𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐘𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐇 𖤓 - 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧.

PÉNDE.

The doused windows of their house that they had ran past outside on the patio while they shouted lighthearted profanities at one another as they jousted one another with the water hoses.

The sound of their mother scolding them, telling them not to get the windows wet, because the window-man had already cleaned them.

The same cellar windows that were set centimetres above the patio, now stained with dried spats of blood and brain matter, that made one of the inspectors gag as they'd come to collect the body inside.

The sound of their mothers despairing scream, a mother who'd been unfairly torn away from their child - now segregated by the barrier of mortality, where there is no known guarantee if they'll ever reunite again.

Lyssa could never forget that scream, a part of her wished it was real.

The sound her mother had made was definitely real, as it was what had awoken Lyssa from her midday nap, causing her to jolt out of bed and down the staircases so quickly that she'd tripped and sprained her ankle.

Limping to the cellar, her mother crumpled over a body she knew all too well. For he was wearing the pink and purple striped socks that Lyssa had gotten him for his birthday two weeks beforehand.

However, despite her mother mourning vocally, she knew that behind that, it lacked sentiment.

She hadn't attended any of his college mock-trials when he was studying law which he'd invited her to, nor was she present for his birthday.

Lyssa vaguely recalled one time where she'd remembered her mother forgetting his birthday date, too - handing him a sealed envelope containing a birthday card a month too early.

It was behaviour like this that was displayed so thoughtlessly by her parent that had given her evidence to believe that her mother was trying to mourn the loss of a child, but realistically couldn't.

He might as well have been classified as a stranger in this home, to her at-least.

A stranger that may have shared the same surname, the same blood, the same features - however, that was all that connected them.

She did not care to maintain a bond.

Lyssa didn't know what her mother actually cared for at all. Renewing Alistair's block of private tennis lessons because she found the instructor 'charming', maybe.

Or, the occasional work meeting she'd have in Venice with her accountancy acquaintances where she'd book a hotel room for weeks at a time without warning.

Those were her only consistencies. The only external activities she put effort into, because they benefitted her.

Maybe a part of their mother had been deprived of this maternal presence herself, Lyssa thought, maybe that could've been what had made her this way.

Because Lyssa could only imagine how difficult it must be to teach, to show something of yourself - meeting expectations that you were never taught, had never been able to understand or experience.

Even if this was the case, Lyssa couldn't be bothered to find the empathy to mope after her mother's potentially traumatic past - the same way her mother was slothful when providing basic love and support to her own children.

Lacking a fatherly figure from a young age was challenging, but at times, it felt as though Lyssa was lacking a motherly figure entirely, too. She may as well have been classified an orphan.

When her peers at Oxford had heard of her brother's passing, they had begun to treat her like frail glass ornament.

Their words were mollycoddle to her, suffocatingly swaddling her in verbal cotton wool which she fought desperately to claw her way out of.