavy, we'll have it shipped right over. Don't worry, okay?"

No answer, but once in the study, Wanetta made a beeline for the photo albums. She took two photos, old black and white ones of her and Harlan, where he was maybe ten years old. Then she turned back. "There's a photo," she said. "Of our old house."

Marta knew exactly what she was talking about; Harlan loved that picture. He'd hung it in his bedroom. So she sorted through the frames, leaning against a bookshelf, until she found it. That put a small smile on Wanetta's face.

"Harlan," she said, "knew what he was doing." And then she left. Marta managed not to cry until she was alone.

The mail that day brought another response from Ransom. This one was longer, front and back, lined paper again.

I'M SERIOUS. NO TRICKS. CAN'T SAY I'D BLAME YOU FOR NOT BELIEVING ME, BUT THAT'S THE TRUTH. I ASSUMED THE FORTUNE WOULD GO TO CHARITY OR SOMETHING ANYWAYS.

SEEING AS I DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY AND MOM'S NOT SPEAKING TO ME, I THINK MY HOUSE IS A LITTLE OUT OF MY PRICE RANGE. IF YOU'RE WILLING, THERE'S A COUPLE THINGS I'D LIKE TO HANG ONTO IN THERE. BUT IN THE EQUALLY LIKELY EVENT YOU TELL ME TO FUCK OFF, THERE ARE A COUPLE THINGS YOU'LL WANT TO SELL SEPARATELY. THEY AREN’T IN HARLAN’S RECORDS AS FAR AS I’M AWARE. I'VE GOT A RAUSCHENBERG YOU'LL WANT TO HAVE ASSESSED AND AUCTIONED, AND I HAVE A MONDRIAN AND A MALEVICH UPSTAIRS. PLEASE, DON'T SELL ANY OF THEM TO THE FUCKING ROCKEFELLERS. THEY’RE ASSHOLES, TRUST ME - I WENT TO SCHOOL WITH TWO OF THEM.

AS I’VE SUBTLY ALLUDED TO ABOVE, LINDA IS NOT MY BIGGEST FAN AT THE MOMENT, SO I HADN’T HEARD ABOUT THE FAMILY PHOTOS. SHE WON’T GIVE ME ANYTHING, BUT THANKS FOR THE THOUGHT.

YOU’RE BEING AWFULLY UNDERSTANDING TO THE FAMILY CONSIDERING WHAT WE’VE PUT YOU THROUGH. IS IT TAKING THE HIGH ROAD, OR JUST HOW YOU DO SHIT? EITHER WAY, CONSIDER: BURNING EVERYTHING AND TELLING MOM AND WALT TO FUCK OFF. THAT’S WHAT HARLAN WOULD WANT.

-RANSOM

Marta pulled paper out before she was done reading and began writing her response, though she was aware this made them officially corresponding. It wasn’t fair, though, and injustice was nearly as bad for her digestion as untruths.

That is not at all what Harlan would want. Harlan didn’t hate all of you, he wanted to give you the chance to actually try. I will not be burning any of the family keepsakes. I haven’t turned anything over yet. If there’s something in particular you want, tell me and I’ll keep it safe.

What do you want from your house? And what’s the problem with the Rockefellers? Who should I be selling things to?

She considered adding a question about Linda, why she wouldn’t speak with him, but then she decided she didn’t care about that tonight. More likely than not it was a guilt technique. On the off chance it wasn’t, Linda would get over it. And furthermore, she didn’t care about his family problems. She didn’t like his family very much, after all.

The police had stopped being called, at least. That was progress. Jacob had evidently gotten bored. And Walt, after now nearly five months of silence from her, had restrained himself to an email every other week or so. They were going straight to a spam folder. Linda had begun ignoring Marta except to accept any belongings Marta was sending her way, and Joni was apparently content to do the same. So life was reaching a sort of normal. And normal started to include letters to Ransom every week or so.

SELL AT AUCTION WHENEVER YOU CAN. GRANDDAD HAD GOOD ENOUGH TASTE TO HAVE A FEW BIDDING WARS OVER HIS SHIT, AND THAT MEANS - OBVIOUSLY - A HIGHER FINAL PRICE. IT’LL TAKE A LITTLE WHILE LONGER, BUT IT’S NOT LIKE YOU’RE IN A HURRY.

TO TELL THE TRUTH, I DON’T KNOW WHAT HARLAN WANTED. I’VE REALIZED THAT. HE WANTED YOU TO HAVE THE MONEY. MAYBE HE WANTED TO WIN OVER ME (OR US, THE FAMILY) ONE LAST TIME. I MEANT IT, WHEN I SAID WE PROBABLY KNEW HIM BEST. BUT NOW I’M THINKING IT WAS JUST YOU, IN THE END. SO.

IF NOBODY’S CLAIMED THE STILETTO THAT’S ACTUALLY A STAGE KNIFE, I WANT THAT. SAME WITH THE STONE CHESS SET IN HIS OFFICE, AND HIS ORIGINAL COPY OF “HUGH AND CRY”. I THINK HE’S GOT A WATCH HE MEANT TO GIVE ME TOO, BEFORE HE CUT ME OUT. YOU’LL KNOW THE ONE.

LIST OF WHAT I WANT FROM MY HOUSE ON THE BACK. ORDER OF IMPORTANCE. QUIT WHENEVER YOU’RE DONE.

THANKS,

RANSOM

She flipped the letter over. The list was around twenty items, and specific. A lot of the things were probably valuable - class rings and gold lapel pins. And actually, as she read the list and thought about picking these things out and getting rid of everything else, Marta decided she wasn’t going to do this. She didn’t want to look at his belongings, let alone sort through them.

“Put them in storage,” her mother suggested when Marta brought it up over dinner. “When he gets out, send him the key. It’s over.”

“So I pay for storage space when keeping it there is free?” Marta said. “No. Just because I have money doesn’t mean I’m going to waste it.”

“It’s not a waste,” Mama said.

“It is!”

“Why are you trying to help the man that would’ve stabbed you?” Mama demanded.

And Marta didn’t have a good answer. “Because at least he didn’t try to stab me in the back like the rest of them,” she finally said.

Mama nodded like that made sense. “It’s so much easier to know where you stand,” she said, then cleared her throat and the table.

Marta had made it very clear to Alan that Mama’s immigration status was the most important thing to get sorted out. She’d said it several times - three - so she knew he’d gotten the point, but he wasn’t making any progress. But tonight, she thought about Rockefellers and art auctions, and had an idea. But first, she had to find the watch Ransom was talking about.

Harlan didn’t want for watches. He had five options, in a nice box on his armoire. Marta was still working on moving his things out of his rooms; the box was still there. Maybe if she moved it, she’d feel more at home here. She also wondered if she might not want to feel at home just yet. But these days, she tried her best to shrug off the existential questions most of the time.

So the watches. She looked down at them, and she did know, right away, which one was for Ransom. It was copper, with a black and navy face and several smaller watches inset in the main watch face. Not the most valuable watch there, certainly - there was one that seemed to be made entirely of diamonds - but one that spoke to personality. Harlan’s, and Ransom’s.

She missed Harlan so intensely then, that she had to lean on the armoire and take a deep breath. It hardly felt real that he was gone, even now. And she couldn’t even commiserate with anyone who truly understood.

Except, of course, Ransom.

This time, when she wrote him, she knew what she wanted.

The knife, chess set, book, and watch are yours. I’ll set them aside.

I miss him.

While you’re giving advice on operating in your world, perhaps you might have some advice on how to help speed up my mother’s citizenship process. Alan is doing his best, but he says the process could take more than a year. And I haven’t yet perfected figuring out when someone is saying something can’t be faster because they mean it or because they want more money.

HE HASN'T GOTTEN THAT SORTED OUT YET? JESUS. HE REALLY IS USELESS. THAT'S WHY HE'S JUST THE FAMILY LAWYER - YOU NEED TO GET A REAL SHARK. TALK TO CAT LOWELL. I'VE GOT HER CELL NUMBER IN MY PHONE, BUT THAT'S HERE, I THINK. UNLESS LINDA HAS IT. OR JUST CALL CAT'S OFFICE. IS ALAN YOUR ONLY HELP? WHAT ABOUT THE WHOLE PUBLISHING COMPANY, WHAT'S GOING ON THERE?

MEMORIAL EDITIONS OF GRANDDAD'S COLLECTION SEEM LIKE AN EASY WIN. IF YOU WANT TO STICK IT TO WALT, YOU SHOULD GET A MOVIE MADE. (YES, I KNOW, NOT WHAT HARLAN WANTED, JUST BRAINSTORMING. NO BAD IDEAS.)

MY APPEAL WAS DENIED, BY THE WAY. NOT SURE YOU KNEW WE WERE APPEALING. SORT OF TOLD THEM NOT TO TELL YOU, SO HOPEFULLY THIS IS A SURPRISE. BUT DON'T WORRY, I'LL BE IN HERE FOR A MINIMUM OF FOUR YEARS, AND THEN I'VE GOT A GOOD CHANCE AT PAROLE. AS LONG AS YOU DON'T GET INVOLVED, I GUESS. FINGERS CROSSED.

-RANSOM

Marta’s reply was curt.

Okay, thank you. I'll get in touch with her.

Alan is not my only help, but he's doing more for me than any of your family has so I might reconsider who we're calling useless.

Memorial editions is not a bad idea.

Ransom didn't reply for almost two weeks. She wondered if she’d offended him.

In the meantime, Marta actually couldn't get in contact with Cat Lowell. Every time she called, the receptionist listened just long enough to hear her name and the word immigration before telling her this wasn't a match, and when Marta tried to correct her, the line went dead. She tried several times, and then decided she'd rather talk to Linda than get hung up on again.

Linda, by contrast, picked up right away, and then tried her best to sound as friendly as she had before Marta had inherited the fortune Linda had expected to be hers. They exchanged some routine pleasantries, and then Linda said, "So this is about the photo albums and stuff?"

"Uh, in part," Marta said, and was relieved to find her stomach judged that truthful. "I'll have that delivered next week, if that's alright."

"Sure. And I'll tell you if anything's missing. Some of the stuff that Dad collected looked like trash, but. It has value for us. His kids. Sentimental value," Linda added, which probably meant she meant the opposite.

"Okay," Marta said. "Do you have Ransom's phone?"

"Why?"

Marta answered as she crossed the room to the sink. "My lawyer asked for it. I'm not sure why," she said, then muted the phone as she threw up.

"Well," Linda said. "I don't have it. I imagine it's with everything else Ransom took into jail with him, at the prison.”

"Oh, alright," Marta said, after unmuting herself. "So I'll speak to them. Thank you."

"You could probably talk to Ransom about it," Linda continued. "Well, talk to him once he's out of the medical wing. Apparently they don't take calls in there. He's been writing, instead, and I have to say, if the boy had decided to write... No point in speculating, I suppose.”

"Is he alright?"

"He'll be fine. Always the dramatic star, of course, but it's not like somebody stabbed him with a shiv. The infirmary's probably keeping him there for his own safety. Have you thought any more about where you're going to live?" Linda began to ask. "Because-"

"I'm sorry, I have to go, bye," Marta said, and hung up. Then she ran the water, and tried very hard to tell herself she hadn't just made a very bad decision.

It came up at dinner. Well, she brought it up.

"So I might be able to use some of the Thrombey family connections, to help with your immigration case," she said to Mama.

Alice raised her eyebrows. "Oh, they're gonna get off their asses and help?" she said. As always, she was feeding the dogs from her plate and acting very innocent about it.

"Sort of," Marta said. "Ransom is."

Mama muttered something under her breath. Alice rolled her eyes. "Why are you still talking to him?" she said.

"It's not worth it, mija," Mama added, before Marta could answer.

"Yes it is," Marta said. "I need someone with connections." She could feel both of them watching her, waiting for her gag reflex to kick in. But it didn't. She did need this. Ransom's injuries were hardly the point of any of this.

"Whatever you think is best," Mama said eventually, though she wasn't happy about it. That was fine; Marta could live with that.

"What are you, in love with the guy?" Alice mumbled, and Marta ignored that altogether.

Marta wanted to wear armor. Then, maybe she'd feel safe here. But that wasn't really an option. It wouldn't make it through the metal detector; that was the main problem.

She'd called ahead, to make sure he was seeing visitors and that they'd give her his phone. The call had turned awkward quick when the officer brought up her restraining order against Ransom. She paid him off in the end, a few hundred dollars when she got there, and that was fine. There was, however, the chance that Ransom might choose not to see her. She could try to backtrack later, and press charges. He'd have to accept that risk. And as she sat in the waiting room, that suddenly seemed like a very bad idea for him. It wasn't exactly a good idea for her either. She'd gotten the phone, copied the number she needed. She could just leave. Nothing was keeping her here.

"Marta Cabrera?" the guard said, and she shot up. Her hands were shaking, as she walked back.

She didn't know what to expect from the visiting room. This was just minimum security. There was no glass or receivers, only tables and chairs. Vending machines in the corner. It was surprisingly empty.

Ransom stood at a table by the windows. He was wearing a blue prison uniform, and he had a beard. That was new. He also had a black eye, what appeared to be a broken nose, and a scabbed-over scrape on his cheek. He watched her walking towards him, his expression unreadable, and when she was close enough, said, "Never thought I'd be happy to see you."

Marta swallowed hard. Suddenly, she remembered how it felt when he tried to kill her, the weight of him pinning her to the floor, her heart racing as she waited for it to stop. He’d been so close. She never wanted him anywhere near her again. But she liked the stillness of that moment. The world had stopped, looking in his eyes.

“Funny way to say hello,” she said, and came to a hesitant stop a few feet away from him, on the other side of the table.

Ransom tilted his head to one side. “What the hell are you doing here?” he said.

Marta sat down, and looked up at him until he sat too. “Your mother told me you’d been injured,” she said. “What happened?”

“Believe me,” he said, settling back in his chair, “if I knew all it took to get you here was pissing blood, I would’ve done it sooner.”

“You’re pissing blood?” she asked with increasing alarm.

Ransom seemed annoyed, but he was also smiling a little bit. “I was,” he said. “I’m fine. That’s really all it took, though, huh?”

Marta wasn’t sure what the truth was, so she didn’t want to answer. “I thought you said she wasn’t talking to you,” is what she ended up saying. “Linda,” she added.

“She isn’t,” Ransom said. “I guess she’s reading, though. Good to know.” He was looking at her so intently that she felt self-conscious, and also had a profound sense of deja vu. “What’s goin’ on?” he asked, with the same hint of a smile.

She just looked at him. The white of his black eye was pink; a blood vessel must’ve burst. “Did you break any ribs?” she asked. It was truthfully the only thing she could think to say.

“Cracked a couple,” he said amiably. “Feels like a knife in my side when I breathe. Ironic, right?”

Somehow, that broke the awkwardness. Marta smiled, her heart still racing, and said, “You should take it easy for a few weeks.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“What happened?” she asked again.

“Well,” he said, and leaned forward a little stiffly. “I was a smartass. And I pissed another guy off. And he and his friends beat the shit out of me. What I want to know is, why the hell do you care?”

Marta shook her head, just a little. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just know nobody gets to kill you. Unless it’s me.”

