The first thing he feels is her hand running down the back of his neck. Her touch is feather light and he comes to gently.
"Dylan." There's something sad infesting her voice. He rolls over and sees her tears glistening in the faint light the moon is casting on them.
"Mom?"
"Get up, honey. We're going for a ride."
He doesn't think to glance at the alarm clock, but it's still dark and there's a constant banging sound coming from downstairs.
"Mom, what's going on?"
"Nothing. Let's go." She gathers him to her, lifting him into her arms with minimal effort. Soon, he'll become quite the handful, but for now, he's still her little boy and she can still lead him wherever she feels the urge to.
She doesn't take the time to change him out of his pajamas. They've wasted too much time already and John's still screaming after her when she escapes out the front door. His last word to her will echo in her head (and Dylan's) forever.
Whore.
He falls asleep in the backseat. He dreams, but they're innocent still, untainted by horror or bitterness the way they will be years from now.
In the front seat, his mother frets. Her fingers tap incessantly at the wheel and she's muttering to herself. For a split second, she rests her palm on her belly.
It would get better.
He jerks awake when the car stops. Night continues to linger on the edges of the sky, just barely beating out the light of the day.
The back door opens and his mother's leaning over him with a change of clothes in hand.
She tugs him out and he follows her, ever the obedient son. It's a diner they've stopped at, he realizes. His stomach gives a loud gurgle that draws his mother's attention.
"I hear ya." She says with a laugh. It rings like a bell for Dylan, who still can't comprehend what she's actually done.
She changes him in a stall in the lady's restroom. She blows raspberries on his belly to alleviate her personal tension and he giggles the giggle of an as of yet untainted little boy.
By the time they sit at a table, she's relaxed. This was the right thing, letting this go, starting over somewhere new. It would get better; she'd make sure of it.
Beneath the table, her hand presses against the life steadily growing in her womb.
For both of us.
She seems to remember in a flash that Dylan's here, too, and she looks up at him. There's a smile on her face, but there's distraction as well, though it's something Dylan's not yet equipped to pick up on.
It's four thirty in the morning and she's been driving all night, but she manages to be polite with the waitress. Cereal for her son because it's too early for more than that and black coffee for her because the lag is peeling away the back of her eyelids.
Today is his fourth birthday; it's all she's been thinking about since the clock struck midnight. The truth could not be delivered to him today. She had to do something for him before she dropped the anvil in his lap. A weight he wasn't ready for, but a weight that was necessary all the same.
"What do you want to do today, honey?"
For a second, he seems perplexed, then he lights up.
Despite that, he shrugs. "I don't know."
"We'll take a drive and see what we can find, all right?"
That day would always stay with him, lurking heavy in the back of his mind. Playing in a nearby park and going to Carvel for ice cream cake. The luminosity of his mother's eyes and the beauty of the day itself. He tries not to think of the way it all came crashing down when they'd arrived in Sam Bates' driveway, but he does anyway, because Sam Bates haunted him every waking second.
But, nothing haunted him like Norma. Whether it be good times or bad times, she was there. He'd be lying if he said he didn't welcome it most of the time. Having her in memory was better than not having her at all.
The fact still remained that no matter what he saw in his wanderings, there was nothing like the real thing.