By: VegaWriters
Summary: Step one: Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
I know what it’s like … Living with strangers. Your fate being decided by social workers, advocates, judges...
Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years old is.
Modesto, CA
If she closed her eyes and thought really hard, maybe she would open her eyes and be back in her bedroom in Tomales Bay. If she tried hard enough, she could hear the waves against the shore and the distant sound of the lighthouse motor. Even when her parents were fighting, it had been peaceful in her bedroom. The shelter reminded her too much of their house in Modesto. Thin walls amplified the sudden eruptions of sound; bombs exploded and left a wake of the loudest silence a person could imagine. She hated that house. It didn’t make any sense to have two houses. Wasn’t it better to just live on the beach all the time?
Twelve-year-old Sara Anne Sidle huddled into a ball, trying to hide from the noise around her: younger girls fighting over dolls, boys playing with trucks, the nauseating sound of the basketballs bouncing against the court. Gum smacked. Hair twirled through brushes. She heard everything.
It was too loud to sleep, too loud to read. At times, it was too loud to imagine that she was back on the beach in Tomales Bay.
All she had to do was hold on. Her older brother was coming for her. Brian promised he’d be back.
Just hang tight, Stars. I promise, I’ll be back soon. Someone will come and take care of you for a while, but I’ll come and get you. I promise. Here, pinky swear.
It wouldn’t be long.
She knew the two adults in the doorway were talking about her. They were trying to not be obvious, but over the noise in the room, she could hear bits and pieces of their conversation. The blonde was the detective who had shown up at her house. The redhead was Mackenzie, the social worker.
Sara wished she could remember the name of the first woman, the one who had found her that night; the one who had brought her over to the hospital. But she hadn’t seen her since Mackenzie had brought her back here.
It was all so confusing. Mackenzie and the blonde detective kept trying to get her to say something. Mackenzie wanted her to tell them about what her father had done. The blonde detective wanted to know what had made her mother snap. Everyone wanted to know about the old bruises on her temple and why her x-rays had been “a spider web of fractures”. They wanted to know if her father had touched her inappropriately and had her mother ever tried to leave.
Would they believe her if she told them that her father hadn’t been the only one who hurt her? Her father hit her when he drank too much, but her mother had gone completely crazy. What if she said the wrong thing? Was she supposed to tell them about how her father used her for target practice with his empty liquor bottles and drinking glasses; the last time he’d landed a shot, she’d ended up with three stitches over her eye.
Tell them how this happened, girl, and I swear to your mother’s god, I’ll kill you. You fell down the stairs. Remember that.
Did they want to know about her mother locking her in a closet because she’d asked when she was going to start her period like the other girls? Was she supposed to tell them about Brian’s broken noses? What was she supposed to say? Her mother had told her that if she ever said anything to the cops or any social workers who might come to the house, that they’d send her to a place where little girls were made into slaves. Her father’s threats still echoed in her mind.
But now, her father was dead and her mother was in jail. What if her punishment was being sent to a place where Brian would never find her?
They kept asking questions and sending her to different doctors, but she didn’t dare to say anything. These were the people her mother had said would hurt her.
Could they hurt her any more than her parents already had?
Would they lock her in her room for three days without food?
What torture could they do to her that was worse than she had already lived through?
But every time she went to speak, her mouth wouldn’t move.
She had answers to their questions, but her mouth wouldn’t obey her commands.
She missed the woman with the soft brown eyes, the one who had yanked open the hideaway door under the stairs. She’d lowered her flashlight, called out for a medic, and then given Sara a smile.
I’ve found the daughter!
Sara hadn’t let go of her hand until the hospital. The woman had stayed, waiting with her until Mackenzie came to take her to the shelter. At the last minute, she’d slipped her blue windbreaker around Sara’s shoulders.
You’re going to be okay. You’re safe now.
Her arm and face still hurt. Did it matter anymore that her father had thrown her down against the edge of her bed? Her father was still dead, they’d taken her mother away, and Brian had abandoned her.
It’s going to be okay.
They kept asking her the same questions. Did she remember her mother stabbing her father? What had been going on? What was the fight about? But that was what they didn’t get. It never mattered what the fight was about, it always ended with someone hurt. They wanted to know how she broke her arm. Had her father grabbed her? They were all very concerned with what her father had done to her. Did it matter to them that her mother had hurt her too? She didn’t know if she could even tell them when her mother had held hand over the searing heat of the stove.