Ransom laughed, and then winced. “Fair enough,” he said, putting his hand over his side, one specific spot.

“Did they check that no organs were punctured?” she asked. She couldn’t help herself. “Your kidneys?”

“Yeah, they checked,” he said. “It’s fine. Stop pretending you’re here to consult on my health, what’s going on? Is everything okay?”

Marta crossed her arms tightly. “Have you seen your father?” she asked.

Ransom humored her, and answered. “Not since the trial.”

“And Linda?”

“She got bored after a month, and hasn’t been back,” he shrugged. “Guess I should try to spice it up.”

Marta gave him a disapproving look before she knew what she was doing, and he absorbed it with good humor. “And the rest of the family?”

“Hates my guts,” he said brightly, too loudly, so she thought he might be upset. “Which you know. What’s the point of rehashing all of this?”

“It’s pointing out that maybe you don’t want to interrogate my motives too closely,” she found herself saying.

Ransom’s eyes glinted as his smile stiffened a bit. “No,” he said. “But maybe I can’t help myself.”

Marta leaned in too, and looked him in the eyes. It felt the same as it did in that little restaurant, it felt like solid ground. But then she remembered falling in the study, him tackling her, and she could taste her doubts. “Cat’s assistant keeps hanging up on me,” she said.

“The accent,” Ransom said immediately.

“I think that’s possible.”

“So you came here for my phone, to get her cell number.” She hesitated, and he added, “Should I get you a bowl?”

Marta glared at him, and he smiled at her. He’d never stopped smiling at her, this whole time. And it hit her then, that he had been telling the truth before when he said he’d like to see her. “You tried to kill me,” she said. She didn’t know which of them she was reminding.

“I did,” he answered. She was just making a point of noticing how not sorry he was when he added, “and it was… a severe error in my judgement.”

She was, to put it lightly, stunned. “If you’re trying to show remorse for parole-”

“I’d do a better job than that,” he said with a bit of condescension. “Marta. I’m in here for a while, remorse or no. Why can’t you just believe-”

“You called me a bitch!”

“You called me an asshole.”

“You are an asshole.”

Ransom’s smile grew, and he leaned back. “And you’re not a bitch,” he said. “I see your point. Would you believe me if I apologized?”

Marta blinked. “No. Should I?”

He only shrugged, which was baffling. “Did Meg join the Peace Corps yet?”

“No,” she said. “She’s finishing college.”

“Oh, don’t tell me,” he scoffed, and looked away. “You’re paying for it? You are such a…”

She leaned in to match him, furious. “What! Such a what? I want to do what Harlan wanted, and he wanted her to finish school.”

Ransom rolled his eyes. “She gave your mom up to my entire family.”

“Yes,” Marta agreed, “and you know how overwhelming your family can be.”

“You’re being way too understanding,” he muttered, shaking his head.

“You should be happy, about how understanding I am,” she said, and regretted saying it halfway through. But she said it. So she watched how he reacted.

He looked away, itched the uninjured side of his face. Marta still couldn’t tell what he was thinking exactly, but he seemed torn about something. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Maybe I should be. What does it say that I’m not?”

Marta hesitated, again. She was not going to throw up here. “Harlan always said,” she began, and stopped, choked up. Ransom waited with her. “He said…”

“The thing about family?” he finally asked.

Marta nodded.

“So that’s why you’re here,” he said quietly. And Marta was just glad he seemed to know, since she still had no idea.

She didn’t stay long after that. Long enough for him to give her some tips on talking to Cat. They didn’t say much of anything else, though Marta thought of lists of questions once she was outside.

This time, though, she didn’t ask him anything else. She made him describe his symptoms and injuries instead, and then said, “You need to be more careful.”

“I know.”

“But you won’t be. You’ll provoke someone again,” she said. The beard really did suit him.

Ransom shrugged, and folded his hands on the table. “Hard to say.” Then he leaned in, a smile tugging on his lips again. “See how easy it is? To just lie?”

“We all have different talents,” she said with a straight face. But when Ransom snorted, she smiled. “Be more careful,” she asked of him.

“And die of boredom? I don’t think so. Besides, now that I know a black eye gets your attention, all I’ve got is incentives. It’s my four years,” he added when he saw her expression. “I’ll do them how I want.”

Marta nodded once. “I should go,” she said. “My mother was worried about me coming, I need to call her.”

He stood up with her, and for a second she thought he might try to hug her. Her face felt hot. “Drive safe,” he said.

“I will.”

“Let me know what Cat says.”

“Okay.”

She turned to walk away when Ransom said one last thing. “Did you keep the house phone connected?”

“Yes,” she answered. And then, before he had to figure out how to ask permission for something for once in his life, she added, “But I might not be home.”

Ransom’s smile grew. “I’m persistent,” he said with a bit of an edge. And although that was probably a joke about his previous persistence to frame her for murder, Marta didn’t correct him. It was more dramatic to leave.

Maybe the family was rubbing off on her.

In the car on the way home, it occurred to Marta that Ransom asking if she'd accept an apology was basically one anyways. One he hadn't made a big deal of, when she hadn't understood what he was offering. Another kind of code.

"How was it?" Mama asked when Marta got back.

Returning to the house always felt surreal; closing the door behind her and taking her shoes off. It felt like a dream. "It was fine," Marta said. She had a lump in the back of her throat. "I'll call the lawyer tomorrow."

Mama saw through her. "But how was it?" she asked again. "Did he..."

Marta felt almost like crying. "He was nice," she said. "Well, not very nice. Nice for him. I don't know." She almost thought they might be friends, but that would be impossible to say. She shouldn't want to be his friend. Really, she should hate him. It was just the prospect of actually doing so was a lot harder than it seemed it would be back in November. "He's so much like his grandfather," she finally said.

Her mother held her, there in the entry hall. "Be careful," she said.

And Marta couldn't tell the truth, so she didn't say anything at all.

Meg stopped by the next weekend. Things felt a little more normal with her by now. They got stoned, in the parlor with Fran's clock after Marta's mom and sister went to sleep, and lay on the thick rug together listening to the second hand move. The fire crackled.

"I can never make it up to you," Meg said eventually.

They were frozen in time. Marta blinked. "No," she said.

"I'm... the biggest hypocrite in the world. But I feel really bad apologizing and like, making it your problem to make me feel better."

Marta told the truth, but only because she was high. "I don't want to make you feel better."

Meg choked on a laugh, and then a cough. "Good," she said with an audible smile. "Okay, great. But. Does that mean I should leave you alone? Cuz I could do that."

"No," Marta decided. "Don't. But it takes a while to forget."

"Totally. I get that. Is your mom's immigration status figured out?"

Marta sighed, tired in advance of the impending confession. But she was going to confess it anyways. "Not quite. Ransom's helping me."

"What!?" Meg rolled over to look at her. "Helping how? Is he still writing you letters?"

"I visited him," Marta said, and couldn't help her smile at Meg's shock. "Last weekend. Yeah. And got a number off his phone. And advice."

"Hold on," Meg said, leaning on her hand to get a better look at Marta. "Hold on just a second. Why the hell did you visit him? What's happened with the letters?"

Marta shrugged. "Well he kept writing."

"What did you do?"

"I... wrote back. A couple times," Marta admitting haltingly, and continued much more quickly, "And then I had to go get his phone from the prison and he got beaten up, so..."

"So you just visited him?" Meg said in a high voice. "Really?"

Marta turned to glare at her. "He's your cousin. You're the one that said he's not psycho."

"I didn't mean visit him." Meg was so close to her. She smelled like some expensive patchouli type perfume, and the edges of her hair were bright from the fire.

"You should visit," Marta said then. "Him. He's alone in there, his parents don't..."

Meg flopped back down onto her back with a sigh that was also sort of a groan. "Yeah," she said. "I'll try. The family's falling apart."

Maybe they were never together, Marta thought but did not say.

"Jacob's going through something, I think," Meg continued. "He subtweeted me the other day, so I made a thread educating him on what actually happens in the asylum process and he just liked one of the tweets in the middle. So I don't know what the hell to make of that."

Marta nodded. "You could ask him," she suggested.

"Yeah. I guess. Mom said Walt's apparently going through a tough time, she heard from Linda that he got a DUI last month."

"Oh," Marta said politely, because she didn't really care what Walt was going through. She cared only marginally about Jacob.

Maybe Meg could tell, because she didn't try to keep talking about it. "It'd be nice," she finally said. "To stick together. This next generation. Better than our parents, at least."

"I'd really hope it wouldn't be too hard to be better than your parents," Marta said on accident, and then laughed when Meg whacked her arm. "Sorry."

"You're not!"

"I really am," Marta said with a meaningful look.

Meg snorted. "Oh. Right. Okay. Well. I guess I'll try and talk to Ransom. How is he in there?"

"He's..." Marta tapped her fingers against the rug, sinking her fingertips deep into the plush. "He's lonely, I guess. My sister said that, and she's right. He picked a fight, so that's..."

"Typical for him," Meg agreed. "But also not good."

"No." Marta folded her hands over her stomach. "Were you ever close? The cousins."

Meg let out another deep sigh. "I don't know. Probably not. But I don't think it's too late to change that. I'll try, I guess. We'll see if they do. Men."

"Men," Marta repeated. Maybe she shouldn't extend Ransom such generosity. He could have been happy to see her and still manipulating her. He could be lonely and also using that fact against her. Two things could be true at once.

But she didn't need to make that decision right now. Right now, she could lie here with Meg and fall asleep as the fire died.

When Ransom called, a few days later, Marta heard the beginning of the pre-recorded message asking if she'd accept the call and hung up. All of a sudden she couldn't imagine talking to him. The thought sent panic through her, sent her all the way up to Harlan's study with the door shut.

She'd replaced the seat he'd died on with a plush armchair and little table with a lamp, and removed all the hunting trophies. Everything else was the same. The claustrophobic shelves of books surrounded her, the eaves a little too close for comfort. Loss beat in her chest alongside her heart, hollow and sharp, as she sat in her chair and tried to understand herself.

For the past five years of her life, she'd been around the Thrombeys. From the beginning, Harlan told her to call Ransom by his middle name. That had carved out her space with the family better than anything else could have. And then there were the holidays spent together, six years of birthdays, Independence Days, Christmases, Thanksgivings. Ransom never interacted with her much. Linda and Walt always argued. But Harlan loved having his family around, the thing besides his books that he'd built himself. Physical proof of his legacy. Marta knew now that she'd been included in that for him, and that felt...

She didn't know how it felt. Honestly she didn't know if it counted. Family had to be agreed upon, she thought, and nobody else had wanted her included but maybe Meg. Maybe the only thing she could've done to earn her way into the family was the reason they couldn't stand her; she'd beaten them all. And for some reason, when she thought about Ransom's attempt on her life, she thought about Harlan flipping the go board. Thrombeys could never admit defeat. That, she thought, was something she was starting to understand.

Alice knocked at the door, and let herself in. "You okay? You kind of ran up here," she said.

Marta cracked. She told Alice everything she was thinking, all the complicated contradictory parts, and cried her way through a lot of it. And then it was there in the room with them, this tangle of thoughts. Marta hugged a pillow to her chest and avoided her sister's eyes.

"I hear you," Alice said slowly. "But how is him stabbing you not ranking a little higher on the list?"

"He didn't stab me."

"He meant to. And if he'd put it through your chest like that, you'd probably be dead. Actually dead. And now you want to be friends with him, for whatever reason? Just to make sure I haven't missed anything." Alice sounded witheringly annoyed. She sort of had the right to be.

Marta just nodded. "Yeah. I think that's the gist."

"Are you out of your mind?"

"I don't know. Maybe. The whole family was willing to do it, he just got to me first," Marta said when she thought of it.

"That! Doesn't make it! Any! Better!" Alice said sharply, and groaned. "Only you would have this problem. Sympathy for your murderer."

Marta felt like it was pretty important that he wasn't actually her murderer, but she didn't want to say that. She almost said something else, something about the improbability of his failure. Or something like, I'd have sympathy for you, if you'd done what he had. But then she had the realization that clicked everything into place.

The crazy thing was, she should’ve already known. She’d basically told Ransom when she'd visited him and he'd understood what she was saying even if she hadn't. He was family, to her. Linda wasn't, or Richard or any of them. But Harlan was, and Ransom was, and Meg was, and so she'd forgiven them. Of course she'd already forgiven them. It was hard to cut family off.

"I won't encourage this," Alice said crossly.

"Okay," Marta said.

"You don't owe them anything. They treated you like shit."

Some of them more than others. Marta nodded.

"But if you've got to work it out of your system, I'm here for you. Moral support. Don't keep me in the dark again, I need to know," Alice insisted.

Marta had to say something, she couldn't say nothing. "I'll tell you," she said, and meant it as much as she could. Enough not to puke, at least, and that was good enough for today.

She meant to answer the next time Ransom called, she really did. But he called while she was out meeting Cat Lowell, and Alice had picked it up. Apparently, she had read him the riot act over the phone because she was extremely pleased with herself and Ransom didn't call again. A letter came in a little more than a week.

SO YOU WEREN'T KIDDING ABOUT BEING BUSY, HUH? THAT'S FINE. I DON'T MIND WRITING. NOT LIKE I HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO.

YOUR SISTER SEEMS "NICE". SHE'S NOT MY BIGGEST FAN. SHE KEPT CALLING ME A MURDERER, AND WHILE I GUESS THAT'S TECHNICALLY CORRECT, I DIDN'T - WELL. NO, IT'S FAIR TO SAY. BUT IT WAS WEIRD, TALKING TO HER. I HADN'T THOUGHT ABOUT HOW MAD SHE'D BE. OR YOUR MOM, PROBABLY, TOO. RIGHT?

DID YOU GET THROUGH TO CAT, FINALLY? TELL ME IF SHE'S BEING A PAIN IN THE ASS, I'LL SEND HER A SEMI-THREATENING LETTER. THAT'S ABOUT ALL I CAN DO AT THE MOMENT, THOUGH.

IT WAS GREAT TO SEE YOU. IF YOU NEED ANYTHING ELSE OFF MY PHONE, YOU KNOW WHERE TO FIND ME.

-RANSOM

Marta read it twice, the second time more closely, looking for meaning between words. More Thrombey codes. Ransom didn’t like her sister calling him a murderer. He hadn’t considered her mother might be upset that he tried to kill her. He wanted to do all he could to help her mom. He invited her back.

In the end, she replied to the only part of the letter she thought was real.

I'm not busy. Call again. 

Half of her really expected him to refuse. She never knew a Thrombey to handle rejection well. But three days after her letter mailed, she got a phone call from the prison again, heard him say his name and then the recording asked her to accept the call. She could hardly breathe. She pressed one.

For a second, the only sound was the gentle static on the phone. “Tell me this is Marta,” he said eventually.

“It’s me,” she said.

“Couldn’t really handle another complete deconstruction of my character.”

“Was it that bad?”

“It was pretty bad,” he said with a smile in voice. “She was excruciatingly thorough.”

She wanted to ask if he was okay, but something told her to wait. “How long do you get to talk?” she asked.

“Around ten minutes,” he said. “Less if I’ve antagonized people. Which I haven’t. At the moment. Before you get all…”

“Why are you antagonizing anyone?” Marta asked, and curled up in Harlan’s desk chair.

