Chapter Text
“One should not force one’s destiny. But if one must force it, they should be much braver. Because otherwise, they cannot overcome it.”
If Şebnem missed anything, it wasn’t something distant, like her life years ago, or a dead mum she could barely remember the name of. What Şebnem missed most was pathetically simple: she missed her life one, two months ago—and the reasons were obvious. Neither had she been aware of the illegitimate child awaiting her husband, nor had she been dealing with an orphan that fled her tyrannical grasp at every turn.
She’d constructed, meticulously, the life of a dream planted in her head when she was seven and sweating a bed she was forced to share. Through blood—so much blood—a little sweat, and tears (not just her own, either), Şebnem had accumulated properties some of which her husband had no reason to continue tracking. She could bathe in liquid gold if she so, so desired, and alone her name was enough to elicit the perfect concoction of awe and fear needed to puppeteer whoever she willed without even a dollop of suspicion being able to taint it.
That’s how much they had. That’s how much she had. And unfortunately, that’s how much there was to lose. She had skin in the game… at the cost of no guaranteed win.
You’d think a businesswoman knew her way around this truth. Crueler than life, it was. Just the idea of loss and lack—it clung to the skin of the people who had never even gotten a whiff of it. How could Şebnem have forgotten? How could it not have concerned her, forcing her to leap into drastic action any earlier? What idiot only wakes up from a liqueur-sweet dream when the tide of her life is about to turn to a nightmare?
The assumption that the risk posed to her material wealth was the most of Şebnem’s worries wasn’t a ridiculous one—she was a conwoman, sure, but a conwoman of class. If you’d express that sentiment to her in a moment less guarded than the others, she may admit to it in the dodgy way she’d confess to any sin that wasn’t a transgression in her (check)book.
Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be the truest. Cleanest on paper, but not the most honest. Because when police had confronted her, voices harder than the velvet she had gotten accustomed to, at her front door, regarding her son’s safety—her vision narrowed down to that mental image of his face, and his face alone.
The concern in question hadn’t been about any outside threats like a certain street dog and his army more than it had, apparently, been about so-called “turmoil at home”. Having been as she had, Şebnem had held her ground, of course—asked polite yet probing questions about what could’ve prompted this investigation, followed by comments that teetered on bribery. Much to her disillusionment, though, the officers appeared equally adamant.
Now, Şebnem was no brute. Acquisition of capital brought with it acquisition of grace. But despite her contempt for the unkempt and classless, situations like this one tended to make her uncomfortably aware of the untamed animal that slept beneath the glitz. Not a filthy one like, say, a street rat or a mutt, she liked to think, but one more tasteful. A lion, perhaps—a leopard, too. Wildcats generally suited the animalistic instincts that overcame her from time to time.
And the animalistic urge she had to suppress by pressing crescent shapes into her palms had been to grab an officer by the throat and paint the outside tile red with his skull. It wouldn’t have been possible—it would've been a shame, probably. And more probably, Şebnem wouldn’t have fucking cared.
“Following a stressful incident at school today, an immediate welfare check was issued,” a young officer informed, voice monotone. His uniform was much more imposing than his stance… and overall demeanour.
“You just said it,” Şebnem countered, oddly gleeful. “A stressful incident at school, wasn’t it?”
In that same vein, any premonitions about what the incident could have been made Şebnem’s conscience sweat. Teoman’s safety mattered first and foremost—provocation and consequences were trivial in comparison.
A larger man—definitely older than the partner that looked like he wanted to cower behind him more than anything—stepped forth, asserting, “We interviewed witnesses and the parties involved. Nothing that was said—nor done—justified your son’s violent reaction in a vacuum.”
“I’m sorry—what makes you believe that it is your right to decree whether my son’s actions and reactions are justified? Without providing any context, no less?” Şebnem’s voice sharpened. She was careful not to raise it so that it could be read as provocation over firmness. A giggle ought to soften the blow that was her sudden defensiveness. “Teoman is an intelligent and mature boy. He may have a temper, but I hope you can recognise the ridiculousness of your accusations.”
“We can sympathise with your frustration—” the younger officer tried to amend.
Şebnem was not going to have it. “It seems as though you cannot.”
