Gifted

Ch. 2 He's Going to School

                 "Mommy?" Aiden called down to his mother from the top of the wooden staircase in their home in Newcastle, Maine.

                 "Making breakfast downstairs honey bear," Marisa called back.

                 I'm gonna be five mama. Aiden started to half walk, half trip down the stairs, still half asleep.

                 "Aiden, control your thoughts," Marisa said sternly. Early on after adopting him, Marisa and Cole learned that Aiden's gift was of the mind. Some people developed mental gifts, others developed physical ones, it was clear Aiden's was mental. The trouble was that it wasn't just that he could project his thoughts onto you, but he could also sometimes read your mind.

                 Aiden looked up at his mother who was walking over to him out of the kitchen. In the background, a whisk was stirring some pancake batter, and a knife was cutting strawberries. Really, Marisa was stirring the batter and cutting strawberries, just not with her hands. Her gift, like Aiden's, was also mental. Aiden looked up at his mother and back at the menagerie of tools that seemed to be making him breakfast all on their own.

                 The kitchen walls were a bright blue, the countertops were steely gray granite, the cabinets were a rich deep brown, and the floors were a corresponding hardwood surface. The LeFlour house was truly beautiful, and out the windows, no one could have asked for a more perfect day. The clouds were just frequent enough to keep the heat down as they occasionally covered the sun, but sparse enough to reveal the beautiful blue sky.

                 "Yes, you will be five," she said as she plopped a kiss down onto his honey-blonde hair. "What are we ever going to do with you?" Maybe we should squeeze him real tight to keep him from growing, Marisa thought playfully.

                 "What do you mean mama?" he inquired. "Oh, mama, you can't do that!" he insisted, not needing her to verbally respond.

                 "Aiden! Go sit in the living room!" she exclaimed. "I told you already that looking into mama's head is rude!" Marisa pointed over across the foyer to the living room. The downstairs pretty much circled around the staircase, the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, and a bonus room that Cole had converted to an office.

                 "Yes mama," he replied dutifully, dropping his head with a pouty expression on his face. Marisa stood her ground, watching as her little boy marched over into the cream colored room, sitting on the park bench that had pillows and a sheet covering it. When the former owners moved out, they could take the couches, so none were left, but they could not take the kitchen, explaining why the kitchen was still so nice. The LeFlours did the best they could, taking a park bench and bed pillows, then covering the whole thing with a chocolate colored bed sheet, as pseudo upholstery.

                 A couple minutes later when breakfast was ready Marisa called for Aiden to sit at the dinette table and eat breakfast. He sat in the chair, still too small to reach his plate very well if he sat normally, so instead, he sat on his legs. In a normal city, with normal stores, Marisa would have bought a booster chair, but here, in Maine, no such stores existed. The Chairman made even normal day life difficult for the residents of Maine, sometimes in ways, not even he consciously registered.

                 Scarfing down his food, Aiden looked across the table at his mother, "Can I go to school now?"

                 Marisa looked at Aiden, he was growing up too quickly, with a sigh she responded, "not in your pajamas silly."

                 "Okay!" He jumped down out of his seat and ran up the wood staircase, leaving behind the sound of his quick footsteps.

**

                 "Alright mama, you can go..." Aiden said, his bright blue eyes looking up to his mother's.

                 She looked back down at her little munchkin. Other kids his age were crying and begging their parents not to leave, was this a bad sign? She didn't know whether to be happy about not having to go through the first day of school hysterics, or whether to feel that her son was too comfortable at such a young age without her. "You sure?" she managed to croak out. She wanted to say the words soothingly, but all she managed was to sound like a frog.

                 "Yup," he replied, skipping ahead with his backpack containing his lunch.

                 Marisa began to slowly turn around and walk down the hall, the floor covered in utilitarian carpet and walls a plain white, when she heard a voice.

                 "Wait mama!" Aiden called back, running for her.

                 "What, sugar?" she replied, looking at the one person who made her life complete. Loving a husband or spouse was great, and having a child hadn't swayed her love for Cole, but a love for your child is different. For your child, you would do anything.

                 "You forgot my goodbye hug and kiss," he explained to her in a tone that truly meant, How could we possibly have forgotten that?

                 "OH, I'm so silly!" she joked, kissing him on the forehead and picking him up into her arms to give him a great, big hug.