He shrugged, giving it.
She wrapped her arms around Mindy from behind, whispering soothing sounds into her ear, sounds without words. Sounds that always soothed Donny, actually. She rubbed one hand up and down Mindy’s arm, gently coercing her to be calm. While she wasn’t a strict proponent of holding therapy, she knew that sometimes physical contact worked when nothing else could reach a kid.
“Leave me ’lone!” Mindy cried with a little further struggle, but Susan just kept up her gentle hold and her wordless sounds, and Mindy slowly relaxed.
“He has a picture frame that says...” She drew in a gasping breath. “It says, Mom. M-O-M, Mom. I want it!”
Sam went pale, and Susan’s heart ached with sympathy for the pair. Losing a parent was about the worst thing that could happen to a kid. And losing a wife was horrible, but it had to be even more painful to watch your child suffer and not know how to help.
To his credit, Sam regrouped quickly. “Honey, you can’t take Xavier’s picture frame. But we can get you one, okay?”
“It might even be fun to make one yourself,” Susan suggested, paying attention to the way the child’s body relaxed at the sound of her father’s reassuring words. “Then it would be even more special. Do you have lots of pictures of your mom?”
“Yes, ’cause I’m afraid I’ll forget her and then she’ll never come back.”
Perfectly normal for a five-year-old to think her dead mother would come back. But ouch. Poor Mindy, poor Sam. She hugged the child a little tighter.
“Hon, Mommy’s not coming back, remember? She’s with Jesus.” Sam’s tone changed enough on the last couple of words that Susan guessed he might have his doubts about that. Doubts he wasn’t conveying to Mindy, of course.
“But if I’m really good...”
“No, sweetie.” Sam’s face looked gray with sadness. “Mommy can’t come back to this world, but we’ll see her in heaven.”
“I don’t like that!” Mindy’s voice rose to a roar. “I. Don’t. Like. That!”
“None of us do, honey.” Daisy squatted before her, patting the sobbing child’s arm, her forehead wrinkling. “I don’t know what to do when she’s like this,” she said quietly to Susan.
“Mommy!” Mindy wailed over and over. “I’ll be good,” she added in a gulp.
Sam and Daisy looked helplessly at each other over Mindy’s head.
“It’s not your fault. You’re a good, good girl. Mommy loved you.” Susan kept her arms wrapped tightly around Mindy and rocked, whispering and humming a wordless song. Every so often Mindy would tense up again, and Susan whispered the soothing words. “Not your fault. Mommy loved you, and Daddy loves you.”
She knew the words were true, even though she hadn’t known Sam and his wife as a family. And she knew that Mindy needed to hear it, over and over again.
She was glad to be here. Glad she had enough distance to help Sam with what was a very tough situation.
Very slowly, Mindy started to relax again. Daisy shot Susan a smile and moved away to check the stove.
“Shhh, shhh,” Susan whispered, still holding her, still rocking. Losing a piece of her heart to this sweet, angry, hurting child.
Finally, Mindy went limp, and Susan very carefully slid her over to Sam. Took a deep breath, and tried to emerge from her personal, very emotional reaction and get back to the professional. “Does she usually fall asleep after a meltdown?”
Sam nodded. “Wears herself out, poor kid.” He stroked her hair, whispering the same kind of sounds Susan had made, and Mindy’s eyes closed.
“She’ll need something to eat and drink soon, maybe some chocolate milk, something like that,” Susan said quietly after a couple of minutes. “Protein and carbs.”
“Thank you for calming her down,” he said, his voice quiet, too. “That was much shorter than she usually goes.”
“No problem, it’s kind of my job. Did she have tantrums before you lost your wife?”
Sam nodded. “She’s always been volatile. We thought it was because of her hand.”
Susan reached out and stroked Mindy’s blond hair, listening to the welcome sound of the child’s sleep-breathing. “Having a disability can be frustrating. Or she could have some other sensitivities. Some kids are just more reactive.”
“Did you learn how to be a child-whisperer in your special ed training?”
Susan chuckled. “Some, but mostly, you learn it when you have a brother with autism. Donny—that’s my little brother—used to have twenty tantrums per day. It was too much for my mom, so I helped take care of him.”
Sam’s head lifted. “Where’s Donny now?”
“Home with Mom in California,” she said. “He’s eighteen, and...” She broke off. He was eighteen, and still expecting to be going to a camp focused on his beloved birds and woodland animals, because she hadn’t had the heart to call and tell him she’d screwed up and there wasn’t any money. “He’s still a handful, that’s for sure, but he’s also a joy.”
Mindy burrowed against her father’s chest, whimpering a little.
“How long has it been since you lost your wife?” Susan asked quietly.
“Two years, and Mindy does fine a lot of the time. And then we have this.” He nodded down at her.
“Grief is funny that way.” Susan searched her mind for her coursework on it. “From what I’ve read, she might re-grieve at each developmental stage. If she was pre-operational when your wife died, she didn’t fully understand it. Could be that now, she’s starting to take in the permanence of the loss.”
“I just want to fix it.” Sam’s voice was grim. “She doesn’t deserve this pain.”
“No one deserves it, but it happens.” She put a hand over Sam’s. “I’m sorry for your loss. And sorry this is so hard on Mindy, too. You’re doing a good job.”
“Coming from you, that means something,” he said with a faint grin.
Their eyes caught for a second too long.
Then Angelica and Daisy came bustling back into the room—when had they left, anyway?—followed by Xavier. How long had she, Sam and Mindy been sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor?
“Hey, the potatoes are done,” Daisy said, expertly pouring the contents of one pan into another. She leaned over and called out through the open window. “Troy, how about those burgers?”
“They’re ready.” Troy came in with a plate stacked high with hamburgers, plus a few hot dogs on the side.
Sam moved to the couch at the side of the kitchen, cuddling a half-asleep Mindy, while the rest of them hustled to get food on the table. Susan folded napkins and carried dishes and generally felt a part of things, which was nice. She hadn’t felt this comfortable in a long time. Being around Mindy, she felt as if she was in her element. This was her craft. What she was good at.
Again, she couldn’t help comparing this evening to those she’d spent with her own family. The tension between her mom and dad, the challenges Donny presented, made family dinners stressful, and as often as not, the kids had eaten separately from the adults, watching TV. Susan could see the appeal of this lifestyle, living near your siblings, getting to know their kids. Cousins growing up together.
This was what she’d want for her own kid.
And where on earth had that thought come from? She totally