In the car on the way to kindergarten.
A silence settled over them.
The two of them, one big and one small, sat in the car, unsure of what to say.
Cedric's mood was affected, and he looked down at his toy car in silence.
He was thinking about his mom at home.
Just before they reached the school, Roderick's personal phone rang.
When he saw "Catriona" on the screen, he paused briefly before answering.
The woman's soft voice came through the phone, her tone calm. "Mr. Nightblade, I apologize, I just woke up. Are you at the kindergarten yet?"
Roderick noticed the cub suddenly raise his head, his big eyes fixed intently on the phone.
"Almost there."
On the other end, the woman seemed to sigh in relief. "Good. Can you pass the phone to Cedric?"
It didn't really matter; werewolves had excellent hearing anyway.
"Mommy!!" Cedric shouted eagerly, reaching out his small hand.
Roderick silently handed him the phone.
Then he heard the woman's voice soften by several degrees on the other end of the line.
"Baby, I'm sorry. Mommy woke up late and couldn't take you to school."
Even though he could hear her just fine from a distance, the cub pressed the phone tightly to his ear, as if he wanted to be closer to his mom.
Since his face was so small and chubby, the phone left a little dent in his cheek.
Hearing his mom's voice, his earlier gloom vanished. He shook his little legs and earnestly said, "It's okay. Mommy was tired and needed more sleep."
"Mommy's fine, just a little scrape on my forehead. Don't worry, okay? I'll pick you up this afternoon."
Roderick watched as the cub furrowed his small brows, looking rather serious. "Mommy, you need to rest, so you have to listen."
He was used to mimicking what he heard. Sometimes, he'd hear other parents talk to their kids at kindergarten and come home to repeat it to his mom, word for word.
But his soft, childish voice carried no authority at all.
The woman on the phone couldn't help but laugh. She didn't scold him for his forwardness and instead casually agreed, "Alright, I'll rest for two more hours, but no longer."
It was only a superficial wound, so it really wasn't a big deal.
Cedric pursed his small lips, his brows still furrowed. But he understood he could only negotiate this much. If he asked her to rest all day, she wouldn't listen.
He nodded seriously. "Alright, that's fine."
Roderick watched the cub with interest, listening to their conversation and raising an eyebrow.
He had spent enough time in the human world to see that human parents were always arranging and directing everything.
Pure human parents loved to control their offspring, wanting to keep everything within their grasp. It wasn't just the young cubs— even when their children were adults, capable of standing on their own and providing for themselves, the parents could hardly bear to loosen the reins.
Among werewolves, once the offspring could fend for themselves, the parents no longer interfered; they had their own lives to lead. Unless their offspring came to them in need, they wouldn't get involved.
Catriona treated her cub without any sense of superiority or condescension as a provider. She looked at him as an equal.
In their days together, he hadn't seen Catriona yell or get angry with the cub, and perhaps because of this, the child was emotionally stable, rarely having tantrums or outbursts.
Before coming to meet Catriona, he had imagined what kind of woman she might be.
There was a human lady at the old estate who was also a single mother.
Raising a child alone wasn't easy for any woman; there was anxiety, sleeplessness, emotional instability, pushing the child to study strictly, restricting their freedom with all sorts of rules.
He had met that lady's son a few times when he was younger.
He had expected to find an emotionally unstable, perhaps timid and insecure cub—something unfortunate but understandable given the circumstances.
After all, he'd been absent for so many years and had no right to complain.
Yet, over the past week, the cub's behavior had surprised him.
He had to admit, Catriona had done a decent job in raising him.
But then he thought of her resolute decision last night to leave in six months...
Tch.
Roderick pressed his fingers to his brow, feeling a hint of irritation.