Feel this, girl? Do you feel the heat? You’d better get used to this feeling because it’s what awaits girls like you! You’re going to hell, girl!
The burn on her hand was still red, but she couldn’t remember when it had happened. What good would she be even if she could find a way to speak?
But they only seemed to care about her father. Was it just fathers who got in trouble for beating their kids?
It didn’t matter anyway, not anymore and no matter how much Mackenzie tried to talk to her, Sara couldn’t get her mouth to obey her brain. If she could, she’d tell them that only had foggy memories of the last few months. There had been the time, recently, when her father had come back from the house in Tomales Bay. He’d been drunk and stood in her bedroom door, laughing at her while she huddled on her bed, still bruised and sore from her mother’s punishment for starting her period.
A new little woman in the house, hm.
Her stomach still churned with fear; she could still see him looming in her doorway, laughing. A sixth sense that told her something had been wrong about the way her father looked at her.
If her mouth worked, she could tell them that blood smelled like copper and iron.
She knew she would never forget the cop who had been standing by her father’s body. He had been puking his guts out and the woman who had found her had muttered something about how uniforms were wimps.
“Has she spoken yet?”
“No.”
Sara pressed her back into the wall, hoping they’d just go away, or at least go talk about her where she couldn’t hear them.
“We still don’t have any clue what really happened to her beyond very sketchy hospital records.”
“From what I understand,” the blonde detective looked over her shoulder again and Sara quickly looked away, “those records should have alerted someone to what was going on in that house.”
Mackenzie sounded frustrated. “We don’t catch all of them. It didn’t help that the family was apparently back and forth between here and Tomales Bay all the time. When you are being served by different hospitals and different systems, it’s easier to stay lost.”
“I know.” Jennifer Curtis looked back again. “My daughter is that age. It’s a damn shame.”
“It is for all these kids.” Mackenzie shook her head. “And, to anticipate your next question, Sara is still in a catatonic state, but she is starting to function better. For a while, she refused all food, but the last few days we’ve been able to get her to eat.” Glancing at the chart in her hands, she read over the notes again. “Have you found her brother yet?”
“They’re still looking.”
“It might go a long way – it might get her to open up. Usually in a situation like the one we found her in, the kids have a very tight bond to protect each other from the parents. But, he’s almost seventeen and probably hoping the system will care for her. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him surface in a couple of years and try to gain custody.”
Sara looked over at the detective and the social worker, wondering why their faces were so sad when they mentioned Brian. They had to know where Brian was. He was coming to get her. He’d promised!
“The only survivor of that night is a pre-teen girl who was so abused and so traumatized that it’s been three weeks and she’s still not speaking. She’s my first priority for housing. I think all of the kids here are scaring her, but I can’t find a family willing to take someone as difficult as she’s going to be. From what I can tell, she didn’t have any exposure to the outside world beyond that bed and breakfast, and even that was limited. Apparently, somewhere in the last three years or so, the mother was converted to some sect of born again Christianity and she probably didn’t like outsiders near the kids. She moved them here for part of the year and left her husband to run the business.”
“She didn’t care that she was leaving her drunk husband to run the family’s only source of income?”
“In some part of her mind, I’m sure she thought her husband was also preaching. Or, she was trying to stay away from him altogether. Either way, when it comes to the kids, there are a few records of scattered school attendance. After an investigation by Sara’s teachers in regard to a picture she’d drawn of a harpooned whale, her family pulled both kids out of school and they were home schooled. The mother kept all the records up to date, CPS never had reason to investigate. Or so we thought.”
“The most important time for a girl to be socialized, and she’s been locked in her room?”
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel …”
“Yeah.” Mackenzie looked over her shoulder and Sara quickly looked away and stared back out the window at the kids in the courtyard. “There’s a brilliant mind at work inside of that panic … we just find to find it.”
“From caterpillar to butterfly?”
“From cocoon to butterfly.” The social worker sighed softly. “I just hope this one makes it out of the webbing alive.”
Together, they turned. Sara could feel them coming.
“Sara?”
