Yes, it's another author's note before the chapter starts. It's back to the sad stuff, I'm afraid. I picked Harm's brain about his mom, and then I picked Harriet's brain about Baby Sarah, and now it's Mac's turn. Basically this deals a lot with her childhood, so there's going to be themes of domestic violence, and overall this is going to be a heavy chapter.
Chapter Forty-Five:
Sarah & Deanne
APRIL 1973
FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA
Weekend mornings were always the best in the Mackenzie household, because it was the time when the presence of Joe Mackenzie was felt the least. He didn't have to get up early for work on those days, so he was either sleeping off his Friday night binge or still in the process of making his way home. So that meant Deanne and Sarah had the house to themselves most Saturday and Sunday mornings.
On mornings when Joe was home, they had to be quiet to avoid waking him, but that Saturday he wasn't home - yet. For Deanne that meant some peace and semblance of a normal life. For Sarah that meant getting waffles with as much syrup as she wanted. For the both of them, that meant dancing around the kitchen, listening to Fleetwood Mac.
"Guess what?" Deanne reached down to wrap Sarah into a hug. Her long hair fell over them like a curtain, and the two of them rubbed noses together like they always did.
"What?" Sarah asked.
"I love you," Deanne took her by the hand and twirled her around.
She giggled. "I love you, too."
"You're my favorite girl. You know that, right?"
"You're my favorite Mommy."
Deanne pulled Sarah back into her arms, squeezing her into a firm, secure embrace. Sarah squealed when she felt her feet being lifted off the ground. She was getting bigger, but Deanne could still muster up the strength to pick her up sometimes. Deanne laughed and spun the two of them around in a circle.
Over the sound of the music and Sarah's giggling, Deanne heard something else. She heard the door of a pickup truck bang shut and heavy, uneven footsteps start up the sidewalk. The person was also drunkenly singing something Deanne couldn't even understand, but she didn't need to. The pickup truck door shutting was all she needed to hear to know exactly who was home.
As gently as possible, Deanee placed Sarah back down on the floor and rushed into the living room to stop the music, ignoring Sarah's questioning, "Mommy?" as she went. If Joe had a bad hangover, which Deanne knew he would, he wasn't going to like the music.
Deanne lifted the needle from the record just in time to hear the screen door swing open and shut. She turned around, tucking her bangs behind her ears. The look in Joe's eyes might've been bleary, but the bleariness didn't hide his anger. When Joe was drinking, he had a short fuse, but when he was hungover his fuse disappeared entirely. All Deanne could hope for was that Joe would have enough sense to give her bruises in places that would be easy to cover up, and that he wouldn't direct his anger towards Sarah.
"Daddy!" Sarah came out of the kitchen and began to run over to Joe. Deanne's eyes widened and she scrambled to reach her daughter before she reached her father.
"Sarah, honey, wait-" Deanne caught her by the shoulder, just as Sarah began to reach out for Joe. Sarah looked back at her mother with wide eyes, but Deanne wasn't looking back. Her eyes were trained on Joe.
"Can she not say good morning to me, Dee?" Joe asked. His tone was calm. Too calm. Deanne's instinct was to draw back and take Sarah with her, but she knew that would only set Joe off more.
"No," Deanne shook her head. "I just assumed you were too-weren't feeling well."
"What made you assume that?"
"Nothing," she looked down at Sarah. "Sweetie why don't you go to your room and play for a little while?"
"But Mommy, we haven't had breakfast yet-"
"It's not done yet," Deanne said. It was a lie, but she would gladly lie to her daughter to get her out of the room. "I'll come get you when it's done."
"Okay-"
"Sarah, wait a minute," Joe said. Deanne's gaze snapped to him and she had to bite back an objection. "Come here."
Deanne clenched her fists at her sides in order to keep from reaching out to grab Sarah. Sarah walked over to Joe as he crouched down to hug her. As sweet as the gesture was, Deanne saw the ulterior motive behind it. Sarah was a pawn for Joe, something he used as leverage to keep Deanne right where she was. The few times Deanne mustered up the courage to even threaten to leave, Joe came right back at her with his fist and the same argument. Every. Single. Time.
