His mischievous smile confirmed her suspicion that he was angling for being so late that she would allow him to skip class and go straight to the playground. She'd made the mistake of doing that once, and she'd regretted it ever since. Tomek hadn't stopped trying to get a repeat.
"You have five more minutes, and then we'll go, whether you've finished eating or not."
He pouted, and it was so adorable that her heart squeezed. How could her mother keep ignoring Tomek?
Sullha had tried to talk to her during dinner yesterday. She'd known it would be a futile attempt, but she had to try. Her mother had been sitting at the far end of the long table at dinner with two other women who worked in the laundry with her, and Sullha walked over and sat beside her.
"Hello, Mother."
Her mother had turned to look at her with those vacant eyes of hers. "Hello," she'd parroted.
"I was thinking that maybe you would like to come with Tomek and me to the playground tomorrow? I want him to know who his grandmother is."
Her mother had blinked at her with slow, unfocused eyes. "Why?"
"Don't you want to get to know your grandson? He's such a sweet boy."
"I have no interest in your son."
There had been no sharpness in her tone, and the words had not been meant to be cruel. Her mother had spoken in the same neutral, flat register she used for everything, the same tone she would have used to say that she had finished her bread or that the soup was warm.
She had no interest in getting to know her grandson.
Sullha had nodded and decided that there was no point in trying to pressure her mother to change her mind. She'd returned tothe table where she'd left Tomek, finished her dinner, and left the dining hall without looking back.
When she'd put Tomek to bed that night, she'd lain down beside him, and when he'd fallen asleep, she'd allowed herself to shed a few tears.
Her mother's response hadn't been a surprise, but hope was a hard thing to kill, and some small part of her wished that her mother would show some interest.
Her mother had done that a few times when Tomek was a toddler. She'd sat on a bench in the playground and had even smiled, but she'd stopped after he'd turned three.
There was no love left in her mother's heart. She'd been worn down to a husk.
Sullha had tried to be forgiving, telling herself that some women broke more easily than others. Some just had less to start with, less determination to persevere despite the suffering. Her mother was one of the unlucky ones who didn't have that core of strength inside of them.
Perhaps her mother just didn't want to get attached to Tomek, knowing that he would be taken away at thirteen. To love a child in this place was to suffer a heartbreak, and many of the women chose to keep a distance from their children so it wouldn't hurt as much when the time came.
She could understand the choice logically, but her heart ached for all the neglected children who had to grow up like wild weeds with no one to tend to them.
Sullha couldn't do it that way. She loved Tomek with a fierceness that was sometimes frightening, and she'd always known thatthe price of that love would be losing a big part of her soul the day they came for him.
If Yaaf's plan worked, though, that day might never arrive.
She would not let herself fully believe that yet, because if it didn't happen, she would be devastated.
Sullha would believe it when she and her son were actually on a ship, the island was behind them, and no one was pursuing them to drag them back to the enclosure.
Whether it happened or not, though, she wasn't going to wait idly. Yaaf had given her a task to identify women who could be trusted and compile a list of possible candidates to include in their escape.
She hadn't removed her mother from the list even though she should. She just couldn't. Not even after the exchange of yesterday. The woman was still her flesh and blood, and Sullha couldn't leave her behind without having tried everything.
There was still hope for her mother. Away from this island, somewhere she would be free, she could heal, and she could love without fear.
Sullha resolved to try again.
A shift in energy had her lift her head and look to the right, but it wasn't Yaaf who had caused it. It was Asira. She stood with a tray in her hands, looking for a place to sit.
Sullha lifted her hand and waved.
