Aunt Cecily She was six years old and hiding under a desk.
Sophie hadn’t planned any of this. But this week she was a detective superspy, so she had been snooping about her dad’s home office, critically examining the smattering of legal documents strewn about his desk. She might have thought they were viable evidence if only she could understand them, but there were way too many big words for her.
Then she had heard footsteps and in a panic dove to find cover; after all, she was Not Allowed in her dad’s office. And now, well, she was hiding under the desk.
She could hear and identify her dad’s big feet causing big footsteps, but underneath that sound was another set, these ones dainty, high heels leaving clacks instead of booms in their wake. As the two people entered, she curled her legs up and, laying almost in a ball, glanced beneath the wooden front of the desk to see what little she could.
“Absolutely not!” her dad shouted as he slammed the door shut behind them. He sounded very, very, very not happy.
“Jacob, be rational,” pleaded his guest. It was a voice Sophie recognized, one that used to tuck her in at night, one that used to read to her, one that used to say good morning and I love you. Except it wasn’t, because this was not her late mother; it was Aunt Cecily, her mom’s twin sister.
“Rational?” he repeated incredulously. “You think I’m being irrational here? You’re trying to take away my daughter!” Sophie plastered a hand over her mouth to contain a gasp. Aunt Cecily wanted to… take her away?
“It would be for her own good,” Aunt Cecily returned coldly. So maybe that voice wasn’t exactly like Sophie’s mom after all, which flooded with sincere emotions. Aunt Cecily spoke with matter-of-fact calmness.
“I can’t see how being taken away from the only parent she has left can be ‘for her own good’, Cecily,” said Jacob, his voice bitter and calloused. It made Sophie miss her mom.
“Sophia needs a mother,” reported Cecily. “It is nothing personal, you understand, Jacob, but a young girl simply needs a woman’s touch.”
“Look, you’re welcome to be a part of her life,” came Jacob’s response, “but I’m going to raise her. Here. With me.” He paused briefly. “I haven’t deprived her of any female role models, either. My sisters visit, and Liz-”
“Liz is fifteen years old,” shot Cecily quickly. “Jennifer has her own daughters to worry about. And that Savannah…” She trailed off.
“Savannah is a wonderful aunt,” Jacob insisted. Sophie didn’t understand what Aunt Cecily was implying, although her father obviously did. “And you’ve got your own child too! Why don’t you go home, spend time with Drake, and mind your own business?”
“Drake has his father,” replied Cecily casually, almost dismissively. “Sophia needs me, Jacob.” The firmness and confidence with which she presented this actually surprised Sophie; Aunt Cecily was typically a somewhat quiet woman who, unless particularly stimulated, tended to remain in the background. But when pushed, she could wage battle with the best.
“No, she needs her father,” came the instantaneous answer. Sophie wished she could see more of him than just his feet right now, to see how big and proud and strong he was.
“You do not know how to raise a girl!” Cecily blurted with atypical passion. Maybe she was getting desperate. “You cannot raise Sophia like a boy, Jacob. Girls and boys have different roles to play. Sophia needs to learn how to curtsy and smile.”
“Cecily, she’s six years old,” Jacob said with obvious exasperation. “At her age-”
“You let her run about and do what she pleases, but she needs to learn where she stands if you expect her to make anything of herself. She has to grow up desirable. She’s a pretty little thing, but if she acts like a savage, it will not be enough to get her a respectable husband.” Sophie thought nothing but felt much, articulation boiled into a quiet white rage that wished to burst from her tiny body but was held inside with all of her will power.
“I’m not really concerned about her getting a husband at this point, Cecily,” he retorted. “Because, as I said, she’s six. I’m letting her explore herself. She likes to play and laugh and run around until she’s too tired to stand up anymore. She’s a child.”
“That is how boys learn. You have to realize you cannot raise her like a son. You cannot use her in lieu of Saxon!”
