7 Years Later
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Daniel played in the mud that day. He was laughing and making clay cupcakes, smashing them and then rebuilding them. He wore baggy clothes and was barefoot. He pretended that he was a giant attacking a kingdom of mud people. In his mind, it was the best solo-foreplay he could think of.
It was a grey day with no wind but the trees were being blown ever so slightly. While Daniel played in the backyard, Celine arrived home. She parked their sedan outside the house and climbed out with two plastic bags and a tired look on her face.
Their little house was painted red, lying in the middle of nowhere where no one could find them. There was an old church next to the house with nothing but shrubs beyond it for miles. Their border terrier, Tina, sat out front with her one puppy, Bruno. Tina was their guard dog, trained to attack if anyone besides Celine or Daniel were close. “Daniel, I’m home!” yelled Celine as she entered the house and walked through the entrance hall, turning left straight into the kitchen that had walls covered in stained teal and wooden portraits of painted fruit.
Celine untied her hair and bounced it so that it could fall down her back and shoulders. “Daniel?” she asked again, wondering if he could even hear her. “Daniel, where are you?”
When he didn’t answer her a third time, she began panicking. “Daniel?” she asked as she exited the kitchen and raced up the stairs. “Daniel, where are you?”
She looked through her bedroom, the bathroom and the spare room upstairs, but he was nowhere to be found. She began to hyperventilate when she didn’t know where he was. Why did she have to leave him all alone? Would it have hurt her if she finally got a babysitter?
She was taken from her thoughts when she heard shouting from the backyard. Still holding her hand over her head to show her tiredness and worry, Celine walked into the spare room and gazed out the window where she saw Daniel sitting in the backyard and playing in the mud.
Relieved, she breathed out slow and left the spare room, jogged down the stairs and made her way through the house and out the back door. Daniel didn’t even notice her when she came walking up behind him. “Hey, kiddo.” she said, sitting down beside him. “What you doing?” “Making mud cupcakes.” Daniel answered, not quite excited of his mother’s arrival.
Celine smiled and put her hand on his shoulder. It was small and so easily breakable in her hand. “I brought you some cupcakes, if you want one.” she said. Once she saw he was uninterested, she added, “They’re blueberry.”
His dimpled smile brought warmness into Celine’s heart. She roughed up his dark-brown hair and looked down at the necklace he wore.
It had a small wolf dangling from it. The wolf was completely white and made out of actual animal bones. Grabbing the wolf with her two fingers, Celine looked him in his green eyes with seriousness on her face.
“You never take this off, okay?” she told him, making sure he understood. Daniel nodded and didn’t know whether to roll his eyes or not because this wasn’t the first time his mother had told him this. It was getting exhausting.
“Come now,” said his mother, standing up and taking him by the wrist to not get filthy. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” Daniel grunted as he stood up from the ground and followed his mother to their house. Within minutes, Daniel was in their bathtub, being bathed by his mother. He splashed the water and played with his rubber duck and boat. Celine was on her knees, stroking his wet hair and just smiling at him. He was all she had in this unforgiving world. He was all she had left.
“Did Aunty Port yell at you again?” Daniel asked, driving his boat over the soapy wave he created. “She did,” Celine said, sighing heavily. “But I took care of her.”
“I bet you karate-chopped her.” Daniel slammed his hand into the water, splashing it over the bathtub and onto the floor. Celine closed her eyes once the water fell onto her too. “Okay, sweetie, not so rough.” she softly told him, standing up to get the mop next to the washing machine in the corner of the room, next to the sink facing the toilet across from it. Celine grabbed the mop and began cleaning the mess Daniel made.
“Mommy,” Daniel started, unsure if he should ask her but he wanted to for a while. “Why can’t I go with you when you go to work?” Celine stopped mopping and tried not to get angry. “Daniel, I told you, you’d get sick if you went beyond our home.” she told him in a much calmer tone than she planned on saying it. Daniel’s expression saddened and he looked down at the soapy water. The only company besides his mother were the dogs, and even they get bored of him eventually.
