“Okay, okay. Well, what else happened today?” Suzanne asked hurriedly, her brow furrowed, as she leaned up against the backboard of her bed, her hands cupped together, with her freshman son sitting comfortably in her soft palms. Peter laughed, resting his arms on his mother’s gigantic, firm fingers as if he were reclining in a leather chair.
“Mom, I don’t know how many ways I can word it. That’s… really all that happened. Nothing crazy happened. No late classes. No teachers who didn’t already have the whole report thing about me. No zombies crawled out of the softball field to eat us all,” the boy added with a sarcastic chuckle, grinning good-naturedly up at the worried face of his titanic mother. She pursed her lips, still gazing pleasantly down at him, but obviously searching for some hole in his recounting of an absolutely flawless first day of school. She sighed.
“Honey, this is serious. I really, really need to know if anything-”
“Mom!”
“Anything at all?”
“Nothing went wrong, at all. Erica got me at the end of every class, took me to the next one, and I got everything done. No problems.”
Peter could almost feel the tensed muscles in his mother’s hand relaxing slowly as she began to accept the story as truth. She sighed again, slouching a little into the pillows. Her outstretched, cupped palms gently moved closer into her body until they were practically pressing up against her rotund chest, allowing Peter to continue looking up at her through the rounded valley of blue blouse fabric.
“Well… all right, then. That’s enough for now on that, I suppose. What about… the other kids?”
“What about them?”
“They didn’t…”
“They were nice. I mean, a few of them stared for a couple minutes, but…”
Peter could detect his mother’s eyes narrowing again, her skin quivering at the thought of her son being embarrassed by wandering eyes.
He had always appreciated his mother’s protective nature and loved her dearly, but at times such as this one, when the slightest mention of Peter’s equilibrium being interrupted made her angry, it was frustrating to deal with.
“Maybe I should call up your teachers again about that…” Suzanne whispered solemnly under her breath, obviously fighting back a snarl. Peter could feel her fingers curling in more closely around his body.
“Mom, it’s fine, we knew this would happen, I’m totally okay with it, and… did you just say again?”
The comparatively giant mother half-smirked, trying to lighten the mood. “I just did it for your own good, honey. If you’re at school, I don’t want you having to be distracted, or deal with any kind of…”
“Mom. Please. It’s fine. You don’t need to call them… again…” Peter choked out uncomfortably. “Things are going great. I’ve got it under control.”
Suzanne smiled warmly, tilting her head lovingly down at her middle child. She raised a finger and brushed it with incredibly practiced gentleness over his sandy blonde hair.
“You do, don’t you, sweetie?” Suzanne whispered, slowly bringing her hands up closer to her face. She stopped just short of her chin, pressing the heel of her hands against it and uncurling her fingers. “Give Mommy a kiss?”
Peter nodded, slightly annoyed, but realizing this was a victory for the time being that his mother was managing to at least put aside a small portion of her intense worry. He stood up, carefully padded across his the soft skin of his mom’s palm, and leaned in, planting a kiss on the tip of his mother’s nose. She giggled, pulling back and biting her lip for a moment, before shrugging and moving back in to return the favor.
Peter flinched but soon relaxed as he felt her smooth, damp lips press up against the entire right side of his face. He closed his eye to avoid the intake of air as she puckered wetly against his face, smooching him loudly before pulling off with a smack, grinning at him.
The tiny teen ignored the layer of his mom’s saliva film plastered stickily across the entire half of his head including his hair, not wanting to appear rude by rubbing it out immediately after receiving such a show of affection from his colossal parent.
“Thank you, honey,” Suzanne cooed, brushing her finger back across her son’s hair, massaging his head and allowing him to relax back into a sitting position in her palms. “I’m so glad your first day of school went well. And… well, I know sometimes I don’t seem like I’m supporting you, but…”
“Mom, it’s fine, I get it,” Peter added quickly, placing a hand on his mom’s thumb and caressing it kindly to comfort her.
“…all I want is for you to be safe, Peter. I couldn’t bear the thought of… I… I mean, I just couldn’t handle…” she continued, her voice beginning to choke up a little.
“I know,” Peter whispered reassuringly. “I can take care of myself. I’ll make you proud.”
“I’m sure you will, sweetie. You already do, in fact. I’m sure you’re going to have a fantastic year.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Are you tired at all? Do you want to take a nap?”
“Umm… yeah, actually,” Peter admitted. Normally, a single day wouldn’t have worn him out, but considering the mini adventures both mental and physical he had endured throughout this particular day, he was absolutely beat. The tricky part had been hiding this from his mother, in case she got the idea that every day of his school year was going to leave him like a marathon runner post-race; however, for the time being, she seemed remarkably at peace with things.
Suzanne beamed. “I had a long, long day at the office… so many new employees to train on the new software… and I thought maybe I’d be able to rest for a few minutes before I make dinner. What time is it, 5 pm?”
“Yeah, about that, I think.”
“Fine, fine. Would you… would you like to sleep in here, with me?” Suzanne asked as subtly as possible, although Peter had learned his mother’s ways, and could hear in her voice that she desperately wanted to spend some time with her beloved son. He shrugged.
“Sure, why not? Um… how are…”
“Just… lay down. Tilt your head back, honey,” Suzanne encouraged with a soft smile, her eyes almost twinkling with delight as her diminutive child leaned back into his mother’s fingers before finding them curling up around him, her two hands cupping up against each other, sandwiching Peter inside a very snug cocoon of his mother’s palms and fingers.
“Um… Mom?”
“Don’t worry, sweetie, just give me a second to lay back,” Suzanne whispered quietly. Peter was jostled lightly between his mother’s pressed hands for a moment before feeling the woman’s enormous body go horizontal on the bedspread. Ever so gently, then, Suzanne laid her prayer-position hands, her son safely between them, atop the crevice of her breasts.
“Comfy?” Suzanne asked warmly down to her son as he settled into his bed of tender skin and firm fingers like a sleeping bag.
“Yeah…” Peter smiled. He wasn’t lying about that part. His mother did things like this frequently in his youth, when he actually did need a nap after a full day, and she knew how to hold him perfectly so that he was both entirely safe and incredibly comfortable, but somehow it felt a little odd to him to be held like this, in such proximity to his mother’s chest and between her hands with very little wiggle room to speak of. However, he knew there was no reason to make anything of it, and for the time being, his mother seemed to be actively supporting his continuing attendance at public high school, a though which almost instantly quelled any reservation he had about the napping arrangement.
“Good,” his mother giggled in a hushed voice before closing her eyes and smacking her lips together a few times, rolling her face a few times against the pillow. “Sleep well, and we’ll have dinner in an hour or two.”
Peter was only awake for a few more minutes before he heard his mother’s breathing slow and settle into her throat as she drifted off to sleep. He felt her massive, protective hands loosen around him slightly, but not enough that he would fall out of them. Snug and finally completely calm for the first time that day, the boy closed his eyes and managed to settle in enough to fall asleep, cuddled against his mother’s fingers.