The One Winged Raven

Part 5

"I don't want to ask a stupid question, like how are you doing, but how are you doing?" Catherine asks her daughter in law. She's surprised to see Mary wearing one of Francis' old hoodies, it's grey and dwarfs her, there's a few holes, but it's pleasant sight to see the two of them indirectly in contact. "With everything, I mean." she says.

Mary looks up from her coffee to her mother in law. "I-I don't even know." she sighs. But she runs her fingers through her hair and lays back into the overstuffed couch, closing her eyes for a few moments. Catherine notices that Mary looks so exhausted, there's bruises underneath her eyes. She wears no makeup, only her oversized gold glasses. "The-the pain isn't as bad, I suppose." she says softly. "The bleeding finally stopped, I'm not as raw." she says, her voice becoming hoarse. "But the physical pain is one thing, but the other pain? I don't even know how I'm supposed to begin to recover from it." she sniffles. "Every time I walk into a room, every time I go to the supermarket, I think I'm gonna see him." her voice catches in her throat. "I can feel his breath at the back of my neck. I-I can hear him laughing just behind me. But no matter how far I run or walk, he's still there. I can't outrun him, he's still there. It's like he's tethered to me, and by day, the tether gets tighter and tighter around me and I can't breathe." she shakes her head. "God, Catherine-" she trails, whimpering out the words, leaning her head onto her knees.

Catherine pities her, the girl she had raised for a while, the woman her eldest son loved more than almost anything. This scar, this scar that Catherine had borne since she was seventeen, she wanted no other woman to bare it. It honestly broke her heart that Mary now knew that pain and that emptiness that nobody should ever, ever feel. It burned at Catherine's gut that this girl, this girl who was now a married woman -in a way, a mother- now bore that scar and always would. Although what sits before her as she gets off the couch and crawls over towards her is a woman, a fully grown woman, all Catherine can see is that vulnerable little girl that fell into her care when things got bad with Marie.

"Mary, my sweet little Mary, I'm so sorry." she whispers. Mary begins to cry again. She places the oversized white mug onto the floor and just cries. Large, fat lumps of water fall from her eyes and she cannot stop them. She doesn't want to any more. "I hate the fact that you've gone through this, may that fucker burn in hell for hat he did to you. Let them all burn for eternity, they bought a one way ticket to hell the moment they touched you. Cry, my little girl. Cry for all your worth, let all that pain out from your body, don't hold a single thing back in front of me. I know how you're feeling, I've felt that burn, that pain. Let out all that pain." Catherine goes to reach towards Mary's shoulder, and she feels so sick when the girl whimpers before their skin touches again. "I know you don't want to be touched, that's all right. But you're safe. Because those men are gone, they aren't here anymore. They won't ever touch you again, I'll kill them before they even look at you again. Trust me. We'll find them and we'll get them locked up for the rest of their fucking lives, they won't ever touch you again, they can't harm you anymore. I swear to you, I swear to you." There's tears in Catherine's eyes now, but she continues to talk. "You're alive, Mary. You are alive-" Mary begins to sob, her body trembles, and she clings to Catherine the moment her arms bound around her. "I know this... because I survived. You know that, too. They tried to destroy you by taking your pride and your strength, but those things cannot be taken. Not from you. Not ever. Look at me," she says. Mary sniffles and gasps in a breath, before their eyes meet. "That's it." she says, her voice soft and soothing as she sees the girl shiver as soon as they look at each other properly. "Trust me, Mary." Catherine whispers. "Trust me and let me help you. Trust that I can get you through this, because I swear to you that I can."

"I don't know how to." Mary sniffles. "I don't know how to trust anybody ever again. I don't know how to look in a room and not see his face everywhere. I-I don't know if I can be with Francis in-in that way," she sniffles. "again. I don't know how I can do this, Catherine. It's not possible."