“Okay. You kids want to come and get your buns ready?”
“What’s a vegetarian?” Cooper asked as he trailed Biyen up the stairs.
“I don’t eat meat that comes from animals,” Biyen explained. “Only fish if me and my dad catch it ourselves. Except, one time, Trystan gave me some sausage made from a bear. My dad said that’s okay because it was hunted responsibly.”
“You ate part of a bear?” Imogen’s face twisted into incredulous revulsion.
“Just one time.”
“Is your dad a vegetarian?” Logan asked Biyen as he came to the table.
“Uh-huh. But we have eggs if they come from happy chickens.”
Sophie was still holding Storm as she came up the stairs behind the kids. She sent him a cool look.
Logan got the message and dropped it, but he was really curious how she’d wound up with someone who seemed so different from her.
“Who needs help with their bun?” Logan asked. “Cooper? What do you like on your burger?”
*
Gramps was known for accepting any dinner invitation and for leaving almost immediately after he’d eaten. He drove home in his Gator while Sophie was helping Emma in the kitchen.
Delta was still shaking off the cross-Pacific travel so she retired to her room to unpack and have an early night. Reid and Logan were splitting their attention between sports highlights and Storm on her mat with her toys. The bigger kids came in from outside as Sophie put the last dry dish in the cupboard.
“Can we have screen time, Auntie Em?” Imogen asked. “I want to show Biyen something really funny.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie. It’ll have to wait,” Sophie said before Emma could respond. “It’s a school night for Biyen. We have to get home and get ready for bed.”
“Awuh.” Biyen stuck his lip out.
“I know,” Sophie commiserated. “You should ask Mrs. Yuki if you can bring Imogen and Cooper one day. They might think it’s interesting to see a Canadian classroom.”
“We didn’t bring our uniforms,” Imogen said.
“Kids here don’t wear uniforms,” Emma told her. “Some schools have them, but it’s not as common as at home. Look.” Emma pointed at the fridge, inviting Biyen to view the kids’ school photos stuck there beneath magnets shaped like ladybugs.
“Isn’t it Fun Day this week, buddy?” Sophie recalled. “When it gets to be end of year, they have a day outside where they play silly games like an egg and spoon race,” she explained to the other kids. “Everyone gets an ice cream and a sunburn. I think I’m supposed to be a volunteer,” she recalled with a sense of mild panic. Quinley Banks, head of the Parent Advisory Committee, would never let her hear the end of it if she missed it. Over her shoulder, she said, “Logan, I need a day off, but I don’t know which one.”
“We don’t give days off. You know that.” He rose and stretched, then swept up his baby sister. “Nighty night, nutty nut.”
Storm shoved her slobber-coated teething ring against his mouth, but he only made a slight face of disgust before kissing her cheek and plopping her onto Reid’s lap.
Sophie had a brief flash of, This could have been our life. It was a very domestic moment, with everyone saying good night and Reid and Emma negotiating a bathing rotation for all the children as they left.
The walk home might have become awkward at that point, but Biyen chattered the whole way, providing a diary of his run up to summer.
“And then on Friday, Dad will come and take me camping in Rum Runner Cove. That’s where the smugglers went when—what’s it called, Mom?”
“Prohibition.”
“Right. When alcohol was illegal. I found a fossil there, once. It was just a fern. Er, a palm frond? I have it in my bedroom and can show you. Did you ever go camping there when you were my age?”
“What age is that? Sometimes I think you’re older than I am,” Logan said.
“Mom says that, too.” Biyen snickered and stuck his hand in hers, definitely still her little boy for a little longer. “Did you?”
“Go camping? No, we didn’t do things like that. Too much work to be done around here.” His voice was even, his profile difficult to read in the light of the half moon.
“Trystan did. He told me,” Biyen said.
“Trystan went camping with his mother and her relatives. I always stayed here with my mom and dad. You know Glenda, don’t you? She’s my mom and she used to be married to our dad, Wilf.”
“Uh-huh. I know.”
Sophie’s heart panged as she had a flashback to those times when Reid and Trystan were absent, visiting their mothers. Logan had always struck her as very lonely at those times, relegated to painting at the lodge or sweeping in the machine shop or filling potholes with gravel, struggling under the weight of a shovel.
“Sometimes I wish my mom and dad lived together,” Biyen said.
Sophie’s breath rushed out as that knife went in.
“You were only joking about not giving Mom a day off for Fun Day, right?”
“I was joking, yes,” Logan confirmed.
“Good. I’ll get the fossil to show you.” He ran into the house as they neared the porch.
“Does he ever wind down?” Logan asked wryly.
