Black Wings Read online

  “Yes,” Marian said. “They killed it.”

  “Rufus bit me.” Briella sounded sullen. Pouting.

  “It wasn’t the same.”

  The moment the words were out of her mouth, Marian wished she’d said something else. It was not the same, that was the truth, but what kind of mother excused an animal that had taken a bite of her daughter’s flesh? That the bite was small and the animal had been pushed to it shouldn’t matter, should it? Briella was her child. Marian should defend her against whatever harmed her.

  Right?

  She would not let herself admit that maybe Briella had deserved to be bitten. She couldn’t go that far. The best she could do was soothe the pains and try her best to love her child and keep her safer in the future.

  Marian wrestled herself up and out of the rocker. “If you’re not going to sleep, then you need to go take as shower. Let’s go.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “You have to. You stink.” Marian looked at the clock. There was an hour or so before she could expect Dean to get home from work. She might even be feeling up to making him some dinner. “Go. Now. Don’t make me have to talk about consequences, Briella.”

  After that, Briella got into the shower without too much fuss. Marian stood outside the bathroom door, listening to her daughter sing pop songs off-key and with the wrong lyrics. The water turned off too soon.

  “Use soap. And shampoo. If I have to come in there and do it for you, Briella, I will.”

  “You’re supposed to give me privacy!”

  Marian nudged the door open to see the girl peering at her from around the shower curtain. Marian’s heavy eyes and aching hips told her it was late. She wanted to be in bed, hugging her mountain of pillows and trying to sleep as best she could without her guts turning themselves inside out.

  “You stink,” Marian repeated flatly, her patience wasted. “Your body stinks, your hair stinks, your breath reeks.”

  Briella grimaced. “That’s mean!”

  “I’m your mother. It’s my job to help you be the best person you can be, not be your best friend,” Marian said. “Turn the water back on and wash your hair and your body. With soap.”

  “I did.”

  “God dammit, I have fucking had it with you.” Marian snapped and crossed the room to grab the kid’s arm with one hand while she whipped back the shower curtain with the other.

  She turned on the water, not caring if it sprayed all over. Briella shrieked and struggled, but Marian’s fingers gripped her hard. The girl wasn’t even slippery, which meant she probably hadn’t been in the water at all.

  “Shut your mouth. Now. Get under the water. Now,” Marian said. “I’m tired and sick and you stink.”

  She steeled herself to the sound of Briella’s sobs and grabbed the shampoo from the shelf. A squirt into the thick mass of the kid’s hair, then a dunk under the water. Briella stopped fighting her and suffered the scrubbing, then the conditioner that Marian left to soak while she handed her a washcloth and the soap and ordered her to use it.

  Twenty minutes later, she had Briella wrapped in a towel and had taken her into the master bedroom to sit on the edge of the bed while Marian pulled out a pick to get through the tangled curls. Briella’s hair, dry, hit just above her shoulders, but soaking wet hung midway down her back. Briella was silent. Exhaustion plucked at her, but Marian made sure to take her time with the knots, using both the pick and her fingers, along with extra conditioner to leave Briella with sleek, untangled curls.

  At the sight of the bruises and raw flesh at the base of the girl’s neck, Marian’s heart leaped into her throat. “What’s this? What happened here?”

  Briella pulled away. “Nothing.”

  “Did the dog do that, too? Hold still.” Marian gripped her again, aware that she might be causing bruises of her own on her daughter’s upper arm, but determined to see what the hell was going on. She touched the wound, which was almost healed. “That’s not a bite. That’s a cut. What happened?”

  “Nothing,” Briella insisted and tried to pull away.

  Marian turned her. “Tell me what’s going on. Did someone do this to you?”

  “No.” Briella shook her head. “I was…my hair was tangled and I wanted to cut it, so I tried to do it by myself, but I cut myself with the scissors.”

  “Oh, Briella.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama.” Briella hitched a sob and buried her face in Marian’s neck.

  At least she smelled better, Marian thought, and felt instantly ashamed for the thought. She hugged her daughter as best she could around the bulge of her belly, then pushed Briella gently back. “Do you know why I want to you to keep it taken care of, then? So it doesn’t get so tangled that you have to cut it?”

  “Yes. But I was embarrassed to tell you.”

  Marian sighed. “Let me finish combing it out, and we’ll put some more conditioner in it. You can wrap it in a scarf the way I do before bed. Then you won’t wake up with it all a mess.”

  “I want to look like you, Mama. I want to be pretty like you.”

  Marian paused at the kid’s tone. Bright. Bubbly.

  Fake.

  “You’re pretty like you,” Marian said.

  She studied the wound again. It was definitely a slice. Neat, tidy, not ragged. It looked as though it could have used a stitch or two, and her heart ached again at how she’d managed to miss something that serious. It looked worse even than the dog bite.

  She finished combing through Briella’s curls, then helped her pick out a soft scarf to wrap around her already drying hair. Marian stood and pushed her daughter by the shoulder to walk out of the bedroom. “You’ve had a rough day. I think you should try to rest in your bed for a bit. You can read or watch something on your tablet until it’s dinnertime.”

  “Aren’t you going to tuck me in?”

  “You’re a big girl.…” Marian trailed off, thinking already of how steep the stairs would be, and how her hips would ache from the climbing. She’d be out of breath at the top. It had been months since the kid had asked to be tucked in. “Yes. Of course I will.”

  In Briella’s bedroom, Marian tucked her daughter into bed. Tight, then tighter, the way she had when the girl was younger and would giggle about being made into a burrito. Neither of them said anything about it this time. Maybe Briella had forgotten that little joke, and Marian was too tired to make it.

  She bent to kiss Briella’s forehead. “Don’t try to cut your hair again, okay? Let’s try to keep it taken care of, and then it won’t get so many tangles in it.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama.” Briella sounded contrite, but something in the way she said the words left a sour taste in her mother’s mouth.

  She was placating, Marian thought. Not really sorry. Briella didn’t think she’d done anything wrong, and that was the real issue, wasn’t it? Briella never thought she did anything wrong. She never saw that the trouble she’d gotten into had stemmed from her own actions. She mouthed the word “sorry”, but she didn’t feel it.

  Itching with unease, Marian kissed Briella again and, in another moment of guilt, hugged her as best she could in the awkward position of bending over the bed. She loved her daughter, hating that she had to remind herself. Hating this growing sense of discomfort. She could blame hormones, but that didn’t make any of it better.

  She would try harder, she told herself as she closed the bedroom door behind her at Briella’s request. She paused outside the door, one hand pressed to it. Listening, giving herself a minute or so before she heaved her bulk down the stairs again.

  The rap of a beak on glass. The creak of the bed. The mutter of a window being pushed up, then Briella’s soft, indecipherable speech.

  Marian reached for the doorknob, but at the last second, she stopped herself from opening the door. There would be a confrontation. She would y