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“Aw, mom! Do I have to?” J.J. said from his spot on the floor, still holding his action figures in his little hands.
“Yep, you have to, because I’m bigger and stronger than you.” Dina, across the room at the dining table, was still cleaning up what was left of dinner. “And also because I’m your mom , and kids that don’t listen to their moms have to clean the toilet upstairs as punishment. Does that sound like fun?”
“If Ellie helps me clean, then can I stay up?”
Ellie looked up from the pair of matching action figures in her hands. “Hey now! I didn’t volunteer for that.” She quickly tried to think of an excuse to get J.J. to bed. “Do you know how the Starfire Kids became superheroes?”
J.J. looked at the figures in her hands. “No, how?”
“They did all their homework, they listened to their mom, and most importantly,” Ellie stood up and shifted both figures to one hand, “they always went to bed on time.” Ellie set the figures into a nearby bin. “Scoot, kiddo. I’ll be up in a few minutes to tuck you in.” Ellie ran her hand through J.J.’s hair as she stepped by him to start cleaning up the mess of action figures.
“Fiiiiine.” J.J. moaned as he put his toys down and headed toward the stairs. He halfheartedly stomped his way up each step, careful not to stomp hard enough to draw his mother’s ire.
A few moments passed before Dina, who had been watching Ellie the whole time, spoke.
“I can see it, you know.”
Ellie, hunched over and scooping toys up into her arms, twisted her head around towards Dina. “See what?”
“You love him.”
Ellie’s eyes flickered towards the floor in embarrassment for a second before she straightened up and turned towards Dina. “I mean… he’s a kid, right? Your kid. Our kid…” Ellie’s voice trailed off as she clearly was struggling to find the right words. She locked eyes with Dina and tilted her head to the side a bit. “Shouldn’t I?”
Dina chuckled in a warm way, not mocking in the least. “I don’t know. But I’m glad that you do. I’m glad that you don’t have to put on a show for my sake. I’m glad that he has a family instead of just a mom.” Dina walked over to Ellie, wrapped her arms around her, and stared into her eyes. “And Joel would be so proud of the person you’ve become.”
Ellie, caught off guard by Dina’s words, tried to blink away the tears that were welling up in her eyes as she tucked her face into Dina’s shoulder.
“I hope so…”
“I know so.”
They held their embrace for a few moments.
“I don’t deserve you. Or J.J.”
Dina gently pushed Ellie away, and Ellie feverishly dabbed at her eyes with her shirt sleeve. “Well, maybe you can start proving your worth by tucking J.J. in. Like you said you would do, ohhhh, 15 minutes ago.”
“Yes, boss.” Ellie squeezed Dina’s hand and gave her a quick peck on the cheek before she headed towards the staircase.
***
“Geez, I thought you forgot!” J.J. was already bundled into his blankets, hardly in need of someone to tuck him in. Ellie thought he looked like a little burrito.
She pointed at him accusingly. “I had to clean up your mess, remember? And your mom just wouldn’t stop talking about how good of a kid you are.” Ellie pulled a chair out from under J.J.’s desk and sat down beside the bed. “I finally had to tell her ‘Stop! He’s not that good of a kid.’” Ellie gently tickled J.J. in the ribs and he squirmed around happily. “She might think you’re perfect, but I know the truth. I know all your little secrets.”
“I don’t have any secrets! Stop!” J.J. squeaked between gasps of laughter.
Ellie relented her tickling and sat back in her chair. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve got my eyes on you.” She pointed two fingers at her eyes and spun her hand to point at J.J.
“Cal told me that his parents told him a story before he went to bed. It was about a gingerbread house and a witch.” Ellie had never heard of this story before. “Do you know it?” Ellie shook her head. “Sorry kiddo. I don’t even know what gingerbread is. Do you?”
“No, I guess not. Some kind of bread?”
“Probably.”
“Do you know any stories like Cal’s parents?”
“Hmmm.” Ellie sat back in the chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Let me think…”
Ellie didn’t think she knew any stories like Cal’s parents. One of the many drawbacks of not having parents to begin with. She looked down at J.J. to tell him so, but his wide, innocent eyes made her pause. Maybe she could make something up.
