The New Narnia- Chapter 59: The Burden of Hope (Patreon)

Chapter 59: The Burden of Hope

Tommy sat on the floor trying to keep himself awake. He was half slumped over a mess of wooden alphabet blocks that he was trying to make into a stage. For what?  What action figures would be his leads and what parts they would play? He didn’t know.  It was more for the act- the repetitive motion of gathering and stacking- that kept him from falling asleep on the floor.  Even the rough hewn play carpet felt deceptively comfortable this morning.

Charlie crawled up and tapped Tommy on the shoulder. “Hey kid, you okay?”

Tommy sat up with a jolt. He was about to scream some kind of obscenity or another but stopped himself the millisecond his vision unblurred enough to recognize his estranged father turned playmate.  “Hm? Yeah,” Tommy replied.  “Yeah. I just didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Hard getting used to a crib?” Charlie ventured.  “I remember the first couple of months I kept rolling over and bumping into the bars.”  He smiled ruefully.  “Which is weird cause I never used to fall out of bed before.  Had to learn how to be still all over again.”

A yawn the size of a hydragon bellowed out of Tommy.  “No, that’s not it,” he said. “I just…” Tommy paused, partly from brain-drained fatigue and partly out of caution.  “I was up all night talking to Katy.”

Charlie shifted his weight backwards and sat down on his bottom, his legs splaying out in a kind of backwards ‘w’.  “Yeah? She trying to steal your diapers or something?”

Tommy couldn’t remember if he’d told Charlie about that or not and his face likely showed it.  “Huh?”

Charlie shrugged. “What? It happens during the…” he searched for the right word. “Transition…?”  His face scrunched up like he’d just tasted sour milk.  Not the right word. “It happened to me. I figured it happened to you. So it’s happening to her, too.” His face scrunched and went slack with relief.  He let out a tiny chuckle. “Heh. I’m still not used to being able to talk about this stuff and have somebody actually understand me.”  

Being able to talk was a gift. Being able to talk openly was a goddamn luxury. One Tommy didn’t have at this point in time.  “No she wasn’t trying to steal my diapers,” Tommy answered. “We were just talking.”

“About what?”  Charlie cocked his head to the side.  Katy wasn’t fully regressed like the other adult babies in this place but she wasn’t much better. Katy couldn’t possibly be that interesting to talk to.

Tommy grimaced.  He dare not say. Annie or any of her other forms could be listening. The daycare workers were likely recording. “I was trying to explain our current situation in terms she could understand.”

“Why?” Charlie asked. “The magic makes everybody forget and justify stuff, anyways.” He wrinkled his nose in memory. “It’s weird being in your late thirties and having a teenager change and bottle feed you.”   Charlie wasn’t getting it. Though why should he?

Tommy thought he saw an in: A way to speak in code.  “We had a babysitter last night,” Tommy said.  “A teenager.  She had one green eye and one blue one.”

Everything above Charlie’s waist from his spine to the miniscule hairs on the very back of his neck stiffened. “Oh…” Charlies said. “OOOOOOOOOOH!”  Homeboy finally caught up. “That’s never happened to me before.  I’m lucky if I catch a flash of her eyes or the sound of her voice when a newbie gets checked in.  She avoids most of us like the plague.”

“Yeah,” Tommy said. “I figured. She thinks I’m…” he hated saying this word. “She thinks I’m special, or something.”

“That can’-” Charlie stopped himself. His brain had finally righted itself into survival mode.  He understood.  They’d been given one full day to talk freely as only children and the condemned can.  They thought they’d lost everything, but the hope of getting something back or somehow losing even more was making it increasingly dangerous to talk at the daycare. The list of things they could and could not talk freely about had grown since last night and would likely be growing even more. “That’s gotta be fun.”

“You have no idea,” Tommy exhaled. “She’s giving both of us lots of special attention for different reasons.”

“Yeah. She’s probably gonna be bigger for a long long time.

“Yeah,” Tommy said. “I was explaining that kind of stuff. Kind of like how you explained to me about the best colors…?” He hoped Charlie knew he was referencing the ink.

Charlie was all on board. “I gotcha. How’d she take it?”

It was actually relatively easy to get Katie to understand it.  It was Leadshoulder having the face of a completely forgotten classmate that sealed the deal.  Katy’s mind had no way to reconcile that last part and something evidently clicked into place that yes, things haven't always been this way.