"What are you going to do, huh? You think you can leave? Rip this entire family apart and break our daughter's heart? What would you say to her about that, huh? There's nowhere you two could go where I couldn't find you. Nowhere."
As Deanne watched Joe and Sarah hug, a sight that should've warmed her heart, all she felt was despair. She knew that she was trapped and there was no way she could get out.
DECEMBER 1974
FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA
Deanne had a lot of things to be bitter about in her adult life, but one thing she wasn't bitter about was the close relationship she had with her daughter. As hellish as their home was, Deanne would stop at nothing to make it as pleasant as possible for Sarah. Deanne wanted her to look back on her childhood and surmise that it had at least been okay; Deanne also wanted to prove to her own mother that she was capable of functioning as an adult and as a mother.
Fatemah O'Hara was a strong woman, there was no denying that. She had moved across the world to a country she'd only heard about on TV when she was only eighteen. Then Fatemah learned the language and adapted to the culture with an agility that appeared to be required in order to survive. After that, and going through the hoops of getting a job, Fatemah finally achieved what many called "The American Dream." She settled down in a house with a white fence in front with her Irish husband and had two children.
By so many standards, Fatemah had the perfect life, and that was all she wanted for her daughter. That's why she was so hard on her children, she just wanted the best for them. Her oldest, Matthew, had risen to her high expectations by going to college and then joining the Marine Corps. Deanne had the opposite reaction; she'd fled from her mother's influence, avoiding it at all costs.
While Fatemah was helping Deanne with the dishes after Christmas dinner, she couldn't help but watch her and wonder, with a well concealed broken heart, what had gone wrong.
"Would you stop?" Deanne demanded. She didn't have to even look up to know her mother was watching her-with that scrutinizing look she always had for her.
"Stop what?" Fatemah paused halfway through drying a plate. Deanne looked up at her, a fiery, defensive look in her eyes that she always seemed to get with her mother.
"Stop…" Deanne huffed, searching for a valid reason. "Would you stop looking at me like that?"
"Like how?" Fatemah asked. "How am I looking at you?"
"You know how."
Fatemah sighed. "I'm just worried about you, Deanne," she looked down at her fingers drumming against the countertop. "All I've ever done is worry for you."
Deanne took a deep breath and reached up to tuck her bangs behind her ears. The sleeve of her sweater lifted up and revealed a yellowing bruise on her wrist. Usually Deanne would've pushed her sleeve back down before anyone could notice, but she was unaware her sleeve had ridden up that far. Fatemah saw the bruise in full and felt her stomach twist.
"Well you don't need to worry," Deanne told her, and Fatemah would've laughed if the situation wasn't so horrible.
"Obviously I do," Fatemah nodded to Deanne's wrist. Deanne's eyes widened and she instantly shoved her wrist down. "Tell me this. Does he hit Sarah, too?"
"Of course not!" Deanne snapped. "I would never let him hurt Sarah! What kind of mother do you think I am-"
"I think you're a mother being hit by your child's father," Fatemah replied calmly. "If you need to come stay here with me, you know you can. Things have been awfully lonely since your father and brother aren't around anymore-"
"You know as well as I do what would happen if I tried to leave him, Mom," Deanne said, and Fatemah didn't respond becasue she knew her daughter had a point.. Deanne had tried to leave before, when Sarah was a few months old, and Joe had damn near lost his mind. It had been scary enough back then, and that was when Deanne's father was still alive to provide some semblance of protection.
"Where would we go, anyway?" Deanne continued. "Here would be the first place he'd look. Would you take us back to Iran-"
"I get your point," Fatemah interupted after hearing enough of her daughter's bitter snark. She tried to have patience, knowing Deanne was just trying to mask her fear. She'd gotten good at it too, after almost eight years of doing it. Her daughter may have never listened to her, but Fatemah would never say she wasn't brave.
"You know," Fatemah started after a few moments of silent dish-cleaning. "Maybe Joe wouldn't mind if Sarah came to stay with me for a little while, so-"
"Please don't start with that again-"
"Hold on," Fatemah held up her hand, forcing Deanne to pause. "Let me finish. I think it would be better for her to get out of that situation. I know that you're her mother and you want her to stay with you, which is completely understandable, but you have to agree it's not good for her."
