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When Emma wakes, she finds herself alone.
It’s too quiet. With a house as large as her Mommy’s, it gets too quiet too often. The silence unnerves her, and she begins to whimper.
“Ma-Mommy! Mommy, where are you?” she cries out.
Nothing.
Emma pouts. She kicks away the covers, and the pillow under her legs, and bounces her butt on the bed repeatedly. Wait. She has an idea! A large grin appears on her face. This will get Mommy here for sure!
Beds make more noise when you jump on them, and one of Mommy’s rules is no jumping on the bed... especially not on Mommy’s big, soft, extra bouncy bed! So Emma does. She giggles at her first teeny-tiny little jump. Then she does it again, landing on a different spot on the bed. Then again. And again! And again!! She’s bouncing on the bed and it’s so much fun and Mommy will have to come pay attention to her now!
After a few minutes of this, Emma starts to get hot, and Mommy still doesn’t come. So she stops for a little bit and unbuttons her onesie and tosses it on the floor. She’ll pick it up when Mommy gets here, and bouncing in her undies is much more fun! Won’t Mommy be surprised when she sees her like this!
But then something bad happened. Maybe she was having too much fun and Mommy’s bed didn’t like it, but what happened next was one of the scariest, most horrible things to ever happen to any princess. Emma bounced a little too high, and hit her head on the ceiling!
She lands on Mommy’s bed with shaky feet and falls back on her butt right away. Her hands slowly move from her sides to hold the crown of her head that touched the stupid hard ceiling. Her lower lip trembles, and she whimpers again, louder than before. The pain becomes more and more, bigger and bigger, and when she doesn’t hear Mommy’s footsteps rushing up the stairs or down the hall to come save her, Emma burst into tears.
“MOMMY! MOMMY!” she screams, grabbing fistfuls of her blonde locks and tugging at them. Maybe if she does that Mommy will magically know what’s wrong and be there to kiss the top of her head and make it all better. She slowly falls forward onto the mattress and buries her face in the soft sheets. Her hands slip to cover her face, but does little to stifle her wailing.
It’s not even about how much her head hurts now. Emma just wants her Mommy. She needs Mommy. Needs her so bad. That’s what hurts. She's lonely. She misses her. She loves her Mommy! Mommy makes everything better, Mommy kisses her booboos and holds her and cuddles her and tells her everything will be okay. Mommy is always there for her!
So where is she?
Emma cries and cries until she tires of hearing herself moan. Then she crawls toward the bedside table where her big girl water bottle is, picks it up and throws it at the wall. It doesn’t break but she wishes it does. Then she throws all the pillows on the floor, all five of them. Mommy’s still not here. She kicks the blanket on the floor. It doesn’t make any noise, just goes fwwwp! as it falls down.
No Mommy.
“Mommm-mmmmyy...” Emma whines. She blows a raspberry at the door. “You big meanie butthead!” Her voice is scratchy and tired but she doesn’t care. “You meanie meanie meanie meanie meanie BIG STUPID POOPYFACE!!”
She covers her mouth right away after she says that. Mommy doesn’t like being called those names, but those aren’t bad enough. There are words she shouldn’t say or else she’ll have to go to the closet for timeout. Mommy might even spank her if she finds out.
Wait. What if Mommy’s not even home? Maybe there’s a note for her?
Emma scrambles to the door. Mommy tapes notes to the back of the door or slips it under the space for Emma to find just in case she doesn’t want to accidentally wake her up. Sometimes the notes are because Mommy misses her when she’s taking a nap, or sometimes because she has to go somewhere and will be back at this or that time. Sometimes it’s a silly little picture because Emma loves those even if Mommy can’t draw. They all say the same thing at the bottom: “I love you, baby,” and Mommy always means it.
No note. She even looks through the space under the door to see if she could see Mommy’s feet.
Nothing.
Now Emma is really upset. Where is her Mommy? Why is she all alone? She doesn’t even have her blankie with her. Blankie is at home with Mama and Daddy.
Tears fill her eyes again. She doesn’t try to wipe them away as she drags her feet to a corner of the room and sits. Mommy doesn’t put her in the corner too much, but maybe this is where she’s supposed to be. Mommy doesn’t want her anymore, that’s why she’s not coming. Mommy doesn’t love her anymore.
The thought brings on a fresh new set of tears, and Emma hides her face in her knees and just cries. Mommy doesn’t love her. She’s annoying. She doesn’t want to be Emma’s mommy anymore. She doesn’t care. Emma is too much trouble.
It’s because she wanted dessert before dinner. It’s because she cried and threw a tantrum when Mommy said she had to wash her hair and if she didn’t it would turn into a dirty monster in the night and eat her head. It’s because she doesn’t know how to snuggle good enough. It’s because she wanted Mommy to play when Mommy was doing adult things. It’s because she wet herself once on accident and Mommy had to wash her favorite jammies and she had to wear one of Mommy’s favorite shirts to bed. It’s because she took too many cookies from the cookie jar.
Mommy doesn’t love her. Mommy hates her. Mommy is happy without her. Mommy doesn’t wanna be called Mommy anymore.
The more these thoughts crowd her mind like a million bad balloons, the harder Emma cries and the hotter her tears get and she’s so tired she wants to stop but she can’t it hurts so much she needs her Mommy to make it all better please I’ll be good I promise I won’t be bad I’ll listen I won’t be a crybaby anymore I love you mommy please come back
This is what Alice felt like when she grew too big for that small room and cried and cried until she fell into the bottle and through the mouth of the doorknob. The room is blurry, all her tears are making a big puddle on the floor and it’s growing growing growing until the entire floor is wet and salty. She’s crying and crying and crying and she can’t stop no matter what. Maybe not even for Mommy if she still wants to be called that. Then she’ll have to go to the closet. She doesn’t like the closet. It’s dark and there might be monsters.
