“No pressure,” he said softly, smiling. “Just glad you’re here, yeah? Now, I’m gonna go out and see how the girls like the play structure.”

  He tilted my head down and brushed his lips across my forehead before striding out of the room.

  I wasn’t sure how long I stood frozen in the middle of the kitchen, replaying the last twenty-minutes in my mind. I shouldn’t have just blurted it out like that, but I’d had to know. I’d needed to hear it from Titus but I hadn’t thought far enough ahead to realize that once he’d said it, there would be no going back from it. He’d held my hand and my face and he’d kissed me, granted it wasn’t on the mouth or anything, but still. It had been the first time in six years that I’d had Titus’s lips on me and my emotions were swinging wildly between elation and panic.

  Eventually, I made my way back into the living room to where Otto had unloaded our things. The box and large suitcases were too big for me to carry upstairs, so I brought up our bags and the Moses basket first and left them on my bedroom floor. The kids were still outside with the men and I felt too raw to join them, so I opened up one of the suitcases and started making trips upstairs with the contents. I did that until I was able to carry the empty box and suitcases upstairs themselves, leaving behind the car seats placed neatly next to the front door.

  I was putting the girls’ clothes away in their new dresser, tears dripping off the tip of my nose, when Titus and the girls found me an hour later.

  “I swung so high,” Ariel announced, skipping into the room. “That man with the thing in his nose said I was flying.”

  “Bas,” Titus corrected with a laugh.

  “Mr. Bas,” Ariel said.

  “Just Bas.”

  “Mama?” Ariel asked tentatively, wrapping her arms around my waist. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I replied, turning toward them as I used the sleeve of my sweater to dry my face. “This is pretty great, huh?”

  “Why’re you crying?” Ariel persisted worriedly.

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But I’m not sad.”

  “Maybe you’re tired,” Ariel replied, patting my back. “Like when Diana’s tired and she cries.”

  “Maybe.”

  Titus laughed quietly as he set Diana on her feet. She toddled over to me and wrapped her arms around my thigh, laying her head against it.

  “It’s been a big day,” he said softly, our eyes meeting over the girls’ heads. “Why don’t you guys hang in here with your mom for a while and put all your stuff right where you want it?”

  “Thank you,” I mouthed, holding the girls against me.

  He just nodded before leaving, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Ariel and Diana were happy to help me put things away, excitedly putting their toys in a corner and setting stuffed animals on their beds. I almost started crying again when I realized that the reason we’d needed the box was because Esther had packed all of her maternity clothes and a whole stack of hand-me-downs from Flora in with our things.

  As soon as everything was unpacked I carried the Moses basket over and set it in the crib, my hand going to my belly. I’d had my appointment with the midwife—Esther was right, I’d really liked her—and had another one coming up in a few weeks. After that, my appointments would be weekly. I hadn’t really thought about how things would go after I’d had the baby, but now that we’d moved and there was a crib in my new bedroom, the reality that I’d soon have three children under the age of five made my palms sweat.

  Diana was too excited to lie down for a nap, so we spent a long time quietly playing together on their bedroom floor. Our rooms were so nice. Far nicer than I’d ever been able to afford. As I watched the girls curling their toes into the plush carpet and opening and closing the pocket door like it was the craziest invention they’d ever seen, I wondered what on earth I’d done to deserve it all.

  We’d gone from lukewarm baths to make sure that Caleb had hot water for his shower at night and hanging a comforter over the broken window to block out the cold air that came through the trash bag we used to cover it, to a house that looked like it belonged in a magazine with a man that I knew would take a cold shower before he ever let any of us take a lukewarm bath.

  Titus loved me.

  Speaking of baths, the girls begged to take one before dinner, so we all crowded into the bathroom. They stripped down and climbed in before the tub had even an inch of water. Someone had thought to put a little rubber dolphin over the spout so neither of the girls would hit their head. They squealed and laughed and begged for me to grab them a couple of toys.

  “Okay, you know the rule,” I said, standing up.

  The girls started to sing an old lullaby at the top of their lungs as I raced into their room and pulled a few plastic toys out of their extra full basket. As I dropped them into the tub, they stopped singing and cheered.

  “You guys like it here, huh?” I asked, watching them play from my perch on the closed toilet seat.

  “Yeah,” Ariel shouted, throwing her arms in the air. Diana copied her.

  “The play thing has a rock wall,” Ariel told me, her eyes wide and excited.

  “It does?” I gasped, leaning forward. “Is it hard?”

  “It’s pretty hard,” she replied, nodding. “But I can do it.”

  “Me do it,” Diana added.

  “Mr. Bas helped Nana,” Ariel told me behind her hand.

  “That was nice of him.”

  “Mr. Bas is nice,” she said, swooshing a little plastic giraffe through the water. “Mr. Cian is nice, too.”

  Diana muttered something unintelligible and dropped her little toy into the water.

  “I like Uncle Titus best, though,” Ariel said easily.

