FanFic100: #018 Black
They’re fighting again and he wants to sleep. Mommy told him to, like she always does. But it’s so hard to fall asleep when they are shouting out there. Shouting and… oh no, there was one of these horrible crashes again. He knows he should stay in bed but the crashing always frightens him so much. Scared he looks at the door and then puts the blanket over his head, curling up into a tight little ball with his hands on his ears so he doesn’t have to hear it anymore.
He’s still lying like this, half-asleep now, when he suddenly feels someone gently pulling the blanket back. There’s also a hand on his shoulder rubbing it softly and then wandering down to his hand on his ears. When the hand tries to loosen his fingers he’s confused and irritated that it’s so impatient and so he tries to resist it. All he wants is to sleep. Can’t they see that?
But he’s only four and can only do so much against a grown-up’s hand so in the end he loses his battle and then he hears his mother whisper, “Baby? Marcus? Come on wake up, honey.”
Wake up? But it’s still dark outside. He was told to sleep when it’s dark outside. “Marcus?” The tone in mommy’s voice… she hasn’t ever spoken to him like this before. It almost sounds like she’s… afraid of something but that doesn’t make any sense. His mommy is never afraid of anything. “Darling, I’m really sorry to wake you up… but we don’t have time.”
With that, she turns him around and the grip of her hand around his shoulder isn't gentle anymore. It doesn’t hurt but… for some reason it scares him. It also scares him when he sees his mommy’s face. In the half-dark of his bedroom, with the sparse light from the hall’s light from outside… she looks so… different. There’s something in her face that makes it look ugly and scary… he can’t help but whimper a little and recoil.
“I know, baby, I know.” Now there’s something else in his mommy’s voice. It sounds like his voice sounds when he’s about to cry and doesn’t want to. “I’m sorry.” Sorry for what? But before he can say something, she engulfs him in her arms and picks him up, whispering again “I’m so sorry.” Then she gets up with him in one arm, picks up a bag with the other hand and hurries out of the house.
Outside it’s cold and automatically, he huddles closer to his mother. But she doesn’t stop to wrap him up in warm clothes as usual but just gives him a short peck on the head and then puts him in his child car seat beside Andrew who looks like he’s sleeping. After giving him another kiss, she hurries to get into the drivers’ seat and before he knows it, they are driving away from their house. It’s all so confusing and… where’s daddy? Where’s daddy? “Mommy?” She doesn’t answer him, just stares out of the windshield so he does what he always does: ask a little louder. “Mommy?”
She jerks a little and half turns around. “What is it, honey?”
It’s completely dark outside but the sparse light that is in the car makes her face look a little scary and it doesn’t help much that she just rubbed her hand over her eyes like he does when he’s crying and that her voice sounded so strange… like she had something in her throat that made it hard for her to speak. He knows he shouldn’t do it but he puts his fist in his mouth before he says, “Where’s daddy?”
Mommy doesn’t look at him when she answers him, “He’s… he’s still at home. Do mommy a favor, baby?” He doesn’t know what to say to this but he doesn’t have to since his mommy just continues, “Sleep a little. When you wake up, I’ll get you pancakes. How does that sound, huh?”
Usually, he’d be all for pancakes but this time… he knows something isn't right. “I want daddy.” He said it with a little more force, forgetting that Andrew is sleeping beside him.
For a while, mommy doesn’t answer, just keeps looking straight ahead. Then lights from a car coming towards them lights up her face and it looks… wet. But his mommy isn't crying. She never cries because she always says that Marines don’t cry. They’re brave and they grit their teeth and that gets them through everything. Then, when she had rubbed her eyes a few times, wincing when she hits the one that looks so ugly, she says, “I know. I… I understand that, honey. But… it’s not… it’s just not… go to sleep, please.”
This isn't fair. Mommy always tells them to be honest and he can hear very clearly that right now she is not honest. There’s something she isn't telling him and he… it makes him upset. “Don’t wanna sleep. I want daddy. I want back.” For a moment, mommy doesn’t say anything and she looks… not happy. He can’t see much of her face but what he sees is… scary again. It doesn’t keep him from adding another, “Back, back, back!” though.
But instead of making mommy turn around it wakes Andrew up. Immediately, his little brother starts crying and now he can’t hold it in himself anymore. All the fear and the confusion and the tiredness finally make him crack and he joins Andrew. He doesn’t want to but it just… happens.
Abruptly, the car stops. It happened so suddenly that it managed to shut both Andrew and him up. Then mommy gets out of the car and pulls his door open. He’s so afraid that mommy will shout at him now, like he had heard her shout at daddy so many times or that she will raise her hand like daddy did once or twice before she pulled or pushed him out of daddy’s way and she really looks angry and now…
Now she takes a deep breath and runs her hand through her hair and there’s wetness on her face again but it’s from the rain so it doesn’t confuse him. At least that doesn’t confuse him. She unclips his safety belts and awkwardly hugs him. Then she grips him by his shoulders and looks him in the eye… and somehow that makes him feel so… grown-up. “Marcus… you’re a big boy, aren’t you?”
Mutely, he nods. Of course he is. “You’re… you’re mommy’s big boy, right?” He nods again and she gently runs her hand through his hair. “Okay, so… try to understand what I’ll tell you now, okay?” Again a nod. “See… mommy and daddy… aren’t really happy anymore. We… we have some problems and… and we need to give daddy a little time for himself. So we’ll… we will… we will go somewhere…”
Where, he wants to ask but can only look with big eyes at her because it seems like his mommy is confused herself now. He wants to help mommy so he swallows and tries very feebly, “Grandma and granddad?”
For a second he’s afraid she will be angry at him again for interrupting her but she just smiles and that smile even makes the black ring around her eye look less frightening and ugly. But then… then her face gets so sad, even though she tries to keep smiling and says, “No, honey. I’m sorry but… we shouldn’t bother them too much.” He can see somehow that this is not really the reason why they won’t visit mommy’s or daddy’s parents but now his mommy looks so sad and the last thing he wants to do is make her even sadder.
But he still wants to know where else they will go. “Where, mommy?”
She runs a hand through her hair again and puts a strand behind her ear. By now, she’s soaked through and he wants her to go back into the car because mommy always says that staying out in the rain too long will make you sick and he doesn’t want his mommy to get sick. She keeps quite another moment, looking like she’s searching for something… and then her eyes seem to lighten up and she tells him, “To an old friend of mommy’s.”
That sounds strange. Aren’t all of mommy’s and daddy’s friends here on the island? “Friend?”
She smiles again and strokes his hair. “Yeah, a friend. His name is Evan. You’re gonna like him.” He has never heard of a friend called Evan before and scrunches his nose in confusion. His mommy, though, just smiles again and gives him a peck on the nose and reaches around him to take Andrew’s hand and squeeze it for a short moment.
After that she finally gets back into the car and while she starts it again, she says, “I promise, you’ll like him. He flies big planes. Or well, used to. Anyway, how about you just get to sleep and when you wake up there will be pancakes, like I said.” She’s talking so fast now and cheerfully and it doesn’t sound real but everything is better than shouting or crying… and he does start to feel drowsy, with the car moving and the warmth inside and the rain pounding on the windows.
Also… he doesn’t want to think about all of this - why they left his daddy behind, what that black ring around his mommy’s eyes is, why they are going to visit a friend of his mother they’ve never heard of before in the middle of the night - anymore so he closes his eyes… and has fallen asleep even before they can cross the big bridge over the sea, not yet realizing that they just drove off into a new life.
~*~
TBC in The Bricks of My Defenses.