Her Legacy

XXXV. Scars

"I wish I could fly like that hawk, rising and falling with the still spaces in the air, far above all this sickness and death and evil." Heather Day Gilbert, God's Daughter 

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Chapter XXXV – Scars

A loud snore woke me up. Instinctively, I rolled over to kick Shea but there was no one in my bed. Sitting up, I realised that we were still on the phone. I looked at the call time to see that we had been supposedly on the phone for six and a half hours. Shea was sleeping on the other end.

It took me a minute to remember what had happened the night before. I had experienced an honestly harrowing panic attack. I'd always had recurrent anxiety and I had experienced panic attacks before, but that was absolute hell.

I wondered how Shea knew immediately what was going on, and how he knew what to do. I would ask him when he woke up.

I then wondered if it would happen again. That kind of fear was crippling. It honestly felt like I was knocking on death's door. My poor heart felt like it would literally burst in my chest. How much more could the organ take?

I checked the time on my phone and saw that it was nearly seven. My dad would be here in an hour. Pushing my fears and anxieties aside, I ended the call with Shea and got out of bed to go and help my mom.

I dressed in a pair of yoga pants and a loose sweater. I scooped my hair back into a messy bun and decided that was good enough. I could still only wear loose fitting clothes thanks to my surgery scar. I hadn't seen it properly. Not in a mirror anyway. But I was pretty sure it was a monster. Trauma scars always were. I had never been much of a bikini girl before, but I knew for sure I wouldn't be one now.

I couldn't help but notice that it was particularly painful today. Really painful. But it had been painful the whole time, and maybe the hardcore hospital drugs were just wearing off. Either way, I couldn't bother my mom with this when she would be running around like a madwoman.

As soon as I opened my door, the smell of bacon hit me. I literally started to salivate. I carefully made my way downstairs to see a full-on buffet being assembled before me.

Mom looked like she had been up for hours. She was wearing the mint green blouse, and a perfect face of makeup. Her hair was down, shiny, and healthy looking thanks to the blowout. Based on the half-inch she had lost from her waist line, I could tell that she was wearing the spanx. She looked beautiful, and completely stressed.

"Sara!" she cried when she saw me. "Oh, hon, you should have called for me, I would have helped you downstairs." She came rushing from the kitchen and helped me to one of the stools at the counter.

I got a better look at the counter top once I was seated. She had already prepared three monster stacks of pancakes and looked like she had more batter ready. There were enough fried, scrambled and poached eggs to feed a small army, and she had all sorts of garnishes and fillings to add to omelettes. She was assembling a fruit platter while simultaneously frying bacon. And she wasn't just slicing fruit, she was freaking segmenting it.

"Mom, segmented oranges taste the exact same as sliced oranges," I murmured.

She scoffed. "I know. They just look prettier this way."

"Why are you making the bacon this early?" I asked. "Daddy's not going to be here for another hour." I kind of wished the clock would hurry because I was getting hungry.

"This is just for the pancakes," she explained. "I'll make more closer to eight."

"Pancakes?" I repeated.