She was listening for the angels just like me

To Nick’s surprise, and concern, Amelia seemed even more shaken when they reunited a second time. She did her best to hide it, he could tell, but he knew his stepmother and he could see the flicker of concern in her eyes. It was immediately apparent to him that something heavy was weighing down on her, and he didn’t know what he could do about it.

So all he could think to do was reach out to her.

“Amelia, is everything alright?” Nick asked her worriedly.

Amelia met his gaze and found herself locked in place. She was at a loss about what to do. Opening up to him now, about this, about how she was feeling… it felt wrong. Like she was dragging him into something that he shouldn’t need to be worrying about.

But those feelings weren’t enough to keep her bound. She could feel the concern coming off of her stepson in waves, and her heart wavered just enough to reach out to him.

“Nicholas…” A faint sigh escaped her lips as she gazed into his eyes.

“Was I… a good mother to you?”

Nick looked at Amelia in shock, not sure how to respond at first.

“Wh… what?” He stammered out, his hands trembling.

The apprehension in his expression put immediate pressure on Amelia and she began to doubt herself. She chewed anxiously on her lip, looking him in the eyes.

Maybe she would have ended the discussion right there and let the question sit, and tried not to think about it again. That was usually what happened when she asked something that was taken the wrong way.

But that didn’t feel right to her right now. In fact, just the opposite- it felt like she was running away if she did that.

So she didn’t.

“I know I was not… the perfect parent,” Amelia said slowly, finding it harder to look at him while she spoke than she expected. “But I tried my best… truly I did. Please believe me…”

“Amelia, what are you talking about!?” Nick couldn’t hold back his feelings anymore. He reached out and grabbed his stepmother’s arms, pulling her close. Immediately Amelia’s eyes shot up to meet his, and she looked at him with an alarmed expression on her face.

Her lips parted but no words passed them.

“Amelia, you were an amazing stepmother,” Nick said sincerely. “You were always looking out for me, even when I was being a brat. Even when I was going through really dark times, I knew that you were there for me, that you cared about me. That matters, Amelia. It really matters.”

He wished she could understand just how much her presence in his life had saved him. After he lost his own mother, he had spent so much of his childhood feeling alone and unloved. His dad had tried his best, but because of how his job worked, he was hardly ever home. Not in any way that actually mattered. Nick had been raised by an assortment of nannies and babysitters who didn’t really care about him and just saw him as a charge.

But Amelia had never been like that.

“I know you’re not the best at showing your emotions, Amelia,” Nick said gently, “but I’ve always known that you cared about me like a mother, even if you weren’t ever very good at showing it. Alright?”

“Nicholas…” Amelia felt a churning feeling in her heart that was unusual for her. She was normally in far better control of her emotions than this, but right now she couldn’t help herself. She found her body taken over by impulses beyond her control, and she lunged forward, pulling her stepson into a tight hug. “Nicholas!”

Nick was definitely surprised by the sudden gesture of affection, because it wasn’t Amelia’s way. But he knew that it was her transformation rearing its head, making her behave in ways that she normally would not.

• Let’s Get Physical: Amelia has always had a difficult time expressing herself with her words. In order to prevent further misunderstandings with her loved ones, her counselor has encouraged her to be more physically affectionate. Now her natural impulse will be to express her affection for other people through physical contact, which will escalate depending on the level of affection. [NOTE: Can range from handshakes, headpats, hugs, kisses on the cheek, to anything shy of actual sexual intercourse.] (Ice Queen)

The tightness of her hug showed just how powerful the impulse of affection was for her. Nick didn’t need any other sign from his stepmother that she loved him- this was more than enough.

He hugged her back, and they stood there for a while, just embracing one another. But as the warm feelings wore off, Nick’s thoughts turned towards concern for Amelia’s behavior.

Why had she asked him a question like that? What was running through her mind right now, while they were hugging?

Why had she looked so shaken when they reunited?

“Amelia, what brought this on?” Nick asked as he stepped back from his stepmother, looking her in the eyes. “Why did you ask if I thought you were a good mother?”

He could understand why she might be concerned about that, but so much time had passed since he was a child that it seemed odd to bring it up now.

A shadow crossed Amelia’s face and she averted her eyes again, just for a second. Then she raised her head and met his gaze once more.

“…Do you remember what I told you before?” Amelia asked vaguely.

Nick shook his head. She would need to explain better than that.

Amelia sighed, realizing her mistake. “My apologies,” she said gingerly. “I did not… express myself properly.”

A common occurrence for her.

“I told you… about Dakota, yes?” She asked, clarifying what she meant.

Nick bristled. Dakota was the last person he wanted to be thinking about right now. As much as he cared for her, he understood just how problematic their situation was.

Talking about Dakota… it **** him to confront feelings he wasn’t sure he was ready to confront, and that bothered him immensely.