"No," Deanne shook her head, reaching up to tuck her bangs behind her ears again-this time making sure her sweater sleeve didn't slip down. "She's not going away from me. Whether we stay, or leave, we're staying together."
Fatemah opened her mouth to respond, but stopped when she heard small feet quickly approaching. Sarah appeared in the kitchen doorway, holding a black and white spotted puppy that looked just a little too heavy for her to carry.
"What's all this?" Fatemah asked with surprise as both of Deanee's eyebrows shot up.
"Look!" Sarah grinned, showing off her missing front tooth as she held up the puppy, leaving its torso and hind legs dangling awkwardly. "Daddy got me a puppy!"
"That's nice," Fatemah said, sparing a smile-not for Joe''s kindness but rather for her granddaughter's excitement. Deanne walked over to Sarah and crouched down, rescuing the puppy from her daughter's clumsy grip. She looked down at the tiny furball in her arms then back up at Sarah.
"What's his name?"
"I wanna name him Ruggles!"
Deanne smiled, placing Ruggles on the tile floor. "That's a good name, sweeite," she said. "Why don't you take him out to the backyard?"
Sarah frowned. "But why?"
"I don't think Nana wants him going to the bathroom on her rug."
As Sarah left, once again carrying Ruggles in a position that in no way could be comfortable for him, Deanne reminded her to keep the fence gate locked and returned to help Fatemah with the remaining dishes.
"Now we definitely couldn't live here," she said. Fatemah furrowed her brow.
"What do you mean?"
Deanne gave a humorless smirk. "You hate dogs."
"I think I could make an exception."
JUNE 1978
FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA
Deanne sat alone at the kitchen table. It was the middle of the night, and the silence was so loud it had created an incessant ringing in her ears. Or maybe the ringing was from her head getting knocked around so much, Deanne couldn't be sure. The vision in her left eye was blurry from the swelling that Deanne knew would be impossible to cover up with makeup. Through her parital vision, Deanne looked the pile of smashed plates on the kitchen tile, then at the nasty gash that took up almost the entire length of her forearm.
He'd beaten her this badly before, but throwing her into the china cabinet was a first.
"Mom?"
Sarah appeared in the doorway, Ruggles peeking out from behind the skirt of her pink night gown. Deanne looked up, and the sight of her daughter almost made her burst into tears. She didn't cry when Joe hit her anymore, but she did cry when Sarah saw her like this.
She doesn't deserve me, Deanne thought to herself. It was the same thought that had occured to her countless of other times over the past eleven years. She would be better off without me. She wouldn't be going through any of this if I wasn't here. She doesn't-
"Mom?" Sarah repeated, carefully stepping over the cermanic shards to get to the table where her mother was sitting. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she nodded, the absurd lie almost making her laugh out loud. She could be bleeding out on the floor and she would still put on a brave front for her daughter. "I'm okay."
Silently, Sarah walked over to the sink and ripped a paper towel from the roll, dampening it under the faucet. She sat down beside Deanne and gently took her arm in her hand, pausing for a moment at Deanne's stifled wince.
"This might sting a little."
"Sarah," Deanne started to draw her hand back. "Honey you don't have to-"
"It's okay Mom, I got it."
Too tired to protest any further, Deanne watched as Sarah dabbed at the drying blood with the damp paper towel. Deanne was almost proud of how responsible Sarah was, until she remembered that she shouldn't have to be. What sixth grader should have to worry about cleaning their mother's wounds?
Once again, Deanne tried to put up her brave front, "You know, we kind of have this backwards," she said, trying to force a joking tone. "The mother's supposed to take care of the kid. We shouldn't-this shouldn't-this shouldn't be like this-"
Deanne felt the front crumble, and she quickly ducked her face down so Sarah wouldn't see her cry-not that she hadn't seen it before. "I'm sorry," she had to whisper, because if she spoke any louder her words would come out in a sob.
