Page 16 of Silent Echo

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Sebastion won’t stop crying.

I want my mommyis the only sentence he’s uttered for the past two hours. Fortunately, he was asleep when I checked us into the motel. The last thing I need is for someone to call the authorities thinking I’ve kidnapped him.

“It’s time for me to tell you the truth,” I say. We can’t go anywhere in public until he accepts me as his new mommy.

He rubs his eyes and looks at me. He seems so small sitting in that big chair, and all I want to do is hug him and tell him everything will be all right.

“Your mommy doesn’t want you anymore,” I say, watching to see how he’ll react.

“You’re lying. I want my mommy.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. Your mommy only has time to take care of your sister. She said she never wanted to have you. That you were a mistake and she tried to love you but she couldn’t. But I do love you. I want to be your mommy.”

Confusion fills his face and he starts to cry again. “My mommy loves me!”

I walk over to him and kneel down, taking his little hands in mine. “I’m sorry, but she doesn’t. But I do.”

“No, I don’t want you.”

He turns away from me and begins to sob. I sigh, stand up, and let him be. He needs time to grieve, but he’ll come around. I go into the bathroom and put some makeup on, trying to figureout how to comfort him. An idea comes to me. I walk over to him again, handing him a box of tissues.

“Here, sweetie. Dry your eyes. Listen to me. If you’d rather be with the mommy who doesn’t want you, I’ll take you back to her. All I ask is that you stay with me until Christmas. What do you think?”

He shakes his head. “No. I want her now.”

“Okay, let me call her.”

I pick up my cell phone and dial my own number. After a moment, I speak. “Hello, Charlotte. It’s Penelope. Sebastion doesn’t believe that you don’t want to be his mommy anymore. Can you talk to him?” He runs over, his hand extended. I make a face. “What? Please. No, Charlotte, wait—” I shake my head. “I’m sorry, honey. She hung up. She said she doesn’t want to talk to you. That she’s tired of taking care of you, and she has to get back to work.” I feel horrible telling him this lie, but it’s the only way. He’ll be much happier once he accepts that I’m his true mother, ready to unselfishly devote myself to him.

He crumples in front of me, and I open my arms. He falls into them, crying softly. I rub his back. “It’s okay, it’s all going to be okay.”

I open my laptop and navigate to the Disney website. “Look, sweetie, we can go here soon. Look at all the fun rides. And I bet we can even have breakfast with Buzz Lightyear!”

“Okay,” he says, but there’s no enthusiasm in his voice. He looks shell-shocked. My poor child.

“Are you hungry? Why don’t I order something?”

He shakes his head and climbs up on the bed, curling into a ball. I turn on the television and find a show I think he’ll like. He just needs time, I tell myself. Soon, he’ll be back to the happy little boy I love. I pick up my book on childhood trauma and read.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

After three trying months, Sebastion has finally turned a corner and accepted me as his mother. We rent a cute house in Campbell, Florida, only twenty-seven miles from Disney. It’s fully furnished and in a quiet neighborhood. To help Sebastion adapt to his new life, we went to the pet store and picked out a guinea pig. Sebastion named him Buzz after Buzz Lightyear, of course. He’s black and white and just the cutest little thing. Growing up, I was never allowed to have a pet, so this is a treat for me too. Maybe when we have our own house, we’ll get a dog. I feel like I’m living in a Norman Rockwell painting. Every few days, he still asks about Charlotte, but it’s getting easier and easier to distract him from his memories. The most important thing is that he calls me Mommy when we’re out in public. I made it clear to him that if he gave anyone any reason to suspect that I wasn’t his mommy, they would take him away and put him in an orphanage, where he would be until he grew up. I hate to use a scare tactic, but it’s for his own good.

Tomorrow is Christmas and Sebastion is as excited as, well, a kid on Christmas Day.

“Shall we decorate the tree?” I ask while he’s working on his spelling words in the kitchen. He looks up, holding his pencil midair, and nods. Sliding off the chair, he pushes his work away and follows me into the living room, where boxes of newly purchased ornaments sit open. Next to them is a box filled with the handmade ornaments we’ve been working on all month.Sebastion goes to that box first and grabs the reindeer made from Popsicle sticks and googly eyes.

“Where should I put Rudolph?” he asks.

“Wherever you like,” I say, smiling at him.

He puts it on a low branch. Christmas music is streaming on a speaker from my phone, and a sense of happiness fills me. This is the first Christmas since Nora got married and moved away that I have a sense of belonging, of having my own family. “Jingle Bells” starts playing, and Sebastion drops the ornament in his hand and stares blankly.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him.

“My mommy and daddy sang this to me when we went sledding.” His lip starts to tremble. “I wanna go home.”

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