Chapter Text
1991
- Hard Choices -
Thomas
(Age: 12)
The world could be a hard place.
“Are we going to sleep in the car?” he asked as his mother sat and stared out the window.
“Of course not,” she said, suddenly seeming to come back to herself. She even smiled at him. “Don’t be silly. We’ll go to a motel.”
“Can we afford that?” he asked, not sure they could, even with his birthday money. Not for very long at least.
They’d spent the last hour packing everything they owned into boxes and taking them down to the car.
They’d been evicted.
Or maybe they had chosen to leave?
Thomas might only be two months away from thirteen but he saw how their creepy landlord Jerry looked at his mom. He wasn’t completely sure what it meant but he knew it wasn’t good.
The fact that his mother had said all the money in the world wouldn’t convince her to stay when Thomas had offered her his saved up thirty dollars - birthday money from his uncle - made him suddenly sure they were choosing to leave. Well, sort of.
It also made him wish he was bigger so he could go punch Jerry in the face. His dad would have done that for sure if he’d been there. Or his dad would have talked to the guy and that would have been enough. Maybe. Probably if his dad had still been alive they wouldn’t have been living there in the first place.
“It’s going to be okay,” she told him.
“I know.” And he did. Because they always took care of each other. As long as they had each other, nothing really bad could happen.
“Hand me my bag, would you?” she said, nodding towards her purse on the floor of the passenger seat of their beat up old brown volvo.
He did.
She rooted around in it. He’d always been kind of amazed at how much stuff she could fit in there. It was almost like magic.
A moment later she pulled out a piece of cloth wrapped around something. She handed it to him. “Remember how I told you that was yours?”
He unwrapped the fabric and found his father’s watch. He loved to look at it and he dreamed of a day when his wrist would be thick enough he could wear it.
A Rolex… that was an expensive brand. He knew that but he’d never realized that expensive might be useful. That the watch could do something more than help him remember his dad and tell time.
“I’d never ask you to sell that,” she said, her dark eyes serious. “In fact, I’d rather we sell everything in this car. But...”
He’d never wanted anything as much in his life as to have this watch be his one day. To wear it like his dad had. But he knew his dad would understand. They needed money.
“It’s okay,“ he told her, holding it out for her. “If you need to sell it-”
“Oh no.” She put her hand over his, closing it around the watch. “We’re not selling it. But if you’d be okay with it, we could pawn it. I’d make sure to pick up extra shifts and-”
“And I could get a job too!” he said, this was something he had been thinking of for a while.
“ Mijo I don’t-”
“No,” he insisted. “I want to. And we should pawn it. We’ll get it back, together . I’m sure dad would want us to.”
She looked like she might cry for a second, which he thought was kind of strange, then pulled him in for a hug!
Juliet
(Age: 5)
The world could be a hard place.
“I’m sure your Mama will be here to see you off,” Mrs. Walsh, the housekeeper said.
Juliet was skeptical. Not just because of the woman’s tone but because she knew her mother.
“Perhaps,” she said, moving beans around her plate. She hated beans. Mushrooms too. In fact, the only breakfast food she liked were egg, the yolks in particular.
“If you’re lucky your Papa will come too,” Mrs. Walsh said encouragingly. “Hunting season is starting soon. He might want to spend some time in the country.”
Juliet liked the idea of that. She hadn’t seen her Papa since… she thought quite hard about it. Her birthday in the spring? She’d turned five. Her mother had come too and been quite angry at Lola, her nanny at the time, for letting Juliet have two pieces of cake. Lola had been gone the week after, replaced by the much sterner Ms. Larsson.
“Now eat your food girl,” Mrs. Walsh said sternly, “Don’t just pick at it. Think of all the children in the world who are going hungry.”
She glared at the old woman. “I don’t like it!”
Mrs. Walsh huffed. “That’s good food right there, Missy. No wonder you’re nothing but skin and bones. Just have some sausage. I don’t know a child alive who doesn't like sausage.”
Juliet looked at the blacked sausage on her plate.
“No,” she said, then remembered her manners. And that Mrs. Walsh had once put her across her knee for spilling hot milk in the morning room. “No thank you.”
“You know child, if you weren’t so difficult your mother might want you around more,” Mrs. Walsh said.
“What does that mean? Being difficult?” Juliet asked, because she would like it if her mother came around more. Her mother was beautiful and smelled of perfume and always wore sparkly jewelry like a princess.
Maybe if she could somehow figure out how to not be difficult her mother would let her stay with her in London. Maybe she wouldn’t have to go away to the boarding school.
“It means...” Mrs. Walsh began. “I don’t know. You should smile more. And eat your food. And not ask so many questions.”
Juliet thought about. “You think Mother will love me if I do those things?”
Mrs. Walsh looked at her for a long moment. “I don’t know, child. Maybe. She’s not much for loving, your mum, is she?”
She nodded. “Thank you. For being honest.”
“There you go again girl, being strange,” the housekeeper shook her head at her. “Any normal child would be running off crying.”
The phone rang and Mrs. Walsh went to pick it up. Exchanged a few words with whoever was calling.
Juliet thought about doing what Mrs. Walsh had said. Running off to cry. But she couldn’t quite see how that would help things. She supposed that meant she really was strange and difficult. Perhaps it was right her mother didn’t love her, didn’t want her around.
“That was Mr. Carter, he’s getting the car ready to take you up to the station,” Mrs. Walsh said once she was done on the phone. “I’ll help you get your bags in the car. I supposed this means your Mama ain't coming.”
Juliet thought maybe that was for the best. She might have cried and begged her mother to not send her away. Mother wouldn’t have liked that.
“It’s quite alright,” she stoically told the housekeeper. “Perhaps I shall call her once I reach the school.”
“I doubt they’ll let you use the telephone, but I suppose you could ask,” Mrs. Walsh said, ushering her out of the kitchen and towards the front of the house.
Less than an hour later Mr. Carter handed her and her bags off to a train conductor who settled her in her seat.
She watched an ill-dressed mother and her two children on the other side of the aisle. The mother was smiling and the smaller sibling was in her lap. They were sharing one big sandwich with eggs and ham on it, passing it between them, taking eager bites.
As the train started moving from her station, the trio finished eating and started pointing to things outside the train and chatted about nonsense things.
Juliet wondered what that was like.
To share one sandwich. To have a sibling. A mother that held her in her lap.
What it was to belong to someone.