Broken Descent (Bruno Mars)

Sensible Jealousy

"Charlotte was involved in a fight. You need to get here right away..."

Those words repeated in Bruno's head the whole drive to school. It was later on in the day; he would have been coming to pick her up just an hour later. When he arrived at school, he was invited to the principal's office. Before he could ask a single question to Charlotte, he noticed that Kimberly and Madison were in there too. In tears, Madison sat close to her mom.

Squatting in front of Charlotte, Bruno tried to see her face. With her head buried in between her face, this proved to be impossible.

"What happened?" he asked her, not expecting to get a response.

Miss Hunter came in moments later and explained the situation. She explained that Charlotte jumped and attacked Madison while they were doing their projects. The project was to make a Mother's Day card, but Miss Hunter told Charlotte she could make a Father's Day card instead. A blue piece of construction paper and a box of crayons and markers lay on the floor by Charlotte's seat.

Switching gazes between Madison, her mom, Miss Hunter, and then Charlotte, Bruno asked if he could speak with Charlotte in another room. While given permission to do so, Charlotte refused to move. She refused to give much of a response at all. Bruno removed her eyes from her face, not seeing any expected tears.

Swinging her legs back and forth, an angry look persisted on Charlotte's face as she pursed her lips. Bruno stuck his hand out, clearing his throat. As she looked up, she stared directly into her dad's eyes.

"C'mon," he said. "Let's go talk."

Taking one final breath, she took Bruno's hand and walked with him into the neighboring room. Charlotte sat down at one of the chairs at the conference table. Bruno took a seat next to her.

"Charlotte..."

"It's not fair..." she whined, now holding the blue paper in her hands, crushing the sides.

Bruno placed the box of crayons on the table. Even though she held onto the edges with a tight grip, he slowly pulled the paper out of her hands before smoothing out the edges. "Relax. Don't get mad."

Charlotte rested her elbows on the table and sighed.

"What's not fair?" Bruno asked, even though after hearing about the project, he knew exactly what was wrong. He had an idea about what Charlotte had to say.

"Everyone else," she began to cry, letting her teardrops bleed the paper. "Everyone else in my class gets to make cards for their moms...and I don't."

"But you get to make one for your dad...that's not so bad. Is it?" Bruno smirked and winked.

Charlotte rubbed and scratched her head furiously. She took out some of the crayons and started to draw.

"Madison is your friend...your best friend. Why did you get angry at her? What did she do wrong?"

"Because she always talks about her mom...and I...I..." she stuttered "and...and I...I..."

Pouting a little, Bruno rubbed her arm.

"She asked me why I don't have a mom...a lot of the other kids ask that..."

"We're just a different kind of family, Charlotte. Remember when I told you about that? We may look different from the others..."

"I know..." was all she said, as she continued coloring. Bruno couldn't take his eyes off her. Although the coloring calmed her down immensely, he could still see how much she hurt.

Bruno sighed, looking down at the table. He stared at it until a bunch of crayons rolled in front of his eyes. He smiled, looking up and to the side at Charlotte.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "I don't want to ruin it."

"Color with me," she said. "Please?"

"What do you want me to draw?"

"Whatever you want. It's for you," Charlotte smiled.

Charlotte did the finishing touches to the card before giving it to Bruno. He smiled as he examined every page and every inch of it. Bruno held his arms out to her and she jumped into them.

"I love you, Dad," she said.

"I love you too."

Charlotte pulled herself away from him, looking into his eyes for a while, longer than she had the entire time since he'd gotten there.

"I didn't mean to hurt Madison."

"I know you didn't...and I think she knows too."

"I wanna go and say sorry," Charlotte said behind the tears in her eyes.

"Alright, sweetheart," Bruno replied, wiping them and smiling. "Let's go."

While Charlotte apologized to Madison, Bruno and Kimberly talked as they watched their girls successfully make up from the fight. It ended with a hug.

"Listen," Bruno said for the thousandth time, "I'm really sorry about this..."

"Bruno," Kimberly smiled. "It's fine...it really is...Charlotte's a good kid...Madison is a good kid...and they're both close...there's nothing to apologize for..."

"Well thank you," Bruno smiled, "but after talking with Charlotte, it wasn't Madison's fault..."

"It wasn't Charlotte's either. Ya know, after Madison explained to me about what happened, I think that she's jealous."

"Jealous of what?"

"Well..." Kimberly said, moving in closer with a much quieter voice, "ever since my husband left me, he hasn't been around Madison a lot...hardly ever...and I know she misses him."

"Aw...well I'm really sorry 'bout that."

"Charlotte talks about you a lot...and I know that Madison talks about me a lot...in front of her. I haven't explained everything...ya know...about Charlotte and why she doesn't have a mom and why things are different for her...but I've tried to get her to be a little bit more sensitive about it. I've told her that some people have two dads...some people have two moms...some people only have a mom...and some people only have a dad."

"I've tried explaining that to Charlotte too," Bruno said. "It's tough...it's really tough."

Before Kimberly could respond, Charlotte and Madison approached them, holding hands, smiling, and giggling. Bruno looked at his watch to see that the school day had ended.

"Dad can Madison come over tonight?" Charlotte asked with eyes full of hope.

"Well..." Bruno hesitated a bit.

"Please?" Charlotte begged, showing a little bit of her lower lip. Madison joined her as well.

Bruno smiled, giving Charlotte a look of relief. "Maybe the four of us could go out to dinner...and then we could do dessert at our house?"

"Yay!" the two girls yelled at the same time.

"Are you sure?" Kimberly asked.

"Of course I'm sure. It's Friday."

"Can we go to McDonalds?" Charlotte asked.

Bruno laughed a bit. "You want to go to McDonalds? I wasn't really thinking fast food...I was thinking some place a little nicer."

"Yeah," Madison exclaimed. "We can play on the playground!"

Bruno sighed, nodded, and laughed. "The people have spoken...I guess we're going to McDonalds..."