A/N: This is almost too long to be a drabble in my mind, lol, but here it is. And so begins the training phase!
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As the carriage rumbled towards the plantation owned by Ezra's Aunt Delilah and Uncle Andrew and their family, Maude thought about what she was about to do.
She was going to start teaching Ezra how to take care of himself. How to handle the world. How to live in the modern universe. He needed to learn, and now that he was a year older, she figured he'd be a little safer, as long as they were careful.
She didn't know what she'd do if anything happened to him.
He'd need to learn how to make a living without relying on other people, not even her. She knew at least one career that would be sufficient, and it helped that she was very proficient in it herself. She knew she had to teach him these things as quickly as she could- while he was still young enough to accept whatever she said and did at face value, purely because she was his mother.
She steadfastly ignored the voice in her head that accused her of betraying her own son.
It was for his own good, wasn't it? Of course it was. He couldn't trust other people to watch out for him, just like she could never trust other people to watch out for her, and her father could never trust people to watch out for him. That was why he was dead. That was why Patrick was dead too.
Ezra could trust only himself to watch out for number one, and keep himself alive and unharmed. She would see to it that it was a skill he learned well, partly for his own good and partly for her own… selfish reasons.
She really didn't know what she'd do if anything ever happened to him.
It wasn't going to be easy. She was one of the best judges of character, the best readers of people, that had ever existed on that side of the Mississippi. She'd told herself she married Patrick for his money, but she'd married richer before. The truth was, she slipped, and she loved him, and look where it got her? Heartbroken when his relatively casual gambling ways (compared to her, at any rate) got him killed, relying on a partner who wouldn't risk his neck for her husband. Patrick was a soft-hearted man. He never cleaned someone out completely, he always tried to talk his way out of violence before he drew a weapon, and he was always a sucker for a sad story, even from a criminal. And, Lord help him, Ezra was just like his father. Making him into a ruthless conman would be the challenge of a lifetime. She couldn't just convince him that the world was a cynical and deadly place, out to get him, with words. She had to show him the betrayal.
Oh, she hated herself for it, but it was the only way.
The questions was, would he hate her for it?
She firmly instructed that voice in her head that if he did, it wouldn't matter, because that would reinforce the knowledge that he could rely on no one to take care of him.
That didn't make the little pang she felt any less though.
Well, she resolved to herself as the carriage rolled to a stop a few feet from the house, whatever was going to happen, she was going to see her darlin' boy and tell him he was coming with her. At least, his anticipated joy at that thought would be something to see.
When Maude got off the stage, she knew right away that something was different. Unlike the last four or five times she'd come to see her son, he wasn't waiting for her by the carriage, nor was he running out to greet her.
She walked slowly up to the portico, and found Ezra sitting on the porch swing reading a book that looked much too large for his age.
A feeling of dread crept into her heart. If he was anything like his father- and he was- he would shy away from things that were painful. He was hurt every time she left him, even if she did do it for his own good, and she had worried that he would shut her out.
If that wasn't what he was doing, then he was at least contemplating the thought.
"Ezra, darlin," She greeted him.
He glanced up at her as if he'd not known she was there. But he had, she knew he had. She could read it in his eyes.
"Mother?" He said, calmly placing his book aside and sliding off the swing to come over to her.
That was like a glass of cold water to the face. Mother? What had happened to Mama? She knew adult men who'd never grown out of 'Mama'.
She knew, even as he stood dutifully and stiffly and allowed her to kiss him with no real reaction, that she had come for him none too soon. He was being turned against her by someone. Delilah or Andrew or… or, himself, she hated to think, but that was probably true.
Or, maybe that's your doing, the voice that wouldn't shut up said.
"Where's your aunt and uncle?" Maude asked her son.
"Inside," said Ezra.
She couldn't help but watch her son from the corner of her eye. He was obviously excited. She could see it in his eyes. The rest of his face, though, was mostly bored looking. She would definitely need to work on it with him, but his poker face would no doubt be superb some day.
She went inside and talked to Ezra's Aunt and Uncle, and after a few minutes, she regrouped with Ezra.
"Well, Ezra, would you like to show me your room?" she asked her son.
His little face became a bit less guarded as she allowed herself to be dragged up the stairs behind him, to take a tour of the… well, rather meager room he had been assigned by Delilah. Not for the first time, she got a bad feeling about Delilah and Andrew. They seemed nice enough, but she wondered about their competence to care for children, especially since they had none of their own.
"We went for ice cream once, Mother, when we went to town," Ezra was saying.
"What of the other times you went to town?" Maude said, trying to ignore the mother bit.
"We didn't," Ezra said, sounding confused by her question. "Most the time, they don't let me outside the house anyway."
Maude's faint, but still very much there, motherly instincts flared up in anger when she heard that. No one was going keep her boy locked up!
She sat down on the bed and placed Ezra on her lap. "Well, Ezra, how would you like to go to a town now?"
Ezra's head shot up, eyes searching for hers. "With you, Mother?"
Maude smiled. "Yes, son, with me. I'd like to continue your lessons."
Ezra's joy broke through his protection mode, and he sent a pair of skinny arms around her neck. She made double sure no one would see the hug she returned or the kiss she gave, and she cut it short soon, just in case. She did have a reputation to maintain, after all.
Ezra bounced down the stairs again ahead of her, his four-year-old pizazz for life and happiness back again with vengeance.
When a slave or two had loaded their things into the carriage, and they were on their way to the train station, to head for New York, she couldn't help but think that even though it didn't look like Ezra was trying to hide from her anymore, he still called her Mother.