A Smear of Mushrooms

AN: Thank you, slipperieslope, for your suggestions and help. <3<3<3

Esmeralda stepped out of her bedroom and walked along the hall toward the sitting room when she heard the lot from Crickhollow had arrived here in Brandy Hall. She felt a tad jittery about meeting Frodo after the lad lost his parents, and deep down she was questioning the decision of the family about bringing him here. But Esme discarded that thought instantly, feeling guilty for having had that feeling. It was impossible to let young Frodo live alone in his family's smial. The young hobbit would need a place to live after all his relatives returned to their respective homes after the fuss following Drogo and Primula’s funeral died down.

She stopped in the doorway, eyeing her cousin’s son who was sitting tight looking small amongst the Bagginses, Brandybucks, and Tooks. But he was not as miserable as Esme had thought. Frodo was busy eating a mushroom pie someone had given him earlier, devouring it without using a saucer or a fork, the food smudging his hands and mouth with some splotching the tip of collar. Esme could not help smile, albeit sadly, watching the scenes before her. Frodo seemed famished. Poor lad.

But she was not allowed to delve in her own anguish too long for the orphaned Baggins had then gazed up, looking into Esme’s damp eyes with his clear, big ones that stood out amongst his pointed nose, cleft chin, and trimmed-short sooty curls that were matted to his scalp. Frodo put down the hand holding pie onto his lap.

“Are you going to be my mama, until she comes back?” he slurred with mouth full of chewed food. Frodo did not even blink.

Esme was stunned. It was not longer than a second that Frodo captured her in his gaze because then he had returned to taking more bites of his pie, but it was not the case for Esme. For that mere second the gentle hobbit lady felt as if she were drowned into those unwavering blue ponds, taking into her heart Frodo’s insecurity, trepidation, and demand as well. But the most unnerving thing that Esme caught – and that broke her to pieces – was the child’s complete incomprehension of the meaning of what had happened to him.

She had not discussed and decided with her husband, Saradoc if they would adopt Frodo or not, but… Esme sobbed hard, her hands shaking, and rushed forward. She did not know when she started to kneel or why suddenly her blouse was smeared with little bits of mushrooms, too.

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