“How long were you listening at the front door for?” I fiercely demanded of my little brother. “And what are you doing home so early?”

“Woah, I just came right at the end there.” Elliot said while putting his hands up defensively. “Also, the school let everyone go home early today.”

It was my turn to glare suspiciously at someone now, unconsciously mirroring my mother’s behavior. I attempted to pry the truth out of my little brother with just my stare.

“Hey honest, I swear.” Elliot insisted. “I totally didn’t hear anything about your plans to seduce an older guy with a nice car.”

“You little!” Lunging forward to strangle the life out of my dear baby brother, I was stopped by my mother who was still standing next to me. She grabbed tightly onto my arm preventing me from exacting my righteous punishment upon him.

“That’s enough now. Don’t take it out on your brother for something you were caught doing.” My mother reasoned.

“I wasn’t doing anything!” I protested, my voice whiny and irritating, even to me. “I already explained he’s just a special agent with the FBI who was giving me a ride home.”

“The FBI?” Elliot asked, his tone of voice and demeanor shifting dramatically. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I told him. “They were just asking me some questions about what happened last Thursday.”

“Oh.” Was all he said. He was suddenly looking very uncomfortable, and unhappy even standing here. “I’m…going to go to my room then.”

With that, Elliot turned and left us, heading up the stairs and then to his room. Mom and I silently watched him go.

Elliot had seemed like he had intentionally been keeping a bit of distance from me. At first, I thought it was because he was mad I ‘borrowed’ his bike that night, but now I’m beginning to realize there was more to it.

“Is he okay?” I asked my mom.

“I think so, sweetie. He just…well he’s worried about you in his own way. Elliot’s still pretty young, and I don’t think he knows quite how to express or process his feelings about what happened or almost happened to you that night.”

“Oh.” I said, echoing Elliot’s reply.

Elliot was that worried about me? I had a hard time wrapping my head around that, based upon his usual behavior around me.

“Should I talk to him?” I asked.

“Hmm, you can if you like, but maybe give him some space. It might be better to let him come to you when he’s ready.”

“Alright, I guess I should’ve realized what he was feeling, huh.” I admitted.

My mother smiled warmly at that. “Oh sweetheart, you’re still pretty young as well, you can’t be expected to understand others as well as you might like. Truthfully, even we adults are hardly perfect at it.”

“I guess…” I responded, unconvinced.

“Come on, come into the kitchen with me, and help me make something for dinner.” Mom suggested. Well, her suggestion was technically probably an order, but she said it in such a nice and casual way that it almost didn’t seem like one.

“Ah… alright, what are we making?” I asked, trying to get an idea of what fate had in store for me.

“Well, before you got home I was chopping up the vegetables for a stew. But I was also planning on making an apple pie to have with it for dessert.” She explained.

That did sound pretty good, especially since I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast.

Restraining the drool from leaving my mouth, I followed behind my mom as she led me into the kitchen.

There were already ingredients strewn about in some sort of ordered chaos on the various countertops. I’m certain my mother had a system in place and knew where everything was and why it was there, but to my eyes, it looked like a miniature food tornado flew through our kitchen depositing items and ingredients around at random intervals.

“Uh, so what do you want me to help with then?” I asked a bit apprehensively.

“Why don’t you help by starting with preparing the apples over there.” She said while pointing to a random counter with a pile of apples strewn atop it.

Doing as instructed, I made my way over and started to look for a nearby paring knife or peeler. I started opening and closing drawers at random in search of the proper tool until finally I found a small knife that should do the job.

As I started to painstakingly peel the apples with the knife I found, I’d give quick cursory looks in my mother’s direction to see what she was doing and more importantly try to figure out what she’d try asking me next.

But she was just busily working on her own task of preparing the remaining vegetable for the stew she was making and didn’t seem inclined to start up any further interrogations at the moment.

Unsure I trusted this momentary silence, I continued my work while still keeping a careful eye on my parental overseer. After a while though, my discomfort started to lessen as I began to accept the fact that she wasn’t going to start bombarding me with questions at any moment.

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Once I began to accept that fact, the awkward and uncomfortable silence started to change into a more peaceful and relaxing one.

The sound of our knives could be heard in the quiet room cutting, dicing, and in my case peeling the various foods we were preparing. It was surprisingly nice to be doing this together after the tense way things had been just a handful of minutes prior.

Eventually though, my task of peeling and cutting up the apples had to end. I somewhat reluctantly turned to my mom for further instructions.

“All done.” I said. “What else do you need me to do?”

“Hmm, ah good. There should be a premade pie crust in the fridge there. Just take it out and start putting the pieces of apple you cut up inside.” She instructed. “We’ll wait until after the stew is started before we stick the pie in the oven. Ideally, we want it to still be warm when we serve it for dessert.”

“Um, alright.” I told her.

Making my way over to the fridge and pulling out the pie crust waiting within, I off-handedly asked my mother a question. “So, do you know what time Dad’s supposed to be home tonight?”