“Yeah, before you could ask that,” he said, his voice warm. “I’m fine, I’ve… behaved.” He found that word ridiculous, or annoying. “Let’s not waste time on that.”

“Okay,” Marta said.

“What’s the deal with Cat, did that finally work out?” he asked.

She did not expect that to be his first question. “Yeah,” Marta said. “It did. I spoke to her on her cell, and we’ve met twice. She’s taking care of it, she’s great.”

“Good,” Ransom said firmly. “Make sure she gives you a timeframe. And keep harassing her, because she one hundred percent prioritizes based on how much of a pain in the ass you are.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Yeah, of course.” He paused briefly. “Do you… have you heard anything from the rest of the family?”

Marta frowned, glad he couldn’t see it. “About what?”

“Just… have you heard from my mother?”

Oh. “No,” she said. “Not since I delivered the photo albums and things to her. She’s not my biggest fan, though.”

“Yeah. Welcome to the club. Lifetime membership. How’s Meg?”

“She’s alright,” Marta said. “She said something was going on with Walt, and Jacob. I’m not sure. Since when are you interested in your family?”

“Since my friends stopped writing,” he said with a little bit of a laugh, and then there was a bit of a pause. “How are you, how’s your family?”

Marta took her time with that answer. “I’m… managing,” she said. “My family is safe, that’s… better than before. I think I’m doing what Harlan would want, so.”

“Is that good enough?”

“What do you mean?”

“Doing what some old guy wanted with a fortune that caused nothing but problems for him. Is that enough of a purpose?”

The question almost seemed to echo. “I…” Marta began, and stopped. She couldn’t say she didn’t need a purpose; she wasn’t sure that was the truth. “I’m working on it,” she said. “How are you?”

“Boring,” he said.

“I spent five years with your grandfather 12 hours a day. I don’t mind boring,” she said. “Is something wrong? You’re avoiding the question.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. Took a second for her to realize he was answering the question. “But that’s not fun. Let’s… how’s Harlan’s last book going?”

“No,” Marta said. “I don’t want to talk about Harlan’s book. What’s going on?”

“I’m in jail,” Ransom said. “That’s what’s going on. I’m… I don’t know. Not prepared for this. And my grandfather just died, so.”

She hadn’t heard him sound like this before, raw and upset. The Ransom she knew had made a point of never being out of control.

“Okay,” Marta said. “I’m selecting artists for a memorial collection of Harlan’s books. Hardcovers. One of them suggested, which I really like, that all the hardcovers be blood red.”

“Interesting,” Ransom said.

“What do you mean, interesting?”

“It sounds cool,” he said. “But the way to get more people to buy books is to have them unique.”

“I don’t need people to buy more books, I need this edition to honor Harlan the way he would’ve liked.”

Ransom was silent for a moment. “And you even mean it, don’t you. You should make notebooks.”

“What?”

“Notebooks. Like the ones he’d always write in. He’d love that. Always thought Walt would eventually manage to think of that. That would’ve gotten Harlan to do some merchandising, guaranteed.”

Marta thought then, for the first time, of the little notebook Harlan always jotted things down in. It hadn’t been in the room after everything. It hadn’t been anywhere she’d seen, actually. She should look for it. “That’s an interesting idea,” she said out loud.

“Interesting as in not good?”

“Interesting as in… I’ll think about it.”

“Thanks.” The word sounded unfamiliar to him.

“For what?”

“For…” He sighed into the phone. “Listening to me. Or pretending to, at least. I don’t really care if you’re faking it-”

“I’m not,” she said. “I can’t.”

Again, just static on the phone for several moments. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Well.”

“You’re welcome,” Marta said. “It’s useful. To hear your ideas, as his family. And as someone who knows people I don’t have access to. I’m not pretending.” For some reason, her heart was pounding hard in her chest.

There was some kind of sound on the other end. “God,” Ransom finally said. “Right. Okay. I’ve gotta go, but.”

“Oh, yeah okay.”

“I’ll call again.”

“Okay. I’ll be here.”

It sounded like maybe he laughed. Then the line went dead, and Marta was left to relive those few minutes over and over.

So now Ransom called every few days instead of writing. She didn’t catch him every time; sometimes Alice did. But even that reached a sort of equilibrium.

“Alice is running out of material,” Ransom said, to open the conversation a month or so into their calls.

“Oh?” Marta asked, settling into her chair in her study. She was making an effort to think of it as her study, not Harlan’s. She’d put a new little framed painting in here, bought at a flea market. Still hadn’t decided if it fit.

“We talked yesterday,” Ransom said. “She only berated me for five minutes before transitioning to a tirade against American xenophobia.”

Marta smiled. “Progress,” she said.

“Did something happen? She seemed more upset about that than usual.”

“Yeah,” Marta said. “Walt showed up.”

“Oh boy.”

“Yelling. At like three in the morning, drunk. I called the police, they had to arrest him to get him out of here.”

“Yelling about what? What did he expect to get out of that?”

She felt incredibly safe, considering what she was talking about. This was comfortable, holding the receiver against her ear and curling up somewhere. Ransom’s voice was something she knew now, and knew well, all the subtleties. “He thinks I want his advice on publishing,” she said, letting herself be amused by it. “Or that I need it, I guess. I think he said something about how I was mismanaging. And a lot of the typical stuff about my stealing your fortune, of course.”

“Of course,” he said patiently. “It’s your fault, you know that.”

“Yes, how could I forget,” Marta said, matching his tone. “But it freaked Mom and Alice out. They want some security here at night.”

“That’s a good idea.”

“I thought so. We’ll see.”

“Y’know, Meg was here for my birthday. I won’t ask you and make it a whole thing, but. You told her to come, didn’t you.”

Marta did not argue that point, pointedly.

“Okay,” Ransom said after a second. “Well. She had more to say about him, but I figured you don’t care.”

“Not really.”

He laughed. “Yeah. I’m not losing any sleep over ol’ Uncle Walt. He was always a dick at holidays.”

“Oh right, you two argued with with each other almost as much as you did with Harlan, right? I remember…” She remembered a couple things. Walt was pleasant enough to Marta, usually - Richard was the one making extra work while claiming to be her ally - but it was clear he thought it was beneath her.

“Yeah,” Ransom said. “You weren’t around for the real blowup when I was in college, either.”

“What happened?”

“Well. It was a particularly contentious Easter,” Ransom began, and Marta snorted. “And I had the pleasure of hearing a man in a pastel polo tell me I was a failure. And it wasn’t the first time. Actually, nor would it be the last.”

“A failure at what?”

“Who even remembers.”

“You do,” she said. “Right?”

Marta could always tell when she surprised him because he’d pause, just for a second. Then he answered. “He said the only way I could help the family was if I killed myself, to make sure I’d never fuck up. So that was something we had trouble coming back from.”

Her turn to be surprised, which she sort of resented given that that’s what he wanted. “He said that?” she said faintly. It seemed like a given that that insult had more weight now, given Harlan’s fate.

“Yeah.”

“What did the rest of the family have to say?” Marta asked, instead of asking how he felt. He tended to avoid those questions.

“Not a ton,” he said with a fake flippancy she thought she might be supposed to see though. “Yeah. My mother used it as an excuse to shit on Blood Like Wine for twenty minutes, and Father was too busy texting one of his girlfriends to notice anything happening. Tell me why you’d have your font size huge on your phone if you’re having three affairs.”

“Just asking to get caught,” Marta said distractedly, because Ransom liked the banter thing but she was miles away.

“Hey,” Ransom said. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t start feeling bad for me. I’m fine.”

He was not fine, in any way, but Marta thought that might be a bit much to get into on the phone. “Okay,” she said.

“That’s a remarkably noncommittal answer.”

“You’re one to talk.”

After another one of those pauses, he spoke again with a smile in his voice. “Y’know, I used to think I was good at lying.”

“You are,” she said.

“I’ve got nothing on you when it comes to not telling the truth.”

It was this tone of voice that Marta thought about the most, when she was working on other things or sitting around or eating dinner. The tone that meant he just saw her. Everything else almost felt worth it. “Well, necessity is the mother of invention,” she said out loud.

“I don’t think you ever explained - when did this start? The puking thing. When you were a kid, right?”

“Yes.” When she was five. She blinked and saw the nurse’s office, the linoleum and drab peach walls. Before the adults figured out the connection, she spent a lot of time with the nurse.

“What started it?”

“Hard to… it was so long ago.” Marta got up, feeling the uneasiness in her stomach and knowing more was coming. Ransom knew better than to let her leave it at that.

“It was,” Ransom agreed. “And yet, I get the feeling you probably remember it. Given that it’s like, a defining moment of your life.”

“Not that defining,” she said crossly, because it was cold in the halls of the house and she’d been cozy in the study. “It’s just throwing up.”

“Marta,” Ransom said with affection. She halted in her steps, because that wasn’t what she’d expected from him. “You threw up in my face,” he said. “We’re sort of past the point of no return, here.”

She rushed for the bathroom, then, and managed to say one last thing. “It’s nothing,” she said, and then muted him and left the phone on the counter while she puked into the toilet.

“It’s bad for you,” he said as she did so. “To throw up often. Like bad for your esophagus or something. Right? And your teeth.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” she said acidly.

“Hilarious, by the way, that sarcasm passes your choke test or whatever,” he continued in good cheer. “Just pointing that out.”

“Noted.”

His tone got more serious. “You don’t have to lie to me, y’know. It’s not like it’s not obvious anyways.”

“It’s basic politeness,” she said. “I don’t press when you lie, and I wouldn’t if you threw up either. And I’d just like to point out that before I met you, it wasn’t really a daily concern. I can usually go months. Years.”

“Alright. Point taken. But I’m not really known for my restraint.”

“You weren’t known for being a murderer either. Things change,” she said. She meant to be mean, but not as mean as it ended up coming out. The ensuing silence told her the words had stung. “I didn’t mean…” she began.

“Don’t. You did,” he said, his voice sounding deeper than usual. “I’ve got to go.”

“Really?”

“No,” Ransom said. “But I want to.” And he hung up.

Maybe Marta should’ve felt bad. Ransom acted like that was below the belt somehow. But she leaned against the sink counter, pressing the edge of the receiver to her lips, and all she thought was, so that’s what that feels like. Fighting back, fire with fire. It still didn’t feel good. But she wasn’t going to apologize. She hadn’t said anything incorrect; she hadn’t even begun to plumb the depths of what she could righteously accuse him of having done. Murdering the grandfather he claimed to love so much, for one. How long would she be sitting on that? If he was too sensitive to acknowledge it.

Sometimes their bond felt unshakable, but just as often it felt seconds from falling apart.

Meg was up once a month or so, now that she was graduated. Her bedroom was comfortably lived in. She had a shelf in the pantry, and had won Alice and Mama over - though that was only because Marta decided they never needed to know Meg’s role in the whole immigration situation. It was the right thing to do, she felt it in her gut. Marta had never seen Meg as happy as when the four of them were making dinner together, empanadas or tamales or sandwiches. And she thought maybe, if Meg knew she had people who loved her, who would take care of her, maybe she would have more strength of conviction. 

Meg made a point of coming over for Marta’s birthday, with gifts and booze. “You can tell me to fuck off,” she said before she stepped inside. “I’d totally understand if you want to spend your birthday with family only.”

“Come in,” Marta rolled her eyes. “Of course I want you here.”

Meg came, but didn’t seem to believe her. She was quiet most of the night, hanging back. She brought cupcakes, but then she seemed nervous to even eat one, and Marta’s heart clenched.

When everybody went to bed, she followed Marta into her bedroom, carrying the bag with gifts she’d been protective of all evening. “I didn’t want you to feel pressured to like, pretend you like them,” she said by way of explanation.

“Why would I have to pretend?” Marta said. “Come on. I’ll love it. Give it to me.”

Meg groaned and flopped down on Marta’s bed, but she relinquished her grip on the bag so Marta got to open it. Marta sat on the bed next to her, and began unwrapping. First up was a big box: new Converse, blood red. “A joke,” Meg explained, “so you don’t get caught next time,” and Marta smiled. Then, in a smaller bag, Marta unwrapped two small boxes. Jewelry boxes. In one was a pair of stud earrings, dark blue stones set in gold. “Meg,” she said slowly.

“Just open the last one.” Meg pulled herself up and sat back on her feet, watching Marta intently.

It was a necklace, a gold pendant on a gold chain. On close inspection, the pendant was a small anatomical heart. It was beyond doubt that this was real gold, and real gems, and expensive. Marta looked at Meg. “Meg,” she said. “You don’t need to…”

“It’s your birthday.”

“No, but you don’t have to buy my…” Forgiveness? Maybe love. Either one felt presumptive to say. Marta looked Meg in her eyes, and before she could finish the sentence, Meg leaned in and kissed her.

Marta kissed back for just a second, before she realized this was more of the same, and more wrong. She pulled back. “Meg, I’m serious.”

“I am too,” Meg said, breathless.

“No,” Marta said more firmly. “Really. I love you like a sister.”

Meg looked down at the comforter and bit her lip. “You love me?” she asked quietly.

“You’re family,” Marta agreed, and then hugged her tightly.

“I love you too,” Meg said then, her voice thick. “You’re such a good person. I just…”

Marta held her, and kept her mouth shut. That was the best thing she could do tonight.

“I’m just sort of realizing,” Meg said at last, “that I don’t know what family is. I mean, my dad’s dead and my mom’s crazy.”

“Well. You said it.”

Meg laughed and wiped at her face. “Can I sleep in here with you? I promise I won’t kiss you again.”

“Sure,” Marta said.

Things felt better, when they were lying next to each other with one little lamp on, talking about mostly nothing. It was cozy, and intimate. And then Alice knocked on the door and joined them, lying on Marta’s other side. “This is what being rich means,” Alice said at last. “I’ve never been more relaxed in my life.”

“You don’t smoke a ton, do you,” Meg deadpanned, and they all giggled.

“I don’t,” Marta said, thinking out loud. “Or I didn’t.”

“When you had to worry about random drug tests,” Alice said. “When we actually had the possibility of being arrested or something. Now? Fuck it.”

Meg made a vague sound of agreement. “Good point. Do you think you’d ever have another nursing kind of job again, Marta?”

“I don’t know,” Marta said. “I would’ve, of course. If I had to. But… I appreciate the break. I was close to Harlan, so, it’s. Hard.”

“Hard,” Alice agreed. “I could never.”

“Me neither,” Meg murmured.

“You’re working on your cousin,” Marta pointed out. “I couldn’t do that.”

“The Nazi?” Alice asked, looking over Marta at Meg. “Working on him how?”

Meg sighed. “Well. He’s not really a Nazi. We’ve been talking. Not to make excuses for young alt-right internet trolls, but. He’s going through a lot, with his dad, and… I don’t know. He seems to be changing. But I’m not gonna waste anyone else’s time with him.”

“Good,” Marta said. Alice snorted, and Meg did too. “Maybe when he’s ready to apologize,” Marta added, so she wouldn’t feel mean.

Alice groaned. “Please,” she said. “We’re not spending a single more second talking about the poor little rich boy. How far are you in Game of Thrones?”

“I just finished season five,” Marta said.