  I pressed my lips together wondering if it was weird that she called Titus her uncle. It had come naturally because that was what Flora and the other kids called him, but now that we were living in his house and he loved me, it felt a little strange. I thought about it for a few minutes while they played and eventually let it go. There was no way to explain it if I started making them call him something else when they called all of Otto’s other brothers their uncles too.

  “Make sure you don’t say that to other people, okay?” I said softly, reaching over to brush her hair out of her face. “You don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, right?”

  “Right,” she replied immediately. She looked up at me seriously and then smiled. “But I still like Uncle Titus best.”

  We eventually went downstairs so I could finish dinner and found the men on the big couch, watching some kind of show about cars.

  “That was some good singin’,” Bas said, looking over the back of the couch at us. “Loud.”

  I laughed at the proud way Ariel grinned.

  “I’m going to finish up dinner,” I announced, letting Diana down.

  Instead of following me to the kitchen, they hurried toward the couch.

  “Girls, come with me,” I ordered uncomfortably. If I was going to be cooking, I needed to figure out a system where they weren’t off bothering our roommates.

  “They’re okay in here,” Titus said softly, raising his eyebrows.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  Titus loved me.

  That night, dinner was pretty easy. Heather had been right when she said it was hard to find everything at first, but once I’d gotten the lay of the land I was able to whip up a batch of biscuits and then start the noodles. Whoever had stocked the kitchen hadn’t scrimped and I stood in the pantry for a full five minutes staring at the huge bags of flour and sugar and baking soda. There were canned foods and snack foods and cases of water, a huge roasting pan, bowls in every size imaginable—it was incredible. By the time I’d finished everything and set the table, the men and my girls wandered into the kitchen and found seats. Unfortunately, Diana screamed at the top of her lungs when I tried to put her in the high chair and as my face burned with embarrassment I eventually relented and let her sit at the table with everyone else.

  “This smells fantastic,” Cian announced as he sat across from Ariel.

  “Yeah, how come you’ve never cooked like this?” Bas asked Titus.

  “My expertise lies in reheating frozen foods,” Titus joked, waiting for me to sit before he sat down, too.

  “Biscuits?” Bas groaned, making Ariel giggle. “You made biscuits too?”

  “They aren’t anything fancy,” I replied, reaching out to grab Diana as she tried to stand on her chair. “Go ahead. Dig in.”

  Surprisingly, the guys helped put servings onto the little plastic bowls I’d found in the cupboards first, making sure Diana and Ariel had their food before they got their own. My eyes widened as Titus handed me his full bowl and stole the one sitting in front of me so he could dish up himself.

  The guys were quiet as Ariel prayed over her dinner, and then the table erupted in conversation as they all started eating. There was something highly satisfying about watching people move in for second helpings of the food you’d made. I couldn’t take credit for the soup, but the twelve biscuits I’d made were gone before anything else.

  “You haven’t seen The Little Mermaid?” Bas asked in disbelief, staring at Ariel.

  “No,” Ariel replied, her mouth full of food. “What’s that?”

  “It’s a movie.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s a kid’s movie,” he said emphatically.

  “Okay.”

  “You’re named after the main character.”

  “I’m named after somethin’ in the Bible,” Ariel countered.

  Bas looked at me, waiting for me to correct her.

  “It’s true,” I said with a shrug.

  “Bullshit,” he argued. “Where in the Bible?”

  “You said a bad word!” Ariel exclaimed, tapping her cheek with her finger.

  Titus barked out a laugh.

  “Isaiah 29,” I replied to Bas. I looked over at Ariel and pressed her hand back down to the table. “Remember, we don’t point out when people say bad words. It’s rude and they already know.”

  “Sorry,” Ariel grumbled.

  “Bullshit!” Diana said to herself. “Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.”

  Cian started laughing, his entire body shaking with it.

  “Nice move, Bas,” Titus said in exasperation.

  I wished I could’ve taken a photo of Bas’s horror filled expression.

  “That’s a bad word,” Ariel said, staring at her sister wide eyed. She looked at me defensively. “She doesn’t already know!”

  “Diana,” Titus called, catching her attention. “What’s your favorite color?”

  “Bullshit.”

  He looked at me with a grimace. “I tried.”

  “I am so sorry,” Bas murmured.

  “Diana,” I murmured, leaning down to her. “What’s sister’s name?”

  “Ari.”

  “And what’s his name?” I asked, pointing to Titus.

  “Ty.”

  “And what about him?” I pointed to Bas.

  “Bas.”

  “And what about him?” I asked, pointing to Cian.

  “Key.”

  “Nice job!” I held out my hand and she high fived me. I looked at Titus a little smugly until Diana opened her mouth again.

  “Bullshit.”

  After dinner the rest of the night was a little less filled with profanity. I let the girls watch the first half of The Little Mermaid with Bas as Titus and Cian cleaned up the kitchen. I tried to remind Titus that it was my job to clean up, but he waved me out of the room with excuses about the long day of moving and getting settled in before I started working.

  Titus loved me.

  The next week flew by as we settled into our new roles at Titus’s house. The women Heather had gathered to clean and get the house ready for our arrival hadn’t really left me anything to wash, so I spent most of my time cooking elaborate meals and watching the girls run outside. Those days were a bit magical, for all of us.