“Well, I might remember a story that Joel told me. But it was a long time ago, so I might not get it all right.”
“Okay!” J.J.’s enthusiasm was all the encouragement Ellie needed.
Where to start… Ellie wondered to herself. Her earlier conversation with Dina was still storming through her thoughts. Good a place to start as any I suppose .
“So, a long long time ago, there was a lonely puppy who lived in the woods.”
“What kind of puppy? Was it cute, or was it like the wild dogs that Mr. Roger goes out to shoot sometimes?”
“It was a cute puppy, but it was very lonely and had a very hard life. It was always scared and sad, and the puppy didn’t know what it was like to have a family.”
“What happened to the puppy’s family?”
“The puppy didn’t know. It was too little to remember.” Ellie put her finger to her lips. “No more questions, okay? I have to focus. You can ask me questions after the story, alright?”
“Okay.”
Ellie refocused and tried to think of the next step.
“One day, a man showed up in the woods where the puppy lived. The puppy could smell the food that the man was carrying, and he was sooooo hungry, so he followed the man through the woods. The man carried a long stick that would make a loud ‘BANG!’” Ellie held her arms up and imitated firing an invisible rifle. “And somehow that ‘BANG!’ would kill rabbits and birds that the man would gather up and carry on his back. The man was very, very scary, but the puppy was sooooo hungry that he still followed him.”
Ellie unconsciously crossed her legs and made herself more comfortable.
“Eventually the puppy followed the man all the way back to a town where a bunch of people lived. The puppy had never seen a town before, and it was the kind of place that the puppy would normally avoid. But it was sooooo hungry that it just kept on following the man. At the very edge of town, the man finally stopped at a small little house, and he was just getting ready to go inside when he turned around and saw the puppy.”
Ellie stiffened up theatrically and widened her eyes. “The puppy froze in terror. He thought for sure that the man was going to point his stick at him and go ‘BANG!’. But instead, the man reached into his pocket, pulled out a small sliver of something that smelled delicious, and set it on the ground. Then he turned around, went through the door, and shut it behind him.”
“The puppy didn’t know what to do. The man was scary, and the puppy had only survived in the woods because it hid from scary things, but it was sooooo hungry that it couldn’t resist the delicious treat that the man had left.”
Ellie stretched out her arm and put two fingers on J.J.’s chest. She crept the fingers along his chest like a puppy sneaking through the brush. “The puppy slowly crept up to the treat and gobbled it up. It was sooooo delicious, the most delicious thing the puppy had ever eaten. The puppy stared up at the door, expecting the man to burst through at any minute. It waited, and waited…”
Ellie removed her hand and sat back in her chair. J.J. stared up at her wide-eyed, totally enthralled with her story. So far so good… She raised her hands expectantly, and then slowly began lowering them. “But nothing happened. The man didn’t come back outside. The puppy was still safe.”
Ellie looked around the room, like a prairie dog peeking out of its burrow. “The puppy realized that it was far from home, and it looked around for a place to spend the night.” Ellie’s eyes stopped on a trashcan in the corner of J.J.’s room. “The puppy saw a nice warm looking spot underneath the man’s front porch. It would be safe and dry, and it could find its way back home in the morning. So it crawled in, went to sleep, and dreamed of tasty treats.”
Ellie paused for a moment, thinking about where the story should go next. She had a rough idea in her mind, but needed to figure out a way to make everything more… kid friendly. Dina keeps saying I’m getting soft , Ellie thought to herself. She sighed. Guess she’s right .
J.J. shifted under his blankets, coaxing Ellie to continue.
“The next morning, the puppy woke up to the sound of the man opening the door and coming down the stairs. It was so startled that the man heard it spring to its feet. The man looked at it for a second, and then he slowly opened up his pouch and pulled out another delicious treat. The man squatted down and held the treat out towards the puppy.”
Ellie held out her hand and waved it towards herself invitingly.
