Chapter 5
In the car, Emily hugged the bag to her chest.
“Why did you buy them for us?”
Logan thought of a dozen answers.
Because you had nothing.
Because every child deserves something new.
Because Ivy has shelves of toys, and you have one bear missing an ear.
But he said the truest thing.
“Because you deserve them.”
At home, the twins opened the dolls on the living room floor. Emily named hers Rose. Nora named hers Lily.
“Rose and Lily,” Emily said. “Just like us. They’ll be sisters too.”
Then both girls began to cry.
Not from sadness.
From joy.
Pure, stunned joy over owning something that no one had used before, no one had thrown away, no one could claim.
Ivy watched from the armchair pretending not to care.
But Logan saw her face.
Jealousy was still there.
So was curiosity.
And somewhere beneath both, empathy was beginning to fight its way up.
That fight won on a Tuesday night.
Logan heard soft crying from the living room and found Nora shaking after a nightmare. Emily stroked her hair, whispering to her.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Logan asked.
Nora shook her head.
“Grown-ups get mad when we tell bad things.”
“I won’t.”
Emily took a breath.
Then she told him.
About their mother. About the boyfriend, Rick Santos, who yelled until plates broke. About hiding in bedrooms. About their mother’s bruised arm and the lie that she had hit the table. About leaving before sunrise with two bags and a little saved money. About a one-bedroom apartment across the city where their mother said they would finally be safe. About the diner job. The cough. The fever. The days she worked when she should have been in bed because rent and food cost more than rest.
“She said there wasn’t money for doctors,” Emily whispered. “Money was for us.”
Nora’s voice came small.
“We brought her water.”
“We tried to make soup,” Emily said. “But we didn’t know how. We were only five.”
Then came the sentence Logan already knew was coming.
“One day she didn’t wake up.”
“How long did you stay with her?” Logan asked, barely able to speak.
“One whole day,” Emily said. “We waited. Then we got scared and left.”
Logan sat beside them and opened his arms.
For the first time, they leaned into him.
“You can stay here,” he said. “You can stay as long as you need.”
Emily looked up through tears.
“Forever?”
The word should have frightened him.
It didn’t.
“Yes,” Logan said. “Forever.”
He did not know then how hard that promise would be to keep.
The next morning, Emily and Nora drew their mother.
They sat on the living room floor with colored pencils, carefully filling in a blue dress and long hair. Logan stood in the kitchen doorway, watching them preserve love in wobbly lines and soft colors.
Ivy came down and stopped.
“We’re drawing our mom,” Emily explained timidly.
Ivy took one cautious step closer.
“Did she sing to you?”
“Yes,” Nora said. “A song about stars.”
“My mom sang too,” Ivy said, almost too softly to hear.
Silence followed.
But this silence was different.
It was not sharp.
It was shared.
“Was your mom pretty?” Nora asked.
“The most beautiful woman in the world,” Ivy said.
“Mine too,” Emily replied.
Ivy stood there for a moment longer. Then she reached for a yellow pencil.
“Can I draw mine?”
Emily smiled.
“There are plenty.”
The three girls drew in silence.
Sarah in a green dress.
The twins’ mother in blue.
Two losses on paper.
Three children learning that grief could become a bridge.
By afternoon, they had built a fort from blankets and cushions. Ivy taught them how to tie knots because Sarah had taught her. Emily taught Ivy how to braid doll hair the way her mother had braided theirs. Nora taught them part of the star song.
That night, Ivy stood in the middle of the living room and asked the question Logan had been hoping for and afraid to hope for.
“Dad?”
“Yes, princess?”
“Can they sleep in my room tonight?”
Emily and Nora looked at her as if she had offered them a kingdom.
“If they want to,” Logan said.
May you like
“We want to,” Emily said quickly.
“We really want to,” Nora added.
