Growing Season (MxM) Complete

Ch. 28 Abnormal

CH 28

Friday night was okay. Daisy ate the buttered spaghetti noodles her mother prepared without complaint. She would have liked some sauce or maybe a drink, but neither were offered and she wasn't going to ask, even though she knew the money her father gave her mother was supposed to help pay for food. After tidying her dish and drinking some water from the faucet, she sat quietly watching television and observing her surroundings until it was bed time. The apartment wasn't clean exactly, as housework was never Leeann's strong suit, but it wasn't completely filthy, either. Mostly it was just cluttered with packaging, papers, and wrappers.

Daisy recognized some of the furniture from their old house--the dining table and chairs, a lamp--although a bit more beaten up than when she last saw them. There were lots of take-out containers and empty bottles sitting on the sticky coffee table, and the couch had a bit of a foul odour clinging to it. The side tables each had an overflowing ashtray sitting on them, and the walls were slightly yellowed from nicotine. A small window unit air-conditioner tried to circulate cooler air into the smoky room, but wasn't being overly successful, and the heavy drapes hung limply against the rest of the windows, obscuring the view. Leeann paced, barefoot with red-jewelled manicured toe nails, and chain smoked, having heated conversations on her cellphone, most of which Daisy tried her hardest to ignore.

There wasn't any discussion really between her and her mother, no 'how have you been for the past seven months?' or 'did you have a good year at school?' and Leeann didn't even ask about her other two children. Daisy wasn't surprised, really. She always thought her mother was an out of sight out of mind kind of person, especially since there wasn't any money to be made from caring about the younger ones. And there were certainly no pictures of her or her brother and sister around, showing that Leeann even really thought about them.

Daisy knew it wasn't her father's fault she was here, but she still had a hard time stomaching the unfairness of the situation. Maybe if she'd pushed Leeann a little bit instead of avoiding confrontations, Leeann would have hit her, too. Then this never would have happened; she'd be safely at home with her dad and Phillip, where she belonged. If she could choose her parents, she'd choose Gareth and Phillip every time, even though biologically neither of them were actually related to her. Phillip had shown more love for her in the six months they'd known him than her mother ever had, even remembering way back to the few memories she had from before Gareth was around.

Although it was hot in the little room--the apartment was one bedroom plus den, and the den was where she was to sleep--Daisy scrunched herself as tight as she could into the corner of the mattress that was laying on the floor and hid under the thin blanket her mother laid out for her. It was one they had at their old house that they often used for building forts and was threadbare from multiple washings. Daisy kept her personal belongings close and her bag zipped. When she had gone to get out her pajamas, the smell from home surrounded her clothes, rather than the nasty, stale smell of old cigarettes that pervaded everything in this apartment, so she wanted to preserve the comforting odour for as long as possible. It brought tears to her eyes when she thought of how lucky Franny was, to be sleeping in a large, clean bed, in a safe house, where people cared. She tried not to wallow in these thoughts, but she was so very unhappy and the tears fell in silent lines as to not to disturb Leeann.

Aside from the twin mattress Daisy was on, rest of the room was crammed with stuff, again, some from her old house, and other things that were of unknown origin. Kyle's, she supposed. A few haphazardly stacked boxes, some winter coats, and even an old dresser, turned on it's side holding back some furniture behind it. The mattress she was on had probably been leaned against it, too, until pressed into service today. This wasn't even a real bedroom, not having a closet, but at least there was a window. It was partially covered by an old beige towel, that had been unevenly tacked to the wall in an attempt to make a curtain.