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The house was too big for three people, too many doors and rooms and empty spaces. During those horrible days when her grief was overwhelming, she’d spent hours counting wooden floorboards, crawling on all fours to inspect every closet and corner. Now she kept all the doors on the second floor open during the day, windows free from heavy curtains, letting the sunlight fill the hallway.
It felt surreal, this life she’d settled into without much fanfare.
They had come home after the final battle (and the wedding and everything) to find a vase of flowers from the wedding sitting on the kitchen counter. She thought it was a hallucination, a byproduct of the curse, but it was a gift from the dwarves. The petals were nearly gone but she hadn’t thrown it away.
She’d never thought about window boxes filled with flowers or considered wooden chairs for the front porch. But Killian did. He borrowed books from the library, consulted Anton about light and shade conditions, and had cornered Marco on the street to ask about different types of screws.
Emma checked the wall clock. Ten minutes until they had to leave. She glanced up the stairs; the urge to triple-check everything pressing against her chest. Emma climbed the stairs slowly, bare feet sticking to the wooden steps.
Henry had chosen a bedroom on the second floor, with enough space for a desk and small bookcase. She shouldn’t compare it to his room at Regina’s house, but it was too small in her opinion. It was okay for a temporary space but he’d unpacked and filled the walls with posters and pictures and shelves.
His door was open. The walls were mostly bare but his desk was stacked with books and notepads (he favored stitched spines to spiral rings), pens scattered in between.
She tapped her knuckles against the wood. “Hey kid, can I come in?”
“Sure.” Henry was sitting on his bed, comforter covered with textbooks.
Fake memories mixed with guilt. She’d missed so many things, days she could never recover no matter how much she tried. Lately her thoughts turned dark quickly. She swallowed hard, trying to smile.
“Are you almost ready?”
“Yeah.” He stuffed another notebook into his bag. “Do I have to wear the uniform?”
“Yeah, you do.” Her voice sounded high, even to her own ears.
“Fine.” He rolled his eyes but the attitude was more for show.
Henry stepped closer to Emma, backpack abandoned. He got taller every day but she could still remember his arms around her waist, head pressed against her stomach. She’d spent ten years trying not to dwell in dreams of what if and someday. She couldn’t go back, couldn’t rewrite her story.
He was the best thing in her life, this wonderful kid, with his enormous heart and imagination. But he wasn’t so little anymore. Soon he’d graduate high school and what then? College? A job? She didn’t want to push him to stay in Storybrooke but the thought of him leaving made her eyes burn. She’d missed so much and no curse could give those years back.
She didn’t name him. Not when he flipped and turned inside her, not after his cry filled the tiny room, lights flickering wildly. She didn’t hold him in her arms and look down at his impossibly tiny fingers and whisper his name.
But in the quiet hours between midnight and dawn, she had talked to him. Inside her head, she’d told him stories she hardly knew, mixing fairytales and movie plots together. She remembered the day he was born. “Really kid? Today?” She remembered the pain, the tears, the exhaustion. She’d repeated conversations and stories after, trying to sleep but unable to do more than breathe.
“Hey kid.” For ten years she started every conversation the same way. She had imagined his life. Her kid would have a whole world of stories; parents who would read bedtime stories and take him to the library and introduce him to a world of heroes and happy endings.
The dreams followed her but she pushed them away. She had traded one city for another, drifted East and North, survival her only focus. Her kid had a home and a name and a life more real than her half-existence. Each year she marked his birthday with ink, tiny and delicate, hidden beneath layers of cotton and denim.
Everything had changed in Boston; she had a job and rented furniture that filled her apartment. But when she opened the door on her twenty-eighth birthday, she felt her world crack and split.
“My name is Henry. I’m your son.”
It felt like yesterday and a different lifetime.
Standing in his bedroom, Emma tried to reconcile this teenager with the boy who poured himself a glass of juice in her apartment with the uneaten cupcake and package of candles on the counter.
The fake memories were like a hangover, twisting and pinching, lights too bright and noises too loud. Cursed memories clashed with real, too many thoughts in her head at once.
“Mom? Are you even listening?” Henry stared at her like she’d been talking nonsense and her stomach flipped.
She shook her head, trying to focus. Maybe this was what all parents felt as their children rounded the corner from childhood to teenager. Maybe this was normal.
Emma swallowed, her throat dry. Normal. She didn’t even know what it meant anymore. “Sorry kid, I zoned out for a minute.”
Henry rolled his eyes. “Yeah.” He rounded the bed, backpack in one hand. “If you really want to walk me to the bus, we have to go.”
She smiled, unable to resist teasing him. “You know we could take the cruiser.”
“Mom!” Henry blushed red from the tips of his ears down to his collar, moving past Emma and into the hallway. She followed behind, laughter bubbling in her throat.
Her feet were light on the steps. Henry was already at the front door, rocking back and forth.
“Okay, let’s go,” she urged, pulling her coat off the peg near the door. The fabric was light against her shoulders.
Tomorrow she’ll let a fairytale character cut her hair, and order two suitcases for the honeymoon they haven’t planned yet. Today she’ll send her kid off to school, rescue Killian from the pile of paperwork David left behind, pick up two gallons of Rocky Road, and meet her family at Granny’s for dinner. Normal things.