Page 17 of Silent Echo

I put my arms around him. “You are home, remember?”

He struggles from my embrace and runs from the room. I hear his bedroom door slam, and I sigh. It’s his first Christmas in his new family, so he’s still adjusting. I need to make this one extra special and create new memories with him that he’ll cherish. He’s so young; those old memories will be gone in a few years and all that will remain are the ones we make together.

I think back to the earliest Christmas I can remember. I think I was seven. I still believed in Santa Claus and asked my parents to leave him cookies and milk. My mother said she would and hurried me off to bed, warning me that if I didn’t go to sleep, Santa wouldn’t come. I was too young to know whether or not my parents were drunk back then. I only have scattered visions of that night. I remember sneaking downstairs after everyone was asleep to see if she’d left the cookies and milk by the fireplace. She had forgotten. Worried that Santa might not leave us anything, I went into the kitchen to do it myself. I had to climb on the counter to reach the cookies, and I slipped. The cookie jar came crashing down, and there was broken glass everywhere. I froze at first, and then went to the garage to finda broom. When I opened the garage door, it set off the burglar alarm. The next thing I knew, my father ran into the kitchen with a gun in his hands, and when he saw me, he began to yell.

“What the hell are you doing?” The phone rang, and he answered and told the alarm company it was a false alarm. My mother came down to see what the ruckus was.

“You forgot to leave cookies and milk for Santa. I was just trying to reach the cookies,” I explained.

My father turned to me, his face full of fury. “There is no damn Santa Claus. It’s time you stopped believing these childhood fantasies.”

“Marvin!” My mother looked at him in horror.

“There is too a Santa,” I said.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me from the kitchen into the living room. “Look,” he said, pointing to the tree. “See all those presents? Your mother and I did that. Not Santa. Now go to bed!”

That Christmas I lost my faith in more than Santa.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Sebastion hardly ever asks about his parents anymore. We’ve settled into a nice routine. Up at eight, breakfast, some playtime outside, then lessons from nine to eleven. Another play break, lunch, and free reading for an hour in the afternoon. I ordered a homeschool kindergarten curriculum online, and I love giving all my attention to just one student. As much as I loved teaching pre-K, I can see now that having my attention divided among twelve students didn’t allow me to maximize learning for each of them. I can’t imagine how children fare once they’re in classrooms twice that size. I do miss the camaraderie with my fellow teachers, and I’m realizing that Sebastion needs the company of other children.

Our homeschool group thinks my name is Cathy Miller. Watching some YouTube videos on Photoshop and making a new birth certificate and a fake social security card was easy. That, plus the phone and utility bills in my new name, was all I needed to get a Florida driver’s license. If Sebastion ever corrects me about my name, I’ll remind my new friends that I had to change it to avoid his abusive birth mother finding us. I’ve told them that she lost her parental rights and that we need to stay off the radar in case she tries to kidnap Sebastion. To avoid a digital trail, I cut up all my credit cards and withdrew my entire inheritance from a North Carolina bank branch on the way down here. Installing a safe in the rental house was next on my list so that the two hundred thousand dollars would be secure.Swapping out my Maryland tags for Florida tags registered to Cathy Miller was the final step in starting my new life.

We joined the group in January, and we take field trips together, have park playdates twice a week, and get together for a few classes where we take turns teaching. It’s really the best of both worlds. The one fly in the ointment is my fear that Sebastion’s former parents will find us, but I’m confident I’ve done an excellent job impressing upon the mothers how important it is that his birth mother doesn’t know where we are. Many women in the group are already leery of authority figures, some having been persecuted by the school board for homeschooling. I trust that I can count on their discretion. Today, we’re meeting the group for lunch and a beach day at Cocoa Beach. Sebastion’s been in his bathing suit since breakfast.

“Can we go now, Mommy?” he asks again as I clean up the breakfast dishes. It still thrills me to hear him call me that.

“We’re not meeting everyone until eleven, but what if we take the morning off from our studies and head there now? We can bring our books and read under the umbrella.”

He jumps up and down. “Yay!”

When we arrive, we set our things up on the beach, and after everything is ready, he grabs my hand and pulls me toward the water. “Come on, let’s go swimming.”

I grab the wet bag with my keys and wallet and strap it around my arm. You can never be too safe, and I’m not about to leave them on the beach where anybody could steal them.

We run into the water and have a splashing fight until I tire of all the water in my eyes. I start to get bored but can tell he’s not ready to get out yet. To be honest, I really don’t like swimming in the ocean. There are too many strange creatures. I much prefer a swimming pool. I watch him try to do a handstand, and we holdhands and jump when the small waves come. Finally, I can’t take it anymore. “Time to get out.”

“No,” he says as he sticks his chin out defiantly.

I feel my temper surge. He’s been a bit of a handful lately, and this rebellious streak is getting worse.

“Sebastion, it’s enough already, Mommy’s tired.”

He turns and swims away from me, his legs kicking as fast as they can. In two strides, I’m behind him and I grab him around the waist to stop him.

“Let go of me,” he shouts.

“Sebastion! If you don’t stop this instant, we’ll go home and forget the playdate.”

“I hate you,” he yells, and the heat rises to my face when I notice swimmers near us all looking at me.

Under my breath, I say, “Please be a good boy, and I’ll buy you an ice cream.” I know it’s the absolute wrong thing to do, but I can’t risk him causing a scene. The promise does the trick. He turns back to me, and we walk back to the beach.

“We have to go to the car and get my money,” I tell him, wanting to talk to him where no one can hear us.

I open the door to the Volvo, and he climbs in the front seat, which I allow only because we’re not driving. I get in on my side and shut the door.

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