"Mummy?"

"Yes?" MJ looked up from the piano to regard her twins, who were already so much bigger than she could believe. They only had one day left in England before they flew back to Los Angeles, another lovely Christmas holiday at Tanglewood over and behind them. Archie, Poppie and Skip had flown back from Courchevel the day before, and Poppy and Skip had left for their North London home that morning.

Kiki and Lulu looked at her out of their father's eyes, brows drawn close with concern.

"Something's wrong with Uncle Archie," Kiki said.

"Yeah, he'th broken," Lulu added, slipping back into her lisp, something she only did when she was really upset.

"He's broken?" MJ repeated, hiding her smile with effort.

The girls nodded. "He doesn't want to play with us or anything. He just keeps on lying down in his bed and  typing on his phone. And he keeps breathing long, like this." And both girls huffed deep breaths, expanding their chests and puffing out their cheeks theatrically, then exhaling vigorously into their mother's face.

"And his face looks like this," Kiki added, pulling her mouth into a frown and blinking quickly.

MJ turned to face her daughters and pulled them into a hug. "I know, guys, I know. Uncle Archie is having a little girl trouble right now, that's all, so he's just a little upset."

"Girl trouble? You mean Clio? What kind of trouble?" Lulu asked, shocked. "Clio loveth Uncle Archie tho much, and he jutht thpent all that time thkiing with her in Franth, what happened?"

"They just had a little misunderstanding, that's all," MJ said in a soothing voice. She'd of course heard an abridged version from Archie the night before. She knew nothing of the assault, only that Clio thought Archie had cheated on him and that he couldn't convince her otherwise. "The point is that he doesn't feel like playing right now, for whatever reason, so I want you girls to leave him alone, okay? He needs a little space."

Both girls nodded seriously as they looked at their mother.

"I know! Why don't you go and see if Daddy wants to play?" MJ suggested. "I think he's in the kitchen talking to Granny and Grandad."

Kiki and Lulu looked at each other, smiling. "Yeah, let's see if Daddy will play!" And they dashed off to see if their father would play "horses" with them, shouting "Tally ho!" and "Tantivvy!" as they went.

MJ smiled, shook her head, and went back to work on the bridge of the song she was trying to finish before they went back to LA.

Archie, who was standing at the top of the stairs and had heard the entire exchange, turned and went back to bed, grateful beyond words to his sister-in-law. He crawled dispiritedly back into bed and sent Clio another text, begging her to call him, or text him, or give him permission to call or text her.

He only got silence back.

He wondered if the Santangelos were still in Italy, or if they were already back in New York.

HIs phone pinged with a text. It was Willow.

"Hey, stranger! I left my phone in New York, can you believe it? I just got back this second!"

"You didn't have your laptop? You couldn't borrow someone's phone or whatever for the entire time you were at home?" Archie was incredulous.

"I don't know, it was kind of liberating, TBH. I think we're all a little too tethered to our devices sometimes. I kind of liked being in LA, going shopping, seeing friends, walking on the beach, with no thoughts about what to post and not post, who to tell stuff to, it was nice.
I did miss talking to you, though."

Archie was not impressed by Willow's liberation from her "devices."

"I wanted to ask you about the party we went to before the break."

"Yeah? What about it?"

"Did anything funny happen there? To me, I mean? I got pretty pissed, the latter part of the evening is kind of a blur."

"Hahahahaha! Yeah, you were pretty plastered, weren't you? But anyway, I left early, so I don't really know what happened to you after. Why, are you pregnant or something?"

This was followed by a winky emoji.

"Very funny. Let's just say I don't remember every moment of the evening, so I'm trying to fill-in the holes in my memory, okay?"

Archie only got silence back, a silence which lasted so long he wondered if Willow had to go somewhere or something. Then, after fifteen minutes or so, his phone pinged again.

"Okay, look, I wasn't going to say anything, but since you ask, as I was leaving, you were getting very friendly with a bunch of girls."

What?

"What do you mean by 'a bunch'?"

"Three or four?"

"THREE OR FOUR?"

"At least."

"Who were they?"

Archie got back a shrugging emoji.

"I didn't know any of them. They looked kind of rough, kind of slutty, if you want to know the truth. They didn't even look like Columbia students. It kind of surprised me, because I thought you were all sewn up with Clio, you know? And she's such a clean, milquetoast type of girl lol. But I guess every guy gets the urge to splash around in the dirtiest mud puddle he can find when he gets the chance, huh, fella?"

Archie decided to let the milquetoast and mud puddle remarks go for now, though they really angered him.

He could hear his nieces, brother and father laughing and galloping up and down the hall.

"That doesn't sound like something I'd do, though, you know?"

Another shrugging emoji.

"Don't know what to tell you, big guy. I guess Clio doesn't push all your buttons, maybe. Not surprising, is it? She's so young, and inexperienced. She looks like a little kid, for Christ's sake! I'm sure you're her first. How can she satisfy a man like you, so much older, a person of the world, so experienced?"

