A/N: This is something different from anything I've ever done. Very different. It a character study of sorts, I suppose, so if you don't like Sara Sidle, I'll let you know right here and now that this is not a story for you. But if you do happen to like Sara Sidle, I'd really like your feedback on this. Because I'd really like to know if there is anyone who would enjoy reading something like this. If there's just one person, I would love to continue posting.
You should know that this story is rated M for several reasons. Some of them are good, some of them are not so good. This story is about Sara's childhood. If violence upsets you, again, not the story for you.
Also, I am a fish out of water writing this story. I am blessed to come from a home where my parents are both very much alive and very much still in love. The internet can only tell me so much, but I'm doing the best I can trying to combine research with imagining what growing up in Sara's shoes would have been like. All the more reason why I'd love to hear your thoughts.
All that said, I really love writing Sara. I don't know if it's because I identify with her on some level, or what, but I really love writing her. I think this is a good story. I'd really like to continue it. Let me know if you'd like that too :)
When Sara Sidle was born, all the nurses and students and interns on staff at the OB floor that night took pictures with her. She was such a beautiful baby.
She wailed her way through her first few minutes of life, as most babies do, but she soon fell silent, and the nurses were amazed at how quiet she stayed, pulling herself out of slumber only for an occasional yawn or two, as she was passed from arm to arm.
She had defined features, dark, wispy black hair, round brown eyes and bright pink lips. Ten beautiful little fingers and ten perfect little toes.
When Sara Sidle was twelve months, she started walking and spoke her first word. It was 'carrot'. When she was two, she was coloring inside the lines better than most kindergartners and was asking more questions than anyone wanted to answer. At three, she could dress herself, tie her shoes, spell her name and count to one hundred.
When Sara was four, she made her first trip to the hospital.
Her father was drunk, but she didn't know that. All she knew was that he was angry and loud and smelled different, and her mother looked scared. When he fell asleep on the couch, she crawled on top of him, already in her purple polka-dot pajamas, and tried to sleep beside him. He awoke, and pushed her away, knocking her into the coffee table.
The cut alongside her eye wouldn't stop bleeding, even after her mother had held a warm washcloth to it, soothing her daughter, and holding her little body against her chest. She took Sara to the hospital after waking up her brother and dragging him along, and carried her, still in her footie pajamas, to the ER to get stitches. She told the nurses she had fallen out of bed.
From the start, Sara wasn't afraid of hospitals. Her father yelled at her, and her brother pushed her a lot, and she was a brave little girl, even at four years old. And she got a piece of candy from the doctor after he'd placed a bright green band-aid across the gauze covering her stitches. To her, the hospital was a safe place, where people smiled at her and were nice to her, and didn't think she was annoying or talking to much or in the way. No, she liked hospitals.
Which was convenient, as she returned more times than she could count.
She hadn't been particularly excited to start fourth grade.
Sure, she was excited to get the new pens and pencils and notebooks and folders that marked a brand new school year, and yes, she was looking forward to reading all the new things in all the new books they'd receive. But otherwise, she was pretty sure fourth grade was going to be a lot like third – and second, and first.
Boys chasing the girls around the playground. Girls complaining about it, despite turning towards their friends and giggling about it minutes later. Those same boys making farting noises in science class and social studies and interrupting everything Sara was trying to learn. She must have been the only girl who didn't giggle and find it funny. She just found it plain annoying.
And to make things worse, her best friend Lucas from down the street, the only boy she knew who liked reading books and going on walks more than throwing clumps of dirt and sand at anyone who passed, wasn't in her class. They'd been in the same class since they started school, and he was one of Sara's only friends. That still wouldn't keep all the other kids from singing 'Lucas and Sara sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g…"
But then, she hadn't expected Miss Wagner. She was by far the best teacher Sara had ever had. The second week of school, she asked Sara to stay in from recess. She thought she was in trouble, until she sat down and saw Miss Wagner smiling at her.
Miss Wagner told her that she was different – but in a good way. She said she'd been a lot like Sara when she was her age. She told Sara she had a 'great mind', and would she like to take home a few books? Some from Miss Wagner's personal shelf – not for homework, but just for fun.
Miss Wagner didn't treat Sara like a baby, like her third and second and first grade teachers did. She noticed that Sara liked learning, and that her eyes got particularly bright during science lessons. She gave Sara all sorts of interesting books, and she read them at night under her covers, pointing a flashlight at the words and focusing on them instead of the yelling that was coming from downstairs or the loud music thudding from her brother Adam's room.
Fourth grade started out as her best year ever. That all changed pretty quickly one night in December.
