“Not anymore.”
The cuffs came off my wrist.
The pain arrived fully once the metal was gone.
My hand shook, not from fear, but from circulation coming back through bruised skin.
The uniformed man helped me sit up.
I touched my cheek and saw blood on my fingers.
My mother crawled toward me on her knees.
“Sarah,” she whispered.
I had not heard that version of my name from her in years.
Not General.
Not honey.
Sarah.
Image
The name she used when I was eight and sick on the couch.
The name she used when she still believed she could put a cool hand on my forehead and fix the world.
She reached for me, then stopped, as if she no longer knew whether she had the right.
That hurt more than my face.
“Mom,” I said, “I’m okay.”
I was not.
But she needed the sentence.
The man in the suit identified himself only by role, not by drama.
