“Mama!” her son yelled, piercing the silence with his sharp, childish voice. For the last six months he had attempted to save his mother from the man beside her. Nothing had worked, and now she had married him and there was no going back. At nights he had cried so loud the neighbours came to investigate, had driven the new man to beating with his constant demands, begging for him to give up. Now that she had cast away the memory of his father, he had no way of being with her all the time. All he wanted was the feeling of his mother’s arms around him, the comfort of his mother’s warmth at night, the knowing that she would never leave him; he had never thought that anyone else would want the same.
Amber looked up from her serenity to her child standing ankle-deep in sand. Sometimes it felt like she hated her son; he was always there, and ever since his father died he had become even more omnipresent. She reluctantly stood up, feeling her husband’s hand tugging at her wrist. “Let him grow, Amber.”