When Lyra stepped off the train in Fillydelphia, a hoof-made Family Appreciation Day card in her saddlebag, she made no attempt to find her old home. It was a weekday, after all; neither love nor money would keep her mother away from the job. So, Lyra took a map and followed it downtown until she was at 5470 Broad Street. She looked up to see Libra Heartstrings, Attorney at Law in big letters over the door, then grimaced and went inside.
Not much had changed. The walls were covered in the same old books, which she doubted anyone but her had ever read. There was the same old carpet over the same old mahogany floor. She recognized the same wooden chairs on the sides of the room, and the same wooden receptionist's desk at its end—but she did not recognize the receptionist, a stallion with his black mane done up in a formal little ponytail. Which meant, of course, that he would not recognize her. Because this needed to be so much more fun, right? Lyra sighed and stepped forward.
The receptionist looked up at her and smiled a tight smile. “Welcome to Libra Heartstrings' office. Do you have an appointment?”
“I'm Miss Heartstrings' daughter, and it's Family Appreciation Day. That counts, right?”
The stallion's eyebrow rose. “She has a kid?”
Lyra rubbed her face with a hoof. Should I have expected anything different? “Look, just tell her Lyra Heartstrings is here to see her. I'll just... wait here.” She found a chair, sat down, and pulled a book from the shelves behind her without looking. She opened it to a random page and read aloud.
“'Among the most important things a modern Equestrian lawyer can do is to establish and maintain a relationship with their clients.'” She smirked a bit at the irony, which seemed to be the only interesting thing on the page. Further reading confirmed this suspicion: “'This relationship can begin with an interview, in which the lawyer learns the facts of the client and his or her case....' Bleh.” She replaced the book in its shelf. She expected me to make a career out of that?
Lyra waited a few minutes more in silence. It was a familiar feeling, one that brought to mind the collection of times she'd come here after school with some homework, or maybe a book, and waited for her mother to finish the day's legal nonsense and pick her up—and, if Lyra was lucky, ask how her day had been. It had been just as much fun in the past as it was in the present. She slouched in her seat.
Finally, a dour-looking stallion walked out of the back room and through the front door, muttering something about 'a waste of time' and 'distracted'. She gave the receptionist a questioning look, and he gave her a shrug. Good enough, I guess. She got up and walked into Libra Heartstrings' office.
Here, it seemed nothing had changed, either in the room or in her mother. Her graying, golden hair was still done up in the same tight bun, and she still wore the same kind of formal clothes and expression. And, as always, she hardly seemed to acknowledge Lyra's presence, but grabbed some documents from her desk and slid them into a file instead.
Lyra took a deep breath. Well, one of us has got to make the effort. “Happy Family Appreciation Day, Mom!” she said in as bright a voice as she could manage.
Libra looked up. For a moment, her formal expression changed into something that looked like surprise. Yes, mother, it's so surprising that I'd come on Family Appreciation Day. “It's good to see you, Lyra,” she said eventually, though not convincingly.
“I got you a card.” Lyra fished the card out of her saddlebag with her magic and passed it to her mother. Libra opened it and read the contents with a flat expression, then picked it up with her teeth—she had no horn, unlike her daughter—and placed it into the same file from before.
Lyra's face fell. “Did... did you like it?”
“What? Oh, yes. It was very nice.” Her mother wasn't even looking at her.
Lyra gritted her teeth. It was obvious; nothing had changed. Nothing would change, no matter how hard she tried. Why bother?
She let the anger grow inside her for a few seconds more, as her mother continued to aimlessly shuffle papers around. She was surprised at how good it felt, just as she let it out. “Should I have sent it by mail, Mom? Would that have saved you the trouble of having to see me?”
Her mother didn't look up. Lyra plowed on. “I mean, after how thrilled you were that I decided not to do exactly what you do, I guess it should have been clear that you care so much about the two of us. That you'd put so much effort into this family.”
Libra made a little noise, like clearing her throat. Lyra couldn't let herself stop here; if she let her mother start talking, she'd just be cowed like usual. She'd back down, just like always. And she'd been reined in long enough. Her lips contorted into a snarl.
“Heck, it's been a whole year—I thought you might have gotten over it, but of course not!” she yelled at her mother, who still wouldn't look at her. “I mean, you can't have thought I'd want to be a lawyer anyway, right? Not if it would mean ending up as... as bone dry as you! Happy Family Appreciation Day, Mom,” she spat, before turning around and walking for the door.
Her mother made the little noise again, but this time Lyra stopped—because she realized that it didn't sound like her mother was clearing her throat. It sounded like a sob. That can't be right. She looked back around to see her mother's body shaking, her head still looking down at the desk. Lyra's jaw dropped. That's impossible. Not in a billion years. “Mom, what's wrong?” she found herself saying, almost against her will.
Her mother took a few deep breaths, still facing the desk so that Lyra saw no tears—if indeed her mother was crying. It would be another first. Eventually, she spoke, evenly and clearly. “Your... father came earlier today.”
Lyra's jaw dropped another notch. “Dad? But he's never shown up, not since... ever.” She tried to form a mental image of him; nothing came to mind. It had always been a half-hearted fantasy of hers that maybe, one of these holidays, he'd appear and help fill in that image.
“You say that as if I weren't also surprised, Lyra. After all, you were two when we....” Libra sighed, and looked up once more. Her face was composed, but what struck Lyra most was how tired her mother looked. It was like she'd aged twenty years staring at that desk. “He came to ask about you. Apparently, a recent concert in the city was a massive success, and he'd heard you designed the sound systems. He wanted to know, as a father, what you've made of yourself.”
“And... um... what did you tell him about me?” Lyra bit the inside of her cheek. Really, how much did she want this stranger to know about her?
“He left disappointed. I told him that he didn't deserve to learn anything about you, because...” Libra's face trembled, and her next words were a bit rushed, a bit less even. “Because a decent father would have been there for you a day in your life.” She brought a hoof above the desk and buried her face in it.
“No, you don't have to feel like that.” Lyra reached to her mother and awkwardly patted her back. She tried to think of some other comforting thing to say. It took a few seconds. “You're right. He was never there for me. It was always you.”
“You've always been too forgiving.” It was the closest thing to a compliment she'd gotten from her mother in a long time. “You were right earlier, though. I never made a serious effort with either of you.”
“Don't be like that.” Lyra gave her mother a weak smile, keeping eye contact as best as she could. It was difficult, like watching a proud old building collapse. “It must have been hard, with me growing up and him not there.”
“I believe I could have taken some days off.” Her mother reached down to the file from earlier and pulled out a few scraps of paper—the same papers, Lyra realized, that her mother had been looking at when she'd entered the room. “I saved the reviews of your concert, if you would like to read them. From everything I've heard, your equipment was superb. You should be... proud.”
Lyra looked at her mother, then took one of the scraps of paper and sat down in the office's other chair, her head spinning. It was so much simpler just to hate you.