“Amelia…”

“I accused Dakota… of not being a good mother,” Amelia confessed, pulling away from Nick as she did so. She felt dirty just saying it, like she didn’t deserve to feel his hug any longer. “My reasons why should be apparent.”

Nick frowned. He didn’t like thinking about it, but as he remembered Sylvia’s smile from the day before, he understood where Amelia was coming from.

It was hard to say that any part of Dakota’s actions were those of a “good mother” towards her daughter.

“I did not mean to accuse… but I did so nonetheless,” Amelia said, shaking her head. “I simply wished for that girl to look at herself, and consider the result of her actions. The… consequences.”

But in doing so, Amelia had held up a mirror to herself.

“…In my heart… I see Dakota as my own child,” Amelia said, placing her hand over her chest. “Just as I consider you my child. You were both my children, even though I only raised her for a very short time, in the end.”

She could still see the shiny smile of Dakota as a child when she closed her eyes. Even though she now associated that girl with the cruel woman she had become, the part of Amelia stuck in the past still saw her as a little girl.

That was the part of Amelia that she could not escape, no matter how hard she tried. The part of her that made her doubt her own abilities as a mother.

“…I wish there was some way I could help her,” Amelia admitted, shaking her head. She knew that Dakota could certainly hear every word she said right now, but her words were not for the other woman’s benefit. “But… all I am is a woman with my own weaknesses and flaws. Not… the mother I wished I could be.”

So that’s why she’d asked him that question, Nick realized. She had been doubting her own fitness as a mother.

It made his heart ache, seeing Amelia in this state.

“Amelia…” Nick’s voice cracked as he spoke to her. She raised her head and looked at him again, and the two shared a tense look.

The understanding split between their gaze put them both in a difficult position. Neither wanted to be the next one to talk.

But Nick felt like he had to.

“…I think that you made a lot of mistakes as my stepmother,” he confessed. There was no point in denying it, they both knew that was the case. “But the thing I remember most is how hard you tried. You saw how alone I was, how much I needed a mother in my life, and you filled that hole for me. Even though you were so young yourself, you still tried to be my mother, and… and that’s what I remember about growing up with you, Amelia. Not the hard stuff. Not the parts that you didn’t get right. I remember you trying for me. And that’s what really matters.”

“Nicholas…” Amelia’s eyes began to water. She looked up at her stepson and fought back her tears. Even though she knew Nick would not scorn her or think badly of her, it felt unbecoming for her to cry in front of him.

Even though she loved him.

“It seems… we were both trying to fill a void in one another,” she said quietly, extending her hand and resting it on her stepson’s chest. “You needed a mother, and I…”

She couldn’t say any more. The words just refused to come out.

But Nick understood. He could see it in her eyes, and… he understood.

It made her feel loved by her stepson the way she always wished she could be. Seeing him look at her like that, she felt like a mother in a way she had never quite felt, even when she was raising him.

The corners of her lips tugged up into a smile and she removed her glasses, wiping away her tears so they wouldn’t get in the way.

“Thank you,” she whispered sincerely, her heart singing. “Thank you for being my son.”

“…Thank you for being my mom,” Nick said, not sure how else to respond to that. Unlike Amelia, he couldn’t control his own tears and they rolled down his cheeks.

Her fingers gently wiped them away.

“It was difficult for the both of us,” Amelia continued. “But… it has not gotten any easier, has it?”

Nick couldn’t deny that. No matter how much he wished he could. They both understood the difficult situation they found themselves in, and they both understood that, no matter how much they wanted to repair the problems in their relationship, that it wasn’t a simple task.

“I wish… I could have been a better mother to you,” Amelia confessed. Even if Nick was satisfied with her performance, she held herself to a far greater standard. “I wish that how much I loved you… was enough.”

It was a shock, hearing such sincere feelings pass Amelia’s lips. Nick honestly didn’t know how to respond to such genuine emotion, even as she gazed deeply into his eyes. He could feel it, the pressure of her gaze, and he knew how much she cared. But sometimes, that caring just wasn’t enough.

Like with Dakota.

But he really wished it was.

“I believe that girl… her heart is lost in turmoil,” Amelia said, shaking her head. She withdrew her hand and clenched it tightly over her breast, looking away. Her heart ached to understand Dakota, even as she knew she could not. “She loves Sylvia… but that… just isn’t enough.”

No matter how much Dakota may love Sylvia, she was incapable of showing her love for that girl.

It crushed Amelia to see, because she knew all too well what that was like. But where her own clumsy efforts had managed to convey her feelings to her stepson, the situation with Dakota and Sylvia was so much more complex.

Because Dakota could not bring herself to acknowledge that her feelings even existed. And that was the true tragedy of her relationship with her daughter.

Amelia understood that Dakota could not bring herself to love Sylvia the way that the girl deserved to be loved.

