@weletgo:
X.
She understands. She could never speak with her words, so she spoke through her fists, screamed with her knuckles, finished private arguments with bullets. Her anger had hardened, and then softened with the years, but only after she’d known the comfort of forgiveness…
Every blood-covered child deserved that, before they hardened too much to know what softness was.
Quiet kneels suddenly before the boy, holding his cheeks firmly between the fingers of one hand. With the other, she wipes the blood almost mechanically from his eyes and forehead, from his nose, his lips.
She lets go of his face. Smiles wordlessly, and ruffles his hair with her clean hand. Partners in blind devotion should stick together.
The boy squeezes one eye shut and would turn the same side of his face away from her as she takes off the red—as if to preserve a make-up of war paint.
His chin’s held fast, though, and dark color cleaned away so that just the sullen look underneath stays. It isn’t her fault that even gentler touch, to him, by now has bitter after-taste.
To slip free without another fight is all he wants and yet he’s surprised that the woman doesn’t hold him, then; that whilst her fingers catch the tips of his hair she won’t keep him, safe with a smile.
Frank’s face, even in that warm place, is frozen—hard. Perhaps she and her softness are already too late for him, but in his stagnation he yet at last opens his mouth. “Thank you.”