“Ugh,” Meg sighed. “Don’t go any further.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling her!” Alice insisted.

Marta rolled her eyes. “This again.”

There was no other way she’d rather spend her birthday.

Ransom called back, for a while. Around the year mark of Harlan's death, he stopped calling. He did it periodically, get increasingly snappish and irritable until he made up some reason to be upset. And then Meg would visit or something else would bring him out of his dark mood, and he'd call again with some conversation tidbit he clearly meant as an apology and they'd be back to normal. Ransom was never inclined to discuss how he felt with her directly, he'd just hint at it obliquely and then change the subject. So Marta never commented on the pattern. She figured he had enough to deal with, without adding this onto it.

But this time was different. The last time they spoke was a few days before Harlan's birthday and Ransom seemed fine. But then she didn't hear from him all month. She had book releases to manage, and a Thanksgiving charity event to plan and host. Ransom knew about the Thanksgiving event - he'd encouraged her to do it. Maybe he was giving her space to handle that. It wasn't like he was going anywhere. Marta couldn't decide what to do so she did nothing.

The Thrombeys were an intentional and conspicuous exclusion from the Thanksgiving guest list, but she'd made an exception for Meg. Meg hadn't visited for a while; her job in New York City was pretty all-consuming. But she'd promised she'd make it to the charity event, and Marta was counting on it. She needed an ally while she mingled.

Mama and Alice were nervous for this introduction to their peers. Marta could hardly blame them. She did what she could to set them up for success; she hired the right caterers, and plenty of staff, and bought dresses for each of them that were probably too expensive to justify. Alice wanted a showstopper, so she was in a burgundy backless cocktail dress that made her hard to recognize as Marta's little sister. Mama was in a dark purple matching set she'd found at Nordstrom's that was clean and classic. Marta had nearly gone with a deep blue flowing sleeveless gown with a high slit, but the plunging neckline terrified her so she ended up wearing something much more plain. Navy, long sleeves, asymmetrical neckline and knee-length skirt. She wore it with tights, and kitten heels she was sure she wouldn't fall in. That would have to do.

Meg was an hour late - and everyone else was a half-hour late, so it wasn't that bad but Marta was still incredibly grateful to see her. That feeling faded immediately, when she saw Jacob behind Meg. He was dressed in a suit and tie, and he looked very pale - but he always looked pale, and Marta was so annoyed she didn't have any room for goodwill.

"I'm sorry I didn't give you a heads up," Meg said as she took off her coat. "Please trust me."

Marta gave her quite the look. Meg looked appropriately cowed so Marta leaned in for a reluctant hug. "My mother is here," she said quietly, for just the Thrombey cousins to hear. "And if a single remark is made to her or my sister about immigration or race or anything like that, I will be throwing the person responsible out."

"Of course," Meg said firmly.

Jacob refused to meet Marta's eyes, but he did nod.

Marta looked back at Meg. "You'd better have an explanation," she said.

"I do," Meg promised. "Do you want a drink? Come with me."

Marta let herself be taken by the arm to the bar, though she was petrified about leaving Jacob on his own. She wished she had someone to watch him.

“Okay listen,” Meg said quietly. “You know I know how awful he’s been to you.”

“I know,” Marta said.

“And I’ve never asked you to be involved, I totally respect your decision to cut him out of your life.”

“So you bring him to my house,” Marta said.

Meg made a face, and then ordered. “Can I get a vodka cranberry and a white wine?” She gave Marta the wine. Meg knew what Marta drank; Marta felt a little softer. “Listen,” Meg said.

“Yes,” Marta confirmed, and had a sip.

“He’s ashamed of his past behavior. He’s coming back to our side. And people change, y’know. I was a terf for like six months when I was seventeen. He can leave after this, that’s totally fine, but.” Meg made a face. “If he’s going, I’ve gotta go. And no hard feelings, I totally get-”

“What’s going on?” Marta asked seriously.

Meg took a fortifying drink. “Okay,” she said, and then they had to move to let other people get to the bar. Marta smiled and shook someone’s hand when she was introduced. Then she and Meg escaped to a corner.

“Okay,” Meg said again. “This is in no way a plea for pity or sympathy or-” Marta rolled her eyes. “Hey! I’m just making sure. So. Walt and Donna are in the middle of an extremely contentious divorce. Walt’s drinking has only gotten worse. He’s gotten four DUIs since March, and Donna’s had enough. She’s filed for divorce. But Donna’s having a meltdown of her own, she’s zonked out on Zoloft most of the time, and definitely not interested in engaging with her child critically. In fact, she hardly wants to look at him - she says he reminds her of Walt.”

“That’s not fair,” Marta said.

“Right? So he told me all of this on Snapchat because he didn’t trust me but then we started talking over Twitter DMs and he’s actually listening, and now he’s sort of… staying with me when he’s not at school. And I can’t leave him alone for the holidays.”

Marta listened to all of that, and finally nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Zero tolerance.”

“Does that mean you’re giving him a chance?” Meg said hopefully.

“One,” Marta told her firmly. “No more.”

“Totally fair. Thank you. You’re being so-”

Marta cut her off. “I’ll speak to him,” she said. “After I mingle. And he’d better be polite.”

“I promise. Do you want some help with the mingling?” Meg asked, waggling her eyebrows, and Marta smiled.

“I want nothing more.”

Mingling was much more pleasant with Meg at her side. Meg was beautiful and funny and comfortable around these people, and for a few hours Marta actually managed to feel at ease.

She regrouped with Alice and Mama in the kitchen near the end of the night. “It wasn’t too miserable, was it?” she said when they were alone.

“No, just boring,” Mama said dryly.

“I’ve been invited to several weekends in Boston,” Alice said. “Do you think they could tell I dropped out of college?”

“You’re back in college,” Marta sighed.

“Still,” Alice said. “You get my point.” She was tipsy; she brandished a long toothpick with tomatoes and cheese on it. “Boy, these people can drink. When do we get our house back?”

"Stay here," Marta said. "I'll find Meg and ask how we get them to leave."

The house was considerably more empty now, but there were little clusters of people talking. Meg was curiously nowhere to be seen. Marta was about to turn the corner and look in the study when she heard her name. So she stopped short, hidden by the doorframe, to listen.

"I don't think so," Jacob said. "I mean, my grandfather wanted it to happen this way."

"Yes," a female voice said uneasily. "But that wasn't very fair of him."

"Maybe not," Jacob said. "But it's how things are now, so."

Someone else spoke, a dude. "All I know is, your father would be fine if that woman hadn't pushed him out of the company he built."

Marta made her entrance. Jacob went white when he saw her, and the other people he was talking to greeted Marta with overenthusiastic cheer. She didn't match it. "Have you seen Meg?" she asked Jacob.

"She went out onto the porch," Jacob answered stiffly.

Marta went. She didn't bother trying to hear anything else. Meg was on the porch, as promised, alone and smoking. "Hey," Marta said. "How do we get these people out of here?"

"Have the staff start packing up the bar and food," Meg said. "Is something wrong? Are you okay?"

Marta shook her head. "The... I overheard some of the guests saying..."

Meg didn't need her to finish. "God. They're vultures. They don't deserve you. Come on, let's clear the house."

And then it was just the family, in the kitchen, finishing off the dregs of bottles and rubbermaids of of hors d'oeuvres. The family and Jacob, when Meg went and found him and dragged him back with her. He was very reluctant. Like all the other times Marta had seen him, he hung back and stayed on his phone.

"How did you like your first introduction to the New England snobbery?" Meg asked Mama and Alice.

"They were nice enough," Mama said, which was not a ringing endorsement.

"They were condescending assholes," Alice corrected her. "And if I never see them again it'll be too soon. But some of them were fine."

"You look incredible," Meg said. "If they were condescending it's because they were drooling inside."

Alice raised a glass to Meg, and then drained it. "Mission accomplished."

Marta thought she saw Jacob smile, a little, at that. "We raised a lot of money, too," Marta said. "Eight hundred thousand, for suicide prevention."

"Damn," Meg said. "That means I owe Ransom twenty bucks. He guessed 750, I said 600."

"What's his deal?" Alice asked. "He hasn't called for a while, right?" she added to Marta. "I haven't yelled at him for weeks."

Meg frowned. "Wait, he didn’t tell you?”

"No," Marta said, much more calmly than she felt. "I figured he was in... one of the moods he gets in."

Meg made a face; she knew what Marta was talking about. "No," she said. "He's been in solitary."

Marta was stunned into silence. "What?" Alice demanded.

"Yeah, he. Somebody was like, talking about Grandpa and Ransom never knows when to leave things alone so he got into another fight, and the guards put him in solitary for three weeks. He just got out a couple days ago. He called me," Meg added.

"Oh," Marta said.

"I'm sure he's gonna call you."

Alice was watching Marta closely. Marta kept her face in order. "Okay," she said. "Good."

"Good," Alice repeated sarcastically. "Yeah, can't wait to hear from your attempted murderer. I'm gonna go change out of this. Let's go out on the porch and start a fire."

Mama excused herself to go to bed then too, so then it was just Meg, Marta and Jacob in the kitchen. Marta got herself a glass of water, and started putting the packaged food into the fridge. "I think tonight went well," she said.

"Yeah, totally," Meg said faintly, and looked at Jacob. "I told Jacob," she added after a second, "about your terms for staying here for the holidays."

"Okay," Marta said, and looked at Jacob too.

With great reluctance, he shut his phone off and looked up. "Thank you," he said, and that appeared to be all he was going to say until Meg gave him an exasperated sigh. "I'm sorry that I said all those... things, before."

Marta didn't know what to do with that. "Okay," she said at last. "Do you want any of these biscotti?"

He shook his head. "I have Celiac's."

"And an allergy to strawberries," Meg said, texting someone. "He's very frail."

"I am not!" Jacob protested.

"You broke your ankle walking."

"Orienteering," he said. "And you're the one who had to go to the hospital for a hangover twice."

Meg met Marta's surprised look. "I was troubled, I binged," she said defensively. "Whatever."

"What is orienteering?" Marta asked.

"A nerd sport," Meg said.

"It's navigating," Jacob said. "You get a compass and a map and they put you in the middle of the woods and you have to find your way out."

Marta nodded. "What if you don't make it back?"

"You lose," Jacob answered, and went back on his phone.

He was prickly. He was standoffish, and abrupt and spoke very little over all. But he did seem glad to be included, and at the end of the night he said goodnight to everyone. And Marta thought about fathers and the legacy of what they left their children.

Thanksgiving dinner went well, though it was technically two days late. Mama cooked and enlisted everyone's help. She even got Jacob making cornbread for the stuffing. It was unifying. Everybody was talking, and drinking, and snitching while they cooked, and then they sat down and ate until they were stuffed.

A year ago, Marta would've never seen this coming. As it was, she barely believed the day went so nicely. She didn't want to ruin it. So she didn't tell anyone her plans for Sunday. She just went, first thing in the morning.

Again, she had eleventh-hour anxiety that Ransom might refuse to see her. She sat, leg bouncing, until they called her back, and then she had to consciously choose to walk at a reasonable pace. He was fine, probably. There was nothing to worry about.

Ransom looked the same as the last time she saw him. Longer hair, longer beard. He was sitting when she walked up, so he looked up at her. "You beat me to it. I was gonna call today." Marta didn't react, and Ransom frowned. "What's going on?"

"Meg told me," Marta began, and hesitated.

"Jesus," Ransom sighed.

"Why do you..." Marta sat down, and leaned in. His hands were folded on the table, close enough to touch. She focused on them. It wasn't reasonable to ask to be his first call, she reminded herself.

"Look," he said. "Shit's gonna happen in here, I don't want you to worry about it. I've got at least three years left. You don't have to come up here every time you hear something alarming."

She looked up into his eyes. "You want me to come," she said. "You'd want me to come every day I'm allowed, if I could."

Ransom was speechless for a second, just looking back at her. "That's not what I'm talking about," he finally said.

"Why can't it be?"

"Because this isn't about what I want. Marta," he said, and she realized how rarely he said her name. "You realize you could be dead, right now. Right?"

Marta looked back down at his hands. There was pink new scar on the back of one.

"I'd accept an apology, now," Marta said. "If you've got one."

She felt Ransom's eyes on her, but didn't look up yet. She waited. And eventually, he said, "I'm sorry. I sincerely apologize for trying to put a knife in your chest."

"I forgive you," she said, and that really stopped him in his tracks.

Ransom ran a hand through his hair, rattled. "No. Just because I wasn't acting rationally doesn't mean you should forgive me," he managed to say. "Actually, it doesn't make sense to be talking to me, at all."

Marta stood up, and moved her chair around the table, closer to him. Then she sat back down and looked him in the eyes. This close, she could see the hints of green in midst of all the blue. And then it was her turn to be speechless, for a second. "Would you do it again?" she asked.

"That's not a fair question."

"How is it-"

"Of course I wouldn't do it again! But that doesn't mean shit now. You're trying to tell me you've forgiven me for trying to kill you? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

Marta narrowed her eyes. "You don't think I'm stupid."

"No, which is why this is so fucking insane," he answered crossly.

"And that's why you don't want me to worry about you," she said. Another statement that was a bit of a question. "Because you think I shouldn't."

Ransom gave her a patient, exasperated look. "No, because you actually shouldn't. Basic self preservation."

"That's never been my strong suit," she said. After all, she was only here because she handed over the piece of paper she thought proved her guilt to the detective trying to catch her.

And something about that finally got through to Ransom. He was silent for several moments, deep in thought, and then he took a deep breath in and out and shifted closer to her. "Okay."

"If you were really sorry, you'd listen to me," Marta suggested.

He was incredulous at this, but then he smiled. "Okay," he repeated. "You're the boss."

Marta's heart quickened, her chest felt tight. "Why didn't you call?" she asked, though she'd just decided it was unreasonable to ask this.

"Because," Ransom said, looking across the room at some of the other people in here. "You always ask how I am. And I don't really love lying to you."

In the following moments, Marta was too aware of her own breathing. Just like that day in the study, when he was on top of her. "How are you?" she asked.

"Just grand," Ransom said with no smile on his face. He'd learned that kind of soft no from her, and perfected his own sharp-edged brand. Marta knew how to handle it; she sat silently, waiting, until he said something else. "What do you get out of this?"

Marta shrugged. "You don't think I'm stupid," she said again. "And I'm the boss."

For a second, she worried that was too reductive. Instead, Ransom looked at her with such warmth, she shivered. "I'm just fine," he said. "Better with you here. I can see why Granddad paid you to be his friend."

"You're getting a real bargain," she agreed solemnly.

"Speaking of charity," he said. "How was the event?"

"It was great," she said. "Meg owes you money, we raised eight hundred thousand."

"Hell yeah," Ransom said. "I knew you'd kill it. No pun intended."

She knew he knew she'd find that funny. It was hard to keep a smile off her face. "Alice did more than me," she said. "She flirted people into half those donations."

"Great strategy," Ransom nodded. "That was always my job. Or Meg, she really nailed the old perv demographic."

Marta frowned. "That's gross."

He just shrugged. "How many of Boston's greatest families showed their asses and said racist shit?" he asked. "I'm guessing at least three."

“Most shockingly,” Marta said, “was that I overheard Jacob not totally agreeing with them when they did so.”

