“Excellent choice. So, I suppose we’ll start this tale in a similar fashion to all great stories. Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lived alone with his mother in a tiny house. Though the boy never quite fit in with the other children, and he and his mother couldn’t afford much in the way of creature comforts or possessions, it was okay because the boy knew his mother loved him very much, and that was what mattered the most. Sadly, that all changed when a filthy rich man with more money than character crashed into their lives. Like many rich men, this intruder was greedy and had never learned how to share. He wanted the little boy’s mother all to himself, so once he and the mother married, he sent the boy off to a school far, far away.”
Lured into the story in spite of herself, Bethany’s gaze crept from the granola bar in my hand to my face. “Did the little boy not want to go away to school?”
I shook my head. “Not at first, no. Remember, the little boy loved his mother. He wanted to stay home with her and was scared of living without her in some strange new place. But gradually, the boy became accustomed to his new home at the school and grew to enjoy certain aspects of his life there. You see, the boy had always enjoyed learning, and this particular school had exciting new lessons to teach. The sort of lessons that went far beyond what he could have learned under his parents’ roof while attending the public school back at home. Over time, he even fell in love with a brilliant woman, who taught him more of the true nature of people and life than he’d ever dreamed possible. The important lessons that most students were never lucky enough to learn.”
Katarina’s whelp’s eyes were wide and trained on mine as she soaked up every word. As a reward for her interest, I extended the granola bar toward her, holding tight when her greedy hands shot out to grab the other end. “Now, what do you suppose happens next in the story?”
She tugged at the bar, but I held firm. Catching on to my game, she relaxed her grip. Her smooth brow furrowed as she considered my question. “Did the little boy and the woman get married?”
I released the snack. “Well done. That is an excellent guess.”
The wrapper crinkled as she tore at the plastic with trembling hands and teeth, like a raccoon raiding a campsite picnic. She ripped off a hunk and swallowed the bite after two chomps.
So perfect, how she was falling into my trap without the slightest inkling. Though dated now, Skinner and Watson’s operant conditioning theories had yet to fail me. Shaping behavior with both punishment and rewards was a technique still implemented by animal trainers for one simple reason…it worked.
So cute, the way humans believed they were elevated beyond monkeys or Golden Retrievers when, in actuality, they reacted the same as baser mammals when stripped down to survival mode. I’d accepted the truth long ago. The members of our supposedly superior species were nothing more than animals awaiting the right trainer.
The quicker little Bethany understood that her most basic, essential survival needs relied upon exhibiting the behaviors I desired, the quicker she’d acquiesce to my reins.
Lulled into a good mood by this recent success, I allowed Bethany to scarf down the granola bar without interruption and lapsed back into storytelling mode. “No, I’m afraid the boy and the woman never did get married, although there was a time when he would have liked nothing better. Alas, the woman already had a husband, even though she loved the little boy more. The pair of them were so in love that they created a baby together, but the woman lied to the boy when he asked and pretended like the child belonged to another man. Wasn’t that horribly, terribly wrong of her?”
I broke off when my own voice penetrated my ears, taut and sharp as a guitar string wrapped around a gasping throat. A glance at Bethany revealed no observable symptoms of fear at all. Rather, the child agreed with my summation of Letitia’s vile act with a bob of her head.
My fingers dug into the blanket like claws.
See, Letitia? Even an eight-year-old agrees that you behaved in a despicable manner.
“She tried to hide the child from the boy, but he was too smart for her tricks. Far smarter than she gave him credit for. You see, she’d forgotten that she’d already taught the boy most of her tricks, so he was hard to fool. And, as often happens, the student had surpassed the teacher. Knowing that she lied, the boy hunted high and low for his child. Along the way, he stole a few other children he stumbled across too, snatching kids from undeserving parents who didn’t appreciate them and selling them to parents who did.”
The story tumbled out faster now like an outside force was pressing on me, insisting that I hurry to the conclusion. Bethany polished off the food in silence and hunted for crumbs in the sheets. When she finished, she pulled the blanket up higher, as if protecting herself from my growing unhappiness with the direction the story was taking.
Her reaction was inconsequential. All that mattered was that I spew the remainder of this sordid tale into the world before I burst.
“Of course, the boy did end up finding the child, but not until he was a grown man, and his daughter was almost a full-grown woman herself. The reunion went nothing like he’d hoped. His daughter had no idea she’d been given up for adoption as a baby and didn’t believe the boy. When he tried to tell her the truth, she called him a dirty liar, crazy, all sorts