Without her awareness until now, pressure had gathered in Şebnem’s chest and head. She turned around, one hand on her hip and the other tending to her forehead as she attempted to turn the cogs of her thoughts, as much as they groaned in protest. A welfare check was just about everything they needed, given the way things already were.
Oh, well. As frustrating as the matter was, Şebnem had gotten used to adopting the role of an orchestrator. A sculptor, if you will; one who carves a nicer shape out of a lump and chisels away enough for everyone to forget the ugliness of its origin. And for this to go her way—as all was bound to, naturally—she needed the subject of the debate, of course. Teoman.
No one would have to know. She’d plead with, if not command, Hakan to extend the same butteriness he does to Leyla to Teoman if just for a day. Anything incriminating, hinting at a false identity or death had been burnt—purged from the world and, one day, if God willed, Şebnem’s mind. If juvie wasn’t screwing him over too severely, even Kutay could stand witness to Teoman’s fair treatment within their home. All is well that ends well!
Bracing herself, Şebnem turned on her heel to speak just as an officer cut her short.
“There is speculation that your son may not be your own, Mrs. Şebnem.”
Shiiit.
She must’ve looked like a total fool with her mouth half-open in her polished smile. She’d even prepared a dignified posture for the discussion.
“Pardon me, what?” Şebnem laughed uncomfortably. She swore that laugh had come from somewhere outside of her—inside, there wasn’t enough air.
“That is all that we can share at the moment.”
How comforting.
“We have also been informed that Teoman stormed off from school following the incident. Regardless of your answer to whether or not he has come home, we are obligated to perform a walkthrough of your home to ensure his safety. If he is not present, a search for him will be launched.”
Şebnem swallowed dryly. The corners of her mouth faltered—she wanted to curse, to scream, to bite. For the first time in this exchange, she nodded. All without the need to play devil’s advocate.
The dryness of her throat was quick to climb its way down into her stomach. What she had eaten that morning seemed to scrape against the raw walls of inside her stomach in a way that she was painfully aware of. She excused herself briefly, finding her husband’s study in delirium.
There was no time to waste. As she ascended the stairs—her vision blurred and the walls looked to be closing in on her—Şebnem hated the pace of each step. She couldn’t help it, but God, did she hate it—and more, did she hate herself.
Before the search for whatever she could incinerate even began, Şebnem broke down against the low desk, seemingly unaffected by how it trembled under her weight. The wood bit into her collar and burned; her fresh tears seared her skin; everything—the memories and the future—scorched her mind. What sin did she commit—not any that she’d shouldered because wedlock demanded she did—and not repent for that was damning her to hell on Earth? Which and why? What all-merciful God was asphyxiating her right now?!
Before the craze for wealth, Şebnem’s desires had been simple—so fucking simple! Şebnem wanted to be a mother; through thick and thin, her desire was to bear and raise a child of her own. A child of her own. Wicked as it may have sounded, she wouldn’t even have minded a lack of a husband—that is how dearly her heart smouldered in yearning for a child. A yearning to have something that’s yours. A bond transcending the material, never to be broken. Money had never been enough to fill that void. It had merely been duct tape over the leak until her real wish could come true.
And as soon as it had come true, it had been torn out of her hands, so— fuck, if Şebnem was a sinner, if she was damned to hell, she’d be the most justified of the damned!
Lifting her head like a woman half-dead, Şebnem tried to block out the noise of the uncomfortable pitter-patter of her tears on the paper she was ruining. Audited company accounts, trust agreements for their kids (oh, her kid)— a non-disclosure agreement…? No matter…
Nothing seemed to catch her eye until the sheen of a thin sheet moved in the corner of her eye. Şebnem gripped it tight enough to rip.
A ward admission record.
Behavioural dysregulation, guardian-requested evaluation. [...] July 25, 2016 (prior admissions not noted). [...] Sedation protocol as per guardian discretion. [...] Signed, H. Akkaya and Ş. Akkaya.
Attached to it, a discharge note… patient presents as compliant and subdued.
She gulped, wetter this time, and curled her lip. His scream at the first needle reverberated in her ear. She wanted to scream just to block the noise out—alas, the distant noise of boots tore Şebnem out of her mind and placed her back into reality.
She wanted more than anything for everything back then to burn. So this document would have to burn. And, in no time, this situation would gutter like a candle at the end of its life; before it even had the chance to begin.