Everything was so confusing. She wanted her bed and her books, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted her mother to come rescue her. Her father’s beatings had been horrible, but her mother’s torture was worse.
She missed the mother who had helped her make sea shell wreathes and told her the stories of the mermaids under the water.
She missed the friends from her books. There was nothing here but the pile of National Geographic’s she’d found and stashed under her cot. She missed Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames. She was midway through a new Hardy Boys story. But, her books were all back in the house and it occurred to her, suddenly, that they probably smelled like her father’s blood.
Mackenzie’s voice was trying to get her attention but she couldn’t look up. Slowly, she reached under her pillow to clutch the tattered magazine with the pictures of wild orchids on the cover. She closed her eyes and tried to remember back to the time when her mother had woven flower chains into her hair and taught her all about Mother Earth and Father Time. A time back when they lived only at the bed and breakfast, before her father started smelling like liquor and before her mother’s bibles started appearing in the house.
“Sara?” Mackenzie’s voice came again. “Sara, sweetheart, can you talk to me?”
Daring herself to open her eyes, Sara tried to focus on the two women, but the cross hanging around the detective’s neck distracted her. She blinked and tucked her knees up closer.
You filthy little whore! What have you done this time?! What did you do that made God so angry that he made you bleed?
Her mother was grabbing her hair, dragging her, while she demanded her daughter repent for her sins.
“Sara, I know you can hear us. Come on out of there, okay? Come out and talk?”
Sara stared at the cast on her arm. She remembered Brian putting her under the stairs, she remembered her mother screaming and her father yelling, but she couldn’t remember how her bones had been broken.
The images in her mind but they were like the ones from her “chose your own adventure” books. Alone, each possibility made no sense and the story was impossible to piece together.
Sara tucked her arms together under the big sleeves of the blue windbreaker and wished to be allowed back into the car. She’d take the shelter over this strange family.
She’d even take her mother back. She’d put up with her conversion to that insane religion if it meant she didn’t have to live with these people. If she went back to her mother, maybe Brian would come back. They could go back to Tomales Bay and she wouldn’t have to live in this tiny house with all these kids who stared at her like she was something on the cover of one of her magazines.
She took a step back, trying to flee for the car. Mackenzie’s hand held her in place.
“Hi, Sara.”
She clutched her backpack tightly against her chest, avoiding the gaze of the large, bubbly woman with big teeth and bigger hair. The backpack held her only possessions – the toothbrush from the shelter, one change of clothes, and the teddy bear Brian had given her for her fifth birthday.
The woman who had found her had come to visit one day.
I hear you aren’t talking yet. What’s going on inside your head? You don’t have to talk to me, it’s okay. But don’t say silent forever. I’ll bet you have a lot of neat things to say.
They’d sat outside and Sara had held her teddy bear and looked into the woman’s brown eyes. It was the first time since her father had been killed that she’d said a word to anyone.
Can I go home with you?
She still couldn’t remember the woman’s name.
Sara … I wish I could take you home, but I can’t. They don’t let people like me be foster parents. You’ll understand when you’re older … I know, it’s a stupid answer, but really, you will understand when you’re older.
Right now, it really was a stupid answer. It didn’t make any sense that she couldn’t go home with the one person she felt safe around.
Here’s your backpack too. At least, I figured it’s your backpack. Some of your things are inside – washed to get rid of the smell from that night. There are also a couple of new books for you. I’m sorry you’re going through this, Sara, but you’ll be okay.
She didn’t understand why the woman couldn’t take her home.
You’re a bit young for the books, but something tells me that you’ll understand them just fine. Good luck.
“Sara, say hello.” Mackenzie’s voice nudged her. Sara looked up again, but when she tried to speak, nothing came out of her mouth. Behind the big woman stood a mixture of kids, most of them shared her big bones and big hair. The big woman came up and hugged her and Sara had to fight to keep from puking at the overwhelming scent of tobacco and chewing gum. When the woman pulled back she looked hurt, as if Sara had insulted her very honor by not jumping for joy. After all, she was saving this poor, young orphan.
Sara stood still, confused at the noise around her, and wanting her mother and her brother. She’d even be happy to go back to the cots and the noise at the shelter if she didn’t have to be hugged again by this woman.
