September 16th, 1971

The first time Jesse Sidle ever walked down the corridors of a hospital was when he was five years old, to meet his brand new baby sister. He wrinkled his little nose at the smell of antiseptic, skipping along with his hand secure in his father's grip. He had his mother's complexion; echoing the pale porcelain of a china doll. His big brown eyes were also a gift from Laura, but everything else made him a shadow of his father. His crew cut, kept neat to placate his father, was ash blonde and a stark contrast against his mom's brunette curls.

As they approached the maternity ward, Jesse was brimming with excitement. When his parents had told him that he was going to be a big brother, they weren't quite sure how he would react to the end of his reign as a single child, but he seemed to have taken it really well- even using some of his allowance to buy his new brother or sister a teddy bear that he would balance precariously on his mother's swollen stomach.

He caught sight of Laura herself, propped up in bed with a tiny bundle in her arms, smiling at her eldest child from across the room.

"Mommy!" He gasped happily, making to run to her, but a firm hand clasped his shoulder.

"Jess," Brian spoke to his son in a low, slightly intimidating tone. "Remember how we talked about being quiet and good in the hospital?" Jesse's mouth snapped shut, and he nodded, hanging his head and staring at his worn sneakers.

"Hey, baby," Laura spoke softly, reaching out with her spare hand to clasp her son's. "Are you ready to meet little Sara?" Brian scooped him up and sat him carefully on the edge of the bed, and leaned down to peck his wife on the cheek. The boy nodded eagerly, and leaned forward to peer past the blankets at the baby's face. Sara was snuggled in a yellow woollen blanket, a white hat covering the delicate skin of her head. She was fast asleep, her chest rising and falling in a somewhat comforting manner.

"She's so small," He whispered, trying his hardest not to wake her up. "How are we gonna play together?" Laura laughed quietly, but Brian's expression soured. He tightened his grip on his son's shoulder. Jesse flinched, turning to stare up at his father with wide eyes.

"You're not to go near her without mom or me there, d'you understand?"

"Brian," Both Sidle men turned to look at Laura, whose voice was suddenly stronger and had taken on a level of protectiveness that only mothers can muster. "Jesse is a good boy. He'll look after his sister well; won't you sweetie?" The preschooler nodded again, but his smile had vanished. His daddy wasn't like his friend's fathers, who helped them build model airplanes and took them to the park and played games with them. Brian could sometimes get mad and scary, and that happened Jesse and his mother had to be extra good and quiet and do everything he asked of them.

Jesse wondered if Sara knew that yet, or if he would have to teach her.

May 23rd, 1977

Jesse lay in bed, trying to remember a time when the sound of yelling and screaming beneath his bedroom was unfamiliar. His stomach still ached from earlier that day, a ramification of when Brian had caught Sara trying to pilfer a cookie from the jar on the kitchen table. Jesse had walked in on the sorry scene of his sister backing away against the counters, wide eyed as she stared at the belt in their father's hand, while he tried to pull her over his lap for a spanking. In some households, this might be deemed as an acceptable punishment, but as soon as Jesse saw the thick leather belt his heart had dropped to the pit of his stomach. Their dad's spankings went far beyond the realm of a normal punishment, and the bruises would last for ages.

"No!" He had yelled, rushing forward to catch the belt as Brian swung it towards his younger child. The look on the man's face when the boy interrupted the blow was livid, and he struck Jesse in the stomach with his closed fist for his effort. The eleven-year-old had been sent upstairs to his room, and Brian had whipped Sara anyway. Hearing his baby sister cry and scream in accordance to the erratic, hollow slaps of leather against her bare skin drove him to kneel on the carpeted floor of his bedroom with his hands slammed over his ears to stop the sounds from bouncing around the inside of his head.

It was an incident he would remember for a far longer time than Sara did, because he always remembered how weak and useless he felt that he wasn't brave enough to save her.

Silent tears slipped down his cheeks, hurriedly wiped away when he heard the creek of the door. He froze, not daring to move in case it was his father. His held breath was released in a sigh of relief as he felt a small body slip under the covers beside him, and he turned to give his sister what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

"Hey, Sara Bear," He said softly, taking hold of her hand. "You okay?" She nodded, even though they both knew that things were far from okay. "Want me to read you a story?" Sara shook her head, wriggling forward to lie in his outstretched arms. They both lay in silence for a little while, both unable to sleep.