 The rest was elementary:  Magic clocks. Portals to other worlds. Fantasy pleasure traps. Enchantments that made people shrink and altered memories.  Wicked Fairies that fed on people’s maturity and turned them to eternal infants. All of that was easy enough for her to understand.  Funnily enough, being at the ‘mental age’ of a poorly potty training preschooler made it easy for his twin to accept all of the absurdities that had become fact in Tommy’s day to day.

She instantly believed that they both used to be somewhat normal if underprivileged and underachieving eighteen year old legally-but-not-quite-socially-adults.  It was no different from telling a little girl that she was really a princess forced to slave away with a wicked stepmother.  That was almost the exact metaphor Katy had concocted by herself.

The hard part had been the next step.

“She understood,” Tommy said. “But she didn’t take it well.”

“She’s mad that she’s never gonna get to grow up?”

“Sort of.” Tommy lied.  If the mismatched goddess was listening, she would be overjoyed to hear the truth and try to undermine Tommy’s deal further.  Katy had wanted to finish her transformation. She wanted to be a baby.  Not that Tommy could blame her. He had wanted the same for himself.  Guilt and selfishness kept him from recommending it.  “It’s complicated.”

Even though he’d only known Tommy for a short amount of time, Charlie knew when Tommy was holding something back. More importantly, he knew when not to press the issue.  “I bet,” he said. “Does this change anything?” Charlie asked. Tommy saw a flicker of worry cross his literal baby-daddy’s face.  “Like…we can…still be friends…right?  We’re not gonna have Katy trying to uh…horn in on us having fun or anything?”

Charlie was trying his best to talk about the plan without talking about the plan, but wasn’t nearly as adept at talking in code as Tommy. It had been over eighteen years since Charlie had had to worry about someone overhearing him.

Truth be told, there wasn’t much of a plan as of yet;  just a vague connection to the glowing algae Tommy had smuggled in from the cave, them each writing their names on the outer walls of Malacus and the sign-in sheet that checked them in and out of this interdimensional holding pen disguised as a childcare facility.

The boys had no plan. Not really. Just a goal.  A finish line but no clear path.

“What snapped her out of it?” Charlie asked. “I gave up on snapping your gr…my Mommy out of it about halfway into year two.”

“The babysitter,” Tommy said. “She uh…brought out some old imaginary friends and something clicked, I think.”

“Fuck,” Charlie said. “She can do that? Here? Take a piece of it with her?”  Charlie shuddered and shut his mouth so hard that Tommy heard his teeth click. He might as well have been whispering about the Devil on the outskirts of Hell.

Tommy stood up and stretched, bending backwards to relieve the subtle ache in his spine.  He was eighteen and the size of a toddler but felt so damn old right then.  “Apparently,” he groaned. “She was still careful,” Tommy informed. “Waited till Mary was gone.”  Calling his Mommy by her first name helped him have a certain clarity of thought.  Charlie too.

“Makes sense,” Charlie grunted. “Mufasa got killed by stampeding wildebeests.”  Tommy arched an eyebrow. “What, you know musicals but you don’t know Disney?” Charlie scoffed. “It’s a numbers game, kid. Ol’ green an’ blue can pick anybody off one at a time. Just not everybody at once.”

That made sense. As boundless as the Malacus daycare seemed at times, there was still a much greater number of people in the world.  The other night, Annie had only conjured creatures out of Malacus that had appealed to him, and he’d stumbled onto her plot only because Nox was trying to break Katy at the same time. And all of the regressed children came here.  Perhaps there were limits to her imagination if not her powers.  It kind of gave Tommy hope.  “Yeah. I get it.”

Charlie surprised him with what he asked next. “Is Katy gonna be okay?”  For a second he kind of sounded like a father asking about his little girl.

“I think she’ll be okay,” Tommy said.  “Very okay, actually.”  He’d had to promise some whoppers just to get Katy to leave him alone and let him sleep, promises he didn’t know whether or not he had the power to keep, but he thought of just exactly how to use his sweet sister’s current skill sets.  Tommy let out another loud yawn and drooped over like a scarecrow without its post.

Out of the corner of his eyes, one of the daycare drones turned their heads.  Tommy was in danger of being put down for an early nap.  He straightened up and kicked the assembled alphabet blocks so that they loudly rattled and clattered against the floor.


“Lucky,” Charlie muttered.  That made Tommy snap fully awake.  

Tommy whirled on Charlie. “Lucky? How am I lucky?!  You ever had a…a…whatever come straight into your house uninvited?”

