Page 7 of Nineteen Eighty

“Is she? Or are you imagining it, because you’re scared?”

Colleen almost jumped down his throat for the presumption, but it was Luther saying this, not someone who didn’t understand her. Though a full decade younger than her, he’d become one of her most trusted friends. She often forgot she was the older of the two. “She likes her alone time.”

“So do you.”

“She’s four.”

“What were you like at four?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, I can’t imagine you were very different than you were at fourteen, or twenty, or twenty-eight.”

“I appreciate that you’re trying to keep me from worrying,” Colleen said. “But we both know the struggles of growing up in this family. Of trying to have normal lives while bearing the name Deschanel. And on top of that… healers, empaths, illusionists.”

“There will always be risks. But when we know that, we can help protect our loved ones. Prepare them.”

Colleen nodded, thoughts drifting to just how much had changed since she brought Luther onto the Council, a young man barely in high school.

Their beloved Pierce had died in 1977 of an unexpected heart attack, at fifty-one. Pansy and Kitty hadn’t been the same since, and neither had the Council, which had always benefitted from his calm hand and open mind. And though Colleen had been eyeing Evangeline for the next open spot, she instead gave it to Jasper Broussard, Cassius’ son, to show she wouldn’t capitalize on their terrible grief.

But then, good to her word, Eugenia had also stepped down. The death of her half-brother had been the final push, and when she did, Colleen made her move to finally bring Evangeline into the fold.

Cassius would be the next to retire from family work. He was already hinting at it. Colleen wasn’t ready to lose him, too, and if and when he did, she had no one in mind to replace him. Her brothers wanted nothing to do with the Magi Council, Maureen was a mess, and Elizabeth… well, Elizabeth did all she could to normalize her condition. This would only bring a finer point on it.

If Colleen looked back a decade, the reflection was even more bizarre. In 1970, she was dating Rory, whom she’d loved but was not in love with, daydreaming of nothing more than the years of college ahead of her, safe in the comfort of her great-aunt Ophelia’s tutelage. Now, she’d married a man who she was utterly and irrevocably in love with, and had borne him three children. And now it was she, and not Ophelia, running the august council for the family. Colleen was the one doling out the wisdom and making the hard decisions.

Except, not today. Today, she was reminded the words of another could be even more powerful than the truths within.

“Thank you, Luther,” she said and pulled him in for a quick embrace. “I’ve made some questionable decisions over the years, no doubt, but bringing you in at my side on the Council was not one of them. I’m proud of the man you’ve become.”

Later that night, Colleen dictated her notes from the Council meeting of two days prior to the recorder in her hand, while Noah rocked a sleeping Ashley, glasses perched on his nose, reading National Geographic. It was from earlier in the year, January, she thought, because it was the one with Jupiter on the cover. She had her subscription sent to The Gardens, because it gave the two of them something to look forward to on their quarterly visits home for her Council meetings. And not just the two of them… Amelia devoured the magazines, disappearing into her room for hours with a stack. Colleen supposed this was why Noah was stuck with January.

How she loved her husband. How proud she was of him. He’d successfully finished his doctoral program and was now Dr. Jameson. She’d be next, but more and more, she knew her own degree would come from New Orleans, not Edinburgh.

She clicked the pause button.

“That a good one?” she asked quietly, so as not to wake two-year-old Ashley. She already knew the answer. She’d read it cover to cover herself.

“Oh, yeah, this one’s just full of good stuff,” Noah said, pushing his glasses back and carefully folding the magazine on the side table. “We should really take the kiddos to Utah. Looks beautiful.”

“We could,” Colleen said. “It would be easier to do it from here, of course.”

Noah pressed his lips together, in a smile that was almost indulgent. “It’s not me you need to convince, dear.”

No, she supposed not. It had never been Noah. He would have left Edinburgh after Amelia was born, had Colleen felt it was the right time. But it wasn’t. Not then.

“It’s tough,” she confessed. “Our babies are thriving there. We are thriving there.”

“Our babies would thrive here too. We would thrive anywhere, Colleen. You know that.”

“My family…” Where to start, though? He knew they were odd. He knew they were challenging. And he knew they had problems. Didn’t every family? He even knew her tendency to take everyone’s burdens onto herself. But he wasn’t worried. So why should she be?

Noah shifted Ashley to his shoulder. “Your family has changed without you. And you’ve changed without them. You might even find it easier, because of those changes. Less likely to sacrifice yourself for the cause.”

Colleen dropped the recorder on top of the leather-bound notebook. “Summer, then.” It would give her the time needed to apply and be accepted for the doctoral program at Tulane.

Noah smiled wider. “Summer, then.”

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