Hollow
Apartment 1C
Saffron Bennett had about eight kids on a busy day.
None of them were his, of course, but he kind of treated them like it. Only four of them were actually related to him, being his siblings, and the others were those that he’s made a job of- meaning that he babysits them at almost all hours of the day.
Today, Sunday, he only has six.
It started about three years ago, when Gabby, Saffron’s mother, starting picking up double shifts almost every day. Saffron didn’t have to be asked, let alone paid, to watch his younger siblings when she started being gone more and more. It was always hard with her being a single parent, but she had good kids and they didn’t complain much and tried hard to help out as much as they could. It’s just that Saffron’s role became more ‘Dad/Mom’ more than brother, even when Gabby was actually home- because she spent those few hours sleeping. She was a tired woman and while Saffron understood that probably more than anyone else who’s looked at his life with pity, it doesn’t stop him from being at least a little pissed off at her. It sucks barely having a social life because he has to keep his brothers and sisters, and it sucks that he has to sleep on the couch in the living room of the two bedroom apartment, but it’s just something he knows he has to do.
He’s always thinking that it could be worse and at least their mother gets the bills paid on time. Also, he gets pocket money from the other working residents of Alice Gardens with small children because a year ago he figured that since he already basically had a daycare- why not start making money off of it? And besides, everything’s better than a few years ago, when he could go to school about two days a week because he had to take care of his youngest sister, Lily, who wasn’t yet old enough to go to school during the day like the other kids. CPS had started to threaten to take them all away if Saffron couldn’t manage making it to school every day because, as they said, Gabby wasn’t doing a good job of parenting. They said that his first job should be school, not taking care of his siblings. But even today, when he barely ever misses a day of school, he still thinks that are so wrong.
It was a process, but he has learned the at least semi-normal priorities of a seventeen year old. His were divided between the kids, school, and sleeping with eating wedged somewhere in a spare few minutes. He loves the kids, though, and knows that they deserve better and that’s why he does it without protest. He tries not to think about what will happen after this year, because as much as he wants to go to college next year, he doesn’t know what that means for the kids. On one hand there’s the fact that he could get a degree and a good job from it and then support the kids better than his mother ever could but on the other hand, he doesn’t know who’ll take care of them like he has until he can get to that point.
There’s a heavy knock on the door, just once, before the knobs starts jiggling and Silas opens the door. Saffron rolls his eyes and continues to stir the soup in the giant pot on the stove. “Isn’t it protocol to wait for an answer first, maybe announce that you’re coming in?” He asks Silas without taking his eyes from the kid’s lunch.
“Nope,” Silas, replies as he shuts the door behind him and picks up the extra wooden spoon on the counter.
“Oh, yeah, then maybe that’s just manners.” Saffron swats at his hand before Silas can dip it in the pot to taste.
Silas rolls his eyes this time and hops onto the counter.
“I mean, really, Silas, it’s called common courtesy to not put your ass where others have to eat.”
“Swear jar!” Amber calls from the back of the apartment, though sounding oddly out of breath.
They spent a lot of time together, Silas and Saffron, because with little kids came broken things and with broken things came Silas, usually…or, well, sometimes. Saffron even had Silas’ personal phone number, because it made him respond faster to his constant calls for maintenance. They’d developed an almost friendship composed of mostly sarcasm and banter due to the amount of time Silas spent in the Bennett and Co. apartment. It’s just that Silas nor Saffron really knew that they were truly friends until something that wasn’t a material item got broken.
There’s a loud bang before the screech of a young girl that Saffron immediately places as Lily. The spoon is dropped, mid counter-clockwise stir and he’s running for the bedrooms. Silas turns to hop over the counter and land into the open dining room, hot on Saffron’s trail. The scream doesn’t come from the kid’s room though; it comes from his mother’s.
It’s probably sad that the second thing he thinks when he sees Hunter’s head cracked open and spewing blood onto the floor is ‘oh, shit, how much will it cost to replace the carpet’.
“Hunter!” Silas says and rushes to him to turn him over while Saffron grips the doorway so hard that his knuckles turn paler than his face and splinters prick at his fingers. Silas has to call his name with the same urgency before Saffron can even snap out of it.
“What happened?!” Saffron squeaks. He tears his eyes away from Hunter for just a second to see his sister, Amber, and a kid he watches, René, standing on Gabby’s bed.
“We-we were jumping on the bed and he-he just fell!” Amber says through the big tears she always breaks out when she knows she’s in trouble.
When he’s kneeling at Hunter’s small body and telling him to stay awake, he barely registers it, it’s instinct but he’s just never felt so useless. He’s at such a loss for what to do and he can’t stop bawling and cradling his youngest brother. Silas takes more control of the situation, instructing everyone without taking his hand from the gash at the front of Hunter’s head.
“Lily- call 911, now! Run!”
“Amber- get towels, lots of towels!”
“Tanner- take all the other kids and sit them in the living room, keep them quiet. When Lily gets off the phone, call your mom.”
“Hunter, Hunter- keep breathing and stay calm- you too, Saffy,” he says then when Hunter starts to regain consciousness.
Saffron doesn’t know if he’d be this shocked still if it was someone else’s kid. He doesn’t know what he’d say to a kid’s mom if there was someone other than Hunter lying, bleeding from the head on his mother’s floor. It feels like his heart keeps seizing up and he could never wish this on anyone else even if it meant that it wasn’t Hunter on the floor.
“It’s gonna be okay, Saffy, he’s okay- see how he’s awake? It’s just a fall, just a scrape. Hunter will be okay,” Silas tries to reassure him and he looks at Saffron even though Saffron can’t take his eyes away from Hunter again.
But Saffron didn’t know that Silas knew all the kids name’s before this day.