Şebnem was self-aware of the amount of make-up she’d wiped off in the process of concealing her tears, but her narrow-minded game plan handed her a sense of composure she would need.
She slinked to the doors, seeing the officers off with all the concern and conscientiousness she could. “I will make sure to call as soon as Teoman is home and I look forward to our cooperation.”
The younger spent a little too much time saying his byes as he faltered by the door. His elder had gained a few-step advantage over him on his leave. Şebnem only glared from behind them, eyes glassy and document almost crumpling in the arm flexing behind her.
The voice in her that goaded her into breaking down in worry was nothing against Şebnem’s renewed steel nerves.
A final-sounding thud that seemed even to shake the ground Şebnem was standing on was her sign of privacy at last. Still, her shoulders wouldn’t unclench—that might’ve owed to what she was still holding. Taking it out, Şebnem embarked on a stroll around the house. She descended a step, then ascended one, having absentmindedly been led by her desire to incinerate what was in her hand—in the kitchen.
She wasn’t dumb. She stopped in her tracks, short of the entrance. She threw a glance at the pristine island—she’d never appreciated those well-cut edges enough—topped with minimal decoration that no one cared for. If it weren’t for its saviour, Şebnem, that poor candle would soon be drowning in dust. Her eyes drifted to wherever she anticipated a lighter to be. She could do this right now—right here, with no one to witness her, as far as she knew.
In her contemplation, her fists tightened, running white. She chewed on her lip enough to create a raw spot before making the stride.
As far back as her memories go, there hasn’t ever been a time where Şebnem earnestly considered giving up. Put off, sure. Wait for the right opportunity to seize, definitely. But Şebnem wasn’t one to roll over—not just like that. And if she was that way about what she owned superficially, then it was only expected that she was the same about what she owned familiarly.
Her baby had been taken from her once, and she’d spiralled into a darkness that her eyes never adjusted to. They lived somewhere so bright now—there was no need for darkness, and anyone to assume that Şebnem would let it return is a fool. She’d trap Teoman in his own darkness with her as his only light if she had to, and that oath to herself and the world was the furthest thing from a con.
Şebnem pulled the drawer open with an urgency unbefitting of her otherwise nimble mannerisms. …That was a blank. Another and another, increasing in vigour as she went on, until she landed on her fated drawer from which she quietly pulled the lighter and detoured to the sink.
She let the paper drop for a moment and looked on pitifully. Because of the window over the sink, the light spilling through thankfully obscured most of its contents, save for fragments of words and those damned signatures.
Hardening her heart, Şebnem held the nozzle to the corner of the paper. She’d be lying if she said her hand didn’t shake even a little bit—she couldn’t help the way her forearm cramped at the reminder. It had been for the greater good then, but what had it done for them now?
She caught her own tears before they had the chance to slip loose again. She pulled the trigger and even had the audacity to step away while keeping the burning document in her sights.
“Şebnem?”
Hakan practically breathed her name, tan face tinted redder than she anticipated he could get. Hell, he even had to brace himself against the entrance to the kitchen, then on the edge of the kitchen island.
He coughed and Şebnem looked away.
“What are you doing, Şebnem?” he asked as though she were insane.
“They are coming to inspect us. I’m getting rid of what needs getting rid of.”
Hakan sighed, planting his other arm into the island and dropping his head in frustration for a moment. He looked up with a screwed face, like he’d been force-fed mulch.
“What do you think that bastard did now, huh? What did he let slip this time?”
Şebnem pressed her lips into a thin line and cautiously approached the burning document. The last portion untouched by the flames was her own signature and as soon as it had reached, she turned the faucet on, tuning out Hakan’s cursing and saving her responses.
“What in the world could that animal have told people for the police to call me at work to let us know they’ll be ferret about our fucking house?!”
“You shouldn’t be so quick to blame him,” Şebnem asserted as softly as she could. Her voice was deliberately clipped to send Hakan a hint.
He didn’t appear to get it. “Shouldn’t I? Shouldn’t I?”
“No.”
“Şebnem, my love,” he said patronisingly, coming up from behind her, “when, in recent times, have we been in hot water because of anyone other than Teoman? I’ve done everything I can—everything in my power to make a man of him, and he refused.”
