Breathe With Me (Playing For Keeps #5)

by Becka Mack

This one says it was filmed twenty-seven years ago. Which puts the little boy on the screen at four years old. “Carter. Carter, look at Mama.” The little boy sitting at the old wooden table looks up from what he’s doing. He grins at the camera, pulling in a set of deep, heart-stopping dimples that earn an aww from this massive crowd. “What, Mama? I’m twistin’ my Oreos.” A young Holly Beckett snickers from behind the video camera, and the present-day mama chokes out a sob from my left. “It’s a special day today. You’re four years old.” “I know,” he says simply. “And it’s Valentine’s Day. You’re my Valentine, right, Mama?” “Always,” she says softly, and I am not fucking crying. Nobody is. That’s ridiculous. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” A deep laugh booms from off camera, and then a large man who looks strikingly like Carter today steps up behind the little boy and his cookies. He dips his mouth to Carter’s ear. “Your mama’s afraid you’re growing up too fast.” “He is, Theo,” Holly cries. “He is not.” Theo, Carter and Jennie’s late father, nabs one of Carter’s cookies. “He’s still learning how to twist his Oreos apart.”