"For what?" Sarah asked. She was keeping her eyes on the gash, using the same level of concentration she reserved for math homework. The paper towel was turning pink from the blood.
"For putting you through this," Deanne wiped her tears away with her free hand, remaining mindful of her black eye. "You should have to live with this. Baby, I'm so sorry-"
"It's okay," Sarah answered with a naivete only a child could have. Her voice was quiet, an indication that she was getting to the age where she realized that this wasn't okay. "You're doing your best."
"Thank you," Deanne tried to swallow the lump in her throat, to no success. Sarah got up again, going back to the paper towel rack and returning with a fresh one. Instead of going back to cleaning the gash, she held it out for Deanne.
"Here," she said, and Deanne took it with a shaky hand, blowing her nose. Ruggles sidled up beside her, finally mustering up the courage to creep into the kitchen, and rested his head on Deanne's thigh.
Once Deanne got done blowing her nose, she looked up at Sarah. "Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "I know I'm the last person you should take advice from, but I want you to promise me something."
"Mom-"
"Sarah, look at me."
Sarah looked up from the knot she was twisting into her nightgown sleeve and met her mother's gaze. Deanne took the hand Sarah wasn't gripping her nightgown with in hers and squeezed it. "I want you to promise me something, okay?"
"Okay."
"I don't want you to ever settle," Deanne told her. "Do you hear me? I don't want you to ever settle for anything less than what's best for you, okay?"
Sarah nodded, but that wasn't a good enough response for Deanne. "Sarah, I want you to promise me."
"I promise," she said. Her voice was soft and her eyes were big and tear-filled.
"You won't settle."
She shook her head. "I won't settle."
Deanne wasn't sure if there was enough time for her to fix all the mistakes she'd made-in fact she was positive there wasn't enough time. Despite this, Deanne did have hope for the future. For her daughter, and that she wouldn't make the same mistakes she did.
MAY 1982
FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA
Seventeen-year-old Chris Ragle shifted his pickup truck into park in front of the Mackenzie house. He looked over at his girlfriend of two months, Sarah Mackenzie. "Do you need me to get your stuff out of the back?" he asked.
"No," Sarah shook her head. "I got it."
She'd called him that morning to ask if he could pick her up from her friend Cheryl's house, where she'd had her fifteenth birthday party. Her mom was supposed to have picked her up, but she must've forgotten, and Sarah didn't want to bother her dad. Chris didn't mind; he jumped at any chance to get her alone.
Placing a quick kiss on his cheek, Sarah moved to exit the truck. Before she could get out, Chris snagged a finger around one of the belt loops on her denim shorts and drew her back towards him. He kissed her on the lips, and Sarah indulged him for a few moments before pulling away again.
"Chirs, my dad's probably watching," she smoothed out the wrinkles he'd put in her t-shirt.
He smirked. "Your dad doesn't scare me."
Sarah rolled her eyes. "He should."
With another kiss initiated by Chris, Mac exited the cab of the truck with a promise to call him later. She grabbed her backpack and the handful of gifts that wouldn't fit inside it and headed up the walkway to her home. As she got closer to the front door, her father's drunken singing/grumbling became more and more pronounced. Sarah sighed to herself, too resigned to the behavior to be afraid of it. No wonder Mom didn't come to pick me up, she thought as she walked up the front steps, If he's drinking this early, he probably knocked the shit out of her for even asking to borrow the truck.
When Sarah got inside, there was no sign of Deanne. Usually after one of Joe's binges Deanne could be found cleaning up whatever mess he'd made or tending to her wounds-sometimes both. So her not being out and about was strange.
Sarah followed the smell of liquor and found her father sitting in a kitchen chair, his clunky work boots propped up on the table.
"Hey, sweetie," he greeted, the two words slurring into one.
"Hi," Sarah answered flatly. Thankfully Joe was too drunk to detect her sarcasm. She sat down her bag and presents. "Where's Mom?"
Joe shrugged. "Gone."
"Gone?" Sarah frowned. "What do you mean, gone? Like to the store, or shopping-"
She stopped herself. Her mother didn't have time to shop, especially after a night of Joe's drinking. Not that he would loan her any extra spending money, either. None of this was making any sense.