“Why was the kid there?”

“Meg’s rehabilitating him,” Marta said.

“So now you’re forgiving alt-right members too?” Ransom inquired.

Marta rolled her eyes. “Children,” she said. “I’m willing to give him one more chance, yes.”

“This family doesn’t deserve you.”

“Meg said something similar.”

“I’ve always liked Meg,” Ransom said, in a conspiratorial undertone.

It was a pleasant visit. Marta spent a lot of time not thinking about how close he was, or how physically large he was, or how completely she had his attention. They talked about Harlan’s books, which Ransom was still reading, and news of the last year that he’d missed, and Alice’s college experience. And at the end, they talked about family Christmases past. She’d spent the last six with them.

“Nobody got you a gift but Grandad,” Ransom said. “You can’t tell me that didn’t bother you.”

“My previous clients never got me gifts at all,” Marta said. “They barely wanted to pay me. One gift was an improvement.”

“Pathetic.”

“If it was so pathetic, why didn’t you get me something?” she demanded.

“Please. Like that would’ve come off as sincere,” he rolled his eyes. “Mom would’ve freaked out about me fucking the help, for starters. I still find it hard to believe she didn’t have any idea about Richard, given how paranoid she was about that.”

Marta felt her cheeks warm up. “Was I the help?” she asked. “I was thinking about that. Harlan never let me call you Hugh.”

Ransom wrinkled his nose. “I’m glad.”

“No, really,” Marta said. “Was I?”

He was uncomfortable. “I don’t know. It’s not like I thought about it.” But that was another way of lying she’d taught him, so she knew to wait for more. "You were more family than Fran was," he said at last.

She'd almost comment, on the edge of distaste in his voice for the woman he almost murdered, but something stopped her. "Why?" she asked instead.

Ransom leaned back in his chair, thinking. "Well. I think it took me about a year to figure out you were the smartest person in the room, when basically everyone in my family thinks they're a genius. So that probably got you in."

"So if the gardener had been in Mensa," Marta began.

"Well," Ransom said. "Not just that."

"Then what, why am I any different?" she asked, and what she also meant was, why are you sorry?

Ransom understood that. He tilted his head to one side and sighed. Marta took a second to note that he seemed much more relaxed than he'd been at the start. "It's not even just... like, staff. It's... I know a lot of people, okay? Before this whole felony thing, I was a pretty popular guy. And I've never met anyone like you. So. This isn't some sort of... referendum on class or immigrants - I don't give a shit about any of that. Call me an asshole again if you want to, but. I don't think I'd care about any nurse he hired, except for you."

Marta refused to be flattered. "Every nurse I know is a better person than you," she said, maintaining eye-contact.

"I don't doubt it," he answered, unconcerned. "Actually, I'd really hope so, considering my murder conviction. But does that answer your question?"

It did, and more than that, it was sort of comforting to know he couldn't explain this sense of kindredness anymore than she could. It wasn't some big change, though. It was the smallest shift, a new center of gravity. If she had to think of a single new center point, it would be the fake knife in her chest, Ransom's hand holding it there.

"I can visit more," Marta said. "If..."

Ransom shrugged, expansively causal. "You're the boss," he said, with a grim little smile. "Whatever you want to do. I'll never refuse to see you, or anything." He glanced at the clock again, so she looked too - ten minutes until she had to leave.

"What did I do?" Marta asked. "That convinced you I was smart." It was sort of an insulting premise; she couldn't help but grimace, and Ransom grinned.

"Right," he said. "Like I'm the guy who'd know?"

"Just answer the question," she said, more sternly.

He held his hands up. "I don't know. It wasn't one thing specifically, it was like..." He made a sort of helpless gesture. "I don't know."

"We didn't hardly talk while Harlan was alive," Marta pointed out.

"No," he said, sure of that. "I figured you hated me. Since Harlan did."

"He didn't-"

Ransom waved her off. "Yeah, yeah."

They both had some open wounds from Harlan, it seemed. Marta nodded. Acknowledging the time had dried up any conversation she could think of. It was fair, him serving this time. It was more than fair. But that didn't make it easier to leave.

"You'll call," she said. "Right?"

"You bet. I might not get to as often, one of the new guards has it in for me. But. Yeah, I'll call. You're..."

Not for the first time, Marta was tempted to take his hand or something. Something to show him she understood what he wouldn't say, but without her having to say it either. She looked at him. "Alice asked how you were," she said.

“Weird."

"She called you a murderer again right after."

"That's more like it. How is she, how's college?"

Marta nodded. "Good. She's doing well. Figuring out how to act, you know."

"Yeah. You guys are the newest money possible." Ransom was lost in thought for a second, before he snapped back in. "And your mom?"

"She's actually making plans in her life, for once. Because she doesn't have to be scared of being taken away. So. Thank you for your help," Marta said, and preemptively added, "I mean it."

Ransom made a face. She was beginning to interpret these faces; this one, she thought, was guilt. "It's actually and literally the least I could do," he said. "So is this you wrapping things up?"

"Only a few minutes left."

Ransom nodded. "Get out of here," he agreed. "I'll call when I can."

She wanted to touch him. She couldn't think of a way to. And Ransom was just looking at her, speculative and familiar and something else. "Goodbye," she said, awkwardly, and left.

The next time she visited, she brought Go.

He smiled when he saw it, a broad bright thing that Marta had never seen before. "Bring it on," he said. Ransom took black.

"I'm late because I had to explain to them what this was," she said while they made their first few moves.

"I'm surprised you got it in here."

"Money can do a lot," she said, and Ransom let out a laugh.

"Stop bragging, I'm trying to kick your ass," he said, and then they focused.

He was faster than Harlan, but not better than her. She beat him quickly once, and then a second time. The third game was a tie.

"Jesus," he said then. "You're a master."

"I focus on the pattern," she said, with a sense of deja vu. Then she won two more times. It was almost pitiful.

Now, her pattern included Jacob. He came every weekend Meg came up - every three weeks or so - and largely kept to himself. Sometimes he'd linger in the room after meals, listen to them talking and rarely add anything of his own. He slept in late and stayed up late - she could see the blue glow of his computer in his room most nights when she got up to check the locks before bed. Most of the time, Marta could hardly tell if he wanted to be there, or if he was just coming to be with Meg. Meg was the only person he loosened up for. But Marta didn't have the energy or desire to confront him. She was seeing Ransom weekly, and the publishing company was absorbing more of her attention with new merchandising offers she felt she couldn't reject out of hand. Harlan didn't want cheap T-shirts or shot glasses. A tastefully-branded Go board was another question, depending on the specifics. And then several books were going to reprint, and there was the question of ebooks, which Harlan had never allowed but Marta thought that was foolish. So the last thing she had energy for was a teenager who didn't like her.

The seasons changed again, spring to summer. Marta could appreciate it more now, out of the haze of grief and change. The land in spring was muddy; she would never stop noticing her own footsteps behind her. In the summer, the grass went brittle. The dogs were more likely to sit inside with Mama or on the porch with Alice than to run around.

It was June. Marta was sitting on the big porch, reviewing some documents related to a charitable foundation she was considering putting together, when the dog at her feet, Herc, perked up. He saw something, or heard something, and he took off across the yard a moment later. Marta frowned. He was headed towards the side gate.

She got up and watched from the railing; Herc met someone at the treeline. And, as it turned out, that someone was Jacob.

Jacob did not look at ease in the summer. He didn't tan hardly at all, and looked even more weedy in shorts. And today, he looked vaguely pinkish and upset. She couldn't tell if it was sunburn or emotion, from a distance. "Hey," she said when he was close enough. "How are you?"

"Fine," he said.

"How'd you get here?"

"I took an uber to the front gates." Jacob, on closer inspection, was carrying a backpack. "Can I stay here?" he asked, looking up at her. Herc ran past him, back up on the porch, and sat down.

"What? Why? How long?"

Jacob slowed down. "If it was Meg you'd say yes," he said.

"Meg never called the police on me," she said. And that was just for starters.

"Good point." He kept walking, climbed the steps to the porch and then looked at her. He was taller now, close to her height. "Mom's having a meltdown," he said, stiff as ever.

"What kind of meltdown?"

"Well, Dad died," Jacob answered with no inflection, looking back out over the yard. "So that kind of one."

Marta looked at him, sort of dumbstruck. "Um. Are you serious?"

"Yeah. Can I stay here?"

"Hold on. How did he die?"

"Wrapped his car around an oak tree." Jacob met her eyes again; there were tears in his, despite his tone. "Mom's... when I left, she was throwing dishes at the wall. Like every one. So. I don't... I couldn't," he said, and then stopped.

"Yes, you can stay here," Marta answered. "But we have to... has she spoken to funeral homes? Do the families know?"

"You don't care," he said. "You hated him."

Marta took a second before answering. "I don't hate anyone," she said, and that was the truth. "But you're right, it's probably not my place. I just... I didn't become a nurse because I enjoy seeing people in pain," is what she ended up saying, and it sounded a little too defensive but Jacob didn't seem to mind.

"I can ask her," he said. "If you tell me what I'm asking."

"Okay," she said, and then she asked what maybe what she meant to ask first. "Are you alright?"

"Do you even care about that, either?" he asked.

Marta took a moment to say what she meant just in her head. How are you mad at me for things you did? How is that fair? But instead she said none of that. "Why'd you come here?" she asked. “I mean, if you think I don’t.”

Jacob wiped his nose and then adjusted his hair. “That’s fair,” he said. “I guess… well, Meg’s busy. She’s in London for some conference. And I guess I was hoping you… would tolerate me. Because I don’t know where else to go.” He spoke like he was uncomfortable with the very idea.

Marta nodded hesitantly, and looked back out over the field.

“If it changes anything,” Jacob said casually, “I’m sorry for how I acted two years ago. It was stupid, I could’ve actually hurt you.” He glanced up at her then; she could feel his eyes on her.

“Thank you,” Marta said.

“I won’t do anything like that again.”

“Okay. Your room should be how you left it. We’re going to try and use the grill tonight,” she added.

“It’s not hard,” he said, and then seemed to realize it sounded rude. “I can help.”

“Great.”

That evening, Jacob ended up sort of taking over the grill. He was the most comfortable with it, even though the heat made his face bright pink. And he took direction from Mama well, turning the corn and adjusting the meat and not snapping at her though she was definitely micromanaging. Most shockingly, he seemed to be having fun. Marta saw him smile more than she ever had before.

She was slightly concerned. His dad died, and he didn’t seem to care. But it was just a dinner; she’d wait before deciding he was a sociopath or something. Though, admittedly, there were a lot of points in that prospective column.

“You could’ve sent him back,” Ransom said, when she told him about it a few days later. “It’s not like he’s homeless. He’s got a house. Two of them.”

“You want me to send him back?” she said dubiously. “Really.”

Ransom shrugged. “I don’t know. You could, though. Donna’s family is rich, he’s got a whole other set of grandparents that spoils him rotten. Why didn’t he go there?”

“Do you expect me to have an answer?” Marta asked after a pregnant pause.

“No, but. It’s a question you could ask.”

“I’m not interested in interrogating him,” Marta said, and then reconsidered. “Well. Maybe when it’s been a few weeks.”

Ransom smiled. “Smart.”

“I try.”

They always sat closer than anyone else here, now. Marta found it hard not to notice Ransom leaning in towards her, further and further. She’d thought about breaking that distance and touching his arm, or his shoulder. But she couldn’t, she couldn’t push through. She thought of his hand, heavy in the middle of her chest, and couldn’t breathe. So she continued to just think of it, when he shifted closer to her, and not move.

It was shifting towards fall. The sky was crisp outside the windows, the room a little colder.

“When you get out,” she said. “Where will you go?”

Ransom looked at her for several seconds, trying to read her mind. She didn’t let him; she stared back, and waited. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “Mom’s, if she’ll have me. Maybe Richard’s. Not like I have any belongings any more, so that simplifies things.”

“I didn’t sell your house,” Marta said, her heart in her throat.

“You didn’t,” he repeated.

“No,” she shook her head. “I didn’t touch it, it’s all there.” Her stomach was suddenly, sharply in turmoil. “So.” She almost told him it would be there for him. “I can have it moved wherever you end up,” she finally said.

Ransom just looked at her. “Why…” he began, and paused. “Marta.”

“What?”

“Why have you kept my house?”

She hesitated. “It’s just…”

“Know what? Scrap that question. New question.” Ransom leaned forward onto the table, closing her in. Marta felt herself relax. “Why do you throw up? Really. What is it?”

Marta wanted to be a little more upset with him for asking again, but the truth was she’d expected it since he asked the first time. “I don’t like to talk about it,” she said.

“That hasn’t stopped you from asking me anything you want,” he said, with a bit of a smile tugging at his mouth. “How about a little reciprocity?”

“I thought you said I was the boss,” Marta said when she thought of it, sort of a last resort.

Ransom narrowed his eyes at her. “You really don’t want to answer this question.”

She didn’t, except that it was him who was asking. And really, what could he do with this information? He couldn’t hurt her with it.

“When I was in second grade,” she said slowly. “We had to do a project on our family tree. I filled in my mother’s side of the tree and turned it in, but the teacher said if I didn’t fill in my father’s side, they’d fail me.”

“The state of education these days,” Ransom said with sympathy. Marta glared at him. She didn’t want fun banter about this. Ransom held up a hand. “Sorry. It’s your tragic backstory time.”

“My father has never been a part of our life,” Marta said. “But that wasn’t good enough for my teacher. I think she had some expectations about Latin families that played a part. So.” She’d asked Mama, she remembered. And the look on her mother’s face stopped her from asking anything else. “So I made it up,” Marta said. “The whole side of my family. I was so nervous to get caught, too, because I couldn’t let myself fail. And when I went to present it, I got as far as saying my father’s name was Ricky Martin, and. I threw up.”

“Ricky Martin,” Ransom repeated.

“It’s more common than you’d think,” Marta said, defensive in advance.

Ransom smiled a little. “So it just took the one time?”

“No,” she admitted. “No, it was… well. So. They called my mother in, about my lying. And there was a teacher conference. And my mom was trying to make me feel better, she took me out for breakfast before. Pancakes. And then when we got to school, and they started talking to my mother, it just…” She made eye-contact with Ransom then. “I didn’t totally know what was going on, but I knew Mom was upset. And… it happened again.” It just kept happening. She couldn’t quite remember how it got from those first two times to any lies. She wasn’t much of a liar even to begin with. But after that, when she tried, her stomach would revolt.

Ransom touched the back of Marta’s hand. “Hey.” She startled, drew her hand back and then wished she hadn’t. “Forget I asked,” he said.

“No, it’s fine,” she said, her voice thick.

“Seriously, I didn’t think it was…”

He did, though. And she knew he did. He was watching her, waiting to be called out, and Marta just couldn’t bring herself to. She wanted to touch his chest, his cheek, and tell him she’d told him as a conscious choice.

“I’m lifting the protective order,” she said, and Ransom’s jaw dropped. “I’ve spoken to Alan about it.”

“Do they…” he began, and had to restart. “They let you lift a restraining order against someone who tried to put a knife in your chest?”

Marta nodded. “The judge was… incredulous. But it does happen. In cases like abusive relationships or such, most of the time.”