“‘Come here boy. It’s okay, it’s okay.’ The puppy didn’t react at first, but it couldn’t resist the delicious treat. It slowly crept out from under the porch and walked up to the man. The man didn’t move, and the puppy hesitantly began to nibble on the treat in the man’s hand.” Ellie very slowly began to stretch out her other arm. “The man reached out and gently started to pet the puppy on its head. The puppy had never known a feeling like that before, and it felt sooooo good. Then the man stood up and started to walk away. He looked back over his shoulder and whistled lightly. ‘Come on boy’ the man said, and the puppy followed along.”
Ellie readjusted herself in her seat. She wasn’t sure how to proceed, so she tried to buy some time. “Any questions so far kiddo? You’re doing a great job listening.”
J.J. scrunched his face up in thought. “No, but what happens next?”
Big help that was . “Well, let’s see if I can remember…”
Ellie locked her fingers together and rested her chin on her thumbs.
“Well, the puppy and the man spent all day together. And the next day, and the day after that, and that became the puppy’s new life. Everyday the puppy and the man would walk around town, or in the woods, and the man would give it snacks and pet its ears. At night, the puppy would go inside the man’s house and sleep on a warm rug. Slowly, the puppy felt something changing inside itself. Something it had never felt before.” Ellie paused for a second and looked at J.J..
“Do you know what the puppy was feeling?”
“No, what was it?”
“Love. The puppy was feeling love for the very first time in its entire life.”
“Ewwww, gross!” Ellie chuckled at J.J.’s reaction.
“Not that kind of love, silly. Love like your mom and you. The kind of love that makes someone the most important person in the world to you.”
“So the man was like the puppy’s dad?”
Ellie’s smile lit up her entire face. “Yeah, exactly. The puppy had found the family it never had. The man was the most important thing in the world to the puppy.”
“Oh, okay.” Ellie smiled even wider at J.J.’s innocent acceptance of something that had seemed so complicated to her.
“So…” Ellie collected her thoughts. “The years went by, and the man and the puppy lived happily together. The puppy grew up, and eventually it surprised everybody. It wasn’t actually a puppy at all. Can you guess what it was?”
“No, what was it!?” J.J. asked excitedly.
“It was a wolf!” Ellie could see the questions springing up in J.J.’s mind. “Now, the little wolf wasn’t a scary wolf, and the man still loved the little wolf as much as ever. But the rest of the people in town were very afraid of wolves, so the man had to keep it a secret from everyone.”
J.J. didn’t seem to have any objections to this, so Ellie continued.
“Now, while the little wolf and the man were living happily together, there was another family that lived in the forest that was suffering.”
J.J. couldn’t resist asking, “Was it more puppies?”
“Nope. This family was a family of bears. Two cute little bear cubs and a mama bear.”
“Was the daddy bear dead, like my daddy?” Ellie was startled by the bluntness of what J.J. said, but a glance at his face showed that he didn’t seem upset by the connection. J.J. didn’t know any of the details about Jesse’s death, and Ellie dreaded having to explain it to him. She hoped that J.J. would be able to forgive her, but her memory of her own reaction to losing Joel made her terrified of the day that J.J. found out. She sighed to herself. Maybe this is how Joel felt…
Ellie tried to be more gentle with her phrasing. “A year ago, the daddy bear had been shot by a scary man. The daddy bear was just trying to protect his cubs. When he died, the cubs had been left with only their mama to look after them. The cubs were just babies, so they didn’t really understand what had happened. But the mama bear, she was devastated by it. She lost the most important thing in the world to her, and she absolutely, completely HATED the scary man.”
Ellie scoured her memories for a way to explain exactly how the mama bear had felt. “Is there anything that you hate, J.J.?”
“Yeah, I hate homework!” J.J. looked away in thought. “And lettuce too!”
“Okay. Can you make me a promise, J.J.?”
J.J. seemed confused. “Yeah, what?”
“Promise me that you’ll never say that you hate something, okay?”
“Okay, but why?”
Ellie leaned over J.J.’s resting body.
“When you say you hate homework, or you hate lettuce, what you really mean is that you don’t like it. ‘Hate’ is not the same as ‘don’t like’. Hate is something that you can never get out of your head. Hate would mean that you spend every minute of every day thinking about how much you want to tear your homework apart. Hate takes all of your happiness, and all of the things that you like, and it makes them all disappear. Hate replaces all of your thoughts and feelings with anger. Just angry and unhappy, all the time. It ruins your friendships, and your family.”