It was the night before the last day of class before Christmas break. Miss Wagner had given her a new stack of books to read to keep her occupied over the holiday, but Sara couldn't help herself, and she had reached for the topmost book on the stack after she told her mother she was going to bed. She didn't think her mom heard her. Her dad was out again, probably drinking and getting that awful smell on his breath again, and she nodded when Sara tugged on her arm, but she continued to stare out the window.
At some point, her father must have returned, but she was so engrossed in the book, she didn't hear him stomping up the stairs, and didn't have time to flip off her CareBear flashlight and shove the book under the pillow.
"What are you doing?" he growled.
"Nothing!"
"You're supposed to be in bed, girl!"
"Sorry – I'm sorry!"
He took long strides towards her bed, and she scrambled to the very far corner, hugging the book to her chest. Sara Sidle wasn't often scared, but her father was the one thing that never ceased to frighten her. It didn't used to be that way, but it seemed like the more he drank – and he was doing it more and more these days – the scarier and angrier he became.
"What do you have?"
"Nothing!"
He reached out and grasped Sara's arm above the elbow, so hard it made her squeal and release her grasp on the book. He picked it up and glared at it before tossing it to the floor. Sara heard some of the pages tear and whimpered.
"Always reading your goddamn stupid books," he said, releasing his grip on her arm. She resisted the temptation to move even further away from him. "Go to sleep you little shit."
He slumped and sauntered his way out of her room. Sara wiped her cheek with the back of her palm. She hadn't even realized she was crying. She looked up and saw the silhouette of her mother in her doorway, a pained and apologetic look on her face. Sara would have given anything for her mother to just come in, hold her for a little while, and tell her it was going to be okay. She didn't care if she was nine years old. She wanted her mother.
But Laura Sidle paused only in the slightest, before closing her door and walking away.
The next morning, Sara got up early, crept downstairs and took the container of scotch tape from the drawer in the hall. She taped up the torn pages of her book as best she could. She hoped Miss Wagner would understand.
"Sara!"
Her mother's voice called, but Sara stood still in front of the mirror, tugging down the sleeve of her t-shirt, trying to cover the bruise that had formed on her arm overnight.
"Sara! Lucas is here! Come get your lunch and let's go!"
Sara sighed, grabbed her purple backpack and ran downstairs, grabbing her lunch from her mother.
"Sara, baby, it's freezing outside, why are you wearing a t-shirt?"
"I don't have any sweaters left," she answered, avoiding meeting her mother's eyes. "They're all in the wash."
"Oh," her mother said shortly. "I… I'll be sure to wash them today."
"What happened to your arm?" Lucas asked as Sara reached for her winter coat.
She froze and a deafening, ringing silence settled over the kitchen. Slowly, Sara finally lifted her eyes to her mother's. Her face was filled with fear, anxiety and sorrow.
"I bumped it," Sara replied, shoving her arm into her coat. "Let's go."
Sara and Lucas walked the handful of blocks to the school, and parted ways at the door leading to the fourth grade hall. Lucas's classroom was to the left, Sara's was to the right.
She was the first one in the room. She hung her backpack and coat on her peg and reluctantly unpacked every book Miss Wagner had given her the day before. She gathered them in her arms and walked to the front of the room, to her teacher's big, wooden desk.
"Don't tell me you read all those," Miss Wanger said in shock. "I'll send you to college right now."
"No," Sara said with a small smile. She tipped the stack onto the desk. "I don't think I should have them any more."
"Sara, you can keep them as long as you'd like," Miss Wagner said gently. "Bring them back when Christmas vacation is over."
Sara shifted uncomfortably. She wanted to take the books, she really did. But after last night, she was afraid of reading in front of her father at all, let alone at night like she usually did. She didn't want anything else to happen to one of Miss Wagner's books.
"Sara," her teacher said slowly. "Honey, what happened to your arm?"
Sara snapped out of her daze, caught off-guard, and unsure of what to say. She tried to reform the words she'd told to Lucas earlier, but somehow, they got lost in her throat. Miss Wagner put a warm hand on Sara's arm, and twisted it towards her, inspecting the bruise.
Her touch was soft and gentle, but all Sara could feel was the rough, painful grasp of her father. She twisted her arm away.
"I trip – I mean, I bumped it," she muttered, turning away.
Thankfully, the room began filling with the less than punctual students, and Sara took her usual seat, not sitting up straight and tall like she usually did, but slumped down, trying to hide behind Billy Jones in front of her, so she wouldn't have to see the worried look on Miss Wagner's face.