“Oh, is that not what this is?” Ransom said, and didn’t seem to be joking.

“You said you’re not going to try again,” she pointed out.

“Well, yeah but that doesn’t mean you should trust me.”

“If I don’t trust you,” Marta said, deadly serious, “then what’s the point of any of this?”

Ransom crossed his arms. She looked over at him after a second, and found him pinching the bridge of his nose. “You can’t keep giving me things,” he said at last.

“I can do whatever I want,” she said. “I’m the boss.”

A guard came over then, and insisted their time was up, even though there were 45 minutes left on the clock. “Go,” Ransom said before she could argue. “It’s fine.” He leaned back, and only then was she aware of how close he’d been. “See you in a week,” he added.

He didn’t usually say that. And Marta knew plot well enough to expect what happened next weekend; she got to the prison only to be told she couldn’t see him. “Why?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

“He’s not accepting visitors,” the guard asked. And then, three hundred dollars later, “He’s in solitary.”

She called Meg on the drive back, who’d requested to be kept in the loop. “Oh yeah,” Meg said. “He mentioned this one guard has had it in for him. Like they went to school together or something? The guy started working here and was just so delighted to have some power over him. And granted, Ransom totally inspires those feelings in most people.”

Marta thought about the rush she got any time he called her boss. “Yeah,” she said.

“So it’s probably that. Did they tell you if he’ll be out next week?”

“No, I think I’ll have to show up and hope for the best.”

“Damn. Okay. Well, I’ll be back in two weeks to take Jacob off your hands. Again, I’m super sorry. I had no idea he was going to make a run for it.”

“It’s okay,” Marta said. “Really. He’s behaving, he’s… well, he’s not friendly,” she said, and Meg laughed. “But he’s fine.”

“Okay. Well. Tell me if that changes. I love you, I’ve gotta go.”

“Love you,” Marta echoed, and meant it.

She couldn’t see Ransom for a month. When she finally managed, his standard pleasantness was slipping. He looked like he lost weight. His eyes were empty, at first.

“What happened?” she said.

“I don’t want to get into it,” he said flatly.

He didn’t talk to her like that. Marta frowned. “Not even a little bit?” she asked hesitantly.

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

Marta nodded, her face carefully neutral. “Okay,” she said. “That’s-”

“Not like that,” Ransom said.

“Like what?”

“Not like…” He sighed, and leaned closer, forearms on the table. Their arms were almost touching. “Not like I can’t. But I just won’t. This is my time, not yours.”

“Are you safe?” she asked quietly.

“I’m not getting preferential treatment for the first time in my life,” Ransom said. “It’s a rough time.”

He was kidding, but Marta didn’t think he should’ve been. “Can I do something about it?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said sarcastically. “Do something about it. Make my life easier.”

“I’m serious, I would.”

“I know you’re serious,” Ransom said. “That’s why you can’t. Tell me about what’s going on with you. Is Jacob still hanging around?”

She told him a little about that, about Jacob. That was still going well. He’d started to open up around them. Mama had found him asleep on the couch one evening, a definite first. He’d gotten Alice a card for her birthday, even. But talking about that felt pointless, so after she finished and in the following pause, Marta had to say something else. “Ransom.”

“Yeah?”

“We got cut off, before.”

“Yeah. I was thinking about that.” He knew what she meant before she said it; they’d gotten to know each other so well sometimes it scared her. Just a little. Just enough to make it interesting. “I was thinking, I one hundred percent trust you to do the right thing in any given situation. But I can’t trust you to lie. So I’m sure, when you said that you trust me, you meant something more specific.”

She’d never said that exactly, but she meant it. “I trust you not to hurt me,” she said. “And I trust you to act in your best interests otherwise.”

“Y’know,” Ransom said, his tone unchanged. He was looking past her, at nothing in particular. “Sometimes I think you’re the only person who’s ever seen me. Really seen me. I don’t know, Maybe I resent it.”

“Resent it,” she repeated.

“Yeah, maybe I want you to think I’m better,” he said, like it wasn’t a big deal. “Impress you. But you know who I am, you just know.”

She reached for him without thinking of it, but then it had happened. Her hand was on his arm, pulling, and he let her separate his hands to hold one. And then she was just holding his hand in both of hers. It was shockingly normal.

“Yeah,” he said, sounding resigned, and tightened his grip on her hand.

“I feel the same,” she said. “I just said it funnier.”

He let that be funny, he smiled. But nothing, even this rare moment of emotional honesty,  could change his dark mood. And then, too soon, she was told to leave again, not even half through visiting hours. “I’ll call,” he said, “if I can.”

“Alright. And I’ll be back.”

It took a second on both sides, for them to let go. She managed to do it first, but just barely. It felt like she wouldn’t see him for a while, somehow. And so, of course, she didn’t.

Jacob staying for a few weeks turned into the whole summer. He had some things shipped over a month in. One day Marta went looking for him, went into his room and discovered how much it looked like he lived here. He’d tacked up posters. His bed was unmade. And she thought it might not be the worst thing, actually. If this boy decided he belonged with them.

“I sent him to his room the other day,” Mama said when Marta brought it up. “When he was snapping at your sister. And he went, and he reconsidered his attitude.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Marta asked.

“Because. Him, I can handle,” Mama said with a shrug. “I don’t mind if he stays.”

So Marta talked to Jacob that night, after dinner. He liked the sitting room she always found sterile; he was in there, reading with just a lamp on. “Hey,” she said.

“Hi,” he said, and after a second he looked up from his book.

Marta took that as an invitation to sit across from him, in a wingback armchair. “I was trying to give you some time,” she said. “But we need to talk about…”

“Where I’m staying,” he finished for her. “Yeah. You need me to go?”

“No,” Marta said. “I need you to tell me what you want. Have you spoken to your mom? Do you know what’s going on there?”

“She’s…” Jacob shut his book, keeping his place with a finger. “I don’t want to go back,” he said after a long silence.

It was hard to tell how he meant it. “Okay,” Marta said. “But you can’t just check out of your life, you can’t give up on…”

“I’m not,” he said. “My tuition is already paid, I’m finishing school this year. I have a list of colleges I’ll be applying to in the fall. There’s a trust in my name set up. And if you don’t want me here, I’ll go… have my aunt get me an apartment or something, but I… I want to be here.”

Marta regarded him with great suspicion. “Here,” she said. “With my mother? I’ve heard she’s enforcing rules, now.”

Jacob sort of shrugged. “Yeah.”

“You can stay,” Marta said after a few seconds of consideration, “as long as you respect her. And me, and my sister, as…”

“I will,” he said, and then after another pause, he added, “I’m going to build something. Like Grandpa would’ve wanted. Mom doesn’t get it.”

That was as good a reason as any, she thought, to let him stay; Harlan would’ve wanted that too.

There wasn’t a lot of build-up. Meg got a notification via phone call and called Marta, and then Marta left the luncheon she was at immediately. They met in the parking lot. “You need to take off all your jewelry,” Marta said. “No metal.”

Meg began to unhook a variety of things. “Right,” she said. “Of course, I forgot.” Her hands were shaking. “Do you, um. You have your ID and everything?”

“Yes,” Marta said. “And some cash to ease the way. We’re seeing him.”

They saw him. It wasn’t easy. It cost a lot, and then when she saw him, he hardly looked like himself. He’d been beaten within an inch of his life, and if Meg had heard correctly, the guard had done it. By the look of things, it had happened nearly a week ago.

Meg put her hands over her mouth. “Aw, c’mon. It’s not that bad,” Ransom said with pointedly forced cheer. He had a sort of lisp, from a thick scab on his lip.

“Did they give you a CT scan?” Marta asked.

“My chart’s right there,” he said, pointed as far as the handcuffs would let him. Marta picked up the clipboard and read over it. A punctured lung. She felt his eyes on her as she read it. “Is a total x-ray of my body enough information for you, finally?” he asked. He meant it to be a joke.

“You seem… remarkably okay,” Meg said, tears in her voice.

“Well, I haven’t gotten to see the two of you at once before,” he said. “That’s pretty cool.”

Marta flipped a page. “What’s your pain level?” she asked. The broken arm and cracked ribs meant it was high, probably.

“No opiates allowed,” Ransom said. “No fun. So. It hurts.”

“They can’t do this to you,” Meg blurted. “It’s not fair.”

Ransom looked at Marta. “It’s totally fair,” he said. “Can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing, in his position.” God, and he meant it. It was a challenge, or maybe a dare. Daring her to still find him worth seeing. Or maybe just hoping she would. They had to shave his beard to give him stitches along his jaw, shaved his head for more stitches behind one ear. His cheek was puffy - cracked eye socket, cheekbone. Marta turned back to the chart.

“That doesn’t mean you deserve it,” Meg said. She’d come closer, stood at the foot of his bed with her arms crossed tightly.

“I think that’s exactly what it means,” he said, and looked at Marta again, she felt it. She felt her cheeks warm up, too, and knew he saw. So instead she tried to focus on the chart, on the printed words telling her he’d sustained a severe concussion. “Marta,” Ransom said, and she looked up. “I’m not dying. They would’ve told me if I was dying.”

She opened her mouth and then stopped; she couldn’t begin to tell him how little that comforted her. There was a lot that could go wrong while he recovered from these injuries, Marta began to think about it and then couldn’t bring herself to. She put the chart down.

“We’ll talk to someone, we have to get them to… give you some medication or something, to make this easier. This is inhumane,” Meg said with great passion.

Ransom huffed out a kind of chuckle, and he looked at Marta. “You want to tell her, or should I?” he said.

“What do you mean?” Meg said, looking between the two of them. Marta thought she detected some desperateness in the glance, like Meg might be feeling left behind.

“I’m not entirely sure,” Marta said slowly.

He rolled his eyes. It looked like it hurt. “Entirely,” he said, which meant he was on to her. She couldn’t help but smile, a little. Then Ransom looked at Meg. “You’re not going to talk to anyone. It won’t make things better. Marta’s going to make sure I’m alright, because she’s a good person. But she’s not going to ask anyone to give me the good shit.”

“What? That’s insane, she doesn’t want you to be in pain,” Meg said, taking a step closer, and she looked at Marta with a faith in her that was sort of sweet but also, strangely, a little insulting.

“I…” Marta began, and paused.

Ransom’s grin took on a wicked edge. She knew the scab had to be stinging. “I understand,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t worried,” she answered crossly, on instinct, and his smile brightened.

“Marta,” Meg said with confusion and urgency.

Marta looked at her. It was the least she could do, while she said something like this. “Obviously,” she said, “this is terrible. But.”

“But,” Meg said with increasing disbelief. She had sort of a smile on her face, as she processed this. “Wow.”

“She can be ruthless,” Ransom said to Meg, and Marta’s face flushed hotter. “Isn’t it great?” he added.

“It’s something,” Meg said.

Ransom held his hand out for Marta, and her mouth went dry. He dropped it the moment he saw her face, and spoke like nothing had happened. “You don’t have to do shit,” he said. “It’s just great to see you. What’s going on with the kid? He still hanging around?”

“Yeah, he’s still coming back on weekends,” Marta said. “Alice is helping him get started on his college applications.”

Meg shook her head. “Hold on,” she said to Marta. “How long will until he’s out of the woods?”

“Only a couple days,” Marta said. “Then probably four weeks for the face, six or eight for the ribs, eight for the arm.” She looked at him for confirmation and he nodded once. “A lot of this will just take time.”

“And I’ve got plenty of that,” he said.

Was this how it would be, once he was out? That’s what Marta was really thinking about. How even with Meg here, Ransom managed to just talk to Marta when he wanted to.

“Hey,” Ransom said. “You guys have things to do? You can get out of here.” The twist to his mouth after he said that told Marta how much he wished they’d stay.

“They promised us normal visiting hours,” Meg said, and pulled a chair over from the other side of the room. Marta got one that was tucked off to one side, and they sat near him.

Marta went quiet, for a while, and let Meg talk with him. They had their own sort of pleasant rhythm, and it felt second-nature for her to slip into the background, just passively observe. She watched Ransom try to be gentle with Meg, and watched Meg want desperately to fix things with the family she could salvage. Meg was sort of desperate for love anywhere she could get it, Marta thought.

Then their conversation petered out organically, and Marta snapped back in to find Ransom looking at her. It had been so long since he’d been cold with her, but part of her was always surprised when he wasn’t. “You look nice,” he said.

She was not comfortable in her expensive blouses yet. “I was at a luncheon,” she said.

“Wow.” He smiled. “You’re officially one of them, huh?” She tilted her head but didn’t answer. It wasn’t a real question. “What kind of luncheon?”

“Some literary publication,” Marta said.

“The one I told you to join or the other one?”

“The other one. The one you said to join meets in the first quarter.”

Ransom nodded, and then for a second she could see just how much it hurt on his face.

“Can you be more careful?” she asked him.

“I could behave a little better,” he said with a small smile. “But there’s a lot out of my control here. You understand that.”

“I do,” she said, and she couldn’t decide if it would be weird to take his hand now so she didn’t do anything. “But I did want you to survive your sentence.”

“That makes one of us. Could you do me a favor?” he asked after a second. “Take a look at my head. Feels a little gnarly.”

Marta got up to get a proper look. The stitches were on Meg’s side, so she went around. Ransom tilted his head to give her a clear view. The stitches stretched from above his ear back towards the crown of his head. Maybe twenty of them. A pretty decent-sized gash with a sharp edge. She smoothed her thumb over the join, making Ransom draw in a sharp breath. The stitches were small and tight. “No,” she says. “This should be fine.”

“You sure? How do you like the new short hair?” he added. She thought he might like to sound vain, like he used to be.

Absently, she smoothed her fingers down the side of his head behind his ear, to the place where his neck met his skull. Then she remembered Meg was here. “I like it,” she said. “But I did like the beard.”

“Noted,” he said. “Meg? Beard or no beard?”

“The beard made you look older,” Meg said. “More dignified.”

He made eye contact with Marta, and there was something in his eyes again that she couldn’t read. A request, maybe, but Ransom didn’t like asking for things. “You know me,” he said. “Dignity for days.”

She couldn’t muster up the indignity for this that Meg had, but she was just a little concerned. “Really. Did you bring this on yourself?” she asked, seriously.

“In a way,” he said. Which was not a yes.

And suddenly, Marta thought about how it would feel if he was here unfairly. If one of the men supposed to be protecting him had beaten him like this.

“Hey,” Ransom said, reading her face. “Keep it together, boss.”

She looked at his crooked little smile, the creases at the corners of his eyes, and she put her hand back over his short hair. Gently, a caress, she pet him. He shut his eyes for a second, and she thought if she was alone she might do something else. Something unwise.

Meg didn’t say anything until they were outside, in the parking lot. “Marta,” she said, before they got in their cars.

“Yes?”

“Is that how he usually acts, with you?”

The question made her blood run cold, but Marta answered. “I think so. What do you mean?”

“Does he always…” Meg began, and hesitated. “I don’t know, I guess since you kept going back, I should’ve known that meant you were, like, friendly, but. I guess this is why he won’t let you talk at his parole hearing.”

Marta frowned. “What do you mean?”