"Nope," Joe took his feet off the kitchen table and got to his feet. He staggered over to Sarah, and placed one hand on each of her shoulders before she could pull away. The stench of liquor made her wrinkle her nose. "She took the damn dog and left."
Sarah blinked at him. She'd seen him much drunker than this, and he'd never been the telling-made-up-stories kind of drunk before. "What?" she pulled away from him. "You're lying. Where is she?"
"Hell if I know," Joe answered. He reached out for Sarah again, but this time she dodged him. "Looks like it's just you and me now, kiddo."
Sarah turned around in a circle, trying to see if Deanne was lying unconscious behind a piece of furniture and Sarah had just missed spotting her. Her eyes landed back on her father, a fury in her eyes. "What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"What did you do to her?" Sarah started for the stairs, hoping that her mother was at least breathing by the time she got to her.
Joe frowned. He was too drunk to notice sarcasm, but anger was something that could still resonate with him. "I didn't do shit to her," he growled. "Don't take that tone with me-"
"Where is she?" Sarah demanded as she scaled the stairs, taking them two at a time. Track had done wonders for her agility - she had an easier time getting away from her father than she ever had.
"I told you," Joe waved his arm in a random direction over his shoulder. "The damn whore took off and left."
"You're lying," Sarah muttered to herself as she rushed to her parent's bedroom. She checked in the closet and under the bed, and even ripped the covers back on the bed. She then went to the bathroom and the linen closet. The final destination was her own room, where Sarah sat down on the carpet, trying to catch her breath and calm the dizzying sensation she felt. The room was spinning, and Sarah could feel her heartbeat in her ears. Her breaths were coming in short, rapid succession, and Sarah didn't know whether or not to scream or cry.
Her mother wasn't there. His mother was gone. Her mother left her. She was alone.
"I hate to tell you this," Joe called from downstairs. "But she took the dog. I don't know if I told you that, but she took the dog."
Sarah didn't even register her father's voice. She couldn't think about Ruggles, or the birthday presents sitting abandoned in the front hall. Sarah also couldn't think about the fact that she was fifteen now, or about her birthday party the night before where she'd had so much fun with all of her friends. She couldn't even think of Chirs, or even remember that she was supposed-to call him later.
All she could think about was her mother. Her mother had left her. Her mother was gone, and Sarah was all alone.
Taking a pillow from her bed so her father wouldn't hear, Sarah buried head into the pillowcase her grandmother had embroidered and screamed.
Sarah spent that night with Chris, not so much because she wanted to spend the night with him, but because she couldn't stand to be in her house. Usually Joe went out to drink, but that night he decided to stay in, probably just to rub salt in Sarah's wounds, and she refused to stay home with him for that.
She was lying flat on her back in Chris Ragle's bed, staring up at the ceiling. Chris was beside her, the window in front of the bed wide open so that he could smoke inside without his parents noticing. It was also open so Sarah would have an easy way to sneak out.
"Do you want to do it again?" Chris asked as he took a drag off his cigarette.
Sarah blinked, looking away from the ceiling to glance at Chris. "No," she shook her head. "I don't want to do it again - at least not tonight."
Her mind was racing, her mother occupying ninety percent of her thoughts. What had made her leave? How long did it take her to pack everything up and go? Did she even think of taking Sarah with her before she just left?
Ironically, ruminating on that day's events had helped being with Chris go by quickly. It still had hurt, though.
"Are you sure?" Chris asked, blowing a puff of smoke out of his window. "It'll get better the more times you do it. First time's always the worst."
Sarah nodded. "Yeah," her eyes traveled down to her rumpled up pair of shorts laying on the bedroom floor next to Chris's jeans. "You used a condom, right?"
"Yeah, I did," Chris snuffed his cigarette out on the window sill. He reached into his pack for another.
"Are you sure?" Sarah sat up suddenly. Chirs only nodded, which didn't do much to assuage her worry. "Chris I'm not on birth control yet please tell me you used a condom-"
"Yes! I used a fucking condom, Sarah. Check the waste basket if you don't fucking believe me," Chris snapped, the flickering lighter illuminating his face as he lit up a second cigarette.