Charlie looked hurt. “No,” he said. “I’ve never gotten that.” He inhaled sharply. “Or anyone to talk to who could talk back like they understood. Since before you were born I’ve been stuck in the world’s most crowded solitary confinement trying not to crack.”  His eyes started to well up.

“Whoah,” Tommy said, kneeling. “Charlie. I’m sorry.”

“No,” Charlies said. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be complaining.” He wiped his eyes. “It’s a stupid thing to get jealous of. I got lucky. But you, kid? You might be special.”

Tommy winced. “How am I special?”

“I thought it was genetic,” a familiar voice intruded. “Something passed down from father to son.”  Out of habit, the pair of baby boys shot their eyes towards the ceiling until they lowered to their own eye level. Annie still looked very much like her teenage temptress self, but her size and state of dress- a plaid jumper with a diaper peeking out along with matching knee high socks, her feet in mary janes and her hair in pigtails- made it obvious that the self-made Queen of Malacus was slumming it with the little people.

The boys froze, and Tommy’s senses became so hyper focused that he was actually aware of a lump depositing itself into the back of his diaper.  “Hi Annie…”

“Is there something else special about you, Tommy?”  Annie was close, uncomfortably so.  “Something that I’ve missed?”  She looked down at Charlie, still confined to his knees. “Why is he different than you, Charlie?”

Charlie bit his tongue and looked away.

“Good point,” she said coolly. “You’ve been playing here the whole time with the other babies. It’s not like you’d know.”

“Hey!” Tommy objected. “That’s not fair!”

Annie did not blink but she seemed to consider. “You’re right. It’s also not why I’m here.”

Neither boy wanted to take the bait. So they waited. And waited. And waited until Tommy was snatched up and taken to the changing table.  “Thought so,” the daycare drone said.

Tommy shut his eyes on the back of the changing table.  Please just let this be over. He fidgeted uncomfortably despite the oddly refreshing coolness of the wipes.  He should be exhilarating in this, but he wasn’t. It was all too terrible and temporary.  He missed, actually missed, the days when he was potty trained.  Back then he could still hide in a bathroom stall and pretend to be constipated or something.  But his safe distance from the mismatched shapechanger would be gone the moment the fresh Pampers was taped up over his hips.

Sooner even.  The daycare worker lowered his bottom down to the fresh padding and released his crossed ankles.  “Almost done, baby boy.” Nanny said.

Tommy’s eyes popped open.  The thirty to forty something incarnation smiled down at him while she reached for the baby powder.  She’d shifted and tagged out with one of her servants.  “No…”

“Yes,” she cooed at him, dusting over his penis with perfumed cornstarch.  “Yes, yes, yes!”

“It’s not fair!”

Nanny finished pulling the diaper up and snugly secured the velcro tabs. It was perfect. Tommy hated it.   “Poor baby,” she said. “Whoever said life was fair?” There was a tinge of sadness and anger in that last syllable.  “You’re a cutie,” she said. “But you don’t call the shots anymore than I allow you to.”  She booped him on the nose mockingly and picked him up off the padded mat.

Tommy was on his bare feet and crinkling away.  He didn’t mean to look, but he saw the shadow shrink and pigtails sprout out from it.  “Tommeeeee,” Annie whined. “I want to play!”

Charlie looked baffled at what to do, or whether to intervene. The choice was quickly taken away from him. Another teacher construct snatched him up off the floor. “I think somebody wants to play in the bouncer!” she said. “Yes she does! Yes she does!”

“Hey!” Charlie blurted out. “Now? Really?!”  He only got reassuring bum pats for his complaints.

Tommy stopped walking and about faced on his heel.  “Really?” Tommy demanded. “Really?!”

Annie hid a bratty smirk.  “What?  I thought we could play together. Alone.”  Tommy had charmed himself a supernatural stalker, evidently.  A cat that never got tired of the mouse.

“Why me?” Tommy asked.

“Like your dad said,” Annie replied, “You’re special.”

“Prove it.”  Tommy didn’t know what he was saying, but he said it.

Every adult in the nigh infinite nursery froze. Most of the regressees didn’t notice. One forty-something baby mewled that the burping had stopped. A topless woman in a loaded Huggies poked a storyteller in the eye.   The simulation was paused.  “Okay,” Annie said. “I’ll prove it.”  She took Tommy’s hand. “Let’s go play outside.”  