Meg’s eyes went wide and she covered her mouth. “Shit,” she said. “I wasn’t supposed to… Okay. Well. I didn’t tell you this, but contact with you, his victim, could play extremely badly at his parole hearing unless you speak on his behalf. They don’t like murderers to be in contact with their victims, most of the time, and until today I thought that was a… pretty good policy.” She was shaken; she scraped her hair back, and then started putting all her necklaces back on. “You’re not mad at him?”

“I’m still… very mad at him,” Marta said carefully. “For what he did. But I’m trying to move on.”

“You’re moving on incredibly… warmly,” Meg said, and there was an edge there, one Marta got caught on.

“I’m sorry, are you upset I’m forgiving him?” Marta asked.

Meg shook her head, tears streaking down her cheeks in quick succession, and then she nodded. “No,” she said. “This is basically exactly what I wanted from… like it’s the dream, for everybody to like each other. But I… I’m torn, between… he’s my cousin, but you’re probably my best friend, and I know he tried to stab you, but.”

“But,” Marta repeated. “That’s where I keep getting hung up, too.”

Meg nodded and wiped her face. “You should come back alone,” she said. “I’m sure I don’t need to tell you, but. There’s something he wanted to say to just you.”

She didn’t need to be told, but Marta did think being told meant she should take it more seriously. “Okay.”

“Is he really gonna be okay?” Meg asked, and Marta nodded.

“I think so. I hope so,” she added.

“Me too.” They hugged goodbye; Marta made a point of squeezing her tight, to press love into her. “I’ll be up in two weeks,” Meg promised.

“I’ll see you then.”

Marta came prepared. She arrived at eight in the morning, in a sweater from Harlan and with two thousand dollars cash in her pocket. She expected to earn her way back to visitation, and was surprised to be taken back to the medical wing. Her stomach dropped out a little, when she realized, because that meant he wasn’t healing on track. It was a week after the visit with Meg. He should be back on his feet.

Instead, he was still cuffed to the same hospital bed. His bruises had healed more. The scab on his lip was gone. He had beard stubble. But somehow, he looked worse. Maybe it was the bags under his eyes. He didn’t smile when he saw her.

“Okay,” he said. “You’ve gotta stop spending your inheritance on these dumb shit guards.”

There were two guards in earshot, but he knew that. Something had happened. Marta answered with those other ears in mind. “My inheritance is my choice. Why aren’t you out of bed?”

Ransom gave her a hard smile, a mad one. “Not better yet,” he said. “They took the clipboard this time, don’t bother looking.”

“Why?” Marta asked on instinct, but she didn’t need him to tell her it was bad. All that could mean was that they had done something they wanted to hide. She sat in a chair at his side, pulling it up closer next to him. His hand was right here, she could take it. Though, now that she was looking, she saw his wrist was pink and raw; he’d been pulling at the cuff.

“Because they didn’t know you were a nurse,” he said, then added, “It’s nothing life-threatening.”

“Okay,” she said. “But what is it?”

He wasn’t going to answer. She saw it in his face. Some strange instinct took over, and she reached out and rubbed the edge of one fingernail over his raw wrist, slowly. And Ransom winced, but didn’t pull his hand away. “Well,” he said. “There’s that.”

“If you’re going to lie,” she began.

“I’m not,” Ransom answered. “I just wish you’d…” He twisted his hand around to capture a few of her fingers in his, and she let him have them for a moment before she pulled back. “I wish you’d let me…”

“Tell me,” she said.

Ransom blinked a couple times, and looked down, away from her. “I’m easier to manage,” he ground out. “Here. Tied down 22 hours a day. So. I’m not better yet.”

Marta knew that wasn’t all. They did something or said something that had him fighting like hell to get out. So she decided right then that she wasn’t going to bring up the parole hearing thing today. That could wait. They had years. Right now, he needed something else from her. And she needed something from him, too. The truth.

“This wasn’t your fault, was it?” she said softly. “This guard beat you because he could.”

Ransom nodded, slowly, several times until the gesture almost lost meaning. “You’re probably no stranger to the whole police brutality thing,” he said quietly. “Right?”

“I am not.”

“You know a lot, probably, right? About how things are unfair. I see that in how much you try to make things actually fair, when you can. Even insane situations like the one my family got you into.”

She felt uncomfortably exposed, so she leaned into that feeling, scooted her chair closer towards him. “That’s… I’m just doing my best.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m lucky it’s taken this long.”

Part of her agreed with him, but that didn’t feel great because now she also wanted him to be happy. She pressed her fingertips into his palm. “There’s a limit, though,” she said. “I think we’re getting there.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. They sat in silence together, the one point of contact between them. There was something hanging in the air, the reason Meg told her to come back. Marta didn't know what it was yet, but she knew it was that.

"Meg," Ransom eventually said, like he could read her mind.

"She was a little... shaken," Marta said. "I don't think she knew..."

"What, that she had to share you?" he asked, giving her a knowing look.

That was more true than she thought it would be. "That I wasn't just taking pity on you," she said. "That we..." Irritate each other, she almost said, or maybe get along. To call their connection a need felt too strong, but just want wasn't strong enough. "See each other," she said in the end, echoing how he had put it.

"Yeah." He sounded tired. "Are you..."

"Am I what?"

"I don't know. This isn't a good day for talking. For me." He lifted his hand, and then seemed to remember he was restrained and dropped it. "How much did they charge you?" he asked quieter.

"Two grand," she said, matching his tone. She leaned closer, and used that as an excuse to adjust her grip on his hand. Now, she held it properly, and when he closed his fingers around hers, she let him.

"They're not gonna let you in next time," he said, avoiding her eyes. "I'll call you when this is all over, but you should stay away."

"Would you write?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Let me do this."

“It’s starting to feel masochistic," she said. Her chest felt tight.

"Maybe. Probably. What it definitely is, though, is not your problem." Ransom squeezed her hand and met her eyes. "It isn't. You know that."

She knew it, but his faith in that felt like the kind of compliment she didn't want to hear. "I wish..." she began, but didn't finish.

Ransom answered anyways. "It might not feel like it, but this is probably good for you. I mean, if you're going to forgive me, you definitely shouldn't forget. I bet it's probably really satisfying, too.”

"To see you get hurt?"

"No, to not have total sympathy for every living creature. To be able to say, fuck this guy. He tried to stab me, I'm glad he's locked up." He said it with passion, but he kept her hand.

"It's not that simple," she said, but he was right. Seeing him was a release. Maybe it was exactly what he said, the freedom of not having to spend any energy on feeling bad for him. Letting him try harder at whatever they were. "I do care about you,” she said because she had to.

Ransom looked at her gently, speculatively. "I know," he said, like that was obvious. "And I hope... well, I'm sure you already know, but. It's not..." He never fumbled like this.

Marta squeezed his hand. "I know," she said too. "So I don't want to just leave you for weeks."

"I survived years without you. You know that, right?" he said, but the sarcasm didn't hit as hard as it usually did.

“Yes, by a miracle,” Marta said.

He brushed his thumb over her knuckles, and Marta had to hold back a shiver. It suddenly struck her, how intimate this was. How stupid it was, too. Mostly, it struck her how much she actually did trust him not to hurt her again.

“Y’know what I really thought, when you were here with Meg?” Ransom asked, and she looked at him. “I thought about that birthday party we had for her a couple years ago. Remember that? Everyone was in the area.”

“I do,” Marta nodded. It was the beginning of her friendship with Meg. “I got her a pair of earrings, and she almost cried.”

Ransom smiled a little. “Yeah, I remember. Joni was pissed.”

“Was she?”

“You didn’t hear?”

“I tried to avoid the rest of the family at holidays. Even you,” she added after a second. Not because he’d call her out, but because she liked telling him the truth. He always found it so unexpected. He’d give her this look, the one he was giving her now.

“Don’t rewrite history,” he said. “I was the one avoiding you. In any event, Joni was really pissed, yeah. Never paid a second of attention to her daughter and was so surprised when the fucking… boho dress she got her wasn’t exactly what Meg wanted.”

“Meg doesn’t wear pink,” Marta said.

“So you do remember,” he said victoriously. “Good. And the end of the night.”

“When the adults were arguing about the election in the dining room,” she agreed.

Ransom tilted his head and made an amused kind of grimace. “Meg said something about…”

“Cryptocurrency,” Marta sighed. “I’m so glad she’s over that.”

Ransom made gesture with his other hand; this is exactly what he meant. “And you and me made eye contact. Like past her, across the room.”

She knew exactly the moment he was talking about. If she thought about it, she could see it still. His eyes, so brightly amused, and Meg’s annoyance when Ransom said something teasing. “You called me the maid,” Marta said. That’s how that interaction had ended. Even the maid knows how dumb that sounds.

“I’m an asshole,” he pointed out.

That was a convincing point.

“Besides, that’s not my point,” he said. And irritation spiked in her lungs, the frustration of his careless privilege. “I was thinking,” he said, “about when I get out.”

Marta’s heartbeat sounded loud in her ears. “Yeah,” she said. When nothing would be standing between him and her heart.

Maybe he could hear her fear. He didn’t let go of her hand. “Anyways. Whatever. Before you go, would you… it still hurts when I breathe,” he said stiffly.

“I’ll take a look.” She got up. “We’re not guaranteed our full time, after all.”

“No,” he agreed.

He was loathe to let go of her hand, so she put her hand over his chest as a kind of consolation prize. Right in the middle. She wondered what she’d do if she had a knife. If the look in his eyes was anything to judge by, he was thinking roughly the same thing. “Where?” Marta asked.

“Sort of the whole ribcage area,” Ransom said solemnly. “The usual place.”

“I’m trying to be sensitive.”

“Stop trying and take my shirt off,” he said with a little smirk. The kind of smirk that confused her, and it wasn’t the first time he’d said or done a little something like that. But it was the first time they were alone since before his attempted stabbing, and Marta was a little stunned to find it had the same effect as it had back in that little restaurant. Sparks at the base of her spine.

Marta knew how to work while her mind was somewhere else. She unbuttoned his shirt deftly, not hesitating when she felt chest hair and warm skin. And she didn’t look at him either, she focused on one his hands instead. “Did they tell you to take deep breaths several times a day?” she asked.

“No. I’m guessing they should’ve.”

“Yes,” she said. “Deep breaths to stave off pneumonia.” He took one performatively, and then groaned so hard she put her hand over his shoulder without thinking about it. “It’ll hurt,” she said belatedly.

“Fuck you,” he sighed with a smile on his face. And then he flushed down his neck, pale skin going rapidly pink.

That was fascinating. But she didn’t linger on that, because then Marta got the last button, and opened his shirt, and saw the extent of his bruising.

There were three discrete areas of impact. One of those areas was his entire right side. And Marta finally understood why she came back, what he wanted from her. He just wanted to be seen. Fair or unfair, whether or not she could do anything. He needed to be seen. His eyes were on her, watching closely.

Professional training came in handy; Marta did not tear up. She swallowed once, hard, and met his eyes. “Which side?”

“For what?”

“The punctured lung.”

“Right side,” he said, as she expected.

“Take another deep breath.”

Ransom obeyed, pain on his face. She didn’t hear a wheeze. And after that, it was several seconds before he took another. “Are you breathing unusually fast?” she asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Good.” She had few other diagnostic options. Taking his pulse and feeling the ribs themselves. But for a moment, she just stared. He was right there. No less strong, no less sharp. Held in bed by just two sets of handcuffs.

“Marta.” She startled, looked at him but Ransom looked nothing but sympathetic. “You don’t have to-”

“Don’t talk,” she said, and put her fingers over the pulse point in his neck. He held very still, barely breathing. His pulse wasn’t overly fast. 70-ish beats in a minute. “How does it hurt when you breathe? Sharp, dull, lingering?”

“All of the above,” he said dryly.

“Okay. Well, I don’t want to prod at your broken bones, so-”

“I want that,” he cut her off.

Marta frowned at him. He looked back evenly. She wondered if she should mention that all this could do was tell her which ribs were broken and how bad. But he was just looking at her, dead serious. “Tell me when to stop,” she said.

“I never want you to stop,” he replied, and the unbruised parts of his chest went redder.

“You must be lonely,” she said with all the disapproval she could muster. It wasn’t much. And then, to reassure him, she smoothed one hand over his head. His hair was very soft, and her touch made him smile. “You don’t need to act out.”

“Wow,” he said. “After school special much?”

It wasn’t exactly fun, to press on his bruises and hear his sharp hisses. But it was something, something that made her heart clench in a good way. It was the honesty, maybe. Of him asking for it and not changing his mind, clenching his jaw and putting up with it. He wanted her to touch him. That was the only conclusion it was reasonable to make. That felt... some particular way.

Frighteningly, she found she liked touching him, she liked putting her palm on a less-bruised spot and feeling him breathe. Ransom couldn’t take his eyes off her; Marta refused to meet his gaze.

The silence in the room was heavy. Hard to break. Marta buttoned his shirt back up for him. "If one more thing happens with this guard, I'm getting involved," she said, keeping her voice down. "Are we clear?"

"Crystal," he agreed solemnly.

She did up the last button, and then she hesitated. Again, she thought about the study, the knife. If he'd stabbed her, she would probably have aspirated blood. It would've been a toss up, which would kill her first, bleeding out or choking. Ten minutes, maybe.

"Hey," he said, and she made eye contact with him. He hadn't stabbed her. He'd grabbed a stage knife. And now he didn't know what to say because he could tell she was scared. "Thank you."

Somehow she knew, it sounded inadequate to both of them. "Of course," she said.

"Deep breaths," he said.

"Yes. Or you'll get pneumonia."

The cuffs clinked as he shifted. He was still looking at her with something like concern in his eyes, and that put Marta on edge. Ransom knew her so he was right, she was uneasy. He was the last person she wanted to admit it to but the only person she'd consider telling.

That day, she left without talking about it. It was not a good day for either of them to have this conversation. He was restless and antsy, and when she changed the subject to Jacob's recent acquisition of a girlfriend Ransom seemed glad for the distraction. So they talked about other things, family things, for the rest of the visit.

A guard came in for Marta at the end. "Time's up," he said.

Marta glanced at Ransom. "Okay," she said, and got up to put her coat on.

"Hey," he said. "Don't feel bad for me."

"I don't," she said resolutely. And she didn't, in some ways, but her stomach was still uneasy. Maybe that was why she said the next thing. "It's like you said."

"What did I say?" Ransom tilted his head.

For once, Marta got to smirk at him and deliver the final line. "Fuck this guy," she said. "Right?" And she was aware, too aware, of the subtext.

Ransom didn't smile, not quite. "Damn right," he said.

Marta nodded, and walked out. She didn't think she could talk if she wanted to. And, infuriatingly - terrifyingly - her cheeks stayed hot for the whole drive home.

School started, for Alice and Jacob. Meg worked sixty hour weeks. The house was empty. Marta and Mama had enough space to rarely see each other, and most days that's what happened. It started to feel like breathing - weekends were deep inhales, full of noise and footsteps when everyone came back, and week days were exhales, empty and drained.

All through the fall, Marta didn't hear from Ransom. So maybe that's why it felt like holding her breath. She had the debate with herself dozens of times, about driving out there and insisting. Demanding to see him. It felt important that she didn't, though. He asked her to stay away. She couldn't break him out of his handcuffs, but she could listen to what he asked.

