by Chant, Zoe
Andrea stared at him.
“Shifting?” she breathed. “So young?”
“I’m not sure he knows,” Shaun hissed, glancing around them. “He did it the first night we were here, and again the night he had the bad dream, but he doesn’t talk about it and doesn’t seem to remember the next day.”
Andrea slapped a hand on her forehead and tried not fall into hysterical laughter. “So, we’re possibly looking for a tiger cub with stolen rings.”
“Lion cub,” Shaun corrected. “Like my dad. Guess it skipped a generation.”
Andrea closed her eyes to focus. “You said that each time, he was really stressed out, right? So we’ve got to find him and keep him calm.”
“Despite the fact that he’s got to know he’s in the most trouble he’s ever been in his life.”
Andrea cracked an eye to peek at Shaun. He was so good-looking it was sometimes hard to look directly at him, but his expression of frustration and worry and — even now! — affection made Andrea want to drop every guard she still had in place and draw him into her arms for comfort.
“If he’s this hell-bent on causing trouble, I imagine we’ll find him in the thick of the chaos,” Andrea said thoughtfully.
On cue, there was a crash from the tent with the gifts and the cupcakes, and the fringes of the milling crowd descended on this new source of entertainment like locusts.
With judicious use of her elbows, Andrea wove her way through the people. “Excuse me,” she said. “Coming through. Maid of Honor, move it!”
Just as she finally broke through, she stepped in something that squished, and looked down in horror to recognize a sun-softened cupcake. “Oh, no...”
The tower had been tipped, and several hundred cupcakes were scattered between the edge of the crowd and Trevor, who was glowering defiantly from under the table from beneath the short tablecloth.
Beside her, Shaun gave a sigh of relief.
Trevor was still in human form.
“Alright, my friends!” Andrea called in her loudest, most child-friendly voice. “We’re going to get this all cleaned up and back to our seats! Take a cupcake with you and let’s get back to having a wedding! Let’s have some space, here!”
The old lady with the goat pulled it past towards the garage, arms awkwardly around its white neck and people began to obediently pick up cupcakes and retreat.
Andrea had never been so glad that Patricia had taught her the secret of that voice and once the majority of the people had given them an illusion of privacy, Andrea sat down across from Trevor. Shaun crouched beside her, watching and waiting.
For a long moment, all three of them were quiet.
Then Trevor said quietly, “I didn’t eat any of the cupcakes before the wedding.”
Shaun sagged to a sitting position beside Andrea and laughed helplessly.
Chapter 35
Laughing was all that Shaun could think to do, he was so tangled up in humiliation and sorrow and pity for Trevor.
“Trevor, sweetie, did you take the rings?”
Andrea managed to make the question sound perfectly reasonable and not at all accusing. Shaun was quite sure he would not have been able to do the same.
But before Trevor could answer, a flurry of gold curls and pink ruffles descended on them. “My cupcakes!!” Clara wailed, running straight between them. She put her hands on her hips and glowered at Trevor. “How could you?! Why would you?!”
Trevor’s expression of defensiveness didn’t change. “I did it for you,” he said solemnly to Clara. “So your dad wouldn’t get married.”
“Trevor!” Shaun could not keep himself from saying, outraged and humiliated.
But Trevor was at least creeping out from underneath the table.
Clara descended on him furiously, pounding on him with her tiny fists. “How could you!!”
Andrea started to stand, saying firmly, “Clara...”
Clara fell into a weeping puddle of pink lace.
Trevor looked utterly befuddled and knelt beside her before Shaun could stop him.
“I didn’t want your Dad to stop loving you,” Trevor said plaintively as Clara tried to push him away.
She stopped crying and stared at him, still holding him at arms’ length. “That’s stupid. You’re stupid!”
“Clara,” Andrea said again, warning and strangled laughter in her voice.
Clara looked past Trevor at Andrea. “Well, he is. My Dad is never going to stop loving me. I want Miss Patricia to be my Mom.” Her voice went up an octave. “I want my cupcakes!”