The sound of my mother chopping up ingredients stopped.

Oh frick, Mom and Dad were still kind of fighting. I forgot about that with everything else going on in my head.

“Uh…” I said awkwardly.

“It’s fine sweetie, you didn’t say or do anything wrong by asking that. I just…” She said before pausing mid-thought. “I still don’t know how to feel about what he did that night.”

Her confession didn’t come across as some kind of surprise, but it still hurt me to see them being so at odds with each other. They’ve never really ever had a fight as bad as this one. As much of a tough no-nonsense businesswoman as she could come across out in public, when she was home and around Dad, she always seemed to turn into a big softie.

“Do you really still blame him for what happened that night? It wasn’t his fault we were attacked by a wild animal.” I tried to tell her.

“It was his fault you were there.” She responded curtly.

Not knowing how to respond at first, the awkward silence that had earlier been dispelled, began to return.

“Even if he stopped me from going and sent me back to my room, I still would have escaped out my window and gone anyway.” I lied, partially. That was my backup plan, but if my dad had caught me I probably would’ve been too chicken to try to escape a second time. Mom didn’t need to know that though.

“He didn’t though. He didn’t try to stop you.” My mother countered.

“He didn’t know what was going to happen.” I said in Dad’s defense. “He thought…he thought that letting me go to what he thought was a normal party with other teenagers was a good thing for me.”

“Pfft.” My mother responded with ladylike elegance. “I already told you my feelings on you going to parties like that, but that isn’t why I’m still…upset with him. He lied to me and he put you in danger by doing so.”

“Mom…” I said weakly.

“You could have died that night Jenni.” She told me with tears starting to build up in the corners of her eyes. “I could have lost you like those other poor parents lost their own children that night.”

Seeing my mom start to tear up, almost made me do the same in response, but I was just barely able to hold them back as she continued.

“And it would have all been your father’s fault if you had. How do I even begin to let that go?” She seemed to be sincerely asking me that question.

I had no idea how to answer that. How could I even begin to respond after everything I learned today? Part of me wanted to break down and confess the truth to her right then and there, but I quickly realized that even if I could, it’d probably just make her worry about me even more.

“But I didn’t die Mom. I’m alive, and I’m still right here.” I told her, trying to will my heartfelt feelings toward her with my words.

Seeing my mother pause and maybe consider what I was saying, I decided to build on my momentum. “Maybe Dad made a mistake, but do you really want to…end things over what-ifs.”

“Oh, I don’t want to end things with your father, sweetheart. That’s the last thing I want.” She admitted while looking down in contemplation, gathering her thoughts and feelings.

“Have you told him all this?” I asked.

“Of course, and he's been his…typical understanding and reasonable self about it all, accepting whatever blame I put on him, promising to do better in the future, telling me he would never knowingly put you in danger.” My mother explained. gesturing casually with the large knife she was still holding in her right hand as she did so.

“But you don’t believe him?” I guessed.

“Of course I believe him, but that was part of my problem to begin with. I trusted him implicitly before last week. Now though…I don’t know. I feel like I’ll have to constantly second guess everything he tells me.” She admitted. “And honestly, that sounds exhausting.”

“So you don’t…you don’t think you can ever forgive him?” I quietly asked, not wanting to hear the answer but still needing to anyway.

She didn’t respond right away. That caused my heart to sink. I almost wanted to start crying then and there, but after a moment she did begin to respond.

“I already forgive him. Damn it all. Despite myself, I’ve already accepted all of his many heartfelt apologies and sappy promises, to be a better husband, to be a better father, all of it.” She finally confessed.

My breath almost caught in my throat at the relief I felt when she said that.

I was double startled when an inopportune blue box popped up in front of me.

Skills Updated!

I jumped slightly and let out a loud “Eep!” when the annoying thing suddenly manifested in front of my face.

My mother turned to me and asked. “Are you alright? What happened?”

“I uh, I’m fine. I just felt a chill and got goosebumps.” I lied.

I gave the interrupting blue box and menacing glare for scaring me like that. Why now of all times did it feel the need to send me that message?

Taking my mind off my mother for a moment I willed the stupid blue box to give me the information I wanted.

Skills Updated:

Knife Mastery 61 => 62

Meal Preparation 33 => 34

Empathy 50 => 52

Taking in the information, I willed the blue box to disappear once more, and it obediently complied.

While the skills that improved made sense, I’m not sure I agreed with all the starting values. I know I didn’t spend as much time cooking as my mom, but low 30s for Meal preparation seemed unfair. Also a middling score of 50 for something like empathy? That was just insulting.

I gave a huff of indignation before trying to put the information out of my mind and turning back to look at my mother who was still standing there with a slightly confused and concerned look on her face.

“So.” I began in what I hoped was a convincingly cheerful tone. “Do you want to finish cooking so that everything will be ready for dinner time?”