"Mommy!"
Violet stirred in her sleep, the cries from her four-year old piercing the darkness of the house, bringing her out of her fitful slumber. She hadn't slept well in nights, and part of it was her son was unsettled. He missed his father, he didn't like the disruption it caused to his routine, and she knew Lucas hated seeing his mommy upset.
Pete had been gone little over two weeks now, and Violet was finding it harder and harder to come up with plausible excuses to feed their son together. So far, daddy had gone to see his family, he had gone to the shops, he had worked late for at least five days straight, and then there were some days when Violet became so upset she simply shrugged and told Lucas honestly, "I don't know, sweetheart."
Rubbing her eyes, groggily, she barely had time to sit up before her son cried out for her again.
"Mommy!"
She tapped on her bedroom light twice, letting the light from the sixty watt bulb to fill the room. Pete had bought her it as a joke present after one night when she had been unable to turn on the bedside light after too many tequilas. This was easy, one tap equaled a dim display of light. Two taps made it brighter, and three was the brightest. She climbed down to the end of her bed, slipping off it as she padded through into her son's adjoining room.
She walked up to her son's bed, perching herself on the side of it. His dinosaur covers were bunched up and in his half-asleep state, Violet could tell he had been crying.
"It's okay, Lucas. Mommie's here." She scooped her son up into her arms, and he instantly wrapped himself around her and began to cry. Violet was sure she felt her heart break, as she ran her hand up and down her son's back soothingly, trying to shush him back to sleep.
This was becoming a nightly occurrence, and it wasn't doing either of them any good. Pete had left them in a state of limbo, though Violet was sure she was teetering across the line and into the boundary of hell as each day passed. Her years of being a psychiatrist had shown her many things; taught her how to deal with emotions rationally - and how to pass on her sound advice to others. The one thing it hadn't taught her was how to listen to her own cries for help, and how to use her own advice to save herself and her four year-old son.
As she cradled Lucas in her arms, and he began to fell asleep, Violet glanced at the clock on his wall. The little dinosaur ticked steadily around the face of the clock, the main arms indicating it was nearly four in the morning. She stood up gently and carried Lucas through to her bedroom, where she tucked him up into Pete's side of the bed. Brushing some of his ash blonde hair from his face, she kissed his forehead gently and smiled as she looked at him. He looked so much like Pete, and embodied so much of his character, it was heart breaking to even think about what was running through Pete's mind. How could he leave his wife and child behind. More so, how could he leave Lucas behind? That was something Violet couldn't fathom.
Sure, it had been hard in the beginning. Violet sure didn't earn the mother-of-the-year trophy for the first year of Lucas' life. But she had stepped back, addressed her issues, and was able to move forward with her son. And damn, had she been a good mother since. The psychiatrist couldn't imagine her life without Lucas Wilder in it right now, and she wanted to punch Pete right in the face for doing this to his son.
Punch him square in the jaw, and then kiss him. She missed his kisses, the way he'd wrap his arms around her and make her feel invincible. The smell of his musky aftershave, which he always wore too much of. She sighed quietly as she climbed into bed besides her now sleeping son, and reached over, tapping the light a further two times as she welcomed darkness and silence once more.