Part Three: Chapter Two
October 1, 1985
A sudden, loud, persistent beeping filled Sara's bedroom, rousing her groggily from her sleep. Sara rubbed her eyes, sat up on her bed, and began reaching around for the clock to turn the infernal beeping off. She found it within a few seconds and pressed the button with a small slap of her hand. The beeping stopped suddenly and Sara, however much she hated to, swung her legs off the side of the mattress and prepared to get up.
After she made her bed, got dressed, and brushed her teeth, she grabbed her backpack from the edge of the mattress and headed for the kitchen to help make breakfast as she had done every morning since her arrival.
Auntie Em was busy sweeping around the stove, frying eggs here, pouring orange juice there, when Sara walked into the room. She stood motionless, waiting for Em to notice her presence before she set about doing any work. When Em was moving to flip an omelet, as requested by Uncle Leroy, she spotted Sara standing in the room.
"Have you been standing there watching me the whole time? Go on, set the table, be of some use."
Sara set her backpack down against the chair she sat in at meal times and took over making the sausages and toast.
"Don't forget, we're meeting Laura today so you had better not be late to the office building, you hear? Remember you're taking a taxi."
Sara nodded, taking a couple slices of bread out of the toaster then putting some fresh ones back in. Then she prepared to take the prepared sausages to the table before Leroy thought it fit to get up.
"There's a note on the table for you to take to the school office. They'll get you an outside permit for half the day. Go and take it,"
Sara set the platter of greasy sausages down on the counter and walked slowly over to the table where a note labeled "Office," resided. Sara reached out to it and flipped open the top to read what lay inside.
Dear Highschool Office Staff,
My niece Sara highly wishes to meet her biological mother for a nice chat. During the school-hours are the only open times and I would wish you to excuse her from her afternoon classes.
As you have most likely had your attention brought to, Sara's mother is a deranged killer who stabbed her husband to death last summer. Sara has not seen her since and wishes to do so.
Emily Ronaway
Sara stood frozen in her place, staring at the highly offending note. She wished dearly to go meet her mom? Well, not really, seeing as how she killed her father. Sara angrily stuffed the note into her pocket as Em called her to finish setting the table.
"Please open your books class to page 432. " droned Ms. Wither dully, standing from her place at her desk, and sweeping out to the front of the classroom.
The class bustled as it attempted to fill out the command. Sara bent over to reach underneath her desk for her textbook, when a quick crinkle and flutter signaled that a piece of paper had come out from her pocket. Sara gaped at the slip of paper that she had oh so angrily placed in her pocket this morning.
"Sara?" the teacher drawled in an old, scratchy record sort of way. "Is there something you would like to share with the class?"
Sara quickly sat up straight in her chair, staring fixedly ahead at the board. If she could only just get that paper…
She stretched her foot to reach the paper on the floor, but it came up just short.
"Sara!" Ms. Wither snapped, "What's got you so squirmy that you must desist from sitting still?"
"Sorry…"
"Sorry doesn't cut it. If I catch you again, I'm sending you to the office."
Sara felt herself blush profusely, but that wasn't going to stop her from getting that condemning note. If a kid here found it, she would never get over it. As a final attempt, she whispered to Emma Hammond.
"Emma,"
The small quiet girl looked at her.
"Could you hand me that piece of paper on the floor?" Sara asked softly, pointing down at it.
Emma followed Sara's finger to the paper and picked it up off the ground. Sara could feel herself sweating slightly in hope Emma wasn't the nosy type. Thankfully, Emma proceeded to handing Sara the note.
"Sara Sidle!" snapped Ms. Wither for yet another time. "Notes now?" She swept over to Sara's desk-side, hand held out for the slip of paper.
"I wasn't passing…" Sara tried to explain.
"Nonsense, I saw you do it. And I thought better of you Emma. Now give me the note."
Sara nervously held the paper in her left hand, but when Ms. Wither attempted to grab it, Sara held fast.
"Please, I wasn't, I wasn't passing. It was for the office. I dropped it."
"Let go of the paper Sara. It can't be that bad." Ms. Wither snatched the paper from Sara's grasp with a final snatch.
"No! Please! Don't read it!" Sara had spent the past year trying to forget the event ever occurred, making up lies for people, and now it was this stupid teacher's fault that all that work was going to go to waste.
Ms. Wither cleared her throat and flipped the note open, reading loudly for the class to hear, and so quickly, she wouldn't have time to slow down if she got to a point she shouldn't read. Sara sat hunched over in her desk, hair falling down around her face, hoping it would help her disappear.
