Page 99 of Trouble Comes in Threes

“About the artist guy?” he asked excitedly.

“That’s right!” Neely Kate told him, but the look she gave me confirmed that wasn’t what she’d meant.

“I haven’t had a chance to tell him anything,” I said, ushering the girls into chairs at the table, then grabbing them each a cookie. “We’ve had our hands full.”

“Told me about what?” Joe asked as he walked in with Liam on his hip.

“There was an artist here, Uncle Joe!” Mikey exclaimed. “He drew people! I want to be an artist too, and Aunt Rose says I can take art lessons! He let me watch him work!”

“That’s so exciting!” Joe proclaimed as he walked to the fridge and pulled out an aluminum foil-covered plate. “I wish I could have been here to see him. I bet it was really cool.”

“It was, Uncle Joe! You also missed my soccer game.” He made a face. “But I didn’t make a goal this time.”

Joe took off the foil and popped his plate into the microwave. “I really wish I could have been there, Mikey. And you don’t have to score a goal every game. Sometimes you have to let the other kids score them too.”

Mikey made a face. “Yeah, I guess so.”

I handed the little girls their cookies, then walked over to Joe to take Liam, but instead he pulled me into his other side, holding me close and kissing the top of my head.

“Were you working all day, Uncle Joe?” Ashley asked as she took a tiny nibble of her cookie.

“I was,” he said, sounding as exhausted as he looked.

“Do you have to work tomorrow?” Mikey asked.

Joe was silent for several seconds, so I peered up at him. He gave me an apologetic look before he said, “Yeah. I’m afraid so.”

I wrapped my arm across his abdomen and gave him a tight squeeze to let him know I wasn’t upset.

“That’s so much work!” Mikey said.

“It is,” Joe admitted. The microwave dinged, and he released his hold on me to turn toward it. “But it’s important, so it has to be done.”

“Go sit,” I said. “I’ll get it.”

Joe did as I said, settling Liam on one leg after he sat at the head of the table. “I’m surprised you two are here so late,” he said to Jed and Neely Kate.

“We came over after the game,” Neely Kate said, “and then it turned into an all-day thing.”

“I see,” Joe said as I set the plate and a fork in front of him, then grabbed a glass of water. Liam reached for the spaghetti, but Joe moved his plate to the side. I would have taken the baby from him, but I could tell he needed to hold Liam, and that worried the stuffing out of me.

Joe wasn’t just feeling guilty for being gone all day.

He was concerned.

Jed must have caught on too because he started giving Joe a play-by-play of the soccer game, much to Mikey’s delight. Then Mikey took over and told him a detailed recap of Tony’s process of drawing the two people.

“Who are they, Aunt Rose?” Mikey asked me.

“Just two people I saw,” I said.

Ashley lifted her gaze and stared into my eyes. “In your nightmare?”

My lips parted in shock, and I wasn’t sure what to say, but Neely Kate intervened. “We made cookies too, which the kids are sampling now.”

“They’s so good, Daddy,” Hope said, holding her cookie toward him. “Do you want a bite?”

I was pretty sure Joe didn’t want to mix sugar cookies with the big bite of spaghetti and meat sauce he’d just taken, but he took one anyway and made mmm sounds.

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