“Yes, ma’am,” he answers fast, closing the book in his lap before he stands up, snagging a wiggling Abigail — the youngest — before he winks at me. “I’ve got it.”
“Thank you, Casey.” I walk to the end of the hall and open the door to their room, finding the girls exactly where I expected them to be on this cold day. Hidden under a blanket fort in the corner between two of the beds.
Shifting to my knees, I crawl to the edge of their hideaway and whisper, “Is there anyone in this noble castle that may want some lunch?”
Cleo’s head peeks out between two blankets, her brown hair is in her face, tangled, and I reach forward to tuck the majority of it behind her ears.
She scrunches up her nose at me, and I smile at her. “Would you like to have some lunch?”
“I guess so,” she answers, and then her eyes widen a bit. “Wait.”
She tucks herself back inside the fort, and I sit down as I hear her and Sierra whispering away.
This time, Sierra peeks her head out. “Is anyone in trouble?”
“Nope.” I shake my head as Cleo’s face breaks through the blankets right beside Sierra’s. Smiling indulgently at my special girls, because I know it’s better to let them come out on their own, I stand up. “Daddy is about to come to the table, so if you want to get a good seat you should hurry up and escape your castle!”
Giggles start up at my back as I walk to the door and head back to the kitchen. Heather and Brinnah are putting dishes on the tables, and Casey is busy wrangling the younger ones with Moira’s help. I just stand in the doorway and watch as the two tables start to fill up with our family.
Somedays it’s hard to believe that our big family is so perfect, and I know that the hard decisions Daddy had to make about my mama—and my siblings—were worth it. We’d never be this happy with their destructive tendencies in our home.
I feel arms slide around my waist just before Daddy hugs me back against his chest, and I know he’s looking at everyone as they find seats. The older ones propping the little ones on their laps, and Daddy’s seat at the head of the table is empty, and the one to his right is waiting for me.
“I love you, Xoe,” he whispers against my ear, just before he nips my neck in a way that sends tingles down my spine.
“I love you so much, Daddy,” I reply softly just as Cleo and Sierra flit past us to find their seats. I’m proud when I watch Owen move seats so the two girls can sit next to each other—it’s just one more way they show that they love each other.
And that’s what our house is… full of love.
Thanks to Daddy.
“Ready?” I ask, and he squeezes me tight before he lets go and guides us to our seats.
The chorus of “Hi, Daddy” around the table has him laughing, and he smiles big as he pulls his chair in.
“We’ve had such a good morning. Let’s all thank those that helped make lunch for us.”
Thank yous, pop up around the room, and I nod my head with a smile, looking around at everyone.
Daddy reaches for the food and puts the first serving on his plate, and everyone waits for him to finish like we’re supposed to. He leans over to squeeze my knee, and then he nods at everyone. “Let’s eat!”
Six
Richter
The one thing the old man always taught us when we were kids was to never talk to strangers. Mom broke that rule of his when she started chatting up the mailman, but they became friends after a while, and I’d like to think that maybe there are other people as kind as he was to her outside the walls of our house.
Not that there’s time to worry about that.
Not that there’s time to worry about much of anything that isn’t bringing my baby sister home and being a family again.
I try not to think of what Sky said, that Cleo might be happier in the life she has now than one with us because that’s not what Dad would have wanted.
I saw the way he would look at her. Sometimes it was disgust, sometimes it was sadness, but no matter what he said, or how he treated any of us, I know that old man loved us. I know it.
If he didn’t, we wouldn’t have found out how a family is supposed to work.
I grunt as I reach the end of our driveway wondering which direction to go to get to this Bryden Furay’s house. I’m a little agitated now because I don’t really know my way around.
Follow your heart, kid; you’ll always find your family that way.
With a sigh, and a silent thanks to Dad, I decide to turn right and start making my way to town. Someone there will know which way I need to go, and maybe they’ll be as nice as the mailman.
Even if Cleo isn’t there anymore, there’s still a small flicker of hope in me that this man can point me in the right direction.
An extra step in the quest for finding my baby sister and hopefully reuniting with her. I wonder who she looks like now. As a child, she was the perfect mix of Mom and Dad, but she leaned slightly more toward Mom. It was like watching an altered, confused little clone of Mom with Dad’s temper and swagger running around in the backyard.
Sometimes, I would see his anger in her eyes when she didn’t quite understand something, but I was always able to calm her down. Sky helped too, but not much—she was far too interested in being a princess and was Daddy’s Little Snitch more than she cared to admit.
Because of that, I