None of them were his, of course, but he kind of treated them like it. Only four of them were actually related to him, being his siblings, and the others were those that he’s made a job of- meaning that he babysits them at almost all hours of the day.
Today, Sunday, he only has six.
It started about three years ago, when Gabby, Saffron’s mother, starting picking up double shifts almost every day. Saffron didn’t have to be asked, let alone paid, to watch his younger siblings when she started being gone more and more. It was always hard with her being a single parent, but she had good kids and they didn’t complain much and tried hard to help out as much as they could. It’s just that Saffron’s role became more ‘Dad/Mom’ more than brother, even when Gabby was actually home- because she spent those few hours sleeping. She was a tired woman and while Saffron understood that probably more than anyone else who’s looked at his life with pity, it doesn’t stop him from being at least a little pissed off at her. It sucks barely having a social life because he has to keep his brothers and sisters, and it sucks that he has to sleep on the couch in the living room of the two bedroom apartment, but it’s just something he knows he has to do.
He’s always thinking that it could be worse and at least their mother gets the bills paid on time. Also, he gets pocket money from the other working residents of Alice Gardens with small children because a year ago he figured that since he already basically had a daycare- why not start making money off of it? And besides, everything’s better than a few years ago, when he could go to school about two days a week because he had to take care of his youngest sister, Lily, who wasn’t yet old enough to go to school during the day like the other kids. CPS had started to threaten to take them all away if Saffron couldn’t manage making it to school every day because, as they said, Gabby wasn’t doing a good job of parenting. They said that his first job should be school, not taking care of his siblings. But even today, when he barely ever misses a day of school, he still thinks that are so wrong.
It was a process, but he has learned the at least semi-normal priorities of a seventeen year old. His were divided between the kids, school, and sleeping with eating wedged somewhere in a spare few minutes. He loves the kids, though, and knows that they deserve better and that’s why he does it without protest. He tries not to think about what will happen after this year, because as much as he wants to go to college next year, he doesn’t know what that means for the kids. On one hand there’s the fact that he could get a degree and a good job from it and then support the kids better than his mother ever could but on the other hand, he doesn’t know who’ll take care of them like he has until he can get to that point.
There’s a heavy knock on the door, just once, before the knobs starts jiggling and Silas opens the door. Saffron rolls his eyes and continues to stir the soup in the giant pot on the stove. “Isn’t it protocol to wait for an answer first, maybe announce that you’re coming in?” He asks Silas without taking his eyes from the kid’s lunch.
“Nope,” Silas, replies as he shuts the door behind him and picks up the extra wooden spoon on the counter.
“Oh, yeah, then maybe that’s just manners.” Saffron swats at his hand before Silas can dip it in the pot to taste.
Silas rolls his eyes this time and hops onto the counter.
“I mean, really, Silas, it’s called common courtesy to not put your ass where others have to eat.”
“Swear jar!” Amber calls from the back of the apartment, though sounding oddly out of breath.
They spent a lot of time together, Silas and Saffron, because with little kids came broken things and with broken things came Silas, usually…or, well, sometimes. Saffron even had Silas’ personal phone number, because it made him respond faster to his constant calls for maintenance. They’d developed an almost friendship composed of mostly sarcasm and banter due to the amount of time Silas spent in the Bennett and Co. apartment. It’s just that Silas nor Saffron really knew that they were truly friends until something that wasn’t a material item got broken.
There’s a loud bang before the screech of a young girl that Saffron immediately places as Lily. The spoon is dropped, mid counter-clockwise stir and he’s running for the bedrooms. Silas turns to hop over the counter and land into the open dining room, hot on Saffron’s trail. The scream doesn’t come from the kid’s room though; it comes from his mother’s.
It’s probably sad that the second thing he thinks when he sees Hunter’s head cracked open and spewing blood onto the floor is ‘oh, shit, how much will it cost to replace the carpet’.
“Hunter!” Silas says and rushes to him to turn him over while Saffron grips the doorway so hard that his knuckles turn paler than his face and splinters prick at his fingers. Silas has to call his name with the same urgency before Saffron can even snap out of it.
“What happened?!” Saffron squeaks. He tears his eyes away from Hunter for just a second to see his sister, Amber, and a kid he watches, René, standing on Gabby’s bed.
“We-we were jumping on the bed and he-he just fell!” Amber says through the big tears she always breaks out when she knows she’s in trouble.
When he’s kneeling at Hunter’s small body and telling him to stay awake, he barely registers it, it’s instinct but he’s just never felt so useless. He’s at such a loss for what to do and he can’t stop bawling and cradling his youngest brother. Silas takes more control of the situation, instructing everyone without taking his hand from the gash at the front of Hunter’s head.
“Lily- call 911, now! Run!”
“Amber- get towels, lots of towels!”
“Tanner- take all the other kids and sit them in the living room, keep them quiet. When Lily gets off the phone, call your mom.”
“Hunter, Hunter- keep breathing and stay calm- you too, Saffy,” he says then when Hunter starts to regain consciousness.
Saffron doesn’t know if he’d be this shocked still if it was someone else’s kid. He doesn’t know what he’d say to a kid’s mom if there was someone other than Hunter lying, bleeding from the head on his mother’s floor. It feels like his heart keeps seizing up and he could never wish this on anyone else even if it meant that it wasn’t Hunter on the floor.
“It’s gonna be okay, Saffy, he’s okay- see how he’s awake? It’s just a fall, just a scrape. Hunter will be okay,” Silas tries to reassure him and he looks at Saffron even though Saffron can’t take his eyes away from Hunter again.
But Saffron didn’t know that Silas knew all the kids name’s before this day.
♠ ♠ ♠
cough notenoughslashyet cough