“Wow! You almost made me fall over! I had no idea you were there!” I declare, trying to catch my breath.
“What story?” Solenne asks, completely disinterested in my fake surprise.
I laugh, shaking my head as she comes to stand next to me and looks up at the rows of bookshelves. “What story will you read us?” she asks again when I don’t answer right away.
I turn to my son, who is still standing near the armchair.
“What story do you want, Arron? Seeing as Solenne chose last night’s story,” I ask.
“Um. What about pirate maps?” he asks shyly.
“You like maps?” I say in surprise.
“Grandpa never let him look at the maps,” Solenne says with a serious undertone.
“Why not?” I ask, seizing the opportunity to learn more about their grandfather.
“He never let us look at anything,” she huffs, pouting angrily.
“Where is your grandpa now?” I ask.
Arron has come closer. He pulls his mouth to the side. “Dunno. We haven’t seen him in a long time.”
“How long?” I ask, surprised.
“Long, long, long time,” Solenne says seriously. Of course, to a kid, a week is a long time, so I don’t really know what this means.
“And our uncles,” Arron adds. “‘Cause we ran away from grandpa’s house.”
“You ran away?” I ask, surprised.
“Mommy took us away to keep us safe,” Solenne says, reaching up to try to pull a book from the shelf. I pull it out and hand it to her before it falls on her head.
Selene ran away. She said her father was coming for them, but I believe it was a lie. I thought, after finding out who her father was, that she was making things up to build a story around herself. A story that would help her get closer to me to gather information for her father, like she was doing in the past.It’s not proven that she was doing that in the past, Simon. Maybe give her more benefit of the doubt than that.
“When Mommy ran away from Grampa’s home, was it raining? Was it hot outside?” I ask, trying to figure out how long ago she apparently fled. The thing is, Selene might be able to make up stories and lie to manipulate me into doing what she wants … but the kids won’t be able to do that so easily. They will trip over the truth. Even this truth was, in a way, a slip-up.
“It was snowing!” Solenne declares excitedly. “I had to wear my boots.”
“Snowing?” I ask thoughtfully. That means it was still spring, and it’s summer now. The last time it snowed was almost two months ago. Has she been on the run with them for two months? Staying in hotels and running from her father?
I look down at my kids, and my heart aches. They have been living in a chaotic world for months, if I am correct. And they need this home more than I could have imagined.
But why didn’t Selene tell me this? Why would she be so determined to escape me, only to go back to living in motels and running?
What is she hiding?
“So, you like maps?” I say to Arron with a smile. “Well, I have the perfect book for you.”
Reaching up to the highest shelf, I pull out a book that is much bigger than the others. I sit down on the floor, and both children sit next to me with eager anticipation. Placing the book in front of us, I point to the cover. “Myths and Legends and Treasure Maps,” I read out loud. “When I was very young, my father gave this to me for my birthday. I carefully open the old cover to a random page in the book, and a tea-stained map spreads across two wide pages. On the map are intricate drawings of ships and sea monsters. In the column on the edge of the page are short descriptions of the markings on the map.
Arron’s eyes are wide with curiosity. He shifts closer to me, resting one little hand on my knee while he leans over the map and starts asking questions about the images.
“What is that?” he asks, pointing to a serpent.
“It’s a sea dragon,” I tell him. “You like land dragons, so you will probably like sea dragons too?”
“No,Ilike dragons,” Solenne corrects me, crawling until she’s right over the book and peering closely at the images.
