"It's all going to be ok."
The first time Sarah whispered those words to Jack, he was just over three years old and perched on her hip as they stood on the doorstep, watching Greg drive away. It was a warm, sunny Saturday in January - as much of an anomaly as the cold day in July that Greg said it would be if he ever left her.
"Never, Sarah. I'll never leave you. If I do, it'll be a cold day in July," Greg had grinned at her and said, when, six months pregnant and brimming with hormone-driven emotion, she'd voiced her fear that nothing good ever lasted in her world.
"Promise?" she had asked, her voice small and tiny in her ears as he'd moved around her to grab a glass from the cupboard.
"You bet," he vowed. "Cold day in July. Cold like the arctic." His arms came around her from behind, his hand resting on her swollen belly. "We're having a baby, Sarah. We're a family now. It's all going to be ok."
She was eighteen, pregnant. She believed him. Wanted to believe him. Had to, really. All she'd ever wanted was a home, and someone to love her. Just because they did, not because they had to. "That's me, Babe," Greg had said just a few short months before, as he slid a ring on her finger mere weeks after she found out she was pregnant. "All yours."
And he was, for a while. Until he wasn't. She wasn't really sure when it happened. Things were good, right after Jack was born. Greg was attentive, doting on both of them. She was learning how to be a mom, something that she thought was just supposed to be natural for a woman, but was frustratingly difficult to her. She tried, though. She tried harder than she'd ever tried anything before. She wanted Jack to have a better childhood than she'd had. He would feel safe, she vowed, with two parents who loved him. He'd have everything she didn't.
As time went on, things didn't go back to the way they were pre-Jack. She didn't mind, so much. Sure, the sex wasn't as frequent, or as uninhibited as it had been before. But they still got around to it. When she wasn't exhausted from taking care of Jack. Still, she made sure not to turn Greg down - at least, not often. Even if she wasn't feeling up to it, she'd usually agree - because she wanted to make Greg happy.
Greg really hadn't been happy when, two days after her 21st birthday, she had secured a recruit position at Seattle PD and joined the Training Academy. Three and a half grueling months later he went through the motions of expressing pride and pleasure when she graduated, but she knew he was actually less than impressed. He wanted her to stay home. Raise Jack. Let him take care of them. But she needed a purpose, for her identity to be more than just as someone else's wife and mother. And she wanted more for Jack, she wanted to make sure that they would be ok. Two incomes would make it easier for them to build a life, she reasoned. Plus, she wanted to make sure she didn't totally depend on anyone. Just in case.
Turned out that was a good thing, since now she found herself standing on the stoop in her bare feet, holding Jack tightly to her, watching the taillights on Greg's little car turn the corner...watching until they were gone.
The fights had started once she was working. She had been working fairly steady hours, nothing insane. It was good - money wasn't as tight, and she tried to balance work and being a mother and being a wife. She'd tried really hard, and even though she failed sometimes, she kept trying her best. She thought that counted for something. That if she apologized - and she always did - Greg would try as hard as she did, would know that she meant well even when things got messed up.
That day, as the tail lights rounded the corner and disappeared, she vowed never to apologize for herself again. To anyone.
"We'll be ok, Jack." She breathed, trying to keep her voice steady. "We have each other. We'll always have each other, you hear?"
"Car! mama! I go in the car with daddy?" Jack questioned, patting her face.
She didn't know how to explain it all to him, or tell him that he couldn't go. "I love you, Jack."
Finally, she went back inside, put Jack down in front of the television, and picked up the broken shards from the glass she'd dropped when she'd seen Greg come downstairs with his suitcase. It was like she was picking up the pieces of her life, piecing together a new life, just her and Jack. Her and Jack, against the world. By the time she went to bed that night, the only evidence that Greg Linden had destroyed her first real home were a few splotches of blood on the kitchen floor where she'd cut her foot on a broken shard.
She didn't tell anybody. Not right away. Regi came by a couple of weeks later - to check on her, or so she had claimed.
"Haven't heard from you in a couple of weeks," she'd said when Sarah opened the door.
"Been busy," she shrugged, gesturing her in. "Working lots. Don't mind the mess. I'm having a hard time keeping up." She couldn't stop herself from cringing as Regi surveyed the clutter in her living room - Jack's toys, half folded laundry, yesterday's take-out containers still on the counter. Don't apologize. Don't justify it, she reminded herself. "I'm just beat by the time I get home, and get Jack to bed, lately," she admitted a second later, despite her resolve.
"Where's Greg?"
"He's out." It surprised her, how easy the lie flowed off of her tongue. "He's been really busy. We've both been really busy."