The dusty house smelled like stale bologna and dirty cat litter. Toddlers with hair color the same as the woman’s – was it Mrs. Lewis? – followed her as she was shoved into a room overflowing with girls toys. She shared the room with three other girls, and she was given the bottom bunk closest to the door. Pinks and yellows jumped out at her, and Sara winced, missing the cinderblock of the shelter. She sighed and curled up, clutching the bag against her body.
Maybe it would all be over soon.
Maybe she could go home.
Maybe her mom would be different this time.
Maybe.
She stared, blankly, around the room. Homeroom had been bad enough. But this was a room full of long desks that she’d have to share with another student. She couldn’t curl up in her own little space and ignore the people around her.
Carefully, she turned and walked to the back of the room. Silently staking her claim to her chair with her notebook, she kept her backpack clutched on her arm as she walked to the side counter and looked at the posters outlining the scientific method.
Step one: Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
Slowly, she turned and watched her classmates file through the door. Not all of them were as perfect as some – none were as messy as she was. She watched the girls and boys who were perfect gather together, all at the back of the room. Then there were the ones who were a little more like her. There were fewer of them, and fewer still who chose to sit in the front.
She turned back to the posters and reread step one. Hm.
Rainbows caught her attention and Sara looked down at a collection of triangular objects on the counter. With courage she hadn’t felt in years, she reached out and lifted a small prism to catch the light.
“That’s my favorite piece.”
Gasping in fear, Sara dropped the prism. “I’m sorry!” She whispered even as he picked up the glass from the counter and set it back in its place. Her hands wrapped around her sides and she stared down at her scuffed tennis shoes.
The teacher frowned. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Sara. It is Sara, right?”
She nodded.
“You know something,” when he stopped speaking, she looked up and he smiled at her. There was something gentle about him and despite her racing heart, she found herself able to start to relax. “I think you’ll like it better up front. You can pay more attention and it will be less crowded.” She grinned at the thought of fewer students. “Do you like science, Sara?”
She kind of nodded. “I really do.” Even now, speaking aloud still felt strange.
“Well then, the front will be better for you anyway. Come on. Don’t worry.”
Sara smiled.
“Why are you back here, Sara?” Sara ducked the exasperated look from her social worker. “I’m running out of places to put you. This will be your third home since August.”
Worrying the strip of leather around her wrist, Sara shrugged and did her best to form words that still didn’t want to come. “I don’t know. I’m trying.” It was easier to stare into space, to just let things happen to her. The court-ordered shrink they’d assigned her to was all too happy with the few words she’d give to him at each session, and she was just as happy to not force herself to speak more than absolutely necessary. The same went for Mackenzie, it seemed.
“You’re trying? How is sneaking cigarettes, never leaving your room, and stealing beer trying? Sara, I know you’re going through a time right now, but our choices for you are limited.”
“Yeah. I know. No one wants the crazy girl from the crazy family anyway.” When Mackenzie didn’t say anything for a few minutes, Sara tucked her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “You told me I could see my mom. When?”
“When the courts say it’s okay.”
“I want to see her.”
“Sara … Why do you want to see her?”
Sara swallowed hard and stared at the woman. “You told me I could see her.” She needed to see her. She still couldn’t piece together what had happened; if she saw her mother locked up, then maybe, it could all start to make sense. “Please?”
Mackenzie nodded to the small duffel bag and backpack that held Sara’s things. “Go claim a cot. I’ll get on the phone to the courts and we’ll see what we can do. I’m also going to work on a new placement for you. For God’s Sake, Sara, don’t screw this next one up. Is it really so hard to just get along?”
Sara glared and grabbed her bags and headed for the girl’s room. Three months in, Sara already knew the drill: keep her head down, acknowledge those with any kind of power, fight if she had to. As she entered, a few of the girls she recognized looked up and they exchanged nods. Trading a cigarette for her preferred bunk, she waited for the other girl to move her stuff from the bed.
So this, Sara thought as she dropped her backpack, must be what juvie was like.
Mackenzie’s sigh echoed in Sara’s ears. Keeping her hands clenched in her pockets, she counted tiles as they walked from room to room. Today, she’d learned the truth; the courts had decided that her mother wasn’t fit to regain custody. Sara was going to be in foster care until she was eighteen. Guards opened and closed gates behind them and with each step Sara felt the pressure of the hospital all around her. Each step made her regret begging to see her mother.
