Though it may come as a surprise to…absolutely nobody, Croe was not a natural at motherhood.
She knew the type, even if the source of their primordial maternity eluded her – women that simply embodied mom-ness, who held babies so naturally it was as if they’d done it their entire lives, who cooed and charmed children into laughter, who played make-believe. Croe had tried to play make-believe with Ned and found the whole process utterly perplexing; he invented whole worlds and stories and every character was fantastic and strange. Ángela’s imagination was more grounded, but even her games posed a challenge for her mother. If you never played pretend as a child, how were you supposed to do it as an adult? Croe had no wellspring of inspiration to draw from.
But she did try. It was hard, and Croe was not used to doing things she wasn’t good at, but she gave it her best effort. She sat through Ned’s adventures with Sir Hugs, and pretended to sip tea from empty cups with Ángela and her cohort of dolls and stuffed animals. And if she felt anxious, at times even desperate to get away and do something else, it wasn’t because she didn’t love her children. Contrary to her critics’ whispers.
That, above all, was the worst of the gossip. Croe didn’t care who called her a murderer or a social climber or a whore, but the speculation that she did not love her family, that she was incapable of love, stung in an unfamiliar way. To some, she was worse than a mere villain: she was an animal, or a robot. A killing machine, literally heartless. The idea that those comments would one day make their way to her children’s ears haunted her.
So she leapt at the chance to spend some time with her daughter in a public place, doing something a little less out of her depth (though still solidly outside her comfort zone): shopping. Croe did not derive much enjoyment from acquiring things, but she could wield a credit card as deftly as a dagger – growing up with wealth taught her at least that much. And she did genuinely appreciate the “girl time,” just the two of them. Even if it would have been better spent teaching Ángela how to field dress a rabbit.
The Disney Store seemed to be part shopping, part amusement park. It was far larger than she expected it to be, and there was a young woman in a pink dress giggling in a high-pitched voice amidst a flock of little girls, and there were life-sized sculptures of unfamiliar cartoon characters, and thousands of dresses. Or so it seemed. Toys of all kinds adorned shelves and tiered displays throughout the colorful space. It was, frankly, overwhelming.
Fortunately, Ángela was right in her element.
”What do you want to look at first, minette?” Croe asked, trying to sound sincerely cheerful. It was an intonation that fit oddly around her smokey voice. ”Do you want to talk to…is that Snow White?”
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