Jack came barreling into the room chanting "Regi!" repeatedly at the top of his lungs. Regi grabbed him around the waist, swung him up into her arms, tickling him and laughing with him and parodying his name back at him in a rough voice. She had an easy way with the little boy, an easier way than Sarah had, that's for sure. A small tendril of jealousy wound around her heart, and she had to bite her tongue to stop herself from snapping at Regi to be careful, swinging him like that.
She bit her tongue for real when Regi turned to her, eyes kind. "You look beat, Sarah. Why don't you go have a bit of a rest. Jack and I have this covered."
As much as she didn't want to need help, couldn't bear to admit weakness to anyone, she was bone tired and emotionally raw, so she just offered Regi a half smile and turned to head upstairs. A shower, she thought. One without Jack hounding her. She'd barely made into the tub before the tears she'd been holding back for days burst free, and she sobbed under the shower spray until she had nothing left. When she couldn't cry anymore she shut the shower off, wrapped herself in a towel and fell on the bed, spent.
A couple hours of sleep and she didn't feel good, per se, but she did feel better. And surprised, when she wandered downstairs to discover a much cleaner house and a large pile of neatly folded laundry.
"What's this?" she asked, pushing the negative shock out of her voice and offering them an uncomfortable smile.
"Surprise!" Jack jumped up, leaping at her. "We cleaned!"
"I see that!" She picked Jack up, kissed his cheek, cuddled him close. "You guys didn't have to do that!" But she made sure she smiled at Regi, and she hoped it didn't look as forced as it felt.
"We had a good time." Regi said simply, before getting to her feet. "I've gotta run, Sar - I have an appointment at 5. We'll meet up one day this week, ok? I'll bring lunch."
Regi was at the door, before she turned back and caught Sarah's eye. "Don't worry about this," she said, gesturing into the house. "Everyone needs a bit of help, sometimes. You've done really well, Sarah. I'm proud of you."
As she watched her old social worker drive away, she wondered if Regi would still say that once she found out that she'd managed to lose Greg.
It was another three weeks before Regi found out. It was an overcast, miserable Saturday in February. Valentine's day. Jack's sitter was sick. Jack wasn't feeling well, either, and Sarah had a shift. In desperation, at the last minute, she'd called Regi.
"Where's Greg?" Regi asked as she walked in the door. "He can't take a day away from the office to watch his son?"
"He's gone," Sarah snapped, at her wits end between Jack's general crankiness that day, the abject feeling of failure that came up as she watched Regi survey her once again messy house, and the fact that she was seconds away from being late for shift.
"Yes, I see that. But why isn't he here? He should be taking care of his family."
"Obviously, we're not his family anymore," she shot back, her voice harsh even to her own ears. She turned away quickly, but not before she saw Regi's startled expression. "I gotta go, Regi. I'm late for my shift," she tossed over her shoulder and bolted for the door.
When she got home that night, Jack was asleep and Regi was sitting in the dimly lit living room. Her house was, once again, cleaner than when she'd left it. It increased her sense of failure, but it was also, on some level, a relief.
"When?" Regi asked as Sarah dropped her bag to the floor, pulled off her gun, and locked it in the cupboard by the sink.
"Five weeks ago." Her legs were shaky and she put her hands on the counter, leaned on it to steady herself. She dreaded this conversation as much as she dreaded having to talk to Greg again.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I... I don't even know what I did wrong," she mumbled.
"Oh, Sarah." Regi was in front of her now, and she flinched as her social worker touched her shoulder.
"Nobody stays," she admitted, looking down at her hands, unable to bring herself to look at Regi, in case she cried. "It must be me, because nobody stays."
"I'm here," Regi reminded her.
"You have to be," Sarah rolled her eyes, shrugged.
"Sarah," Regi admonished, then waited until Sarah finally found the courage to look up, to meet her eyes, before continuing. "You're 22 years old. I'm not your social worker anymore."
"Well, I'm sorr-" she was cut off by Regi's finger, firm against her lips.
" I'm here for you. By choice. Because I care about you."
Sarah looked at her for a long minute, fighting the tears that were filling her eyes. She didn't know what to say, had no ability to find words, so she just looked at Regi, unable to hide the hurt. Regi pulled her into a brief, one-armed hug.
"I made a stew. Leftovers in the fridge. I'll heat some for you while you shower. It's going to be ok, Sarah. You're going to be ok." It hadn't been the first time Regi had uttered those words to her, and it wouldn't be the last. They were never entirely true, but she knew Regi meant them, and that did make a difference. For the first time in five weeks, Sarah didn't feel totally adrift. Maybe, she thought, she could believe her this time.