  Late in the afternoon the guys would arrive home, sometimes at the same time and sometimes sporadically throughout the evening. If Bas or Cian wasn’t going to be home for dinner, they let me know, but for the most part all of us ended up around the dining room table. My girls soaked in all the attention like it was their due, and were usually falling into my bed at night after all the playing and running they had done. They loved their beds so much, but they weren’t quite ready to sleep without me yet.

  I wasn’t surprised. Ariel and Diana had gone through so many changes in such a short amount of time that I was amazed at how well they were adapting. I’d seen a difference when we’d moved to Esther and Otto’s house, how they’d slowly come out of their shells at the difference between how it had been at home and their new reality—but they were blossoming at Titus’s house. The biggest difference I noticed was how relieved they seemed to have me to themselves again. During the day, it was just the girls and I, and as we fell into our new routine they lost the bit of clinginess they’d had before, becoming more secure in, well, everything. Almost overnight Diana started talking in full sentences, like she’d just been saving them up but she’d known how to do it all along.

  And Titus loved me.

  Now that I knew, I saw it everywhere. In the way he woke up early for work so he could take a broom to the play structure, knocking down all the webs the spiders had left overnight. How he’d oohed and ahhed at the car Otto had found for me at their garage, even though I’d known that Titus had seen it before. The little bag of lavender scented Epsom salts he’d left on the kitchen counter after I’d mentioned my feet hurting. The way he always served me first when we sat down to dinner. The little booster seat he’d strapped to what had become Diana’s place at the table so she was tall enough to reach. It was in the way he always loaded his dishes, even though he finally agreed to let me clean up after dinner, the way he asked if I needed anything on his way home from work, the way he relaxed on the couch, letting the girls cuddle up beside him to watch cartoons, the way he’d started taking his boots off at the door so he didn’t drag in anything that I’d have to sweep up. The small touches that had been sporadic at first, but became more deliberate—a hand on my back as he reached for something in the kitchen, reaching for my hand as I tried to get off the couch, brushing past me when we both knew that there was more than enough space for him to move around me. It was a million little things that he did without fanfare or acknowledgment.

  Titus loved me and I was beginning to think that he loved my girls just as much.

  Unfortunately, I had absolutely no idea what to do about it.

  Chapter 12

  Titus

  The entire way home, I debated whether or not to tell Noel that my uncle had been keeping tabs and her father-in-law was in town. On one hand, I didn’t want to worry her. There was no way that he knew where she lived anymore. On the other hand, now that she had a car, she and the girls were venturing out pretty often and I didn’t want her to run into him somewhere and have the rug jerked out from under her. It was a double edged sword, wanting her to be able to live without the constant cloud of them hanging over her and the fear that if I didn’t prepare she’d be caught unaware.

  I pulled up the driveway slowly in case the girls were playing outside, but I didn’t see them anywhere just as I realized that Myla’s little SUV was pulled in haphazardly next to Noel’s car. I cursed under my breath as I pulled into the open garage.

  Myla and the girls had agreed to wait and give Noel and the girls a little time to settle in before descending on the house, but it looked like the reprieve was over. I could only imagine what they were talking about as I parked and hurried toward the back door.

  They were in the kitchen, music playing on the speakers, Frankie laughing loudly when I made my way inside.

  “You’re home,” Noel greeted, her smile wide. “Myla came to visit.”

  “I see that,” I murmured, toeing off my boots as I glared at my sister.

  “I gave them over a week to get used to you,” Myla said, laughing. “I thought Noel might appreciate some company after having to deal with you guys.”

  “I made tacos,” Noel said, glancing between me and Myla.

  “She even made homemade tortillas,” Myla added gleefully.

  “Oh, great,” I replied, kicking my boots against the wall. “You’re stayin’ for dinner.”

  “Don’t be rude,” Noel scolded.

  I wasn’t sure which of us were more surprised as our eyes met. Her cheeks turned pink.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I murmured, making her blush even deeper.

  “I made a bird,” Diana called, running toward me as she flapped a piece of paper in front of her. “I made a bird!”

  “You did!” I said, looking at the picture she held out proudly. It looked like a circle with three legs. “Nice job!” I lifted her up as she beamed, shoving the paper in my face.

  “What time are the boys coming home?” Frankie asked as I carried Diana toward the dining room table. It was covered with crayons and about fifty sheets of copy paper, more than half of them already drawn on. Lou was at the opposite side, quietly drawing something with a crayon.

  “Not sure,” I replied. “Hey mermaid,” I greeted Ariel, scrubbing my hand over her fine blond hair.

  “Hi,” she replied, tilting her head back to look at me upside down.

  “Her not a mermaid,” Diana said knowingly as I sat her in her little seat. “Her Ari.”

  “My mistake,” I murmured.

  “A mermaid like Ariel,” her older sister explained for the tenth time since me and the boys had started using the nickname. “From the movie.”

  “I Diana,” Diana replied. “You Ari.”