Sarah winced out of instinct, and she gathered the covers tighter around her body. She felt cold all of a sudden, freezing.
She was going to ask her mom about birth control, she had been meaning to do it for the past few weeks. She had meant to ask her before then, but of course she hadn't and now it was too late.
I'll ask Cheryl's mom, Sarah reasoned as the smell of smoke filled her nostrils, Cheryl told me at the party that she was on it.
"I can stop smoking if that's bothering you."
"No, it's okay," Sarah said, sitting up for a second time. Chris' smoking was the least of her worries. "I think I'm gonna go home now."
It was past two in the morning; hopefully Joe would be asleep when she got back. She knew this wouldn't actually be the case, but she could still hope.
Chris shrugged. "Okay. I'll see you around."
"Yeah. See you around."
Sarah scraped the palms of her hands climbing down the trellis from Chris' windows, but she didn't even feel it. When she arrived back at her house, Joe was definitely still awake, sitting at his usual spot at the kitchen table. Sarah almost made it past him without a word exchanged between them until the very last moment.
"How old are you now?" Joe asked, his words slurring together to become something unintelligible to someone who wasn't used to being around someone perpetually drunk.
Sarah paused. The fact that he didn't know how old she was wasn't something that even phased her; she was surprised that he'd even remembered her birthday.
"I'm fifteen."
"Really? You're shittin' me."
"I'm not," Sarah replied coldly, eyeing Joe as he stood up. Bracing herself for him to walk over to her, Sarah watched Joe stagger over to the cabinets instead. He clumsily opened one up and pulled out another glass. Sitting down next to the open bottle of liquor on the table, he filled it up. Despite the fact that Joe already had his own glass, Sarah just assumed he was just fixing another drink for himself.
She was surprised when he handed it out to her. When she hesitated to take it, Joe rolled his eyes.
"Drink it. You deserve it."
For once, Sarah couldn't disagree with her father. After everything, the least she deserved was a drink.
JULY 1985
RED ROCK MESA, ARIZONA
Matt O'Hara wasn't going to act like he knew all that much about addiction recovery, or that he knew all that much about his niece. He'd only met her a handful of times, and only decided to take her under his wing because it was what his mother would've wanted-God rest her soul.
What Matt O'Hara did know was that recovering addicts had their fair share of good days and bad days, and his recovering niece was no exception. So one morning when Sarah came storming out of her tent and immediately walked to the edge of the camp, kicked a rock down the size of her head out into the desert (it actually only went a few inches, because it really was the size of her head) and screamed, Matt knew she was probably going to have a bad day.
He didn't react, he only paused mid-chew to listen to Sarah's scream bounce off the nearby rock formations. She promptly sat down, her back to Matt. She hadn't even acknowledged him yet. It was one of those times where it was impossible for Sarah to exist outside the cloud of her own emotions. Matt had spent the past two weeks watching her combat that cloud-sometimes she could subdue it, other times it was able to suffocate her.
Matt watched Sarah as she looked out at the horizon, looking for something she couldn't find. He eventually got up, took the liberty of getting her plate from her tent for her and filled it with food. Matt walked it over to her, gently nudging the plate against the her shoulder.
It took a few seconds for Sarah to react, but when she did, Matt reckoned he should have seen it coming. She yanked the plate out of his hand and chucked it. The food went flying in all different directions and the plate went skittering across the dirt, going a lot farther than the rock did.
Matt had to resist his first instict, which was the ask her, frankly and angerily, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" It would've been a stupid question anyway, becuase Matt knew what was wrong with her. She was a girl who had been through absolute hell at the age of eighteen.
The first few days, Sarah lashed out every couple of hours, and Matt had lashed out in return, quickly discovering it wasn't that effective. So he didn't yell at her for wasting the food or acting like a brat. All he said as he sat down beside her was, "You can be pissed, but don't take it out on the food supply."
As soon as he sat down, Sarah scooted away, refusing to look at him. She clearly wanted to be left alone, but Matt wasn't one to back down. Matt wasn't going to leave unless she told him to, or threw something else at his head.