One last room opened before them. Sara raised her eyes from her tennis shoes and found herself staring at the woman who used to be her mother. She knew the eyes and the hair, but it wasn’t her mother. It couldn’t be. Everything was different, even the smell. It wasn’t her mother’s smell. But when her mother hugged her, she found herself clinging and crying and wanting to know why she hadn’t come to get her.
“What did I do wrong?” Sara whimpered, looking up into her mother’s eyes. “What did I do?”
“Baby …” Laura reached up, gently touching her daughter’s cheeks. “You didn’t do anything. This isn’t your fault, Sara.”
At the touch on her face, over her eye, Sara jerked away, knowing it was a lie. This glazy, medicated, strange smelling version of her mother was only an illusion. Her mother would never tell her that it wasn’t her fault. Her mother would tell her the truth – it was her fault this had happened because Sara had broken a pot or burned dinner or woken her father up. It had to be her fault. It was always her fault. Even the families who kept sending her back to the shelters said it. It was always her fault.
“I wanna go.” She looked over at Mackenzie. “I want to go. Now.”
“Sara …”
She turned and leaned against the school library’s cold, brick wall. “Yeah?”
“What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?” She hugged her books tighter against her chest and ignored Mr. Johnson’s glare.
“I mean, you’re easily the brightest kid in your class, if not this school and your brilliance doesn’t stop with science. You’ve got straight A’s, but you are insolent, you respond to baiting, and then, today, I catch you under the bleachers, smoking. You’re thirteen years old, Sara. What are you doing?”
She just stared at him, not sure where he was going, but just wanting to get out and be alone again. She liked Mr. Johnson. Of all the teachers, he didn’t treat her like a complete freak, but that didn’t mean he understood her. Maybe if she stared at him long enough, he’d let her leave.
No such luck.
“Sit down for a minute, Sara.”
Knowing better than to argue with that tone, she moved back to the table where she’d been sitting and dropped into the chair. “I’m sorry,” she said. It was what the teachers wanted to hear.
“No, you aren’t and I’d rather you were insolent than lie to me.” He handed her a sheet of paper.
“What’s this?”
“Your classes for next year, if you’re willing. Emphasis on math and science and advanced English.”
“You changed my schedule?!”
“It’s a proposal.” He sat across from her at the small table, “Sara, I am tired of seeing you scheduled for detention. I’m not going to let that brain of yours go to waste, but you have to meet me halfway. I think you’re bored and that’s what has you drawing the pictures you’re drawing in the margins of the books and picking fights with girls who don’t have as much brain in their heads as you do in your little finger. The deal is that you stop fighting and we don’t catch you out back smoking again. You do that; we give you all the advanced classes you want. Do well; we help you get into any advanced placement classes you want in high school. I think you could even graduate early and get out of the system, but you have to be willing to work for it. This won’t be easy for you.”
She stared at the piece of paper in her hands. “Where could I go? To school, I mean …?”
“Harvard … Yale … Berkeley. Sara, you’ve got a mind that leaves people in wonder, but you’re wasting it by giving into whatever is around you. You have to control yourself, reign yourself in.” He smiled. “Deal?”
“Deal.”
They were the only two girls on their side of the room. The holidays meant foster families filled themselves to capacity; people wanting to do their good deeds before they decided that the older kids were just too much of a hassle. Sara had actually been glad no one had come to pick her up – it was easier than melding into a new family only to be kicked out all over again. Anyway, maybe Brian would come back to get her.
“Is your mom ever coming to pick you up?”
Sara looked over at the shadowy form of the other girl. Alyssa had been told her mother was coming back; she was only here until her mother was released after a drug conviction. “Probably not.” She looked back at Waterland. She felt for the teacher in the story, the one with the crazy wife. He had stayed with his wife and loved her even when she embarrassed him. He didn’t drink or embarrass the kids around him. It was a nice fantasy.
“I’m sorry…”
Sara shrugged and looked back up at her scared bunkmate. “It’s okay.”
“I always hear that it’s really bad for girls in foster care. Do the boys really watch you in the shower? Are the dads all perverts?”