It wasn’t a suggestion, but a command.  To Tommy and literally every other being under her sway.  The door to the back playground swung open. In place of the usually warm and constantly temperate sunlight was the lightning blue hugh of Malacus itself.  Caregivers started ushering the adult children out towards the portal.

“On second thought,” the teacher drone holding Charlie said, “let’s get some fresh hair. I think baby would really like that!”  

Charlie’s protests were drowned out amid a cacophony of mindless burbles and babbles as droves of diapered lemmings were pushed into a glowing blue vortex. “Tommy! Ki-!”  The sound was immediately cut off when he was carried across the threshold. It was like he’d been disintegrated.

“”Where are we going?” Tommy asked. Even shrunken and dressed like a toddler, Annie’s grip was unbreakable.

“Outside.”  Annie said simply.  “It’s a surprise.  I think you’ll like it.  Promise.”  

Tommy tried to lean away from the hot blue light.  He felt like he was cattle being herded into a meat grinder. Nothing like this had yet happened.  Getting closer he swore he heard an electric hum.  “Please don’t kill me…” Tommy bleated. He didn’t know if he was begging or praying.  Both?

That gave his toddlerized tormentor and padded paramor pause.  “Kill you?” She sounded genuinely hurt. “Tommy. I don’t kill.”

Not the bodies at least.

Tommy was smart enough not to say that part out loud, but the genuine emotion that flashed across the creature’s face made the whiplash that much more drastic when he was tossed outside into…

Into…

Where exactly?

It was that first fall into the pond of the Sky Turtle all over again. Tommy was disoriented. Static raked across his brain while his senses were blanked out, overloaded, blanked out again, and slowly coming back online.

Scent was first.  Popcorn. The air smelled of popcorn. Popcorn and fried dough. Huh?  Why?  Taste was right on scent’s heels with an extra layer of grease just settling down from the air onto Tommy’s tongue.  

Then came the groaning and grinding of metal and machine,  the bleating of animals, and the high pitched shrieks of shock and surprise…only none of it was at all unpleasant.  It was the rattling of rollercoasters, the bleating of exotic pets, and the thrilled shouts of people being safely whirled around on spinning teacups.  

Touch jumped in and gave Tommy the most shocking sensory information yet.  His legs were covered! So were his feet! And his knees could touch!  Easily!  There was absolutely no bulk between his thighs whatsoever!  He might not have been wearing underwear whatsoever!  He could have peed; he was so startled, but found himself with an actual satisfactory level of bladder control!

Instead of checking for boxers or briefs, Tommy’s hands shot up to his face. Tommy’s breath paused when his fingertips brushed up against the faintest hint of scratchy stubble. What was happening?

Finally, Tommy’s eyes cleared so that blinding blue light shifted to white, then blurred images became sharper and focused and mingled with all the other sensory input his brain was feeding him.  

Tommy Dean was dressed like any average teenager in podunk Scrumpton, Georgia might.  The air was warm but blowing and the grass telegraphed every slight shift. Surrounding him were carnival rides- bumper cars, a ferris wheel, a merry go round, a tilt-a-whirl.  A petting zoo was not ten feet away with sheep and goats bleating for feed pellets.

None of that was more incredible to Tommy’s mind than the fact that the crowd was composed entirely of Tommy’s classmates. They were running, laughing, holding hands, eating shitty carnival food, screaming with joy on a seemingly endless scope of rickety rides. A few ere vomiting in open trash cans, as people did.  And as far as Tommy could discern, not one of them was dressed as a baby. Not a diaper in sight; nor onesie, nor romper; nor pigtail, nor pacifier.  To say that the crowd was in age appropriate clothing would have been redundant because after a certain point there’s no such thing as ‘age appropriate clothing’.

For a bare fraction of a moment, Tommy worried that he’d been dreaming all along:  That his shrinking and the wonderful lack of control or responsibility that he’d half lucked into and half negotiated for himself was all just a pathetic fever dream from accidentally huffing piss fumes in the boys’ bathroom and that it was only last night that he’d jizzed in his shorts while laying on a ratty old couch in Mary Dean’s shitty apartment.  

Closer inspection brought a fresh wave of relief, and a new tangle to the nonsense. In the schema and categories of Tommy’s brain, all of the people playing on the carnival rides and playing rigged ring toss games were ‘classmates’, but almost none of them were from Scrumpton.  This was the first time he’d seen almost any of these people running and walking instead of waddling, cruising, and crawling.  They weren’t his schoolmates, they were his daycare ‘friends’.

