Even though over a week had gone by, Brava wouldn’t talk to anyone about Kelsey or much of anything besides the weather, which was always cold. Badr did quietly make note that while she had kicked him out she still wore the woven ring that they had exchanged when they got married.
As it had been for them Badr and Brava both noted that the school was frequently closed for snow days. Which meant that Cadeyrn and Chrysanta were frequently left home on their own unsupervised. Which meant that they frequently ignored the rule to stay inside and to not play in the snow. Brava did not count Biff as a supervising adult, since the few times he was home he mostly slept. One night when Badr thought Brava was asleep and was making a note in the family journal, she whispered to add a note that Biff was close to being the head of one of the rivaling crime groups, then she added “he’s evil, pure evil and I wish I could prove his connection to Baako’s death, but so far I’ve found no evidence” there was a pause and she added in a bitter tone “no one can find evidence on him, for anything, we know he’s behind some of the more hideous crimes but all evidence stops at other people.”
Then Brava rolled so that she faced away from Badr. From the sounds he heard he was certain that she was crying.
It wasn’t long after that night when after yet another equipment explosion, resulting in the loss of plants, that Badr’s boss, Aja Kessler, sent him to the abandoned lot that had housed the asylum with the instructions to see if there were any plants there that they could use. Upon arrival Badr found that the door had left open along with every window leaving the grown plants frozen and brittle. Badr sealed the windows as best he could and removed the debris that had blocked the door. As he did so he noticed that a few plants had flowers and fruits on them. Carefully so as not to damage the frozen parent plant he harvested what he could to take back to work with him.
Badr wasn’t to surprised when the next day his boss divided the find between him and the other lab techs and told them to try planting the plants at home. Ms. Kessler also instructed all of them to check the original plants on a regular basis to see if they survive in the enclosed space and to take home any shoots, seeds, and fruits for planting.
One afternoon when Brava got home from work, she was surprised to see Cadeyrn and Chrysanta inside at the chess table. Chrysanta whined at her that Uncle Biff wouldn’t let them go outside to play and had made them stay inside all day. Brava glanced at Biff out of the corner of her eye as he snarled “whiney brat“, she was uncertain of his motives for making them stay in. The one thing she was certain of was that it benefited him somehow and was not done out of concern for their welfare.
Even though she still refused to talk about Kelsey or her marriage, with time Brava seemed to mellow out. Badr noticed that Brava seemed to enjoy the weekends the best, when she was able to supervise her children herself, even when occupied with trying to improve her fitness levels for work. She confided in Badr that she had finally been switched over to the special services branch, although she observed it wasn’t helping the other officers bring solid cases against Biff. She also told Badr that her former partner, Brice, had confided in her that as far as they could tell Biff was now one of the top people to go to if someone wanted to have a meet with the Boss.
Brava confided that through her fellow officers, she was able to keep tabs on Biff when he would vanish over the weekends. They discovered that more often than not he would spend his time with Kimberly and his son Isidro. From what anyone was able to tell he and Kimberly weren’t fighting as much as they did when Isidro was first born. It was also noted that Kimberly’s house frequently had items that had been banned as dangerous or unattainable by the council in it. Brava said she wasn’t sure if she was mad at Biff or grateful to him for not bringing some of the banned items home.
Badr confided in Brava that the plants grown indoors seemed to be thriving, and he was frustrated by the councils refusal to allow people to build green houses on their property’s. Even his boss Ms. Kessler was frustrated, because research kept getting stalled or destroyed by the limitations they had to work under.
Brava agreed with Badr that at times the councils decisions seemed very arbitrary. In turn she confided in Badr that she was worried that they wouldn’t always accept verbal reports from officers like her, and that her former boss on the force had been fired for a lack of written reports and his age. Brice was now considered her supervisor which worked for her because of how long they had spent together on patrol.
Then she made a comment that took Badr by surprise. “Kelsey was in the station the other day filing a report. I talked to him, he hadn’t known that Charlotte had been leaving notes for him in the mailbox. Which was why he was so surprised when I confronted him about it. He comes in for coffee now and then and we talk, he want’s to come back to me and the children. He’s lonely and misses us …” Badr sat quietly waiting for Brava to finish as she rubbed at her face, finally she continued with a heavy sigh “… I don’t know how I feel, I miss him but at the same time I don’t want to be hurt like that again, and he’s getting so old, if I allow him back we may not get much time together. Then I’ll have to deal with the pain of losing him …. I just don’t know what I should do Badr, is it fair to any of us to bring him back.” Badr listened and kept his opinions to himself, his one true love was science, he had no relationship experiences from which to found advice on and he suspected that scientific reasoning wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
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