Chapter 20

Capitol Plaza Apartments
Apt. #23
Washington DC

June 2012

"You have to help Mom." Mia said when she finally lifted her head from his shoulder.

"That's the idea." Spencer replied. He wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her up to sit on the counter. She was about the same size and weight as Henry, which was kind of disturbing given her age. "Do you have any specifics?"

"You need to keep Mister Maupin away from her. From me too, but I haven't seen him in a long while."

"And you will never see him again, either of you." The problem with working around Unsubs all these years, Spencer could come up with some very creative ideas for retribution. He'd never do it, but he'd consider some.

"Good. The next thing we need to do is help her learn how to be happy."

"She's not happy?" While they talked Spencer set about making breakfast.

"No. She gets headaches all the time. She doesn't even want to read the paper with me anymore. And she cries a lot, mostly at night when she thinks I'm asleep. And she doesn't even try to talk to Balia anymore either."

"Who is Balia?"

"The nanny. I don't know her real name; we just got a new one. This one uses too much garlic. The one before her was a good cook but put too much starch in my school uniform. The one before her didn't like it when I went to play in the garden."

"How many nannies have you had?"

Mia shrugged. "I don't know. We get new ones all the time. Mom said Mister Maupin didn't want us to get attached, so it was better if I didn't get to know them too well."

"Oh. That must have been hard; being around someone you didn't know well all the time."

Mia shrugged. "When I wasn't in school I just waited for Mom to come home. We always did fun things after dinner. We'd read the paper and play games and do all sorts of things."

"That's good." That had been Shan's life, he realized. Reading in the vault all day and then spending as much time as she could teaching and socializing their daughter. And this was the result. "So what did you and your Mom do on week-ends?"

"On week-ends?"

"Yeah, Saturday and Sunday?"

"On Saturday Mom went to read and I'd stay home with Balia. On Sunday Mom would go read and then Balia and I would walk down and join her for church and then come back and wait for Father Pieto to come. Then we'd have lunch and Mom would go back for a while, but she came home early so we'd have more time to play."

"When did you go places? Go get groceries or go to the park or things like that?"

Mia shook her head. "We didn't. Mom said it would make Mister Maupin mad. Balia did all the shopping."

"Oh. So what toys did you bring with you?"

"Ummm..." She slid down off the counter and ran into the bedroom. A moment later she came back out with a small tin box and lifted her arms to be helped back on the counter. "I think Mom brought all of them." She said as she opened the box.

Spencer peeked. Inside were eight little toys, two of which were Matchbox cars, the rest no bigger. "Where did you get those?"

"Inside the chocolate eggs Father Pieto brought me for Pasqua."

He pulled out his phone and checked. "Easter. What about for Christmas? Ummm...Natale?"

"We didn't celebrate Natale, or the Epiphany or anything else. I asked Mister Maupin if we could go see the Cribs, he said that Mom shouldn't be distracted. When I said that all the other kids got to go he pulled my hair really hard, said no again and pushed me into the bedroom so hard I fell."

"That was very rude of him." Maybe I can use Bernard's eyeballs for taxidermy, he thought.

"Yeah, it was."

"I know you've never done Halloween or Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July."

"Nope."

"And you never went to the park or to the mall or to the movies...?"

"Nope. Mom said we could do all those things when we moved back to America. Can we do them now?"

"I don't think we can fit it all in one day, but we can certainly start." And Shan said he missed stuff. Didn't sound like he had missed anything.

That got a huge, beaming grin. "And can I read all your books?"

"I don't know, can you?" He teased.

"I meant may I? We never had any books at home, and you have a lot of them!"

"Yes, you may. Just don't read anything on my desk, okay?"

"Okay. So how do we help Mom be happy?" Mia asked as she started swinging her legs.

"Hmmm." Now how was Spencer going to explain this to an eight year old? "That's kind of a complicated one. Have you ever seen anyone clean out a closet? Or maybe cabinets like these? Something with lots of boxes?"

"My teachers at school do at the end of the year."

"Well, grownups have this thing they do sometimes. If they get really upset but they can't show it just then they kind of stick all the feelings in a box and store it in a closet in their hearts so they can keep going and doing grown up things. Does that make sense?"

"Kind of. So instead of crying they stick the tears in a box?"

"They stick the wanting to cry feeling in a box. Then that feeling goes away and they can keep doing what they have to do."

"Okay. What does that have to do with Mom?"

"Mister Maupin made her feel really bad really often. But if she said anything, if she cried or got angry, he would have hurt her or you so she stuffed all those feelings in her closet and shut them away."

"So...she cries at night when he can't see?"

He nodded. "And I think because her closet is really, really full; busting down the door full."

"So she needs to clean out her closet."

"To make room for feeling happy, yeah."

"Okay, how do we do that?"

"We don't. Helping a grownup clean out their inner closet is a job for other grownups, not for kids. What you can do to help is keep being a kid."

"Keep being a kid?"

"I think a lot of what's been packing her closet lately is frustration about not being able to take you places or do things with you or letting you spend more time with friends. You know, kid stuff. So we are going to find kid stuff for you to do. Then she can let go of those frustration boxes."

"That makes sense."

"The problem is that when grownups let go of those boxes they tend to cry as they work loose."

Mia sighed. "Great. But at least it's good crying, right?"

"Right. So don't be too upset when she does. Now why don't you go wake her up and tell her breakfast is ready so she can work that box out and get through the crying before we eat."

"Why is she going to cry over breakfast?"

"One big thing for Moms that I've noticed is making sure their kids eat a healthy diet."

"The Balias always cooked for us, except for breakfast. I wish they had cooked more."

"I'm not saying the Balias did a bad job or that there's anything wrong with Italian food. But I think your Mom wanted to be a good American kind of mom. Granted she is an amazing mother..."

"I'll say she is."

"...but because she couldn't talk to the Balias you were probably raised like an Italian kid much of the time, not an American kid..."

"Oh! Yeah, we talked about that at school a lot. How everyone's family did something different after school and for breakfast and on Sundays. Everyone thought Mom was weird." She wrinkled her nose at that.

"That's just it. Your Mom wasn't weird, Mister Maupin was getting in the way of her being the kind of mom she wanted to be. From what she told me she was really angry and frustrated and sad about that, but she couldn't show it. So now she can be that kind of mom, and I bet when she sees breakfast that's going to shake the box full of all that frustration and anger and sadness loose."

"And she'll start crying. That makes sense." Mia nodded and slipped off the counter. "I'll go tell her."

While Mia did that Spencer pulled out his folding card table, set it for three, and pulled up his wing chair, desk chair and step stool. He was just putting the food out when Shan joined him. "Good morning." She said. Then she smiled. "I'm awake."

"So am I." He said as he smiled back.

"What's for breakfast?"

"Pancakes and scrambled eggs. And I made a pot of tea."

Shan looked at the plates he was holding, blinked rapidly, and sank into the wing chair, her eyes filling with tears.

Mia handed her mother a tea towel. "It's okay Mom, you're just emptying a box." She turned to Spencer. "You're pretty smart Dad."

He nodded. "So people keep telling me."