“Hey Tommy!”  Amanda called. She looked exactly like she used to, minus the bored scowl.  “I’m gonna go on the Gravitron! Wanna come?”  Stupefied, Tommy just shook his head. “Kay kay! Byyyyye!”

Tommy tilted his head and stared at her retreating form, just in case there was a hint of a diaper peeking out from her perfectly short skirt.  Nothing.   He peeled his eyes and stared out in the landscape. There were more than just carnival goers here.  The people handing out cotton candy and balloons, minding the animals at the petting zoo, and operating the rides weren’t actually people.  The knife edged tips at the top of their ears revealed them to be more of Malacus’s elves.

Tommy turned his head and looked over his shoulder.  Sure enough the back door to the interdimensional daycare was there and just as massive as Tommy remembered it. All of them were out of diapers, walking and talking, but somehow they were still the size of toddlers.

“What the actual fuck!?” Tommy exclaimed.

“You don’t like it?” Annie asked, suddenly beside him once again.  Tommy was taken aback.  It was the first time that he’d been at eye level with her and neither of them were in danger of wetting their pants.  “I thought you’d like the surprise.”

“What the fuck is going on?”  There were no better words that Tommy could find.  Any trace of eloquence had left him.

Charlie ran up to the pair, a paper plate in his hand and a greasy fried confection of funnel cake dripping out of his mouth.  “Tommy!” He yelled. “Kid!  I can walk! And people are listening to me!  It’s fucking amazing.”  Bits of fried dough flew out of his mouth while he ranted.  “Don’t know why, don't know how but…” he paused when he made eye contact with Annie.  “Yeah. I’m gonna go.”  He quickly added in.  “Thank you,” and ran away like he’d just committed a sin by directly addressing her with something beyond a swear word.

“Your father seems happy,” Annie remarked.  “Wanna try bumper cars?”  She finally released Tommy’s hand.

The boy yanked it away and massaged it, rubbed it like he was scraping off cooties.  “What the hell is going on.”

“I gave them back their essence,” the green and blue eyed fairy thing said simply.

Simple wasn’t cutting it. “I thought you couldn’t do that. One way street.”

A wry smile framed the nigh immortal things face.  “I might have fibbed,” she said. “Exaggerated.  Over-simplified.”

Not ten minutes ago, Charlie had told Tommy he was special. Tommy didn’t know why that was, or if that was true, but he decided to start acting like it. He faced her and squared up.  “Explain. Now.’

“Oh I don’t think you’re in any-”

“Anika…”

Hearing her own name stripped away a layer of the girl-thing’s facade. Mary Dean hadn’t been a great mother, but there was something universal about a particular tone and saying someone’s name; the way a parent might warningly growl when their child was pushing it.

Untold years and countless lives, and something about that affected Anika.

“Fine,” she snorted. “I feed on people’s essence and adulthood.  But I don’t process it all at once.  I’ve got a reserve. Centuries. So I loaned them some.”  She turned her back and crossed her arms, for the first time seeming more like a child than anything else. “It’s not exactly like their old stuff,” she said. “Everybody’s gets mixed together. And it’s not the memories.”  

That explained why Amanda seemed more aware, but not nearly like she used to be and nowhere close to as scared or shocked or confused as she should be.

“But you can give it back,” Tommy pressed. “You can turn people back if you want! Undo damage?”

Like a child, Annie stomped her foot.  “It’s not that simple!” she said. “You bend dreams an’ essence an’ reality an’...an’...an’... stuff gets messy!”  

Holy cow…

She was older than any human alive, had the appearance of a college freshman, but in her frustration she was starting to adopt more and more toddlerish mannerisms.  

As if hammering her point Annie gestured to the still massive brick building behind them. “Size and scale are hard.  It’s easier to shrink illusions than to grow real people back up!”  She spread out her arm and indicated the literal circus conjured up before them.  “And it’s easier to do here than out there!”  She waited for a beat then tacked on, “And it’s not perfect. Everybody but Charlie is like fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.  I had to eyeball it.”  Followed immediately by, “I’m only letting them borrow it. It’s all coming back later.”

“But you could let us all grow up again,” Tommy said. “If you wanted to.”

The mad goddess laughed as if Tommy had genuinely surprised her with a genuinely funny and well timed joke. “Why would I want to?  Why should I?  They need this.”  She said it with such certainty Tommy knew there was no arguing with it.

“Then why are you turning them back?”