"Jesse?" If her voice had been any quieter, he might not have been able to hear her.

"What is it Sara Bear?" A slight pause filled the empty air.

"How come daddy doesn't love us?" Her words gripped at Jesse's heart, and all of a sudden he felt like crying again.

"What makes you think he doesn't love us?" He felt her shrug against him.

"Dunno. He just never likes to hug us, he only likes to hit us. And all mommy does is sit in her room and whisper to herself all day." Jesse rested his head atop of Sara's, trying to formulate the right words- if there were any.

"He's just angry, I guess. But you know I love you, right?"

"I know. I love you too..." Her voice wobbled a little, and within a minute or two she was fast asleep. He listened to her steady breathing, and braced himself for the moment when, as she so often did, she would wake from the clutches of a nightmare screaming for her daddy to stop hurting her.

December 3rd, 1975

The second time Jesse Sidle walked down the corridors of a hospital, he was nine years old and looking straight ahead stoically. Laura followed, carrying four-year-old Sara in her arms, staring around her with wide eyes and a nervous persona. Sara's eyes were red-rimmed and tear tracks were evident on her pale cheeks, holding her freshly broken arm at a funny angle.

The nurses in Emergency Department of Bodega Bay Hospital fussed over the little girl, telling her how brave she was even when she screamed at the top of her lungs as the doctors manipulated her arm ready to have a cast put on.

"How did this happen?" The consultant asked as he unwrapped a lollipop and handed it to his young patient.

"Oh, you know how kids are," Laura said, trying to brush the incident off. "Sara and her brother were play-fighting and he got too rough. Typical boy!" Jesse's jaw dropped open, so unfair was the accusation. His own body throbbed and ached from his father's fury; bruises forming like medals of honor after he had pushed Brian away from his baby sister. The doctor shook his head while the nurse behind him tutted.

"Well then, young man," He ruffled Sara's hair and she flinched. He didn't notice. "I hope this teaches you to be more careful."

October 12th, 1983

"Jesse?" The teenager looked up, his brow knitted in annoyance. He couldn't remember how many times he'd told Sara to knock before she came barging into his room- it must have been at least a thousand.

"What?" His tone reeked of exasperation, and Sara considered backing back out of her brother's room right then and there. She was eleven-years-old, and the spitting image of her mother with dark curly hair and brown doe eyes- Bambi Eyes, as Jesse would tell her when he was in a good mood. Her brother had grown up to resemble their father, brawn and big in build. Sara cocked her head to the side, wondering if he ever looked in the mirror and hated how alike he and Brian were. The sixteen-year-old waved his hand in front of her eyes, bringing her out of her reverie. "Hello? Anyone in there?" Sara bit back the tears that stung her lids. She hated when he was mean to her, because sometimes it felt like he was her only friend in the world and right now he was acting like he hated his little sister. She held up the leather ball in her hands.

"Wanna go play soccer with me?" Her expression was optimistically hopeful. Jesse sighed angrily.

"You interrupted me because you want me to play soccer with you? You're hopeless at it. Now get lost, before I tell dad you're annoying me." He regretted his words instantly, as Sara's face crumpled and she started to back out, visibly upset and scared by Jesse's threat, and mumbled an apology. It occurred to him, briefly, that he could apologise, say he didn't mean it. He could humour her, take her outside and let her score a couple of goals. He could call her Sara Bear, listen to her infectious giggle and tell her his cheesiest jokes until she was lost to fits of giggles.

He could have given her a good afternoon, but he didn't.

March 19th, 1984

"Go back to your room, Sara." Jesse's voice was harsh and cold as he noticed his little sister standing in the doorway. She was nibbling on her lip, and for a short moment he wondered whether it was a habit she'd recently picked up. His own heart was pounding, beating so fast he felt it might transition into a whir and fly right out of his chest. He could barely look at his father's body, spread out on the bed before them, and their catatonic mother kneeling in the corner of the room. The knife she had used to murder her husband was still sticking out of the seventh stab wound to his chest, covered in blood. The forensics team would easily find her fingerprints on the handle. Jesse had briefly considered trying to cover it up, but he knew it would never was. His father's death was, to him, more of an execution, but anyone else would see it for what it really was- the murder of an abusive man by his whacked-out wife, witnessed by their two traumatised kids.

