Page 141 of Last Man Standing

“Exactly.” He gestures toward his patiently waiting Cinderella. “All fixed. You wanna help me with her saddle now? Cause she loves it when we go for rides, and I saw you with Jasper the other time, so I know you like riding too. I think Jasper loves Cinderella, like boyfriend and girlfriend like, so they won’t mind going for a walk together, and Jasper will protect us, cause he’s big and grumpy and serious all the time. Kinda like Bas.”

Kinda like Bas! “I still don’t think we should…” I release a nervous chuckle and look anywhere except at the boy. But that was a bad idea too, because I lock eyes with a patiently watchful Arabella, then I bounce back from her son and barely stop short of wheezing in terror. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to⁠—”

“It’s alright.” She meanders forward on slow feet, completely relaxed compared to her son’s wrenching half turn. At ease, despite Koda’s wild jump from the stool and his arms stretched wide as he runs around her and pretends he’s a plane.

Gulping, I take a step back and try to keep the stool between us. “I didn’t intend to bring him here. I was coming alone, and then he joined me on my walk. I didn’t stop and think about⁠—”

She extends a single hand and stops only when we’re a mere two feet apart and her fingers wrap gently around my wrist. “Please relax.” She squeezes and studies me from beneath her lashes. “I’ve given you no reason to believe me, but I promise, everything is okay. I’m not mad.”

“It’s snowing out. And we’re in here alone. I’m the woman you don’t trust, and he’s your five-year-old son, clearly vulnerable and not able to consent to a walk amongst the stables without his parents present. I didn’t think through the repercussions of⁠—”

“It’s okay.” She offers a small smile. “I knew the instant he was with you, but I didn’t rush out to snatch him back.” She whips her free arm out without even looking and coat-hangers the boy, then she yanks him into a hug that makes him squeal and giggle. “I heard that bit about you being awesome, because my oldest son is awesome, and if my awesome son thinks you’re awesome, and my youngest son thinks you’re awesome too, then obviously you must be awesome.” She pauses and shrugs. “I mean, it makes complete sense. You must be awesome.”

“I said amazing,” Koda squirms and cackles. “And don’t forget her Super Mario skills. Oh!” He spins in her arms and throws his head back to look into her eyes. If she wasn’t holding on, he would simply fling himself to the dirty ground. “And I’m better than a ferapest, Mom! Scarlett said she could buy me a house cause of how good I am at feraping.”

“Wait.” Nervous sweat beads along my spine. “That’s not exactly what I sa⁠—”

“Don’t worry.” Grinning, Arabella drops her hand over Koda’s mouth. “I heard it all. I’ve always admired how children could simplify problems we, as adults, agonize over. How they could take a situation we thought was wildly out of our control with a million what ifs and the paralyzing fear that came with them, but instead of overthinking it, they simply… resolve it.” She glances down and combs the hair out of Koda’s eyes. “My first son saved my life simply by existing. My second son gave me a reason to get out of bed again, because I thought the loss that came before him was a heartbreak I would never recover from.”

“And her third son was an accident,” Koda squeals playfully.

Chuckling, Arabella brings her eyes back to mine. “My third son just made it so I wasn’t afraid of you anymore.”

“A-afraid? Of me?” I blink, blink, blink through the shock in my system. “You…” I shake my head. “What?”

“Afraid Sebastion would choose you over me,” she murmurs shamefully. “Afraid he’d leave, and I’d never see him again. Afraid he’d stay, and you would stay, too, and then I’d have to watch him love a woman who isn’t me.” She firms her lips and drops her gaze to the ground. “I was afraid he’d stay, and you wouldn’t, and then I’d have to watch his heart break and know I was the reason for his pain.” She exhales a shaky breath and brings her eyes up again. “I was afraid of the unknowns. Of acting when I should freeze, or freezing when I should act.”

This woman, this tyrant I was so sure was untouchable, bravely lays her vulnerabilities between us, then she reaches out again and takes my hand. “Then I walked in and listened to my baby boy simplify a situation I’d previously believed exceptionally complicated. With the innocence only a five-year-old could possess, he took your fears and brushed all the noise away.”

“I feraped her, Mom.”

“And while he did that, he uncovered my fears too, and made me realize how insane I was to consider you my competition.”

Competition?

“I should never have feared my son falling in love, because him finding the woman he would choose over me is not a punishment. It’s a gift. As a mother, I should be happy he gets to love, and be loved, the same way I’ve loved and been loved by the man who helped me bring him into this world. I struggled when you arrived, because clearly I suck at change and am slow to adapt. I could’ve been forgiven if that reaction, which we all know was poor, was my only reaction. Every mother deserves a second to come to grips with this new reality. But that wasn’t my only reaction, and my behavior didn’t improve with time.”

“It’s f⁠—”

“It’s absolutely not fine,” she insists. “And everyone around me knew it. My husband cautioned me to reconsider my stance. Maverick warned. Sebastion demanded. Even my sick, dying best friend found the strength to laugh in my face and call me an idiot. But instead of listening to these good men I would, in any other instance, listen to, I grew angrier. It felt like you were stealing my family.”

“O-oh my gosh,” I stammer. “No, I⁠—”

She exhales a shaky breath and smiles. “I was being ridiculous. Those were my fears, Scarlett. They were dumb and unfounded and, worse, damaging. I harmed the relationship I had with my son. The relationship I could have, and should have, had with the woman he chose to love. I made myself look like a fool.” She drops her chin and sighs. “I made you feel excruciatingly unwelcome in my home during a time you should’ve been supported, not villainized. And your only crime was loving my son.” She brings pained eyes back up to mine. “I won’t ask you to forgive me, because forgiveness is unreasonable after my abhorrent behavior. And I certainly won’t ask you to trust me, since I haven’t earned it. I understand that I’m in no position to ask anything of you, Scarlett. But I will. Since we’re talking, and you’re so graciously listening, I’ll push my luck just a little further and ask you for just this one thing.”

I swallow a choking lump of nerves before they end me. “W-what thing?”

“That when he tells you he’s sorry for anything, for everything, that you believe him. That when he confesses to you my violation of your privacy, my insistence on tracking your incoming and outgoing communications, you let him off the hook and forgive him, because he was following orders and he never wanted to hurt you.”

“Arabella—”

“And while we’re going, I’ll ask you to love him just as he loves you, and that eventually, when he follows you away from here, because you’ll never truly be comfortable in the place that contributed to your pain, that you please, please take care of his heart.”

Tears glisten and sparkle in her eyes, punctuated by the tremor in her jaw.

“He’ll go with you,” she rasps. “And going will be the right choice for him, because that’s the love you share. But he’ll be hurting, too, because I’ve spent thirty years making my emotional well-being his responsibility.” She reaches up and knuckles a stubborn tear from her cheek. “That was wrong of me. A mother’s job is not to tie her children to the nest and convince them they can’t leave or her heart would break. It’s her job to give them a little shove, knowing she taught them how to fly. I’m telling you these things now, while he’s not here, so you have time to process the anger. The hurt. The violation. And then I’ll plead his case and hope you’ll be as gracious as you’ve always been, and forgive him for the things he didn’t do.”

“The texts and stuff?” My voice crackles with a dry ache. It splinters on my tongue. “How he was reading them, you mean?”