Lovely Hues | Fillie AU

Chapter Twenty Six

In the week since Finn left, Millie had kept herself busy aiding Sadie with recovering from the incident with James, helping Chloe decide on a venue for her reception and trying to figure out how to approach Louisa, who had fallen back into total reclusiveness, not speaking and barely acknowledging anyone except her little brothers. So she was really too busy to think too much about her own grief and anger that surrounded the departure of the Canadian man she had grown to care for.

And on one particularly cold and windy day, when Charlie had taken Louisa, William and Phillip to the library to get them all out of the house, Millie decided it was a good time to pay her in-laws a visit.

Noah and Chloe's parents, Karine and Mitchell, had always been nothing but welcoming to Millie and Louisa since they met Noah. Millie giving them their first grandchildren only made them moreso. When Noah was alive, his parents had invited them to dinner at least once a week and were always offering their assistance to help with the kids, Mitchell having been newly retired, and Karine, having wanted to spend more time with her family than volunteering in her church's front office.

But when Noah died, Millie stopped accepting the invitations and help. She wasn't trying to be rude, or shut them out, she just hadn't had the energy. At first anyway. But then, like so many things, it just became habit. Like her habit of completely avoiding the farm where Louis died, even though it would be convenient to go once in a while because it was where her brother worked and she could get free produce and milk. Or her habit of closing all shutters and playing loud music during thunderstorms because they used to cause her panic attacks. Or her habit of not calling her family in London because it always made her miss them too much. These were all habits that she acquired in the wake of tragedies and she wasn't sure how, or if she even wanted to, shake them. They kept things more simple and within her power.

But today was a little different. A while ago, Chloe had mentioned that her mother had some things of Noah's that she wanted to give to Millie, but she had been a bit preoccupied and hadn't gone over yet. Maybe she was putting it off because she felt bad about not bringing the kids over more, but she had never told them that they couldn't come to her house. Chloe sure made the effort to, then again, Karine and Mitchell were a little more homebound because of Mitchell's war injured leg that ratcheted up in pain the past ten years. He was mobile, but tended to stay within a hundred yard radius of his home on the edge of town, on the other side of the Mill pond. So, Millie's home was a far reach. And Karine didn't like being away from Mitchell for long in case she needed to help him in some way.

Since she knew she'd have things to take home, Millie drove her Ford to her in-laws house. She'd been using the car a lot more lately to get to the travel agency in Portage and the moving company's office down county road M.

After she told her brother she wanted out, she had made it clear how serious about it she was. Nothing was scheduled yet, but should be in no time. She was just waiting on quotes and then she would call her parents. She didn't want to go to them until she had a plan in place. They wouldn't take her seriously unless she did the leg work.

Knocking three times on the Schnapp's heavy oak front door, she waited patiently in the brisk air wondering if she should tell her in-laws about her planned move or wait until the plans had solidified. Footsteps sounded behind the door and it swung inward, Karine standing tall behind it, wearing a wide smile and a single string of pearls around her neck, "Millie! Oh, thank you for coming. Come in, come in, it's dreadfully cold out there."

Millie obliged and entered the familiar home that always smelled of cinnamon no matter what time of the year it was. She was immediately pulled into a tight hug that caught her a bit off-guard at first but she made herself relax and welcomed the warmth. The comfort.