Page 81 of A Lesson In Beginning

“Yeah.” Samuel sighed heavily, and I felt for my son. His frustration was massive.

“Want to know a trick?” Joel smirked at him, and Samuel nodded. “Here’s what I do.”

He held his hand up, palm out, and pressed a fingertip to the bottom of the palm of his hand.

“I draw a line up and down every finger, super slow. Every time I go up, I take a slow breath. When I go down, I breathe out. Like this.” He made lines up and down his hands, finger by finger, taking slow deep breaths.

Samuel mimicked his movements, though much more quickly.

“Slow it down. Nice and slow. Yup. Just like that.” I watched in amazement as Samuel imitated him perfectly. His breaths were nice and slow until finally the smile reappeared on his face. “Ready to keep going, Sammy boy?”

“Yeah, I am!” Samuel stood up, jumping up and down, his earlier excitement renewed. Joel stood as well, offering me a hand up as Samuel ran over to Zeke, eager to see the next exhibit.

“That was amazing, Joel.”

“Sometimes they just need a little help. Big feels are big, no matter how small you are.” He shrugged it off as though it were no big thing, but that just wasn’t the case. It was monumental. He had gotten through to my son — albeit by fart noises, but it worked. And it worked well. I was in awe of him.

We finished walking through the exhibits and found our way back to the entrance of the aquarium. We’d spent the entire day there, and it was time to go home.

“Adah, come here for a moment.” Ruth called to me as we gathered outside of the aquarium. I left Joel’s side begrudgingly, my eyes lingering on the picture of him holding Samuel, who was now resting his head against Joel’s shoulder. The poor lamb was tuckered out.

“We’re all heading back home, but I wanted to ask if you still wanted to ride with us or not.”

“How else would we get home, Ruth?” I scoffed at her slightly, confused by her words.

“Well…” She trailed off, her head nodding towards Joel and Samuel.

“What? Ride with Joel? But he doesn’t have a car seat. That wouldn’t be safe, Ruth.”

“We can move the car seat, silly. We moved Samuel’s from our car to the van, so why couldn’t we move it to Joel’s car?” There was a gleam of mischief in her eyes.

“I couldn’t possibly inconvenience him in that way.”

“I think you should ask.”

“I think you’re crazy.”

“I think you should ask, too.” Levi added, turning from behind Ruth to add his opinion, obviously having overheard our conversation. With a nearly inaudible groan, I nodded, walking back over to Joel and my son.

“I was wondering, well, I don’t want to be presumptuous, but… Oh, Lord have mercy, I’m muddling this all up.” Pinching the bridge of my nose, I sighed at my internal struggle to find words. It should not have been this difficult to ask to ride home with him.

“Take your time, love. Ask for what you want.” Cradling my son, who was about two seconds from falling asleep, his calm demeanor set me at ease.

“I was wondering if you’d like us to ride back with you to Portland. Since we are headed in the same direction. Obviously, you can say no. I don’t want to assume that you’d want us to. I mean, I have a toddler who has thrown a massive meltdown, and I have no idea how he’ll handle the ride home and —”

“I’d love it. Breathe, love. It’s absolutely okay. I’m not afraid of a tantrum. I work with children every day. It’s nothing I haven’t seen or dealt with before. Plus, let’s be honest, he’s going to be asleep before we leave the parking lot. Let’s get his car seat moved over, okay?”

“Are you sure?” I fiddled with the cuticle on my thumb nervously, not wanting to trust his easy acquiescence.

“I’d love nothing more.” His arm slipped behind my back, tugging me to him as he kissed my forehead with a gentleness that stole my breath for a moment.

In no time at all, the lot of us had walked across the parking lot to where we were all parked. Joel left us for a moment to pull his car closer. Levi helped to maneuver Samuel’s car seat, securing it in Joel’s car with an ease I was jealous of. The thing was cumbersome at best, but Levi was unfazed by the contraption.

“We’ll see you at home, okay?” I nodded as Ruth hugged me. Joel had buckled Samuel in the backseat already, and was now holding the passenger door open for me. I slipped in, buckling myself as he did the same on the driver’s side.

“Ready?” He turned to me, that smile making my stomach flip-flop. I nodded.

He took my hand, holding it against his thigh as he had during our little ice cream outing for negotiations, and we were off.

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