They pulled into a damn-near-impossible parking spot in the grocery's lot and neither of them moved. Elizabeth's heart was beating hard in her chest, hammering heavily against her rib cage forcefully, she looked over to the passenger seat where Edward had dozed off. He made strangled groans and moans at the back of his throat as he dreamt, whimpering here and there, and she just watched him for a few minutes.

Mummy, please don't cry, I'll get better, don't cry. I'll die Mummy. I'll die! I'll die if you don't stop crying. . .Daddy, please stop making Mummy cry. I'll be good. I'll get better, just stop it.

Edward's eyes fluttered open to be greeted by his mother's eyes, glassy and bloodshot, staring warmly into him. Panicked at the unshed tears, he scrambled up into a sitting position and began wiping at her eyes with clumsy, shaking fingers, grunting with adamance, trying to tell her to stop.

"Edward! Hey, you! You'll put my eye out!" she was laughing but she didn't swat his hands away. "Come on, kiddo, let's go get you some food."

Really? I get to come inside? I don't have to stay in the car? His eyes grew large and brightened at the idea. He was actually getting to go inside of the grocery store. The last time he had been inside of the store he had been five and not as awkwardly long to fit in his father's long, strong arms. The crutches made him much slower than his family and no one had wanted to deal with having to stall their business for him or to worry about him getting injured.

"You coming, sweetie?" Elizabeth was already out of the car, holding his door open so he could hop out. Eagerly, he unfolded himself from the confines of the car and leaned against the frame, steadying his crutches on the wet pitch.

"Leave one in the car." Excuse me? Mummy, then I won't be able to walk. "You can lean on me and we'll be able to move a little faster, okay." Alright. Edward nodded and they began their hobble to the automatic glass doors. Elizabeth decided to hire the teenage boy who was working part time at the grocery and who was also loitering around the entrance, puffing on a cigarette - he must've been around eighteen - to follow them around with a cart as they got their things.

The boy looked Elizabeth over with disrespectful eyes as she approached him then, out of is lazy eye, he saw the tall, skeletal figure who leaned against her. He focused on Edward's face, confirming the 'family' theory that was running through his mind and averting his eyes in pure scorn at the sight of Edward's mouth.

"Hello, good afternoon, son. Would you like to earn a twenty?" Elizabeth offered a friendly but plutonic smile to the boy who took it the wrong way and took a long drag of the fag before exhaling deeply in Edward's direction, the smoke dissolving into nothingness before it reached the younger boy but he caught the scent anyway. Edward allowed a small cough to clear his now itching throat.

Do not look at my mother that way.

"Name's Chase. What do you have in mind, sweetheart?" He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, flicking the butt onto the hard top and crushing it under the heel of his scuffed up Vans.

"I am most certainly not you sweetheart and I'll give you twenty if you accompany me and my son here around the grocery with a cart." Elizabeth's smile did not falter but it was not so much as friendly as it was threatening but Chase was not put off.

Wow. Go, Mummy.

Edward was not a violent child but when it came to his mother there was nothing he would not - or would not attempt - to do. At that moment he wanted to rip that kid's arm off and beat some manners into him with it. Chase leered at his mother for a few moments before agreeing and grabbing a cart. Their task was not a challenging one. The grocery was well stocked and within a half hour, they had a half-filled cart.

"Okay, Edward, we're almost finished but I think we should stop for a while. You're flushed." True enough, Edward's cheeks were bright pink and he had a film of perspiration over his face and down the back of his neck but he shook his head as feverishly as he could manage in his drained state. "Yes. We're stopping and that's final." Edward hung his head and gasped mutely, his chest heaving, arm shaking from trying to hold most of his weight, but he knew it was hopeless to argue with his mother when she was set on something and the last thing he ever wanted to do was make his mother upset but it always ended up being the first thing he did.

Elizabeth helped him sit down on a small stack of crates marked 'Pears' to catch his breath. In those few minutes where he sat panting lightly, he looked at his mother, like really looked at her for the first time in a long time, not in small pieces - snippets - to be pondered separately. No, he looked at her as a whole, welding the details together to see his mother properly and through the eyes of an older boy - maybe not that much older but older than his childish musings but still young enough to see her with a romanticist's view. She was the prettiest woman he had ever seen.

Her thick auburn curls - so much like his own but so much more beautiful - were pulled into a loose plait that hung almost to her waist, stray and stubborn strands standing apart from the partially tamed lot, catching on her ears and long, elegant neck, the corner of her well-proportioned mouth, the fluorescent lights bringing out all the different shades of brown and red in each strand. She had a standard four-finger forehead that was smooth no matter how many times her brow had been creased, her thin but not as highly arched as his father's eyebrows were the exact same colour as her hair curved tenderly over her almond-shaped eyes which went up subtly at the corners.

His mother's eyes always caught him off-guard. Her irises were a startlingly lovely collection of greens. The entire iris was a bright green, fringed with a darker almost bluish green which also ringed the border of her pupil. The iris was flecked with every shade of green between the contrasting pair; olives and emeralds, leafy and deep, velvety and dull, every kind but the most startlingly lovely thing about her eyes to him was the thin ring of illuminated gold that cut the iris into two rings of even thickness. Edward had eyes like his mother but not her eyes. His eyes did not have all of her variation and life, all of it's breathtaking splendor. No, his irises were a deep velvety green at the fringes and faded into a gleaming light emerald at the pupil.

Elizabeth blinked and her thick fringe of black eyelashes threw faint, almost invisible shadows across the delicate curve of her cheekbones. She rubbed a tenacious strand from her smooth but full cheek, brushing down her very feminine jaw line and down to her chin where her heart-shaped face pointed, finger trailing to touch the silver leaf pendant a little way beneath the hollow of her throat. Elizabeth was fairly tall for a woman, standing about an inch over Edward, and slender with supple curves. After four children, at thirty-eight, her stomach had stretched and her stomach was always a small bump that never got flat anymore. Her long, milky legs was always clean and her dainty feet always encased in soft soled but stylish shoes. Edward's eyes held onto the not-so-thin anklet she wore. It was a fragile looking thing even with it's bulk, made of black and white coral with a single heart-shaped, crystal pendant dangling directly under her ankle.

No matter what daddy tells her, she's never taken it off. . .

"You ready to continue, honey? We could just go ring up what we already have and come back another time." Edward shook his head with conviction and it wasn't that much of an effort anymore but it still took some from him. "Alright, let's continue." The corners of her pink, cherubic mouth pulled themselves up into a crooked smile.

I was wrong. I don't have Mummy hair or her eyes. Hers are so indescribable and mine cannot compare but I do have Mummy's smile.

He rose, tucking the crutch securely under his sore arm and leaning infinitesimally into Elizabeth.

Let's go.

"Hey, you, creepy kid-"

"Chase."

"Yeah, Chase, come on."

Edward was grinning from ear-to-ear as they walked wobbly away from the crates but he looked over his shoulder and committed the spot to memory.

Sometimes special things happen in non-special places. . .