November Exclusive - "Trust" - Part 1

San Jose, CA

Leo arrives just in time to sit with Mom and Aria as they have lunch. A Door Dashed soup and bread from Panera for Mom. Chicken tenders, apple sauce, and cubed cheese for Aria.

“Leo!” Aria exclaims, holding out sticky fingers. Her brother’s name isn’t quite right. Weee-oh! But Aria’s poor diction is understandable; most toddlers struggle to say L-words correctly.

“Hey, Aria.” He kisses the top of his sister’s head – Mmmm-wa- and then he sits down at the table.

“You want anything, Leo?” Mom asks, wiping at Aria’s mouth.

“I’m good,” Leo replies. He looks at his sister, dressed in a striped jersey dress with the sleeves rolled up. Her hair, lighter than it’s looked in years, is kept tidy with a yellow bow hairband. Not an outfit Aria would be caught dead in, normally. But that’s before Mom reduced her age by 20 years.

Leo watches his sister eat. The round face, the chubby fingers. She’s just a tiny two-year-old. It’s extraordinary. Yet somehow it feels normal. He’s always been the big brother; he can remember when Aria was a messy eater the first time around. Aria seems happy enough, grabbing at another piece of chicken and stuffing it into her mouth.

“Little early for me,” says Leo, when Mom offers him the bag of chips from her Panera lunch. He smiles. “Only just gone 11.”

Mom nods. “I know, but this one insisted on waking up at 5.” She beams at Aria. “We’ll have to get on a better schedule but look at her. I couldn’t say no, she’s cute as a button.” Mom sighs as she strokes the toddler’s hair. “And I couldn’t have done it without you, Leo.”

He waves the idea away. “It was nothing. Besides, it’s for the best.” He considers how to describe the progress his sister had been making with adult life – college drop-out, no regular employment, couch-surfing with sketchy friends. He groans. “She was a dumpster fire, Mom.”

“She just needed a do-over, that’s all,” Mom replies, changing her tone as she kisses Aria’s cheek. “Didn’t you, sweetie. All those silly ideas you had, they’ve all gone bye-byes, haven’t they. Now you’re Mommy’s sweet little girl!” She grins. “You’ve got the bed to prove it! Your special princess bed!”

Aria’s eyes widen in apparent remembering of her new sleeping arrangements. “Pin-ceth beh,” she says solemnly.

“That’s right, clever girl,” Mom gushes. “Mommy’s gonna be extra careful about the friends you make…those so-called friends you make in school, and we’re gonna make sure you have the very best influences.” She laughs. “Toddlers are hard work, though.” She glances back at Leo. “And it’s only been 18 hours!”

“You look great,” says Leo. Because she does.

Mom touches her face. “Thank you. Got some years taken off while I was working on Aria. Just made sense, you know? Don’t want people thinking she’s my grandbaby.”

Leo nods. “Should help with your energy too.” He turns his attention to Aria. “Looks like you were hungry. At all your chicken.”

“Chin!” Aria replies with enthusiasm, swinging her little legs.

Mom wipes the toddler’s hand and lifts her out of the highchair. “Honey,” Mom says to Leo, “can you put her down for her nap?” She winks at him. “Remember the routine, big brother?”

Leo checks his smart watch. He’s got 30 minutes before he has to get back to Broadcom. He nods, takes Aria into his arms. “Diaper, one story, curtains. You still got the noise machine?”

Mom makes a sad face. “That went years ago. Yard sale. It’s okay, I got an app.” She puts her phone into the pocket of Leo’s hoodie, and then then she puts her arms around both her children. “You always were the best big brother.” She kisses Aria and says to Leo, “I’ll have coffee ready for you.”

Leo nods. “Good deal.” He makes a face at Aria, earning a giggle. “Let’s see if you have any presents for me.” And he takes his little sister to her room.

Aria’s room is the same one she left two years ago, before failing at Evergreen Valley ditching Business Administration for those sketchy friends. Except now, the twin bed has been replaced by a princess-themed toddler bed, complete with pink trim and a golden crown on the headboard.

“Sleepy?” Leo asks, putting his sister down.

Aria shakes her head and grins.

“Figured.” But Leo knows how this goes. Growing up five years older, he can remember how Aria would fight going down for her nap, only to flake out a page or two into a bedtime story.

“How’s your diaper?”

“Don’t need it,” she says with a shrug. Doh needid.