"We're going to be out here for another two or three weeks," he continued. "I'd like for us to do that without me having to go back and get more food."
Sarah turned to look at him. "Do you think I give a fuck about the food?"
He shrugged. "I'd like to think you do."
She scoffed, rolling her eyes. She turned back to look out at the desert. "It doesn't matter if we're out here for another two days or two years."
"Why?"
"Because," she shook her long hair out of its ponytail and twisted it back up into a bun on top of her head. Matt had no clue how she could stand having all that hair in this desert. "You're still gonna leave when it's over."
"What are you talking about?" Matt asked with a frown.
"Oh," Sarah gave a humorless laugh, "You don't know? Everyone leaves me. Eddie left me, Chris left me, my friends all left me when I started drinking, my grandma left me," she took a breath, biting her bottom lip to keep it from trembling. "She left."
Matt finally said the one word that had been on the tip of his tongue that whole morning, "Fuck," he said, stretching his legs out in front of him. He now had the feeling he knew what Sarah had been watching the horizon for. "This is about Deanne isn't it?"
"Isn't everything?" Sarah asked, and Matt couldn't disagree.
Sarah looked up at him. "Do you know why she left?"
Deanne leaving had been the reason behind one of Sarah's earliest outbursts. On their second day out there Sarah had completely flipped out, doing a lot worse than throwing her plate. She'd kicked her tent in, miraculously not breaking it, and completely wrecked the camp. Sarah had even pushed Matt into the door of his pick up, demanding him to tell her where her mother was.
"Where is she?" she'd screamed at him. "I know you know! Where is she? Where did she go?"
Matt sighed. They had now graduated from the 'who', 'what', and 'where' questions to the hardest question of all. Why?
"I wish I could tell you," he said, immediately looking over to Sarah for any signs of an outburst. "But I don't know. Deanne was always kind of flighty, and I don't think being with your father helped."
Sarah nodded. She was looking down, tracing a finger through the sand. The sun was already reaching the point of being cruelly hot and it wasn't even ten in the morning. "Why didn't she take me with her?"
Matt sighed again, looking up at the sky and squinting at the menacing sun. That was a tougher question, and one of the many questions Matt wanted to ask his younger sister himself. Even though he truly didn't know where she went, he wished more than anything he did. He wished Deanne had gone to him and gotten his help. Maybe that way this girl would still have a mother.
But Deanne didn't do that, because Deanne had always been nothing if not independent.
"Why did she leave me?" Sarah asked again. Her voice was impossibly small, as if she was that little girl cleaning her mother's wounds in the kitchen all over again. Only this time it was her own wounds she was trying to clean.
"I don't know, kid," Matt looked out at the horizon, trying to see if Deanne would magically appear, even if it was only a mirage. "She wasn't much older than you when she had you...maybe she was too young, or not cut for...you know, mothering. I don't know, Sarah. I really don't."
After a few moments, Matt huffed, taking out his own frustrations on a collection of nearby pebbles using the toe of his hiking boot. "I shouldn't have let her get with that bastard."
"But then I wouldn't be here," Sarah said plainly. She wasn't offended by the comment, maybe because she agreed with it.
People had said it before. Other family members, or people gossiping in town. Someone would say, "Deanne never should've gotten with that man," then everyone would start to agree, but pause. They would pause because the realization would dawn on them that, without Deanne marrying Joe Mackenzie, Sarah Mackenzie wouldn't exist. That was something no one wished for, which made the union of Joe Mackenzie and Deanne O'Hara such a fickle point of discussion.
"I know you wouldn't," Matt replied. "I just wish you could be here without him."
"So do I."
They sat in silence as their throats got drier and the sun got hotter, heating the ground beneath them. Matt got up to get the canteen. "Don't throw this," he said as he handed it to Sarah. "Then I'm really gonna get pissed."
Sarah smirked as she unscrewed the top of the canteen. She took several sips before handing it back to Matt, without sending it flying through the air.
"You know," Matt said after drinking some himself. "I don't know much about why your mother left, but I don't think she would want you to live the rest of your life like this."
