Page 44 of Save You

“Why not?” I shrug. “You’ve already taken everything I love away from me. Do your worst!”

Feeling braver than I should under the circumstances, I lay back against the pillows and stare hopelessly out at the garden in the distance with my arms defiantly crossed.

“Oh, but I will if I have to. You see, I’ve just got off the phone with your grandfather, darling,” he begins, and I instantly swing my head his way, ignoring the sore skin that radiates with every movement of my neck. He stares back but with a smug smile on his face, knowing he’s got me exactly where he wants me - helpless and at his mercy. “I had to convince him not to touch your brother or your daughter. However, should you wish to give up on our relationship, I’d no longer feel obliged to keep him from them.”

“W-what?” I croak out through my crushed windpipe and try to sit up as straight as possible to make myself feel as assured as he is. “You promised; we had a deal!”

“Don’t talk to me about deals, Beth!” he practically spits through his clenched teeth, returning to looking angry instead of smug. “You broke our original deal when you spread your legs for that worthless piece of shit, Fenton! Besides,” he now softens, almost as suddenly as he lost his cool just now, “the deal was you would become my wife. This,” he says, gesturing to my whole pathetically sad body, “is not being my wife. You will love, honor, and obey me, and you’ll do it with a smile on your face, or…”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll let dear old pops take what he believes belongs to him.” He’s mere inches away from my cheek and is bending down to kiss me gently on my temple, feigning affection when all he really feels for me at the moment, is fury, bitterness, and resentment. “We’re moving, by the way. I can’t risk Fenton knowing you’re still alive, or anybody recognizing you. Your grandfather is joining us for dinner later and you will be attending a hair appointment to wash that shit out of your hair. I prefer blondes and so does your grandfather!”

Bournemouth, England, 1981

Rosalie

As soon as I feel my little guy’s warm body slipping into bed beside me, I smile before wrapping my arm tightly around him. This, here, in the middle of the night, with a storm whirling around outside, is my bliss. Tom is spooning me from behind like he always does, with a gentle rumbling of snores and his long legs weaving in between mine. I’ve never had to second guess his devotion to me, not since the day he confessed his feelings. He always tells me how much Mal and I mean to him. More than that though, is the fact that he shows me on a daily basis.

My son is Tom’s child too; there’s no question about it. They may not share the same DNA, but Mal loves Tom as much as any son could love his father. Sometimes I just stand still to watch them connecting, playing, and laughing with the affection one would expect between a boy and his dad, sometimes even more so. Tom is always teaching Mal how to be kind and loving to me and is quick to pick him up on any sign of disrespect toward his mother, or anyone else, for that matter. Not that this happens often, but Mal is at an age when kids are learning how far to push the boundaries, so the odd occasion where we have to talk to him about his behavior does come up from time to time. It’s only natural.

However, at the end of the day, Mal idolizes his father and wants more than anything to be Tom’s mini-me. We contemplated telling him about his biological father when he turned eight last month, but when it came to doing the deed, neither one of us could bring ourselves to start talking about it. In the end, we decided it was both safer and kinder not to. What good could come from him knowing that his father in the States was a man capable of killing people and abusing his mother in the most horrific ways? No, for now, let him keep his blissfully ignorant childhood, which knows nothing about Mayfield. Let his family here love him more than anyone back in America could, then, maybe when he is older and becoming a man, we’ll tell him. Maybe.

A crash of lighting has Mal shuddering against my chest as he tries to squeeze himself into a small ball that is backing into me a little more. He’s such a sensitive boy and has always had a fear of thunderstorms, just like most kids, I guess. He fears a lot of things that are often irrational and has always needed a little more comfort than some of the other children we see, but we love him all the more for his delicate nature. I wouldn’t want him any other way.

Tom and I have never used any form of barrier when we make love, and we had hoped to have given Mal a brother or sister; to have had a child together, but it just hasn’t happened. Neither of us is particularly upset by it, but I do sometimes feel bad for the men in my life. It would have been nice for Tom to have had a biological child of his own, and it would have been good for Mal to have had a sibling, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

“Mal?” I whisper as he makes a little squeak of a noise. “Do you remember what I told you?”

“About what, Mummy?” I love that he still calls me ‘Mummy’ at eight years old. I know it will gut me when I become ‘Mum’ or ‘Mother’.

“Your brave little feather,” I remind him and pull at his hand so he can see the mark that my evil mother had inflicted on him when he was still an infant. He slowly looks down to it and watches as my thumb pad brushes up and down the length of it, still needing to soothe the skin now and then just from the memory of that awful night. “As long as you have this, it means you are one of us and protected against all the bad stuff out there.”

“Just like Dad has?” he asks with a hint of a smile, which tells me he’s beginning to let go of his anxiety over the storm.

“Yep,” I answer with conviction.

A couple of years ago, Mal had come home from school asking about the strange mark on his wrist, so we decided to tell him it was a birthmark. He went on to explain that a boy in his class, a particularly obnoxious child, had been teasing him for having this strange permanent mark on his skin. He had accused him of being dirty and told all the other children that Mal never washed. By the end of his recount of events, Mal had burst into tears and begged us not to send him back there.

It broke my heart to see my little guy crumbling before me and the urge to tell him he could stay at home was on the tip of my tongue. Of course, Tom, being the more level-headed one out of all of us, told Mal not to worry, that he would get one too and they could walk to school together. True to his word, Tom went to a tattoo shop in town and asked for the exact same mark to be drawn on his wrist. Then, on Monday morning, Tom and Mal rocked up at the school gate where the little boy was already waiting to give my son a hard time. His smug grin soon fell from his face when he saw Tom, who is practically a giant in comparison to a child of this age, bearing the same mark as Mal.

“Wanna pick on me too, kid?” Mal grinned at the poor boy, who was now sporting a gaping mouth and a huddled stance. He rapidly shook his head and went to hide behind his mother’s legs. Funnily enough, Mal never had any bother from him after that, or from any of the other kid for that matter.

“But you don’t have a feather,” Mal whispers back to me, “you have a leaf because you’re a girl.”

“That’s right,” I giggle and pull out my wrist to show him my own tattoo. He smiles and begins stroking my leaf, delighting in making me giggle when it tickles.

“If I have a baby one day, will I have to get them a mark like this too?” he asks, which instantly has my blood running cold. I took him away from Mayfield because of that weird way of thinking, so I need to nip this in the bud, pronto!

“No,” I reply softly, so as not to make it into a big deal, “you just have to love them as much as I love you.”

“Good,” he sighs with relief, “because Daddy said it hurt a lot and I don’t want to hurt my baby.”

We stare at one another, me with such pride for my sweet little boy, knowing that he is where the fucked-up traditions of Mayfield end; him with the knowledge that both of his parents love him with all of their hearts.

“I love you, Mal,” I finally whisper and hug him that little bit tighter.

“I love you, Mummy, and Daddy too!”

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