Sara shrugged again. At her last home, the father had kept walking in on her when she was in the shower, but it wasn’t anything more than what her own father had done. “It’s not that bad, really. I know it happens, but …”
“I hope it doesn’t happen to me. I just want my mom to come back.”
Sara looked at the scared, shadowy figure and sighed, refusing to admit that she shared Alyssa’s dream. She wanted her mother to come floating into the room, her long hair half out of its braid, daisies in her hands, and a smile for everyone. She wanted that mother, not the one who hurt her or the glazed, medicated one from the hospital. But it was just a dream, and dreams weren’t meant to come true.
She sighed and pushed her hair out of her eyes. It was late, but she needed to make sure she passed this test. For once, the classes she was dealing with were really hard and she needed to prove to the teacher who didn’t think she could handle a freshman level advanced physics class that she was still the smartest person in the room.
The doorknob turned and she looked up, expecting her newest foster mother to be standing there, smacking her gum, demanding that she turn out the light and go to bed. She didn’t like this new family, but it could have been worse. At least here the father didn’t invade her personal space and the mom was nice, if slightly irritating. For the first time in a year, she had her own room. That alone was reason to want to stay.
But it wasn’t Mrs. Flemming in the doorway. Instead, it was Derrick, the family’s seventeen-year-old son. He grinned at her and stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him. Hearing the lock click, Sara froze. Instinct told her to duck, that if she launched herself off the bed she could get away. But Derrick was too fast and he threw her back onto the bed. Her head cracked against the bedpost and she could feel everything start to go fuzzy.
Hold still, her mind told her. Just hold still. Struggling will make it worse.
His hand covered her mouth and when she wiggled a bit when his hand grabbed at her nightshirt, he pushed his palm over her nose. “Scream and I’ll sell you to my buddies. Struggle and I’ll make you wish you’d died right along with your dad. Tell anyone about this, and I swear to god, Sara, I’ll kill you.”
Tell anyone how you got hurt, girl, and I swear to your mother’s god, I’ll kill you.
Derrick held a letter opener to her throat, but it was her father speaking. In this moment, she knew exactly what her father’s looks had meant and knew that Derrick was as serious now as her father had been then.
Sara bit her lip as he pushed between her legs. If she closed her eyes and held still, it would all be over soon.
Her stomach hurt, so she leaned against the wall, waiting until Mr. Johnson’s seventh graders were done filtering out of the class. Finally, when she was sure he was alone, she took a deep breath and moved inside the room. He was packing up his briefcase and muttering under his breath and it took her a good five minutes to work up the nerve to call his name. When he turned around, he smiled warmly at her and the knot of fear in her stomach eased just a bit.
“Sara! Hi. What’s up?”
A shaking hand covered her upset stomach and it took another few deep breaths before she could speak. “Can I talk to you?” When he caught her eye, she let herself smile just a bit. But she was too nervous to relax.
“Of course, Sara. What is it?”
She watched him watch her. He took in her baggier jeans and the big sweatshirt and frowned. He was putting it together in four seconds when it had taken her four months. Some scientist she was. “I think I’m pregnant.”
“Sara …” She could read the disappointment in his eyes and hear it in his voice. She dropped her eyes to the ground, staring at her scuffed tennis shoes. He’d never treat her the same way again. She’d lose out on moments with him. He’d dump her just as fast as the foster families who couldn’t handle her. She’d broken her promise to him. “Sara, no …”
Tears started to stream down her face. “I didn’t want to …” her voice was shaking. “He made me.”
“God, Sara. You … you were raped?” She picked her head up when the disappointment changed to anger. Mr. Johnson’s hands were on her shoulders and she looked up, flinching. But he wasn’t angry with her. He dropped his hands from her shoulders and guided her to a chair. Kneeling in front of her, Mr. Johnson gently touched her forehead before tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “Sara, when? When did this happen?”
“Halloween.” She whispered, her arms wrapped tightly around her stomach. “I didn’t … Mr. Johnson, I’m ... I’m really sorry! I didn’t want to!”
“Sara … Sara, you need to tell your social worker and you need to get to a doctor.”
“They’ll blame me.”
“Sara, you don’t know that.”
“Yes!” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “They’re going to blame me! And he said he’d kill me if I told anyone.”
