She knew Sara would work herself until she collapsed. It was how she coped with things. It wasn't healthy and Catherine would not let her do it, not this time. She waited until their shift was over and then she grabbed Sara by the arm. The woman fought her at first, and in the end she had to all but physically drag her away.
0000000
The diner was a familiar one, it was a comfortable place. They often came here to eat, and to talk. When Catherine sat her down in a booth and settled down across form her, Sara knew that the woman wanted to talk and that she would not take no as an answer. Sara sighed, she'd known this was coming. Catherine was like a rabid bull-dog when she got an idea in her head. She just would not let it go.
They placed their orders and Sara dumped her usual amount of sugar into her coffee. "So…you've met my mother. Grissom knows a little bit about her. I told him…after the Svetlana Melton case. Why I go off the deep end." She saw the flinch of guilt skate across Catherine's face, but said nothing. "It started out like every other night. I hardly even realized anything was really wrong…I was just trying to stay out of the way.
Tamales Bay, California1984
They hadn't had a guest in two solid months. That meant that money was tighter then usual. Not that money was ever abundant, but the fridge was devoid of beer, the liquor cabinet was empty and Thomas Sidle had smoked the last of his weed two nights before. He was jonesing and cheap cigarettes were just not cutting it tonight. His wife was no better off. It had been a little over thirty hours since her last drink and she was starting to get the shakes of a long time alcoholic. The tension was thick and the mood dark. Sara made herself scarce. She knew very well that her father had a piss-poor temper when he was coming down and didn't want to provoke it.
She stayed on the staircase, out of his eye line, but still in the room. She knew that hiding away in her room was not an option. If he yelled for her and she wasn't immediately there, there would be Hell to pay. So she studiously re-read her essay on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. It wasn't her homework, but the football player she was doing it for would gladly give her ten dollars for it the next morning. It wasn't exactly honest, but she needed money and the idiots that made up the football and cheer squads at the High School needed to graduate.
The trouble started when dinner was served. Dinner, of course, was a bologna sandwich. Her father hated bologna and if her mother had been paying attention, she'd have remembered that little tidbit. Sure enough, Tom threw the sandwich at his retreating wife's back. "DAMNIT WOMAN! FUCKING BOLOGNA! I FUCKING HATE SHITTY BOLOGNA!" Laura whirled around. "Well, I'm very sorry, Your Majesty, but all we have is that shitty bologna that YOU THREW ON THE FLOOR!" She watched as her father bolted up. "WELL WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO ALL THAT FOOD I BOUGHT JUST LAST FUCKING WEEK!"
Sara remained silent and still, but she knew what had happened. They hadn't bought groceries a week ago, they'd bought them a month and a half ago. The only reason they had bologna and bread at all was because she had bought them.
She watched her mother try to placate her father. It was always the same, tired old move. She offered sex and hoped it calmed him down. It usually worked. Tom Sidle liked his beer cold and his women easy. This time, however, it didn't work. All the lewd suggestion did was earn Laura a rough backhand slap to the face. "All I want is a damn meal! All you ever do is smoke my shit and slut around. Don't think I don't know about HIM, Laura!"
Sara winced, it was on now. Her mother's phantom lover, or her father's very real mistresses were always at the center of their worst fights. She glanced down at the door and wondered if she could make it out of the house without them noticing. As they were involved in their shouting match, she figured she could. Besides, they were just getting warmed up.
She tucked the papers under her arm and eased down the stairs, avoiding the ones that squeaked. She was at the door, and easing the screen door open to slip out when her father saw her.
"GIRL!"
She jerked around just in time to see a rough hand grabbing at her shoulder.
Sara swirled her coffee around in the mug. "It was almost normal, Cath; the screaming and shouting. It never even occurred to me that something was really wrong. It was how I thought everyone lived. There was real life and then there was make-believe. The Brady Bunch was just as fantastic and unrealistic to me as Star Trek.
0000000
Catherine felt low, lower then low. She remembered Sara's words about the Svetlanna Melton case.
"There is no evidence of abuse!"
"Not that we can see, Catherine, not that we can see."
Sara had that same look in her eyes then as she did now. The hopeless heartbreak of someone who had gone through Hell and lived to tell the tale. Catherine had ignored that look for so long. She'd written it off, just as everyone else had, as empathy. God she had been so wrong, and the worst part was, the story wasn't even over yet, not by a long shot.