"Dear Highschool Office Staff," Ms. Wither began, loudly and clearly. Sara flinched with every word. "My niece Sara highly wishes to meet her biological mother for a nice chat. During the school hours are the only open times and I would wish you to excuse her from her afternoon classes."
Sara squeezed her eyes shut in preparation for the next sentence that was more than likely condemning her to a lifetime of rejection. Ms. Wither was beginning to slow down a little but she continued reading the note aloud.
"As you have most likely had your attention brought to, Sara's mother is a deranged killer who stabbed her husband to death last summer. Sara has not seen her since and wishes to do so."
Sara's stomach was in knots as several loud gasps and mutterings filled the room. She could feel the eyes of every student in the classroom on her. The air went silent after the mutterings had passed and Sara stood up so she was eye level with the teacher. Instantly, more whispers broke out.
"Are you satisfied?" Sara mumbled, snatching the paper from the dumbfounded teacher's hands.
"I'm sorry Sara,"
"Save it."
And Sara, held-back tears causing a couple of sobs to escape, left the classroom.
"Where are you headed?" asked the taxi driver in a gruff voice.
Sara entered the vehicle, tear-stained face furiously wiping itself on her backpack as she sat down.
"451 South Baker Street, please."
The taxi took off down the street, passing by rows and rows of buildings.
"Are you all right?" the cab driver asked sympathetically, catching sight of Sara's wet face. "What's got a nice girl like you all worked up?"
"My business."
"I know, but it never didn't help to tell someone about it, someone who'd understand." He had a strange accent, a friendly, cheery sort of laughter in it, like Frankie's, but different.
"It doesn't matter. The whole school will know about it by lunchtime anyway." Sara mumbled angrily.
"Then how about telling an old black man who's a little bit down on his luck, about how you're down on your luck."
Sara looked at the man with his graying curly black hair, his double chin, and his large body that took up one fourth of the vehicle.
"I really, would prefer not talking about it."
"Aw come on. I can't tell anyone, and more so anyone who'd give a care."
Sara sighed, gazing out the window at the passing houses. "All that happened was a very private note that I was supposed to give to the school office slipped out of my pocket in class and the teacher read it aloud."
"Medical condition?" the man questioned, turning the car up in front of a large building and stopping.
"Family situation." Sara answered vaguely.
"Now I want you to be on your best behavior. You will be polite. No being curt, use manners. She may be in jail, but she's still your mother!" Em snapped, milling about a small cubicle, putting up post-it notes here, taking them down there. Sara stood quietly outside the compartment, hands in her pocket, her face thankfully dry now.
"And most of all no eye-rolling."
"Yes Auntie Em." Sara muttered, looking around the office filled with booths similar to Em's.
"And don't take any tones with her either."
"Yes Auntie Em," Sara muttered more distractedly.
"And do try to act like it never happened. She wants to know what's going on with you."
"Yes Auntie Em," Sara mumbled once more.
"Hurry up, out with you. We have to get there on time. You were late." Em swept past Sara who then trailed behind, briskly walking in order to keep up.
"I'm sorry."
"Did you get the note to the office on time?"
The note. The words echoed through Sara's head. She was sure she was going to be facing torment tomorrow at school. Not many kids could get away with having a murdered father, much less one who was murdered by his own wife.
"Sara?" Em inquired sharply, noticing that Sara had stopped short.
"Sorry,"
"No daydreaming either."
"Yes Auntie Em," She began ambling after her again.
Auntie Em's old rickety car pulled up into a gravel parking lot, nearly empty except for a car or two here or there. Sara was sitting silently in the front seat of the car, legs tucked underneath her, arms folded across her chest, backpack underneath her seat.
"We're here," Em muttered, gesturing at a twenty-foot high fence with barbed wire draping its top. A towering, castle-like structure lay beyond the fence and Sara knew that was where she was going and where her mother had been for the past year. As Em grasped Sara's arm forcefully and began trudging up to the building, Sara realized that she needed closure. She had often sat in bed at night, trying to come up with reasons for why her mother decided to do it, why she thought to so precariously throw her life away. Sara wanted to know why and how, but most of all why. Why? Why did she do it? Why did she do it to Sara, to herself?
Auntie Em walked up to the main gate of the facility.
"We have an appointment to meet with Laura Sidle. I'm her sister and this is her daughter, Sara."
The man at the desk allowed them entrance, telling them to just wait patiently in the visiting room. They did as he asked, each taking a seat in a large visiting room littered with several other women meeting people, the walls laced with stock-still security guards, standing with their arms folded, gazes staring straight ahead. Sara smiled vaguely at one of the guards as he escorted a woman in orange out of the room. He didn't smile back.
