It is a deep discomfort to me that I have often fallen into the stereotypical trap of arranging for my protagonists to be orphaned so that there aren't any pesky parental figures getting in the way of them being in peril and having adventures. In Daughter of Mystery it was a foundational element of their stories for Margerit and Barbara to be orphans. (Well, functionally, anyway. It's complicated in Barbara's case.) Antuniet wasn't an orphan in that first book, but she is by the time she gets to be a protagonist. Jeanne...well, I don' think Jeanne really counts as an "orphaned protagonist" because she's of an older generation and her parents might reasonably expect to have passed on. Serafina has deep attachments to her (living) father, but the loss of her mother is a significant driving force in her psyche (though it was the loss of the idea of her mother, even before the physical loss).
But I gave Luzie a large, loving, and very much living family--even though circumstances keep them apart much of the time. (Ok, except for her late husband, but I couldn't very well have him hanging around--then she wouldn't have this story.) I included the following scene to try to give a sense of what that family means to her, when they descend upon her house in Rotenek to support the performance of her opera.
Chapter 28 - Luzie
A ripple of laughter ran around the table as Chisillic carried in the moulded orange crème herself and placed on the sideboard for Gerta to serve.
“Now what’s this I hear about a shortage of oranges, Maistir Ovimen?” the cook asked.
Luzie watched her father repeat the comic tale, gesturing with those familiar hands, the fingers now knobbed with age. His hands might have lost the ability to play, but not the ability to draw a performance from others, whether the small consort assembled for the Tanfrit or the diners around her close-crowded table. She exchanged a glance with her mother and smiled as the years melted away.
Issibet was now chiming in with a counter story about the hard years during the French Wars, and the part a particular shipment of oranges had played in ensuring the success of a production they had both worked on. Luzie had been too young to understand the significance at the time, but she’d heard the story many times in years after and could almost convince herself she remembered that treasured sweetness.
She would remember this in the same way: how her brother Gauterd had made time from his contracted performances to join her production, how her parents had made the journey from Iuten not only to witness the debut of her opera, but to add to the preparations. Her father had stood listening to the rehearsals in an unused Academy building for only five minutes before he’d bluntly suggested that the musical direction be put into his hands. And those hands had coaxed the oddly assorted group of musicians and singers into a partnership. Even Benedetta Cavalli had abandoned her demands and airs at hearing that Iannik Ovimen had taken the reins. Luzie had forgotten the respect her father had commanded in his time. And it had been that gesture—treating her work as worthy of his labor—that had meant the most.
Half of her wished the boys could have been here—and Gauterd’s wife and children as well—but the other half was grateful to avoid that added distraction. And where would she have put them all? As it was she had surrendered her own room to her parents and imposed on Serafina to make space for her, while Gauterd commanded Alteburk’s room leaving the housekeeper to crowd in with the maids for the duration of the visit. No doubt there had been grumbling where she couldn’t hear it, but the atmosphere was more like a floodtide holiday where everyone laughingly made do for the sake of being together.
Though one might think there was enough music in their lives at the moment, with the performance only two days away, they gathered in the parlor in the evening, bringing in extra chairs from the dining room, and she accompanied Gauterd for violin concertos.