Motherhood.
Cassie barely noticed the sting as she chewed at her lip, drawing blood. She tasted the coppery tang of the blood with the tip of her tongue as her mind wandered. Reaching out with an arm she avoided touching the sleeping child and traced a finger, instead, along the inside of the chalk circle that enclosed them both. Prison and protection, the only thing keeping them safe and together.
She watched the gentle rise and fall of his breaths and breathed in as he breathed out so that she could smell the sweetness on them. Inhale, capture and remember.
She'd never really looked at him closely in those snatched moments with him before. He'd never been foremost in her mind. Naughty Daddy, getting in the way, taking Mummy's attention away.
She smiled. Mummy. It sounded so strange. It was a word that was never meant to be applied to Cassie, a word she'd destroyed on that doctors operating table. So she thought.
She told herself over and over again that she wasn't the maternal type, motherhood wasn't for her anyway. She'd be terrible at it. Yet here they were and now, looking at him, she adored him. She wanted to keep him. Teach him to ride a bicycle, tell him off when he hadn't done his chores, have blazing rows and tell him to turn his music down. She wanted all of it, more than ever.
The anticipation of waiting was diluting time. Minutes became hours and Cassie was glad of it. She looked at his face, trying to pick out bits of it that belonged to her. You have your mother's eyes, your mother's nose, your mothers chin. She whispered the words to him as he slept, until she could see nothing that belonged to anyone else but her. He was all hers.
She reached out a finger towards him so that she could map out his face with her fingertips. When her skin met his her heart ached.
You have your father's soul, your fathers heart, your fathers mind.
She saw it all there and then. Time was running out and suddenly it wasn't diluted, it was speeding up. It was spinning past her head, crashing over them both in an unstoppable wave.
She knew that an ending was coming, one way or the other and in those last moments she had to make him good, make him pure and wash away the sins of the father.
You're my child. She breathed it in his ear, trying to fill him with it so it would stick. It was a mantra, a prayer of a mother who wasn't ready to say goodbye. She said it over and over until she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore.
You're my child.