“You know there are people with a vendetta against him. I’m sure they provoked him and, when asked, downplayed their provocation to frame him.” She wondered if Hakan had gotten the additional news that had sent her reeling only moments before.
“How long are you going to keep denying that we have failed to raise our son? …And so much trouble for what…”
Crossed hands found Şebnem’s waist as she was rocked side-to-side. They fell into a bleak rhythm that she didn’t want to interrupt. Her plans needed space to brew—even if that space was in the arms of someone who wouldn’t know.
The couple came to a halt when a heavy thud of a door and unmistakably furious footsteps commanded them. Şebnem felt Hakan’s body tense up and wriggled herself free as if her husband had been a captor of sorts. When he—as he always did; ready to spring in action like a crusader—prepared to leave and confront their guest, Şebnem calmly stretched her hand out and into his way.
“You’re the last person Teoman needs to talk to,” she declared, shooting Hakan a more obviously hard glare.
Şebnem valued family, always had, but knowing the full extent of her husband’s reactions in cases like these, and knowing what they would be under investigation for, her son had to take priority over everyone else. That would remain undisputed.
He opened his mouth to protest—cowered when he realised Şebnem wouldn’t falter.
“Fine, then.”
Şebnem took off to greet Teoman like she would if it was any normal day, stepping eagerly out of the kitchen only to be shoved past. She wanted more than anything for her escalating worry not to crack her façade. But Teoman’s neck was red and even if his face was invisible, his shoulders shook in a way that betrayed any attempt at secrecy. Something must’ve been done to him beyond what had been reported to her—someone must’ve hurt him, and it would be on her to avenge him again.
She followed expectantly, and Teoman reacted minimally to the obvious click-clack of shoes on his tail. She even called “Teoman” once, praying in vain for a response. In vain for a response…
Before her half-formed sigh had escaped in full, Teoman halted in front of the console instead of continuing his route down to his bedroom (how he was supposed to).
“I misunderstood something again, didn’t I?” His voice was much smaller than expected. Şebnem could’ve cried at the comparison she drew between the boy she knew and who he could become if he knew. “What is it this time? Did you take the wrong kid home from the hospital? Was I made in a fucking lab, what is it?”
“They’re lying to you.” Şebnem’s voice came out stiffer than she meant for it to. If only he knew how difficult it was for her to balance softness with rigidity… “You know how jealous they are of you—how they want to one-up you, all the time. How can you be sure that that wasn’t the case today, either?”
“I’ve seen proof!” he yelled, enough to prompt Hakan to move in on the pair from the kitchen.
Had he gone crazy? All proof was gone—there was no ‘proof’! “What proof? What did they show you?!”
“Why do you care?!”
“We are your parents!” Hakan chimed in.
He was a very unneeded third voice here. Şebnem wanted to think of this more as a mother-son conversation—his father had no place here. She turned.
“Go away.”
“Why? I’m his father, why should—”
“Go away!” she repeated herself. Her voice cracked at the pressure of her words.
A distant, unwilling rhythm of steps informed Şebnem about Hakan’s retreat. She strode closer to her son and he faced her in tandem, forcing her to flinch and stumble a step back.
Oh, her son! What had they done to him! The nosebleeds that had become infrequent might as well turn into routine at this rate—every part of his face was either flushed or bloodshot!
Şebnem reached for his face almost instinctively. Teoman slapped her away with the energy of an injured animal defending itself from something that only wanted to help. And sure, it hurt—he was pubescent, strong enough to make his mother’s wrist ache with a twist—but no pain would tantamount to the one in her tensing heart.
Without having to look, Teoman’s hand reached for the family picture—his first day of school—and smashed it between their feet.
“Teoman, you have to listen to me,” Şebnem pleaded at this point. Whether the waterworks were necessary, involuntary means of eliciting guilt wasn’t important right now. “Don’t let those people’s lies tear our family apart. Can you remember how well we lived just a few months ago?!”
“We didn’t! That was all show, and you know that!”
“What are you talking about?!” She loosened her grip on calmness for just a moment. “Why are you letting strangers who hate you plant false narratives about the past in your brain?! You were there for it—you remember it! You haven’t forgotten anything you weren’t supposed to forget!”
“Was I supposed to forget my life before I was six, then?” he asked, softer this time, but still trying to maintain his edge.
