Coming home

Rudy felt her sigh and felt at least somewhat guilty for making her worry.  It wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t tell her.  Mom might have said no if he’d asked her and since Rudy would have done it anyway, at least this way he hadn’t refused to listen.  A trickle of guilt at that thought.  She would have preferred he defy her instead of worrying about him.  Rudy had to admit he’d been pretty upset when he left.  Was that an excuse?  Everyone was upset.  

Hearing mom was alive was a relief.  He had come back in time with at least some information.  Mom wasn’t rushing off with it though which caused some questions to come to his mind that Rudy would figure out later.  If it was something that would make things better right away mom would have been rushing to make the information known.  So, it might not have been any good.  

When Tam pulled back he offered his mom a small smile.  There was still a lot wrong in life that was putting too much pain in the heart for a great big smug smile like he once did.  In the back of his mind were thoughts on other-mom and Art.  The two problems added together were just too much but, mom was here and she needed him to be alright.   He nudged his own nose into the tap of Tam’s, a small twitch at the end of his tail.  Despite all the horrors, there was his mom in front of him who he loved and she loved him.

“I am ok you know,” she could see that but he had a feeling she’d like hearing it again anyway.  Inside and cleaned up sounded nice but the mention of food sounded really nice.  Rudy felt his stomach agree with his mind at the thought.  Skipping out on meals to keep up the energy and time hunting would take had seemed a necessity at the time but gosh he was ready for a good meal and even one he didn’t have to catch. “I love you mom.  I’m sorry I scared you.”  He wasn’t sorry for leaving, just for not telling her first. “If I ever need to travel again I’ll tell you first.” Even if the answer was no, even if he had to defy her, no more secrets from mom.  Was this enough to at least prove he could take care of himself or just that he got lucky?  

Rudyard Carpathius