She trapped his hand again. “To play with you, silly.” The color drained out of Tommy’s face and a rock landed squarely in his gut.  “We played pretend truth or dare last night.  I thought we could play ‘carnival’ today.”  Seductively, slowly, threateningly, she leaned in and whispered. “I’m very, very good at playing pretend.”

Tommy got a hefty dose of the worst kind of reality.  Madness was exciting. Madness was unpredictable.  Madness was dangerous.  Tommy had gotten so much that he’d wanted, including things that he never really knew he needed.  He’d also yet to get a moment’s peace.  What was the point of getting a form of paradise if he was constantly on guard or jumping through hoops and worried that there’d be a new wrinkle added?

Damn.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go play pretend.”  And Tommy spent the rest of that day pretending to be happy at a carnival.  At least Charlie got to walk for a few hours.

************************************************************************************************************

Later that afternoon, Tommy had managed to get Mommy to take him over to Charlie’s house. She was next door, playing with Katy, and Mrs. Watson was baking cookies in the kitchen. Tommy was allowed to patrol the carpet freely while Charlie was stuck in a playpen. The benefits of being a toddler in a baby’s house.

“I haven’t gotten to have that much shitty food in forever,” Charlie belched from his playpen. “Or go on a roller coaster.  Or drink from a cup.  Or barf and not have somebody wiping my mouth.  That was great.  You really are something special, dude.”

Special.  That word bothered him. “I don’t feel special.”

“Are you kidding?”  Charlie stood up and steadied himself on the railing.  “Things are getting less and less boring all the time since you showed up.  You think Scrumpton is boring?  Try Scrumpton as a baby.  It’s the pits.”

Tommy paced.  “I’ve got a crazy lady who wants to impress me.”

“She likes you.”

“She doesn’t like me, like me,” Tommy said. “She’s just not done playing with me.”  There was a thought. “What if she’s never done playing with me? What if I’m just some kind of cosmic bully magnet?”

“Too bad you can’t fuck her up real good and humiliate her like Leadshoulder.”

Tommy leaned up on the other side of the playpen. “Come again.”

“Leadshoulder?” Charlie said. “The dwarf. He looked like some asshole I knew back when I was your age.”

“Yeah,” Tommy remembered. “Me too.”

“I messed him up real good.  Rubbed his face in it.”  A cruel smirk flashed its way to the surface of Charle’s mug.  “Then the real one started being nicer to me.”

“Oh,” Tommy frowned. “I kinda did that. I stood up to him, but I forgave him.”

“Yeah?” Charlie seemed mildly interested.  “Why’s that?  Did the real version not deserve it?”

“No, he did.” Tommy said. “Just…” Why did he have a bad taste in his mouth all of a sudden?

Charlie went on; oblivious. “Yeah, and then there was this mean elf chick.  Total bitch, but I had a crush on her.  No, it wasn’t your Mom.  I put her in her place but good. Knocked her down so many pegs it’s…it’s…”  Charlie looked kind of ashamed. “Yeah I’m not proud of it but I thought it was just a dream at the time.  People do fucked up shit in video games that they’d never do in real life.”

“I disarmed her, but then we had a talk.”  Tommy recounted. “Why didn’t you?”

Charlie fell flat on his padded ass, unphased.  “I dunno. I used my time in Malacus to feel powerful.”

“But you sound like you were kinda shitty,” Tommy said flatly.

His shrunken father didn’t bother to sound defensive.  “Yeah. I was. Life was kinda shitty to me. I took the chance to be shitty right back.  It’s a vicious cycle but…whatever.”

“Yeah…same with Annie.  Life was shitty to her too.”  Tommy stood up on his tippy toes to maintain eye contact.  “But it didn’t feel right for me to do the same, even if it was imaginary.”

“That’s probably why she does the whole baby thing,”  Charlie mused. “Victims and bullying is all she knows. It’s just a matter of who is on what end of the stick.” He sucked his thumb contentedly for a second.  “And babying us makes her feel like less of a bully.  If that whole nun thing you told me about is true, you’d think she’d practice more of that treat others the way you want to be treated schtick.”

“Yeah…” Tommy said. A lightbulb turned into a nuclear explosion in his mind.  Tommy smiled, and not just because of gas. “Charlie? Dad. I think I know what makes me special.”

Charlie looked surprised.  “Did you just call me ‘Dad’?”

“Yeah,” Tommy replied. “I guess I did.  And I think I know how we can fix all of this.”

Then they planned.