Leo crouches down. “Mind if I check?” She’ll be wet. She might be messy, even though there’s no smell when Leo lifts the skirt of Aria’s dress and puts a finger inside her diaper.

“Huh,” Leo mutters.

“See?” says Aria.

“Gotcha.” He pulls off Aria’s dress. “Want jammies?”

Aria shakes her head.

“Cool beans,” says Leo. He pulls back the pink comforter and Aria climbs into bed. Leo sits beside it and says, “I don’t see any story books in here. You want me to make something up?” He retrieves his mother’s phone, ready to find the noise machine app.

“I tell you a story,” Aria says. Her words are clunky but clear enough.

Leo smiles at her. He points at his chest. “You’re telling mea story?”

Aria nods. “Uh-huh.”

Leo twists his lips. “What if I fall asleep? I’ll be late for work!”

The little girl giggles. She says, “You won’t. It’s not a sleepy story.” She looks over Leo’s shoulder, and then whispers, “Mommy made me little.”

Leo narrows his eyes. “Excuse…what happened?”

It’s Aria’s turn to raise eyebrows. “Mommy made me little. You know she did. You know I used to be a big girl.”

“Oh. Well…oh, wow. I didn’t…” Leo frowns. “You remember?”

“Uh-huh. I woke up little.” She indicates her body with a wave of her hands. “But really, I’m big. I gotta job and stuff.” She looks dismissively at her pink bed. “I got a real bed. I don’t live here; I live with my friends.” She beams. “Best friends.” Bes fens.

“So…Mom changed you into a little girl,” says Leo, “and you remember your old life, but you haven’t told her that you remember.”

Aria nods.

“Why not?”

Aria stares at him. “So, I can ‘scape, silly.”

Leo puts a finger to his chin. “Sure, you want to escape? You got a neat princess bed; you don’t have to work anymore.”

Aria cuts her big brother off. “I like workin’! I’m a…I’m a food deliver…I’m a dasher! I got a car an’ I dash the food.” She makes a zooming gesture with her hand. “I dash! I dash so good.” She splays her fingers and thumb. “Fih stah!”

Leo nods. “Five stars. Cool.” It’s clear to him that Aria may have retained her adult memories, but they’re being filtered through a two-year old’s mind. It wouldn’t take much, surely, for those memories to fade. But their mother needs to know what’s going on, before she takes Aria out in public.

“Will you help me?” asks Aria. She reaches for his hand. “I wanna be a big girl again.”

Leo frowns. “Of course, I’ll help.”

Aria looks at him. “Why did Mommy say, she can’t do it without you?” Her furrowed brow looks almost comical, but it’s clear she’s trying to speak clearly.

“Excuse me?” Leo blinks, playing for time. “When Mommy…”

“Mommy can’t do it without you. Do what?”

Leo rubs the back of his neck. “I think, just, Mommy probably thinks I’m down for a bunch of babysitting.” He starts to stroke Aria’s hair, something that always relaxed her in the past. Something, in truth, that tended to put her to sleep. “But you don’t have to be little if you don’t want to.” He asks softly, “Jeez, you think I want to change your stinky diapers?”

Aria giggles. “No-oh,” she replies. She yawns.

He makes a show of being thoughtful. “But you should probably keep pretending to Mommy that you’re really little. In here,” he says, tapping the side of his head. And then he winks. “Until we can come up with a plan.”

“Thanks, Leo.” Thans, Wee-ohh.  She smiles sweetly at him, her eyes glassy. “Wee-ohh da why-on.”

He continues to stroke her hair. “That’s me.” Leo the lion. How many times did he check for monsters in Aria’s closet? How many times did he keep her safe? She trusts him completely. And thank goodness for that.

He turns on the sounds app and clicks on a whirring fan icon.

Aria smiles and sighs as the sound reaches her ears. She knows the nap routine, even though it’s been a lot of years since she last took one like this. Diaper, story, noise machine.

Leo the lion. Aria shouldn’t trust her big brother, not this time, but what if she trusted him to do what’s best? Leo nods, rejects the guilty thoughts. Mom’s right; the girl needs a fresh start and it’s not as if she’d do this voluntarily.

Leo stays sitting by the princess bed, strokes his sister’s hair, watching as her eyes drift shut, a thumb creeping into her mouth, her chest rising and falling. And then he gets to his feet and goes back to the kitchen to speak to his mother.

To be continued...