Nicky yawned and stretched luxuriously, groaning pleasurably as his joints popped. Lying here, sprawled in front of the TV, late at night when the house was silent, was a rare privilege these days, one he could only enjoy once all the kids were put to bed; it was fun being ‘Uncle Nicky; climbing frame, entertainment centre, and occasional wrestling opponent’, but with all his nephews and nieces, and daughters, and little sisters to entertain, more than a little tiring. He looked around thoughtfully at his childhood home, comparing his memories of how it had been to how it was now.
It was still a strange, sometimes unsettling experience to come back to this house where he had grown up, where so many bad memories and old hurts had once dwelt, but the cold, cavernous barn with the frigid atmosphere of hostility and throttled anger he remembered living in, tempered only by the warm, loving presence of his ‘mother’, his Barbara, was gone forever, courtesy of Bobby, Shari, Rick, and Yaz. Thanks to their efforts it was a home now, a proper family home at last, filled with warmth, love, and laughter, and the sound of children playing and storing-up happy memories of growing up here surrounded by love.
Nicky smiled to himself as memories of his beloved Barbara here, with him, intruded on his reverie; how she would have loved the light and laughter, and the sound of children laughing and playing filling the house now, and the fact her prison had finally become the place of love and treasured memory she had longed for.
With the thought of Barbara and children returned the reason for his treasured solitude; in the morning he’d be ferrying all the children, all seven of them, to the local Golden Arches, and he was already regretting volunteering to take them; now that he thought about it, he was almost certain Bobby, Ricky, Leon, all four girls, and even his stepfather, David, had taken one step back when his mother had asked for someone to do it, leaving him alone in her direct line of sight, so now he was stuck with it.
He’d promised he’d take them in a moment of weakness, but he wasn’t sure he had the strength to ram-rod his two raucous, golden-eyed little speed-demons, Barbara and Judy, Ricky’s two boys, David aka Richie Jr. and little Leon, Bobby’s little girl, Ayesha and her younger brother, Nick, and his own little sister, Rachel. Leon was supposed to be helping him, but only because Judy had ‘volunteered’ him, and he hadn’t exactly been straining at the leash for the privilege of rounding up a gaggle of kids; he’d said at the time he’d rather herd cats, earning him a baleful glare from Judy and a pained look from Ashley, and so it was decided; either help-out or live indefinitely in Judy’s painfully inventive dog-house, so he’d taken the path of least resistance.
As he savoured the last of the peace he so rarely got, light footsteps intruded on his solitude, before his wife, Ashley, his younger half-sister, a fact he usually forgot, dropped lightly into his lap. Every time Nicky looked at her he found himself being astonished all over again that he’d captured such a beautiful girl, or that she’d want anything to do with someone like him; tall, slender, with a mane of gold-shot bronze-auburn hair, clear grey-green hazel eyes, sometimes grey, sometimes almost bottle-green, depending on her mood, but always huge, and beautiful, her pale skin and clear complexion highlighted by the most adorable spray of faint freckles adorning her upper cheeks and the bridge of her snub nose.
With Nicky ten years now, and in her late twenties, married for nearly eight years, and the mother of two children, she nevertheless still looked like the nineteen year-old high-school girl who’d captivated him all those years ago.
“Penny for your thoughts, English-Boy,” she murmured as she wriggled herself into a more comfortable position on his lap. “You looked like you were having some deep thoughts there, care to share?”
Nicky nuzzled his beautiful wife as he wrapped his arm around her waist.
“Nothing really, sweetheart; I was just contemplating the great trek tomorrow morning; I know I wasn’t that enthusiastic about it, but really, they’re just a bunch of toddlers and little kids; how bad can it get, I mean, really?”
Ashley twisted around in his lap to look into his eyes. As always, Nicky instantly became lost in her eyes, caught by her frank gaze; it happened every time he looked into those beautiful, expressive wells, truly the windows of her soul; her eyes fascinated, compelled, held him fast, and drew him in.
“They really saw you coming, didn’t they, you poor, trusting simpleton? You’re taking Ayesha, Barbara, and David out in public, together, in the same place, at the same time, without tranquiliser darts, nets, and a lasso, and you ask ‘how bad can it get’? Those three alone are bad enough; add in all the other kids, and they’ll all get on like a house on fire. Have you ever seen a house on fire? Explosions, flames leaping, roofs collapsing, broken glass everywhere, people screaming and running for cover; Babs all on her own, with no prompting whatsoever, would hit the big red ‘Armageddon’ button just to hear the bang, and you know that, so tell just me; who are you, and what have you done with my husband?”