Soon, the clanking of heavy-duty keys fitting inside a heavy-duty lock reached Sara's ears and she perked up, eager to see who lay behind this door. As it swung open, she only saw someone who made her stomach turn: her mother.
"Sara," she whispered, unable to contain a smile that was spreading across her face. "Oh sweetheart, it's been so long." The guard took his place against the wall as all the others had done, and Laura swept over to Sara, embracing her tightly. Sara fought with her own head. Should she return the hug? Was she deserving of her daughter's love?
"Oh my goodness Sara, look how big you've gotten. You could be mistaken for sixteen."
Sara chuckled slightly to herself. She had been mistaken for sixteen back on her first day of school the previous year. Laura finally let go of her and sniffed, for numerous tears were streaming down her dirty face.
"Oh honey, I've missed you so much."
Sara smiled dimly.
"Thank you, for bringing her here Em." Laura muttered, acknowledging for the first time that Em was even here.
"It's good to see you again." Em muttered in a monotone. "Sara, I'll be waiting out in the car."
Sara and Laura watched her leave, Laura eventually taking her deserted seat.
"So, how's everything been? How are you? You look…troubled."
Sara sighed and looked away, remaining silent, looking as if she was in her own little world.
"Look, Sara," Laura began, "I know I wasn't a very good mother outside of prison, but I want to make it up to you. I really do. But you have to let me. I want to be your 'mom', not just your 'mother'."
Sara turned her gaze back to Laura's, who appeared taken aback at the expression on Sara's face. Tears were flowing silently, a frown on her face, her large brown eyes that were her mothers own filled with grief and sorrow and humiliation.
"Honey? Why don't you start from the beginning."
"No, mom. You start from the beginning. Why? Why did you start accusing him? He didn't do anything wrong!" Sara's voice cracked and she breathed heavily for a few moments after her quick outburst.
It was Laura's turn to be silent now. She gazed down at her hands filled with dirt and grime and fingered them as Sara had seen herself do so many times before. She was more like her mother than she would have liked to be.
"Now Sara, have you ever been in love?"
"You know what? I don't believe in love. You don't love me, Dad…I doubt Dad really loved me."
"Sara Marie Sidle, you pull yourself together right now." Laura muttered sternly. "Your father loved you, very much; you were always the light that kept him linked to our home. If you didn't exist, he would have left me a long before it happened."
Sara sat quietly, biting her lip, her fingers clenched.
"And I love you very much. We both loved you, and still do. Do you remember when you were around seven or eight?"
Sara thought back and memories upon memories bombarded her. Suddenly, one from when she was around eight years old rejuvenated itself in her mind. She was sitting in bed with her father, just talking. Her father said he loved her, and her mother.
"Yes, he said he loved me, and you too, and that you thought he didn't love you. How did you know?"
"I was behind the door listening. I liked listening to your conversations because as long as I knew he loved you, I knew he would stay."
"Why didn't you think he loved you anymore?"
"Because he was always home late."
"Why didn't you believe him when he said he was stuck at work? You knew his new job was time-consuming."
"Because I…I…" Laura trailed off and looked around. Sara watched her earnestly, waiting for an answer. It never came.
"Mom, that night, what was different about that night. You had all those other nights to kill him. Why'd you wait?"
"I never had the guts. Never. I never even considered it until the hospital bills began piling up."
"What happened exactly?"
"Well I asked your father how his quick job was and he got hot and bothered. He started throwing things, not necessarily at me, you know, just throwing."
Sara nodded in understanding.
"Well he progressed to hitting things, not necessarily me, but just hitting things."
Sara nodded again.
"Well, I had brought the knife along in protection in case he ever did turn on me."
"Did you mean to kill him?" Sara asked quietly.
Laura let her mouth hang open for a couple of seconds before answering.
"Yes Sara, I believe that I did. I think one part of me wanted to kill him, to see him dead, to see him in pain like I had been for nearly seven years. I didn't think about you until after he was dead and you showed up in the doorway."
"Do you want to know what happened to me at school today?" Sara whispered quietly, knees brought up to her chest, arms folded over them.
"What happened to you at school today?" Laura asked.
Sara quite unexpectedly stood up from her chair and took two steps over to Laura's seat, taking a place on her mother's knee, preparing to tell Laura a story like any other normal girl whose mother wasn't in jail. She had received her closure, and she was just about ready to face tomorrow, and the day after, and many, many years to come. Laura wanted a chance to be a mom; here it was.
