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“Bloody hell, Sarah.”
Her adoptive daughter was standing there wincing on the front stoop, a skinny 15 year old kid, tangled hair, black eye and bloody nose. Typical.
She’d been crying, Siobhan could tell. Even under all that dirt, blood and dark make-up, she could make out the telltale tear tracks, the pink puffiness around the eyes. A little orphaned raccoon, with a red rimmed gaze.
She sighed in resignation,
“Come on, in you get.”
They’re at the kitchen table with the first aid kit, yet again. Siobhan wonders how many times this school year its been out at this point. A handful of fat lips, some skinned knees, a couple of black eyes. She’s made a decent dent in the hydrogen peroxide bottle.
“Mhm,” Sarah grunted quietly, her eyes screwed shut as Siobhan dabbed at the bloody mess around her eye.
“Who was it this time?”
“Jeff Reynolds - Ouch, S!” Sarah jerked away from her hand sharply, “He’s a fuckin' prick.”
“Language.” Siobhan said sternly. Her daily exercise in futility.
“He deserves it,” Sarah muttered sullenly, reluctantly leaning back in to Siobhan’s stinging touch.
Siobhan pressed firmly along her daughter’s temple. One of these days her kit wasn’t going to be enough. She placed a hand on Sarah’s shoulder and leaned in closer to reach a more stubborn spot along Sarah's hairline.
“Mmhmp,” Sarah made a sharp, strangled sort of sound, squeezing her eyes shut.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” Sarah protested weakly, turning away from Siobhan, guarding, shielding. A wild animal protecting its soft underbelly.
“Sarah Manning, you tell me this instant.”
Sarah scuffed at the chair legs with her muddy trainers, “His friend might’ve kicked me in the side when I went down.” she muttered bitterly, “Cheap shot.”
Siobhan closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. She could feel the beginnings of a headache that only Sarah could bring on forming behind her eyes.
“He was just mad that a girl broke his mate’s nose.” Sarah insisted hotly, “Cowardly wanker.”
Siobhan sighed softly, rubbing her temples. God help her. Sarah jittered in her kitchen chair, one leg bouncing up and down restlessly. Siobhan watched it tiredly, running a hand through her hair with frustration.
“Off.” Siobhan sighed.
Sarah, glanced down at her dirt-ridden, blood stained shirt.
“S,” she whined.
“Off.”
“But - ”
“No buts.”
Sarah glared at her, she wasn’t particularly self conscious, but she was still a teenage girl.
Siobhan sighed exasperatedly, “Look Sarah, its nothing I haven’t seen before, I just want to check your ribs.”
“Fine,” she muttered, grudgingly reaching for the hem of her t-shirt with a grimace, “Mhm,”
“..Sarah,”
“I’m trying,” Sarah hissed, wincing, “fuck,”
Siobhan stared at the pitiful inch of skin peeking out from under the hem of her dirty t-shirt.
“Stop.. stop..,”
Siobhan reached out to firmly still Sarah’s pitiful attempts at removing her shirt. Sighing, she reached for the kitchen scissors,
“Stay still, love.”
Sarah’s eyes widened.
“Uh-uh, No, S,” she twisted away from Siobhan’s scissor hand, “ouch. shit.”
“Sarah,”
“No S, you are not cutting my shirt off.”
“Sarah Manning, stop squirming. That shirt is coming off and I’d rather not take any part of you with it.”
“ok, ok, alright,”she relented weakly,” Can you just - can you give me a minute?” she huffed weakly.
She looked awful. There was still blood in her dark hair, along her temple. Siobhan must have missed a spot. Sarah would never tell her too much when she came home like this, but Siobhan wasn’t stupid. She had heard Felix and Sarah talking in hushed voices in the hallway after school (“they call you that again, and I swear I’ll end ‘em, you hear me? Bloody pricks.”). Had seen the telling signs of tears on Felix’s face, the set of Sarah’s jaw. Felix hadn’t come to her to talk about it yet, but she knew when he was ready, he would.
Sarah took a shaky breath, grimacing slightly, “Ok, just - slow, yeah?”
The bruise emerged haltingly under the scissors. Purple, black and angry, spiderwebbed across her right-hand side, disappearing under the black cotton of her bra line.
“Oh Sarah,” Siobhan breathed.
Her daughter seemed to be holding her breath through gritted teeth, her eyes squeezed shut, “Don’t make me move my arms again. please.”
Sarah had always been a skinny kid. No matter how much Siobhan fed her, she had stayed tiny, all sharp angles and knobby knees. And sitting there, in just her baggy camo pants, and ill-fitting black bra she could practically examine the state of her adoptive daughter’s ribs just by sight. God. What kind of mother was she anyway?
“Ok I’m going to take a look, let me know if you’re starting to feel ill, alright?”
Sarah nodded, grey-faced, jaw set.
Leaning in close, Siobhan gently pressed, probing the edge of the purpling-black mark on her daughter’s side.
“Jesus Christ,” Sarah yelped, “Don’t do that!”
“Shh..,” Siobhan soothed gently, keeping her hands gently moving up the injury, searching for a telltale sharp edge or weak spot.
“S, please - ,”
“Hold still, Sarah…”
“Mum stop!”
Siobhan pulled her hands back like she had been scalded. ok. definitely broken.
“D-don’t touch it anymore,” Sarah snapped weakly. Bristling over once again, angry at her moment of weakness.
“Alright…ok..” Siobhan reassured gently, her hands turned up in mock surrender. The word still echoing in her ears.
Mum.
Sarah had never done well with that word. Even when she was little. There had been a sweet spot in London when she was nine, where she had heard it several times a month. But since moving to Canada, since hormones, general teenage angst, and deep-seated abandonment issues had begun to bubble to the surface, they had been few and far between, and if she did hear it, it was laced with sarcasm, barbed, pointed, designed to hurt:
“Whatever you say, Mum.”
Sarah glared up at her, swiping angrily at the tears she was trying hard to pretend weren't forming traitorously in the corners of her eyes. A fierce little pale thing, seated at Siobhan’s well-scrubbed kitchen table.
Siobhan sighed, and crouched down beside her,
“Let’s get you to the hospital, shall we chicken?”
Sarah nodded stiffly. Her eyes trained on her scuffed, dirty trainers.
Siobhan reached out and gently tucked a strand of dark hair behind her daughter’s ear, ran a warm reassuring hand across her back. Gentle, tentative. A wordless olive branch. Sarah let her.
“They were going to hurt him.” She said tightly, her eyes carefully trained on her muddy sneakers, “Just because..”
Siobhan had a flash of her son’s dark painted nails and carefully coiffed hair, his gentle smile.
Her heart ached.
Sarah glanced up at her. Her eyes all rage and deep hurt, a soft-bellied creature with a sharp, prickly exterior. Her heart gave a pang. Sarah Manning, fighting at gravity once again.
Siobhan cleared her throat,
“Sarah?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you really think you broke this boy's nose?”
Sarah hesitated, wary,
“… yeah probably.”
Siobhan nodded. Ran a soft hand through her daughter’s dark hair, warm and mother-soft. The true unspoken weight of it all, reverberating there.
“That’s a shame.”
____________________
It wasn’t until the next morning that Sarah, drowsy with medication and aching with exhaustion, found the two twenties on the dresser:
For your new shirt
-Mum