Chapter 20 - Maren #2
“I wanna go outside,” she said plainly, meeting my gaze with sheer stubbornness. “This place sucks. I don’t want to be here.”
“It’s almost time for dessert.” Ethan looked uncomfortable. “We’ll go soon, okay?”
But she was already pushing back her chair. The scrape echoed. Silverware rattled. Curiosity from onlookers intensified and with it, the sense of socially awkward embarrassment at our table.
“Emma,” I said again, trying to keep my voice calm, but she was spiraling fast. “Sit down, honey. Let’s—”
She threw her napkin into the air, and it landed in someone’s food at the next table over.
The music faltered like a fancy needle scratch, and a surprised gasp floated above the expanding murmurs around us.
Ethan immediately jumped up to apologize to the woman, and I moved into action with Emma, crouching beside her chair.
“Please sit back down.” My voice was firmer this time. “If you continue behaving this way, then there’ll be no outside time after. No craft or TV time either.”
She grabbed a bread roll and launched it across the room. I held my breath as it rolled and bounced, to finally lose momentum and bump pathetically into the mayor’s shoe.
Nobody spoke anymore. The music stopped altogether.
“I’ll throw everything off this table,” Emma warned.
Ethan’s expression changed. The composed calm gave way to something hard and cold that he was barely holding back. A client at the next table whispered something to him, and I saw his jaw clench.
“Alright,” he said with the kind of voice that didn’t invite argument. “Maren, why don’t you take the kids home? It’s been a long day.”
I nodded, heart sinking. Around us, the glitter and polish of the event blurred into background noise. So much for Thanksgiving lunch with the mayor.
I gathered the kids, shot an apologetic look to Ethan, and hurried them out of the hotel. Will was surprisingly the most vocal about not wanting to leave, considering he didn’t have his Switch.
“You’re such a brat sometimes, you know that?” he told Emma, who promptly burst into tears.
By the time we got back to the brownstone, she was a whining, crying wreck. Sadie was quiet, clutching her stuffed reindeer to her chest, and Will’s sulking deepened the longer it all went on.
“Emma, I want to talk to you,” I said once we’d all morphed back into comfortable clothes.
“I don’t want to talk.” She stomped right by me and into the living room to turn on the TV.
I followed, Sadie trailing like a shadow, but thankfully she was better at biting her tongue than her brother. Everything anyone said seemed to make it worse, and I was better at containing a tantrum without outside influence.
“I said no TV.” I clicked the TV off and stowed the remote in the back pocket of my jeans.
Emma didn’t argue, just curled up on the couch with her knees to her chest, face blotchy from crying. For all her bossy confidence and appetite for drama, she was still just a little girl trying to make sense of big feelings she didn’t have words for yet.
I knelt beside the couch. “We need to talk about your behavior at the luncheon.”
She shook her head, hiding her face in her arms.
Behind me, Will appeared, hands shoved in his pockets. I foresaw yet another comment that sent her spiraling all over again, and held up a hand to stop him.
“Not now, Will.”
“She’s hungry,” he said. And he might have looked a little sorry for making things worse before.
“I am not,” Emma said, voice muffled.
Will gave me a look of part long-suffering, part protectiveness that older siblings master early in their lives. “When she gets like this, it’s usually food. Or sugar. Mostly sugar.”
I deflated with a relieved sigh. “Okay. Sugar we can do.”
“Want me to get the ice cream?” he offered.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s a great idea.”
He disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later, I heard the freezer door open, then the sound of bowls clinking.
I stayed where I was, waiting. Emma peeked out from behind her arms just as Will returned, holding three bowls with wobbly scoops of chocolate-chip ice cream.
“Mom says when all else fails, bribery works,” he said, setting a bowl down in front of his sister.
Emma’s lip twitched. She tried to hide it, but when Sadie let out a happy “Yay, ice cream dinner!” and climbed onto the couch beside her, the tension cracked. She picked up her spoon, and just like that, the storm began to pass.
We sat together, the four of us, eating ice cream while the late afternoon light slanted across the living room. Outside, the sky had turned that wintery shade of blue-gray that made the city look like it was dusted in frost.
When everyone’s bowls were empty, I leaned into the couch and said, “You know, I think that’s the most effective peace treaty I’ve ever witnessed.”
Emma glanced at me, cautious but calmer now. “I didn’t mean to make everyone mad.”
“You didn’t make anyone mad,” I said softly. “It was just… a surprise, that’s all. You felt something, and it came out too quickly. Happens to all of us.”
She frowned at her hands. “People always say that, but it’s different for me. Grown-ups get mad and it’s fine. When I do it, everyone stares and makes me feel bad.”
That one landed somewhere deep.
I brushed a strand of hair from her face. “You’re right. Sometimes adults forget what it’s like to feel big feelings and not know where to put them.”
Emma didn’t look convinced. “At the lunch, everyone was talking and laughing and… I was just there. Nobody noticed me or talked to me.”
“Oh, honey.” I put my arm around her and pulled her close. “You were noticed. But I get it. It’s hard, isn’t it? Being between things — too old to be little, too young to do what Will does.”
She nodded, eyes bright with the threat of more tears.
“And everyone’s always playing and having fun with Sadie because she’s so little and so cute.” She sat up a little straighter now, more confident in putting her feelings into words. “And Will gets to hang out with Uncle Ethan whenever he wants. But me, I don’t fit.”
There it was. The heart of it all. That small, quiet ache I’d seen flicker behind her sass and sudden moods. The feeling of being left behind, unseen.
“You fit,” I said firmly. “And I promise I’ll make sure you’re part of everything we do from now on, okay?”
Her gaze lifted to mine, uncertain at first, then softening. “You mean it?”
“I do.”
For a long moment, she studied me, like she was measuring whether to believe me or not. Then she nodded and leaned into me fully, her little arms winding around my middle.
It was such a small thing, that hug. But it carried enough weight to be the thing that stilled the endless sea of emotions warring inside me.
I wrapped my arms around her, resting my chin on the top of her head. “You’re allowed to feel things, Em. Even when they’re loud and uncomfortable.”
She sniffled. “You sound like my teacher.”
“Your teacher must be the smartest person in the world.”
A small laugh bubbled out of her. It was soft but real.
Soon, Sadie wedged herself between us, and Will groaned that there was “no room left on the couch,” but he didn’t mean it. He climbed in anyway, his long legs awkwardly folded, head resting against my shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world.
I dug the remote control out of my pocket and reinstated TV time. By the time the movie started, the four of us were tangled under a shared blanket, the air thick with that comforting smell of vanilla and chocolate. The fire crackled low. Outside, the city glowed gold through the windows.
As I watched their faces in the flickering light, all I could think was how full my heart felt. This was supposed to be temporary. A stepping stone to a paycheck and a roof until I figured out my life.
But somewhere between bedtime stories and temper tantrums, laughter and chaos, something had changed. Inside as well as around me.
And maybe that was the problem.
Because when the movie ended and the house went quiet, I found myself staring into the dim glow of the fire, wondering when exactly “just for now” had stopped feeling like enough.