43. Scarlett #2
“If he loves you, it’s cause he thinks you’re amazing. And since he thinks you’re amazing, then I think you’re amazing. And I already thought you was amazing anyway, cause you play Super Mario like a boss.”
“I mean…” I choke out a nervous laugh. “Thanks. I don’t know that I’m that amazing, though. If you fell in the pool, I’m afraid I might not jump in and help you.”
Stricken, he folds back and shows me what a broken heart looks like on a five-year-old’s face. “Cause you don’t like me?”
“Oh my gosh. No!” I tug him back in, laughing and squeezing him to my belly.
“Because I sometimes freeze up when scary things happen. I hate it.” I trade my laughter for a sigh.
Mirth for disappointment. My smile for a frown.
“I don’t mean to do it, and it’s really frustrating, because I don’t want to freeze up.
But sometimes, when something bad is happening, my brain screams a trillion instructions at once, but I can’t really hear any of them clearly.
So instead of doing literally anything, I do nothing. ”
He opens his mouth to speak, but unable to find his words, he closes it again.
Opens. Closes.
His little brows pinch and create a wrinkle exactly where Sebastion’s forehead is already marked, then he opens his mouth again, only to close it with a huff.
“Frustrating.” I nod. “I know.”
“My brain shouts a trillion things at the same time all the time. Like, alllll the time. I sometimes do all the things at once. Never none of the things.”
I think that’s the bravery that children who don’t know failure yet are gifted with.
I’m not about to be the person who tells him otherwise.
“I think that’s really cool. I wish I could do all the things. I’d feel much better if I could do something instead of nothing.”
“You don’t freeze up in Super Mario. That’s kinda crazy and high pressure and sometimes noisy, ‘specially if I’m losing and shouting at the TV.
” He blinks, blinks, blinks up at me, stealing my heart just as easily as he stole my Grand Prix victory the other day.
“Does your brain tell you to freeze up when you freeze up?”
“Uh…”
“When all the trillion things are happening inside your head, cause something scary happened in the real world outside your head, is ‘Scarlett, FREEZE!’ one of the things you hear?”
“Well…” I lean against the stall gate and consider for a beat. But the answer comes easily. “Yeah, that’s exactly what happens.” I scrunch my nose. “It’s super annoying.”
“So then you did listen to one of the instructions, silly!” He tickles my ribs and cackles, like he’s the one being tickled.
“You didn’t do nothing. You didn’t freeze cause your brain stopped working.
You froze cause your brain said to. Next time, just listen to a different instruction and then you’re all set. ”
Struck dumb, I simply stare at him. And stare.
I tilt my head to the side and stare a little more, which takes too long, I suppose, because he leans forward and whispers, “Are you frozen now? Is it a bit like the Nintendo?” He blows a heavy breath against my face. “If we blow in it and put the game back in, it might not freeze anymore.”
“I’m not frozen now.” But I wrap my arms around his shoulders and drag him in close. “I’ve spent a lot of money on therapists, ya know? I could buy an entire house with the money I’ve spent in those offices, and I don’t think any of them were as helpful as you.”
“Really?” He pulls back and flashes a wide, cheeser grin. “I helped?”
“You totally helped. I don’t freeze up at all, do I? I just follow the wrong instructions like a big dummy.”
“Exactly.” He gestures toward his patiently waiting Cinderella.
“All fixed. You wanna help me with her saddle now? Cause she loves it when we go for rides, and I saw you with Jasper the other time, so I know you like riding too. I think Jasper loves Cinderella, like boyfriend and girlfriend like, so they won’t mind going for a walk together, and Jasper will protect us, cause he’s big and grumpy and serious all the time. Kinda like Bas.”
Kinda like Bas! “I still don’t think we should…
” I release a nervous chuckle and look anywhere except at the boy.
But that was a bad idea too, because I lock eyes with a patiently watchful Arabella, then I bounce back from her son and barely stop short of wheezing in terror. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s alright.” She meanders forward on slow feet, completely relaxed compared to her son’s wrenching half turn. At ease, despite Koda’s wild jump from the stool and his arms stretched wide as he runs around her and pretends he’s a plane.