"This is all none of your fucking business, if you don't mind. I'm just trying to find out what happened at the party."

"Okay, Jesus, sorry. Just pointing out how things seem from the outside looking in, that's all."

"Right, got it. So, the party?" Archie tried to pull the convo back to the topic at hand.

"I don't know anything."

Archie knew he'd hurt her feelings, and she was probably shut down on the subject of the party, at least for now.

"Look, I'm going back tomorrow, I'll see you soon, okay? Take care."

"Sure, Arch. See you soon."

********************

"Why does our apartment seem smaller whenever we come back from Colibrí?" Finn asked, looking around the Santangelos' Tribeca penthouse. Their driver and the doormen followed the family with their luggage. Pete stayed down on the street, having taken Della around the corner to relieve herself on a convenient patch of dirt.

"Well, it's big for New York, but it is smaller, compared to a Tuscan winery, isn't it?" Lottie said logically. "So it's going to feel little to us when we first come back. Just like when you go to Linus' house to spend the weekend, you always come back and say our apartment feels so big, right? Even though it's the same size as it was when you left?"

"I guess you're right, yeah." Finn smiled at his sister, who smiled back. "Mom, I'm hungry, can we have pizza for dinner?"

"God, you can have each other for dinner as far as I'm concerned," Daisy responded, flopping down on the couch. "I'm pooped. "Francie? Clio? You agree with me?"

Francie grinned at the joke, but Clio only said, "Sure, sounds good," as she began loading some laundry into the washing machine. She sounded the way she had since she came back from France, exhausted and sorrowful.

The rest of the family exchanged looks of concern.

Daisy looked at her children and shook her head.

Don't worry. Don't say anything for now.

"Mom? Mom! Come in here please!" Clio's voice was urgent and horrified from the confines of the laundry room.

Daisy rose immediately and went quickly to her oldest daughter, motioning the rest of her children to remain where they were. Brina, in particular, hated not knowing things, and wanted desperately to follow, but Francie stopped her with a look.

Daisy said something to Clio and shut the door to the laundry room which, coupled with the sound of the washing machine, successfully drowned out whatever they were saying

After a few minutes, both Clio and Daisy emerged, brown and blue eyes streaming, cheeks wet with tears.

Pete, who had finally come upstairs, was relaxing on the sofa with a glass of wine when he saw them. He rose immediately, setting his glass aside.

"What? What's happened?" he asked, concerned.

The rest of the family also looked up at the sound of their father's voice.

What could've happened in the laundry room to make them so upset?

"Oh you guys, I'm so sorry," Daisy began. "It's Cina. She died."

Clio put her arm around her mother as Daisy covered her face with her hands.

Pete made a sad face of sympathy and took quick strides to his wife to envelop her in his arms.

"Oh, cara, I'm so sorry," he murmured. He kissed her hair and wiped his own eyes as her arms came around him.

The entire family came together in a huge group hug, everyone crying. Francie picked up Finn, Pete picked up Lottie, and Daisy picked up Brina, though the girls were really too big to be held, and they stood in a huge blob of family comfort and wept for their cat. Della, not knowing what was wrong, but knowing that her people were sad, wandered among them, whining.

"She was okay yesterday when Ellen and Maya came to feed her and check on her," Daisy said through her tears. "And when I touched her just now, she was--she was still warm. It must have just happened."

"She looks like she's just sleeping on the window sill, you know, like she does," Clio continued the narrative. "You know how she loves it in the laundry room because it's so warm and that sill is so sunny?"

Everyone nodded and smiled.

"I feel so bad that she died all alone, you know?" Clio sobbed. "If we'd only come home a few hours earlier."

Pete released his wife and went in the laundry room to look, and emerged wiping his eyes. "She went peacefully, which is very good, and so lucky for her, and for us, we should be glad for her," he told everyone.

"Just like Granny," Daisy said in a soft voice. "Remember, Pete?"

He nodded and put an arm around her.

"She's been with me my whole life," Clio said, nodding, her chin trembling. "You guys got her when Mom was pregnant with me, right?"

Pete and Daisy nodded, smiling. "Her name was the first word you ever said," Daisy remembered.

"Can we go in and see her?" Finn asked. "To say goodbye? Would that be weird?"

"No, it wouldn't be weird," Daisy answered. "Go ahead."

So Finn, Lottie, Brina and Francie all went in to give Cina one last pat, tell her she was a good girl, and say good bye. And she did look like she was just napping on the sunny sill, like she had time without number, her whole life.

Pete buried her deep in one of their flower beds, out on the terrace, where she liked to play when the weather was warm, and they all agreed that they would plant a rose bush on the spot when the spring came.

That night, before she went to bed, Clio went out in the bitterly cold night and sat by Cina's grave.

"You were my good friend, weren't you?" She spoke gently. "You were so patient when I was learning to walk, and you let me sleep in your bed, remember? I'll miss you, my kitty-cat friend. Bye-bye, Cina, see you again someday."