A/N. I like this one, just because. It's an interesting concept, I guess.
For the Battered and the Broken
[ Lyrics from 'Broken' by Lifehouse ]
Maybe it can stop tomorrow
from stealing all my time.
The house still smells like her.
It smells like cigarettes and cheap perfume, wine and new paint. Lingering behind all that is the odd, unmistakable scent of tomatoes. God, how he had always hated that soup was all that she would bother to make them for supper - on the days when she bothered at all.
In some strange way the house is her, because the dishes are unwashed, still, and the curtains are almost yanked shut. Sunlight filtering through the windows reveals that the carpet hasn't been vacuumed for weeks, but somehow everything looks fine in the dimness of the evening.
Jackson sighs, closing the door to his mother's bedroom. He chooses to ignore the sympathetic murmuring of Emma from child services.
Everything had looked fine.