Bruised
He was fretting in his sleep. She could hear him from her bedroom. It sounded as though he were crying. She rose, slipped into her dressing gown and slipped down the stairs trying to be as quiet as possible.
"Boy!" she hissed at him through the small door. He did not reply or respond.
She opened the door to find him crumpled into a tight ball in the corner of the cramped space, damp and sleep rumpled, whimpering. She reached in and poked him into a groggy wakefulness. "Mum?" he murmured, then sighed and rolled over onto his pillow.
She went up the stairs and sat on the edge of her perfectly made bed, rumpling her Laura Ashley bedclothes just a little. She couldn't stand the sight of the boy. Every step taken and syllable uttered reminded her of what she had lost.
"That boy is nothing but trouble," she murmured.
He made her ache. He was that tenderness, that deep, sister shaped bruise that bled inside her every day, unseen.
"Put him in an orphanage then", her practical husband had grunted, peering at her over the edge of the evening paper.
Petunia had mumbled something about promises and family, and left it at that.
