Chapter 14

Chapter 14 – Brittney

I wasn’t sure I liked this haunted house. I was sure I didn’t like seeing parts of my life come back to haunt me. Everything we had seen so far were things I had never wanted to see again. But it was interesting . . . It was interesting how Tommy and Dad and even Mom had been able to change things. I liked that. But it was hard to watch and not know if they were going to be able to do it right – or do it at all. Plus, I knew a scene with me in it would appear soon and I didn’t know if I was ready for it at all. I had been right about one thing. This was the scariest haunted house ever.

The scene changed and there I was on the couch in the front room of our house. Mom and I were crying and holding each other. A small shudder went through me. I knew what day that was. It was the day I got lost. At least the getting lost part was over and I was back home.

My real mom stepped forward and put her hand on my shoulder. Come on, Britt,” she said. “Let’s see if we can get this right.”

My shadow self on the couch was sobbing and trying to talk. “I’m sorry, Mom! I just got lost and I couldn’t find the way!” I heard myself try to explain, “I just couldn’t do it!” My stomach wrenched. I hated that part.

“Oh Brittney,” Mom said, smoothing my hair, “It’s just too far for you. From now on, I will be there everyday and you won’t have to worry about it again.”

She sat and held me. My real mom squeezed my shoulder and went over to stand beside her shadow self. She started talking to her about growth and how I needed to know that I could do this grown-up thing. My shadow mom had fear in her eyes as these thoughts were placed in her head. I could tell she didn’t want to risk losing me again.

I went over to my shadow self. “Integrity,” I told her. “You have to tell her honestly what you want and how you feel.”

“Mom,” my shadow self sniffed, drying her eyes. “I really want to learn how to do it.”

Panic rose up in my shadow mother’s eyes. Mom kept talking to her about how good it would be for me. I encouraged my shadow self to keep talking. “Today was awful, Mom, I know it and I won’t try to walk by myself again until I can do it without getting lost. But couldn’t you teach me mom? We could go through all the paths home from school until I knew what every place looked like. I could study maps! I could carry a map! Maybe I could get a compass? Dad has that old one somewhere, doesn’t he? Maybe he would let me borrow it.” I was on a brainstorming burst now. It did the trick.

My shadow mom first smiled and then she laughed. “Alright, alright, Brittney. Slow down! I don’t know that a compass is entirely necessary or even a map. Although . . . “ she said considering me carefully, “it might be a good thing for you to learn for other situations in which you might find yourself in life.”

“Yes, Mom! Yes! Oh, yes! I do so want to learn!”

“Okay Britt. I am going to teach you all the ways home from school, but no walking home on your own until you’ve learned them and,” she emphasized, “been tested on them! Do you got that? Is that a deal?”

My shadow self hugged her mom. “Yes, mom! It’s a deal! I love you so much! Thank you for helping me learn! You are the best mom in the whole world!”

My shadow mom laughed again and hugged me back. My real mom came over to put her arm around me. “That’ll work better, won’t it?” she said softly, watching them.

I put my arm around mom, too. “Definitely,” I said.

We walked back to Dad and Tom and we all hugged each other. I got a book from the library once when I was a little girl about families. It talked about how families are all different, “But,” it had concluded, “all families like to hug each other.” I had wondered when my family would all like to hug each other and if that meant that my family wasn’t a real family. Whatever the case, I was starting to feel like a real family now. Maybe this haunted house wasn’t so bad, after all.

We walked a little further down the dark hallway of the haunted house when a new scene materialized in front of us. This time it was the kitchen of our house and just Mom and Tommy were there. I stepped back with Dad to watch.

My mom was in the middle of talking to Tommy about football. The real Tommy’s face went pale. Mom looked at him and said, “Oh no,” and hurried over to her shadow self.

Mom finished giving Tom all the reasons he should take football, even with our real mom talking the whole time in her ear about agency. The shadow Tom turned toward her, “I want to take Karate!” he told mom. “In Karate, you don’t have to be big, but you can still fight. That sounds like something useful to me – not running around on a field pushing people down and fighting over a leather ball.”

“Tommy,” she had said and my heart twisted inside me because I knew what she was going to do. But she stopped before she did it. Mom was talking to her about choices and reminding her how much she prized making her own and telling her to let her son do the same. She must have started to listen to that little voice. “Tommy,” she started again, “I didn’t know you were interested in Karate.”

Shadow Tommy looked at his mom in surprise. That wasn’t the answer he was expecting. He brightened up, though. “Yeah. Yeah, I am,” he said. “I think I’d really like to try it.”

“Well,” mom said hesitating, “I think that’s a fine sport. I’ll talk to Dad about it and see what he says. Maybe we can make that happen.”

“Really?” Tom asked in amazement. “And I don’t have to play football?”

Mom grinned. “Not if you don’t want to, son. I think you should be able to make your own decisions.”

Tom went over and hugged her. “Thanks Mom,” he said. “That really means a lot to me.”

“More hugging!” I whispered incognito to Dad.

He grabbed me and hugged me, too. “Isn’t it great?” he whispered back.

Mom and Tom came toward us. He was looking at mom and his eyes were big. “Can I really take Karate? Did you mean it?”

She laughed. “I don’t know why not! What do you think, Sam?”

“Well,” Dad said, “I think it sounds great. You have my full support.”

Tom let out a loud whoop. “I’m going to take Karate!” he shouted. Then he lifted me up and spun me in a circle. We all laughed at the little boy who seemed to be coming back to our family.