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“Esther? Are you okay?”
It’s not until the Inspector calls her that she realises she’d zoned out, staring at the very form she’d claimed she ‘just needed to finish before heading home’ when Margo and Kelby had packed up some – she glances at the glowing numbers in the corner of her screen – twenty minutes ago.
She goes to nod but catches the look of genuine concern on the Inspector’s face and finds herself frowning instead.
“Cases like this, anything with children. Especially ones close to Zoe’s age. They just…” trailing off, she swallows.
Softly, the Inspector finishes, “Hit a little differently?”
He doesn’t know, he can’t know. He doesn’t have children. But he will understand taking aspects of a case personally – it happens to all police officers, at some point.
“Exactly,” she sighs, setting her pen on the desk, “everything they’ve been through since their son was injured. And losing a child… I can’t even imagine-“ a thick, nauseous feeling builds in her stomach- “I don’t want to imagine. But after cases like these, I can’t help putting myself in their shoes. All the worries I try to pretend I don’t have, rise up to the surface.”
She can’t think about what Zoe is doing, or she’d be worried about it every second of every day. A constant and persistent panic, made worse by an intimate knowledge of crime rates and the acute understanding that every day is a gamble on life.
A moment of distraction crossing a road, getting in with the wrong sorts of people, or just plain being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s really as simple as motorbike, meet transit van.
She can’t lose any more of her family.
“What do you need? From me or, or from anyone?”
Again, the Inspector’s voice breaks her out of her thoughts and she takes a breath, resisting the urge to bury her face in her hands because all she really wants to do is just get control of herself, push away these thoughts like she usually does and get on with life.
She knows she can’t let fear rule her, and usually she doesn’t. It’s just some days, some cases.
“I don’t know,” she answers honestly.
“Well,” the Inspector spins thoughtfully on his chair, “would you like to talk about it? Or would you like me to distract you with something else? You know I could talk about trains for hours if you’d let me.”
There’s a familiar twinkle in his eye as she throws up a placating hand, “No, no, that’s alright! You’ve got a date to get to and I… I think I just want to go and hug my daughter,” she smiles, a little sadly, then rolls her eyes, “if she’ll let me.”
She’s a teenager, after all, and Esther is an embarrassing mother – a title she tries to wear proudly (because otherwise it might hurt a bit).
“Right you are, Sergeant,” he clicks a few keys to turn off his computer, then pauses to look at her with an unusually serious expression, “and, if I may, your professionalism is unmatched but I’m glad you’re taking the time to process.”
He offers her a kindly smile that turns into a mischievous grin with alarming speed, “Now, get out of here! Or I’ll take it as an invitation to tell you about the fastest steam train in the world.”
Knowing he’s completely serious, Esther quickly gathers her things as he begins stuffing some of the many pieces of loose paper always with him into various pockets.
“The fastest speed ever recorded by a steam locomotive is one hundred and twenty-six miles per hour and that was by the Mallard in nineteen thirty-eight I believe it was. I actually got to see it in person one time, it’s in the National Railway Museum. A fascinating place-“
“Goodnight, Sir!” Esther calls as she ducks out of the room.
Part of her feels bad, the other part knows he doesn’t really mind.
And a more distant part still is vaguely amused for the night she knows Martha has coming.
Esther’s stood over the hob, idly stirring a saucepan when she hears the door open.
“Hey mum, food nearly ready?”
Her daughter appears beside her, not looking up from her phone as her fingers type rapidly.
She’d almost be impressed by the speed if she wasn’t too busy trying to control the impulse to rip the device from her hands and never let her talk to anyone or leave the house ever again.
Instead, she swallows and fixes a smile on her face, “Hiya Zo, yeah, just waiting for the beans. Had a good day?”
“Yes, actually. You’ll be happy at least, Martha offered me that job!”
“Oh, that’s great.”
And it is, this is what she’s been trying to get to happen for months. But fuck, if it doesn’t suddenly feel like the worst idea ever. Her daughter is growing up.
Quickly, she turns back to the hob.
“I thought you’d be happier about it.”
She can hear the raised eyebrow in Zoe’s voice.
“No, I am!” she insists, still not turning around, “just don’t want the beans to burn.”
“They’re baked beans, mum, they’re kinda hard to mess up.”
Her voice is full of teenage sass – though if she has to examine herself, Esther might admit that it’s more of a general sass and she is, in fact, not going to be growing out of it if genetics play their part.
Choosing to keep to herself, she snorts, “I bet you’ll be ringing me, asking me how to make ‘em when you move out.”
She hopes so anyway. She wants to be rung about the little things; how long to bake a cake for, how to change a lightbulb, to calm down the panic of when Zoe realises she doesn’t actually know how taxes work.
In a way (and she would only ever admit this to herself), she wants to feel needed. She wants to feel like she’s still being a mum.
“I only just got a job, not gonna be moving for a while yet-“ she watches Zoe pull herself up to sit on the tabletop in a move that she’s been told not to do a thousand times before but persists in anyway, swinging her legs gently- “as much as I’m sure you want me out from under your feet!”
She grins but Esther has to turn away again because there’s nothing she wants less than her daughter leaving. She wants her in eyesight at all times. She wants to hold her close and never let her go.
“Everything okay, mum?”
She wants to be okay with her daughter living her life, not feeling smothered by her Big Emotions.
“Just a hard case,” she admits lightly, flashing a quick smile over her shoulder as she stirs the beans again, unnecessarily, “bringing up a few emotions. I’ll be fine.”
“Parental emotions?”
Esther freezes at the words and the careful curiosity, possibly even concern, in them.
Maybe Zoe is too perceptive for her own good; it’s impossible to hide everything now.
Clearing her throat, she nods briefly, “Yes. But like I said, I’ll be fine.”
There’s a pause long enough that she thinks the conversation might be over, but then Zoe hesitantly asks, “Do you, uh, need a hug?”
Rasing a wry eyebrow, Esther turns, “Will you survive the embarrassment?”
Zoe frowns, “I don’t find you embarrassing. Occasionally you do embarrassing things… you definitely tell too many dad jokes. But,” she shrugs, casual despite her rare open honesty, “I’m proud you’re my mum, you know? I see enough to know you’re really good at your job. You help people.”
And that’s enough to have Esther reaching out to tug at her daughter’s arm until she slips off the table and crashes into her with a slight oof.
“Mum?”
Zoe’s voice is muffled against her shoulder as Esther wraps her arms tightly around her, determined to take anything she can get at this point.
“Just, give me a minute, okay?” she pats her lightly on the head, smoothing a few of the stray hairs she finds there- “then I’ll set the tone with a pun, you can roll your eyes – you get that from me, by the way – and we’ll get on with our evening.”
“Okay,” she agrees, amusement in her voice as she finally relaxes into the embrace.
Esther doesn’t force her to linger too long, just clings for a few seconds then takes a deep breath and “You know I’ve bean practicing these all day, right?”
“Oh hell, it’s starting,” Zoe groans, pulling away and slumping down at the table.
“What can I say?” she grins wickedly, “I’m just looking for the beaning of life.”
Again, Zoe groans, leaning forwards to rest her forehead against the wood of the table as Esther chuckles, plating up their food with practiced ease.
“Hey, Zo?”
“What?” her daughter doesn’t even bother to lift her head, knowing what’s coming from her tone of voice alone.
“We’re living the bean dream!”
Into the table, Zoe mumbles, “If this is your dream, this is my nightmare.”