And that was a very sad thing.

She wished, in her heart, that Dakota could love her own daughter, but she refused to. And because of that, Sylvia could not feel her love the way Nick had felt Amelia’s.

And now here they were.

“…I failed her,” Amelia said, shaking her head. She looked down at the floor of aisle, which seemed so blank and lifeless beneath her feet. “As a mother… I failed her terribly.”

“You did the best you could,” Nick said gently. “The truth is, Amelia… you weren’t her mother. Not like you were mine.”

Amelia’s heart ached to hear that. She trembled, and Nick thought she might cry for a second. It was only when he saw her shake like that, that he realized how she must have taken what he said.

“No, that… that came out wrong, I’m sorry,” Nick apologized. “Amelia… when you became my stepmother, you were stepping in to fill the role my mother left when she passed away. I needed a mother like you, to love me. But Dakota… it was different with her.”

A bitter shadow crossed Amelia’s face and she nodded slowly. “Because her mother… that woman was still alive.”

Amelia had been a positive influence in Nick’s life. She had tried to do the same for Dakota. But no matter how hard Amelia had tried to be a mother to that girl, she couldn’t give young Dakota what that poor child had desperately wanted.

It wasn’t enough for Dakota to have a mother who cared about her.

She’d wanted that love from her mother. Her real mother.

And being denied it had twisted her in a way that not even Amelia could fix.

“You did the best you could,” Nick said gently, acknowledging Amelia’s efforts when even she herself would not. “No one ever expected you to be perfect, Amelia. Not Dakota, not me.”

“But I expected that of myself.”

It hurt her to say, but it was the truth.

Amelia had not lived up to the standards she set for herself as a mother. Even though she loved Nick and Dakota with all her might… that love had not been enough.

If only it could have been.

“I still love you, Amelia,” Nick said sincerely, reaching out and taking his stepmother by the hand. “And Dakota, she’s complicated, I know, but… I know that a part of her still loves you, too.”

Even if that were true, which Amelia doubted it was at this point… so what?

Dakota may have loved her in some vague way, but that wasn’t enough.

It wouldn’t repair Dakota’s broken heart.

Amelia didn’t need Dakota to love her. Not as badly as she needed Dakota to love Sylvia. And to love herself.

“I just wish… I could have done better.” Amelia’s efforts to keep her tears at bay had sadly come to naught. She fought back the pain in her breast and tried not to cry, but it was all so overwhelming that she couldn’t handle it.

She didn’t want to hurt like this. She didn’t want to feel this way.

But she couldn’t stop her emotions from overflowing.

In her heart, she felt like she deserved the condemnation. Her actions were reprehensible, and her treatment of her own child- rather, the woman she thought of as her own child- hadn’t been enough to save her.

What could anyone say about a mother who failed her own daughter the way Amelia had failed to save Dakota?

“I should have done more for her…” Amelia sobbed, falling into Nick’s chest and clinging tightly to him as tears ran down her cheeks. “I should have done so much more… so much more to be there for her… I could have… if I could have-!”

If only Amelia were better with people. If only she could have reached Dakota and been the mother Dakota needed her to be… if only she could have filled that hole in Dakota’s heart…

But she had only known the girl a scant few years. And the nature of their relationship, at its core, had been one of neighbors, not parent and child.

Nick knew that Amelia’s feelings were absurd. No one would ever blame her for not being able to help Dakota. She wasn’t Dakota’s stepmother! The two were, in essence, strangers.

But even if society would not judge Amelia for her actions, Amelia still condemned herself. And nothing Nick said could change that.

“I know you tried your best,” he said lamely, hugging her awkwardly and wishing he could soothe her wounded heart, the way Amelia had tried so hard to soothe his own wounds growing up. “Dakota knows, too.”

The truth was, Nick didn’t think Amelia was actually upset with herself. Maybe she thought she was. But Nick wondered if she was really just grieving. The way he had been grieving for so many years.

If only we could go back, he thought, closing his eyes and picturing those days he spent with Dakota when they were little. If only we could go back and do it over again. How would things change? Could we have done it better? Could we have been happy?

It was rather twisted, but Nick wished, for a moment, that Dakota had been his real sister. If she had grown up in their home, with him, instead of living in that miserable house with that mother of hers, how would things have changed?

Sadly, Nick would never know the answer to that question.

All he could do was try to be there for Dakota however he could, now, and hope that somehow it would be enough.

“It isn’t your fault,” he said gently, comforting his stepmother. “You did the best you could, Amelia. You did.”

Amelia knew that her stepson was correct. But it did little to soothe the pain burning in her breast. Because while he may have been right… her heart still wept for what could have been. For the mother she should have been. And for the little girl that she’d failed to save from her own pain and loneliness, only perpetuating the cycle of abandonment and neglect as a result.