Şebnem forced a light chuckle that came eerily easy. “Yes. Of course, Teoman. Ask your sister, and she wouldn’t be able to name you a single thing that happened before your sixth birthday.”
“I did. And she gave me some pretty solid stories.”
“Stories—that’s all they are! When we’re missing childhood memories, we fill the gaps with our imagination. Did Simge not discuss that with you?” Şebnem was careful in how she gripped the blond’s shoulders. To achieve a better effect of sincerity, she even tilted her head. “Was it Aras who told you such things?”
In an instant, as though just the mention of that name had triggered it, Teoman’s beady eyes welled with tears. “Yeah,” he croaked. Şebnem frowned. Why had they ever let this weak son of theirs roam the Earth freely so early? He was too weak-willed to leave his mum’s side—even now.
“Look, Teoman,” she started, voice lowered to amend his vulnerability, “I’m not a monster. I know that boy is hurting, and—he did know a child who died. Terribly tragic. But that child wasn’t you, Teoman—don’t you see what he’s doing?”
She topped it off in a twist ironic only to her. “He’s using a dead boy’s memory to steal you from us.”
“There’s a scar,” Teoman said, holding his wrist out like evidence in a trial he didn’t even understand the stakes of. Oh, a poor, confused boy he was… “Right here. I’ve had it since I can remember and no one’s ever told me where it’s from. He said— he said it’s from when I fell off a wall, chasing some cat.”
Şebnem’s eyes flicked from his wrist and back to his face so fast the snapshots nearly blended together.
“That’s— from an injection gone wrong when you were an infant,” she said, already reaching for his arm like she meant to hold it, examine it, make it her own to explain. “The needle slipped. You cried for hours. Don’t you remember me telling you that story a hundred times?”
“No! No, I– I don’t!”
“Well, you should before you let some grieving orphan lunatic fabricate a narrative to try and hurt you, or—God forbid—abduct you!”
Teoman fell silent. He looked down and Şebnem up. A temporary victory, she thought, though not as victoriously as she wished. She embraced him, trying, most of all, to pull his chest close and remind him of how their hearts beat in parallel, unwilling to give up despite his lack of reciprocity. He squirmed—all children did, sometimes, when they were lost and in need of subdual.
That didn’t leave Şebnem too much of a choice, now, did it? She saw Teoman off with a final squeeze (plus a resulting groan) and sweet words that came to her unconsciously.
“Don’t tell me you’re planning something without me again,” Hakan said in place of a greeting when Şebnem re-entered the kitchen despondently. She was fixated so intensely on ‘planning without Hakan’ that she walked into the kitchen island and barely resisted doubling over at the knock to her diaphragm.
Hakan was unhurried in his rescue, placing a firm palm between her shoulder blades and on her stomach. If only, Şebnem pondered, this stability was enough. She was ignorant of Hakan’s repeated questions about whether she was okay.
“Let it rest,” she snapped at him, shooing his hands from her body like she hadn’t let them rest there just moments back. “I’m not planning anything. I’ve had enough of being nagged by you whenever I try—you know better, so the lead is yours to take.”
He sighed, crossed his arms, and paced the same two-metre radius of his wife. Şebnem didn’t have it in her to pay attention to him unless Teoman was a keyword. Whatever Hakan would come up with, Şebnem would distrust it—and don’t get her started on the faith she hated placing in the police. They had refused to bow once, and she couldn’t risk that happening again.
Danger lurked in every possible corner of Teoman’s present life. For the last time, he’d need a new one. And no matter the hurdles—the trouble and everything in between—Şebnem would go the length of assuring that.
Without ever establishing eye contact with the other person in the room, Şebnem’s body and mind wandered to her dear flask. She almost broke it when she let it drop, evidently impatient to get drinking whatever she’d found in her reach-gamble.
She wanted to elbow Hakan when he, for the third time, creeped up from behind and took her arms—not to puppeteer, but to get her to reconsider, probably. “Now’s not the time to be drinking, my love.”
“Like I care,” Şebnem spat. The glass filled as quickly as her mouth—the whiskey disappeared.
Hakan didn't say anything for a long time. He offered her a few loose pats and advice she didn’t need—“just don’t have too much”—before finally leaving her be.
… She really needed to vent some frustration. The non-verbal, quadriplegic Serhat should do her good.