He stayed right where he was, while Auggie stood and took her sister back in her arms.
“I’ll grab you some blankets.”
“I’ll get them.You aren’t wearing your brace, Aug.You know better.Be careful.”
“I’m good.I’m determined to do those damned stairs without it on a regular basis by Christmas.What can I say?It’s the small things that matter.”
“I love you and your sisters, you know that?”Claudia said.“Without the three of you and Sage, I don’t know that I would have gotten through after what he did.It’s been rough.And…with what Dad did to Maggie…I wouldn’t have blamed you for...”
“I know.And right back at you.I wasn’t going to abandon my best friends because of the sins of their father, Claud.Believe me, if we were all judged by our parents’ sins, I’d have no friends at all.One thing about our fathers—they showed us who our real friends are.That is one thing I won’t ever want to change.”
“Me, either.Let’s get this monster back to bed.Then, I’m going to crash.It has been a long day.”
“No kidding.”
“And I still need to find out just why my brother was on this highway to begin with.”
Well, that was something Cal still hadn’t figured out yet, either.
But he was going to.
6
When Cal wokein the morning there was a beautiful face staring into his.Through thick plastic glasses.There was also an old red-haired doll propped against his chest as if it belonged there.
A doll wrapped up in a blanket, a toy baby bottle next to it.And was that a toy diaper, too?He could handle feeding a toy doll, of course, but…should he draw the line at toy diapers?It was something to consider.
“Good morning, little bit,” he said softly, not wanting to frighten his new little friend away.“Are we playing before breakfast?”
She just nodded very seriously—looking like Auggie, of course.Most of them looked more like Auggie than he would have expected.
She was about three and a half, he thought Em had said last night.She didn’t look it.She was very small.No surprise; he’d seen her older sisters, after all.At five-six or so, Junie was thetallest.
Em had called Junie Gigantore last night.Junie had just called her an evil little garden gnome a moment before, though.The sisters liked to snip at each other.
“You be the cousin.The cousin don’t yells,” the preschooler whispered.
“I won’t.”he whispered back.He’d played with dolls when he was fourteen or fifteen, on Clancy’s orders.But only when his father had paid him to babysit.Clancy probably hadn’t been any older than this beautiful little Tyler in front of him.
This little urchin had Em’s long strawberry blonde hair, and her face was very much like Auggie’s.The eyes, behind the glasses, moved back and forth repeatedly, in a rhythm he’d seen before.Her older cousin Nikki, he believed.At the diner.She resembled Nikki a great deal.“Are we playing house today?”
There was a pink toy stroller there, too.She’d been busy while he’d been sleeping.
“I be Mommy like Auggie.You be the cousin.”It came out ‘da’cudden’ and took him a moment or two to figure out.
“And what exactly does a cousin do?”He cuddled the doll appropriately, feeding it the baby bottle as if it was the most serious task he’d ever done.It was a very hungry doll, too.
“A cousin picks you up and gives you hugs and shows you the horsies and the doggies and all the kitties.And feeds baby Mae-Mae while Mommy on the phone.When we at work.”
He could only assume she was talking about the cousin Auggie worked for, Gil.Gil probably had dozens of horses, after all.“I see.I don’t have any cousins.You are very lucky.”
“Yes.You have to feedz her, too.Like this.”She had a baby-food jar and a plastic spoon.She showed him how her doll needed to be fed.
He did exactly what Mini-Auggie ordered him to.For a good fifteen minutes.The kid had an intense attention span, that was for sure.He thought she could see him, but probably not very well.And the child had real control issues.Much like her new mother, he suspected.She also liked totalk.She told him all sorts of things, especially about kittens.This one liked kittens.And numbers.She showed him how she could count to ‘furr-teen’.Three times.He’d only had to help her a little.With the number eleven—each time.
Claudia came out of the guest bathroom in time to rescue him.“Marchlyn Maribelle Tyler, how did you get out here?”
“Me climbed.”She pointed toward the hall at the top of the four-step landing.“Not hard.”