“Sara …” She found herself being pulled into his arms and for the first time in years, she clung to someone and let herself cry. “Sara, it’s going to be okay.”
“No …” she sobbed, quietly. “He said he’d kill me and I know he will. I can’t tell anyone …”
“I’m going to help you through this, Sara. I promise.”
She pulled back and stared at him, not quite believing what he was saying. Promises, she’d learned, were made to be broken.
She looked up as the door opened. An older face stared back at her, stern but not unfriendly. “Your breasts hurting you?”
Slowly, Sara nodded. She ached to feed the daughter she had never seen.
She gave the girl a soft smile. “Mackenzie told me you were raped, that the truth?”
“Yeah.” Sara tugged her knees to her chest and looked at the woman.
“Well, the pain will go away, both in your heart and your breasts. It’ll go away; your milk will dry up. And as for your heart, remember something: he didn’t do anything but take what wasn’t his and you lost your innocence long before he came along and popped your cherry. I have no doubt that you’d have been a good mother, but you’re also a kid and you need to get out of school. Your daughter is in better hands with adults who can take care of her. Don’t let this ruin you.” Rose Baker leaned in the door. “I came out of retirement for you, girl, so you’d better not screw it up.” Sara just nodded, but felt slightly better as she listened to the gentle gruffness in the woman’s voice. “I have rules here and I don’t care how smart you think you are, you obey them. No boys over. Ever. You’re in by nine during the week until you turn sixteen and then you can get a job but I want you in at ten then. Weekends, you’re in by ten until you turn sixteen and we’ll talk after that. No loud music. No smoking. No cutting classes. You get knocked up again and you’re on your own. You keep your grades up. You get arrested and I won’t hesitate to cut you loose. Got me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” She sighed softly. “Do you like coffee, Sara?”
Again, Sara nodded.
“Okay then. Come on downstairs and have a cup. I’m not expecting you to like me and god knows that I won’t take away the dream you probably have of your mother getting better and coming to save you … but I can keep you warm and give you a good, strong cup of coffee. You game?”
Slowly, Sara climbed off the bed.
“You don’t talk much do you?” Rose reached out to touch her and instantly Sara flinched. “God, child …” When Sara stared at her feet, Rose tucked her under the chin and lifted her face back up. “Such big brown eyes, such strength in your soul. You try to hide behind being too cool for everyone, but you’re still so damaged. But you aren’t broken Miss Sara. Damaged, yes. But the thing about damage is that it can be fixed.” She smiled. “You’ve done okay by yourself, despite everything. The worst part is over, Sara. Here, you won’t be hit or watched or treated like anything less than a human being. Hold yourself proudly, girl. You deserve it.”
“Hello, Miss Sidle!”
Sara grinned and clutched her backpack up against her shoulder. It felt strange to be back here – already the room seemed so much smaller.
“How are you?”
Slowly, she stepped toward Mr. Johnson’s desk. “I’m okay. High school is a bit different.”
He chuckled. “It is.” He paused and she knew he was searching for the right way to ask his questions. “So … you’re in school then?”
Sara nodded and swallowed, hard. “She was adopted …”
“It’s the best thing, you know that, right?”
“Yeah.” Sara blinked away the tears in her eyes. “Doesn’t make it any easier though.”
“I know.” He hugged her gently. “But you’re here for something other than a social call. What can I do for you?”
Sara chuckled and held out her physics book. “Um, help?”
To Be Continued …
Pairing: Sara/Grissom (Just not in this chapter.)
Timeframe/Spoilers: Over the course of time, will cover the entire series. This chapter is pre-series.
Rating: This series is Adult, for a lot of reasons. This chapter lives into that rating in a big way. No, there is no smut contained within the pages, but there are references to what Sara went through at home and in foster care. The images are not pretty and have the ability to offend. They are not graphic, but it’s clear what is going on. Consider yourself well warned.
Disclaimer: I have fantasies of being paid to write these characters. Until I find a way to make that fantasy come true, I have no claim whatsoever to Sara Sidle, Laura Sidle, or any of the characters envisioned by CBS and the powers that be at CSI. I make no money off of my playing with them.
Author’s Note: as usual, thank you to
~Sara Sidle, No Humans Involved
~From “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros
