Eventually, summer break came to an end and it was time for back-to-school season. Evelyn was actually a little sad about that. She wouldn't get to see her son as much and it was a big jump going from having him constantly clung to her to him being out of the house for six hours every weekday. At least with the school, she knew she'd be sending him somewhere he'd be safe without her unlike how she'd felt sending him to a certain other place.
Wow, maybe it was actually her with the separation anxiety.
Moving up another year in school and having to go into a brand new class was a pretty big change for a kid and as she'd been made wildly aware, Hunter hated change and she had not been looking forward to the meltdowns that this would inevitably cause. He'd already been reluctant to leave her side so the odds were not looking very good.
She'd talked over it multiple times with him to make sure he knew what was happening but after that, the most she could do was cross her fingers and pray that things went smoothly.
On the morning of the first day back at school, he got up and out of bed with minimal complaints so she took that as a good sign and just hoped she wouldn't be jinxing it.
"You excited to see your friends again?" She asked, digging out the uniform Caleb had had to wash and iron last minute the previous night when they suddenly remembered that he needed a clean uniform.
"Mhm, I'm going to tell Luz all about that snake book I got." He beamed, handing her a shirt that had been hung on the closet door.
Evelyn usually helped him get dressed for school. He still struggled with the little buttons on the shirt so Evelyn tended to help him out so he didn't spend half the morning frustrating himself over them.
"Maybe you could invite Luz over to show her at some point?" Evelyn suggested. Maybe having a friend around would help brighten his mood.
"Mhm." He hummed, letting out a small yawn and rubbing at his eyes. He looked pretty exhausted in all honesty. Those eyebags still hadn't completely faded and it was no wonder: he'd been barely sleeping as of late, jolting awake several times a night to what appeared to be nightmares.
"Luz says her mom is really really busy. Did you know she looks after animals! Luz says her mom got to put a bandaid on a lion!"
The chances of Camila Noceda having worked with a lion were very low and Evelyn thought it more likely her daughter had made that idea up herself but she still nodded along.
"That's why Auntie Eda is always looking after her," He continued, "'Cause her mom is looking after all the animals. She's like an animal superhero."
"An animal superhero, huh?" Evelyn chuckled. Hunter nodded emphatically. "Okay then, if you say so. Now, arms up." She instructed, holding the hem of his pyjama shirt between thumb and forefinger.
She noticed his demeanour change instantly. The cheerfulness and chattiness were gone as his face fell and he froze.
She was just about to question what was wrong, try to pick apart what cryptic thing had caused him to act so strangely this time, but as soon as she opened her mouth to speak, he cut her off by holding his arms up, trying to make it seem as casual as possible.
Not wanting to freak him out or make him cry before school had even started and deciding to address this later, hopefully, with Caleb as backup, she brushed it off with a faulty smile and pulled the pyjamas shirt off, tossing it on the chair to deal with later. She then unfolded the school shirt he'd handed her before and hooked it over both of his arms before beginning to button it up.
Until she noticed something that made her stop dead in her tracks.
Bruises.
Deep, angry bruises of various painful purples and blues marring the pale skin of his side.
"What...What happened?" She asked, her voice breathy with disbelief. She felt as if she might simply burst into tears any minute now.
He actively avoided looking at her, maybe hoping that if he just pretended she didn't exist and the side of his torso wasn't covered in bruises then she'd drop it. When she didn't, waiting stubbornly for an answer, he instead tried to pull his shirt back into place to cover the bruises but Evelyn kept a firm hold on the fabric, keeping those horrible bruises out in the open on full display.
"Hunter?" She pushed. She didn't like being stern, it was usually so unnecessary, Hunter always did as he was told so it just made her feel mean. But right now? She'd say the situation called for it more than ever.
His gaze caught hers for just a moment but all he could offer up was a shrug.
"Where did you get these?"
"At Uncle's house..." He had to force the words out, "I fell over." He reached a hand over to pet Flapjack who was sitting on the chair beside them.
"You fell over?" She repeated, unable to help the accusatory tone slipping into her words. She didn't believe his excuse for a moment. "How?"
"I fell when I was outside." He said simply before realising just how unconvincing that sounded. "I was trying to do a cartwheel and I... fell."
"And Uncle Philip didn't do anything about it?"
His face flashed with alarm as if he was now realising he'd said the wrong thing and he rushed to explain himself (or, well, explain Philip). "No! I didn't tell him. He didn't know."
She really doubted that. There wasn't really a nice way to put it, really, but still, in the nicest way possible, Hunter was... quite a sensitive kid. If he fell over, he wanted a bandaid and a kiss. The odds of him not running straight to Philip for help, especially when he'd been bruised this badly? Highly unlikely. She'd maybe even go as far as to say impossible.
Unless he'd been too afraid to tell Philip.
Unless he'd heard one of Philip's rants about irritating children. Unless he knew Philip would chastise him for having gotten himself hurt and bothering him about it. Unless Philip had, in fact, done that already.
She inspected the collection of bruises painted like crude watercolour onto her son's side, torn between what to do. Should she prod the matter some more? He didn't seem willing to tell her much more right now and she didn't want to make him late for his first day back at school. Should she even be sending him to school? Those bruises weren't little by any means, they had to hurt like hell. He could easily hurt himself even more if he were to fall or bump into someone in the playground. How had he managed to hide them from her? She hadn't noticed him being in any pain. Had she just not been looking hard enough? Had her baby been in pain all this time without her even realising? Should she take him to the doctor?
With all the questions and worries rushing through her mind, she could only hold onto one half-baked idea to help at least somewhat.
"Wait here a minute." She instructed, rushing down the stairs and into the kitchen. She tore open the freezer and dug through the boxes and packets of frozen food to retrieve an icepack from where had slipped down into the bottom of the freezer.
It was one of the typical kid ones, filled with gel beads and shaped like a bird. Hunter got pretty fussy about ice packs, refusing to use them because of how cold they were even if that was the whole point. His dislike for them had gone so far that he'd still refused to use one even when he'd fallen out of a tree and sprained his ankle.
He seemed to have a genuine issue with temperature sensitivity but over the years they'd managed to find a compromise with bird-shaped ice packs which made him at least a bit more compliant, especially when Caleb and Evelyn let him explain his bird facts while they held the icepack against the injury.
No better way to get an autistic kid to cooperate than bribing them with their special interest, huh.
She hurried back up the stairs with the icepack and handed it to Hunter, giving him something else to do other than fidgeting nervously with his hands. "Hold that on it for a while and it'll make it feel better."
He didn't fight it as much as she'd expected, only giving her a slight grumble as he slid the icepack under his shirt, using the fabric of the shirt as a barrier between the icepack and his hand so he wouldn't have to directly touch it.
Evelyn finished buttoning up his shirt and helped him with the rest of his uniform, trying to push down the overwhelming nausea brought on by her new set of worries.
It was entirely possible she was simply catastrophising, taking a bad injury out of context and applying her own bias against a man she disliked, but a part of her mind clung to the thought that maybe that bruising wasn't from a fall.
It would have had to be a pretty horrific fall to produce bruising like that.
No, the scenario her mind was insistent on cooking up was an angry, unhinged man taking his frustrations out on a scared little kid who he'd intimidated into staying silent.
"Philip wasn't a normal kid," She remembered Caleb having admitted to her, one late night when he'd been too overwhelmed by his worries and regrets to find sleep. "I tried to raise him the best I could after our parents passed but I can't help but worry that I'm what caused him to turn out like this."
Evelyn's hand had found his, resting on the table, and rubbed small, repetitive circles into his skin, hoping to offer some form of comfort. She knew dwelling on the past was a very difficult task for Caleb. He'd not had the best of childhoods.
