said, “You know, Christopher used to throw such bad fits that the neighbors called the cops on us once.”
I tore my eyes away from Shayla long enough to give Gus an incredulous look.
He nodded in confirmation and went on. “You’d be amazed at what set him off. Mostly it was not getting his way, but sometimes—and don’t quote me on this—sometimes I think he just did it for the fun of it. I think it felt good to the little guy to let it rip once in a while.”
“But did he do it in public?” I was ashamed at the scene we’d caused.
“If he really wanted to get his way, he did. There’s nothing like a little public embarrassment to make a parent give in!”
After a very brief time outside, Bev reentered the restaurant with a sullen Shayla walking next to her.
“What do you say?” she asked the little girl whose bottom lip stuck so far out it looked glued on. “Shayla?” Bev coaxed.
“Sowwy,” Shayla said, and though her eyes were trained downward and her body turned away, I was pretty sure the words were intended for me.
Bev deposited Shayla in her seat and placed her napkin in her lap, then circled the table to sit by Gus.
“Have a nice talk out there?” he asked.
“Shades of Christopher,” she answered.
I glanced at Shayla while Gus and Bev perused their menus. She looked dwarfed by the bench, her little hands clasped in front of her and her chin against her chest. I saw her take a hiccuping breath as tears gathered in her eyes. There was “I miss my daddy” written all over her face, and it broke my heart. I scooped her into my arms and held her like that while I ordered our meals and waited for them to arrive. She never really cried outright, which was more heart-wrenching to me than overt tears would have been. She just sat there, occasionally answering the questions we asked her, but mostly staring at the door every time it opened. I think she was waiting for a conductor to come by.
And after it was all over, every patron in the train car smiled at Shayla as she walked toward the exit, as if she were the best-behaved little girl in the whole wide world. Me? I got stares. But Bev had explained to me, after the earlier scene, that the stares only meant “You’re interesting” and not, as I had assumed, “We dislike you intensely.” So I squared my shoulders, pasted on a smile, and left the restaurant under the patrons’ stares with as much dignity as I could muster.
Back home and ready for sleep, Shayla sat against me in her bed while I finished reading A Fly Went By. She smelled of toothpaste and baby shampoo and was so soft and snuggly that I had trouble associating this sweetness with the tantrum I’d witnessed earlier.
I closed the book and scrunched down a little farther in the bed, turning sideways so her head could rest on the pillow. “Did you like the train restaurant?”
Her head nodded against me.
“What part did you like the best?”
She took her time answering. “The cat,” she said.
Of course. We’d gone out to dinner in a train and eaten all new foods, and the memorable item of the evening had been a cat wandering past in the street. Children—how had I managed to inherit one?
“Is that why you got so mad? Because you wanted to see the cat?”
She shrugged and I sighed. “You need to obey me when I ask you to do things, Shayla. You might not understand why I’m asking you to do them, but you need to obey anyway.”
“Or you’ll get mad at me?” she asked in a hesitant voice.
“Did you think I was mad at you tonight?”
She nodded.
I knew the taste and texture of a parent’s wrath. It was acrid and coarse—noxious. It had no place in Shayla’s world. “I wasn’t really mad,” I said, stroking the hair back from her forehead. “I just wanted you to sit down because that’s what you’re supposed to do in restaurants. I was annoyed and frustrated, but I wasn’t really mad.”
She shrugged again.
“What did Bev tell you when you went outside with her? Do you remember?”
“She said scweaming’s not helping.”
“That’s all?” Trust Bev to make it simple.
“And she said my mom loves me.”
I felt my heart turn a cartwheel and softly asked, “Do you believe her?”
Another nod.
“Well, good, because it’s true.” I kissed the top of her