Page 62 of The Grand Rise

I smile, a warm feeling spreading throughout my chest. “Where is Bear?” I ask, wondering why I’ve not seen the dog around all day.

“He goes to Freya and Glen’s when everyone is at work. He ate one of Uncle Mase’s shoes once—just this one time—and he wasn’t allowed to be left alone after that.”

I stare down at her as she looks up at me, her heart-shaped face flushed from the sun, freckles smattering across her delicate nose.

It shouldn’t hurt this much to look at her. Each and every glance threatens to break me.

How?

How did I miss so much?

How can I not know her when she’s half of me?

“You think too hard,” she says, her grin lighting up her whole face. “Let’s do something fun tonight!” She looks away from me, and I finally turn my attention to Scarlet and the other children.

My eyes widen.

Ellis is stood beside the car, his arms crossed as he watches the two of us. Scarlet has Elsie in her arms, her small body limp in her slumber. “Come on, Ralph, out of the car.”

“No.”

“Please,” Scarlet sings. “We can go inside and get some ice cream.”

“I want Daddy.”

“He’ll be here soon. Come on.”

And then there’s Sammy, who’s currently beating the ground with a stick held in his outstretched hand as he yells, “DIE.”

“Ellis, get your cousin out of the car for me, please,” Scarlet mutters, giving me a small smile as she passes me on the steps, carrying Elsie into the house.

“I’ll get him!” Waverley tells Ellis, skipping back down the steps to the open car door. I follow her, peering into the car as she tries to coax him out.

“I thought you couldn’t walk,” Ellis asks, narrowing his gaze on me.

“The crutches,” I tell him. “They help me.”

He eyes them, then my leg. “Does it hurt?”

“Yes.”

He seems satisfied with my answer and moves his attention to the car. “Do you want to play on my Xbox, Ralph?”

Ralph’s eyes light up, and he nods, his tears evaporating almost immediately.

Ellis leans past Waverley, picking up his cousin and placing him on the ground. “Sammy,” he yells. When the little guy peers up at his brother, I expect him to tell him to cut it out or to stop beating the ground, but he smiles like a complete psychopath instead. “Did you get it?”

Sammy nods, chucking down the stick and running up the steps and into the house.

I look down at Waverley once everyone is inside, my eyes slightly widened. “Is it always this chaotic?”

“Yup. But Mummy says it’s perfect chaos, that she’d never go back to before.”

“Before?”

“Before me,” she clarifies. “She was alone here before I was born. Did you not know that?”

“No, I did know that. I—”

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