"Like this?" Sarah raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"Like how you've been living the past few months," Matt replied. "I think it would kill her to know you ended up like him. I think it would kill you, too."
Sarah only nodded, remaining silent as Matt continued.
"I'm not saying you owe it to her to get yourself together," he said. "But you definitely owe it to yourself."
Later that day, while Matt was straightening up around the camp, Sarah came up to him and announced. "I want to cut."
Matt looked up in alarm. "What?"
Sarah's hair was out of its bun, laying down in two long sections on either side of her face that stretched down to her rib cage. She picked up one end of the hair. "I want to cut my hair," she clarified, and Matt relaxed.
"You could've led with that, you know."
There were no scissors, and no mirror, so Sarah's hair had to be sawed off with Matt's pocket knife while the side mirror of his SUV was used to see. "Are you sure you want to do this?" Matt asked as he passed Sarah the pocket knife. All her life she'd had long hair, and earlier that day she'd even admitted that she hadn't gotten it cut since middle school.
"Yeah," Sarah nodded. "I'm sure."
Matt watched Sarah warily as she began to hack off her hair, expecting some form of visible catharsis, but whatever was going through her mind didn't show in her body. She remained silent the entire time, only speaking once to ask Matt if he could cut the back sections of her hair that she couldn't see.
Sarah ran her fingers through her newly short hair, turning her head from side to side to see what it looked like in the reflection of the SUV's side mirror. She turned to face Matt, not even checking the ground to look at the hunks of hair lying at her feet. "I love it," she announced, her grin making Matt smile. It had been the first genuine smile he'd seen so far on that trip.
"You'll have to get it touched up when we head back into town," Matt said, reaching out to affectionately ruffle his niece's new hairdo. "The ends are a little uneven. How does it feel?"
"Better," Sarah replied, and Matt had a feeling she meant more than the hair.
AUGUST 1985
PORTLAND, OREGON
"Alright, so what can I do for you today?"
"Umm, I'd like a bob. If that's possible."
Deanne ran her fingers through her long chestnut hair that was beginning to show the first signs of graying at the roots. She didn't go to the salon for a color, though. Her split ends had become unruly a while ago, but recently they had reached the point of being downright unmanageable.
The energetic hair stylist looked about Deanne's age, but Deanne looked about ten years older. "Wow, that's a lot of hair," she said. "Is this for a special occasion?"
"No," Deanne shook her head and gave a small smile. "I just thought I needed a change."
"Oh, I see," the stylist nodded. "Sometimes change is good."
"Yeah...sometimes."
As the stylist prepared to start trimming, Deanne looked around at the things at her station. Tucked into the border of the mirror was the picture of a young woman in a cap and gown. "Is that your daughter?" Deanne asked.
She tried not to think about how Sarah had graduated that past June-without her, alone.
Joe probably didn't even remember, she thought, feeling such anger and sadness that she almost didn't hear the stylist's response.
"Yeah, that's my little girl," the hair stylist replied with evident pride. "She just graduated, headed for Stanford in the fall. What about you, do you have any kids?"
Deanne smiled such a pained smile that the hair stylist stopped what she was doing. "I'm so sorry," she said quickly. "I shouldn't have assumed."
"It's okay," Deanne replied, not bothering to correct her as she went back to trimming. It was easier for her to have people believe her daughter was dead than to know she was a horrible mother.
I had two main motivations for taking this detour to explore Mac and Deanne's relationship. Like Harriet's storyline, I feel like it just made sense. Even though this story is about Harm and Mac, it was always my intention for Mac to be the main focus. Since The Case is about her becoming a mom, it seemed necessary to explore the relationship she has with her own mother. I also feel like Deanne deserved a character arc that was longer than one episode. I feel like it's many people's knee-jerk reaction to paint her as a villain, myself included, because she did abandon her daughter, yes, which was terrible. But she was also a victim of domestic violence, and I feel like she really didn't get a fair shake on the show. So this was my opportunity to make her more three-dimensional.
Anyways, thank you for reading! See you in a week!
-Harper