“I’m sorry,” Trevor said in a quavering but determined voice that made Shaun want to scoop him up and comfort him. “I thought... I thought...” he looked back at Shaun then, a heartbroken, lost look that cut Shaun to the bone. “I thought he might not love you anymore.”
Before Shaun could find the breath to speak, Clara punched Trevor in the arm. “He can love more than one person, stupid.”
“We don’t call people stupid, Clara,” Andrea reminded her automatically.
Trevor looked intensely at Clara, clearly trying to decide if he should believe her. Then he turned to Shaun for a single moment, and flickered his gaze immediately past him to Andrea.
“Miss Andrea?”
“Yes, Trevor?” Andrea stood, and opened her arms to the boy.
He hesitated, clearly wanting to run to her, but swayed in place instead.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Oh, Trevor, no. I’m sure you thought you were doing the right thing, even if it wasn’t. We all make mistakes.”
“I don’t want you to go away.”
“Oh, sweetie, I’m not going anywhere,” Andrea promised.
“But we are! We’re going away forever and ever and not ever coming back.”
It occurred to Shaun that to a five-year-old, going away was the same as if they remained stationary and everyone around them went away. Trevor fell forward into Andrea, who knelt to wrap arms around him and murmur reassuringly near his ear.
Shaun felt the ground drop away from beneath him as all the pieces to the puzzle finally fell into place.
Trevor hadn’t wanted Shaun to not like Miss Andrea because he was afraid that he would lose his father’s love, the little boy was afraid of losing Andrea’s love.
It seemed ridiculously obvious, upon reflection.
Andrea had been the anchor in Trevor’s life the past two years. Andrea was the parent figure he could trust, even if she had been parenting from next door.
And what had Shaun done? He hadn’t been there at all, until just these past few months. He was still, comparatively, a stranger to the little boy. And he’d swept in like a bull in a china shop and declared that he was going to take Trevor away from the only person he trusted. In Trevor’s eyes, it probably looked like it was because he and Andrea had fallen out — exactly as Shaun and Harriette had, and probably Harriette and whoever had replaced him. In Trevor’s limited experience, people only got close for a short time, and then fell apart and he was the one who suffered for it.
He watched Andrea cradle Trevor in her arms and felt like his chest might crack. He’d been so caught up in his relationship to Trevor, and his not-a-relationship with Andrea that he’d never really considered the bond that was already in place, or thought about the fallout of tearing them apart.
He knelt beside the pair, keenly aware of the damage he’d already done, and of the audience that had not dispersed very far away at all.
“Clara’s right,” he said gruffly, hoping his voice would carry only to Trevor and Andrea. “People love more than one person all the time.”
“Are you sure?”
Trevor had his arms wrapped tightly around Andrea, and he was spattered in cupcake frosting. His little lost voice as he lifted his head to look at Shaun was everything Shaun had ever wanted to protect him from.
“I’m sure,” Shaun said. “I love you and I love Miss Andrea.”
Andrea’s head sna
pped up, and she stared at Shaun over Trevor’s head. There were tears streaking her cheeks and Shaun was gutted to realize she had been crying with Trevor.
Trevor sniffed. “But you still love me lots?”
“I will always love you, cub,” Shaun said. “Always and lots.”
“Even when I do bad things?”
“Especially then,” Shaun promised. “Though I may not like the bad things. Will you still love me if I do bad things?”
Startled by this shift of power, Trevor furrowed his brow at Shaun. “Yes?” he said uncertainly.
“What do you think about staying in Green Valley?” Shaun proposed.
“What about your work?” Trevor asked suspiciously.
“Maybe it’s time for new work,” Shaun said thoughtfully. “Maybe a bakery in Green Valley?”
“We could stay?” Trevor asked eagerly. “Next door to Miss Andrea?”
“If I haven’t messed things up with Miss Andrea too badly,” Shaun said wryly.
By this point, Patricia had come limping onto the scene. Clara was sobbing more quietly now, and Trevor had stopped crying.