"Maybe I didn't give him enough attention, maybe I gave him too much attention, but for whatever reason, he was not a normal kid. He was violent. He used to kill animals and then bring them to me to see me cry and he'd just give me this look, like he was analysing my response. Like he was fascinated by it. And then he started to hurt other kids in the village. We had to move orphanages every few months because he'd attack the other kids, one time he nearly killed one of them. And sometimes... he hurt me..."
Evelyn could feel his hand begin to shake under hers.
"In the beginning, I put it off as just him being short-tempered. He was only little anyway so he could hurt me all that much, he'd just punch my leg and scream a bit. But then he got older and he got stronger."
He didn't continue any further. He didn't have to. Evelyn's mind filled in the blanks with enough gruesome images. She'd seen the burn marks on his back.
"I know he's changed now, the religion stuff has helped him a lot, he's had the time to mature and get better but I still just... worry. I worry about whether or not it would be a good idea to let him meet his nephew. I just worry."
And here she was now, worrying about the exact same thing.
Worrying that Philip had been the one to hurt him.
Though, as previously stated, she didn't want to open that can of worms just before school, especially with the existing threat of change-induced meltdowns so for now, she tried to ignore her theories as she took Hunter downstairs and poured him some dinosaur-shaped cereal. For herself, she grabbed a yoghurt, just to keep her going while she did the school run so she didn't starve to death on the way there. She fully intended on having a nice big portion of pancakes with plenty of syrup when she got back.
"How do the bruises feel now?" Evelyn asked, joining him at the table while they ate.
"Better now. Thank you, Mommy."
"Do you think you'll be alright enough to go to school? They don't hurt too much?"
"No, they're fine." He brushed off her worrying in between mouthfuls of cereal. "And I want to go to school! I have so, so much to tell Luz!"
Evelyn managed to find a smile — small, but still genuine — at his enthusiasm. Maybe getting him to go to school today wouldn't be as difficult as she'd anticipated? Lucky her.
She prodded at her yoghurt with the spoon in her hand and watched the little chunks of strawberry swirl around in the pot before she scooped them up and slid the spoon into her mouth.
"Why didn't you tell me? About the bruises." She decided it safe enough to push.
She still felt a bit guilty for souring the mood when his smile shifted back to something more nervous but she knew she had to ask.
"It didn't hurt." He replied after a moment of thought, "I forgot."
"Alright." She nodded hesitantly, even if not convinced.
She stole a glance up at the clock and when she noticed the time, she quickly shoved another spoonful of yoghurt into her mouth before getting to her feet.
"Time to get going. You finished?" She asked, gesturing to his bowl.
He nodded, happily taking an out from the conversation and pushed his bowl across the table for her to grab and dump in the sink along with her empty yoghurt pot.
He skipped over to the door — though his mannerisms seemed completely out of place with his somewhat solemn expression — and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet as he waited for her to grab her keys and unlock the door.
However, just as she put her hand on the door handle, ready to leave, she remembered that he was still in fact holding onto Flapjack like he'd been doing for the past however many weeks now.
She had a feeling the no meltdown streak may have been about to end.
With slight hesitation, she gestured to the cardinal plushie in her son's arms. "Flapjack has to stay at home, baby. I'm sorry, but they don't allow toys, remember?"
He stopped his rocking and looked anxiously between her and Flapjack in his arms, considering for a moment before his face scrunched and he sighed in frustration.
"I know, Mommy... I just—"
She waited patiently for him to finish, for him to give her an explanation, but instead, he simply sighed again.
"Why don't you take him in the car and while you're away at school, I can look after him." She compromised. "Then, when I pick you up, I'll bring him along with me so you can see him again after school."
She allowed him the time to consider her offer until he nodded. "Yeah... Yeah, okay."
She smiled and gave him a light pat on the arm. "Right then, let's get going before we're late."