Ezra's Secret
Page 11
A small red dragon the size of a large dog pumped his wings and shrieked at everyone. He whipped his head around and sent out a small belch of flame before it puffed out.
Pop shook his head. “Cool your temper, son. It isn’t the end of the world.”
“Jeez,” Liam remarked. “It’s only a little piece of candy.”
I rounded on my brother. “Will you can it? You didn’t have to provoke him like that.”
“What did I do?” He held out both hands in a picture of innocence.
A creak above my head made me glance up. There was Nora on the upstairs landing. She looked straight down on the scene with wide eyes. All at once, she whirled away and I heard her voice retreating down the hall toward the bedrooms. “You know what, Mom? Let’s go back to my room. You can show me what you brought for the baby.”
I let out a broken sigh of relief. Janine didn’t see Brody in his dragon form, but her visits always put me on edge. I jumped forward and caught the little creature by both hind legs in one hand.
He screeched louder than ever. He dangled head down and thrashed his little wings in all directions. I held him at arm’s length to avoid getting hit by his puny flames, and I trucked him off to my parents’ room where Janine wouldn’t see him.
I shut the door and turned on the dragon. Now what was I going to do with him? I had to wait for him to settle down and shift back.
Before I could decide what to do, he shifted on his own. He drooped in my hand, and there was my little boy hanging by his ankles with his curly hair hanging down toward the floor.
He burst into tears and I swung him up in my arms. I hugged him against my chest while he howled and sobbed. “It’s not fair! It’s mine!”
I rumpled his hair. “I know, buddy.”
I sat down on Ma and Pop’s bed and cuddled him. What else can a father do in these situations? I kissed his hair and waited for the storm to pass.
Just then, the door opened and Nora scooted into the room. She hurried to my side. “Is he all right?”
“He’s fine. He just got upset. That’s all.”
She sank down on her knees and put her arms around both of us. “Thank Heaven Mom didn’t see him.”
“It’s only a matter of time before she does. I keep telling you, Nora. Her visits are getting dangerous.”
“I know,” she murmured, “and she’s only going to get more insistent about visiting more often. Daddy’s not going to make it, and then she’ll be on her own. We’re her only family, and just now upstairs, she said she wants to move closer so she can be a bigger part of the kids’ lives.”
“That’s impossible. You know that.”
“I know!” she whispered. “I just don’t know what to say to her. She keeps dropping hints like she might want to come and live here with us. If we were any other family, I wouldn’t hesitate, but under the circumstances, it’s out of the question. I just don’t know how to let her down easy without hurting her feelings. She already thinks I don’t love her for not suggesting it before now.”
“We have to do something,” I told her. “We have to find a way to make her visit less, not more. These kids will only get more volatile as they get older. Believe me. I’ve seen dragon shifter kids when they hit puberty.”
Nora gazed at Brody. Her fingers trailed in his hair in an absent sort of way. “There is one thing we could do. I know two people who might be able to advise us how to deal with this.”
“Who?” I asked. “Anything you can think of, I’m all ears.”
“Your parents,” she murmured. “Your Ma must have gone through the same thing with her family when she married your Pop. Maybe she can help us.”
“You’re right. I didn’t think of that.”
Brody squirmed out of my embrace and put out his arms to her. “Mama!”
“I know, baby,” she crooned.
She leaned in close and hugged him against me. I put my arms around both of them. My little family. I wouldn’t live without them for anything. Not even all the problems of raising dragon children could make me regret the choices I made to get to this point.
I pressed my lips into Nora’s hair. Whatever happened with her mother, we would face it together. We would always have a family. We would always have people around us who understood and supported us. Our kids would never grow up alone.
This house made a little bubble of safety and love in a dark world surrounded by people who didn’t understand. If they knew, they would try to kill us all.
Snow and dark and cold closed around the house. The light and warmth and love inside these walls protected us from the unknown out there in the dark. We lived in the snow globe, that tiny, luminescent world whole and inviolate unto itself. For an isolated minute in time, I didn’t want to be anywhere else. I didn’t want to know what existed outside that snow globe, outside the little cabin with the glowing windows and the smoky chimney.
Then Nora stood up. She took Brody out of my arms. “Come on. Let’s go back out there.” She bounced Brody on her elbow and kissed his apple cheek. “Cheer up, sweetie. It’s Christmas Eve.”
She led the way out to the living room just as Janine came down the stairs. Brody dropped to the floor and scuttled over to Pop. He perched on Pop’s knee, and Pop picked up their conversation about the doll where they left off.
Janine sat down in the same place on the couch and flipped the pages of a magazine. Laughter and banging came from the kitchen with the women making piles of food for dinner.
Peace and tranquility settled over the living room, and everything went on as though nothing had happened. To my family, nothing had happened. Some kid having a tantrum and shifting into a dragon and blowing flame everywhere—it was all par for the course when it came to raising dragon shifter kids.
I leaned against the kitchen counter and observed the whole scene. Another generation rose and grew on Smokey Ridge. The seasons turned. People were born, grew, and grew old. Nothing ever changed, and yet everything changed beyond recognition.
I used to be like Brody, sitting on my Pop’s knee and fighting over scraps of Christmas candy. Time twisted, and I found myself looking in on a scene from my own life. That little boy was me, and the old man was my grandpop.
Was I a ghost? Did I even exist? No, I wasn’t a ghost. I couldn’t be with this beautiful, talented, brilliant, loving woman putting her arms around me and lifting her fragrant lips to kiss me. She made me alive. She made me a man. She made me a father. She made me everything I ever wanted to be and so much more. She made life worth living.
The End.
More from Jadyn
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