Marta's life was full. She'd started volunteering in the area - Red Cross events, the local hospital, several homeless shelters - just to fill her time. She stayed involved in several literary publications and set up a foundation that would give grants to young writers. She started boxing, just for the hell of it. Occasionally, she had dinners or lunches with people she was starting to know from various boards or clubs. She was doing good in the world, more than she ever thought she could. And still, it didn't feel like enough.

She thought about him a lot. A few times, she dreamed about him. Not always the same dream, but they got progressively high-stakes. Three days after what would've been Harlan's 87th birthday, she had one that was unforgettable. She woke up with a start, distinct images emblazoned in her mind.

They were in the study, and Marta had the impression that the detectives were there, just like they were for the murder investigation. Ransom was there. Standing in front of her, and lunging at her with a knife - a real one this time, she just knew - and holding his hand out to her, and kneeling in front of her. The kneeling was what she couldn't shake. It didn't make sense, it was nothing he'd ever done. But she could see the wicked smile in his eyes like it had actually happened, and her heart was racing when she woke up and didn't stop for twenty minutes.

Thanksgiving came and went, then Christmas.

Jacob stayed the entire holiday break with them. These days he smiled a little bit more. He went off on his own less. Meg and him had stopped arguing about things. They never explicitly expressed agreement on anything, but Marta saw a climate change sticker on his laptop. He'd applied to six colleges. He was doing okay.

Alice was in her element back in school, without tuition or food to worry about. It was so clear she was going to be a kick-ass lawyer, and Marta missed her so much she sometimes couldn't stand it. So the holidays were good for several reasons.

It was the day before Christmas Eve. Marta was in the cellar, picking wine with Meg. "I sold all the super expensive stuff," Marta said.

"To collectors?"

"In part. But also because could never drink something that was thousands of dollars," Marta said.

Meg made a face. "It does sound weird when you put it that way. Here are the cabernets." She pulled out a few bottles, looking at labels until she found what she was evidently looking for. "Are you letting Jacob drink?"

"That's all Mama. She's allowing one glass of wine."

"Okay, so maybe two bottles? Three?" Meg held two, one in each hand.

Marta grabbed a third. "Just to be safe."

Alice met them on the steps. "Hey," she said.

"What is it?"

"Ransom just called."

It would've been cliche if Marta dropped the bottle. She almost did anyways. "Give me the phone," she said.

"He's gone," Alice said. "But he said to tell you you can come back."

"What else did he say?" Meg asked.

"Nothing. He asked how college was going. And then he said, tell Marta she can come back. It was a pretty straightforward message," Alice added, deadpan.

"Okay," Marta managed to say. All of a sudden, she felt choked up. She headed back up the steps, past her sister. Meg and Alice followed.

"So you're visiting him," Alice said, not really a question.

"Yes." Marta put the wine down on the kitchen island and went hunting for the corkscrew.

"When, tomorrow?"

Tomorrow was Wednesday. "The day after," Marta said. "It's not his day tomorrow."

Meg set the bottles down next to Marta's, and just stood there. "Christmas Day," she said.

That was hardly relevant. "Are you going to tell me what a bad idea it is?" Marta asked crossly.

Alice didn't answer. When Marta finally found the corkscrew and looked up, both of the other girls were just watching her. "What?" Marta demanded. In the silence, she heard how irritated she'd just sounded and regretted it.

"Is he okay?" Alice asked.

"Since when do you want him to be okay?" Marta said briskly, peeling the top off one bottle.

Her sister did a big dramatic shrug. "I dunno. He was calling three times a week for months, it's not like he's a stranger."

"If he says I can visit, then yes, he's okay," Marta said. Then she caught Meg and Alice exchanging a look. It was strangely scary. "I'd prefer you just tell me what you think," she said, a little too loudly.

Alice looked back to Meg. Meg wrinkled her nose. "Do you think he's using you?" she asked. "I mean really."

"For what?" Marta asked. She was struggling with the corkscrew.

"For... emotional support, or. Favors."

"I don't do favors for him."

"Okay," Alice said after a second. "And? Emotional-”

Marta abandoned the bottle and leaned on the counter. "Maybe he is," she admitted. "That makes sense."

"You're not... upset about that?" Meg asked. She came over to take over the corkscrew.

"No," Marta said. "Because I'm using him too. And I'm pretty sure that's just friendship."  She needed to be less defensive. Marta made the effort to consider their opinions. They were only trying to protect her, probably. "We need to have a conversation," she said more evenly, "about him."

"About how you're friends with him," Meg agreed.

Marta pointed at her sister. "If you call him a murderer I'll scream."

"He's an attempted murderer," Alice said unrepentantly. "It's important to note that. But!" Marta sighed. "But! Listen to everything I'm saying."

"I'm listening, aren't I?"

Alice leaned on the island too, mirroring Marta. "I get it," she said. "I think."

"You do," Marta said dubiously.

Meg got the bottle open, and poured the three of them generous glasses.

"I do," Alice agreed. "Forgiving him is like, the top. The best thing you could do. Ever, in your life. Plus you've puked on the guy. That's a bond."

She was joking. Marta couldn't believe it. "Do you mean it? For real?"

"Yeah," Alice said. "Especially now that your will is set up."

She went in the Christmas pajamas Meg had gotten her, flannel leggings and a deep green sweater. Her hair was in a fraying french braid. They'd been up late on Christmas Eve, so she didn't get up as early as she meant to. But she'd rather show up naked than wait two more days.

Well, not naked. That was a weird thing to think. She just meant nothing would stop her.

Her hands wouldn't stop shaking. Driving, waiting, walking to the visitation room. She was trembling harder than the night Harlan died, and she couldn't understand why. It was just Ransom. Even the sight of him, on the other side of the room, didn't give her any peace.

Ransom stood as she approached, and Marta walked faster without consciously meaning to. She barely had the thought before she decided on doing it; instead of sitting, she closed the distance between them and hugged him tightly. She went up on her tiptoes, her arms over his shoulders. His fit naturally around her waist, his chin over her shoulder. He wasn't shaking at all, and the longer he held her, the more her shaking dissolved into an electric sort of calm.

She felt his chest expand as he breathed. She could feel his pulse. He smelled like nothing much, generic soap, but there was something familiar in it. Somehow.

Seconds passed, and it went from a hug to something longer. An embrace. Holding each other. Ransom moved his chin, pressing his lips against her shoulder. “You’re okay?” she said when she was sure she could get it out. He nodded against her, his stubble prickling at her cheek. But then, he didn’t let go either.

Marta let go in the end, when her legs ached from being up on her toes for so long. If she didn’t look at him right away, she wasn’t sure she’d ever have the strength to, so she kept her hands on his shoulders and met his eyes. He was examining her closely.

“You’re okay?” he asked her back, and she nodded. “You sure?”

“Yes. I would know.”

“Sure, but you’ve never done anything like this before,” he said, trying his best to be gentle.

Marta sat, and he sat next to her. He folded his hands, and then unfolded them and fiddled awkwardly. It seemed like he might want to reach for her hand. She was very glad he didn’t. “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “About when you get out.”

Ransom was surprised. “Okay…”

“I’d like to see you.”

“Whenever you want,” he agreed readily.

“I want to be friends,” she continued.

“We can be whatever you want.”

She had shivers, prickling down her arms. “And,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken, “I want to speak at your parole hearing.”

That stopped him. He gaped at her. “What?”

“I want to-”

“I heard you,” he said. “Why? Who…”

“Meg,” she answered.

Ransom sighed, and rubbed a hand over his hair. “Goddamn Meg. I knew she’d break.”

“I didn’t know,” Marta said, firm and even. “I didn’t think, I didn’t know… I never meant to put you at risk.”

“Yeah, you didn’t know because I didn’t want you to.”

“I deserve to make my own decisions!”

That stopped him. He couldn’t say that wasn’t true. He made a face, and eventually said, “You have no responsibility to-”

“I know,” she said. “I know. It’s not responsibility, it’s…”

“What. Friendship?” he suggested, sounding sarcastic.

Marta couldn’t say what she wanted, that it was so much more than friendship. She couldn’t tell him about her dreams - which hadn’t gone away, and in fact grown more vivid. So instead, she held eye contact until he stopped pretending. “I will be speaking,” she said.

Ransom nodded a few times, slowly. “You got it, boss,” he said then, sincere and quiet. “But you know I’ll owe you forever.”

Honestly, she was more comfortable with that as the foundation of whatever they were. At least she could talk about that without turning bright pink. “I can live with that if you can,” she said.

“I’m just saying.”

Marta looked at him, at the now-faded scar on his jaw and the slight bump in his nose that hadn’t been there before. She thought about his chest, touching it, and his hair. “Merry Christmas,” she said softly.

Ransom did smile then, and tipped his shoulder into hers. “Gotta say. Great gift.”

“I’m very thoughtful.”

“You are.” His voice sounded particularly deep, and that was distracting. But Marta held it together.

“So,” she said. “Let’s talk about Alice’s semester. You will not be surprised to learn she’s got several suitors.”

“I am not,” he said with a smile. “And her GPA?”

“3.9 something.”

“You think she’ll talk to me when I’m out?”

Marta liked that question. She took a second to just like it. “I have a suspicion she will,” she said. And she held something else close to her heart, the hope of Ransom getting along with her family. She wrapped it up tight in her chest, and kept it there.

Marta was in the study when she heard a rap on a door. The patio door, not the front door. She frowned and got up; there wasn’t anyone she could think of who’d be here. And it was cold out.

When she got to the door, no one was there. She opened the door anyways, and took a step out. And then she saw him, standing on the balcony off to one side, looking out at field. When he heard the door, he turned and grinned at her. “You should really block off the side path,” Ransom said.

“It’s covered by four cameras now,” she said. It was hard to breathe. She drank in every inch of him, neatly-trimmed beard, the clothes that didn’t quite fit right. They were cheap - a flannel shirt, jeans, jacket. And there was a smile that kept threatening to break over his face. She was so happy to see him, but she couldn't move.

“I wasn’t sure when you'd be released,” she said, which was another way of saying Why wouldn’t you talk to me for the past three months?

“Yeah, I figured Linda didn’t keep you in the loop,” he said. He didn’t come any closer, not yet. “I got out four days ago.”

Marta wanted to ask him why he didn’t come straight here. “You know I didn’t sell your house,” she said.

“I’m aware,” Ransom said, and that was all he said.

In the following silence, Marta realized a couple things. Primarily, that she was alone in the house and so they were alone, actually alone, for the first time since he tried to kill her. And alongside that was the realization that she might actually be afraid of him. She'd seen him at his parole hearing, and then she hadn't been afraid at all. Maybe the guards and bars on the windows did more than she thought. What she actually realized, then, was that she might not actually know him, not really.

"Well," he said eventually. "Just wanted to..." Marta took a step closer, and he fell silent.

"To show up and then not say anything?" she said, sounding impressively calm, and she managed to convince herself to take another step or two. But that was as far as she could go; she sat on the couch and crossed her arms against the lingering spring chill.

"Well," he said. "Kind of." He took a hesitant step towards her, and then another, and then came and sat too. It was like he forgot how to move, maybe, or expected her to run if he moved too fast. He sat across from her. "I kind of just wanted to see you," he said, leaning forward and folding his hands. "To see if you looked any different out here."

That was an uncharacteristically soft thing for him to say. "Do I?" she asked.

"I don't know." He looked at the floor. "Not as different as I thought, maybe. I thought you'd change the house more."

Marta shook her head. "I loved a lot of it," she said.

"Yeah."

She thought about inviting him in. When she thought about his eventual release - rarely, and only when she couldn't help it - she'd never nailed down her ideal setting for their reunion. A neutral third-party place, maybe. A Panera. Or Linda's house. Or once, maybe his house. But he refused to bring up the situation with his house, and she felt strange trying to. And now, he’d just shown up here. Four days after he got out.

"I wasn't sure you'd want to see me," he volunteered. He was in tune with her thoughts again; that should've been a relief, Marta thought, but for some reason it just spooked her more.

Marta didn't bother pretending that was out of the realm of possibility. "I do," she said instead. "So you're living with Linda?"

He nodded, made a face. "But we don't have to talk about it. How's Alice, is she here?"

It could be a pleasant inquiry. It could be probing to see if she's alone. Either way, Marta didn't want to try and lie. "No," she said. "She's at class. But you could stay for dinner."

"Yeah, right," he scoffed.

"You won't?" That hurt. Or maybe it was a relief.

"I'm scaring the shit out of you," he said, looking up at her.

"Why did you wait four days?" she asked.

Ransom gave her a small, contained smile. "Would you believe me if I said I was nervous?"

Marta knew better than to take that question at face value. "Why were you nervous?" she asked directly.

"I didn't know if you'd want to see me,” he said again, and Marta heard it this time. He leaned back in his seat and looked away, back out over the land. "If you were just saying it, y'know? Being nice."

"Lying?" she asked incredulously.

"Well, maybe not in the moment."

It was a fair enough point, except that it completely devalued the effort she made to be truthfully, honestly nice. "I want you to stay for dinner," Marta said. "And, I'm also scared of you." And then she held eye contact with him, daring him to say she lied.

"Well," he said after a long pause. "I like one of those things."

This was normal for them, their usual rhythm. But here, in real life, Marta found it wasn't good enough. They were alone, they had no reason not to be more honest. “No bullshit," she said. "What do you want?"

"No bullshit?"

She nodded, and Ransom nodded back. He stalled, scratched his jaw. "What I've wanted since I've known you," he finally said.

That sounded like something she was supposed to understand, but she didn't. "What is that?"

He stood up, and held his hand out to her so Marta stood up too. His hand around hers wasn't frightening, it was steadying. She took a bracing deep breath and looked up at him. "What?" she said. And she saw it coming then, in his eyes. He'd never looked at her like this before. It left her breathless.

“I’m probably in love with you,” Ransom said. Because she’d asked, and he didn’t like lying to her. “That’s all.”

The most surprising thing about this was how natural it felt, now that he said it. Marta took a deep breath. “You should kiss me,” she said before she lost the nerve.

“Well. You’re the boss,” Ransom said, his nonchalance paper thin. And he kissed her.

She'd never thought about kissing him, but if she did she would've thought he'd be... well. Himself. Brash and demanding and harsh. But this kiss was none of that. He kissed her tenderly, held her with a hand cradling her jaw and the other at her waist, and it was just for a second. Marta had ample time to pull away, and she didn't. She didn’t after, either, not right away. She put her hand on his chest, and stayed where she was.

“Is this why,” she began, and had to clear her throat. “Is that why you wouldn’t see me? After your parole hearing.”

“Yep.” He linked his hands at the small of her back. “It was unbearable. What can I say - I’m a real slut for girls who passionately advocate for my release.”

She smiled a little, her mind and heart racing. They stood there for a few more moments, and then Marta needed to take a step back. This was too much; she was overwhelmed. “So you’ll stay?” she asked as calmly as she could, crossing her arms. “For dinner.”

“I’ll do whatever you want,” he said. And she had no doubt that he meant it.

Later, Marta thought about that thing Harlan always said about family. Family is who you choose to let hurt you. Maybe he'd known more than he let on; the last time he'd said it, it had been about Ransom.