Tantrum

Ch. 1 : Holiday Drama

I stride into that gym with more pride than any other grown-ass adult wearing felt shoes with bells on the toes ever has...probably. Maybe it's the mini bottle of tequila I needed after seeing just how tightly the required uniform hugged my ample curves. Someone did not think through being around little kids in this get-up, or they did and they're just a chauvinistic twat. I even requested a size larger, knowing full well that most one-size-fits-all costumes never account for boobs and hips. I knew it would be bad, but not like this.

But still, I promised Mason. Mason is the world's most persuasive eight-year-old and my ward. He and his older brother, Tim, came under my care when my best friend was murdered by their father who then took his own life. With no reliable family, I had been her emergency contact since I was legally eligible, although we had known each other for much longer than that. It was then that she asked me to be Tim's legal guardian should anything happen to her. It's like she already knew she wouldn't live long enough to see him into adulthood. When Mason came along five years later, she didn't even ask. She just handed me the papers to sign.

And now here I am, eight years later, waltzing into Mason's elementary school to be Santa's helper for the day because the kid begged me. I miss my best friend every day, but today it's for selfish reasons. She should be here to endure these parental rites of passage. It shouldn't be me, yet I made a promise not just to her but to myself to be everything these kids wanted in a mom.

It has been eight months, although it feels much longer than that frankly. It hasn't been easy. The boys missed the last month of the school year, traumatized over the whole ordeal. It was through the guidance of a pretty persuasive school psychologist that Tim was able to make up the work through summer school and stay on track. Mason wasn't as resilient and ended up having to repeat a year.

Thankfully my work was flexible enough for me to pivot, but I had my own grief that I never got to fully work through because my attention was one-hundred percent focused on getting the kids the help they needed. It took about six months before we felt settled and even now, I can't help but feel like it is one gust away from crumbling around us.

But I'm here.

Today.

For Mason.

I sign in at the office and the kind attendant gives me a sympathetic smile. "The kids love it when the adults are in costume."

Probably because they feel justified laughing at us, I think to myself. She gives me directions to the band room where I find another costumed helper with a clipboard. "Wonderful! You are just the jolly elf that we need."

"Happy to help. Where can I set my stuff?" I gesture to my coat and purse.

She jingles ahead of me, her costume appropriately swishing around her petite body. She gestures to a little office. I enter and set my stuff down, bending over slightly to dig some lip balm out of my purse. I stiffen when I hear a throaty chuckle and a mumbled comment. "I'd sure like to lick those peppermint sticks."

I turn around to find a fairly attractive man dressed in a rather impressive Santa suit. His blonde hair and eyebrows have been coated with white powder, but his chiseled jaw and sharp blue eyes signal his youth. Between his lips is the end of a candy cane, which he slowly withdraws, not so subtly licking the sweetness left on his lips. He studies me with curiosity and arches one of those powdered eyebrows. "You're new this year. Kindergartener or transfer student?"

I smooth the snug outfit nervously. "Uh neither, actually. Guardianship."

He nods like he understands. His crystalline gaze returns to me. "I'm Chad, President of the PTA. But don't give away my secret identity, okay?" He jokes.