Page 32 of Have a Bear-y Little Christmas
I felt slightly awkward, because I didn’t know if my daughter was committing some sort of faux pas. Was it rude to ask a wheelchair user if you could shuttle them around? Was I overthinking things in the effort of being polite? I had no idea. While there were disabilities in the shifter community, suchas my wife, they weren’t very common. And cancer wasn’t a thing at all, so most of what I learned was through dramas on TV. Strangely enough, Zara had loved watching overwrought medical shows, often laughing at how ridiculous they were. She said it helped her because it made everything seem so much less serious whenever she had to go to the hospital.
“Max, may I push you around for a bit?” Addy asked.
“I don’t know. Have you ever pushed someone in a wheelchair before?”
“No, I have not.”
“Okay, well, as long as you don’t go too fast, and you make sure not to go over curbs, we should be okay. When you get to the end of the street, you gotta go toward that dip thing with the bumps.”
“That is called a curb cut, or curb ramp,” Addy rattled off like she was reading from a book. Who knew, maybe she was. Maybe there was a book open inside her head that gave her all the facts she could spout off. I’d had an inkling for a while that my daughter might have an eidetic memory to go with her possible neurodivergence, but with us focusing on preparing for her mother’s death, then grieving and recovering, that had sort of fallen by the wayside in the past two years. “It was invented in nineteen-forty-five by a disabled veteran. Mr. Fischer. They were mandated nationwide innineteen-ninety. That’s when you were born, right, Daddy?”
“A touch before that, actually. But very good math, Addy.”
“I’m so impressed you know that,” Jeannie said, her grin growing even wider. “I wasn’t even aware of the guy’s name. Did you learn that in school?”
My heart skipped a beat at how effortlessly Jeannie accepted my daughter’s info dump. It was always a gamble how people reacted—from telling her not to interrupt, to dismissing herthoughts, to even mocking her a little bit. No wonder Max was such a class act. Clearly, he’d learned from the best.
“No, I looked it up the day after the ice rink. I got a brainworm.”
“Brainworm?”
“Yeah, you know, when you get an itch in your mind and you just have to find out? I got that about different mobility devices that could be used with ice skating and it kind of went from there.” When she shrugged, I had a glimpse of the teenager she would turn into. “But it’s no big deal.”
“I think it’s a big deal.” Max said. “Did you look that up because you wanted to be able to go ice skating with me again?”
“Yes! And because it was cool.”
Max lit up like the very displays we were going to see. “In that case, yeah, you can push my wheelchair. But you do have to stop if you get tired, because sometimes cars don’t listen or people can be rude, and if you’re tired, the wheelchair can get away from you or something.”
“Understood.” She turned her gaze on me. “Daddy?”
The question was implicit given the conversation, but doubt flickered through me—not because I thought Addy would ever do anything to harm another, but because it was such a big responsibility. If somehow Max got hurt, it would destroy the tenuous connection our two families were building.
Sure, we had our own clan and tons of relatives we could interact with, but my girls had very little human social connections beyond Symphony. And even that was an academic rivalry. Zara had been increasingly worried about our shrinking territories and the growing domination of human technology, so she believed raising our daughters in a suburb and exposing them to human culture would be a huge boon to them. I couldn’t help but agree, but also, I felt like I was failing them in that respect. A friendship with someone like Jeannie and Max, whoreally seemed to be a gem, was a huge gift I didn’t want to squander.
The fact that Max was trusting Addy with something as important as his mobility on a day when he was hurting could be a huge development in their relationship and even a way for the two of them to bond.
“As long as you are very careful and don’t let yourself get too distracted,” I said after a beat. “Remember that phrase I taught you? If you’re going to accept a responsibility...”
“... make sure it’s a responsibility you’re capable of keeping,” my daughter finished for me.
“Exactly.”
She strode forward, posting herself behind Max. He gave her some instructions, showing her the brakes to his wheelchair, then a couple of hand signals he would do if he needed to stop or turn. It was quite sweet to watch the easy, breezy way that Max explained things and the studious look on Addy’s face as she no doubt memorized every single word he said. In fact, it was so sweet, I’d forgotten Eva was standing next to me, until Max turned his attention to her.
“Would you like to walk beside me, Eva?” he said, offering his hand. “Sometimes I get lonely always being in front of everyone and it’s hard to talk to people.”
From the way Eva sped over to him, you would have thought he was offering her an ice cream cone with all her favorites. The next thing I knew, their gloved hands were clasped.
I didn’t really know what was happening, but man, I was so incredibly happy to see it. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought I was in a dream or a Hallmark Christmas movie.
“Don’t worry, Max. I’ll keep you company, and Addy will drive.”
“Why don’t the two of you take a practice lap from here to the base of the statue?” Jeannie asked. “The tour is gonna start in afew minutes, so if you end up not liking it, we can switch things up.”
“That is very logical thinking,” Addy said with a nod before pushing Max forward and doing exactly as his mother had suggested. I could tell by the expression on Jeannie’s face that she understood exactly what a compliment that was. Maybe this whole socializing thing was less complicated than I had thought, because somehow, everything with Jeannie and her son was just soeasy.
Once the tour started, Jeannie and I ended up walking side-by-side while the children rolled just a bit ahead of us. It was quite adorable to listen in on them, with Addy sort of directing things whenever she thought the tour guide was being too lax, Max reminding her to slow down and just enjoy the lights, and Eva saying which were her favorites.
