Mother
Foster mum. Siobhan. Mrs. S.
That's how they introduce her, both of them. More so, that's how they view her themselves.
She formally adopted them nearly twenty years ago now, when they were small and understood nothing of why. Why they'd been abandoned into the foster care system, why she'd snatched them out of it. Why she knelt down to face them, shook them hard, and made them swear to her that they would never tell a single soul where they'd come from. Why, as they cried, she looked into their eyes and swore that if they told anyone, she'd leave them in an alley for the wild dogs and never look back.
She gave up everything, left everyone she'd ever loved and ever trusted. She committed sins, did terrible things that have never passed her lips.
All of it to save them from the darkness for which they were fated, to give them a life in the light. Because this was her duty- as someone who had seen unthinkable things, as their guardian, as their mother. Because she loved them. She did it all for them, and never spoke of it.
She thought, eventually, as they grew to know and trust her, they would begin to see her as mother. She thought they would adopt her as she had adopted them. For years she hoped, foolishly. She hoped they might grow out their distrust, grow into her.
Foster mum. It still stings, each and every time. They look at her, and is not the look of child to mother. Ward to guardian, perhaps, but never child to mother.
Sometimes she wants to shake them again, like she did at the beginning. Sometimes she wants to tell them everything she's done, the blood that was shed to protect them. She wants to lay bare the delicate framework of their lives, carefully constructed by her own hands, built up from ruins on war-ravaged land. She wants to shake them hard and scream This is what I've done for you, all for sake of good and for love of you.
Maybe that's exactly why she is still foster mum in their eyes, still bound to them only with tenuous ties. Because she never said those things, because she buried the past. Perceptive, both of them, perhaps they see. Perhaps they see the shadows of everything coursing under the surface, and they know how much is being hidden from them.
Maybe you can never trust someone who has that many secrets, who has told so many lies. Maybe you always doubt the words of love on their lips and the embraces they offer. Maybe you can never see a mother in a woman with a guarded heart and a shotgun in her hand.
Maybe she brought this upon herself. In saving them, she has lost them. Inherently, perhaps, their protection necessitated this distance between them.
Still foolish, though, she hopes. In these days, the darkest days she's faced since she was 29 years old and fleeing her country with a child's hand trapped in each of her sweaty fists, she hopes. Hopes that she can prove to them, once and for all, that this is all for their good. Hopes that she can abolish their doubts about her love and loyalty.
Longing desperately for the day it is all over, she prays to a god she is unsure of, prays that the three of them will live to sit around her kitchen table. Some day, she swears it on every life she's taken, someday she will tell them everything. Someday she will achieve their love and earn the title she has craved all these many long years.