J.J.’s breathing had become shallow, and he seemed like he was hanging on her every word. Good. He’s listening.
“When you really, truly hate something, it’s like you’re already dead. You’re entirely consumed with one idea. Destroying the thing that you hate. It’s the only thing that keeps you alive. That was how the mama bear felt about the scary man that shot her mate. Do you understand, J.J.?”
J.J. could only nod his head.
“Good.” Ellie squeezed J.J.’s shoulder to comfort him and leaned back into her seat. “Life was miserable for the mama bear and her cubs, but one day, the mama bear finally got the one thing she was searching for.”
“The scary man?” J.J. asked.
Ellie nodded. “One day, the scary man showed up in the woods where the mama bear and her cubs lived. The mama bear couldn’t believe her eyes. It was him! She was certain. His face had been burned into her memory. In a flash,” Ellie raised her hands like claws, “the mama bear attacked. The scary man didn’t stand a chance. The mama bear got her revenge.”
J.J. seemed completely captivated by the story.
“Not far behind the scary man was a little wolf.” J.J. let out an audible gasp, and Ellie hurried on. “Only, the little wolf wasn’t so little anymore. It had grown up big and strong, but it had been too far behind the man to stop the mama bear from attacking him.”
“The bear killed the little wolf’s dad?!” J.J. exclaimed, seemingly on the verge of tears. Ellie looked J.J. in the eyes and slowly nodded her head.
“She did, yes. That’s what hate makes people do. And when the not-so-little wolf saw what the mama bear had done to his dad, the wolf felt the same hatred for the mama bear that the mama bear had felt for the scary man. The wolf could only think of getting revenge, and it attacked the mama bear. They had a vicious fight, but the wolf was in a frenzy, and the mama bear’s reason for living had gone away when she got her revenge on the scary man. The wolf won the fight, and the mama bear’s body laid on the ground next to the man’s.”
Ellie had eased into the story, and she knew exactly how it was going to end. She noticed a few drops of sweat on J.J.’s brow, and she lovingly dabbed his forehead with her shirtsleeve.
“The wolf stood there for a long, long time, trying to get its emotions under control. After getting revenge on the mama bear, all the hate it felt had disappeared, but it didn’t feel any better. It felt… empty. It looked down at the bodies of the mama bear and the man. It looked over at the two bear cubs, crying for their mother. The wolf began to feel something in that emptiness.”
Ellie blinked back her own tears and continued trying to capture her feelings in words.
“The wolf began to feel shame. It was ashamed of what it had done. It started to wonder if the man would be ashamed of it. The wolf hadn’t had a chance to thank the man for loving it. It had never really been able to tell the man how important he was to the wolf. The wolf thought about the terrible thing it had just done to the bear cubs. The wolf remembered how awful its own life had been when it didn’t have anyone to love.”
Ellie looked J.J. in the eyes. “Did you know wolves can cry too, J.J.?”
J.J. looked up at her through his teary eyes and shook his head side to side.
“They can, and the wolf cried for a long, long time.”
Ellie looked down at the floor and paused for a moment.
“The wolf thought about its whole life. It had known loneliness, happiness, and hatred. It knew how good things could be, and it knew how bad things could be. And the wolf finally came to a decision. The wolf wouldn’t let anyone else feel the sadness, or the hatred, that it and the mama bear had felt. The wolf wouldn’t run away from the terrible thing it had done to the bear cubs. It would face its shame head on, and live the rest of its life trying to make up for its mistakes.”
“So, do you know what the wolf did?” Ellie asked J.J.. She was certain that he would know.
“He took care of the baby bears so that they would have a family.”
Ellie smiled warmly, which caused a tear or two to run down her cheeks. How lucky am I … That was a bigger question than she could possibly answer.
She nodded. “And the wolf would tell the cubs that she loved them everyday, and that she was sorry for what she had done, and that sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between love and hate, and that’s why it’s important to have people you love and trust to tell you when you’re wrong.”
Ellie stroked J.J.’s cheek. “You know I love you, right kiddo?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”