Behind Patricia, her mother was wringing her hands and exclaiming over everything. “The cupcakes! The rings! Goats! I knew this was all too fast! Can we reschedule? Oh disaster!”
The two children looked at Patricia with chagrin and anxiousness. Trevor’s arms tightened around Andrea.
But there was only amusement on Patricia’s face. “Goodness, this was a lot of a cupcakes,” she said, picking her way through the sticky minefield with her rustling skirt held up. She settled down next to Clara and Trevor without care for the frosting that peppered the lawn.
“Your dress!” Clara said in alarm.
“Your dress!” echoed Patricia’s mother in even greater dismay.
Shaun wasn’t watching the dress, he was watching Andrea over Trevor’s blonde head.
She looked fragile and heartsick and hopeful.
“Trevor, honey, do you know where the rings are?” Miss Patricia managed to sound both firm and forgiving all at once.
Trevor turned his head back to bury it in Andrea’s dress.
“You’re not in trouble,” Shaun said, just as Miss Patricia said the same thing. They exchanged a brief, amused look.
“He should be in trouble!” Clara said indignantly, outrage cutting off her sobs. “He ruined the wedding!”
Patricia opened her arm to Clara and the little girl crawled over into her lap. “He didn’t mean to,” she said gently.
“Yes I did!” Trevor said immediately, lifting his head. Several people who were watching had to stifle giggles. Shaun was divided between pride for his honesty and keen embarrassment.
Trevor continued less confidently. “But I thought... I thought... I wanted your dad to always love you.”
“He always will,” Patricia assured him cheerfully.
Trevor considered. “Okay,” he said at last. “I’m sorry, Clara.”
Clara gave him a look that indicated her forgiveness would not be so simple for Trevor to get.
“Can you show me where the rings are now?” Patricia asked.
Trevor nodded, scrubbed at his eyes, and then got to his feet as a few of the people who had been pretending not to watch the drama unfold stepped forward to help Patricia stand.
“I threw them in the swimming pool,” Trevor confessed. “In the deep end.”
Shaun groaned.
Clara glared at her classmate mistrustfully and deliberately moved to the other side of Patricia as they walked away.
Chapter 36
Andrea stood as Patricia led Trevor and Clara back to the house to find the rings and was gratefully aware of most of the attention from the guests following them away.
She was also keenly aware of Shaun, who was looking only at her.
She gathered up a handful of cupcakes without looking back, and tipped the tray back to upright. The cupcakes looked very sad and smooshed on the empty tray.
“Andrea.”
His voice was low and quiet; if Andrea had not had keen hearing courtesy of her hawk, she would not have heard him at all.
Her heart fluttered in her chest, full of hope and longing and terror.
“Andrea,” he repeated, when she couldn’t make herself turn.
“I guess I didn’t have to worry about ruining Patricia’s wedding after all,” she said, as lightly as she could. “I could not have done so masterful a job anyway.” She wondered as she spoke if it was too much of a tease. Shaun must be feeling awful about the disaster and responsible for Trevor’s behavior. He was already keenly sensitive about being a good dad.
She heard him step closer, could feel his closeness and anxiety. She wanted to comfort him, almost as much as she wanted to stomp on his foot and punch him.
“You know the worst part?” Shaun asked, picking up more mournfully lopsided cupcakes to add to the ugly display.
“You mean the part where the rest of the preschool finds out the cupcakes were ruined?” Andrea ventured lightly. “There’s going to be a tiny person riot.” She wasn’t sure if anyone would even eat these poor things, but it saved them from being stepped on.
“He would believe Miss Patricia when she said the same thing I did, but he wouldn’t believe me.”
Miss Patricia didn’t say she loved me. Andrea had his words on a loop in her head, and already she was fearing that she’d imagined it. She was so uncertain she felt a little sick to her stomach, and she bent to pick up more of the cupcakes.
“I’m really bungling this,” Shaun said mournfully, joining her in her hunt.
