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She’d been told to live a normal life. Had saved nothing from her past. Nothing. No pictures. Not even the fourteen-karat gold heart charm Jeff had given her the day she’d told him she was pregnant. A symbol of the love he felt for her, and the love she’d given him. The love they’d created in their baby, through their baby. He’d told her that whenever she doubted her worth or questioned herself, to hold on to that charm and talk to him—promising that he’d hear her from wherever he was and find a way to answer her.
The night she’d run, she’d taken a side trip back to college and buried the charm alongside Jeff’s grave, thinking that maybe, someday, when Ethan was grown, she could take him there, tell him the truth about the wonderful man who’d fathered him and give him the charm.
Was it wrong to steal a moment of happiness for herself by inviting Tad over again? Was she risking Ethan’s life?
Or was she hurting it by keeping them cloistered? Would her son grow up being afraid of the world?
He’d gone to bed ecstatic Wednesday night. And had jabbered about dinner the next evening, wanting to know what she was going to make, suggesting that she bake brownies, too, and asking if he could have a night off from homework.
She’d made the brownies as soon as she got home on Thursday. Crossed her fingers that there’d be no homework, and if there was that they could get it done quickly. She was smiling as she waited in her usual spot outside Ethan’s school that afternoon. As she’d cooked and cleaned her way through the early afternoon, she’d had a long talk with herself. And maybe with Jeff, too. Listening to his voice in her mind, telling her how smart and capable she was.
Of all the friends he could’ve had in college, he’d chosen her—a normal-looking, quiet, shy loner—to hang out with. Jeff had always seen something in her she’d never seen herself.
“I don’t like Tad and I don’t want him to come over for dinner.” Ethan’s words were spewing out before he’d even climbed into the front seat beside her. His glasses made his eyes look bigger as he turned them on her. “You have to call him and tell him he can’t come,” the boy said, and then shoved his backpack on the floor at his feet and sat there, arms crossed, with his lower lip jutting out like it did when he was trying not to cry.
Heart thumping, Miranda went immediately into calm mode. “Why? What did he do?”
“I thought he was my friend. Our friend. But he’s friends with any old boy.”
“I don’t understand,” Miranda said, her tone filled with the love the little guy drew from the depths of her. She ignored the other cars and kids milling around outside her vehicle.
“I saw him,” Ethan said. “He was here, on the other side, where they play baseball. At recess. I thought he came to see me, but when I started to run over to him, some other kid went over and Tad didn’t even see me. Or wave. He just talked to that other kid for our whole recess and then... I don’t know what. Maybe took him for ice cream or something.”
“What other kid?” Miranda’s senses were on alert for an entirely different reason now. She’d known Ethan and Danny Williams went to the same school; it was a big school and the boys were in different grades.
“I dunno.” Her son’s chin was down by his chest, and she had to fight the need to pull him close and rock him against her as she had when he was smaller.
“I’m sure, since the other boy was at recess, too, he couldn’t just leave school. Do you really think Tad took him for ice cream?” she asked, seeing so many complications and not knowing what to tackle first, or at all.
“No.”
“So you think Tad shouldn’t have any friends but you?”
“I dunno.”
“But you know, people care a
bout more than one person. Jimmy likes more kids than just you and you like more than just him.”
“He’s only a little kid like me.”
“You liked Tad, and that didn’t mean you didn’t still like me, right?” As she tried to assuage her son’s hurt feelings, it occurred to her that she’d failed him in a way she hadn’t seen coming, focusing only on her work and on him, giving him unrealistic expectations of the adults in his life. Few as there were...
“I dunno,” he said again. “I thought he was my friend.”
Kids’ feelings got hurt. It was all part of growing up.
Maybe some of them were better acclimated by the time they were six. More exposed to human interaction. Probably most of them had to share the caregivers in their lives. And they’d likely had more than one.
In an effort to keep Ethan safe, she’d sheltered him, figuring he’d have his own interaction with others when he started school. When he was old enough to protect himself. Or at least tell someone if he was hurt or afraid.
She’d had it all planned out. Had him prepared and...
You’d think, given that, he’d be jealous of sharing her, not jealous of Tad being friends with another boy.
The way he’d taken to Tad—the first person she’d shown real warmth to in front of him, other than the professionals with whom they came in contact...
Could be this wasn’t so much a relationship thing as it was a “daddy” issue. Having a man around.