Sophie heard no response, just deep breathing for a moment. But if its intention had been to calm her father down, it had failed. Miserably. “Cecily, get out of my house,” he demanded, voice low, words hissed through his teeth.
“...What?” she fumbled with surprisingly sincere confusion.
“Get out of my house!” His fist slammed on the desk, and Sophie barely suppressed a squeaked exclamation. “Go!”
The next sound Sophie heard was a crack she knew meant somebody was gone. Since the pair of high heels was suddenly missing from view, she knew it was Aunt Cecily. Meanwhile, her father came around the desk and seated himself in the large wheely chair behind it. He did not look down, but Sophie looked up at him, watching as he ran a big hand through his hair and huffed. He tried to wheel into the desk, but his leg bumped into something soft, and he looked down. “...Hey, kiddo,” he said with a forced smile. “Um, how much did you hear?”
Then she crawled into his lap and they had a long talk about mothers and fathers, about girls and boys, and about society and Aunt Cecily.
*****
She was twenty-two and attending her father’s wedding reception.
Sophie’s evening had taken some ups and downs, a struggle between crashing tides of impending life-change and the urge to be happy for Mr. and Mrs. Jacob and Tabby Jamison. After her talk with her boyfriend/now secret fiance/super secret baby daddy, however, she felt more in control of her evening and could finally allow herself a bit more happiness.
She spied her step-mother dancing with Uncle Ian (Tabby’s brand new brother-in-law), smiling and having a lovely time. It did make her wonder where her father had gotten to, though, so she glanced about curiously. Normally it would be fairly easy to find such a large man, but the crowd contained a number of rather large men, imposing themselves exactly where she wanted to look. But despite the human barriers, she eventually found him standing to one side with a huge grin on his face, and her chest felt warm.
That nice feeling was soon replaced by confusion, however, as her Aunt Cecily approached her father. The blonde was curious and actually worried about what she could possibly have to say to him. She navigated the crowd so she could get within earshot, fortunate in this circumstance to be so tiny (and not Crazy Pregnant) for weaving purposes. It was difficult to hear over the crowd, but after this many years of life, she knew how to tune into her father’s voice, and after this many years since her mother’s death, she had attached to the sound of Aunt Cecily’s near perfect replication of her mother’s voice.
“What do you think?” Jacob beamed, gesturing grandly to the celebration but beneath his jolly exterior implying an entirely different level beyond the surface.
Cecily paused in mock consideration. “It is an excellent reception,” she offered at last, faint smile playing on painted lips. “The ceremony was extraordinary as well. And Tabatha looked beautiful.”
“And... what do you think of her?”
Sophie was rather shocked by the question, although Cecily did not appear to be. “I was wondering when you would ask,” she confessed. It amazed Sophie to see how intimately her father and her aunt seemed to connect, but she supposed that perhaps a connection like this was inevitable when two people spend this many years mourning the same person, a person who never really left them because she stares back at one in the mirror and the other at family gatherings.
“And?” Jacob sounded like a young teenager seeking approval on his first girlfriend.
“She reminds me less of Saralynn than I had expected. I have not decided what that means,” Cecily provided sincerely. The way her English lilt toyed with Sophie’s mother’s name felt both wrong and right in an unsettling way. “For the longest time I thought you would never love again.”
“So did I,” he responded, draping an arm affectionately around Cecily’s shoulder. She did not move away from it. “It just... caught me so off-guard. But Sophie was a huge help.” He paused, smiling at his former sister-in-law. “She’s her mother’s daughter.”
“She is her father’s daughter as well.” Her ghost of a smile transfixed into the widest, most genuine expression Sophie had ever seen on her face, and as Jacob pulled Cecily into his platonic embrace, Sophie imagined how difficult her aunt’s very existence had to be on her father. Every time he saw her, he saw a face that never was, the way Sara would have looked five, ten, fifteen years after she died. Sophie was almost as old as her mother had ever been, which both scared and thrilled her to imagine. As she glanced across the room at Ryan, she realized just how lucky she was.