"Sara," He repeated. "Go. To. Your. Room." The twelve-year-old made no attempt to move, and Jesse sighed. He stood, lifted her in his arms, and bodily carried her to her bedroom. Setting her down, he took in her dishevelled appearance -dress spattered lightly in blood, black eye, greasy hair- and suddenly wanted to burst into tears and never let go of his sister. He remembered her as the tiny infant cradled in their mom's arms, pink and small and brimming with untold capability. He remembered her as the pre-schooler who held more fear in her father's right fist than Sunday School told her she should have in God's entire being. He remembered her as the six-year-old with broken ribs, the eight-year-old with bruising that had the school concernedly writing home to their mother, the eleven-year-old he'd brushed off when all she wanted was a hug and reassurance.
Jesse turned and left the room, so Sara wouldn't see his tears.

August 1st, 1976

"C'mon, Sara," Jesse whispered, holding his little sister's coat out to her. "We gotta hurry before someone hears us." Sara sighed heavily, her eyelids drooping with tiredness. It had been past midnight when Jesse had woken her with two backpacks ready to go- one for each of them. His contained a spare t-shirt, a blanket big enough to cover them both, some comic books, and as much food as he could cram into the spare space. Hers had a sweater, her favourite teddy bear, and her little photo album filled with pictures of their family and her drawings and kindergarten paintings. Jesse had been saving up his allowance for weeks, and had stuffed the dollar bills into his pockets.

"But I'm tired," Sara dropped her head, gently beating her little fists against Jesse's chest. "Can't we run away in the morning?" He shushed her, trying not to as he helped her to stuff her sock-clad feet into her sneakers.

"It'll be an adventure, Sara Bear. Come on, if you're good we can go to McDonalds to eat later on." Her eyes lit up at the promise. They'd never been allowed to eat there before, but their mouths always watered at the smell when they passed it.

Running away was much harder than Jesse thought it would be. Their local bus had stopped running hours ago, and they'd only been walking for forty-five minutes before Sara started dragging her feet and saying she was hungry and sleepy. He carried her for as long as he could, but his arms quickly started to ache under his sister's weight, so they stopped for a rest in a playpark they sometimes visited during the day. Crawling inside the jungle gym, Jesse wrapped the blanket around the two of them, and they shared a packet of potato chips before trying to sleep for a while.

Less than three hours later, they began the walk home again. Sara had fallen and grazed her knee, and cried so inconsolably for their mother that Jesse had no choice but to take her back, accompanied by the feeling of failure for being unable to take her away from their horrible home.

March 19th, 1984

"Jesse!" Sara yelled out, reaching for her brother. Jesse tried to take her hand to reassure her that everything was going to be okay, but a police officer held him back.

"You gotta let me go with her," He tried to insist, pulling his arm out of the man's grip. "She's my sister, we should be together." The social worker, attempting to push Sara into her car, shook her head apologetically.

"An emergency foster placement has been found for your sister, but you're too old to go into care. No foster family would take a sixteen-year-old."

"But-" He attempted to argue his case, to explain that all they'd ever had was each other, but the woman cut him off.

"I'm sorry, it's simply not possible. Someone else will collect you and take you to a halfway house where you can stay until we can arrange alternative accommodation. You can visit Sara soon." The car door was shut on the sobbing eleven-year-old, and Jesse's heart started to thump loudly in his chest.

"No," He gasped, as the car pulled away. "Sara!"

"Jesse!" His baby sister cried back, putting the palms of her hands flat against the window. "No, don't leave me Jesse!" The teenager tried to meet her hands with his own, but the car was pulling out of reach.

"I'm sorry, Sara!" She turned a corner, and was out of sight. Jesse swore loudly, tears of anger and sorrow running down his cheeks. "I'm sorry, Sara." He repeated.

He had never felt so alone.