The broken boy - healed by innocence

El’phants

*Cooper*

As though her answer explains everything, she spins on her heel and heads into the house, leaving me with the certainty that there's more to the story than Faith is letting on.

Once, she had confided everything to me, but my departure created a distance between us, which had been my intention, only I had expected to limit it to miles traveled, not trust wavering. So much needs to be said, so many amends made, but not now with dusk on the horizon and people waiting on us.

Traveling a path I have journeyed hundreds of times, I step onto the porch and wander into the house, where the fragrance of home wafts around me. No other place I have ever visited smells like this, like warmth, welcome, and love.

The entryway is cavernous, but the rugs stifle the echo of my footsteps as I make my way to the stairs. I remember the first time I ascended them, the fear and shame that had accompanied me. Now I trudge up with the confidence of a man who knows himself, knows his place in the world is wherever he wants it to be.

At the landing, I turn down the hallway and walk to the last room on the left. The first night I had stayed there, Chase had given me a key so I could lock myself in, lock other people out.

Later, lying in that bed, staring at the ceiling, I felt safe, an unfamiliar peace coming over me. I had thought I would never want to leave.

It was a belief that stayed with me until the night Faith had come to my cabin.

Shoving back those memories, I push open the door and stride into the room where I will sleep until it's once again time to make myself scarce.

*****

“I have a horse and a calf and a dog,” the scruffy mutt sitting quietly frozen and at attention beside her chair, “and a chicken. I want an el’phant. Do you know what an el’phant is?”

“I do,” I say from my place across the table from the little minx, who hasn’t stopped talking since we had all taken a seat. “I have even seen one.”

She nods exitedly, “Me too!”

“A circus came through last summer,” Faith explains before I can ask where she have seen one. It might have been the same traveling menagerie show I had visited during my short stint in Colorado.

“I like el’phants,” Dee states emphatically, looking longingly at her mother.

“We’re not getting one,” Faith says patiently.

The child turns her earnest attention back to me. "Do you like el’phants?"

I smile, "I like looking at them. I wouldn't want to have one around, though. It makes a lot of mess. You would have to spend your day shoveling out its stalls, then washing and feeding it. You wouldn't have any time for playing."

Her tiny brow furrows as though she is seriously weighing the effort to have an elephant against her other choices. "I can swim. Can you?"

I reckon with that blurted question, the topic is moving on from animals. "I can."

"I swim in the river but only if someone is watching. Want to swim with me?" She asks

"Maybe." I tell her.

But apperantly that is not enough og an answer and she instantly demands; "When?"

"Dee, do you remember the rule about talking at the table?" Chase asks.

The little sprite twists her mouth and gives him a sly look out of the corner of her eye, as though not facing him directly would prevent him from seeing her displeasure at the question. "I’m to be seen, not heard."

Chase gives a brusque nod. "That’s right."

Dee gives an identical brusque nod, before quietly picking up a pea between her tiny forefinger and thumb and offering it to the dog.

I glance over at Faith, who is struggling not to smile, and for a moment we are both kids at the very same table, determined to obey Chase’s edict… children do not talk at the table unless spoken to.

The first time Chase had asked me my opinion during a meal, I had been so taken off guard as to jerk forcefully enough to nearly topple over my chair.

Only later did I realize Chase was acknowledging I was grown. It was a wonder I had survived Faith’s glare because she had obviously not liked one bit that I had come into possession of a privilege denied to her.

I turn my attention back to the child who is quickly snagging my heart. She delicately picks up another pea and offers it to the dog, who gladly takes it. Then she squarely meets my gaze and leans toward me slightly.

"I don’t like peas," she says in what she must assume is a whisper, but her voice carries over the table. "But Rufus does. Do you like peas?"

"I do, and do you know why?" I ask.

Her eyes widen… either because I have surprised her by answering instead of scolding her for breaking the rule or because she is truly interested… and she shakes her head, stretching farther over her plate as though I'm about to impart some wondrous secret.

"They make you grow tall and run fast." I tell her.

"I can run fast already." She says.

I grin, "Bet you can't beat me."

She narrows her eyes, bites her bottom lip in concentration, as though striving to determine if she should challenge me. "Can you run faster than Mama?"

I'm still not accustomed to Faith being a mother, to her daughter referring to her as such. A part of me continues to see Faith as a young girl, while another part has to admit she is anything but, especially when her eyes hold a challenge, daring me to suppose for even a minute I could outrace her. I wonder about the man who had caught her, made her his own, and then abandoned her. I'm not happy about her keeping secrets from me. "Absolutely."

Faith scoffs. "I would like to see you try, Cooper."

The words are tossed out easily, as though no years have passed, as though no distance had come between us. "You were fast, Faith, but I was always faster. You know that."

"But you haven’t spent five years running after this little one." She tilts her head toward her daughter.

I'm slammed with regret, regret that I hadn’t been here for her. If I had known, I would have returned straightaway. I would have made the damn fool who got her with child marry her. I wonder why the hell Chase hadn’t.