Day one of the week of daily updates.

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I sit down on the couch with my new phone. Zak’s and my parents’ numbers are already on it. Rick has sent me a text. I blush just reading it. I look up at Rick. He’s smirking. Avery climbs into my lap. “Dad bought you that?”

“Yes,” I say as I quickly close that text. I don’t care if he can’t read. He’s too young to even look at it.

I text Zak, New number, Pete

He will be happy that I have my own phone. I glance towards Rick again. He is straightening up his room. I am more than willing to help him. Noah stands at the door and looks from Rick to me. He still has his shoes on. The sooner I take him for a run, the sooner I can shower these gritty bits of hair away. They didn’t bug me much at first, but now they are itchier than the prickles.

Zak texts me, Good

I wait another minute then dial my mother. Esther, my fifteen year old sister, answers on the second ring. When she hears my voice she says, “This isn’t the number you were at last night.”

“I’ve got my own phone.”

“Good for you.” She calls for Mother telling her that I’m on the line. “So is your sugar daddy as sexy as he sounds?”

I freeze in place. Avery turns on my lap. “Who are you talking to?”

“Avery, I’m talking to my sister.”

He looks like he wants to talk, but I don’t trust Esther right now. I put the phone back to my ear. “Who told you what he sounds like?”

“Mother. And here she is.”

I have so many things I want to ask Esther. But they will have to wait. My mother says, “Peter, I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”

“Well, I just can’t wait until Saturday to see you again.”

“Oh, you are such a sweet boy,” my mother coos. “But you should be saving words like that for Rick.”

Rick smiles at me from the doorway and I feel I’ve redeemed myself. “We want to see you. Rick and I do. What about Wednesday?”

“Wednesday? Esther, is anything happening on Wednesday?”

Avery scrambles up until his ear is near the phone. “Who are you talking to now?”

“Who is that?” asks my mother.

“Mother, Avery would like to say hi.” I pass him the phone. “Call her grandma.”

“Hi, Grandma,” Avery says shyly. I can hear my mother squeal from here.

“Oh, Avery?”

“Yes.”

“You are almost three?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What would you like for your birthday?”

“Um.”

I reach toward the phone, but Avery isn’t ready to hand it back. My mother says, “Pete has a brother who is three. He likes cars. Do you like cars?”

“I like elephants.”

“Oh, good. I like elephants, too.”

Avery looks at me, his eyes shining. “She likes elephants, too.”

I nod. Noah looks rebellious. I wave him to me. “Would you like to talk?”

He comes to me slowly and I take the funny wave of his head to be a nod. “Avery, Noah wants to talk to Grandma.”

Avery bites his lip and hands the phone to me.

“Mother, Noah would like to talk to you, too.”

“Tell him I want to talk to him.” My mother’s voice is all bubbly like she is tickled pink.

“Ok.” I hold the phone out to Noah, who is suddenly bashful. “Noah, Grandma wants to talk to you.”

He slowly takes it. Her first question is, “What is your favorite animal?”

He sucks in a breath, “A Japanese dwarf flying squirrel.” Then he proceeds to tell her why he likes it better than any other flying squirrel. I think she’s just made a friend for life.

Noah carts the phone off as he talks. Avery leans against my chest. “I like this Grandma.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” I hug him and rock side to side until he giggles. “She likes you, too.”

He cuddles closer against me. “I like her. I don’t think she would hit me.”

I freeze and slowly raise my eyes to Rick’s as Avery tells me about ‘his grandma with the stick.’ Rick’s face says it’s all true. Avery concludes with, “And Daddy took us home and says we will never have to go back.”

Avery crawls down and gets his blanket, which he uses to play peek-a-boo with Caden. Noah is at his toy box explaining each of his animals. I think the boys are busy for while. Rick sits beside me, his face pale and his lips thin. “You want to know?”

I nod. I shouldn’t force myself into their family, but I can’t help but feel I’ve known them forever. Rick and his boys have been waiting for me all their lives; it just took me until yesterday to find them.

“My grandmother is the family matriarch. She rules us with an iron hand. She thought Avery should eat a nut filled brownie because she had expressly asked my aunt Emma to make them. She’s always like that. Everything you do or don’t do is about her. You failed a test to embarrass her, you got in an accident to inconvenience her, you got sick just to annoy her. Stuff like that.”

Yikes, and I thought my family was hard to live with. At least they always have my best interest at heart. I wrap an arm across his shoulders and lean against him.

He relaxes a bit, but I can see anger and guilt wrestle across his face. “She doesn’t like babies. She didn’t even like her own. But after Caden was born, she told me to bring Noah and Avery around. I put it off for over a year.” He leans forward with his elbows on his thighs as if he carries the weight of the world. “You would think that a woman like that would have meek daughters, but you would be wrong. My mother and aunts chipped away at me until I finally took the boys over on Christmas. Sophia had taken Caden to see her parents.”

Rick puffs out a sigh. “Well, the long and the short of it is that my grandmother threw a tantrum. I remembered how much that cane hurt, so I stuck by the boys every moment. I was standing right there when she raised that cursed stick, but I still could barely keep him from getting hit. It didn’t hurt any less now that I was grown.”

“So,” I glance towards the boys. “You saved him.”

“I got in the way of the stick, but I couldn’t save him from the nightmares. That was the first time anyone hurt him on purpose. I would have saved him from that for a while longer.”

“Were they—your family—angry?”

“I suppose,” Rick says, leaning back and towards me so he is tucked under my arm. “But I don’t really care. I haven’t spoken to any of them since. My father’s mother was a sweet old lady, like Elspeth, but she died when I was young. My grandfather moved to a warmer climate or away from the memories, according to which of my sisters you ask.”

I tip his head back and comfort him with a kiss. I’m not worried about him meeting my family anymore. He opens to me willingly and soon the kiss isn’t about comfort. His lips drag against my skin and I am like the water that a geyser launches into the sky: hot, fast, and high. His hands slide under my shirt and I gasp as he sucks a hickey on my collar bone. The world fades out except for his hands, his touch, and the small noises he makes.

“Grandma,” comes a voice at the edge of my awareness. “Daddy says not to bug them when they are kissing like this.”

I jump away and look around, trying to get my brain to work. I notice Rick’s smirk and pull my shirt down to cover my belly. He holds out his hand to Noah, who passes him the phone. “Ruth?”

What is my mother going to think of that?