This was nothing but a jumble of foreign words to either Monda-ak or Sanda-eh, so they stared back at him blankly.
An hour later, Alex had convinced Monda-ak to climb into the back of his truck, but he stared petulantly into the front. Monda-ak was certain he would fit his petite self into the allowable space. Alex was more certain he would not. For once, Alex won the argument.
He had given Sanda-eh a bath and washed her hair. He took her Winten-ah clothes off, which would have made her look like she was attending a costume party and gave her some of Amy’s. Ironically, the two half-sisters were nearly the same age, but Amy’s clothes did not fit Sanda-eh properly.
Alex looked at her outfit with a critical eye and said what dads have been saying since time immemorial. “That will do for now.”
Alex’s stomach was full of butterflies as he kept to the back streets on his way to Mandy’s house. Every time he passed another vehicle, the person gawked or honked at Monda-ak. Alex felt fortunate that he hadn’t hopped out at a red light and taken off after another dog or cat.
When they stopped in front of Mandy’s house, Amy was sitting on the front porch waiting on him, even though he was five minutes early. She ran to the car, saw Monda-ak and froze.
“Whoa. What is that?”
“You said you always hoped we would get a puppy, didn’t you?” Alex asked, sweeping Amy up in his arms and squeezing her so tight he was afraid he might break her.
“That’s no puppy, dad. That is a very big dog!”
“He is very big,” Alex admitted. “His name is Mondak.”
“That’s a funny name.”
Probably better than Monda-ak, though, right?
Amy saw Sanda-eh sitting in her car seat and said, “Who’s that?”
Man, this is a lot to spring on her. Kids are adaptable though, right?
“That is Sanda.”
“Sandy?”
“No, Sanda.”
“I don’t know that name.”
“And now you do.”
Alex dropped Amy onto the ground, unbuckled Sanda-eh, rechristened Sanda now, and reached behind the seat. He pulled the giant teddy bear out. If he had come with just that as originally planned, Amy might have squealed with delight at it. As it was, the teddy bear was the third-most interesting thing Alex had brought with him.
He reached in the cab, pulled Sanda out and turned toward the house, still holding Amy by the other hand. On the porch, Mandy was standing with her hands on her hips and that uniquely puzzled/angry expression she often had when Alex was around.
Alex took a deep breath and walked up the sidewalk to her.
IT WAS NOT ALWAYS A smooth transition back into twenty-first century life for Alex Hawk.
He had told Mandy that Sanda was the daughter of a friend from the service who had died suddenly and that he had promised to raise her if anything like that came to pass. It was at least a semi-plausible explanation.
There was the normal feeling-out period for Amy and Sanda, but Alex was relieved when they soon became fast friends. He knew that he couldn’t expect Sanda to keep her true origin a secret at her age, so he bit the bullet and told Amy the whole story.
She was skeptical, but before he rebuilt the wall, he showed her the door, and the primitive weapons he had brought back. Most convincing of all, of course, was Sanda and Mondak themselves. Their sudden presence in his life was irrefutable evidence that something unusual had occurred.
Alex found that he could not keep his job as a drywaller. He wasn’t ready to trust Sanda to anyone but himself yet, and he knew Mondak could not bear to be separated from him for ten hours a day. It would have killed him.
Alex lived off his savings for a month while everyone adjusted to their new circumstances.
One night, while watching television, he flipped across a show about tiny houses. Sanda became excited. She pointed to one of the houses and said, “Dadda! Like our home!”
At first, Alex was amused. The idea that his one-hundred-and-fifty square foot home, built with no power tools or even steel and nails, was now a hot and trending subject was amusing to him.
As he watched the craftsman build the house, he got to thinking.
I could do that. I could build those. But, would anyone buy them?
The answer was yes.
Alex had his first one sold before it was completed. All he had done was take pictures of it as he constructed it and shared them on the Facebook page of his local Buy-Sell-Trade group.
He built himself a website—Winten-ahConstruction.com—and things took off from there. Before he knew it, he had orders backed up. Those back-ordered clients begged him to hire people so he could produce more tiny houses faster, but Alex declined. He was looking for a way to make enough to support himself, Amy, Sanda, and Mondak, but he wasn’t ambitious enough to turn it into a large-scale business. He preferred to have more time to spend with his family.
When Alex had been back in Oregon a few weeks, he and Sanda visited the escrow company who had closed the sale of his house. He asked to be put in contact with Benjamin Hadaller, but the woman at the front desk demurred.
“We can’t give out our client’s personal information.”
Alex set Dan Hadaller’s diary on the desk and said, “This is his dead son’s diary. I think he’d want to see it.”
Soon, a blonde older woman approached him. “I’m Karen, the manager. This is quite an extraordinary request. I took it upon myself to call Mr. Hadaller. He says he doubts you have what you say you have, but he gave me permission to give you his address.”
Five minutes later, Alex was in his truck, Mondak again in the bed and Sanda in the car seat beside him. He pulled into the driveway of
