Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapters Ten & Eleven
Epilogue
Chapter 7
I had the most fidgety daughter in the history of church attendance that Sunday. She wasn’t fooled by my attempts to distract her. She wore her watch for the first time in about a year. She had set her alarm so she could get up and make her final play date preparation. It was odd because she had many friends and they had come over on a regular basis. She had never invested this much time and effort into their play dates.
Whatever the reasons for her excitement, it certainly made the morning insufferable for me. I was very glad when the doorbell rang at 2 pm on the nose. Maria was there waiting and the door was opened before the chimes had finished their echo through the house. Melissa was in a purple jumper, with her hair in pigtails, not dissimilar to Maria’s outfit and hair. Had there been some conversation about what to wear during their brief time together the week before or had some girl sixth sense taken control of them both? I had no idea. But they could have passed for twins and they were obviously overjoyed at seeing how well they matched. They were both gone in a flash up the stairs before Velma was fully past the threshold of the door.Velma smiled a bit and said, ‘You have no idea what a handful she has been waiting for today.”
“Oh, yes I do, trust me.” I responded.
Velma lost her smile rather quickly and said, “I need to get back, Angus is feeling under the weather. When should I come pick her up?”
“I think they could easily spend the whole afternoon together so why don’t we say around 6. They should be worn out by then.”
I didn’t see the two girls again for about 2 hours. I heard them plenty, but I didn’t hear anything break and I didn’t smell anything burning so I left them alone while I caught up on some office paperwork I had been avoiding for too long.
The weekend had been relatively quiet until they started playing because Daria was gone for the weekend, camping with her best friend’s family in Arkansas. Caria had moved out of the house a year before to go to college and was now doing a summer project in Chicago through her school so she hadn’t been around for a while.
I was enjoying the sound of girls playing in the distance, it reminded me of the years all three daughters were young and excited to play together. Daria was now a new teenager, 3 years older than Maria. She wasn’t always amenable to Maria’s pleas to play dress up or build a fort. She was more into experimenting with crazy makeup and asking leading questions about how many piercings I would allow her to get and where. Caria, 5 years older than Daria, would always indulge her younger sisters but once she got her license she just wasn’t around very much. She had done an excellent job filling in a bit when their mother left, but since I worked from home she never had to take on that role full time. All the girls were changed by the departure but we had managed well to keep a strong feeling of family intact.
At 4 o’clock the girls bounded down the stairs and announced they were hungry and were going to make a snack for themselves. What that was going to entail I had no idea but Maria knew the rules of the kitchen so I was confident there would be no sharp knives or gas turned on without me being there to supervise.As I heard drawers open and shut, dishes clatter, and more giggles I also heard another sound. It wasn’t a sound you hear often in Sunrise. When you do it makes you wonder what is happening and to whom. The sound traveled from east to west, probably coming within a ½ mile of our house before moving away again. The siren sounded like a fire truck.