“I’ll go get it. You start grabbing everything you want to take and set it on your bed.” She slid past me, but I remained still.
Was this shock? Was my body too surprised to function? That’s what it felt like.
“Saige?” Aiden’s quiet voice made me jump, and I turned to see him peeking around the corner from where his room was down the hall.
I forced my lips to curve into a smile. I couldn’t scare him. I couldn’t show him how terrified I was. If there was anyone I could pull myself together for, it was him. I would protect him from anything, and right now, it was me.
“Hey.” I waved him over, and he darted into my room staring at the pile on my bed. “What’s going on?”
I sucked in a shaky breath. I could do this. I could put on a brave face and make sure he knew I would be happy and safe wherever I was going. I didn't want him to worry about me.
“Aunt Masie came to take me to my new school.” Simplifying the information for him helped me process what was happening. “It’s a really cool place in the middle of a forest, and I'm going to get to learn all sorts of new things.”
His eyes widened. “A forest? Where?”
I wasn’t exactly sure if that was true, but when I thought of remote Montana, I pictured mountains and endless trees. I’d find out tomorrow how accurate that was. Something I never thought would happen. Because really? Who thinks of traveling to Montana? Not me.
“It’s in Montana.”
His eyes narrowed. “Where’s that?”
Right. He was still learning to read and do basic addition. It wasn’t like geography was in the lesson plans for first graders. I pulled my phone from my back pocket and pulled up a map. “This is where we live.” I pointed just above Pittsburgh. “And this is where I’ll be going to school.” I pointed to the middle of Montana as a guess.
His eyes widened when he looked back up at me. “That’s so far.”
The sadness in his voice broke my heart, and I had to look away so I could blink back the tears before he saw them. I couldn’t let him see me cry, or he would too.
I cleared my throat and put my smile back in place. “It’s only a plane ride away. Remember when we went to Florida last summer?”
He nodded and started smiling. “I’ll get to go on a plane?”
“Yeah, when you come to visit me, you’ll get to go on a plane again.”
He seemed happy with that. “And Brielle?”
I ruffled his hair. “Of course. You can’t leave her behind.”
He looked back at my phone again. “Can I still talk to you?”
“Yes, you can FaceTime me or call me whenever you want. I’ll try to always answer unless I’m in class, then I’ll call you right back.”
He swung his legs, letting his heels kick the bed. “How long will you be gone?”
I blew out a breath. I didn’t know. “I’ll probably come home for Thanksgiving.”
Masie returned then and smiled at Aiden. “Hi, sweetie. Do you want to help us pack?”
He eyed the two suitcases she sat down and shrugged.
I went around the room with him glued to my side and had him help me decide what to take and what to leave behind. It took the pressure off me to think too hard about what was happening and made him feel like he was contributing, a win-win.
We sat on the floor in front of my closet, and I considered my shoe collection. I had a pair of sandals and one pair of dressy heels and the rest were Converse of every color and pattern. My obsession started in middle school, and luckily, my feet stopped growing back then so I had about thirty pairs.
“Which ones should I bring?” I peered down at him.
“You have to take these.” He reached for the bright pink pair Mom got me to reveal to Aiden and Dad that she was having a girl.
“Of course.” I put them next to the bed. “What else?”