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“Okay, fine. You can have these Nerds too,” Katherine says, shaking the tiny purple box like a maraca before tossing it onto Annie’s candy pile. Annie considers this new peace offering for a moment with narrowed eyes then nods once, accepting her terms. Crisis averted. All is well.
They immediately dive back into their candy organizing. Only a year and a half apart, the two of them could be twins with their dark auburn hair and big green eyes. Going off of appearances alone, it’s as if Derek had no hand in their creation, but they have so much of him under the surface, it’s eerie. Most days it feels like I’m dealing with two mini-Dereks.
Three, if you count Charlie.
“And remember,” Derek says, walking into the living room, “you can’t forget to pay your annual Halloween tax.”
Katherine and Annie roll their eyes as if their dad couldn’t be more ridiculous if he tried.
“I get two Reese’s from each of you,” he says, fingers pointed menacingly at one daughter and then the other as if to say neither of them is exempt from his demands.
“Yeah right!” Katherine protests.
She and Annie hurriedly start to shove their candy back into their Halloween buckets, worried their dad will steal all the good stuff before they’re done.
Charlie, sweet, quiet Charlie, sits between them with his mop of dark brown curls, pretending to sort his candy like his older sisters. At three, he’s just happy to be along for the ride. When he sees them picking up their stashes, he immediately hurries to join in. Stray candy flies across the room. Derek bends down and retrieves two Snickers, holding one out to me as he comes to sit on the window seat beside me.
We sit for a moment, watching our kids.
Katherine reaches up to fix her faux emerald tiara, ensuring it’s perfectly in place, and Derek chuckles. She’s wearing a miniature version of my old costume, a pale green gown with a skirt so poufy she’s been having trouble walking all night.
“You look so much like your mom in that costume, Kat,” Derek says. “Did you girls know your mom used to play Princess Elena in the park?”
We’ve explained to them before that we used to work In Character, but neither of them believed it.
Annie and Katherine know the current Princess Elena. She’s eighteen, sweet as can be, and so much cooler than us according to Katherine. The few times she’s come over to babysit the girls, they talked about it for months afterward. MOM, PRINCESS ELENA READ ME A BEDTIME STORY! SHE BRAIDED MY HAIR! SHE HAS A BLOG! I WANT A BLOG!
“Mommy wasn’t Princess Elena! She helps run the park with you, Daddy,” Annie corrects Derek, shaking her head as if saying, Gosh, my parents are so dumb.
They know that for work, Derek does something important—“He’s the president or something.”—and “Mommy is his trusty sidekick.” However, to them, Aunt Carrie has the coolest job because she “dresses all the princesses”.
“I have a picture somewhere to prove it,” Cal says from his perch on the couch.
He stands up slowly, using his cane for support. He’s careful to navigate around Charlie, who’s now running at full speed out of the room with candy clutched to his chest. Stray pieces slip from his grasp and rain down across the floor. Ava goes after him and I mouth, “Thank you,” before turning to see the photo album Cal retrieves from the cabinet behind the couch.
“It’s in here somewhere,” he mumbles. “I think.”
I’ve never seen the album. I didn’t realize Cal was much of a scrapbooker. Upon closer inspection, it’s clear he’s not. The photos are just clumped together in a pile behind the front cover, not yet protected behind the thin plastic film. I’ll give him credit, though—he bought the album and printed the photos. That’s more than I’ve done for poor Charlie. He’s the third child; what can I say?
Cal rifles through the photos carefully and I peer over his shoulder, noticing there’s no real order to them. In one photo, I spot a young Derek with a hardhat on, breaking ground on the London theme park. Another photo is a candid of the two of us on our wedding day, smashing cake into each other’s faces. We really went for it. Derek still had some icing up his nose the next morning.
Cal keeps scrolling and Annie exclaims, “Wait! There’s Uncle Thomas and Aunt Carrie!”
It’s a photo of them in the hospital when Logan was born. Carrie looks exhausted but happy. Thomas just looks terrified, on the brink of a panic attack. I’ll have to send the picture to them later for a laugh.
Another photo is of Katherine as a toddler, taking her first steps down in the Underground. I remember the moment like it was yesterday. Half of our staff was down there cheering her on. When she finally managed to take three steps without falling, everyone exploded in a chorus of cheers, thus scaring the bejesus out of her and causing a nuclear meltdown. The photo was snapped at the exact moment the wailing began.