“Moooommmmmy...” she sobs, “I’m sorry I jumped on the bed and threw my water and called you names and for being bad and not listening and-and...” she coughs. “I’ll be good now, I promise!”
Her tears are getting bigger and hotter as they fall down her cheeks, but just like before Mommy still doesn’t come. No one is going to make it better this time, and that’s a very scary idea. Almost as scary as the monsters hiding in the dark.
Her lake of tears is growing more, and the bed is too far away to make it in one jump. If she doesn’t get somewhere safe soon, that will be bad. Emma takes a deep breath and makes a dash for the bathroom. Maybe Mommy’s hiding there?
She opens the door to the potty. Nope.
She opens drawers and peeks behind the shower curtain and in her dirty clothes hamper. No Mommy.
There’s only one spot left.
Mommy’s walk-in closet.
Mommy puts her there when she’s been a naughty little girl, but Mommy even hides there herself when playing hide-and-seek because she knows Emma will just stand right outside it and cry and that means she wins the game. (But then she gives Emma the win and extra cuddles because Mommy feels bad for making her cry.)
She can hear the ocean of her tears becoming higher and higher even though she’s not crying anymore, even though she really wants to. The key is in the lock, and she’s too scared to take it out so she turns the knob and opens the door.
Emma gasps.
“Mommy!”
Mommy is sleeping inside her closet. Maybe she’s been there the whole time.
“Mommy! Mommy!” Emma runs inside the little closet to her Mommy, plops herself down next to her and shakes her shoulder. “Mommy we have to go! Wake up!”
Suddenly, the door closes and locks all by itself! It’s completely dark now and Emma’s afraid. She clings tight to Mommy’s arm.
“Mommy... you hafta wake up... please!” Her breathing picks up when Mommy still doesn’t answer or even opens her eyes. “Mommy, let’s go, I’m scared!”
“Grrrrrrrrr...”
A monster. She knew it! Something’s in the closet with them!
“I-I’m not s-scared of you, monster!” Emma yells. She’ll protect Mommy this time. She needs to. “You’re just a big dumb meanie bully! I’m not scared of you! So there!”
The monster growls back at her, and she can feel her tummy drop. It’s getting louder, which means it’s getting closer. Emma moves her hands from Mommy’s sleeping body to rub her eyes for a second but when she goes to touch her again Mommy is gone!
“What did you do to my Mommy?!” Emma cries, “Give her back!”
Suddenly, something grabs her! It pins her arms to her body and no matter how she struggles she can’t move them. She kicks her legs, but she can feel them slowly stick together too. Is the monster a spider and it’s spinning a web? Is it going to eat her? Did it eat her Mommy too?
Emma screams as loud as she can. When she runs out of breath she screams again. And again. And—
“Emma!” Mommy! “You're dreaming! Open your eyes!”
She does.
The first thing she sees is Mommy’s beautiful face and her messy hair. Mommy’s hair is always so perfect, it looks very silly when it’s not. For a moment Emma forgets to be scared or upset and giggles. Mommy isn’t so giggly, and she blows a breath and runs a hand through her dark hair and makes it almost perfect again.
“There we go,” she says, and pats Emma’s cheek. “Did you have a nightmare?”
Emma nods. She looks down at her body. She is completely wrapped tight in Mommy’s blanket. “Spider monster in the closet. And you was gone, and I was scared and upset and... and...” she attempts to wriggle out of her cocoon but it doesn’t work. “Mommy, please help?”
Mommy smiles and helps her get free. When she could move her arms again, Emma throws herself on top of her Mommy and kisses her all over her cheeks and over and over on her lips. Mommy laughs, and it takes her a minute to get Emma off.
“I was jumping up and down on the bed and then I bumped my head and I cried but you didn’t come in to make it better. So I go to the door to see if you leaved me a note but you didn’t. And then I got really sad because I thought you didn’t want me anymore and then I started crying and I threw things and then I cried some more and I became Alice when she cried and and I runned and hided in the scary closet and you was there asleep and then something goes ‘grrrrrr’ at me and then I couldn’t move and then I waked up because you saved me, Mommy!” Emma sucks in a big breath. “That’s all. The end.”
Mommy listens and nods her head up and down. “Sounds like you had quite the adventure, dear.” Emma nods too. Mommy pats her lap and Emma plops her butt on it, walking straight into a nice, long, warm hug. Mommy gives her a big, loud kiss on her cheek, a smaller one on the spot where Emma hit her head in her dream, and slowly rocks her.
“I love you, Emma Swan. Never forget that. You will always be mine, no matter what.” Emma sniffles. “It’s true, sometimes you drive me absolutely insane, but when has that ever stopped me from coming back?” Emma shakes her head. “That’s right. Never. I will always come back to you, my dear. Do you understand me?”
“Mmhm...” Mommy rubs her back all nice and soothing. When long hug is done, Mommy blows a raspberry on her tummy, and Emma laughs until she hears her tummy talk back. “Uh-oh...”
Mommy raises an eyebrow. “Are you hungry, baby?”
After a moment of thinking, Emma nods. “Yes, Mommy. Can I have ice cream?”
Mommy gives Emma her most serious Mommy look. Biting her lip, Emma tries again.
“May I have ice cream, please... Your Majesty?” When Mommy still doesn’t say anything, Emma crumples and whines, “Momm-mmyyyy! I had a nightmaaaaaaare!”
Mommy’s serious Mommy look becomes a smile, and then she laughs.
“I suppose just this once would be okay. But not too much. Your mama won’t be happy if I spoil your dinner, and quite frankly, dear, neither would I.”