The wooden door opened to reveal a tall and slim women with fantastic long legs. Her hair, a beautiful shade of auburn, fell not straight, but wavy to her mid back, and her eyes gleamed a fantastic blue. Her eyes fell on the boy on her doorstep, his back straight, yet it seemed obvious that he was exhausted, both mentally and physically.
Immediately her arms wrapped around his shoulders, and he let himself sink into her arms, and she supported his weight. And they stood like that, for an incalculable amount of time, his tears falling, her running her fingers through his hair, while she whispered comforting words to his ear.
"Shh. It's okay baby, I'm here now, everything's going to be ok. It's okay my darling, shh. Come inside okay, and we'll clean you up. Come on babe."
She picked up his bags and pushed him through the door.
The inside of the house looked ten times better than the exterior, it was lavishly decorated, the walls cream colored, rich fabrics on the couches. A grand piano stood near the window covered in pictures.
Chuck walked over and looked down on the silver frames. Several of them of a beautiful brunette, entwined with a girl with auburn hair, both smiling and laughing. One of them was of the brunette in a hospital bed with a small baby in her arms, ecstatic, cooing to her child, with a tuft of light brown hair. Another one of the auburn haired women and the child, taking his first steps, his mother in the background overjoyed. There was a common reappearance of these three characters at different ages, happy and peaceful, and perfect. But the pictures seemed to stop when the child reached the age of five or six, and the oldest one was of two teenagers in matching shorts and t-shirts, brown and red hair braided into two pigtails, all smiles in front of the Eiffel tower.
Tears ran down Chucks face as he allowed himself to think about the woman he had pushed to the back of his mind for years. He whispered softly, to no one in particular, "What do I do now Maman?"
And in his mind, the soft voice of his mother resonated, "Ne t'inquiete pas mon ptit' homme, Maman est la."
"She was tres belle, your mother, n'es pas?"
Chuck turned to face his godmother, tears still flowing, "Oui, she was the most, the most beautiful."
She sighed, bringing his head to her chest, comforting him and herself by playing with his hair, "Oh, Charles mon petit bonhomme. Everything's okay now, now that you're here with me, I'm going to take care of you like he never could."
"It's not okay," he whimpered. "I'm not okay. I never was okay."
"Oh, mon ptit' homme, mon pauvre ptit' bebe. I should have never let him take you away. If I had known, I would have fought much harder, but how could I? I didn't stand a chance, but I'm here now. Tell me everything, dit a Layla ce que te fait de la peine. I can fix it, I promise."
A.N.:
"Ne t'inquiete pas mon ptit' homme, Maman est la" is French for don't worry, my little man, Mommy's here.
"Tres belle" means very pretty.
"Oui" means yes.
"Mon petit bonhomme" or "mon ptit' homme" means my little darling. They are just terms of endearment.
"dit a Layla ce que te fait de la peine" means tell Layla what hurts.
If the French bothers you, I'm sorry, but it's part of the story, I'm going to reuse a lot of the same words, so it'll be easy.