Andrea had to laugh. “Who says ‘bungling’ anymore?” She wanted to ask what he was bungling, and really didn’t, all at the same time.
“Someone who’s been trying really hard not to swear since he got custody,” Shaun said frankly. “It’s a struggle, let me tell you.”
“If you don’t make a big deal out of it, probably, he won’t catch it. Except when he does.” Andrea remembered too well her first year at the preschool, constantly stopping herself, and the frequent shame of hearing ‘Miss Andrea said it!’ Fortunately, Patricia had been very patient about it.
“Andrea?”
Andrea swallowed hard and tried to dodge the conversation she knew was coming. She wasn’t ready for it, still felt like her heart was in a cage of pins. If she let it hope, it would only get hurt. “You aren’t bungling being a dad, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she told him swiftly, reaching for one of the better-looking cupcake refuges under the table. “You’re doing a great job. Every parent here is glad they aren’t you today, and every one of them knows how close they came to being you because these kids can be feral little proto-monsters at this stage and it’s a miracle any one of them survives to adulthood.”
She stood to put her gathered cupcakes on the tray, and Shaun stood to put his own beside it.
“That’s not what I’m bungling,” Shaun said quietly. “Or at least, that’s not all I’m bungling.”
Andrea was keenly aware of how close he was standing, and of the tremble in her legs. She was also conscious of the people milling around them, sometimes popping in with stray cupcakes to add to the dismal tower, pretending not to listen in, or engaging in their own muted conversations just out of earshot.
She was saved having to find a reply by Patricia’s mother, who came bustling up nearly in tears. “Oh, Andrea, I think we’re finally ready. The rings are back, we need you.”
“Oh thank goodness,” Andrea couldn’t help saying, and she snatched up a napkin for her frosting-sticky fingers and fled back to the house.
Chapter 37
Shaun made his way back to his seat with the other guests. Everyone seemed more amused than dismayed by Trevor’s antics, and the mood was light-hearted and cheerful. He got many long looks, but most of them were accompanied by knowing smiles and friendly nods, as if he had just been accepted into some secret circle of parents-of-occasionally-terri
ble-children.
He smiled back tentatively as he took his seat, and put his jacket on the seat next to him to save it for Trevor.
The music started up on the little sound system and Shaun had a moment of gratitude that Trevor had chosen to destroy something less expensive. It could have been worse, he told himself.
He could have flushed the rings instead of throwing them into the swimming pool. One of the groomsmen had damp hair, and had undoubtedly had to dive in and retrieve the rings.
Then Andrea appeared at the end of the aisle, holding flowers and leading the straggling string of preschoolers behind her.
Sunlight gleamed on her upswept dark hair and turned her skin to honey. She was wearing high heels that couldn’t make her look tall and walking very slowly and deliberately out of respect for the train behind her. As she passed, gazing straight ahead, Shaun thought she wobbled and flushed, but the capering children behind her had most of the audience’s laughing attention.
A dozen preschoolers were waving bubble wands and throwing petals as they skipped at highly variable speeds down the aisle.
Trevor was one of the slower ones, stopping frequently to carefully blow bubbles. He waved to Shaun as he passed.
“Keep moving, kids,” an older woman dressed as a bridesmaid reminded them, looking amused and a little overwhelmed.
Clara walked last of the children, satin pillow tucked under one arm as she carried the rings in determined little fists. She was scowling, and Shaun found himself pitying Trevor the job of winning her forgiveness.
Last of all was Patricia, walking slowly enough that her limp wasn’t noticeable even though there were glimpses of her boot beneath her skirt. As she proceeded to the dais, eyes full of laughter fixed on her husband-to-be, the children were released out into the audience by Andrea and scurried to their families, loudly declaring what they’d just done.
“I blew bubbles! Hundreds of them!”
“I had flower petals! Mine were pink!”
Trevor was silent but smiling, and he was the only kid to filter into the groom’s side of the wedding, where he climbed directly into Shaun’s lap.