that's what i'm waiting for
they both tell me that we're better than this
"How long have you been down there?"
Vivien's hands were soft over Violet's steepled ones as she enveloped her daughter's smaller digits and drew them across the island, closer to her body. Violet shrugged, ignoring the dampness that sprung into her eyes. She counted up an idle estimate of the weeks gone by and cringed under the realization.
"I guess, like, a month?" At Vivien's light inhalation, Violet took the opportunity to disengage herself from her mother's hands. "Something like that. I don't know. We've been kind of preoccupied." It was a pointed statement, but her mother seemed distracted already.
"Well, we just… we have to get you out of there," Vivien nodded, tone of voice suggesting she was speaking more to herself than to her daughter. "We have to. You can't stay down there. You just can't."
"Mom, it's okay," Violet shook her head. "I don't—"
"No, Violet." Mother was stern and certain. "It isn't right. You deserve better than that." Vivien had rounded the counterspace, now just beside her child. She extended a hand to cup Violet's chin, the pad of her thumb stroking a loving mark there. "This isn't about me, or your father. I want this for you."
Violet steeled herself against the rise, and she stepped away from her mother, before the beading tears could fall. "Fine, fine, okay," Violet fisted her hands around her sleeve ends. "But I don't want you and dad to see me."
"Violet—"
"No, mom, I'm serious. I don't—you guys don't need that. I'll get it, and we can do … y'know, whatever you guys want in the yard or whatever." Violet rolled her eyes, dazed and annoyed at the conversation's exchange. Was this really fucking happening right now? Were they really talking about this?
Gaze averted, Violet still felt her mother's tear-softened smile nearing as she pressed a tender kiss to her temple. "Do you want anything? To carry, I mean…?"
"Uhm," Violet screwed her eyes shut, trying to muddle her way through the very idea of what her mother was suggesting. "Shit, I don't know, mom. That… quilt, I guess."
"The … one from Grandma Mary?"
She nodded.
"Okay," Vivien observed her child and sighed heavily, tired. "I think it's in the attic."