Busted

[Follow-up to Failure to Deliver on Faith Laurent's blog.]

Syl knocked on the door of her daughter's hotel room. She could have easily opened the door with the spare key-card she always got from the reception desk everytime they checked in, but that was only for emergencies. This encounter might get serious, but it was hardly an emergency.

"Hey, Faith? Can I come in, love?"

The door clicked as Faith opened it wide enough for her mother to step inside. "Sure, Ma. What's up?" She couldn't help noticing her mother held one hand behind her back.

Syl entered with a nod and a smile. "Nothing much. I was just wondering why you weren't at the show today. You usually catch our concert after practicing hockey at the local rink. Is something wrong?"

"Nope. Nothing's wrong, Ma. Just stayed late at the rink today, that's all." The girl's eyes nervously jumped to the roller blades and single shoe she had left by the door. Syl followed her glance and frowned.

"Ya know, your uncle's band played a few hours before ours did at the same club." She spoke slow and deliberate, as if to leave room for Faith to interject at any time. "I overheard some security guards complaining about a girl on roller blades causing some trouble before their show."

Faith swallowed hard and tried her best to look innocent. "Geez, Ma. You don't think it was me, do you?"

Her mother sighed and shook her head, disappointed. "Faith, I know it was you." She pulled her hidden hand from behind her back, producing the sister shoe to the one beside Faith's roller blades. "You dropped this at the club, 'Cinderella'."

"Shit."

"Faith, your language," Syl said, though her tone said her daughter's language was the least of her concerns. "What the hell were you thinking, love?" She could have asked angrily, but her voice sounded surprisingly calm.

Faith fidgetted under her mother's gaze, wishing her mother really was angry. It would have made it easier to just yell back. Right now, her mother just sounded horribly disappointed.

"They wouldn't let me see Uncle Neil, Ma."

"That doesn't make it okay, love. Why didn't you call me? I could have talked to them."

Faith was silent. She hadn't thought of that.

Sighing again, Syl bent down to place the shoe beside its sibling, then picked up her daughter's roller blades.

Faith's heart jumped. "Ma? What are you doing?"

"Sorry, love," Her mother said as she turned towards the door. "But it seems you're not responsible enough to use these whenever you want. If you want to keep roller blading with me when I go running in the morning, that's fine. But any other time, you're going to have to ask for permission and I'm going to have to be there."

"That's not fair, Ma!"

"Actually, I think it is. You were scaring people at that club, Faith."

"But I didn't hurt anybody! It was those stupid gorilla guards that were knocking people over!"

"Because you were there causing trouble." Syl shook her head, her voice still calm. "You didn't have to skate around that club, but you did. Just because you didn't get your way."

Faith bit her lip. Essentially, that was what it all boiled down to, and she couldn't refute that. She wished she could, though. The way her mother put it made Faith's actions sound so childish.

The door clicked as Syl opened it to let herself out. "Maybe it's okay to be a rebel when your uncle is around to watch out for you. But your uncle isn't going to always be around, and neither am I. You have to learn when to act out and when to let it go." She paused as she thought how much she still had to learn that herself before continuing. "Sorry, love, but until you get a better grasp of that, I'm going to have to hold on to your roller blades."

She stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her. She imagined she could hear her daughter's heart breaking on the other side of the door.

A Whole Lot of Nothing

"Ma? Ma! Awww, geez, Ma. You totally missed that shot!"

Syl looked up as Faith skated ahead on her roller blades, hockey stick in hand, to collect the orange hockey ball she had hit into the net-sized space between a tree and a garbage can.

"Sorry, love. I was thinking."

"Yeah, I noticed that, Ma." The girl didn't bother hiding the bitter disappointment in her voice.

Syl sighed, disappointed in herself, as she jogged along the path through the park. She should have been paying more attention to her daugther.

Waking up Faith for their morning runs was no longer a challenge since the girl took up hockey, mostly because technically Faith no longer ran in the mornings. She strapped on the roller blades her uncle had bought her and skated alongside her mother instead.

The first week or so had been difficult for Faith. She was still unsteady on her feet and received more than a few scrapes from falling down, but by the third week, she had improved enough to skate faster than her mother could run. That was when she began bringing her stick and ball with her, so she could practice her stick handling as they ran and skated through the park.

Faith impatiently dribbled the ball with her stick, tapping it from side to side, as she waited for her mother to catch up, then effortlessly spun around and paced her skating to match the speed of her mother's running, taking the hockey ball with her as she went without a thought.

Neil was right; she did pick it up quickly. If Syl didn't know better, she would have sworn Faith had taken up hockey years ago rather than just a few weeks before.

There was a long moment of silence as they continued down the path before Faith spoke again. Her voice sounded more like a growl.

"Geez, Ma. What's wrong with you?"

"Excuse me?"

"You've been spaced out the last few days." Her annoyance was evident. "What's going on?"

Syl glanced over at Faith's frown through the loose strands of dark hair that bounced in front of her face as she ran. "It's nothing, love," she said, trying to give a reassuring smile.

"Yeah, right," Faith grunted and skidded to a stop. "It's never just 'nothing' with you, Ma."

Syl stopped beside her, breathing heavily from the run, and silently turned to her daughter with a questioning look.

"If you're going to lie to me, Ma, you can at least say something more convincing than 'Nothing'. Fuck this. I'm going to the ice rink." Disgusted, Faith spun around on her roller blades and began skating back the way they had come, the ball bumping along beside her at the end of her stick.

"Faith! Faith, get back here!" Syl called after the girl, trying to sound stern and authoritative, but only succeeding in sounding tired and resigned. "Faith, I'm sorry!"

Her apology was obviously not accepted as her daughter ignored her and skated on.