When Aunt Cecily parted ways with Jacob, Sophie went to him and wrapped herself in his arms. Barely loud enough to be heard, they had a long talk about mothers and fathers, about life and death, and about Tabatha and Aunt Cecily.
*****
It was a few days later and time to pack.
The house felt so empty with her father gone, but he was probably having the time of his life on his honeymoon with his new wife. Two and a half weeks in Paris? Lola had really outdone herself with the arrangement.
Sophie stared deeply into her closet, closing and reopening the door every few minutes in the hopes something new and better would appear. There was a large bag open on her bed with very little inside it, thus far only containing pajamas, underwear, and the like. She had a couple outfits she had set aside and was debating, but nothing felt right for the main point of the excursion. Planning her wedding attire was turning out to be a lot more difficult than she had previously imagined.
There was a knock on her door, followed by the timid, “Miss Sophie?” of a House Elf. “Miss Sophie has a guest!”
Her eyes widened, and she grabbed the bag from her bed and tossed it into the closet forgetting to pull the door shut thereafter. “Really?” she marveled as she went, mostly to stall without seeming unresponsive. Once she had made herself comfortable on her bed, she added, “Send them in!”
The door opened, and familiar high heels clacked against her hardwood floors. “Hello, Sophia,” smiled her visitor. She wore her blonde hair curled but contained, her outfit conservative but dazzling, her makeup moderate but flattering. These were constants of Aunt Cecily. However, she had in her possession an unusual item: a garment bag. For now, Sophie opted to ignore it.
“Hello, Aunt Cecily,” Sophie smiled politely, pulling her legs up to provide a space on the bed where her aunt could sit if she was so inclined. “Come to check in on me since Dad’s away? I promise I’m fine on my own,” she added jokingly.
“Not quite,” she answered. “I just… had something I thought you might be interested in.” Cecily laid the garment bag across the bag and began unzipping as Sophie scrambled across to get a better view. From the bag, her aunt produced a stunning white dress that Sophie immediately recognized from pictures. She could hardly believe her eyes.
“Mom’s wedding dress,” she breathed, completely awe-struck.
Cecily glanced over her shoulder at the closet and noticed the open somewhat-packed bag at the bottom. Then she turned back to her niece. “You might want to take this with you,” she said with a smile. Before Sophie could confirm or deny the suspicion, Cecily added, “I saw the way you look at Ryan. Saralynn looked at Jacob the same way.”
With timid hands Sophie held the dress, afraid of damaging it or maybe of somehow being unworthy of it. She moved slowly, feeling the soft fabric gently glide across her palms. In a way, she felt almost childlike as she gazed between the dress and her aunt. Cecily was not the woman who had worn this, but Merlin, she was the closest thing left.
Eventually the Pecari alumna let go and stood up. She moved across the room and retrieved the bag, which she then placed once again on the bed. With a smile she turned to her aunt. “Thank you.” She tugged Cecily into a slightly uncomfortable hug, but Sophie felt the other woman’s tenseness dissipate after a moment. By craning her neck just a bit, her head fit under Cecily’s chin thanks to a natural two-inch height difference and the heels.
Cecily stroked Sophie’s hair, and the younger blonde realized: her aunt was the closest thing she had to a mother, but she was also the closest thing Cecily had to a daughter. It was an intimate bond of almosts, a connection of what never was. Aunt Cecily was a reflection of her mother, and Sophie was a dream of what could have been. They were not mother and daughter, even if genetics could have technically attested otherwise.
When they parted, Sophie carefully returned the dress to the garment bag, which she kept close to the bag for the rest of her things. Aunt Cecily stepped back and smiled. “Enjoy.” And with the crack of Disapparation, she was gone.
Sophie resumed packing, all the while contemplating about mothers and fathers, about sons and daughters, and about herself and Aunt Cecily.