Nicky nodded glumly.
“You’re right, who am I kidding, this is going to be a disaster, like World War 3, but with fries and extra ketchup…”
Ashley nestled her head in the hollow of her neck and pulled him closer.
“At least we have now, Nicky-baby; savour the silence, hot-stuff; psycho-loony chimpanzee time is still several hours away! Look on the bright side, though; after this is all over, I promise to visit you in the asylum every other Friday!”
“Yeah, ha-ha- very funny…” grumbled Nicky, but cuddled her closer anyway, “and what are you going to be doing the Friday’s you’re not visiting me, then?” he grinned.
Ashley smiled impishly.
“That’s easy; I’ll be spending them with my new husband, the one smart enough to not be so easily conned by mom. She really saw you coming, Hot-Shot!”
Nick grinned and pulled her close for a quick, but satisfying kiss, before settling her more comfortably in his lap. They sat in silence for a while, each content with their own thoughts, Ashley savouring her quiet-time with her husband, until Nicky began picking up that perhaps his wife wanted to talk about something; if it was important, Ashley would have brought it up right away, so it was something she wanted to talk about, but not important enough to disturb him. Of course, when it came to Ashley, Nicky never let anything lie; part of his charm, as far as she was concerned, was that he was always interested in what was going on with her, so, after they’d sat silently for a while, he squeezed her bottom companionably and tipped her face up so he could look into her eyes.
“What’s up, Ash? You’ve got something on your mind, I can tell; come on, former Miss Lowry, spill it.”
Ashley grinned at his using her maiden name, something he only ever did in private.
“Actually, it’s not so much a problem as something that’s been nagging at me for a while now, but in an ‘I’m curious’ way, not an ‘I’m worried’ kind of way…”
Nicky cocked an eyebrow at her, a quirk of his she’d always found absurdly attractive.
“Go on, please; you’ve piqued my curiosity, don’t leave me hanging here.”
Ashley looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled.
“So, what it is, I was looking back over the last few years, from pretty much the day you first came to us, going over it all, getting things straight in my mind and I realised there was one side of the story we’ve never heard…”
Nicky nodded. “Go on…”
“Baby, I knew most of your story, and, from talking with Ricky, I managed to fill in the odd gap here and there, from back then, and of course Bobby’s been very forthcoming about where he was with you, the place he was in, and how Shari came into his life, but the one big blank spot is… I don’t know anything about Ricky, apart from what you remember when he was young, and how he’s so very different now, plus a few bits and pieces Bobby let slip. From the time he left home until the time he showed up back here with Shari and Yaz in tow, there’s a two year blank space. What was he doing? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think he’s got anything to hide, but even Bobby’s mentioned it a few times in passing; when Ricky came home he was so radically different that it was like having a whole different person walking around and being Ricky; he was nothing like the Ricky who’d left a couple years earlier.”
Nicky kissed her cheek as she paused to collect her thoughts.
“So what are you asking, Ash?”
Ashley looked into his eyes, struck, as always, at how much like their mother’s eyes they were, a warm, golden-tawny, something she’d never seen before, except in Nicky, her mother, and of course, their two little girls, who also had those startling golden eyes, and Nicky’s dark-golden hair . She smiled distractedly as she picked at the collar of his polo shirt.
“I’m curious, is all; what happened to him, what made such a drastic change in him that even Bobby found it hard to believe it was him when he returned? How and where did he join up with the girls, how did he find them at all, and what led him there? Something must have tipped him off, what was it, and what happened when he found them? Yaz and Shari don’t seem at all inclined to talk about it, at least not to me, but perhaps they’ll open up to you; you have a special connection with them, they searched for you, they travelled half-way around the world looking for you, so they obviously felt that connection pretty strongly; perhaps they’ll tell you things they don’t think they can share with me. I’m only their big sister by a long, weird, and winding way, but you’re their straight-up big brother; they love and are obviously in love with the boys, there’s no doubt in my mind about that, but they absolutely adore you too, that’s got to count for something… ”
Ashley paused, obviously feeling her way along what she wanted to say.