Annie could feel the muscles of her chin tremble like a small child, There's static in her head once more, the side effect of the constant fear, constant stress she lived with.
"Anna?" At the sound of her mother's trembling voice, It takes somethin...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
~•~ "We do it for each other." ~•~
Ada got in the front passenger seat of his car, "She'll be there." She said, shutting the door."I could've gone on my own." She leans in her seat and waits for his answer. She wasn't too surprised to not receive one. Tommy's mind went straight to the day on the train, the fearsome look in her eyes when she saw the photograph.
"What do you know about your mother?" He asked.
He saw something in her deflate, like all hope had diminished. Her walls, and her will to stay strong throughout the day just crumbled in-front of him. "I have no memory of my mother, I never knew her." Her words were whispered, her voice chipped away, and a tear rolled down her face. She hadn't thought of her mother, she gave up thinking and wondering. Thomas stilled, he could've given her the answer straight up , like he did Michael. But Michael was retreating out a warm cottage style home, with a loving mother and a younger brother when he first saw him. Sallyanna was a girl banished to the colonies, an orphan roaming a country foreign to her, she was a survivor. Underneath those soulless brown eyes, was an even stronger ambition to get back home.
They were like kindred spirits.
She looked down, trying to swallow the lump in her throat, her eyes welled up with tears once again, her nose and cheeks puffy and red. It was then that he saw her for who she really was.
Underneath everything, she was just a girl.
He looked out the window, recollecting his thoughts. He wondered what she must've done to anger them so much that they'd resort to sending her to another country. He remembered the dark look in the Stationmaster's son when he mentioned Anna's name, it resembled that of a deep hatred. What could the girl in-front of him had done to spark up such hate?
"Why do- why did you ask that?"
He snapped out of his gaze, his eyes going back to Anna, who was staring at him, puzzled. "And you still haven't told me where you got that photo from." Her glare resembled Polly's so much that it sent him memories from childhood, Polly's stern eyes were the only thing that scared him these days.
"I went to Stafford-"
Anna looked about on the urge to run out the train the second he spoke the town's name. He started again.
"I'm your cousin, Sallyanna." He watched the sudden pause in her expression. "That makes us family."
She slowly blinked, digesting his words, but she didn't know what to say or what to believe.
"f-family?" She spoke the word like it was foreign to her.
"Family." He nodded.
"What does that even mean?" She laughed, humourlessly. Her words punctured him, but he didn't show that it had.
"It means ... that we look out for each other."
She only looked at him. His words replayed in her head.
She looked so sad, so incredibly sad that he rethought if it was a good idea to infiltrate her life. But he remembered his promise to Polly. 'I will find your son and daughter, and I will bring them home.' He couldn't go back on his word. He wouldn't go back on his word.
She closed her eyes, like she was repressing a unwanted thought, a painful thought. Or a memory, one she'd tried so hard to forget.
"Why now?" She asks, opening her cloudy brown eyes.
Thomas was lost for words.
"I mean, why now? Why not before?"
"Before what?"
"Before everything!" She yells, you could hear the pain in her voice. The way it strained, it wasn't rage, it was hurt. He caught the wistful look right after she yelled. She was a girl used to having her emotions in control, he assumed. "Before ... before Stafford," she was crying again, "before Cleo." He didn't know who Cleo was but the regret practically rolled off her tongue as she said her name. She starts picking at her nails under the table. "Before the stationmaster ... before he-" She stopped herself, unable to say the words.
"Why now? And why you?"
Tommy shrugged.
"We do it for each other." Was all he said. It was all he could say. Nothing would be good enough, nothing would spare her the traumatic memories of her life.
And the worst part was, that by welcoming her to the family, he wasn't certain it'd be the only trauma she'd go through.
~•~
Alison stared Anna down, watching the blonde pick Mason up after changing his nappy. "What?" Anna snapped, having enough of her sister's puzzling glare. "I thought you'd grown out of it." Alison said, taking a seat. Anna scrunched her nose up at the vague answer. "Grown out of what?" She rolled her eyes. "Running away. Thought you'd grown out of your childish ways, but here we are." She says, twisting a brown curl around her finger. "You don't know what you're talking about." Anna brushed off her comment, but her words had impaled her and made her feel ashamed.
Alison chuckled. "You're right, stupid Alison never knows what she's talking about. Not compared to our great smart Sallyanna."
"Alison what are you-"
"I bet if Elsie had said it, you'd be jumping with joy at the great advice. You held her in higher regard, I guess."
"Held her in higher regard?"
"You two were always closer, s'pose."
"Now you're the one being childish." Anna scoffed, bouncing Mason on her hip. "Ami? 'Cause as far as I've know, I've always been second best. The second option."
"Alison, you're being ridiculous."
"You made me believe you were dead! You have any idea what that did to me? Losing both of my sisters at once. I mourned you! Everyday, I mourned you! I cried my eyes out every night wishing it had been me, i gave birth to Mason with a broken heart. All alone. The midwife I could barely afford left right after the birth, the dad ... he made it clear he wanted nothing to do with it. If I had know there would be someone else out there that would've loved Mason just as much as me, it would've made it all so much easier. One letter would've done it."
Alison was up, her chest heaved up and down with a fury Anna had never seen in her, the tears continuously spilled down her face. The hurt she'd kept buried for weeks had came out today, it'd exploded.
"But you didn't bother." She whispered, as if coming to a realisation. She stared at Anna, who's frozen in place, unable to think of any words. There was nothing she could say.
"You should visit your mother today, Sallyanna." She says, raising both her brows. "And do me a favour while you're there ... don't come back." She shook her head, and left the living room.
A/n Vote and comment!
Alison is so completely right, what Anna did was very selfish. I just hope she doesn't find out that she wrote a letter to the stationmasters son 😬