Daniel didn’t want to be persistent, but even at such a young age he craved to leave his surroundings for just one day. They had a TV with enough channels to feed his craving of what lied outside even more. But his mother was very strict on the rules he had to follow.
She made him swear never to disobey them, or else she’d give him a proper beating. He didn’t want that, of course. Even the thought of the belt was terrifying. Celine couldn’t bear to see her only child so sad, but it was all for his own good. Once he’s older, he’d understand why she did what she did.
Drying him off, she wrapped him in the towel and kissed him on his forehead. “I love you, okay?” she said, trying to erase his sad moment. Daniel didn’t respond to that. He wanted to leave for just one day and he’d appreciate everything else, but his mother was so overprotective that she wouldn’t even allow him his own room.
Their house had two floors and seven rooms: the kitchen, the living room, the classroom and Celine’s art room were on the first floor, while the bathroom, his mother’s room and the spare bedroom were all upstairs. He could have had the spare bedroom all to himself, but his mother refused it.
She wanted him next to her, in her arms where she would know he was safe. Daniel felt like he needed a room of his own, because on TV he’d see babies FAR younger than him have their own room and bed! He would get so jealous sometimes.
If that wasn’t worse, his mother once locked all the doors just to keep him safe. That was one boring day, because she was at work and the dogs were outside so all Daniel could do was watch Nickelodeon and wish he had siblings or friends to entertain him.
The only great days were on his birthday. That’s when his mother would get him presents, a cake, balloons, and they’d waste the day spending time together. She never told him when her birthday was, but Daniel knew what day Mother’s Day was. He imagined that to be her birthday then he’d write her a poem and paint her a picture. His mother was a teacher at a school he didn’t know of. She taught him how to read and write, amongst countless other things one would usually do when at school. Although he loved his mother as a teacher, he wanted to be taught by someone else for a change.
Celine would always say he was an exceptional student and that he was high school material. He didn’t know what high school was so she had to explain it. She always taught him when she came from work. At first, when his mother started teaching him, she gave him some very tough things to work with. Even if he was turning nine, Daniel knew what photosynthesis was.
Sometimes Daniel wondered where the things his mother would bring home came from. They’d done some experiments in the classroom, but he always wondered where the plants came from. Where he lived were barely any plants. They didn’t even have a garden.
Celine took him to their bedroom and plopped him on the springy mattress. He giggled once he bounced. Celine grabbed the lotion and began smearing him in it.
After dressing him in a pair of shorts and a faded, navy blue shirt, she went back to the bathroom to put his dirty clothes in the laundry bin. Daniel sat on her bed, tapping his fingers on the thick covers and looking around their bedroom.
The bed was against the wall in the corner of the room with a window not three steps to the right. A cupboard was near the door with a small study beside it. One bed shelf was next to the bed and a closet with all their clothes in was hidden behind curtains.
They didn’t have a basement or attic, and thank God for that because Daniel had watched too many horror movies to know never to step foot in those. He fell down on the bed and looked up at the ceiling. The ceiling was all custard yellow with no stains or cracks, making looking at it seem pointless. Unless you’re Daniel, of course, who loved the colour of the ceiling and would always get distracted once he saw the colour.
Even in the cold, the colour would warm him and make him relaxed. He had a lot of thoughts for an eight-year-old.
His mother would answer most of them, but there were some she’d keep secret.
He hated when she did that, seeing as she was the only other human being he knew. There were some times he had trust issues towards her and wondered if what she’s been telling him all these years was even true. But, once again seeing as she was the only human being he knew, he had to believe her because she was the one that always leaves the house and not him.
Celine walked past the bedroom and down the hallway to the kitchen.
By the pace she was walking, Daniel could only guess she was going to prepare dinner. He hoped she’d make spaghetti like the last time, because she always added that extra sauce, making you want no other topping but the sauce on the spaghetti.
Daniel jumped off the bed and ran out into the hallway. He was excited for dinner, but his heart almost stopped when he heard an unfamiliar sound. He never thought he’d hear that sound coming from outside their house. When he heard it, he was both scared and excited when he realized the sound was a knock on the front door.
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