Gulping, I take a step back and try to keep the stool between us. “I didn’t intend to bring him here. I was coming alone, and then he joined me on my walk. I didn’t stop and think about—”
She extends a single hand and stops only when we’re a mere two feet apart and her fingers wrap gently around my wrist. “Please relax.” She squeezes and studies me from beneath her lashes. “I’ve given you no reason to believe me, but I promise, everything is okay. I’m not mad.”
“It’s snowing out. And we’re in here alone. I’m the woman you don’t trust, and he’s your five-year-old son, clearly vulnerable and not able to consent to a walk amongst the stables without his parents present. I didn’t think through the repercussions of—”
“It’s okay.” She offers a small smile. “I knew the instant he was with you, but I didn’t rush out to snatch him back.
” She whips her free arm out without even looking and coat-hangers the boy, then she yanks him into a hug that makes him squeal and giggle.
“I heard that bit about you being awesome, because my oldest son is awesome, and if my awesome son thinks you’re awesome, and my youngest son thinks you’re awesome too, then obviously you must be awesome.
” She pauses and shrugs. “I mean, it makes complete sense. You must be awesome.”
“I said amazing,” Koda squirms and cackles.
“And don’t forget her Super Mario skills.
Oh!” He spins in her arms and throws his head back to look into her eyes.
If she wasn’t holding on, he would simply fling himself to the dirty ground.
“And I’m better than a ferapest, Mom! Scarlett said she could buy me a house cause of how good I am at feraping. ”
“Wait.” Nervous sweat beads along my spine. “That’s not exactly what I sa—”
“Don’t worry.” Grinning, Arabella drops her hand over Koda’s mouth.
“I heard it all. I’ve always admired how children could simplify problems we, as adults, agonize over.
How they could take a situation we thought was wildly out of our control with a million what ifs and the paralyzing fear that came with them, but instead of overthinking it, they simply…
resolve it.” She glances down and combs the hair out of Koda’s eyes.
“My first son saved my life simply by existing. My second son gave me a reason to get out of bed again, because I thought the loss that came before him was a heartbreak I would never recover from.”
“And her third son was an accident,” Koda squeals playfully.
Chuckling, Arabella brings her eyes back to mine. “My third son just made it so I wasn’t afraid of you anymore.”
“A-afraid? Of me?” I blink, blink, blink through the shock in my system. “You…” I shake my head. “What?”
“Afraid Sebastion would choose you over me,” she murmurs shamefully.
“Afraid he’d leave, and I’d never see him again.
Afraid he’d stay, and you would stay, too, and then I’d have to watch him love a woman who isn’t me.
” She firms her lips and drops her gaze to the ground.
“I was afraid he’d stay, and you wouldn’t, and then I’d have to watch his heart break and know I was the reason for his pain.
” She exhales a shaky breath and brings her eyes up again.
“I was afraid of the unknowns. Of acting when I should freeze, or freezing when I should act.”
This woman, this tyrant I was so sure was untouchable, bravely lays her vulnerabilities between us, then she reaches out again and takes my hand.
“Then I walked in and listened to my baby boy simplify a situation I’d previously believed exceptionally complicated.
With the innocence only a five-year-old could possess, he took your fears and brushed all the noise away. ”
“I feraped her, Mom.”
“And while he did that, he uncovered my fears too, and made me realize how insane I was to consider you my competition.”
Competition?
“I should never have feared my son falling in love, because him finding the woman he would choose over me is not a punishment. It’s a gift.
As a mother, I should be happy he gets to love, and be loved, the same way I’ve loved and been loved by the man who helped me bring him into this world.
I struggled when you arrived, because clearly I suck at change and am slow to adapt.
I could’ve been forgiven if that reaction, which we all know was poor, was my only reaction.
Every mother deserves a second to come to grips with this new reality.
But that wasn’t my only reaction, and my behavior didn’t improve with time. ”
“It’s f—”
“It’s absolutely not fine,” she insists.
“And everyone around me knew it. My husband cautioned me to reconsider my stance. Maverick warned. Sebastion demanded. Even my sick, dying best friend found the strength to laugh in my face and call me an idiot. But instead of listening to these good men I would, in any other instance, listen to, I grew angrier. It felt like you were stealing my family.”
“O-oh my gosh,” I stammer. “No, I—”