Author's note: How Mrs. Fields' change of heart came to be. Or: Why Emily didn't want that leftover cobbler when she was talking to Hanna on the phone.
Emily Fields sighed as she pulled the plate out of the microwave. Her mother was out shopping and the cobbler leftover from two nights ago had been calling her name all morning. She decided that her mother being out of the house was the perfect time to finish off the remains of the dessert.
The warmth seeped from the bottom of the plate on to her hands as she carried it from the kitchen to the living room, carrying a spoon with her mouth. At the age of sixteen or so, Emily had perfected the art of balancing warm plates of food and eating secretively on the living room couch.
Emily curled up next to the arm of the couch, tucking her feet underneath of a pillow. She pulled the spoon out of her mouth and dug it into the cobbler like a shovel in the ground. The sweet scent of dough and fruit filled her nose and went down into the bottom of her lungs with each breath she took.
The stress of everything was finally breaking through her wall, forming cracks in the bricks she had so carefully stacked and cemented. So she resorted to eating cobbler, desperately hoping that the fruit and dough could cover up the cracks. However, she had learned in her sixteen or so years that no amount of dessert could change anything (other than maybe her current weight, but she hoped to never reach a point in her life where food could really do that).
No matter how much Emily wished, cobbler could not change the fact that:
Allison was still dead.
Her mother still hated her.
"A" was still controlling her and her friends.
Her mother still hated her.
Maya was still gone.
Her mother still hated her.
Paige McCullers still looked hot in a bathing suit.
And her mother still hated her.
There Emily Fields was, in her sixteenth or so year, curled up on the couch and stuffing cobbler in her face like a spinster woman with enough issues to fill up a book. And all she could do was cry.
Mrs. Fields walked through the front door, carrying multiple bags full of groceries. She kicked the door with her foot, listening as it closed with a feeble click. She let out a tired sigh. After sixteen or so years as a mother, she had decided that grocery shopping was the most exhausting of all motherly chores.
"Em!" She called up to her daughter, "Can you help me with these?" She shifted her weight, trying to prevent the groceries from slipping out of her hands and spilling onto the floor.
There was no response. Mrs. Fields sighed again.
"Emily?"
She shuffled over to the kitchen, dropping the bags on the counter top with a heave. The rest of the house was seemingly quiet, and Mrs. Fields questioned if her daughter was even home. The thought overwhelmed her with panic, and she shook her head.
"Emily, where are you?"
And that's when Mrs. Fields heard it.
It was soft, almost inaudible, as if the sound was being muffled by a pillow or a cloth.
Gingerly and hesitantly, Mrs. Fields walked out of the kitchen, the muffled sound becoming plainer with each step she took.
"Oh." She gasped.
Emily was curled up on the couch, her face buried and turned into the cushion. The dessert plate from earlier, unbeknown to her mother, had been shoved under the couch, hidden and out of sight.
The feelings of both dread and sympathy pooled and hardened at the bottom of Mrs. Fields' stomach. Her body, from the tips of her ears to the tips of her toes grew unpleasantly warm. The sight of her daughter curled up and crying on the couch was a sight that Mrs. Fields couldn't bare to see, because it meant one thing: she had failed as a mother. It took her sixteen or so years, and she had done it.
She knew. She knew that her daughter wasn't crying over a friend or a bad grade. She knew that her daughter was crying because she-she had failed as a mother. The cries coming from her daughter were the, "I can't do anything right and my mother hates me," sort of cries and she knew it. She knew because even failed mothers know these things.
Mrs. Fields hurried back into the kitchen, immediately leaning against the wall next to the cabinets for stability.
What kind of daughter cries because she thinks her mother hates her? What kind of mother allows that to happen? After sixteen or so years, this is what it came down to.
Mrs. Fields slid down the wall, watching as a grocery bag fell over and a can of chick soup rolled out. And all she could do was cry.
Author's note: Emily and I are very similar. We both have enough issues to fill an entire book (or two, or three, or twelve).